Ch.3939. Insurance is Common Sense in Cyberpunk.

In the cyberpunk world, death is too common.

If you ask how common it is,

When someone reports a dead body to the police, instead of dispatching officers, they’ll just give you the number for a cleaner.

That’s because after the police department was privatized, they avoid investigating violent crimes with no profit potential whenever possible.

Even when they do investigate, it’s limited to cases where corporate employees are victims—you can safely assume they never investigate for the sake of bottom-feeder mercenaries.

Of course, there are a few instances where police actually respond to murder cases, despite their title.

One is when someone commits murder openly in the middle of the street.

The gorilla Amon encountered was a prime example of this.

Another is when the officer is one of those rare true police who make up the top 0.001% in this city.

Even Amon hasn’t met one of those.

And another is when the investigation is just a pretext for some other scheme.

That example was the police officer trembling before Amon right now.

Dripping blood instead of saliva from his mouth, the officer begged Amon.

“Please… just spare my life…”

Amon looked down at the police officer who was kneeling and pathetically begging him.

‘What a damn city…’

By his previous life’s standards, this was a world where unfair situations occurred as everyday occurrences.

While Amon loved this fascinating world setting, he found it hard to endure the occasional unfairness that came his way.

Suppressing the anger rising from deep within his core, he recalled what had happened that morning.

*

After Sonia left for school, a police officer visited the house when only Amon was home.

The reason was a murder investigation.

With 20 years of experience from his previous life, Amon knew well that the investigation was just a pretext.

Amon raised his guard and opened the door.

He wasn’t armed.

If he had been armed when opening the door, the police could claim self-defense if they shot him.

Fortunately, the officer attempted conversation after the door opened.

“Amon Perfumerose. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Humps died yesterday, and we’re investigating. So tell me, where were you after the party disbanded?”

The officer interrogated Amon with a somewhat coercive attitude.

Amon’s gaze shifted toward the officer’s shoulder.

He hadn’t even equipped a body camera.

That meant this wasn’t an official investigation.

‘He really came prepared.’

Among the suspects in this case, Amon probably seemed the easiest target.

According to police databases, Amon would appear as an orphan without any backing.

In his eyes, Amon was a socially vulnerable person against whom he could easily wield authority.

Coincidentally, the young man standing before the officer was not socially vulnerable.

Unofficially, he had connections to the Vatican and the Three Dollar group.

But this time, he didn’t even need to use those connections.

At first, Amon pretended to be an ordinary citizen intimidated by the police.

Acting scared of the officer’s authority, he obediently got into the car.

Until Amon got into the car, the officer mistakenly believed he had achieved his goal.

But when the police car arrived at the back alley of a clinic center instead of the police station, and as soon as the officer opened the back door, Amon’s demeanor changed completely.

“Are you even human?”

With those words, Amon—who had somehow freed himself from the handcuffs—shattered the officer’s jaw.

He had obediently followed along on the slim lottery-winning chance this might be a genuine officer, but as soon as they parked behind the clinic center, he understood.

When a corrupt officer arrests someone and parks behind an old hospital, it definitely doesn’t mean anything good.

From this point, Amon’s merciless violence began.

“How are you any different from a scavenger?”

The officer, being stomped on by Amon, screamed for help.

But no one came to his aid.

This was the moment when the officer’s choice—turning off his radio and body camera to avoid leaving evidence, and choosing a back alley where no one would see—backfired terribly.

Realizing no help was coming, the officer attempted what could be called resistance.

At first, he tried to target Amon with his baton or gun.

But Amon had easily defeated scavengers whose bodies were fully modified with implants.

There was no way a mediocre police officer could put up proper resistance against him.

Pull out a baton, get beaten with it; draw a gun, have it taken away and get shot in the knee.

Realizing that more resistance meant more pain, the officer eventually gave up.

Belatedly, he abandoned resistance and begged for mercy instead.

“Pleash… jush spare my life…”

Bleeding profusely, the officer pleaded with slurred speech.

The officer hoped for mercy until Amon turned his gaze away.

But.

Slash.

“Guhk?”

The officer’s gaze dropped downward.

Hot liquid gushed from his neck.

To avoid blood splatter, Amon moved behind the officer and kicked him to the ground.

A red puddle spread across the floor.

Amon looked down at the fallen officer’s body with cold eyes before walking away.

