WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ A Gacha Addict's Life in Fusionpunk ◈

Chapter 7: Life in the Gutter (4)

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1.

Today, seven people died in the alleys of D-9 District.

Six homeless people.

And the weak me from yesterday.

Cedric, the wastrel son of a count, died, and James Bond, a pathetic weakling, was born again.

"Youngest, you're a real man now. You lost your cherry, didn't you?"

"This brat's the real deal, I tell you. Whoosh, whoosh, bam! Teach me that too."

"I knew it from the start. No guy this polite is bad at his job."

"We only meant to test you, but you got three all by yourself. Good work, James."

Big and Dick threw their arms around my shoulders and affectionately messed up my hair.

"Ah, naturally. This body has Awakened."

"Awakened to what?"

"Perhaps I've seen through the essence of the law of the strong eating the weak?"

"This bastard makes even difficult words sound cool!"

I raised my chin and answered arrogantly.

I had earned the right.

Half the sacks we were dragging along were filled by me.

Scrape, scraaaape.

Was it really okay to drag these around like this?

Sticky blood spread beneath the dragging sacks as though someone had painted the ground with it, yet not one passerby gave it a glance.

...I still hadn't gotten used to life outside Ark City.

That place had been wild in its own way, but this was simply an inhuman hellscape.

Thinking about it that way, Big, Dick, and Ron's behavior made much more sense.

People who lived in different worlds were different people.

Would a child soldier holding an AK-47 in an African civil war country share the values of a Korean high schooler who skipped evening study to play LoL?

"Youngest! You're coming straight to the welcome party, right?"

"Are you treating me?"

"Brat! You think I'd make you pay and look like a chump?"

"Abso-carrot-lutely, I'm coming!"

I stopped dwelling on complicated things.

There was free food waiting!

We tossed the sacks into the office and headed for the dining district.

It was the market I had passed last time, swallowing my saliva as I went.

"Youngest, have you ever been to the market?"

"I have! But I only looked around then! I've never seen such a big market!"

"This is Hongshen Market, the best food street in our city."

We avoided the crowds and sat down at a stall.

It was a tiny street stand with only a counter in front of the cooking station.

A pig's head sat on the table beside us, smiling warmly.

"Owner! Four bowls of hot meat-and-rice soup! Four beers too! It's a welcome party for the newcomer, so if you skimp on the meat, you'll die by my hand!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Bring the beer first!"

Bottles of beer arrived with their caps removed, foam bubbling over their mouths.

Beer!

My eyes went wide. How long had it been since I'd had alcohol?

"James! You're the star today, so let's hear a toast."

"Then I'll go with 'Lawyer'!"

"Lawyer? What kind of toast is that?"

"It means, 'Unchanging brotherhood! Men's friendship!'"

"Ha ha ha! Our youngest has style!"

"I'll lead it! Lawyer!"

"Lawyer!!!!!"

Clink!

As the bottle mouths struck each other, beer foam simmered beneath the hazy lights.

Gulp, gulp. The sharp scent of barley hit my throat and went down.

Cold and tingling.

Alcohol seeped into every corner of my body, soaked in poverty, labor, and exhaustion, like welcome rain.

Tears welled in my eyes over nothing more than beer.

"Khhaaaaaa! This is it!!!"

The meat-and-rice soup arrived, freshly served in wooden bowls.

A lump of rice soaked through with broth sat in a bright red soup that seemed heavy with chili oil.

It was piled high with meat from cuts I couldn't identify.

"Youngest, this place makes the best meat-and-rice soup in Hongshen Market."

There was meat-and-rice soup in this world too!

"Hah, hoo... hoo...."

I burned my mouth as I hurriedly shoved spoonful after spoonful inside.

Good food was also a perfectly respectable source of dopamine.

I could say that with confidence, having sampled delicacies all over the world.

Honestly, the soup itself at Hongshen Market was nothing special.

The rice smelled stale, as though it had been milled years ago.

The spicy broth tasted so musky and gamey that it felt as if they had thrown pork kidneys into it.

They were only forcing that flavor down with the overpowering scent of chili oil.

"Hup, hah, hoo... Sluuurp!"

"Youngest, eat slowly."

But why was it so good?!

