Chapter 63
#063
1.
My consciousness was hurled into a black sea.
A deep, black sea.
A place where all I could do was drift like a trash bag.
“Ahh, I see....”
Did Cedric die again? Ced-died-again, for short.
When I first came here, it was seriously fucked up, scary, and heartbreaking.
Now that I come here so often, it just feels like my own room.
“Hah, I awakened a new technique.... I cut through Sunming....”
Now with Death Sentence, I can cut not just living things, but objects too!
Maybe it's even an S-rank sorcery that can cut lightning!
And the price of using such an awesome spell is dying from the backlash?!!!
The likely hideout for the slush fund I'd been searching for was right in front of me.
Sunming had even done the move-in cleaning, so all I had to do was rummage through it at ease.
But Sunming's punch had wrecked my side, so it looked like I'd have to retry this.
“Fuck my life.”
As I was lamenting that...
I felt as if someone were sucking me in with a pipette.
Seriously, it's such a weird sensation I can't even describe it.
It felt like my consciousness, which had been sinking along on a wire, was being forcibly pulled back up.
At the same time.
Dull pain spread through the parts of my body that had felt nothing.
Mostly my elbows—and especially my side.
At the same time, my once-clear consciousness grew murkier than muddy water.
“J-just bear with it a little longer... Master... ugh...! Why, why are you so heavy!”
The sensation of someone grabbing my ankles and dragging me along.
My back scraping against something.
With the timeline and my thoughts both a complete mess.
I could hear Sion's voice here and there.
“Even if it hurts, endure it.”
Huh?
-KRRRK!
Fuck!!!! What the hell! What did you do?!!!
It hurts, it hurts! It fucking hurts!!!
I grabbed Boksoon's cheek and tried to stop this heinous act right away.
But it felt like I was lying in a recovery room after surgery under full anesthesia.
I couldn't move even a single finger by my own will.
My consciousness would connect in fragments, then repeatedly sink into a deep, heavy sleep.
I could feel a warm halo of light wrapping around my body.
Through it all, Sion's voice drifted in and out.
“Aaah. Open up. That's right.”
“Get up already. When you wake, you must offer this one some chewy rice cakes.”
“This one personally prefers mochi that's been out for about three hours over freshly made mochi. Its particular chewiness is nice.”
I couldn't fully make sense of it.
“…Uuu, this one doesn't like being alone anymore.”
It was the feeling of fully perceiving every sentence, yet being utterly unable to decipher it.
“…My body heat keeps....”
“Haa, just this once. Don't get any dirty ideas.”
“Mmm, it's cold.”
“…Huh? What is this? Something's getting in the way... eek?!”
“Th... this... could it be...?”
At times, I could feel a warm body heat beside me.
How much time passed like that?
“Hup!!!”
My eyes flew open.
What filled my vision was an unfamiliar ceiling.
A cramped little storeroom.
A musty smell of mold.
Dim lighting from mushrooms taken from the mushroom factory and stuffed into a lamp.
Ah.
It's the husband-and-wife con artist duo's secret storehouse.
I was lying in the middle of it, covered with an old blanket.
My brilliant brain, rivaling Nietzsche's, had already assessed the situation the moment I woke.
“Hmmmmm!!! Cedric is back!”
Good job, Jabjo! You little scamp!
You dragged me all the way here!
“Wow, that one was really dangerous.”
I've died a few times, so I know—felt like I'd come back after getting a footbath service in the River Styx.
My body had been trashed to the point where one wrong move would have killed me outright.
“Thank you, blazing life.”
I thanked the relic that had managed a super save with its sub-trait.
As I brushed back my sweat-soaked hair, I sensed something odd.
“Huh?”
My body didn't hurt at all.
This arm I casually moved like usual had definitely been crunched to pieces like a cookie....
But now it moved perfectly at my will.
And what I felt at my side wasn't pain, but something warm and soft....
-Flap
I lifted the blanket.
First, I finally got a proper grasp of my condition.
I was completely, totally naked.
And Sion, stuck to my side and drooling all over my stomach, was buck naked as well, naturally.
“Mmm.... Turn the light off....”
Lifting the blanket apparently dazzled Sion, and she opened her eyes to a sleepy squint.
