Chapter 2
This post is intended for complete beginners who are playing Project Neo for the first time.
0. Introduction
Before explaining the character-building guides for each life path, I will briefly go over the general background of Project Neo.
Those of you who are not interested in the story can skip directly to the character-building section.
…Omitted…
3. Character-Building Guide
Now we begin the actual character-building guide.
Project Neo has three major life paths, and playable characters receive corresponding benefits from each one.
I have already touched upon the stories associated with the life paths, and players will naturally learn much of that information while playing the game, so I will omit it here.
3-1. Corporate
Cyberware compatibility increased by 25%.
Recommended starting perk: Command
(Eye-shaped constellation)
Recommended trait: Blue Blood
…Omitted…
3-3. Vagrant
Stamina increased by 30%.
Recommended starting perk: Rapid Recovery
(Fist-shaped constellation)
Recommended trait: Irregular
“Hyung! If you start as a Vagrant with those three things, you’re practically a zombie during the early game. Who even needs healing items? You can just trade blows from the very beginning. I’m telling you, the character is ridiculously tough.”
“And it’s not like that advantage only applies to the early game. Since your character is so durable, the entire game becomes much more comfortable. There’s a reason I’m recommending it.”
“It even has great late-game potential. That’s because of the Irregular trait— Ah, hyung, don’t hang up! I’m still explain—”
Jin opened his eyes.
3-2. Noble House
Mana circuits provided.
Recommended starting perk: Immovable Mind
(Heart-shaped constellation)
Recommended trait: Peerless
…Omitted…
His entire body was soaked with sweat, leaving him feeling unpleasantly clammy.
He brushed aside the hair stuck to his forehead and looked toward the gap between the blackout curtains.
Faint fluorescent light seeped into the room.
Orange, yellow, red, turquoise, and blue.
The lights of neon signs toyed with the streets.
Chaotic and disorderly.
A gigantic kaleidoscope known as a city.
Leaving behind the scenery that naturally formed in his mind even without opening the curtains, Jin sat up.
He felt his way along the wall until he reached the bathroom.
As expected of a cheap unmanned motel, the place was covered in mold.
Standing beneath a fluorescent light that flickered weakly, Jin splashed water roughly across his face.
After subjecting himself to a barrage of water slaps that might have impressed even Poseidon, he raised his head.
A reasonably handsome man in his early to mid-twenties stared back from the mirror with bloodshot eyes.
This was Jin, now entering his second year of life in Downtown.
“…I feel like I’m dying.”
He had tossed and turned all night.
It was not because of a nightmare, but because of the high fever and body aches that accompanied his damaged body’s recovery.
Jin felt around his right shoulder blade, more precisely the area around his scapula.
It was where he had been shot the previous day.
Yet the skin was now perfectly smooth, as though nothing had ever happened.
Hmm. It healed.
Jin nodded as if it were nothing.
His indifference was almost astonishing.
The bullet that had struck Jin’s shoulder was a 9×19 mm hollow-point round.
Its tip was hollowed out like a crater, reducing penetration while maximizing the kinetic energy transferred at the point of impact.
In other words, it did not merely pierce its target.
It shattered it.
In fact, Jin had suffered extensive damage to his rotator cuff, beginning with a torn subscapularis muscle.
That was what stopping power meant.
Most people struck under such circumstances would either die from shock or become incapable of continuing to fight.
Yet Jin had not only continued fighting in that condition, but had also fully recovered overnight.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that his body had already stepped beyond the boundaries of common sense.
Of course, Jin did not think deeply about it.
What kind of bullet had wrecked his shoulder the previous day?
Who cared?
The past year had been a relentless struggle for survival.
Jin trusted experience learned through his body far more than organized knowledge or written explanations.
For example, an ordinary knife apparently could not sever his fingers even if he grabbed the blade with his bare hand.
Those were the personal rules he had learned through blood, sweat, and tears.
And as those rules accumulated one by one, Jin grew into a fighter capable of taking down five armed thugs without much difficulty.
That still did not change the fact that he lived from one day to the next.
“Whew.”
Feeling slightly depressed, Jin sighed and tried to look away from his hollow-eyed reflection.
At least, he would have.
Had a translucent window not appeared inside the mirror.
[Complete!] [Adaptation]
Congratulations.
You have survived one year in the back-alley world.
Reward: 1,000 Perk XP
Jin’s expression rapidly darkened.
It became darker than when he had been shot the previous day.
Darker even than when he had pulled the trigger on the heads of the fallen men.
It was not because he had mistaken the date by one day.
Crash!
Without pausing to think, Jin swung his fist and shattered the mirror.
Blood seeped between the thousands of broken glass fragments.
The face reflected in the half-destroyed mirror had already twisted with rage.
“You fucking bastard…”
Jin growled at the new quest window that had appeared after an entire year.
Congratulations?
You throw me into a sewer and congratulate me?
I’m the one who gets to celebrate. Me, not you.
And that celebration ended yesterday.
It was difficult to suppress his anger.
The congratulations offered by the status window—possibly the very cause of everything—were more horrifying than any insult imaginable to a man whose entire thirty-year life had been stolen from him.
Another emotion blazed like wildfire.
A burning thirst for revenge.
Someday, he would smash that perfectly rectangular monster to pieces.
And so Jin made a vow.
For now, I’ll take everything you give me.
But in the end…
A large amount of XP brought with it a sensation of growth.
Feeling the exhilarating energy spread through his entire body, Jin clenched his bleeding fist.
Area 47.
More commonly known as Downtown, it was a hotbed of lawlessness and illegal activity.
