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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Simzy
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Since I fell into this world, I wonder how much time has passed.
I didn’t know.
It wasn’t like I had an accurate clock.
And since I was busy trying to make a living, it was difficult to even count the days as the sun rose and set.
Just vaguely, a few years must have passed.
That’s all I thought.
“What a life.”
They say you never know what’s ahead.
I had never imagined that I would fall into the world of a cyberpunk game.
What I had gained in that time was about the level of swearing.
If at least the location had been different, I don’t know.
But the place I had fallen into, the ‘garbage dump,’ had only appeared fleetingly by name in the game.
There weren’t many advantages I could gain through the information I knew.
I got up from my squatting position.
Despite my young age, perhaps because of my trash-like constitution, the sound of my bones cracking already echoed from my joints.
I lifted my head and looked beyond the mountain of garbage.
The huge ‘city wall,’ which had established itself, breaking through the gray clouds, filled my vision.
The sight of it firmly blocking the vast world.
Above it, a faint ray of light leaked out.
The background of the game I had played. Neon City was right there.
So close, and yet so far.
Really.
“…How on earth did my life end up like this?”
And just then, the blonde girl who had heard my muttering grumbled, still squatting next to me.
“Weakling. Shut your mouth and just dig through the trash. The district patrol drones will be flying by soon.”
Hmm.
It was a way of speaking that reminded me of ‘Hey, Mr. Kim’ from my hometown’s internet.
At the girl’s words, I sat back down.
“Oh, look at this.”
Just then, as if she had found something in the pile, the girl pulled something out from the heap of trash where the recycling had not been sorted at all.
Uh uh, you crazy bitch.
“Golden child, golden child. Put the gun down.”
It was a pistol.
“…Didn’t I tell you not to call me golden child? And what does it matter, it’s probably broken anyw—.”
Bang!!
““……””
It must have been a very old object.
The smoke of gunpowder rose from the end of the gun.
The bullet flew into the empty sky. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
“…Didn’t I tell you to put it down?”
“Um, sorry.”
If there was a problem, it was the ‘things’ that would come flying after hearing the gunshot.
[Organic matter detected.]
They’re already here.
I looked up at the empty space where the voice had come from.
I met the red lens of a ‘killer drone’ operated by a corporation. A harpoon as huge as the drone’s body was aimed at us.
“Run!!”
We ran through the heaps of garbage as if tumbling down.
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I gasped for breath.
The breath that had risen to the tip of my chin pounded my lungs.
It took quite some time for me, who was born with a trash-like stamina, to regain normal breathing.
“Whew……”
I calmly finished my deep breaths.
I waited until the muscles, which had tensed up from the strain, relaxed.
Normally, the inside of the sewer was so foul that it would have made me vomit, but now it felt as clear and comfortable as the air on a mountaintop.
I really almost died.
There was still a long way to go before the sun would set. It seemed I would have to stop the garbage collection work for today around here.
I turned my gaze and looked at the golden child.
As if she had the same opinion as me, her golden eyes were looking up at me.
Her stamina is really good.
When I was panting for breath, the golden child had only gasped for a moment, and had shown no signs of being tired.
In the golden child’s hand was still the pistol that had become the cause of all this.
“…You brought that again?”
“I couldn’t just leave it.”
“……”
Really, it wasn’t for nothing that I had given her the nickname golden child.
No matter how much she denied it, there was no nickname that suited her so well.
In fact, it had been a different nickname originally.
But when I started calling her ‘golden child,’ everyone except for a few people started calling the girl golden child.
Perhaps because the value of life was less in this garbage dump than in other places.
There were many cases of calling people by nicknames instead of their names.
For the record, my nickname was ‘weakling,’ as the golden child had called me earlier.
…What’s a weakling, a weakling.
It was a nickname the golden child had graciously given me because I had trash-like stamina.
“Let’s just go to Four-eyes, it’s a bust for more work today anyway.”
The ‘work’ I was talking about meant the garbage-digging we had been doing until a while ago.
Since the place was what it was, there weren’t many things kids could do.
Dig through the trash.
Find a decent item.
Recycle (sell) it.
That was our basic routine, and our set daily schedule.
The golden child said, lifting the pistol.
“This should be enough for the two of us to buy food, right?”
“I don’t know about that.”
Because it was a place where supply and demand were very sensitive.
If there was someone who needed a pistol, we could sell it at a high price, but if there was someone who needed a pistol in a place where such a small number of people gathered, that could be a problem in its own right.
“We’ll have to check the situation.”
“You worry too much.”
It’s not that I worry too much, it’s that you don’t worry at all, golden child.
I managed to swallow my retort.
Since the ownership of the pistol was with the golden child, it was better not to rub the golden child the wrong way if I wanted to drink even a sip more of water.
We moved along the path of the sewer.
An unpleasant and hot air blew in from the inside. As a bonus, a disgusting smell brushed past the tip of my nose.
When I had first fallen into this world, it was a place I had sworn I would never go down into even if I died, but as they say, man is an animal of adaptation.
