Chapter 9
Chapter 9
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 9
Chapter Title: Random Encounter (4)
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I recalled the name of the movie featuring the world's most famous volleyball.
'Cast Away, I think that was it.'
Nothing particularly special about the plot.
It's a movie with a very ordinary storyline about a delivery company employee who gets stranded on a deserted island during a business trip on a plane.
In novels, comics, or movies, they can't just leave the protagonist alone due to genre conventions.
Stories sending ordinary people to other worlds like medieval fantasy or Qing Dynasty China are so vast and numerous.
It's easier to understand if you think the author sent the person to a real-world deserted island to maintain the world's plausibility.
Anyway.
The reason I suddenly brought up this movie
was because I was starting to understand the protagonist's feelings.
The Cast Away protagonist drifted alone on a deserted island for a whopping four years.
And I had been here for two days, now approaching the third.
…
The dates didn't quite match up.
But excluding the fact that the setting had changed from a 20th-century deserted island to a rootless cyberpunk fusion world, I was in the exact same boat—stranded in another world.
As I sat there with a gloomy expression, making a miserable face,
The massive turret slowly emerged from inside the ceiling.
A presence that had become somewhat familiar now.
My small—no, slightly large—turret friend.
I still instinctively felt fear at the sight of that enormous barrel, but anyway.
I immediately stood up from my spot.
[…Du?]
The turret's barrel pointed toward me.
Ugh, turn that barrel away.
But since the barrel and lens direction were the same, it was probably unavoidable for my turret friend to look at me that way.
A few days ago, I would have been trembling and ready to convert to machine worship,
but my guts had already grown as much as they could over these three days.
Only those prepared to be shot should shoot. I recall it was something like that, said by some emperor.
For the record, I wasn't prepared to get shot. Therefore, the other side wouldn't shoot either.
Roughly completing the miracle of three-stage logic.
I gazed at the glowing red lens and pondered carefully.
"Hmm. What would be good."
[Du, du.]
Was it because I looked unwell?
The turret wiggled its barrel around in what seemed like panic.
Whirrr clank, whirrr clank.
Every time the turret moved, terrifying noises echoed through the grocery store.
'Decent performance AI, she said.'
I recalled the boss's words and continued thinking very seriously.
"…Wilson is too ordinary for starters."
Buddy, Max, Iron….
Never mind that they all sounded like dog names.
No names that really grabbed me came to mind.
I didn't know how long I'd be working at this grocery store,
but I couldn't keep calling my companion for the time being just 'turret' forever.
"Do you have a name you'd like to be called? No, probably not. You might already have a perfectly fine name I don't know about."
[?]
The turret's movement paused briefly at my abrupt question.
[Du.]
The massive barrel slowly nodded up and down.
Very simple body language.
Not hard to understand what it meant.
Well, humans are the kind of beings who name even volleyballs with handprints.
A fairly expensive-looking turret surely had a name.
The turret descended lower from the ceiling.
Very low, so I could see the top of it.
Then its body rotated completely in the opposite direction.
It seemed to want to show me something on the back.
My eyesight had improved considerably too,
so I could read the text on it without getting too close.
"Wow."
Instantly, specs that reminded me of my military partner, the 81mm mortar—a terrifying setup.
So.
"Is that your name?"
[Du.]
"That's a bit too much for a personal name…."
People don't name each other 'human.'
I imagined it for a moment.
Let's try greeting the turret.
- Hi, nice to meet you! NovaRec-A41 Military Tactical Composite 20mm Fortress-Type Autoturret!
Ugh, horrific.
I had to prevent that scenario.
'No choice.'
I let out a sigh and lightly opened my mouth.
"From now on, your name is Nova."
[…Du?]
No questions asked.
Not that it could anyway.
A very simple name, just taking two letters from NovaRec-A41.
Still, it felt a lot less mechanical.
[……Du.]
I didn't know what that sound meant, but since no bullets came flying, it didn't seem too angry.
I'd given the turret—No, Nova—a new name.
But that was only for a moment.
A heavy sigh escaped my lips.
'…What am I even doing.'
For real.
Maybe our Tom bro from Cast Away felt the same.
"This won't do."
Sure enough, people get complicated thoughts when idle.
First, I stretched my stiff body.
Then aired out the place,
checked for any products not following FIFO,
and roughly dusted off the dazed-looking turret.
[Du.]
"Ugh, look at this dust. Live cleaner, will ya."
[…??]
Next stop: the warehouse.
The cool air filling my lungs made my complicated head feel a bit lighter.
Temperature is key for food storage.
Not freezer-level, but the warehouse was quite cold. Fridge-like, maybe.
The expiration date on these hotdogs in the box…
'Oh, already expired.'
Nothing to be done.
I finished it all in under ten minutes.
Perfectly stable flavor. Tasted good even cold.
Thus, I sorted the inventory while checking dates and times, filling my belly as a bonus.
'About five boxes.'
Already this many expired products piled up.
No matter how much my appetite had grown, I couldn't dump all the food into my stomach.
Since the store hadn't been open long, nothing had rotted yet.
Still, trash needed trashing.
No special procedure for discarding expired goods.
Behind the grocery store building, connected to the warehouse, there's a back door.
Last time I peeked, there was an empty lot about the size of the building.
In a neighborhood with high building coverage ratios, land prices are high, but for some reason, it was vacant undeveloped land.