Crime and violence ran rampant through its streets.
Even so, there were a few safe zones.
One of them was a twenty-four-hour restaurant called Rum-Pum-Pum-Pum.
The reason was simple.
The hamburgers sold there had been so incredibly delicious that the locals, worried the owner might be killed by a stray bullet, agreed to avoid fighting near the restaurant.
Unfortunately, Jin had never even seen one of those supposedly magnificent hamburgers.
Not because he lacked money.
They simply were not sold anymore.
The owner who had made those incredible burgers had died suddenly from a heart attack, rendering all that protection meaningless.
Apparently, a newly implanted device had triggered a rejection response inside his body.
Not that the details were particularly important.
As a result, Rum-Pum-Pum-Pum seemed destined to decline overnight—from one of Downtown's few famous eateries into an ordinary restaurant that merely retained its name while serving all kinds of cheap food.
Curiously enough, however, the peace agreement somehow survived even after that series of events.
Thus, despite serving food that tasted absolutely awful, the restaurant continued attracting a steady stream of customers, becoming a rather peculiar establishment.
And here sat Jin.
He was having breakfast at Rum-Pum-Pum-Pum.
His favorite seat was a secluded table in the back-right corner of the second floor, overlooking the street.
Beside it sat an old speaker that looked more than twenty years old.
Jin hummed along through his nose to an old-fashioned tune drifting from behind its worn fabric grille as he lifted a meatball speared on his fork to his mouth.
Today's special was meatball spaghetti.
Artificial meat had been rolled into rough balls, tossed onto carelessly boiled noodles, and served as though someone had simply thrown everything onto a plate.
Naturally, it tasted terrible.
But that wasn't what mattered.
What mattered was that it filled his stomach.
That alone made it a hundred... no, a thousand... no, ten thousand times better than going hungry.
Jin still remembered the agony of starvation.
During the first week after being thrown into this unfamiliar world, the thing that tormented him most had not been the violence inflicted upon him...
Nor the bone-chilling cold of the streets at night...
It had been the primal scream rising from his empty stomach.
All day long, it slowly gnawed away at his sanity.
Until, in the end, it turned a person into a beast.
Just remembering those days sent chills down his spine.
Compared to that, it was impossible for these meatballs not to taste delicious.
Before long, Jin cleaned his plate.
As his stomach filled, the foul mood the status window had left him in throughout the day gradually eased.
Dahi... now I finally understand why you used food to relieve the stress you got from work.
But sleeping with another guy was still going too far. Seriously.
Thinking of his cheating ex-girlfriend, who now belonged to another world entirely, Jin gulped down the cola he'd ordered with his spaghetti.
After washing away the lingering taste in his mouth—
Burp.
Just as he let out a loud belch...
“...Got a minute?”
The voice was completely devoid of energy.
Jin turned his head.
A man wearing a hood low over his face was looking his way beneath the dim lighting.
Jin wasn't particularly surprised.
He had noticed the man loitering nearby for quite some time.
Thin build.
Standing with one leg bearing most of his weight.
Center of gravity shifted to the right.
If things go south, sweep his left ankle first.
Having already sized him up, Jin replied,
“You need something from me?”
“Yeah.”
Jin narrowed his eyes slightly.
The man seemed hesitant, not like someone looking to pick a fight.
Besides...
This was Rum-Pum-Pum-Pum.
“Sit down first.”
At Jin's gesture, the man took the seat across from him.
With an awkward expression, he stammered,
“Uh... hello. Nice to meet you. I'm—”
“Hold on. Before that.”
Jin cut him off.
“You gonna eat that?”
“...Huh? Oh, this?”
The man slightly raised the paper bag in his hand.
A waffle was sticking out of the top.
Jin's eyes locked onto it.
His gaze followed the man's hand as it slowly moved to the side.
“...Want it?”
“Thanks.”
Jin immediately snatched the package away.
Before the other man could change his mind, he stuffed a huge bite of waffle into his mouth.
Chewing with puffed cheeks, he asked,
“So, what do you want?”
“I want to hire you.”
“Hm?”
Jin tilted his head.
Had he misheard?
“Me?”
“That's right.”
“...”
“I saw you fighting at the pub yesterday. You're a Solo, aren't you?”
The man asked.
Back in Jin's homeland, that question might have sounded rude.
You're single, right?
With that personality and that face, there's no way you have a girlfriend.
But in Lost City...
Solo.
It was a title of recognition given to fighters whose names had become known to a certain degree.
People whose individual combat ability had earned recognition.
People who built their reputations by completing countless jobs.
In other words...
Mercenaries.
Or, more accurately, bounty hunters.
Of course, Jin wasn't one.
He was merely a day laborer who survived by fighting every single day in a godforsaken neighborhood where simply standing still was enough for someone to start trouble with him.
Then that day laborer thought to himself.
Is being a Solo really that special?
If someone hires me, then I'm a Solo, aren't I?
So he nodded.
“Yeah... I guess I am.”
“...Huh?”
“That's right. A Solo.”
Jin took another large bite of the soggy waffle as he answered.
Come to think of it, today also marked the beginning of his second year in Downtown.
After surviving a year with neither a home nor any possessions...
He had finally been given the chance to accept a job.
If I start working as a Solo, I should at least be able to eat three meals a day.
Getting paid for a contract is a hell of a lot better than digging through the underwear of the guys I beat up for loose change.
That was the conclusion Jin reached.
Perhaps because of that, there was more hope than usual on his face as he chewed the waffle.
Smiling warmly at the man who might become his very first client, he said,
“Just so we're clear—I only accept cash.”