Now, it was as comfortable as my own home.
As we walked in the direction of the ‘village,’ the number of people we saw gradually increased.
Some were wrapped in rags and sitting in a corner.
And there was also the everyday sight of people gathering and laughing or chatting.
In the end, this was also a place where people lived. A natural vitality was felt.
“Weakling!”
At the name they called me (though I didn’t like it), I lifted my head and looked in that direction.
A few kids of about my current age came running this way.
They looked to be about 15.
But since it was a neighborhood with many kids who couldn’t eat properly, it was hard to judge their age just by their build.
The person I respected the most in this village.
They were the kids that ‘Four-eyes’ was taking care of.
Both I and the golden child had been indebted to ‘Four-eyes.’ So we had seen each other’s faces a few times while coming and going.
Was it because of the contaminants?
Or was it the fault of a bad surgery with a cyberware picked up from a village quack?
The state of the kid who had called out my nickname from the very front was, to put it nicely, not normal.
To the extent that even I, whose morality had faded from living in cyberpunk for several years, would have wrinkled my nose.
Drool was dripping from one side of his mouth.
And his left mechanical eye, which seemed to be a cyberware, was not even looking this way.
Since it was a problem with the nervous system, there would probably be no way to get it treated in a garbage dump like this.
As if he knew my pitiful gaze, that kid, ‘Teddy,’ came close to me and opened his mouth.
“What, did you find something good? You came down earlier than usual today.”
Why is he suddenly acting so friendly?
I almost answered sharply out of reflex. But since the morality inside me was still alive and kicking, I responded as gently as possible.
“Find something? On the contrary, I almost got killed by a drone.”
That was a gentle response.
“Hahaha, you always say that.”
That’s because my life is always in danger. And it’s natural.
I slowly began to frown.
When did he ever not pick a fight with me for hanging out with the golden child, even though I’m weak, and why is he acting so friendly today.
…….
Well, they say a child changes even if you don’t see them for a day.
Maybe there was some change of heart in the one day I hadn’t seen him—.
“Hey, stop.”
At the golden child’s words, I stopped my actions.
Even though she was the golden child who had caused an accident with the pistol, the time she had spent living in this world was much longer than mine.
When I had first come to this world, she was also the benefactor who had helped me.
It was an unconscious reaction to that.
But, the target of the ‘stop’ that the golden child had said was not me, but Teddy, who had come close in front of me.
“Open your right hand.”
“Huh? Why all of a sudden, princess.”
Teddy answered in a smooth tone.
Princess.
The nickname she had before I had given her the nickname golden child.
What happened next was that the golden child aimed the ‘pistol’ she had picked up earlier at Teddy’s forehead.
Uh oh, the golden child is about to cause another accident.
I tried to stop the golden child’s action, but Teddy, with a gun aimed at his forehead, was faster to open his mouth.
“Ah, alright, alright. I’ll give it back.”
“Huh?”
What.
Without answering my question, Teddy returned the old pouch he was holding to me.
Fuck, that. That’s the pouch with my collected credit chips in it.
I instinctively checked my back pocket.
Wow, I almost got backstabbed with my eyes wide open.
The inside of my pocket was empty.
Even if it was a garbage dump where bartering was the basis, it wasn’t that you couldn’t use the basic currency of the world, credit chips.
It was something I had been saving up, penny by penny, while waiting to get out of this place someday, and I had almost lost it all at once.
For a moment, my head heated up.
As if he couldn’t see me, he was only looking at the golden child and said.
“I don’t know what kind of debt you owe to the weakling to be taking care of him like this, but if you do that, you’ll regret it too, princess.”
“Shut up and get lost. I’m not shooting you because I feel sorry for Four-eyes.”
Teddy shrugged and said to his companions around him.
“…Let’s go.”
As if his pride was hurt, he disappeared somewhere with a short click of his tongue.
Only after their figures had completely disappeared did the golden child put the pistol back into her bosom with a skillful movement.
…Anyone would think she’s a gunslinger.
I thanked the golden child with a sincere heart.
“…I was almost fucked, thanks. Should I start calling you princess from now on?”
“…The nickname golden child is shitty, but it’s better than princess.”
“Our golden child has become a person.”
“Want to die?”
We exchanged light jokes.
And we started walking inside again.
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Anyway, that was the kind of world it was.
“For the record, the nickname ‘Teddy’ was given because the young one entrusted his body to a quack like a toy. It was named after the teddy bear. Perhaps because of the error in his nervous system, he really had no manners.”
Catherine explained the past story, letting out some TMI.
Eve, who had been listening silently, raised her palm slightly.
“That individual ‘Teddy,’ is he still alive?”
“Uh-uh, no spoilers.”
Catherine answered in a playful tone.
She had more of a talent for storytelling than I thought.
…Hmm.
But why is Eve curious about that?
What is she planning to do if Teddy is alive—.
“……”
Anyway, the story about the past continued.
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