Chapter 5
Bzzzt.
The phone on the table squirmed.
Without taking his hands off the keyboard and mouse, Jin rolled his eyes toward it and saw that the call was from “Nutcase.”
He swiped the touchpad to the right and pressed the speaker button.
“Yeah. What?”
“Hyung, what are you doing?”
“Gaming.”
“Project Neo?”
“No, League.”
“Why the hell are you playing League? Don’t you know it’s illegal for anyone over thirty to play the laning phase? Just play something on Steam. Preferably Project Neo.”
“That game doesn’t suit me. Hold on... How did that kill me?”
He had let the call distract him for a moment, and the enemy Darius split his head open with an axe.
Damn it, he even burned Flash before dying.
Top lane was ruined.
Completely ruined.
“What doesn’t suit you? Is it too complicated? Too difficult?”
His younger brother sounded genuinely confused.
Since his screen had turned gray anyway, Jin used the brief downtime to vent his complaints.
“Listen. First of all, the Vagrant path is absolute garbage. ‘A stray dog of the streets’? ‘A lone fighter’? What a joke. They need to change the description to: ‘You will suffer muggings, pickpocketing, drink-spiking robberies, and assorted acts of random violence.’
“I haven’t tried the other life paths, so I can’t make a definitive comparison, but come on. This is ridiculous.
“Have you ever fought a one-on-one duel with a bunch of homeless people over a spot beside a burning oil drum in the middle of winter? Have you ever held your nose while digging through food waste in an alley that reeked of sewage? Have you ever worn the same pair of underwear for two months? Fuck.
“And don’t even get me started on guns. There’s seriously no answer to them. No matter how many times I get shot, I never get used to it. Now I flinch whenever someone so much as reaches into their pocket. No wonder American cops are so jumpy. A person naturally becomes like that.
“Speaking of guns, you don’t know what it feels like to kill someone, do you? I didn’t want to know either. But what else was I supposed to do? Some lunatic tried to rob the few coins in my pocket and kept stabbing me in the back, the side, and the chest.
“Blood was pouring everywhere, my head was spinning, and I was about to die. What choice did I have?
“When I came to my senses, I was sitting on top of him.
“I was terrified he might move. Terrified he would move and stab me again. So I just kept beating him.
“Then, at some point, he stopped breathing.
“I couldn’t sleep for about a week. Every night, that bastard appeared in my dreams with his face crushed to a pulp.
“But you know what? As time passed, even that stopped bothering me. Honestly, killing people is nothing to me these days. Nightmares? Please. I sleep just fine.
“I swore I would never get used to it. That I must never allow myself to get used to it.
“But in the end, I did.
“Getting shot still hurts like hell, though.
“What do you think? Sounds like I’m completely fucked, right? I think so too.
“Even if—just hypothetically—a miracle happened and I opened my eyes back in Korea, I don’t think my life could ever return to the way it was.
“Maybe that’s why.
“Sometimes, I suddenly can’t breathe properly.
“I wonder if they’re panic attacks.
“Fuck, I don’t know.
“Actually, lately I’ve been thinking that if someone asks my age, I might just say I’m one year old. You know that thing YouTubers do all the time... Yeah, an alter ego.
“I’ll just say I created an alter ego like those YouTubers do.
“A vagrant struggling desperately to survive in a shitty world.
“What do you think?
“Maybe if I comfort myself like that, I’ll feel a little—
“Ah, shit. Talking this much is waking me up.
“Hey.
“This is a dream, isn’t it?”
The next moment, a voice tinged with laughter came through the phone.
“Yes, hyung. Of course it’s a dream. Which means you should probably wake up. It looks like someone broke in.”
Jin opened his eyes.
Before his vision could even adjust to the darkness, he heard a rustling sound.
He quietly shifted his gaze and spotted several silhouettes holding their breaths in the dark.
Jin saw them.
They saw Jin.
An unnatural silence followed.
Then someone abruptly shouted.
“He’s awake!”
“Get him!”
At the same moment, Jin rolled across the bed.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
Tufts of stuffing burst from the spot where he had been lying only a second earlier.
What the hell, are those suppressors?
Meanwhile, his arm burned fiercely.
It seemed one of the bullets had hit him.
