episode_0008

It was humiliating to be carried like a piece of luggage, but what could I do?

On top of a car speeding like it was in *Fast and Furious*, I had chosen to be ground into the asphalt with the gorilla, and it was hard enough just to stand.

Raleigh, who traversed the building rooftops at an incredible speed that didn’t seem human, set me down next to Jay Q and Blake, who were resting.

“Chrome really is amazing, huh…”

It seemed to take several minutes even for a supercar, but they returned in about the same time, didn’t they?

“Oh. You’re alive?”

“Are you… alright?”

Jay Q’s condition looked quite serious.

As if caught in an explosion, pus oozed from his entire body, and both his legs were gone.

“Well. It’s gonna cost a bit to implant both legs. My butt seems a bit blown off too, so it hurts like hell.”

But Jay Q waved his hand as if it was nothing, and lit a cigarette.

Is this truly the grit of a mercenary?

“Fuck! I couldn’t stop the bad Oni-Chan.”

“Ugh! That Oni-Chan, who doesn’t even suit being a musclehead… Anyway, why did Raleigh only bring you, the newbie? Where’s Luna?”

“While I was stalling that gorilla chasing me, Luna went to the EPSB branch with the director. It’s a whopping 100,000 credit after-sales service.”

“Base pay of 100,000 plus an additional 100,000.”

The fact that I’d earned a whopping 200,000 in one night didn’t quite sink in, but it made my heart pound, weary as it was from the unpaid overtime and overwork at Eclipse Point.

If I just work hard for one day, I can play for a few months?

What a truly revolutionary world.

“I wonder if I’ll become rich in no time at this rate.”

“Hahahaha! That’s a good one, a foolish dream a hatchling would have.”

And to Jay Q, who burst out laughing as soon as he heard me, I shot a crooked glare asking why he was chuckling, and Jay Q wiped away his tears with a finger, as if he’d heard something truly hilarious.

“Think about it. If you’ve done work, you need to repair your cyberware, repair or re-equip your gear, and since the car flipped over this time, you have to call a ridiculously expensive tow truck and get it repaired.”

“…”

“And if you intend to get stronger, you’ll have to get more cyberware or bioware, won’t you? You’ve finished some work, so you’ll buy some drinks~ Try some fresh food you usually can’t afford~ And pay living expenses?”

“There’s nothing left?”

“Exactly!”

I wanted to kick Jay Q, who was thoroughly crushing all romance, but I decided to spare him, as being kicked by a foot would probably make a legless disabled person feel alienated.

However, Jay Q wasn’t entirely wrong. Even if Luna gave me a generous 40,000 credits, I’d already decided how to use 10,000 credits, and if I had to do all that with the remaining 30,000, it would feel tight.

The mercenary profession earns a lot, but also has a lot of expenses!

“Besides, one of your arms is useless now, don’t you need to get a new one?”

“Hmm… I did bring this along, though.”

In fact, I wasn’t much different from Jay Q.

I’d become arm-disabled.

So, just in case, I tore an arm off the gorilla’s headless corpse.

Smash Grenade. It seemed a bit old-fashioned, but it looked like a destructive cyberware, and I thought it might help enhance my power if installed.

“It’s Raijin Corp’s 6th generation model.”

“If it’s 6th generation, how old is it?”

“About 10 years old?”

“Shit. It’s an antique.”

In reality, well-made guns are used for decades, and famous items developed 20-30 years ago would barely be considered new, let alone antiques, but in this city, free from all regulations, one must constantly change to survive, so dozens of new types of cyberware are released every day.

In such a situation, an item from 10 years ago is undeniably treated as an antique.

“Still, it doesn’t really have complex technology, so it should still be usable. The fact that it doesn’t have complex technology means that it was pushed to the absolute limit of what that technology could achieve.”

In any case, the Smash Grenade, deemed usable, I decided to keep it safe.

Even if it’s trash, I’ll probably get some money if I just sell it.

Then, a holographic message appeared on my retina, obscuring a corner of my vision.

