Chapter 4
Jenny was a fairly competent BH editor.
Being a competent BH editor meant having the talent to maximize a video’s visual appeal.
It meant possessing the sense to remove or revise unnecessary emotions, while emphasizing or suppressing particular sensations at precisely the right moments.
Perhaps that was why she had earned a great deal of money at first.
After producing several BHs that allowed people to experience the lives of the upper class, commoners consumed by vanity had willingly opened their wallets.
The steady stream of numbers appearing in her bank account had been incredibly satisfying. For the first month or two, she had even stayed in hotels and indulged in whatever she pleased, just like the protagonists in her videos.
Of course, that pleasure had not lasted long.
“...An extreme-poverty experience? Are you insane? Who would watch something like this?”
“Who do you think? Rich bastards. Pigs with so much money that now they even want to buy the experience of being poor.”
Those were the words of the producer she had been working with, spoken as he bared his nicotine-yellowed teeth.
The raw footage he brought her was utterly horrific.
A beggar dressed in filthy rags became the target of someone’s anger and was savagely beaten. Afterward, the beggar wandered the streets with a battered, ragged body until hunger drove them to reach into a pile of food waste.
While desperately stuffing their stomach, the shop owner suddenly appeared and shouted at them. Startled, the beggar fled, only to be struck and sent flying by an autonomous truck.
The footage then faded out on the sight of passersby walking around the beggar’s body as though it were a piece of discarded junk, blood spreading across the pavement beneath them.
Her head grew hot.
Who had installed the BH implant in the first place?
The beggar was even a young child.
“Clean up the tactile and taste sensations properly. If it hurts too much or tastes too disgusting, people will lose their minds, got it? Hmm, we’ll probably have to adjust the smell too. Seriously, why did the little shit have to eat something so revolting? Oh! And don’t forget to minimize the suicidal impulses. And...”
Jenny could not remember the rest of the producer’s directions.
All she remembered vividly was clinging to a toilet and vomiting her guts out.
Jenny quit that very day.
She donated every cent she had earned to help the poor. It was only much later that she saw on the news that the organization she had donated to was a fraudulent charity.
Editing was the only skill she had learned, so when Jenny eventually returned to working with BHs, she limited herself strictly to projects intended for the public good.
Construction-site safety regulations, public-facility evacuation guides, and similar instructional videos.
Her salary became pitifully small, but at least her conscience no longer troubled her.
Then she was kidnapped.
By a gang of bastards planning to enter the illegal BH business.
Their ambitions were exactly as low-class as one would expect.
They wanted to produce experiences in which intoxicated customers were sexually violated.
When Jenny raised hell and declared that she would rather die than make such a thing, they first stopped feeding her.
The second time, they cut off her water.
That had been one day ago.
Was this the kind of pain that child had suffered?
People wanted to experience something like this?
Fucking lunatics.
Her consciousness was gradually fading when loud banging and furious shouts began alternating beyond the door.
What was happening?
Jenny barely managed to lift her head.
Bang!
The steel door buckled inward.
A moment later, the handle rattled violently up and down before suddenly stopping, as though whoever was outside had finally realized the door was locked from within.
A brief silence followed.
Then came another deafening crash.
The door tore free along with its hinges, revealing someone forcing their shoulder through the doorway.
It was an unfamiliar face.
With one hand, the man held the bloodied head of a gang member. Backlit by orange-red illumination, he opened his mouth.
“Jenny?”
“...Huh?”
“Blonde hair and green eyes. That’s you.”
As Jin spoke, he casually flicked his hand.
The gang member he had been holding flew in that direction, smashed face-first into the wall, and slid down, leaving a streak of blood behind.
“W-Who are you?”
“I came to rescue you.”
Jin crouched and examined Jenny.
Her eyes were sunken, and her complexion was gaunt.
Lying on the floor with her hands and feet bound behind her, she looked utterly pitiful.
“How did you know... I was here?”
“Your brother told me.”
As he spoke, Jin wedged his index finger beneath the cable tie binding Jenny’s wrists.