Jin immediately took cover behind the bed, using it as a barricade, and reached out with one hand to grab the leg of a chair within sight.
He roughly estimated their direction and hurled it with all his strength.
Crash!
The chair tore through the air at tremendous speed and struck something, shattering completely.
“Jack!”
“You fucking bastard!”
The other two men recoiled at the sight of their companion collapsing with half his face destroyed, then aimed their guns toward the direction the chair had come from.
Just as they began pulling the triggers, a wall suddenly appeared in front of them.
A wall in the form of the bed, flipped over like a dining table.
“Guh!”
The two men were struck by the bed as though it were an artillery shell and went tumbling backward.
Jin charged in after it and swung his rear leg in a wide arc.
Boom!
The man was kicked in the side and launched across the room, crashing into the wall.
With an expression that said he could no longer endure the pain, he vomited a spray of blood, then collapsed face-first into the red puddle he had created.
Jin had dealt with the second intruder in an instant.
Only now did he finally feel fully awake.
He pivoted on his right foot and spun around.
As though he had known from the very beginning, he caught the final man attempting to attack him from behind by the throat and slammed him against the wall.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
The gun barrel, having lost its target, sprayed bullets uselessly in the wrong direction.
One of them burrowed into Jin’s thigh.
That was bad news for both Jin and the man.
Jin was in pain.
And the man had lost his chance to die peacefully.
And so, late that night—
Crash!
A bloodied man flew through a shattering window.
Although he fell from the fifth floor, his cause of death was not the fall.
“Ah, fuck.”
Jin grimaced.
He stood in the middle of the room, which had been reduced to a complete wreck.
“...Who the hell were those bastards?”
Jin did not know it, but the late-night intruders had a derogatory name of their own.
Scavengers.
They roamed isolated, unmanned motels, picked the locks, and robbed the occupants.
When necessary, they did not hesitate to commit murder.
Jin had only encountered them for the first time after entering his second year in this world.
It seemed the old saying that learning had no end was entirely accurate.
“No wonder I had such a bad dream.”
Jin muttered under his breath and tensed his right arm as hard as he could.
He was trying to squeeze the bullet out by contracting his muscles.
The attempt itself was admirable.
But all he managed to do was make innocent spurts of blood pop from the wound. The bullet itself showed no sign of coming out, so he had no choice but to wait for the newly growing flesh to push it free.
Maybe two hours?
Now that he had unlocked the Superhuman Perk, it might be even faster.
After estimating his recovery speed, Jin walked over to the two corpses sprawled across the floor.
A perfectly justified round of looting followed.
The haul was not nearly as profitable as he had expected.
Unfortunately, the man Jin had thrown out the window had been carrying the money.
With no way of knowing that, Jin shuddered at the thought that he had nearly been kidnapped by a gang of penniless beggars.
“This neighborhood always finds new ways to surprise me. Always thrilling.”
Even though Jin had grown numb to blood and corpses, he had no desire to remain there any longer.
The bed and window had already been completely destroyed anyway.
After wetting his throat with a little water from the sink, Jin was about to leave the room when a translucent window abruptly blocked his vision.
「 ??? 」
NEO 77 777 7777
??? ?? ???? ?????
?? ??? ?? ?? ????
Things had been quiet for a while, and now it was pulling this shit again.
Jin waved his hand roughly through the air.
“Get lost.”
It never helped with anything, yet it was always ordering him around.
Thanks to that, Jin left with his hands buried deep in his pockets, his mood already soured before dawn.
A sudden ambush, followed by that goddamn quest window.
Although the previous night had been ruined, Jin had, on the whole, been extremely satisfied with the last few days.
It was as though he felt excited for no particular reason.
At first, he thought it was simply because his pockets were full.
In fact, one hundred thousand credits was the largest sum Jin had ever held at once since being stranded in this world.
Thanks to it, he had been able to eat three meals a day, book lodging without worrying too much, and even replace his worn-out underwear and socks.
But after thinking about it carefully, money alone could not explain why he felt so good.
Then what was it?
Where did this strange, ticklish feeling in the corner of his chest come from?
After pondering it for a long while, Jin finally reached a conclusion.
Ah.
The money I earned this time was a legitimate reward.
His mind suddenly felt much clearer.
Come to think of it, Jin’s previous method of earning money had always been simple.
