WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ A Gacha Addict's Life in Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 68: Boksun (3)
──────
1.
【Shion Tsukimiya, First Commandment】
〔Amendment〕
Shion Tsukimiya gains perfect immortality.
〔Vow I〕
Shion Tsukimiya cannot share her blood to create new servants.
2.
<Case 98. “Final Experiment,” ██ Year, ██ Month, ██ Day.>
Construction of a New True Progenitor through the transplantation of genetic factors onto a doll has been completed.
The subject displays arrogant and self-righteous tendencies, but cooperates with the experiment.
However, mild age regression, presumed to be a defense mechanism, has been observed under extreme stress.
The subject possesses high physical and mental stability and can use Rank 0 magic.
The subject can utilize an extremely small portion of the power of “blood.”
It has been confirmed that the subject can bypass the original body's ██ to create servants, but the process rapidly consumes the subject's life force.
Conclusion: Its cost-effectiveness as a replacement for the True Progenitor is extremely poor. This project has failed to achieve its purpose. The final subject is classified as incomplete.
Final measures: Project completely terminated. Subject placed in hibernation and transferred to ███ Containment Facility, pending “final disposal.”
3.
Maybe.
Maybe I had overlooked something obvious.
When Sunming Returns got me, I had been half dead.
Only the subtrait of Burning Life had kept me from dying instantly.
My arm had not just broken. It was practically hanging on by a strip of skin.
And I had taken a hammer straight into the depths of my side.
Wouldn't at least some of my organs have burst?
“This concubine is a True Progenitor in name, after all. Even if I have lost my strength, do you think I cannot manage something like this?”
Shion healed me in a single day, twenty-four hours.
Boksun, who could use only Rank 0 magic, had healed Cedric, who had been little better than a corpse, with just five blood packs.
God was cruel. God did not grant miracles.
“The vessel holding her life has broken.”
That was what Isis said when she examined Shion.
If the True Progenitor had been there, healing me would not have been difficult.
She herself was a powerful life-aligned Mage, and if necessary, she could have simply turned me into a servant.
But Boksun was an incomplete doll of the True Progenitor. A fake.
Without the Ruby, it was impossible to perform servant conversion using Boksun's power alone.
And she could not heal Cedric through normal means either.
“To be precise, you broke it, didn't you? Shion?”
“That is so. Why is everyone making such a fuss over something so trivial?”
The method Boksun chose was this.
She broke her “vessel” and injected me with her own life force, which possessed formidable regenerative power.
“Servant conversion will not be a problem. We will be using the Ruby as an external energy source anyway. But... Shion does not have much time left.”
I did not know much about life-aligned magic.
I was only pretending to be a Mage in the first place.
But according to Isis, a broken vessel meant life force was constantly leaking away.
Even a flesh doll of the True Progenitor, with exceptional regenerative ability, now had a fixed end.
“How long does she have?”
“At most, five days.”
Just five days.
Five days.
“Phew...”
Outside the clinic.
Cigarette smoke drifted away bleakly.
“Master.”
At the end of the billowing smoke stood Boksun, chewing on a glutinous rice cake.
“Do not trust that doctor too much. She has a very loose mouth.”
Unlike me, whose head felt like Sunming had smashed it once more.
Boksun looked the same as ever.
She did not cry, “Aaaagh! Master! Save this concubine!”
She did not cry, “This concubine does not want to die!”
She was just chewing on the glutinous rice cakes we had bought, wearing her usual vacant expression.
Well, she had inherited fragments of the True Progenitor's memories. She probably had some knowledge of life magic.
She must have understood her own condition better than anyone.
Still, I could not understand it.
I could not understand, so I chain-smoked and thought it over.
“Why did you save me?”
Had I treated her that well?
No.
Not at all.
Yesterday had been a little... tingly, at least.
Before that, there had been nothing of the sort.
Before Boksun saved me, the way I treated her had been closer to taking out my frustrations from the previous iteration.
Headlocks. Blowing raspberries on her belly. Making her wear a bunny girl outfit.
Using glutinous rice cakes as bait to make her run errands.
Scolding her for using too much hot water.
Using her as a body pillow when I slept.
Letting her drink my blood sometimes.
And if she drank too much, I would shake her around right away.