He pulled with force.
Pop!
The restraint snapped apart.
“Ah...”
Jenny groaned in pain and rubbed her newly freed wrists while watching Jin break the restraints around her ankles in the same way.
“...Are you a Solo?”
“Probably?”
Pop!
The second cable tie snapped.
It was an astonishing display of brute strength.
Jenny was surprised.
Jin was surprised too.
I’ve gotten stronger, haven’t I?
He had only gained one additional Perk, yet he felt nearly twice as strong as before.
There was a reason it had been the final skill.
“Can you walk?”
“Sorry... I don’t have any strength.”
Jenny tried to push herself upright with her hands, but immediately collapsed again.
Anyone would end up like this after going three days without food and one full day without water.
In truth, Jenny was so dizzy that she could barely remain conscious. At that moment, she could not even tell whether the blaring emergency alarm ringing through the building was real or merely an auditory hallucination.
“Then stay lying down for a moment.”
Jin removed his jacket and rolled it into a bundle.
He placed it beneath Jenny’s head, planted a hand on his knee, and stood.
As he stepped across the threshold, his widened field of vision naturally fell upon the distorted faces of the gangsters gathered outside.
“What the fuck...”
“What kind of fucked-up situation is this?”
Several of them muttered curses as they spotted their comrades writhing on the floor.
Then heavy footsteps began thudding behind them.
A moment later, someone shoved his way through the group and stepped forward.
“Which bastard did this?!”
His enraged face resembled that of a gorilla.
He was a massive man with threatening cyberarms, each fitted with an enormous hydraulic cylinder at the elbow.
“You fucking bastard. Was it you? You’re the one who’s been tearing through my place like a horny dog humping everything in sight?”
What an expression.
Jin gave a faint snort of amusement.
It was not entirely inaccurate.
He was not sure whether he qualified as a horny dog, but it was true that he had torn through someone else’s establishment.
Then again, why had they hidden it so thoroughly?
It had been a pain in the ass to find.
“Looks like you’re after our editor. I don’t know who sent you, but you’re dead. A man should know where he can afford to stretch his legs. You insignificant little shit.”
The gorilla-like man’s bulging eyes swept Jin from head to toe as though scanning him.
It was not merely a figure of speech. The electronic eye embedded in his socket flashed red.
Only then did his brow furrow, as if he had noticed something strange.
“...You don’t have a single implant?”
He spoke as though he had just encountered someone who lived their entire life standing on their head.
Someone in such a pristine, unmodified state was practically a protected natural monument.
Of course, bodies that remained completely untouched were not entirely unheard of.
There were old-fashioned fanatics known as Purists, people steeped in anti-implant ideology.
Descendants of swords and magic who rejected the cutting edge of the modern age.
Or those who followed their beliefs.
However, there was no trace of the distinctive blue energy known as mana around this man, despite the fact that he had effortlessly crushed the gorilla-man’s subordinates with his bare hands.
And so, the gorilla-man reached his own conclusion.
“Don’t tell me you’re an enhanced human.”
At that very moment, Jin kicked off the floor.
He talks way too much.
Does he fight with his mouth?
Whoosh!
Jin closed the distance in an instant, leaning his upper body diagonally as he swung his drawn-back fist in a wide arc.
An overhand right accompanied by a blast of compressed air.
The gorilla-man flinched and raised his left arm.
A moment later, a sound that seemed impossible for a collision between metal and flesh thundered through the underground chamber.
Boom!
“...You’re fucking insane!”
The impact reverberated through his entire arm, drawing a curse from the gorilla-man’s lips.
But Jin’s attack did not end there.
A left body shot followed immediately, slamming into the gorilla-man’s completely exposed abdomen.
“Guh!”
The only reason he managed to remain standing despite the air bursting from his lungs was the reinforced outer skin covering his body.
Artificial hide implanted to protect him from bullets.
The expensive modification had proven worth the price.
After all, it had bought him enough time to counterattack.
“You son of a bitch!”
The gorilla-man gritted his teeth and swung both arms.