LUNAR: [Mission complete. Heading back.]

“Oh. Still, earning something is better than earning nothing, by an uncountably vast amount.”

A moment later, Luna, who had somehow managed to drive her tattered supercar, rolled down the window, smiled brightly, and showed us two cases, each containing a whopping 100,000 credits.

Jay Q and I, who had just been lamenting about how quickly money vanishes and leaves nothing, became united in spirit, doing somersaults and causing a ruckus, before being subdued by Raleigh.

Blake, whose beloved katana was broken, cried tears like grasshopper droppings as he received his share and left. Raleigh also received their pay and left, making a *whoosh* sound with their breathing.

Jay Q, who had lost his legs, went to the street tech he usually got along with.

As for me, the last one remaining, I hitched a ride in the car that was now sputtering and barely moving forward, its autonomous driving system also stopped, and was on my way back with Luna.

“Seriously, what was that, suddenly jumping out without a word?”

“If I hadn’t thought about dying there with that Japanophile gorilla, we would have both ended up in a barrel together, wouldn’t we?”

“That’s true.”

The dark ceiling of the lower city, where the lights that told day from night were unlit.

But even at this late hour, brightly lit neon signs painfully adorned the streets.

Feeling the effects of the painkiller Raleigh had injected into my neck slowly wear off, I pulled out a cigarette with trembling hands and put it in my mouth.

“Give me one too.”

“Light it yourself. What kind of nerve is it to make someone whose arm is gone do things when you have two?”

“How many credits do I still have to receive…”

To Luna, who was shamelessly threatening me, I let out a chuckle, lit the synthetic cigarette in my mouth, and placed it in Luna’s mouth.

“Hey, the filter’s damp.”

“Smoke it with gratitude. It’s my love.”

“Bullshit.”

The car filled with acrid cigarette smoke, but Luna and I chuckled and laughed happily.

The suspension was broken, making the ride incredibly shitty, but it was a not-bad, refreshing feeling.

I lay on Luna’s workshop operating table, where I never wanted to lie again, and grimaced at the painfully bright lights.

The painkiller’s effects had completely worn off, and my still-injured arm throbbed maddeningly, making me tear up a bit, but what could I do?

“You’ve been getting a lot of procedures lately. John, you should try to find a skilled professional techie for your procedures. The level of work is one thing, and I’m busy with my fixer, so I can’t always look after you like this.”

“Damn it. The street clinics out there are infamous for knocking people out and harvesting their organs and cyberware, I’m too scared to go.”

“It’s not that bad. They know that if they mess around like that and something goes wrong, getting a bullet hole in their head is nothing. Of course, I won’t deny there are a lot of scammers.”

Luna brought the Smash Grenade with its casing removed, tried fitting it to my arm, not denying that I could be scammed out of money, and slightly corrected my misunderstanding.

On the other hand, official clinics operated by corporations cost several times more, to the point they might as well be for the rich only, so poor mercenaries had no choice.

Either get close to a techie so you don’t get ripped off, or be incredibly lucky.

“The subcutaneous armor plating damage rate is about 36%, and if I attach the Smash Grenade and put on the outer cover… I’ll just take 8,000 credits from the 40,000.”

“Damn. That’s ridiculously expensive. By the way, 40,000? You gave me a lot.”

“You stalled the boss of the Neo Shinsengumi, didn’t you? It was a bit violent, but excellent.”

“It was barely a minute, what’s the big deal? Raleigh finished it too.”

“Thanks to that one minute, we earned a sweet 100,000 credits, didn’t we? In fact, you could say we earned the 100,000 credits because of you.”

Is that so?

When Luna said it like that, it did seem to be the case.

“Once the procedure is over, I’ll have to get completely drunk tonight. My hands are still trembling.”

“Then you’ll pay back the 5,000 credits you owe me?”

“I owed that much? Damn it. It was true that money disappears in an instant.”

I silently mourned the 13,000 credits that had vanished even before night was over, and closed my eyes as I saw Luna, wearing a medical mechanical arm, approach.