“What kind of reaction is that? I went to all the trouble of saving you. Now that you understand this concubine's great mercy and compassion, should you not show some respect?”
Last iteration, she had worked me like a servant.
She lied about saving Arbel, stabbed me in the back, and ran.
But in this iteration, why?
“Ha...”
The Premium Route was close to being cleared.
I had paid Isis with the hair ornament.
She promised that if I gave her two days, she would dispose of it and make the Ruby.
Isis had been deeply depressed after realizing something was wrong with Shion, but since Boksun's will was firm, she agreed to help with Arbel's servant conversion.
But Boksun would die.
Even Isis had stated flatly that restoring a broken vessel was impossible.
So this iteration had failed.
No, it had been a failure from the start.
I had only realized it now.
The drinking toast, the fireworks, the idiotic mess I made last night. It had all been for nothing.
“You bitch. Why do you hide so much from me?”
I put Boksun in a headlock when she wandered over.
“Aaaagh! M-Master! W-Why are you doing this...?!”
“If something this important happens, shouldn't you tell me right away?”
“Gyaaah! W-Why are you doing this?!”
Boksun resisted, tapping out.
“God, you empty-headed idiot!”
“Why are you angry?!”
“You think I wouldn't be fucking angry?! Did you expect me to burst into tears and do a gratitude dance?”
“W-Were it not for this concubine, Master would be dead! A-And can you not still perform servant conversion?”
I understood it in my head.
From Boksun's perspective, it must have been a huge decision.
“It does not mean a fucking thing! You should have just left me to die. Why did you have to meddle and pull this shit?”
I could just regress.
I did not need to feel this shitty.
It would have been better if I had just died cleanly back then.
“You could have just abandoned me. Right?”
“T-This concubine had no choice! It was in the sewers, and I could not be alone...! Gyaaah!”
“Stop lying. Are you going to tell the truth or not?”
Was she saying she saved me because she was afraid of being alone in the sewers?
Boksun was not completely brainless.
Sunming had gathered every Cleaner in the area and killed them all. We had confirmed together that there were no Cleaners left along the route we used.
Rather than breaking her vessel there, saving me, and living for one more week.
The rational choice would have been to abandon me and save her own skin.
“This concubine does not know either!”
“What?”
“This concubine regrets it too! Who would want to save someone like you?”
Boksun escaped my headlock, fixed her hair, and grumbled.
“But what can be done now that I have saved you? Would you like this concubine to kill you again?”
Even I was not enough of an idiot to believe that was true.
“...”
My mouth tasted horribly bitter.
I was a regressor.
This iteration had failed, but the story was not over yet.
Then why did it taste this bitter?
I took out another cigarette and lit it.
“You call yourself a man, yet all you do is yap, yap, yap. You are less bold than this concubine, a woman.”
Shion crossed her arms and scowled.
No matter how much I thought about it, I had no idea what was going through that tiny head of hers.
How she felt at this moment.
What she had felt while watching the fireworks last night.
Someone with emotions as dried-up as mine could not understand.
But.
“Hey, Boksun.”
“Hmph. What is it?”
“Do you like baths?”
In my heart, I decided how this iteration would end.
4.
On the way home.
I bought a makeshift wooden bathtub.
Calling it a bathtub was generous. It was really just a suitably large wooden tub.
If I boiled water in the pot in the bathroom, mixed it with cold water, and put Boksun in it...
“Hey, Jin Boksun. Do you like it?”
“Uuugh... It is nice... This is paradise.”
“Want me to add a little more hot water?”
Paradise Boksun, complete!
Like a little figure poking only her head out of a barrel, Boksun looked utterly content, her face relaxed.
“Hehehe. Only now are you serving this concubine properly, human.”
I would not clear this iteration.
Of course, I would not kill Arbel or proceed with servant conversion.
Instead, with the time Boksun had left.
I would make sure Boksun, whose lifelong wish had been glutinous rice cakes, could leave with good memories.
It would not be difficult.
Back when I mistook Boksun for the real True Progenitor, I had already taken good care of her.
I was a rookie with experience.
“Boksun, eat this.”
“What is it?”
“Castella cake.”
“Ooh.... It is so soft. Delicious!”
“Right? Try this too.”
“What else is there?!”