Find a secluded alley.
Wait for some swaggering thug, delinquent, or third-rate gang member to pick a fight.
Gladly beat the hell out of them.
Empty their pockets.
The so-called bait strategy.
Honestly, it was not a particularly good way to make money.
Besides, how could anyone feel a sense of accomplishment from rummaging through the pockets and underwear of human garbage?
He considered himself lucky if they did not smell.
That had been his daily life.
Then came his first proper commission.
The money he received after completing the job.
A single heartfelt word of thanks.
Those things had made Jin’s heart pound.
Perhaps I can live a little more like a human being.
It was a small hope.
And so, Jin stopped chewing his hot dog and opened his mouth.
“Mister, let me ask you something.”
The weary-eyed, middle-aged man grilling sausages looked at him suspiciously.
“What? No refunds. You already ate half of it.”
“Come on, do I look like some kind of beggar? That’s not what this is about.”
“Really? Then buy another one.”
What kind of logic was that?
Still, Jin decided to do exactly that.
He was feeling hungry anyway.
“So, what do you want to know?”
The street vendor asked as he handed Jin a fresh hot dog.
Jin took a large bite before answering.
“Do you know what I have to do to become a Solo?”
“What?”
“You don’t know?”
The vendor frowned.
“Why do you want to become a Solo? Got some fantasy about being a mercenary?”
“No. So do you know or not?”
“Of course I don’t. If I knew something like that, would I be standing around here making hot dogs?”
“Fair point...”
Jin was about to take another bite, as though that answer was exactly what he had expected, when the vendor added something.
“I do know this much, though. You need to catch a Linker’s eye.”
“A Linker?”
“What? You don’t know what a Linker is? Did you come from the moon or something? Tsk. How do you expect to survive around here like that? You’re not going to live long.”
The vendor shook his head.
Jin, still chewing with his mouth full, narrowed his eyes.
“Listen to this guy. Are you messing with me or what? You never explain anything in one go. Had I known you’d be like this, I wouldn’t have ordered another hot dog. This is all... uh... what do you call it? Right. An information fee!”
Are you trying to put yourself out of business?!
Bits of food sprayed through the air with devastating force, and the vendor hurriedly waved his hands.
“Hey, it’s getting everywhere! S-Stop! I’ll explain, all right?”
“Tch. You should’ve done that from the start.”
Jin motioned with his hand as though ordering him to continue.
The vendor glared at him before speaking.
“A Linker is a Linker. What more explanation do you need—huh? Why are you clenching your fist? I never said I wouldn’t tell you. They’re brokers. Brokers who connect clients with Solos. Simple, right?”
Ah.
So they were literally Linkers.
Jin nodded.
At the same time, a question flashed through his mind.
“But why do I need some broker’s approval?”
“What?”
“I’m the one doing all the physical work, so who are they to pick and choose people? No, wait. The fact that none of them have recruited me yet is already their mistake. How am I supposed to work with people who have such terrible judgment? Don’t you agree? By the way, these hot dogs are good. Give me another one. No, make it two. Plenty of sauce.”
“...”
The vendor quietly looked Jin up and down.
At first, he had thought Jin merely looked handsome.
But upon closer inspection, a faint glimmer of madness shone in his gray eyes.
The vendor finally understood.
Ah.
This bastard really was a resident of Downtown.
Judging from his catastrophically poor common sense, he had probably damaged part of his BCI chip by making a mistake while browsing the Blacknet.
And so, the vendor decided to placate him.
“Why bother waiting for a Linker to come to you? You can just go find one first. Here, your hot dogs.”
Jin accepted the two hot dogs.
Go find one first.
He did not particularly like the idea, but what other choice did he have?
He was tired of crouching in secluded alleys and waiting for someone to start a fight.
He wanted to do real work and live at least a little like a human being.
Then perhaps, someday, he might even escape Downtown.
He had heard that the districts inside Area 30 had some semblance of public security.
Surely no one got shot in their sleep there.
Right.
That had to be true.
It needed to be true.
Muttering inwardly, Jin shoved one of the hot dogs he had bought with the last of his money into his mouth.
Then, speaking through his food in a muffled voice, he addressed the vendor, who was watching him cautiously.
“If you know any Linkers, name one. Anyone will do. I’m going to find them right now.”