Chapter 119
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 119
Chapter Title: [119] 118화 - 퓨전펑크에서 살아가는 법 - 웹소설 문피아
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 118
Chapter Title: How to Survive in Fusionpunk
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It was a long-standing habit.
Do not assign numbers to lives.
Naturally, there was nothing philosophical about it.
It was simply an old vow from one man desperate to hold onto his humanity—one that had taken root as deeply as any obsession.
When had it started?
Jin, who had grotesquely carved away at his own mind just to survive in a world where everything had changed.
It was akin to some unwanted evolution.
And whatever the price, there were times when it became damn near impossible to remember the person he'd once been.
The more that happened, the more childish Jin grew.
He'd spout internet memes without a second thought, avoid dwelling deeply on anything, and deliberately let his mind wander into utter nonsense.
He had to do something like that, or there were moments he simply couldn't endure—no need to spell them out; they were always there.
For Jin was forever a stranger standing alone on some shoreline where endless darkness formed the horizon.
Black waves crashing. Water lapping at his ankles.
It was inevitable.
For a gaming hobbyist turned office drone to become a mercenary who beat men to death with his bare fists, a year and change was far too short a time.
Hm.
The afflictions of the mind were terrifying things.
Why the hell were these thoughts surging up now, in the middle of a scrap with machine dwarves?
He'd definitely been trying to keep his head clear.
A capricious brand on his heart, one even he couldn't comprehend.
A blaze that had roared to life in his chest at some unknowable moment.
That flame, barely fishing its owner's quietly sinking mind from the depths yet again today, seemed to ask:
Are you okay?
To which Jin replied.
I'm not okay.
Because I'm not okay, I am okay.
It's the kind of mind that shouldn't be okay.
And when he slowly opened his eyes, the area around him was filled with nothing but shattered wreckage.
Breath heaving up to his jawline.
A hefty chunk of experience pooled up, soothing the accumulated fatigue in body and soul like a hymn to his feat.
Jin turned his eyes away from the petty courtesy.
Then, as always, he casually brushed off his hands and approached Vagmar, who stared back with a dumbfounded look.
A few steps later.
Naturally. Back to being Jin.
"Hmmm."
Jin turned his head, still gripping the headless dwarf's skull in both hands and staring it down eye-to-eye.
"So. This is the combat machine, huh?"
"Y-yeah. That's right. So put it down already. It feels... weird...!"
Vagmar's neck shrank back like a turtle's.
Clutched in Chloe's arms, he kept sneaking sidelong glances at his surroundings before letting out a pained groan—clearly, to him, this place was a sea of blood and mountain of corpses.
Still so fragile?
How's he supposed to hack it on the brutal surface world like this?
Jin shrugged.
He tossed the half-smashed head aside. It rolled away with a thunk!clunk!tang!—only for Miles to bat it lightly with a front paw.
"You. What'd you say your name was?"
"Vagmar."
"Right, Vagmar. Ever thought about joining Styx?"
"......?"
The real Vagmar and Jin both pulled blank faces at the exact same time.
Vagmar merely pointed at his own face with a fingertip; Jin's look was more along the lines of What the hell's up with this birdbrain?
Miles pressed on regardless.
"How about it? Mind putting in a good word with the captain?"
"Sure sure. Knock yourself out."
Jin said that as he stood up.
He tuned out whatever tail-end chatter Miles tacked on.
Call it selective noise canceling.
As Miles's voice faded into white noise, Vagmar filled the void.
"Here."
"What? When'd you snag this?"
"When you were checking the cause of death earlier. Looked like an important piece of gear. Am I right?"
"Spot on."
Jin nodded and pocketed the goggles Vagmar held out.
They were in pretty decent shape.
He slipped them on and blinked; the gear picked up on his iris movement and chimed brightly—ding~—overlaying an AR manual across his field of view.
The display was glitchy too, though, with the image offset left and right.
Still, beggars couldn't be choosers.
Jin spoke straight into the air.
"Hello? Anyone copy?"
[......]
A faint harmonic echoed back like a ghost in the machine.