“Dried persimmon.”
“Ooh! It is sweet! So chewy!”
“Eat this too!”
“Is that not sweet bean jelly?”
“Yeah, red bean jelly.”
“This concubine does not like sweet bean jelly. Master should eat it all.”
“You little...?!”
Boksun happily accepted snacks like a baby bird as the bathwater splashed around her.
Of course, I knew all of this was meaningless.
When the iteration ended, time would reverse.
No matter how many good memories we made in this iteration.
No matter how beautifully I filled Boksun's last dance with memories.
It was all meaningless.
It would become something that had never happened.
So this was nothing but self-satisfaction, with no efficiency or justification behind it.
“So what?”
People lived for self-satisfaction in the first place.
Did that mean I was supposed to grind stats while carrying around this faintly shit-scented, rotten feeling?
“I am going to take a nap. Master, come here.”
“Why are you calling me when you're the one sleeping?”
“Tsk...! Does this concubine need a reason to call you? Obviously, I intend to use you as a body pillow.”
Shion had finished bathing.
Shion, who seemed oblivious but was secretly perceptive, appeared to have roughly figured out my stance.
She lay on the bed and patted the space beside her.
“Mmm... This is nice....”
She used me as a cushion, laid her head on the pillow, and fell asleep in less than thirty seconds.
“...Ha, fuck... I feel so damn awful.”
I really could not describe how awful I felt.
Was this really the end of the road?
Was decorating Boksun's album of happy memories all I could do?
“Wait.”
I removed Boksun's arms and legs from around me and got up.
“Mmph...”
Boksun turned over, hugged Arbel, and went back to sleep.
I put on my coat and hurried outside.
Maybe.
“I still have one card left.”
Maybe this iteration was not over yet.
Isis had stated that she could not save Boksun.
Even if we spent Universal Currency like water, it would be no different from pouring water into a bottomless pit.
But there was one thing I had overlooked.
“Come to think of it, there was a True Progenitor.”
The True Progenitor was Boksun's original model.
Wouldn't that Shion know a way to save Boksun?
And I knew how to reach the True Progenitor.
I doubted a True Progenitor who looked so prideful would eagerly help save her own copy...
Still, I had to do everything I could.
Before taking Boksun to the sedimentation tank.
I headed to Isis Clinic to find out whether this hypothesis was worth anything.
Knock, knock, knock.
I knocked on the thick iron door and waited.
“It is me.”
The peephole did not open.
“Did she go to the bathroom or something?”
Five minutes.
Then ten minutes passed.
Bang, bang, bang.
I knocked again, but there was no sign of anyone inside.
“...That is strange.”
Even when she was asleep, Isis, the resident NPC of C Sector, would answer a knock with an indifferent, “Business hours are over.”
And she had been away from the clinic for over ten minutes?
Click.
When I grabbed the door and pulled.
The door, which had always been secured by countless locks, opened smoothly.
“...This feels bad.”
When I stepped inside, I swallowed without thinking.
Not a single object was where it belonged.
The interior was a disaster, as if a storm had torn through it.
And...
A long trail of blood ran through the scattered belongings like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs.
My eyes followed the blood trail.
At its end was...
“...”
Isis's head, half embedded in the wall like a mounted decoration.
Below it was a body so fragmented it did not feel real.
I immediately drew up my mana and sprinted outside.
“Phew...”
I felt dizzy.
What was it this time?
“Why are you doing this to me again...?”
My stomach churned.
The emotional highs and lows of the past few days had been so extreme that I was feeling low like a fucking bipolar patient.
“Phew.”
Isis was a Mage.
I did not know how powerful she was, but she had been a Mage capable of killing someone like Cedric with ease.
Yet she had been murdered in her own clinic without putting up any meaningful resistance.
Who?
Why?
Why now?
Of course, maybe she had just died because of bad luck.
But considering everything that had happened, there was a very high chance this involved Boksun.
Then.
I, Boksun, and perhaps even Arbel were in danger.
“Fuuuck...”
As if to support my guess.
Jingle, jingle, jingle.
A memory came rushing back.
The day the Gold Carp Family's jiangshi horde had run wild.
That sound I had heard until I was sick of it.
All across Aquarium Street.
Bells rang.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