It’s going to hurt like hell.

“Aaaaaargh!!!”

“You’re as big as a bear! Just bear with it!”

“Aaaaaaaaaargh!!!”

As expected, it hurt like hell.

Luna, Jay Q, Blake, and Raleigh and I gathered again at a nearby pub and drank ourselves silly.

Jay Q’s legs, perhaps with bioware, had returned to normal as if they’d never been cut off, and Blake, still wearing his bizarre maid outfit, wandered around drunk, looking for his Goshujin-sama.

Raleigh ate, still wearing the mask that covered their entire face, somehow managing to get food in.

“Hey, John! Did you really get that installed?”

“Yeah. Want to see?”

*Clank* As I rapidly rotated my left arm, a grenade-loaded cylinder sprang out from my wrist like a revolver.

Seeing my left arm, now undeniably chrome, Jay Q burst out laughing!

“Hahahaha! A hatchling cramming chrome into their body on their very first mission! Anyone want to bet when this one gets ‘roid rage’?”

“Always so rude. Ignore him, Motherfucker.”

“…Uh, okay.”

‘Roid rage’. It’s slang for becoming violent and showing very aggressive behavior from excessive steroid use, but Jay Q is probably referring to ‘chrome psycho,’ which is cyberware addiction.

When one excessively coats themselves in chrome, they lose their humanity and their personality is taken over by the chrome’s embedded systems, leading to madness, and it’s common for them to be gunned down after slaughtering dozens of people.

Not only ordinary salarymen, but even fellow mercenaries avoid half-robots coated in chrome.

“It’s only one piece now, if you’re already worried about becoming a chrome psycho, then you should have become one already.”

Luna chided Jay Q and chugged her synthetic beer, and Jay Q also chuckled and downed his full synthetic beer in one go.

‘Chrome psycho, huh…’

It’s not something to worry about right now, but if I can’t always afford ridiculously expensive bioware every time I lose a limb, the day will come when I’ll have to consider it.

But for now, I decided to let my worries float away as I chugged a refreshing synthetic beer.

“Can’t I just earn enough to live comfortably for the rest of my life and retire before I become a chrome psycho?”

“Hahahaha! Your dream is small. Since you’ve become a mercenary, chrome psycho or whatever, shouldn’t you at least leave your name as a legend?”

“I don’t really have any intention of that. What good would it do to make a name for myself?”

“You narrow-minded salaryman, with no dreams or romance!”

“Yeah, yeah. Our amazing Decker-nim must have it great with such big dreams~”

Giving Jay Q the middle finger, we raised our refilled (3 credits per glass) beer mugs above our heads, and clinked them together.

“To the bright future of the rookie mercenary!”

My first mercenary request was a success.

“Want to have a second round at my place? And you can cook for us too, kill two birds with one stone.”

“Sounds good. But do you still have room for food?”

Although the snacks for drinking were things like fried grasshoppers, artificially cultivated seaweed snacks, and genetically modified stir-fried beans, we’d eaten until our stomachs were bursting.

As if she could still eat, Luna showed her well-trained abs and tapped them.

“I still have plenty of room, you know? Don’t worry and just prepare your offering of food.”

Though my skills weren’t really something to boast about, since she was making such a fuss, I couldn’t help but hope my cooking skills hadn’t rusted.

“Then wait at the bar, wearing that.”

When I sent that link to Luna again, her face became disgusted.

“10,000 credits!”

“Haha, as if I couldn’t send it!”

I still had about 25,000 left even after paying taxes.

Of course, it was a painful loss, but as soon as I completed the deposit, Luna, whose face turned beet red, sighed as if there was truly nothing she could do.

“Alright, alright! I’ll wear it, okay?! You’re really burning 10,000 credits just for me to wear this? Your tastes are really perverted…”

“It’s worth that much.”

I put my arm around Luna’s shoulder and walked through the dark streets, overflowing with people numbed by stimulants, feeling nothing.