Three stars.

It was good enough to visit Necropolis just to eat it.

For someone who had survived on compressed biscuits and cockroach cat food, it was a delicacy beyond compare.

2.

"Whoa, I'm pretty tipsy."

After the company dinner, I staggered home.

In one hand, I carried a packed bowl of meat-and-rice soup.

The guys had packed it up so I could take care of my little brother.

Why had I introduced Arbel as my little brother?

Because Arbel was a stunning beauty who could make your eyes pop out.

There was no need to walk around this gutter telling everyone, "I've got treasure."

"I bought soup!"

I opened the door, stepped into the dim room, and widened my eyes.

"Uh... ah...."

Had she smelled the soup? Arbel was moving.

Arbel, who had done nothing but lie still like a corpse!

I tossed aside the soup and approached her as she stirred on the bed.

"Sis, are you a little more awake?"

Her eyelashes trembled, then Arbel opened her eyes.

Her beautiful golden eyes rolled toward me for the first time in a while.

They still seemed unfocused, but she was conscious.

A faint voice escaped through Arbel's cracked lips.

"Cedric...."

"Yes, it's me! Cedric, your younger brother, always devoted to you, Sis!"

As expected of a mage!

She had opened her eyes! My coin!

Maybe letting a mage recover naturally instead of entrusting her to this hellhole city's quack doctor had been the right no-meds parenting strategy after all.

"I'm sorry...."

"Hey, there's nothing to be sorry about. Still, would you like to read this first? It's the care journal I wrote."

This made things easier.

It was obvious, but there was a world of difference between a piece of luggage with no consciousness and a patient who could keep you company.

Maybe, after seeing this devoted younger brother's care, she would keep me company in more ways than one.

And Arbel had been there for the attack.

Not only could I gain a more accurate understanding of our situation, but if she recovered smoothly, I would have a powerful asset.

I had heard that a first-tier mage was recognized as a Grade 5 fixer on their own.

"Want some soup first? Wait here. I'll bring it over."

Arbel's hand seized my sleeve as I started to rise.

"Mom...."

Her voice was a weak whisper.

"Mom, I... hurt...."

Clear tears ran down the corners of her eyes.

The light vanished from Arbel's eyes, which had shone so pitifully, like a candle being blown out.

The hand gripping my sleeve slipped away without strength.

A horrible silence settled over the cramped room.

"...Hey."

No, right? This isn't real, right?

"Wake up. Hey! Hey!"

No, fuck, don't mess with me!

I patted her cheeks.

There was no response.

Inside the room where my breath showed, her body, which had been hot as a furnace, rapidly grew cold.

Her completely unfocused pupils felt like deep, black pits.

"Fuuuck...."

I couldn't stop the curse from leaving my mouth.

That sobered me up fast.

3.

Arbel was dead.

She had left approximately four final utterances before a younger brother who was a complete stranger at heart.

"Hoo...."

Of course, my heart wasn't breaking with grief.

I hadn't tried to save Arbel out of common human decency or compassion.

She was someone who would help me if I invested in her.

Still, I felt empty because I hadn't expected her to go so pointlessly.

Failed investments always left a bitter feeling.

First, I wrapped Arbel tightly in a blanket, then wrapped a tarp over that.

"May you be reborn in paradise."

With a cigarette between my lips, I quietly prayed for my sister's soul for three minutes.

That was the most mourning Arbel could expect from me.

Anything more sentimental was a luxury.

"Hup."

I slung the tarp containing her body over my shoulder.

Arbel's body was light enough to make a corner of my heart feel like shit.

No matter how cold the room was, a corpse would rot.

I had to deal with it before things got ugly in this cramped room.

There was a useful way to dispose of a corpse in Necropolis.

Sell it to Twilight Development.

Twilight Resource Development, along with Overnus Pharmaceuticals, was one of the two corporations that divided control of Necropolis between them.

They said necromancers who dealt with "death" stood behind it.

Necromancer magic required corpses as materials, so most bodies in Necropolis ended up flowing there.

"The living have to live."

Don't think I'm too heartless, Arbel.

There weren't any other options anyway.

I could toss you somewhere in a trash heap, or pay a fortune for land and bury you....

The first option made no money, and the second actually cost money.

