WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Even in a Dark Fantasy, You Still Have to Eat ◈
Chapter 1: Genius of Grinding # 1
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Atop a wall so high that even sizable mountains looked far below.
I looked down scornfully at the world, tiny as ants, and lost myself in thought.
How had I, a con man facing execution by hanging just four days ago, ended up here?
# # #
I never had a father.
The moment I entered middle school, my mother left home with my stepfather.
I begged her to take me too.
But there was a cat at my stepfather's house, so they couldn't take me because I was allergic to cats.
I had a cat allergy?
Even I didn't know that.
I guess mothers really do know everything about their children.
With no other choice, I started working as soon as I graduated from middle school.
I scrubbed grills at barbecue restaurants, pulled rickshaws at tourist spots, delivered packages, collected cash for voice phishing scams, and did anything that paid.
Then, just when I was about to save up some real money, I got grabbed by the scruff of the neck.
“The defendant is sentenced to one year and six months in prison. However, since this is the defendant's first offense and he has shown remorse, the sentence is suspended for three years. The defendant is also placed under one year of probation and ordered to complete 120 hours of community service.”
Seriously? All I did was carry a bag with money in it.
Because of probation, I couldn't even get a low-paying part-time job, so I sat at home doing nothing.
That was why I first took notice of a certain game.
“Make Minimum Wage by Clicking While Watching Netplus (+999)”
“Night Diver, the GOAT of gaming. Start now!”
I had been searching for ways to make money on my phone at home when that post caught my eye.
There was an online game called Night Diver, older than I was.
Apparently, if you invested a little money, you could make it back in no time.
“Spend 2 million won on gear, then grind. Ether and Energy drop like crazy lol”
└ “You can resell the gear for the same price, so it's basically free fr”
└ “If you get an Engraving Tome from a boss, you can even buy yourself beef lol”
All I had to do was kill monsters all day, pick up money and items, then sell them.
A way to make money from home when nobody would hire a minor on probation.
It was like it existed just for me!
“So I can make more than minimum wage just by tapping a keyboard?”
They called farming monsters for materials grinding.
And selling the money and items earned through grinding was called rice farming.
It came from selling game currency to buy rice to eat.
That was how my efforts toward rice farming began.
I spent every bit of the living expenses my mother had left me.
I even took out next month's rent to buy game items.
Rice farming, let's go.
“You have obtained Ether. +500”
“You have obtained Ether. +500”
“Blessed ‘ThiefIan’ has leveled up!”
“You have obtained Ether. +500”
...
..
.
But this repetitive work was pretty fun?
Money kept rolling in, and I never got hungry or sleepy.
Maybe it was the result of all that effort.
“I did it. 2 million won!”
My earnings for the first month hit 2 million won.
By the second month, after I had picked up some know-how, I made 3 million.
By the third month, I had even reached 5 million.
“Hell yeah!”
I got lucky.
Rare material items like Estelle's Energy kept dropping.
Whenever I ran weekly boss raids, the supposedly low-drop-rate Engraving Tomes came up every time. The daily dungeons also gave me loads of Crystals that sold for a decent price. It was enough to fry my brain.
Maybe I had a talent for rice farming.
“So this is what Bburinkle Chicken tastes like!”
For the first time in my life, I ordered that famous chicken.
I also tried 31-flavor ice cream for the first time.
And I filled my fridge with cola.
By then, I even had dreams.
“If I work hard selling rice, I want to buy a car and get a girlfriend...”
I could see a rosy future ahead.
I would live an ordinary life, like everyone else.
My life was finally getting back on track.
And today was showcase day, with a major update promised ahead of summer vacation.
Depending on the broadcast, the price of rice could shoot through the roof.
So I sat down at my computer, full of anticipation.
Then a problem appeared.
“A new Reboot Server opens this summer!”
“So everyone can enjoy the game without excessive spending!”
“What kind of bullshit is this? Enjoy the game without spending money? Then all the people who should be buying my rice will go to Reboot!”
“Selling 10 million Ether, 5,000 won”
“Urgent sale, 10 million Ether for 3,500 won”
“10 million for 3,000 won, bulk sales available”
I watched the price of rice fall in real time.
It was a complete panic sell.
“You shameless bastards. How dare you try to enjoy a game for free...!? You sons of bitches!”
My head swam. Suddenly, the world spun.
Blood poured from my nose like a waterfall.
“Uh, uhhhh...”
I couldn't breathe properly, and my chest hurt like someone was squeezing my heart.
Something was seriously wrong.
Had I gotten too angry about the Reboot Server?
Or was it because I hadn't slept for days while grinding?
Maybe it was because I had been eating energy bars instead of meals.
Newspapers with headlines like “Seventeen-Year-Old Boy Dies Alone” flashed through my mind.
I didn't want to die this embarrassingly.
“Aaah! Waaah!”
After struggling for a while, I came to my senses and found some women staring down at me.
“Sister! The baby is alive!”
“It’s a miracle! A miracle!”
“How could a baby who died with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck...!?”
Yore.
That was my new name.
# # #
Until I was around ten, I focused only on figuring out what was going on with me.
Around twelve, I finally realized what it was called.
“Reincarnation!”
I had been reincarnated.
From Haian to Yore.
My previous self had probably died of something like acute heart disease.
That made the question of where I had been reincarnated important.
