WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Little Prince in the Ossuary

Chapter 78

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Intermission & Hardening Ground

#Intermission, Plucking Stars from the Sky

In this world, some people shone brighter than everyone else. People who drew universal love through striking looks, naturally beautiful voices, and other extraordinary talents.

We called them stars.

Stars. Wasn't that the perfect word? It put distance between us. Think about it. A star was beauty beyond your reach. No matter how pure or passionate your longing was, it could only remain longing.

Even so, some people still reached for stars. With twisted affection and misguided obsession, they tried to claim them somehow. Most of the time, those efforts ended in crime. Secretly filming private lives or stealing personal belongings was the mild end of it. If they could not have it, they spread rumors, made threats, and sometimes even killed, all because they would rather destroy it.

And even if you got your hands on a star, that came with problems too. Their beauty was one face of strict professionalism. You could not just assume their bare face would shine like starlight. Put simply, they used the bathroom too. If starlight were truly their essence, why did so many celebrity couples end up in gossip over frequent divorces? We all knew too many stars who lost their fame to drugs, illegal gambling, military service scandals, and sexual scandals. If you plucked a star from the sky, would you really be satisfied?

Stars were most beautiful from far away.

Yes. That was reality.

But the Paradise Group Virtual Reality Division said this.

Fuck reality.

Inside virtual reality, anything was possible. You could hold starlight exactly as it was. Of course, only if you had enough money.

What did that mean?

It meant you should buy the virtual character products of celebrities contracted with our company.

Why did I tell all that useless stuff? To sell DLC, obviously.

The method was simple. In the Afterlife Insurance DLC Store, search for your favorite celebrity's name. A product list would appear. Now let me briefly introduce the categories.

First was the Skin Package. This one let you buy that celebrity's appearance. You could use it yourself, or overlay it onto a specific virtual persona in your virtual reality setting. Ah, what changed was only the appearance visible to the buyer. It had ab-so-lutely no effect on the Charm level used in Situational Computation. Purely for self-satisfaction. Since that was all it did, it was the cheapest option.

Second was the Standard Virtual Persona Package. Yes, if you bought this, you could bring that celebrity into your setting anytime. The system assigned a fitting recruitment mission based on your setting. No need to worry about mission failure. The Control AI's Situational Computation always flowed toward guaranteed success. It would feel like the whole universe stepped in to help when you wanted something badly enough.

The buyer also chose how the first meeting happened. You could stage a dramatic rescue in a crisis and make them fall in love at first sight from the start. Ha ha, if you were someone's fan, wasn't that exactly the kind of scene you had imagined at least once? Unlike ordinary virtual personas, the character you purchased was destined to love you in the end, no matter what happened.

Unlike the Skin Package, the Standard Virtual Persona Package applied that celebrity's career, personality, specialties, and abilities as a full set. If nothing else, the Charm would be incredible. Personality was a modifiable option, but unlocking it often required an extra fee. Too expensive? Overcome it with fan devotion.

Last was the Filmography Virtual Persona Package. It was the highest-performing, most expensive, and most restricted premium product. This product recreated a fictional character the celebrity had portrayed in a specific movie or drama. Personality, background, and abilities were all tuned to that character.

The more specific the setup, the harder it was to use in a different era. Say you were using the frontier-era setting 「Sunset Falls」, and then a character from an SF setting suddenly popped up. That would be weird, right? No matter how good the Afterlife Insurance Control AI was at Situational Computation, it could not make that plausible. This warning also applied to the Standard Virtual Persona Package to some extent. So before purchase, please carefully check compatible settings. Processing refunds was annoying.

Anyway, these products tended to have high unit prices, but if you looked closely, there were surprisingly many cheap options.

It was just that customers did not care much. Cheap items far outnumbered expensive ones. Those were character packages for unpopular nobodies and stars already past their prime.

The truth was, being an entertainer was a job where most people made very little money. Only the top 0.1% enjoyed the glory of their era. Everyone else was... day laborers struggling to find gigs. So they did their best to sell at least their looks and character products somehow.

Even stars who reached the top only had a short window to sell their image at high prices. A prime did not last long. Countless stars sank as one-hit wonders. New rookies kept debuting, and they were a serious threat too. So stars had an obsession. Sell while you can. They always lived with that pressure. This reminded me of an old pop song.

「Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?」

「I know you will.」

「Will you still love me when I've got nothing but my aching soul?」

「I know you will.」

We all knew why that self-questioning in the song felt so pitiful. Even pure, passionate longing for a star was only a moment of passion.

Eternal love did not exist.

That was exactly why character packages were discounted so often despite star popularity. When an entertainer's career looked like it was nearing the end, they even put on tearful all-out desperation shows.

So do not panic just because the price looked high. The god of impulse buying blessed you.

That covered celebrity character products. So, what did you think? Was your urge to buy surging already? You who chased stars, empty your wallets and let your hands overflow with starlight.

For your happiness, and honestly for money, the Paradise Group Virtual Reality Division would continue to do its utmost. Thank you.

#Hardening Ground, Fort Roberts (1)

Americans treated war heroes with exceptional respect. As the youngest Medal of Honor recipient in this world setting, Gyeoul had the right to receive the first salute from superiors. Even the president was no exception. It was not an explicit right, but everyone respected it as custom.

Gyeoul did not cling to that right. Part of it was his personality, and part of it was his intent to seem humble.

Every American liked Gyeoul. Plenty of people wanted to get even a little closer to the boy officer. The Fort Roberts police also had many passionate supporters. Building rapport with them was not hard for Gyeoul.

Sergeant Adair and Officer Dawson, who were with him now, were people he had only recently gotten acquainted with. Both were startled when Gyeoul asked to join a patrol, but in the end they accepted with good humor.

"Looks like you patrol more often than before."

When Gyeoul started the conversation, Sergeant Adair nodded.

"Thanks to you, Lieutenant-nim, people see refugees very differently now. We got instructions from higher up to strengthen management of the refugee district. Truth is, we were pretty indifferent before. It's just an excuse, but nobody was in their right mind."

"I think it couldn't be helped. You all lost so much too, right?"

Those gentle words made the sergeant smile.

"Yes, definitely. Anyway, now that we're thinking straight again, we should recover what can still be recovered from what we lost. The things we can't recover, we'll leave as memories of old days."

They were talking right in the middle of the Chinese residential quarter. They had passed beyond Triad boundaries and were crossing other organizations' zones. Gyeoul watched the police patrol route closely. That had been his goal from the start. The two officers had no idea, but there were things only Gyeoul could see.

The red, semi-transparent lines of fire that 「Survival Instinct」 warned him about.

'They're wavering all over. Makes sense. Their proficiency couldn't be high at this stage.'

The invisible shooters could not keep their aim points steady at all. The trembling lines of fire shook wildly up, down, left, and right. The spread was measured in meters.

Bows and slings were extremely hard weapons to master. They also had no space to practice long-range shots. At best, they probably practiced short-range shots inside tents.

The crude quality of the weapons was another cause of poor accuracy. If unskilled workers patched weapons together from rough materials, how good could those weapons be?

"Was the patrol route originally this way? Or are you only taking a different path today?"

Officer Dawson answered Gyeoul's question. He pointed toward the middle of a townhouse construction site.

"We used to pass around there. The route changed after construction started. This route will stay in place until phase one finishes."

That was a satisfying answer.

The line-of-fire warnings grew denser and darker whenever they passed certain sections. That suggested many things. Something was there that needed to be guarded and watched, but was difficult to relocate while avoiding the changed patrol route.

"Once construction finishes, this will practically be a city. Honestly, the population has already been at city level for a while... if it comes to that, Graveyard watch will return to the police too. It's obviously going to be exhausting, but somehow I'm looking forward to it. It feels like going back to normal life, at least a little."

A passing remark from the sergeant caught Gyeoul's attention. Whatever his real motive, he was outwardly still just accompanying a patrol, so he needed to keep the conversation natural. He was genuinely curious too. Gyeoul asked,

"Why do you call night patrol that?"

"Ah, this? I don't know if it's true, but they say in medieval England there were people who stayed up all night guarding graves. The term came from that."

"Guarding graves? To stop grave robbers?"

"Not that. Back then, cemetery space was fixed, so when they ran out of spots for new burials, they dug up old graves to make room. And when they opened old coffins, they found scratch marks from fingernails on the inside of the lids. About one out of every twenty-five coffins. Which means they buried people alive who weren't even dead."

"Right."

"After that, when they buried people, they tied a string to the wrist and connected it to a bell outside the grave. They called it a wrist bell, I think. The person guarding the grave had to dig out anyone buried alive when the bell rang. I heard that from a senior when I was still a rookie, and it sounded pretty plausible."