"Nobody home?"
That was when Jin's voice rang out again.
[......Jin?...]
A response laced with static.
Jin's eyes widened behind the lenses.
"Elina?"
[...Safe......! Glad...... Now......? Hurt......?...]
The words came through choppy and broken. But Jin pieced them together like a pro and replied.
"Yeah, I'm good. As for where I am... West Gate? Wait—West Gate of Tribulations. Injuries? They come and go."
With Vagmar's help filling in the blanks, Jin wrapped up his answer and fired back a question of his own.
"What about you? Where are you? The others?"
The problem? It didn't get through.
[...Jin? Hear......me? Jin?]
"Doesn't seem like it."
Jin muttered under his breath.
Whether she'd intuited the comms were going nowhere—or if something had come up—the fragmented bursts from the goggles grew more frantic.
[Jin......there. Dwarves......make......not simply. They......!]
"What?"
He shot back—but that was the end of it.
"...Chandler?"
Not even a hopeful hail to the handler got a peep. Silence blanketed the ops channel again.
So Jin scratched his head.
Dredging up old memories from English listening tests, he started stitching together the scraps of words.
Okay, so 'Jin......there' could mean:
Stay put where you are.
Or, something's here.
First option: hold position.
Second: sounds like trouble on Elina's end.
Alright, then. So... hm...
Pulling a dead-serious face despite his half-baked detective skills, Jin eventually settled on a plan: move.
Waiting around like a good boy wasn't his style anyway, and Elina's tone sure didn't sound like she was trekking to the West Gate herself.
"So, we can call this a temporary alliance?"
Miles asked, now matching stride beside him.
"......"
Jin's Miles-specific noise filter was still engaged, so no reply—but the silence doubled as acceptance.
No point in a deathmatch with a Styx merc right here.
The birdbrain didn't strike him as eager to burn energy pointlessly either, so Jin figured tagging along until they linked up with the group wasn't a bad call.
That's when a sigh-laced mutter wormed into his ear.
"Never thought I'd end up back here."
He glanced over. Vagmar, eyes darting anxiously every which way.
"Not even once in twenty-eight years?"
"Nope. Haven't come anywhere near this place."
Watching the dwarf shake his head brought one of Vagmar's earlier lines flashing back.
"So that's why they call you a traitor? Ditching the king's castle on your own and never coming back?"
"More like I shirked my duty."
"Duty?"
"Yeah. I was engineered as a craftsman to maintain the anti-gravity spell engine. That was my ordained duty. My mission. And I refused."
Vagmar's words bounced off the cold walls and ceiling, stirring faint echoes.
"Hmm?"
Miles cocked his eyebrows at uneven angles.
Jin took a beat to sort his tangled thoughts.
Duty. Apophis. Dwarves. Machines.
His born storyteller left-brain perked up at the rare gig, hammering the keys like mad. Jin scanned the draft and spoke.
"If your creator—the king who saddled you with that duty—is Apophis, then what about the dwarves who designed it and rode it first?"
An age after the gods vanished.
The dwarves refused to stick with the seers.
And hoisted their glory-hugging king's castle straight into the sky, bedrock and all.
The why doesn't matter.
What counted was where those inaugural passengers ended up.
Vagmar answered.
"...If you're hunting the fate of my flesh-and-blood kin, that's beyond me. But if it's 'dwarves' at large you're after—as I said, we didn't go extinct. Apophis exists."
"Captain nailed it, huh?"
Miles muttered, folding his arms.
His forearms—thick and cracked even unflexed—loomed imposingly.
"Interesting."
A smirking profile.
Jin shot him a glance.
Noise canceler off.
"You know something?"
"Eh? Could be. Could not."
Hm. What a pain.
As Jin reached to slap the ear filter back on.
"Show some curiosity, man. Why so quick to bail?"
Miles snapped his fingers for attention.
"Vagmar. How many you figure the city government—and everyone else—have boarded Apophis by now?"
"Beats me."
"Forget round trips—even one-ways? Gotta be a bunch."
"And?"
