WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ A Gacha Addict's Life in Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 74: The Unbearable Lightness of Regression (3)
──────
1.
Splash.
I untied the weights from my ankles and waist and climbed out of the sedimentation tank.
Then I took off the securely fastened helmet of my diving suit.
I had found the Keystone in the sedimentation tank.
But no matter how much I felt it up, climbed on top of it, and hopped around, it would not transport me to the shrine.
“Lord...”
This was a brand-new kind of shitty feeling I had experienced since coming to this world.
There were no free wins in Cedric’s life?
Okay. I got it.
I could accept that much.
“But this isn’t a free win, damn it!!!!”
That was medium-well information I had sous-vided after nearly dying last iteration!!!
“If you’re going to take away information I worked my ass off to cook, what the hell is a regressor supposed to live on!!!”
No amount of screaming changed anything.
As I left the sewers, I thought it over.
Why had my cozy date with the True Progenitor plus chaos-funding route been blocked?
What was different from the last iteration?
There were two possibilities.
“Time.”
First, it could simply be a matter of timing.
Last time, I had found the Keystone on the morning of Day 11.
This was only Day 2.
Maybe the Keystone only activated at a certain time, and I had found it too early.
“Conditions.”
The second possibility became obvious once I compared then and now.
Back then, Sunming had beaten me half to death.
And Boksun had given me an emergency transfusion after breaking the Vessel of Life.
The latter seemed more likely.
There was more evidence for it.
The True Progenitor was imprisoned in a rift within a rift.
She was not floating in a test tube, as I had expected. Instead, she was confined and thoroughly watched inside a shrine draped with Universal Coins on sacred ropes.
Would the bastards who had captured and imprisoned the True Progenitor so meticulously really overlook a dog hole that let anyone come and go from its prison?
It occurred to me a little late, but I did not think so.
Let’s take that theory further.
‘So you were the one who carried off that half-baked runt?’
The moment the True Progenitor saw me, without any explanation, she identified me as the guy who had taken the fake Progenitor.
What if the Keystone did not activate at all times and required specific conditions?
Then the True Progenitor’s reaction made sense too.
In short, to use the Keystone, I had to either receive a transfusion by breaking the Vessel of Life from the fake Progenitor...
Or at minimum, travel with the fake Progenitor.
“...This is such bullshit.”
I reviewed my plan for Iteration Three.
Combining the information from iterations one and two with what I had learned through the Exhumation Monocle...
1) Li Cheng would inspect the warehouse on Day 12 no matter what I did.
2) Whether I stole it on Day 1 or Day 11, Li Cheng would not know the fake Progenitor had been stolen until Day 11.
In other words, I had a free pass until Day 11.
So first, I would get the head ornament from the True Progenitor and secure some money.
Then I would find Isis and make the Ruby.
Once everything was ready, I would awaken the fake Progenitor.
I had no intention whatsoever of repeating the previous iteration.
But that plan had gone wrong from the very beginning.
“Argh... Fuck...”
I raked my fingers through my hair.
I was pissed.
Really fucking pissed.
But who was I?
A man who had risen after twelve liquidations.
A legendary retail investor who had made eighty billion in profits.
“It’s fine!!! I’ve got a Plan B!!!”
I always had a second plan.
2.
C-6 District, Necropolis’s largest red-light district, Night Blossom Garden.
I flung open the door to the Drunken Red Pavilion’s office.
“Brother Yiming!”
“Rowan, you bastard! Knock before you come in!”
“Trimming your nose hair again?”
“Nose hair sticking out makes you look ugly.”
“Ha! Brother, as your little brother, I could never hope to match your self-care skills.”
“You’d be pretty too if you wore makeup, punk.”
It had been a long time since I had seen Yiming.
Even after all that time, he still had that solid build and heroic bearing.
He truly had the bearing of a continent.
“I missed you, Brother!!!”
I ran over and gave the reluctant Yiming a passionate hug.
“Jesus, you’re gross. What the hell is this now? You here to borrow money?”
Yiming looked startled for a moment, but then he snorted and patted my back with a hand as big as a pot lid.
Everything after that was the same as last iteration.
“Brother, there’s something I’ve been hiding from you.”
I honestly told Yiming everything.
Even that I was Ceres Mama’s spy, and that I had slept with her.
And after that, well... you know.
“Graaah!!!”
“Bwahahaha!!!”
One heavy blow lifted both my feet off the ground.
“You little bastard. How could you fuck the woman your big brother had his eye on? Get up. Don’t whine over something like that.”
“Cough!”
Then came a second blow.
“I’ve been waiting to see when you’d tell me.”
“I-I’m sorry, Brother...”
“Anyway, you told me now, so it’s fine. Does it hurt much?”
“No!”
“You must be hungry on an empty stomach. Let’s eat while we talk.”
Then, like a man, he forgave me and we had a meal.
“What do you say to formally coming under me? I’ll settle things with Ceres. If you give me the original Project Z files that woman leaked... I can manage that much. Take this chance to cut ties with her completely.”