No—rather than swinging them, it was closer to firing them.
As his cyberarms repeatedly pumped below the elbows like pistons, his steel fists began hammering Jin’s upper body at a rate of ten strikes per second.
Ratatatatatatat!
Jin staggered backward beneath a barrage powerful enough to demolish a thick concrete wall in seconds.
It felt as though he were being pelted with shot puts from point-blank range.
His forearms, drawn tightly together in front of him, went numb almost instantly.
This is cheating!
Jin gritted his teeth.
There was no answer if all he did was block.
No matter how durable he was, at this rate, he would end up like minced garlic.
And so, Jin lowered his stance to the absolute limit.
To the gangsters surrounding them, it looked as though his legs had finally given out.
Cheers immediately erupted.
“Boss! You’ve got him!”
“Kill the bastard!”
But the gorilla-man could not smile despite their cheering.
His enemy had vanished from right in front of him.
It would have been one thing if Jin had simply collapsed flat on the floor.
But he had disappeared.
Don’t tell me...!
The next instant, the gorilla-man’s ankle twisted with a sickening crunch.
“Aaargh!”
This part isn’t very sturdy, is it?
Gripping the man’s ankle with both hands, Jin twisted it as though wringing out wet laundry, then swung his arms in a wide circle.
The gorilla-man’s leg whipped around along that trajectory, sending his massive body toppling forward in an unstable posture.
Even as he fell, he instinctively planted his palm against the floor.
Jin did not miss the opening.
Whoosh!
A full-power kick smashed into the gorilla-man’s face just as he desperately turned his head.
His face snapped backward.
Crack.
Something that should never have broken did.
His rigid upper body toppled backward like a felled log.
No longer detecting any biological signals, his cyberarms went limp with a hiss of escaping pressure.
That was how Kirk, the boss of Steel Hands, died.
Though in Jin’s mind, he would forever remain recorded simply as Gorilla-Man.
“...Boss! You fucking bastard!”
“I-Is he really dead?”
“You’re kidding, right? That doesn’t make any sense.”
The gangsters’ eyes shook violently at the sudden death of their boss.
Jin dusted off his hands and slowly looked around.
In a situation like this, there was a sacred ritual that any true Korean man who had played even a single Musou game was obliged to perform.
Jin drew in a deep breath and shouted at the top of his lungs.
“THE ENEMY GENERAL HAS BEEN DEFEATED!”
It was late evening, and the gray ridges of the metropolis had swallowed the sun.
A man stared anxiously out the darkening window.
His name was Jackie.
He sat curled up in a secluded corner on the right side of the second floor of Rum-Pum-Pum-Pum, biting repeatedly at his innocent thumbnail.
Then, at some point, the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs reached his ears.
“...!”
He flinched and turned his head.
A fat, middle-aged man came into view.
Carrying a tray piled high with a mountain of french fries, the man found an empty seat and lowered himself into it.
Jackie sighed and looked away.
Had it been madness?
The unease would not leave his mind.
Finding a proper Solo in Downtown was difficult.
Their fees were one thing, but they were not people one could simply meet just because one wanted to.
By the time he contacted a broker, asked around, and went through all the necessary steps, his sister might already be dead.
So Jackie had entrusted his sister’s rescue to a man whose name he did not even know.
It had not been difficult to realize that the man was not actually a Solo.
What kind of Solo in the entire world would not know what BH was?
But even that could not be helped.
Jackie had been desperate enough to grasp at the hand of someone like him.
“Haa...”
His deep sigh left a cloudy patch of condensation on the window.
How much time passed like that?
The heart inside his chest, no longer his own, pounded anxiously.
Then once again, footsteps sounded on the stairs behind him.
His hopes had already been crushed several times.
Even so, Jackie turned his head once more, unable to stop himself from hoping.
And then he saw him.
The fake Solo carrying someone limp over his shoulder.
The man he had had no choice but to believe in.
“There you are. Sorry. I got a little lost.”
After spotting Jackie, Jin raised an eyebrow and walked over.
“J-Jenny!”