"They didn't pick up on the weirdness here? Dwarves straight-up evaporated? Ah—sorry."
A casual apology to Vagmar, then Miles again.
"Real question: you think the city government keeps sending expeditions 'cause they genuinely have no clue?"
"Spit it out already."
"No spit. Just curious. For the record, I don't buy they're clueless. Not with the Supreme Council being what it is."
Miles's hand snagged the air in a casual swipe.
A mosquito-swat motion—pop!—ruptured with a burst.
Palm opened floorward.
Shattered metal orbs pattered down.
"They're back?"
Miles muttered.
By then, Jin was already charging dead ahead.
Opposite them, machine dwarves came on like a tidal wave, as per usual.
Speed that made their stubby legs a joke.
But Jin snapping Gravis up was faster still.
Tang—!!
Ear-shredding cracks echoed in staccato.
Holes punched thunk-thunk through the frontrunners' skulls and torsos.
Gravis GZ self-propel rounds were AP by default—built to punch clean through on max penetration. Right now? Nailing it.
As Jin clocked the machines crumpling one after another and spun rotation into his Gravis grip.
Rumble!
Suddenly, one wall shuddered to life.
No chance to suss it out—something loomed from beyond the revolving-door spin.
Ooooooo—!!!
A majestic roar from a behemoth of rock and metal fused as one.
Any fantasy buff would've hollered it right there.
"Golem?!"
Next instant, the metal titan backhanded Jin.
Kwaaang!
House-sized fist cratered the wall in a massive fissure.
Jin dropped from the sky, landing at the golem's wrist. He'd blinked skyward the split-second the punch launched.
"Oof."
A wobble in the shaky perch—fleeting.
Balance reclaimed, Jin bolted up the golem's arm.
Crackle!!
His rolling feet scorched lightning scars into the surface—no mere footprints.
Kwang!
In a blink, he vaulted off the shoulder—perspective-warping stone mask filling his view.
Helmet-like, a cross-crack at its center birthed a crimson glow like a lone optic.
Ziiing!
A beam lanced from it straight at Jin's face. Head snapped instinctively aside. The graze singed past his ear, slammed the ceiling beyond—boom.
Jin leveled Gravis in sync.
Click.
The pistol now hummed with faint light.
Trigger yanked. Midair, a winged shockwave erupted.
Tang—!!
Bullet track synced the beam. Light clove light, kissed the golem's head.
Blast followed.
Stone shards flew wild.
Jin flipped midair off the recoil.
Straight blink to ground.
Shraaak!!
Arrival plus backspin turn—feet kissed dirt first, sliding smooth into stance.
Triggers hammered around him. Jin rose amid toppling machine dwarves.
[Intruder.]
Jin scowled at the voice.
It bypassed his ears, etching letters straight into his brain.
One eye twitched shut involuntarily, head whipping aside—like low magnesium blues.
"What the hell is this?"
Startled words hissed through gritted teeth.
Metal wreckage everywhere yanked toward a nexus by brutal gravity—assembling live.
Clatter!!
Ruuuuumble!
Metal in place of bone and flesh, forging a human silhouette.
It touched down toes-first with eerie grace, speaking from a blank, featureless face.
[Intruder. Purpose. Reason.]
Choppy phrases, searing brands into his mind.
Lip bit raw, Jin revved rotation—as Vagmar's distant scream pierced like a siren.
"...Ah, aaah! No!"
The dwarf huddled on the floor, head clutched like a broken soldier—flashing across Jin's sight.
In that instant, he guessed its nature and spoke.
"...You're Apophis?"
[Apophis. My name. Observer. Chaos. Coming. Future. Lost things. Observe. Store. Your name?]
A jumble of words short of sentences—then the metal humanoid slowly raised an arm.
The whole space shuddered in response.
[New generation, observe, saturation, variable, invariable, clock's pendulum.]
Then.
Dududududududu!!!
From the far horizon, everything collapsed in turn—circles tightening inward.
Hellish chants burrowing into his skull alongside.
[Apophis, my name, god, dwarves' god.]
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