“I’ll think about it a little more, Brother.”
Yiming had suggested that I cut Ceres out of my life for good over our meal.
“What... What is this beautiful outfit...!!!!!!!! Is it all right for an outfit like this to exist in this world?!!!!! Truth! It contains truth!!! Rowan!!!! You must be a genius!!!!”
Giving Yiming a bunny girl outfit made in his size went exactly the same way.
Up to this point, not one word had differed.
And then...
“Um... Brother.”
“Yeah?”
I got to the real reason I had come to see Yiming.
“Could I borrow some money?”
Yiming, who had been admiring the bunny girl outfit, furrowed his brow.
“Money?”
“Yes... Something urgent came up.”
Normally, this would have been ridiculous.
Most people would tell an old classmate who suddenly contacted them to fuck off, then block them.
And I had only recently become Yiming’s zuobi.
But a regressor’s information showed its worth at times like this.
I knew Yiming held me in special regard.
I knew that the time at the cross-dressing club meant a great deal to him.
“Tch. Your expression has been off since you came in. What happened, Rowan?”
Just as expected, Yiming’s furrowed brow was not angry. It was worried.
“My older sister is sick... and I need quite a bit for her treatment.”
“Rowan, you had an older sister?”
“Yes. She’s an older sister who looks very good in a bunny girl outfit.”
“Oh...”
Yiming crossed his arms and scratched his head with a thick index finger.
“My little brother Rowan’s family is my family. So how much do you need?”
Now, here was the question.
Could I borrow all 125 million Bios from Yiming?
The answer was...
‘How the hell could I?’
Of course, Xuan Yiming spent money like water.
The meal in front of us probably cost a hundred thousand credits with ease, and he freely brought out famous liquor worth hundreds of thousands when others were around.
But I could not be mistaken.
At the distinctly Chinese-styled Overnus Pharmaceuticals, displays of wealth were directly linked to one’s influence in the organization.
That was money he had to spend to keep up appearances.
It was not as though he had money rotting away and wasted it carelessly.
Even if Yiming was the Xuan Family’s Incense Master, more than a hundred million Bios was a large sum.
If I thoughtlessly asked him to lend me that much cash?
That was not something a little brother could do.
If he said he could not afford it, he would lose face. If he gave it to me, he would be left strapped for cash.
The realistic upper limit I had calculated, the amount Yiming could generously laugh and say, “It’s family hospital bills, so what the hell!” was...
“Could you lend me twenty million Bios?”
Yiming grinned.
“Look at those shifty eyes.”
“Argh!”
Yiming smacked the back of my head, then stood up.
Clink.
When he returned, Yiming tossed a heavy leather pouch onto the table before me.
“Open it.”
“B-Brother...”
“Open it, punk.”
I opened the bag, which was tightly tied with a leather cord.
A dazzling shine glittered from inside.
It was packed with 100,000-Bios gold coins minted by Aden.
“I threw in another five million.”
“B-Brother...! I’ll definitely repay this kindness.”
“Just repay the money properly, kid. You came clean about fucking Ceres because you wanted to ask me for this, didn’t you?”
“No, Brother. I was always going to tell you.”
Yiming chuckled and smacked the back of my head once more.
The pleasant pain made the corners of my mouth rise on their own.
Anyway, that meant I had secured my ammunition.
So, what was Plan B for Premium Iteration Three?
The sight before my eyes gave the answer.
“Wow, it’s fucking huge.”
With a cigarette in my mouth, I looked up at the glittering six-story pavilion.
[Golden Lotus Casino]
The words were written on a gold-plated sign.
This was the Golden Lotus Casino, run by Li Cheng.
True to the Gold Carp Family, reputed to be the richest of Overnus’s three families, the building was magnificent.
“Coming through!”
“Welcome!”
I passed the guards at the entrance and strode inside.
The interior was even more of another world than the outside.
“Whoa.”
How should I put it?
It did not feel like C Sector at all.
C Sector should have the shabby feel of a Kia Bongo with 200,000 kilometers on the odometer, exported all the way to Africa.
But this place felt like a social club in colonial Hong Kong.
“It really stirs the nostalgia.”
My heart thumped with the rising excitement of a first time.
Even the high-class prostitutes in qipaos, swaying their hips and smiling with their eyes, could not catch my attention right now.
All I could see were...
The heavy roulette wheel spinning.
Chips piled high as they changed hands.
Fixers staring at the cards in their hands with bloodshot eyes as they puffed away on cigarettes.
Madness, resignation, and the spirit of competition drifting through the thick smoke.
Yes.
This was where I belonged.
By now, you could probably guess Plan B for Iteration Three.
I would use the money I borrowed from Brother Yiming as my bankroll and grow it to 125 million Bios at the casino.
And while I was at it, I would get revenge on Li Cheng.
“I’ve lived too honestly until now.”
Gambling Apocalypse Cedric, here I come!
Footnotes:
“Gambling Apocalypse Cedric” parodies the title of Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji, a Japanese gambling manga.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