So what else was I supposed to do?

I might as well list her on Carrot.

With the sack over my shoulder, I hurried along.

The place that accepted corpses was an ossuary subcontracted by Twilight Development.

It was harder to find a place without crowds in Necropolis, but the front of the ossuary was especially packed.

Despite the name, no one mourned the dead.

In their expressionless eyes, without a single exception, I saw Arbel's pupils, which had become dark pits.

"What the fuck are you staring at, you little punk?"

"Do I line up here to sell a corpse?"

"Get behind me. If you cut in line, I'll put you in this sack too."

"Yeah, thanks."

So this was the line.

"Who'd you come to sell?"

"My wife. You?"

"Same. Do you know how much they usually pay?"

"I heard it depends on what they use the body for."

"What they use it for?"

"I don't know the details. I just hope they pay well."

The line was long, so I was making small talk to gather information.

Then something suddenly caught in my throat, like a fish bone while eating sliced gizzard shad sashimi.

Wait.

What they used it for?

A belated, uneasy instinct flashed through my mind.

Come to think of it, Arbel was a mage.

Wouldn't a mage's corpse be obviously different?

Wouldn't someone carrying a mage's corpse look suspicious?

In the worst case, wouldn't my identity be exposed, letting the pursuers pick up my trail?

It seemed unlikely they would chase me all the way to this godforsaken city.

But if they had, the risk was too high.

I couldn't forget that they were stronger than Arbel.

"Fuck."

"What's wrong all of a sudden?"

I had realized it too late.

For Cedric of all people to overlook something this simple.

It seemed that even I had lost my composure for a moment.

"I have to go."

"Hey, I understand how you feel, but stay quietly in line. Guys like you who leave always come back within two days."

"Hey, fuck off, take your hand off me! Don't act friendly when we just met!"

"Tsk. Hang in there."

As I turned to leave in a hurry, a shadow blocked my way.

"What a cute child."

The person before me was a young woman.

She wore a pitch-black frilled dress without a trace of any other color.

A pillbox hat with a mesh veil.

Black eyes, strangely empty, stared straight into mine from right in front of me.

Fuck, heart!

Could you use a turn signal before pulling in?

I stumbled back in fright. The woman smiled softly and straightened up.

But... her head kept rising.

Looking at the enormous shadow cast over me, I finally understood what felt so strange.

It wasn't that my sense of perspective had become distorted.

She had to be at least 2.4 meters tall.

She was so immensely tall that it felt as though her footsteps should go po, po, po.

I could tell from her distinctive air.

I mean, it was obvious at a glance.

In this hellish realm of hungry ghosts, that smile and calmness, that elegant appearance, and that indescribably dangerous presence.

She was a mage.

So humans could possess a presence like this.

As I froze, unable to move, the attendants behind her shouted.

"How dare a rat like you keep your head raised? Do you know who this is?"

"This is Lady Ceres Cassian, a director of Twilight Resource Development."

"I'm sorry! How dare someone as lowly as me! You were just so beautiful...."

Just as I was about to smoothly add a little flattery and kneel before her, her hand gripped my chin and made me look up.

An artificial lemon scent rose from around her wrist.

Those vague eyes studied me as though they could see through me.

Her damp voice made my spine go damp too.

What was with this old lady?

"Those are good eyes. Mad eyes."

I didn't know why, but for now, her attitude seemed favorable.

Hmm, I was rather handsome.

I'd never slept with a woman over two meters tall....

What would that feel like?

Maybe this was a good opportunity to get to know her, little by little.

"You're here to sell a corpse, aren't you? I'll buy it."

Seeing her hold out a hand to an attendant as though requesting money, I came to my senses.

This wasn't the time.

"I'm sorry. I did come to sell a corpse, but I've changed my mind. I'll mourn the deceased in another way...."

"Lie."

Ceres bent down again until our eyes met.

The corners of her mouth had stretched to their limit, grotesquely wide.

"You're not the kind of child who has such admirable thoughts."

Fuuuck....

How did she know....

Footnotes:

"Lawyer" is a toast joke: 변호사, the Korean word for lawyer, is made from the opening syllables of "unchanging," "brotherly fellowship," and "men's friendship."

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