WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ A Gacha Addict's Life in Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 72: The Unbearable Lightness of Regression
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1.
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『 EP5. Reset Button 』
In the end, you chose death yourself.
Death is the surest defeat, but...
Perhaps it is different for you.
<Iteration Results>
▶ Achievements Earned: None
▶ Titles Earned: None
▶ Challenge Points: +18 pt
※ The Death Penalty is waived under the Exemption Clause. ※
Exemption Clause Uses Remaining: 1.
- Choice: 2. Kill Arbel Montraven.
The Premium Route continues.
May you reach transcendence at the end of arrogance and foolishness.
======
Day 1 of the Premium Route.
Starting over.
2.
My cause of death this time was death by falling.
After free-falling for about five minutes, I crashed onto a concrete block hanging in midair.
It was probably the longest free fall of my life.
After that, as always...
My empty death drifted about like a plastic bag sunk beneath the sea before I returned to my room.
Once I left the space of death and regained my body,
the sound of every bone in my body breaking,
the sensation of my organs being crushed like soft tofu, washed over me.
But it did not hurt much.
Maybe I was used to death by now.
“...”
I looked around my room.
In my final memory of it, the remnants of an uncleaned drinking party had been scattered across the floor.
A portable bathtub sat alone in one corner.
Wrappers from the rice cakes Boksun had eaten and tossed aside rolled across the floor.
That entire mess was gone.
Because I was the one who had left it behind on the far side of time.
The silence and stillness were unbearable.
I roared at the sky.
“Fuuuck, heavens!!!”
It felt like my chest would split apart.
Tears streamed down my face without restraint.
I had burned through seventeen years.
The final time I had been able to buy myself.
The final flight I had shared with Boksun, the little conversations we had while climbing the stairs.
Our final moments watching the dawn break.
They had been precious.
I did not begrudge a second of them.
So I thought I would have no regrets or lingering attachment either.
Even if everyone else forgot, I would remember.
That was how I regressed, as I always did.
With solemn resolve and determination held close to my heart.
But...
“What the fuck do you mean, I’ll remember?!”
No matter how well I remembered.
No matter how far I turned back time.
Some things did not return.
Like a wallet lost in Paris, there were things lost forever that could never be recovered.
“Fuck!!! Fuck!!! Fuck...”
I sobbed with my face pressed to the floor.
“Boksun... Boksun...”
The scalding sense of loss in that empty space
ached more than any previous liquidation ever had.
3.
A ritual for modern people trying to pull themselves together.
Of course, drinking.
“I’ll take all of those.”
I bought a whole load of baijiu and snacks at a nearby market.
Cheap erguotou, with rice cakes for snacks.
“Gah...!”
I sat down in my room and started drinking alone.
I poured the baijiu, with its artificial acetone smell, down my throat and took a bite of rice cake.
The nasty, cloying aftertaste of alcohol, followed by the sweetness of rice cake?
“...Fuck! Boksun! How the hell did you enjoy this?”
I really could not respect her taste.
Anyway.
I had acted like the world was ending, but the Premium Route was not over yet.
I still had one Exemption Clause left.
Over the first and second iterations, I had gathered plenty of useful information too.
Now was the time to act like a regressor and charge ahead using everything I had learned.
Arbel.
I was definitely putting her in a bunny girl outfit.
It was time to show the world-class regressor spirit of Joonghyuk, who never gave up.
I knew that, but...
“Gah... This liquor is bitter.”
My usual routine after getting liquidated was to mope around and drink alone.
If you keep being strong, strong, strong, strong, you break.
You need time to let off some pressure too.
That was how I ended up staggering through the streets alone, completely wasted.
Another peaceful day in Nec Nec Necropolis.
The C Sector at this late hour glimmered with its usual gloomy revelry.
For the record, walking around Necropolis while blackout drunk
was not recommended.
“Hey... You there. Stop for a second.”
Because pests gathered around you like this.
“Well, well. You should not be wandering around drunk by yourself.”
“Heh heh. We’ll escort you, pretty boy.”
Three citizens who looked like they made a living robbing tourists.
Sacks in one hand.
Cloudy knives in the other, gleaming beneath the gas lamps.
I smiled back at their malicious grins.
“You bastards got lucky. I was in a fucking awful mood.”
I held out my hand.
My arm extended straight, as if I were gripping a pistol.
“Huh? What the fuck are you talking abou...”
Pfft.
A bright red hole opened in the brutish man’s forehead as he tilted his head in confusion.
Blood splattered across my cheek.
“W-What the hell?!”
“F-Fuck, run!”
My vision was unfocused and swaying.
The backs of the muggers who finally understood what was happening and fled.
They did not get far.
Shwick.
Death Sentence split them mercilessly in two.
The floor of the dark alley.
Red blood flowed in lines along the tiles.
“The Engraving’s back.”
I felt around my shoulder and confirmed that the Engraving had been smoothly restored.
Was it thanks to Death Sentence’s trait?
This was way better than firing blindly into empty air.
“You’d better watch out!!! You’d better not cry!!!”
Were there any more lowlife muggers around?