“...Huh?”
Even so, she was a vampire, and I met her red eyes glowing in the dark.
“Kyaaaaaa!!!”
“Kyaaaaaa!!!”
We screamed in unison.
2.
“You beast... while I was unconscious, you went and did this without permission.... Sob, I'm soiled. I can never get married now....”
“Hah... I’m feeling a rage I've never felt in my life.”
Sion, hurrying to get dressed, put a hand on her side and made an incredulous face.
“Didn't I say it was to maintain body heat!”
“Lies! You were just touching me all over!”
“Don't be ridiculous! Do you think I did it because I wanted to call myself 'this one'?!”
“So you didn't touch me?!”
“............It merely brushed against you! Do you think this one is a lech like you?!”
What.
“You really touched me?!”
“Quiet, quiet, quiet...!”
Right.
Honestly, I'll admit I'm nitpicking.
I'm just embarrassed and shy.
My chest is all tingly, and I'm really weak to this kind of thing.
Anyway.
As you can see, I lived. Thanks to Sion.
Sion had dragged my half-corpse from the settling tank all the way here,
and apparently spent a full day treating me until I was barely kept alive.
“But how?”
It's not like this shithole sewer has an operating room.
I was one step away from dying.
And yet I healed cleanly without a single bruise.
“This one is, after all, a true ancestor vampire. Even if I've lost my power, what kind of thing is this supposed to stop me from doing?”
Sion sucked down the five blood packs she'd packed and converted them into life force.
Then she cast healing magic on half-corpse Cedric.
Sion turned out to be that precious rarity—a healer.
“Hey. Wait a sec.”
After thinking it over, I tilted my head.
“Why are you hiding so much stuff?”
Come to think of it, she also brought up the slush fund late.
She didn't say she could use healing magic either.
“…W-well, women are supposed to have lots of secrets.”
“You’re one sly little thing.”
Sion averted her gaze.
Well, she was a bit annoying, but it was understandable.
From the start, Sion and I hadn't built that much trust.
From Sion's perspective, it was only natural.
It's not like I had opened up everything to Sion either.
“Anything else you're hiding?”
“No!”
“Really? Nothing?”
“No!”
Sion, who had been shaking her head furiously in denial,
huffed in renewed irritation when I poked her side.
“I shouldn't have saved you! If I’d known you'd be this ungrateful, I would've left you behind! Hand over some mochi as treatment fees! I said hand it over!”
Maybe it was a calculated strategy to hide her own mistake with exaggerated anger.
She looks dumb, but I guess I should say she's kind of sly.
Still, I had to get the important part cleared up.
“Hey, Boksoon. If I hadn't super-awakened, you'd have died right there. You got hurt protecting me, didn't you?”
“Ghk!”
“We each owe the other a life. So I can't keep accepting endless offerings of mochi. Got it?”
“Uuuugh!!!”
Sion grumbled, still sulking about the mochi.
“Next time, I will absolutely not save you!”
The back of Sion's head looked thoroughly pissed off.
How can the back of a head look so angry like that?
It was astounding.
You little rascal, you cute little rascal.
I should buy her some mochi when we get out.
3.
And so Sion and I began searching the settling tank.
Sunming had cleaned everything up, and with no cleaners around, we could enjoy an uninterrupted treasure hunt.
Even so, it was a vast space that was hard to believe was underground.
At this point, it felt almost like searching for treasure in a basketball arena, stands included.
-Tok-tok-tok
First, I rummaged through the piles of trash to see if there was anything there.
Then I checked for hollow spaces by pounding the walls and floor with a crowbar I found nearby.
“Hey, don't just half-ass it—be thorough!”
“I already am!”
We repeated this cycle four times: three hours of work, ten minutes of rest.
And the result was....
“Don't make me laugh!!!! Fuck!!!”
Very, very disappointingly, it was a bust.
There was nothing.
No usable items, no clues, nothing—just a clean miss that left not even a shred of lingering attachment.
“Boksoon, let's go back.”
“Won't you search a little more?”
“I want to, too, but I don't think there’s anything left anyway.”
“Uuu....”
According to genre convention, it should have been here.
We went through this hell, and even defeated the boss guarding the reward room.
But the world doesn't always flow according to genre rules.
