Chapter 22
For the past few days, Jin had been having an absolutely miserable time.
Had he gotten hurt again?
No. He had gotten into a few confrontations, but he hadn’t suffered any particular injuries.
Was he hungry, then?
Five meals a day. At least two bowls per meal.
No further explanation was necessary.
Was he agonizing over which skill to invest in?
He had already decided which star he wanted to light up. He was simply a little short on experience points.
The true source of Jin’s suffering was something else entirely.
I have too much money...
Looking back, Jin had been a penniless bum who could barely scrape together enough pocket change for a single slice of cake until very recently.
He had spent everything he earned from his first job on Gravis. The money had vanished like a credit card payment, so it had never really felt like it belonged to him in the first place.
Then, all of a sudden, he was handed the enormous sum of twenty-five million credits.
Of course he couldn’t handle it.
All day long, he treated the money bag like some honored master, constantly checking whether his precious money was doing well or feeling uncomfortable.
Open the zipper.
Close it.
Open it again.
Close it again.
There was a reason people said you had to know how to spend money before you could spend it well.
The only luxuries Jin had allowed himself so far were mostly food expenses.
Aside from that, he had bought a helmet with wireless calling capabilities and obtained spare magazines for Gravis from Brof.
As a result, the money bag was still heavy.
He knew how ridiculous this sounded, but honestly...
It felt like he was carrying around a giant lump on his body.
The same was true now.
He had run out of cash in his pockets, so he parked Manticore in a secluded alley and hurriedly pulled out a bundle of banknotes before anyone could see.
Then a cat suddenly leaped out.
Jin instinctively aimed Gravis at it.
The cat bolted away, but Jin was even more startled than it was. He quickly lowered the muzzle.
Then he slumped into a crouch.
Playing bodyguard for a bag of money was tolerable for a day or two.
At this rate, he was going to develop a nervous disorder.
...Should I just rent a place?
He considered it seriously, but rejected the idea.
He would still have to leave the rest of the money at home.
How was he supposed to trust Downtown’s public safety?
And the money bag wasn’t his only problem.
Manticore was another reason the wrinkles on Jin’s face were deepening.
It was all because the thing was so beautiful.
Don’t believe him?
Then take a look yourself.
Both the front and rear were fitted with twenty-one-inch custom wheels and massive tires, along with a sexy matte-khaki body reborn through an expert’s craftsmanship.
The scratches and dents here and there were unfortunate, but they could still be brushed off as minor signs of use.
In Downtown, where people supposedly looked down on anything too clean as soft and pampered—at least according to Jin—Manticore was the kind of machine anyone would covet.
That meant he worried every time he parked it.
What if some thieving bastard stole it?
He even woke up several times a night to check the motel parking lot.
At this point, it wasn’t paranoia over a cheating wife.
It was the early stages of motorcycle paranoia.
Something had gone seriously wrong.
I can’t live like this anymore.
After making that decision, Jin fiddled with his terminal and searched through his very short contact list.
In the end, Khalifa was his only option.
His pride as a Korean man wouldn’t allow it, but perhaps he should ask for a favor.
He could leave the money with her and borrow her parking space.
While he was at it, he could get her to feed him and sleep together—
Did Pow toss and turn much in his sleep?
As if.
“...Fuck.”
Unable to bring himself to press the call button, Jin dropped his head.
He spent a long while sighing heavily enough to sink the ground.
Then, just as he was rising with a look of resignation, a memory suddenly flashed through his mind.
He hurriedly turned the terminal back on and checked today’s date.
Then he slapped a hand against his forehead.
“Oh, right. Rum-pum-pum-pum.”
***
“So you’re saying you were really busy last week?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
Jin nodded and took a huge bite out of the sandwich in his hand.
Then he tilted his head.
Why does the bacon feel like I’m chewing paper?
As Jin inspected the cross-section of the remaining sandwich with a grave expression, Jenny, who was sitting across from him, spoke.
“Then you should’ve told us in advance that you probably couldn’t make it. The two of us waited until three in the morning.”
“Haha. I didn’t mind...”
Jackie, who was apparently the “him” in “the two of us,” gave an awkward laugh.
Whatever.
Jin shoved the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and replied through badly muffled words.
“I wanted to tell you too. But the circuits in my terminal completely melted...”
Jenny silently listened as he rambled on with explanations that were only barely not excuses.
Eventually, she uncrossed her arms.
“So, is your body all right?”
“The terminal’s circuits wouldn’t have melted for no reason.”
“Ah... I did spend some time in the hospital, but I’m completely fine now. Want to see?”
Jin lifted his shirt slightly and showed off his washboard abs.
Jenny stared at them before furrowing her brow.
“That’s unfair. How do you eat that much and not have a single bit of fat?”
“Maybe... maybe he poops an incredible number of times?”
Jin’s brow twitched at Jackie’s suggestion.
His voice might tremble, but there was apparently nothing he couldn’t bring himself to say.
In any case, the misunderstanding had been cleared up.
The three of them resumed their meal after meeting again for the first time in two weeks.
For Jin, it was one of the few peaceful moments he had.
Which made it all the more absurd.
Why did Khalifa have to contact him right then?
“Yeah, Khalifa. I’m eating right now, so I’ll call you back in a—”
[No. Jin. It’s urgent.]
Her firm voice cut him off and entered his ear without delay.
[I sent you a URL by text. It isn’t a virus, so you can safely open it. A navigation app should install automatically. Head to the coordinates marked there. I’ll explain the details over the call.]
“Right now?”
[Right now.]
Jin lowered the terminal slightly from his ear and sighed at the siblings, who were looking at him as though asking what had happened.