There was no electricity or cars. It looked completely medieval.
‘I want some spicy kimchi-flavored cup noodles.’
I had never considered my life in Korea comfortable.
But poverty had a basement deeper than rock bottom, and that basement was called Rilke Orphanage.
“Sister, I'm hungry.”
“Yore, I'm hungry too.”
Ah, dear old Rilke Orphanage.
Getting your nose bloodied over half a bean was nothing special there.
When I turned fifteen, I was on the verge of being kicked out even from that orphanage.
From what I overheard the director saying, they had signed a contract to send me to work at some construction site.
“Take part in the construction of the Glorious Wall!”
“Daily wage: 20 Copper”
Considering that Thompson, an older boy who had gone there before me, broke his back and died within half a year, it clearly wasn't work fit for a human being.
So I ran away.
And after I ran, I did whatever I could.
“Catch that dine-and-dasher!”
“P-Pickpocket!”
“Who stole all the silverware and donation boxes from the cathedral!?”
As I tried less to live well and more to survive, I turned twenty.
Then, through some rotten luck, I ended up in the guard prison of Sodom, a small frontier city.
“Name's Yore. From Rilke Orphanage in the backwater Maril Land. Previous offenses include fraud, intimidation, theft... Fuck, this is so damn long just to read.”
Someone had reported me.
“Captain! Do you know how many times that bastard correctly called the dice in a row? Does that even make sense statistically? He has to be cheating!”
At a place like a gambling den, I had tried a game where you guessed the total value of three dice in a bowl.
It was my first time gambling, but maybe beginner's luck was on my side because I won a fair amount of money.
Then a muscular guy who looked like an employee grabbed me by the collar and accused me of cheating.
“What trick did you use?”
“Spit it out, you bastard!”
“You dare cheat at Lord Dantes's business? You've got some nerve!”
Crack! Thud!
After they threw me in prison, they beat me every day under the pretense of making me confess my method.
But what could I say?
I hadn't actually cheated.
In the end, after a month of beatings and imprisonment, I stood before the gallows.
I thought I was going to die like this, but...
Crack.
The post holding the rope snapped.
“What? Was it really this old?”
“Executioner, if the rope breaks or the post collapses during an execution, we postpone it by a week, right?”
“Yes. He's a lucky bastard, anyway.”
I didn't know why, but I survived.
I had never been this lucky in my life.
Then another week passed.
Snap.
This time, the rope meant to hang me broke.
“Two executions stopped in a row?”
“This bastard is unbelievably lucky!”
“I know a shop that sells sturdy ropes. Just give me 30 Copper, and I think I can get one by this afternoon. Hehehe...”
“You're trying to run a scam even now? I'll make sure you hang!”
# # #
About fifteen days passed after the second execution was stopped.
The executioners who were supposed to hang me were late, and the waiting was killing me instead.
It felt like my blood was drying up.
The gambling-den employees who used to threaten to beat me to death hadn't come either.
Then one day.
“Yore! Come with us!”
“Move it, now!”
Rough-looking men pulled a sack over my head and dragged me somewhere.
Was I finally going to die?
“Did you prepare the rope and the post properly?”
“Shut up!”
“You'd better watch your mouth today!”
Rustle.
A little later, the sack over my head was removed. This time, I wasn't at an execution ground but sitting in some office.
A woman in a uniform cap sat on the desk, looking down at me.
Glossy, clean hair, smooth skin, a uniform that perfectly showed off her figure, and deep violet eyes.
She was incredibly beautiful!
“I heard you were bold enough to cheat at a Dantes family business, but you're younger than I expected.”
The stunning woman looked away from me and sat in her chair.
Then she began cutting the meat in front of her.
“You're Yore, right? Seventeen? Eighteen?”
“...I'm twenty.”
I had never seen someone this beautiful before, so I was trembling for no reason.
The intensity of it felt about the same as when a rope had been around my neck.
“Yore, I hear your execution has been stopped twice. That doesn't happen often. That's why I came. I have a proposal for you.”
“A proposal?”
“Here it is. You can stay still and wait for death, or you can struggle, even if the odds are low. Which will you choose?”
“Of course I'll struggle.”
There was nothing to think about.
Anything was better than being beaten to death in prison or executed.
Perhaps pleased with my answer, the woman smiled faintly.
“Then I should introduce myself properly. This is who I am.”
Flutter.
She handed me a small card.
A business card?
“Imperial Special Forces”
“Conscription Officer Ezakiel”
A Conscription Officer? Was she a soldier?
What could a soldier possibly offer me?
As I wondered about that, Conscription Officer Ezakiel asked me a question.
“Yore, have you ever heard of the Blessed?”
Blessed.
I felt like I had heard that word somewhere.
Maybe at the church we visited as a group every weekend from Rilke Orphanage?
Perhaps.
I couldn't remember clearly.
Growl.
Was my hunger making my brain sluggish?
My eyes were fixed on the plate and meat on Ezakiel's desk.
“If you give me that, I think I might remember.”
“You want this?”
“Yes. If I eat it, I might even remember my past life.”
“Past life? That's funny. Eat. You need a full stomach if you're going to work.”
Work?
Author's Note
A new work... begins...!!!
Please take good care of it...!!!
Footnotes:
“Rice farming” is Korean gaming slang for earning real-life money by selling in-game currency or items, originally implying that the money could at least buy rice to eat.
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