If things had flowed according to genre convention, Cedric would by now...
be walking around with a jealous princess and a prim saint tucked under each arm, going, 'Ahhh~ what a hassle~'
It's dangerous to assume that spending a lot on opportunity cost guarantees success.
That's the perfect mindset for blowing your investment.
-Gnash gnash
“M-master, that's scary. Stop that.... Weren't you the one who said to come here? This one never recommended it!”
I was on the way home, grinding my teeth so hard my molars could've shattered.
My steps were both heavy and light.
Including the time I was laid out all day, I'd spent about fifty hours rotting in this old sewer.
Emptiness and the joy of finally getting out of this miserable cesspit mingled together.
When I get home, I'll give Arbel his medicine, boil some hot water, and take a shower.
“Boksoon, do you like booze?”
“Booze? Of course! I like it!”
“Then want to have a drink when we get home?”
“What's gotten into you? You were running around like the world was ending tomorrow.”
“You need to recharge sometimes. It's on me.”
“This one would like mochi as a drinking snack.”
That damn mochi.
She only likes ridiculously expensive stuff.
“Then want to play drinking games too? If you win, I'll give you mochi.”
“What? What is a drinking game?”
“Games you play while drinking. There are lots of fun ones. I'll teach you.”
“Very well, I accept the challenge! This one likes amusement too!”
Just then.
-Splash splash
I narrowed my eyes at a strange sound from somewhere.
I quietly edged around the corner, and beyond that thick iron bars.
I saw a single cleaner calmly swimming through the wastewater.
It was using a trident to collect trash and organize it with a net.
“What are you looking at? Gah...! R-run...!”
“It's fine. We're on the other side of the bars anyway.”
The old sewer's rule.
Did the rule that 'what sinks belongs to the sewer' not really apply to the cleaners?
“Master, let's hurry home.”
Like I said, it's on the other side of thick iron bars anyway.
We can just pretend not to see it and go home.
“Hold on. Let me think.”
But something kept bothering me.
I desperately racked my brain to see if I'd missed something.
Settling tank, the true ancestor's slush fund.
The cleaner corpses scattered in the settling tank.
“Let's go back for a second.”
I turned back and reentered the settling tank.
-KWA-KWA-KWA!!!
The stream of wastewater was still crashing down with a booming sound, as if it had been chugging bokbunja wine.
A black lake formed by wastewater of all colors.
First, I picked up the lower half of Sunming that was lying around.
“Heave-ho.”
And threw it into the black lake.
-Splash!
The moment the lower half dropped into the sewage, it splashed filthy water everywhere.
-Whirrr!
Black tentacles wrapped around Sunming's lower half and dragged it into the abyss in an instant.
Even the blood that rose to the surface quickly diluted and disappeared.
A clean feast.
The first rule of this place—'what sinks belongs to the sewer'—was still in effect.
“…….”
I stared down at the scene, stroking my chin.
Strange.
The rule is absolute.
If it sinks, it gets devoured.
But what was that I saw earlier?
The cleaner calmly swimming beyond the iron bars wasn't wrapped in tentacles, nor was it digested.
“Why is that guy an exception?”
Because it's simply a native monster of this place?
“Jabjo, take a look around the cleaner corpses.”
“What the hell kind of creepy nonsense is that all of a sudden?”
“I'll buy you mochi to go with the drinks. Pick the ones that are less damaged.”
“Leave it to this one!”
With one hypothesis in mind, I conducted a few more experiments.
-Splash! Splash! Splash!
I put the cleaner corpses Sunming had killed into the black lake one by one.
Starting with the ones whose diving suits were the most damaged, then less damaged, then barely damaged at all.
The result.
The more damaged the diving suit, the faster the tentacles reacted and swallowed the cleaner's corpse.
By contrast, the less damaged ones reacted more slowly.
Finally, when I threw in a corpse that had died from internal rupture, leaving the diving suit apparently intact.
“…98. 99. 100.”
The wastewater didn't react.
“Oh ho. So that's the gimmick?”
Now I get it.
Those diving suits the con artist couple had hidden in their treasure vault.
So that's why they treated them like sacred treasures!
“Breathe and love-dive!!!”
Bring the diving suit right now!
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