“...I have to go.”
Vrooooom!
Manticore glided across the road.
“What the hell is going on?”
Jin changed lanes and overtook the vehicle ahead.
Khalifa’s voice came through the inside of his newly purchased helmet.
[Don’t be alarmed. An artifact believed to date back to the Age of Light and Roses has been discovered in Downtown. It was listed on the dark web today, and its shape and characteristics bear a remarkable resemblance to descriptions in historical records.]
...An artifact?
The Age of Light and Roses?
What the hell is she talking about now?
Jin wasn’t surprised in the slightest.
Then Khalifa’s voice snapped him back to attention.
[Jin? Are you listening?]
“Yeah, yeah. Keep going.”
[Then I’ll continue. The reason I’m certain the artifact was found in Downtown is simple. The seller left a trail—]
That was the last part of the explanation Jin could understand.
Everything after that entered one ear and escaped straight out the other without passing through a filter.
To summarize it simply:
The dark web was a cybernetic black market that required special authorization or specific software to access.
People on the outside had no way of knowing what was being bought or sold there.
Things were different for those inside, however. Customers using the black market could vaguely sense one another’s presence.
It was something like a masquerade.
Everyone’s face was hidden, but if you looked closely at their build, listened to their voice, and noticed their manner of speaking, you might realize,
Oh, that’s Cheolsu.
And greet them with,
Good to see you, Cheolsu.
That was the general idea.
For that reason, dark-web users normally concealed their identities behind two or three layers of data-encryption tools.
Yet for some reason, the artifact’s seller had failed to follow that process properly.
[The account was encrypted less than a minute later, but by then it was already too late. Everyone who was going to see it had already seen it. Pow was one of them.]
Jin turned the handlebars as he listened.
Manticore leaned left with his body and swept smoothly around the bend before straightening and accelerating again.
“Pow did? How?”
[Pure coincidence. Pow has a great deal of interest in relics from the past, so he routinely browses the intranet whenever he has time. Today, that browsing happened to lead him onto the dark web.]
So he had such a refined hobby?
Jin thought as he asked,
“So? Did he buy it?”
[If he had, I wouldn’t have contacted you. The artifact has already been sold. And right now, it’s on its way to the buyer.]
“On its way?”
[By the way, Jin, are you still far away? You should be able to see them soon.]
Only then did Jin realize something was strange.
He glanced toward the navigation display.
The route, which had previously been shown only as a line, had now narrowed into two points drawing closer together.
That meant he was almost at the destination.
But...
Wait. Why is the destination moving?
After confirming that the destination was traveling along the same straight road as him, Jin quickly raised his head.
And saw it.
A black van tearing down the boulevard at tremendous speed.
And several motorcycles surrounding it as though providing an escort.
“Khalifa?! Care to explain what exactly I’m looking at?”
[So you found them. They’re a gang called Sweet Dream. They’re the lucky ones who found the artifact. They’re also idiots who have no idea they’ve been reverse-traced.]
“You said this was navigation. It was a tracking device?”
[That isn’t the important part.]
Her voice carried a faint smile.
[So today, I’m not Khalifa the Linker. I’m Khalifa the client.]
She continued,
[Well then, Solo? May I give you a job? Retrieve the ring-shaped artifact from them.]
Jin sighed.
“Hey. You can’t keep doing things this way. I have a private life too.”
[I apologize if I offended you. We didn’t have another option. You were the only Solo in Downtown we could reach.]
Then she added,
[In exchange, I’ve prepared a generous reward.]
Even while accelerating, Jin listened closely to the most important part.
[Ten million credits as a base payment, plus twenty-five percent of the artifact’s appraised value after recovery. And naturally, there won’t be any commission, since there’s no irritating broker involved. What do you think?]
Jin chuckled at Khalifa’s self-deprecating joke.
“Fine. Job accepted.”
[For reference, Sweet Dream’s main business is human trafficking. They’re scum, so there’s no need to feel sorry for them. Good luck.]
The call disconnected immediately afterward.
Now left completely alone, Jin fixed the targets in his sight.
Eight motorcycles in total.
They still hadn’t noticed him.
In that case, he would end this quickly.
Jin twisted the throttle hard.
VROOOOOOM!
Manticore roared forward, weaving between lanes in a zigzag as it rapidly closed the distance.
Jin caught up to the gang in an instant and drew Gravis from his waist.
He had no intention of firing it.
Even Jin couldn’t casually blast away with Gravis one-handed while riding at over 120 kilometers per hour.
Instead, he gripped the barrel rather than the handle.
Then, carrying the full momentum of his overtaking speed, he smashed it into the back of the rearmost gang member’s head.
CRUNCH!
With a sound impossible to believe had come from a human body, the man’s face slammed into his instrument panel.
A moment later, the riderless motorcycle lost control and skidded across the asphalt in a shower of sparks.
At the noise, the remaining gang members jerked their heads around.
“Wh-what the hell?!”
“Him!”
“What is this?! Enemy attack!”
At the same time, another head burst apart.
This time, a gang member whose face had been crushed flat went sailing through the air.
His body struck the road and bounced several times like a ball.
Naturally, human bodies weren’t nearly as elastic as balls.
By the second bounce, every one of his limbs had already snapped.
“Fucking bastard!”
Enraged by their comrades’ gruesome deaths, the others drew knives from their waists almost simultaneously.
Then they all accelerated toward the khaki motorcycle.
Jin watched them through his mirrors.
“Kill that son of a bitch!”
VROOOOOOM!
The roar of overheated engines announced the beginning of the battle on the highway.