The large dumpster I used was there.
Big enough to handle all the store's trash with room to spare.
Whistling lightly, I hauled the expired food out box by box.
Come to think of it,
I remember seeing a similar news article online.
(Shock) America's Reality of Throwing Away Perfectly Good Food.
Something like that title.
They don't even sort recyclables properly there.
'Not my problem.'
I was about to toss the box whole into the dumpster when
"……!!"
I spotted a homeless man living in it.
What the—
The disheveled homeless guy, perhaps hiding from the biting cold wind, looked up at me in shock from inside.
"B-Bandit?! I got nothin'!"
Under the streetlight, my shadow looked like a murderer about to hurl a boulder at an innocent person.
I grimaced and spoke.
"Mister, you can't sleep here."
"We look about the same age, what's with the 'mister'."
"…?!"
Boom!!
Lightning struck my head.
…What?
I took a closer look at the homeless man in front of me.
Shaggy beard, dark circles, sunken eyes.
At face value, he looked easily over fifty, yet he claimed we were close in age….
Even as someone from the land of propriety, it was hard to keep using polite speech here.
Courtesy is like catchball.
If the other side doesn't show courtesy, neither do I.
The scruffy homeless man seemed to realize I meant no harm, sighing in relief and grumbling.
"Scared the piss outta me. You look like some gang boss…."
"……."
"Whatever."
His brazen attitude left me speechless instead.
The self-proclaimed young homeless man waved his hand dismissively and crawled out of the large dumpster.
For a moment, he scanned me up and down.
Then his eyes widened at the box I held.
"Th-That!!"
"What."
This time, I was the brazen one.
"That's from the grocery store! D-Did you steal it?"
Sure enough, his mindset was different from others.
No wonder he was homeless.
"Nah, here to throw it out."
"That perfectly good stuff?!"
"Expiration date's passed."
Maybe because our first meeting was so absurd.
Unlike other homeless folks who looked scary just to see, I could have a stable conversation with this one.
Well, everyone's human here.
And a sense of foreboding.
The homeless man took a step toward me.
I stepped back.
"Hey now."
"…Wait, wait, calm down and hear me out."
Calm down? That's you.
The homeless man seemed to have figured out I worked at the store.
"You're here to throw away food, right."
"Yeah."
"Means whether the food you discard goes to the dump or a poor starving homeless guy's stomach doesn't matter to you."
Not half-polite or anything—what's with the speech pattern.
His eyes were spinning that much.
"What are you trying to say exactly?"
I asked even though I had a hunch.
Under that heavy pressure.
A wail burst from the homeless man.
"If you're throwing it away, please throw it to me! No, give it! Feed it to me! Right here!"
"……."
Guess he was really hungry.
Long story short.
The homeless man got his hands on boxes full of frozen food.
"So good!! Why is this so good…."
But another problem arose.
"Thank you…."
"How long's it been since proper food."
"…Sob, sob sob. So good. Best meal today."
Today's living point.
Crying homeless summon more homeless.
Like wild animal instincts.
'Should've just left the stuff and run.'
The lot filled with homeless people.
But no real problems arose.
"…Any booze left, guh!!"
The one spouting nonsense got punched in the jaw by another nearby homeless and staggered back.
Iron fist enforcement right away.
Even 15th-century medieval times weren't this harsh.
'I give up.'
It was already out of my hands.
I could only hope the news reached Boss Christine late.
And then.
One homeless man approached me with very cautious steps.
Another thank you?
But his question was unexpected.
"…Uh, any hotdogs left? Or con dogs."
A slightly peculiar question.
At the same time, another homeless smacked the back of his head.
Crack!
"You bastard! Acting full already?!"
"No, what I meant…."
The man's words had some merit.
"All sorts of frozen foods, but no plain hotdogs? Weird, right…."
I answered with an awkward smile.
"Well, there were about ten boxes."
"Right?"
"I ate 'em all."
Might as well stick to casual speech.
No one here seemed to care about formalities anyway.
Hotdogs were seriously delicious.
Maybe because it was the first food I ate when I woke up in this world.
My hand kept going to them.
Hearing my answer, the homeless exchanged glances and murmured.
"…Ate ten boxes alone? Not some corporate enhanced human?"
"Holy…."
"No wonder no hotdogs…."
Too late for regrets,
but I shouldn't have answered that way.
From then on.
"Hey, Hotdog Man! Tell us if anything happens!"
"Yeah, you're our superhero!"
Every homeless I ran into started calling me Hotdog Man.
"……."
Should've said nothing.
Ignore the spawn point first and head straight to the grocery store building.
(Map screenshot)
Behind it is an empty lot with a dumpster—know this, and early survival gets way easier.
Every 3 game days, it replenishes food to fill satiety.
Even on hardcore, this alone makes it manageable.
Reason to find the dumpster first: time-limited event.
If 3 days pass since character creation, the garbage truck empties it.
Find it before then, and you'll meet early survival NPC Michael inside.
If you've seen the pinned game guide, you know he's a decent early support NPC.
(Check pinned if not)
Event NPC Michael has lines about recently arriving in Area 49 and living in the dumpster.
Why save this furry guy? Helps for corporate route later.
Linked events exist—no spoilers, keeping it brief.
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Thanks for reading.
Upvotes appreciated.