"That's fun. And interesting. Thanks for explaining."

After that, everyday conversation continued. Since familiarity with each person was an asset, Gyeoul listened sincerely even to things that meant nothing in particular.

"A city... I heard Syrian refugee camps had barbershops, laundromats, and supermarkets, so this place will probably become like that soon too. I don't know about anything else, but I hope we get a donut shop. Graveyard watch without donuts and coffee feels like something's missing."

Dawson's wish made Adair laugh.

"Chinese folks won't make proper donuts like Baker's."

"You never know. They're good at cooking."

Gyeoul tilted his head.

"Do you two like donuts? I heard the idea that American police love donuts is a stereotype."

Dawson and Adair answered.

"It is a stereotype. We didn't eat them because we loved them. Back when we patrolled at midnight, donut shops were the only places to take a break, so we kept going there. It was almost a habit. It felt like part of the job. We got attached to it, so we miss it."

"You could call it a generation gap too. Some friends say they eat bagels instead of donuts for health reasons."

Gyeoul found that odd. Bagels did not seem much better than donuts anyway...

By the time the conversation reached that point, the patrol arrived at a checkpoint on the outer edge of the Chinese residential quarter. The soldiers who spotted Gyeoul saluted sharply. Gyeoul gave a brief return salute, then turned and took in the construction site. Phase one was almost complete.

If he was going to make a move, it seemed better to do it before the patrol route changed again.

He could have ended the patrol there, but to reduce the chance of drawing unnecessary suspicion later, Gyeoul decided to stay with the two officers a little longer.

============================ Author's Afterword ============================

Q. NeoGGM-nim: @I took a quick nap and another 39,999 years and 364 days passed again. I slept too much. So am I 82# years old now? I spent over 99.9 percent of my life asleep. How empty.

A. If you read this novel backward, your age goes down. A thousand years per read. Rejuvenate when you have time. Hahaha.

Q. Cheongnyuryeon: @You posted early today! Looks like I'll have a dream full of childlike innocence.

A. I stayed up all night today. I can hear my life pattern shattering...

Q. Tigerfish-nim: @Little Prince... distorted childlike innocence...

A. It's not distorted! You lack faith.

Q. Eomirani-nim: Author-nim, is there any chance future plot will go with human enhancement through virus experiments!?

A. I've prepared a plot that's even more full of childlike innocence than that.

Q. GeonjeonhanSummoner-nim: @Is there no route where Gyeoul gets infected with FEV and becomes a super mutant? Then goes Waaaaaaaagh!! while spreading spores! If this sounds mixed up, that's just your imagination!

A. To write that, I think 40,000 years would need to pass inside the novel too. Haha.

Q. RGZ95-nim: @What, a chapter at this hour, guess I'll sleep early today @[email protected]

A. Today was... aaaargh...

Q. BabeneunChitsol-nim: @Author-nim... do you maybe have genius-level talent for masochism...? I feel like I'm not myself anymore.

A. No way. I only have 1 HP, so if someone bullies me I die instantly.

Q. SpearofGlory-nim: @It's nice seeing a warm-hearted protagonist. After reading psychos who go "the only good human is a dead human" and start mass slaughter while saying they'll still be sweet to their lover, this feels cleansing...

A. I don't know what novel that is, but I can feel a severe lack of childlike innocence. Tragic. Childlike innocence is the ultimate answer to every problem...

Q. Choi Hyeong-woo-nim: @Ah, author-nim, I love you?

A. Yes, thank you. I love myself too.

...?

Q. Magicar-nim: @This is a work that makes me understand Matsumin's feelings. So I'm on vacation today! I'm putting up a reader quest for rapid releases! Of course I'll prepay!

A. I can't do rapid releases... T_T...

Q. Oshin4-nim: @Kuaaak kyaaaak

A. Yes, I know. I don't look like Won Bin.

...

I should wipe out humanity.

Q. JobMaster-nim: @Rapid updates raining from the sky.. waaah

A. Please check the upload time and blame the author's incompetence. Gyaaak guaaaaak...

Q. Dohwawon-nim: @Don't you play LoL!!! Be my se-cret friend@

A. Unfortunately, I've never played LoL even once. I don't really play games in the first place.

I only play a little Steam now and then. Two days ago I played Overwatch for the first time in a month.

When someone lacking ability decides to become a full-time writer, they end up like me.

Kind readers, please don't imitate this. :)

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