Rough Life of a Cyberpunk Mercenary

The nauseating metallic stench of blood, mixed with the acrid smell of gunpowder.

A vast amount of blood flowed freely, forming a river that stained the pristine marble-finished corridor.

The corpses that had formed this crimson river each had their heads cleanly blown apart, making revival impossible even for a trauma team.

Though whether those low-level bastards even had that ridiculously expensive insurance, he didn’t know.

*He exhaled slowly.*

The acrid white smoke broke against the window of the dark room overlooking the city’s dazzling nightscape, filled with neon signs, making the upper city, supposedly managed by air purification systems, appear shrouded in smog like the lower city’s gutters.

“As expected, even if it’s a small company, a CEO like this smokes such expensive things.”

The man tucked the top-grade, cigar-shaped cigarette case, made from real tobacco leaves, into his inner pocket.

A small indulgence, perhaps, after a difficult job.

“A mere mercenary like you dares to do something like this and think you can get away with it! Whose orders… Whose orders did you receive!!!”

“Your voice is as loud as a lowlife haggling over pay. Instead of being a company CEO, why don’t you try being a mercenary too.”

Lying on the floor was the CEO of the recently shuttered company.

From the severed arm’s cross-section, no metallic-smelling blood flowed, but sparks crackled and flew from the severed artificial fiber muscles and neural wires.

The CEO’s arm, sprawled far away, was so intricate it was indistinguishable from a human arm, clearly showing it was a very expensive, high-grade implant. If he hadn’t just shattered it with a shotgun, he could have sold it to a street engineer for thousands of credits.

The man clicked his tongue with a slight feeling of regret, but decided not to dwell on it.

The compensation for this job was quite substantial, enough to live off for several months.

“I’m quite regretful to make you angry over something like this. And if you ask who ordered it, I can only tell you that due to a non-disclosure agreement, I cannot disclose it.”

“Stop spouting bullshit and just…!”

*Boom!* A heavy gunpowder explosion sounded from the black muzzle, and the nameless CEO’s head exploded from the pellets exiting the barrel.

It seemed the implants were only for limbs, as brain matter and shattered fragments of brain splattered onto the wall, decorating the wallpaper, and torrents of blood from his entire body gushed onto the floor.

The man pulled out the chip inserted into the CEO’s office computer, whistled, pulled the pin from a ShinobiTech CF incendiary grenade, and leisurely walked out of the CEO’s office into the corridor.

*Hiss!*

Flames erupted from the grenade, instantly turning the CEO’s office into a sea of fire.

Normally, the instant cooling system would activate and suppress the fire immediately, but this building’s alarm system had been neutralized long ago, so the flames began to physically devour all evidence without any interference.

The total destruction of the emerging company, which had been rapidly devouring food market share, occurred in the middle of the night. It ended with the deaths of the CEO and 36 employees and was quickly buried without becoming a public sensation.