As he left, he manipulated his phone to send a message to the mercenary office manager.

[Boss. This happened. Can you handle the cleanup?]

After sending the message, he threw the bloodied glass shard into a pile of garbage.

Then he jumped three times through the open window of the clinic center.

*

What’s the difference between a hospital and a clinic?

There are many differences.

Both have doctors, nurses, and offer treatment.

Even the treatment options available are the same.

You can get large hospital services at a big clinic center.

The price is even much cheaper at clinic centers.

So what’s the difference?

‘The difference is trust.’

Amon sneered as he manipulated the center’s computer.

Unlike hospitals, clinic centers don’t have government approval and certification marks.

One might think that wouldn’t matter in a world where even the government is corrupt, but surprisingly, it matters quite a lot.

Statistically, if the chance of getting backstabbed at a hospital is about 10 percent, at clinic centers it’s around 45 percent.

Hospitals simply don’t choose to backstab patients because they charge more money, but nevertheless, hospitals tended to be more conscientious.

Amon hadn’t taken Paul’s party to a hospital for nothing.

In contrast, this clinic center where Humps’ brother had been admitted wasn’t exactly a clean place.

‘Human experimentation, organ trafficking…’

Amon discovered the details of what had happened at this center.

There was a major corporation involved behind this center.

Though he couldn’t identify which corporation, this center was periodically commissioned by the corporation to conduct human experiments.

After the experiments ended, they diligently harvested implants and organs from the corpses.

‘Why the hell did Humps admit his brother to a place like this…’

The human experiment that Humps’ brother participated in was a full cyberization experiment.

Unfortunately, due to multiple failures in the experiment, his consciousness could never return to this world.

But the company that commissioned the experiment to the center wasn’t satisfied.

Perhaps thinking they lacked experimental subjects, they urgently wanted additional samples.

So the center took a somewhat extreme measure.

They tried to draw in Humps, the brother’s guardian, and Humps’ acquaintances.

That predatory hand reached out to Amon first, as he seemed the easiest target.

‘Somehow this world just won’t leave me alone.’

Well, this was relatively common in the cyberpunk world.

A harsh world for orphans without family.

In a world where getting your organs harvested is the default option when you ride an ambulance without insurance, perhaps he had been enjoying peace too carelessly.

‘Why choose a place like this of all places…’

Of course, it wasn’t Humps’ fault.

He needed to save his brother, and being poor isn’t a crime.

But Amon wanted someone to blame.

Amon rubbed his throbbing forehead.

The computer contained report templates for experimental subjects who were expected to arrive.

An Orc tank, an Elf mage.

Both seemed to lack insurance and family, just like Humps.

But there was one report in particular that Amon couldn’t possibly ignore.

————————

<Sonia Perfumerose>

Personal Information

– Spouse of Amon Perfumerose

————————

He hadn’t planned to let this slide anyway, but seeing this made it impossible to ignore.

Just then, the awaited message from his boss arrived.

[Do what you can if you’re able.]

It was essentially permission.

Amon turned off his phone.

Tap tap tap.

Amon shut down the computer he had been operating and put on a doctor’s apron hanging nearby.

Donning a medical mask and surgical cap, Amon looked at himself in the mirror.

‘This should be good enough.’

He walked out of the room.

“Take the day off, doctor.”

There was no response.

The doctor slumped in the chair had a curtain cord around his neck.

Amon went on rounds in place of the doctor with closed eyes.

***

While Amon walked the corridors, no one suspected him.

This was partly because people in this world are generally indifferent to others, but more importantly because this center wasn’t operating normally in the first place.

Amon naturally headed toward the operating room.

The patient was already dead, and they were in the middle of extracting implants.

“Ah, you’re here, doctor?”

Amon nodded without speaking.

He looked around the operating room.

As expected, there were no CCTV cameras.

There wouldn’t be in a place doing this kind of work.

It wasn’t a surgery to save lives but to extract parts.

Medical staff casually removing components in a space that disregarded hygiene.

Amon picked up a bone saw and positioned himself strategically.

Before the medical staff could question Amon’s position, his arm swung.

Slash!

Blood spurted from several people’s necks.

Thud, thud, thud!

Thump.

As blood rained down and heads rolled across the operating room in discordant rhythm, Amon made the sign of the cross with sad eyes.

“May they rest in peace.”

He collected two bone saws and several scalpels before quietly leaving the operating room.