With a cigarette in one hand and a bottle in the other, I hummed as I looked for prey.
“Better not pout, I’m telling you why.”
I wandered the nighttime streets to fully restore the Engraving.
“Cedric is coming to town!!!”
“Fuck, who are you again? Aaargh!!”
“P-Please spare me!!!”
I killed about five more groups of muggers.
Trash that deserved to die!
The worst kind of assholes, trying to rob an innocent drunk and turn him into tripe-and-dumpling stew!
Cedric, Necropolis’s dark hero, would never! Ever! Forgive them!!!!
“Whew...”
Had I drunk too fast?
The alcohol hit me hard as I sang.
The stench of blood filling my nostrils made my stomach churn like I was going to throw up.
Necropolis urgently needed Yeomyung 707.
“Ha... Fuck, this is hard...”
As I stumbled out of the alley with one hand braced against the wall, one face rose clearly in my mind.
The reason I had to go through all that unnecessary suffering.
The bastard responsible for ruining everything.
Li Cheng.
Burning emotion drove away the haze of alcohol.
“Li Cheng, you motherless bastard... I’m definitely going to kill you!!!!”
You fucked with the wrong person.
I’ll show you what it means to make an enemy out of a regressor.
“Uurp...!”
Just as I was striking a dramatic pose, vomit surged up my throat.
“Bleeergh!!!”
Fuck! What a waste!
All of that was worth at least 30,000 Bios.
“Uh... Uh... Fuck...”
My vision suddenly rippled.
Against my will, my body slipped out of my control.
“This won’t do... I have to go see my Boksun...”
As I staggered about, crying pitifully,
Screeech.
a black-painted limousine stopped in front of me, cutting off my path.
“Hey!! You fuckiiing bastard!!! Can’t you drive properly?!”
As I screamed at the top of my lungs, the backseat door opened heavily.
“What are you doing, Cedric?”
Ceres Cassian stood there with her arms folded, looking down at me like I was pathetic.
“What is that state you’re in?”
She looked utterly dumbfounded.
The feeling I had was...
the relief of running into someone I knew just when I had gotten lost on a trip.
“...Waaaah!!!! Mama!!!”
I ran into her soft-looking embrace.
I rubbed my face all over her plush chest and sobbed loudly.
Ceres’s distinctive powdery scent soothed my body and mind.
“H-Hey! What are you doing, Cedric?!”
“Mama... Mama...”
She seemed troubled, but she did not push me away harshly.
“Tch. Clock out.”
“Pardon?”
“I’ll drive, so clock out.”
“Ah, yes... Director.”
“And it would be best if you forgot what you saw today.”
With those murmured words by my ear, I lost consciousness.
4.
“Mmm...”
A soft bed.
I lifted my heavy eyelids and looked around.
“Fuck... My head...”
My skull throbbed as if someone had brought an axe down on it.
This was Ceres Mama’s penthouse, and I was in her bed.
“What the hell?”
I could not remember why I had come here very well.
Had I gotten wasted in the street and crawled in here?
“I don’t know. Fuck it...”
I buried my face in the pillow again.
I was too sleepy.
Waaah, Cedric wants to sleep a little longer... I’m totally out of it.
Like bubbles behind my eyelids, fragments of last night’s memories drifted past.
In a haze where I could not tell whether this was a broken dream or a harsh reality,
memories of last night occasionally floated to the surface.
“What were you doing drunk in the street?”
“Instead of just saying sorry, could you think about my dignity too?”
The rattling car made my head spin even more.
I was scolded as I was transported like a piece of luggage.
“How much did you even drink? That smell...”
Supported by her, I took the elevator up to Ceres Mama’s penthouse.
“Drink this and get some sleep. We’ll talk again tomorrow when you are sober.”
“Could this be... an Engraving?”
“...What have you been doing outside?”
My vision wavered, and my senses distorted.
Even the sound of setting down a glass of water boomed like thunder.
I threw myself forward on impulse.
With a dull sound as the sofa was crushed beneath us, Ceres ended up under me.
“What are you doing?”
Her faintly furrowed eyes and cold, dignified face looked up at me in displeasure.
“Get off, Cedric.”
“Do I look like an easy woman you can have whenever it suits you?”
“I don’t know what happened, but... are you crying?”
Ignoring her words, my hand roughly slipped beneath her clothes.
Soft skin beneath her thin velvet dress.
“W-Wait... Cedric! You can’t just force yourself on me like this...”
Even through alcohol-dulled sensations, I felt pleasure intense enough to make me melt.
An empty sense of loss could easily turn into lust.
To somehow fill the hole left empty in one corner of my heart,
I desperately sought out warmth.
“Haah... Cedric... You really...”
A frustrated sigh filled the silent room.
“Haah...”
Rough breaths brushing past my ear, softness that seemed to swallow me whole.
The sweet scent of milk.
“Hng...”
Ceres’s breath, like a sob.
And then...
“Boksun...”
Even my slip of the tongue at the last moment.
“Fuck.”
The alcohol haze vanished in an instant, and my eyes snapped open.
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Footnotes:
“Cedric is coming to town” parodies the Christmas song “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”
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