Jackie shot to his feet when he saw his younger sister’s face as Jin lowered her onto the sofa.
While Jackie lifted Jenny’s eyelids, held a finger beneath her nose, called her name, and made every possible fuss over her—
“Ow, ow, ow...”
Jin groaned and collapsed onto the sofa.
There was not a single part of his body that did not hurt.
It was the result of being hit, stabbed, and cut all over while cleaning up the remaining gang members.
This hurts like hell.
Normally, once you defeat the enemy general, aren’t the rest supposed to lose their nerve?
A sigh escaped him as he remembered the gangsters charging at him as though their eyes were on fire.
Well, at least I gained plenty of skill points.
He might not need them now, but they would surely come in handy later.
“Did... did you really save her?”
“What? Did you hire someone else while I was gone?”
“O-Of course not.”
“Then why are you asking something so obvious? I’m already exhausted enough as it is.”
Jin spoke while looking at the unconscious Jenny.
“Those Steel Hands bastards had her locked up and were starving her. I gave her a little water because it was urgent, but don’t feed her a proper meal until she’s had an IV first. Soup might be fine after that.”
Jackie suddenly dropped to his knees and began shedding tears the size of chicken droppings.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Hey, hey. What are you doing?”
Was there anything more awkward than watching a grown man cry in front of him?
Jin hurriedly waved his hands.
Even while crying, however, Jackie began fumbling inside his clothes.
It was obvious at a glance that he was trying to take out the payment, so Jin quickly stopped him.
“Let’s be a little more discreet about this, okay?”
“Ah. Sorry.”
Realizing his mistake, Jackie hurriedly wiped his eyes.
Honestly, how could a grown man be so softhearted?
Jin let out a deep sigh, momentarily forgetting that only a year ago, he himself had bawled his eyes out while searching for his mother.
After Jackie composed himself and sat back down, Jin narrowed his eyes at a strange sensation brushing across his skin.
A pale face slick with cold sweat.
Irregular breathing carrying the metallic scent of blood.
The faint trembling at the corners of his mouth.
The mechanical undertone mixed into his heartbeat.
The smell of dying soil and wood.
His heightened senses delivered all this information not merely through his eyes, but through his entire body.
Jin slowly opened his mouth.
“Where did you get the money?”
“What?”
“I asked where you got the commission fee.”
“...”
Jackie remained silent for a moment, then wet his dry lips.
“I sold an organ.”
“Your heart, right?”
“H-How did you know?”
“That’s not important. Why did it have to be your heart?”
“...Because it has the highest demand.”
In other words, he had removed a perfectly healthy heart and replaced it with the cheapest of cheap implants.
No wonder something about him had seemed wrong from the moment they met.
“Ah, shit... Seriously.”
Jin scratched the back of his head vigorously.
“Just give me one hundred thousand credits.”
“What?”
“I said, just give me one hundred thousand. I was going to take the job for that much anyway.”
“What are you...”
Jackie stared blankly before his eyes began filling with tears again.
Jin continued before he could misunderstand.
“Listen until the end. You’ll repay the remaining 1.9 million credits little by little from now on. Every Wednesday at seven in the evening. This seat on the second floor of Rum-Pum-Pum-Pum. I choose the menu. Got it? And for the record, I eat a lot.”
“O-Okay.”
“Then hand it over. The money. I’m buying waffles.”
Jin held out his palm.
Jackie carefully placed one hundred thousand credits into it.
After pocketing the money, Jin stood and spoke.
“Take good care of your sister, and replace that heart with a decent model while you’re at it. Even for a cheap one, yours is far too cheap. At this rate, I’d give you five days at most.”
“...Thank you.”
“I’m leaving.”
After that brief farewell, Jin had already walked some distance away when Jackie raised his voice toward his retreating back.
“Thank you! Seriously!”
Jin did not answer.
He merely waved with the back of his hand while trudging down the stairs.
After buying two waffles on the first floor, he stepped out into the street, where darkness had settled heavily over everything.
Another ordinary day in Downtown was drawing to a close.