episode_0011

Boom!!!! An ear-shattering roar shook the area as superheated flames and ultra-high pressure blast waves erupted outwards, completely pulverizing the target drum.

It was only natural, considering it was six modified grenades, packed with as much explosive as possible, detonating simultaneously.

“Whoa!!!! Smash Grenade for sure! Firearms need this kind of exhilarating punch!”

“Get out of the way! Let’s try it with the rounds I made this time!”

“You moron, the last one you made had terrible safety features, and your arm blew off. Are you trying to destroy that precious thing?!”

I had only thrown a punch with all my might, but the cheers coming from behind me were extraordinary.

The Hellstream guys saw the Smash Grenade attached to my arm and immediately abducted me. I wondered what they’d do if I shot them, but they still generously supplied me with expensive grenades and demanded a demonstration.

When I asked what they’d do if I used this to shoot them or run away, they said there weren’t any utterly bad bastards among those who loved cyberware.

Flabbergasted, I decided to play along since I couldn’t handle these guys even if I attacked them. So, here I was, setting up targets and playing explosion games.

“My arm’s starting to hurt.”

“Haha! That’s the chronic problem with minimalists! If you switch out those flawed, incomplete joints for artificial chrome joints, you’ll never feel pain your whole life!”

“He’s just a guy who only changed his arm; you should let him rest. It’s because of reckless guys like you that lowlifes like Zhou World run rampant!”

I’d only said my arm hurt, but these chrome-heads started brawling among themselves again, and I sighed.

I wondered if today wasn’t the day and if I should just come back another time.

“Friend, don’t play with these idiots. We have a hideout; how about a drink there?”

“That alcohol isn’t methanol, is it?”

“Why would anyone drink something so tasteless, no matter what?”

It seemed it was drinkable.

I became their toy and was dragged off to Hellstream’s hideout.

The situation seemed to be getting a bit strange, but what power did I have?

Let’s just say I came for sightseeing.

Hellstream’s hideout was a remodeled abandoned shipyard.

After the Corporate Wars, sea routes were damaged, making sea trade difficult. Naturally, countless companies that made their living building ships went bankrupt.

The rate of bankruptcy was so fast that they couldn’t even dispose of their properties, leaving many abandoned buildings in Rossboard.

Thanks to this, countless gangs found places to settle, and even ridiculous groups like gangs formed by homeless people emerged, becoming one of the biggest reasons for Rossboard’s increasingly terrible public security.

“But is it okay to just let outsiders in like this? No one’s suddenly going to come in and shoot me, right?”

I was sitting in the crude hideout, a converted empty shipyard, sipping strong synthetic vodka, but now that I was actually here, I felt uneasy.

Even if I wanted to live a mercenary life, I didn’t have a hobby of sticking my head into the maw of a super-gang and carelessly playing around.

“Hahaha! Don’t worry! Anyone who loves cyberware is family to us!”

‘I don’t particularly like cyberware, though.’

That Wapanese gorilla arm of mine seemed to be such a maniacal item that it made me appear as one of their own in the eyes of these cyberware enthusiasts.

“So, friend, what brings you here?”

“I didn’t get enough sunlight in the upper city, so I came to see some real sunshine. You’d probably shoot me in the head if I said that, right?”

“As if I would do that to a friend.”

“Then I wish you’d put down the gun you’re fiddling with.”

“Haha! Rossboard’s a bit chaotic these days, you know. You saw it, friend, our guys are spread out everywhere.”

It was a veiled way of saying not to provoke them, as everyone was sensitive right now.

No, was pointing a gun to blow my head off really a veiled expression?

Since he didn’t actually shoot, I’ll count it as such.

“Nothing much, really. I just came looking to make friends with a skilled techie.”

“Ah-ha! So you came looking for a friend. It’s true, Rossboard has a lot of skilled engineers.”

Hellstream member A, whose entire face was intimidatingly altered with chrome, yet nodded in a friendly manner, poured vodka down his esophageal opening.

Gurgle- The transparent synthetic alcohol, in a quantity that would have made an ordinary person with a normal esophagus choke, went down effortlessly.

“But they’ll be hard to find. There’s been some trouble recently, so they’ve all gone into hiding.”

“Trouble?”

“Hmm… It’s gang business, so it’s hard to tell you, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

I wanted to tell him, ‘Please let it matter,’ but it seemed he just wanted to talk, as he rattled off information I hadn’t even asked for.

“We recently got intel that a trade ship is coming into port.”

“It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, a very long while. But if that ship was just carrying food or ordinary necessities, we wouldn’t be causing this much fuss.”

Bringing goods from abroad into Eclipse Point through Rossboard Port was the most convenient and fastest method, but to do so, one had to deal with countless gangs.

Companies that calculated the potential human casualties and resource expenditure opted to develop other routes instead. Lately, it was safe to say no trade ships visited Rossboard Port.

Yet, a trade ship specifically visiting Rossboard Port…

This could only mean two things.

“Either they intend to wipe out all the gangs in Rossboard, or they’re carrying cargo valuable enough to make it worthwhile even with some losses.”

“Seeing how well your head works, did you install a delayed glucose dispenser or a high-performance thought program?”

“Sorry, but it’s an original head.”

And I thought for a moment.

But was there any reason for street techies, who just perform procedures and collect money, to go into hiding?

Noticing my pondering expression, Hellstream member A amiably put an arm around my shoulder and explained the reason.

“Because either way, a bloodbath will sweep through Rossboard. And while Hellstream is indeed the largest gang in Rossboard, those damn bastards who muddy the waters of the neighborhood are not to be underestimated.”

“So they’ll hide before the collateral damage hits and come out when it’s all over.”

It’s a self-preserving, but wise decision.

It’s tens of thousands of times better than losing your life and home just to earn some money like usual.

Crunch. Hellstream member A chewed on a seasoned mealworm.

“Anyway, friend, you’d better leave Rossboard quickly. As for me, this is my home, so I have to fight.”

“Hmm… But what’s inside?”

Even if I was leaving, I couldn’t stand not knowing.

At my question, Hellstream member A, despite his entire face being mechanical, gave me a look of bewilderment with his artificial eyes.

“You’ll get hurt if you know.”

“I have a friend who can treat me if I get hurt.”

“Oh yeah?”

“She has really big and pretty breasts.”

“Lucky bastard…”

It seemed he had a personality that couldn’t hold back words; after saying it was a secret, he was an artist at spilling it all.

If he ever gets caught later, he’ll be able to eat all the Katsu-don he wants in the interrogation room.

“Well, the information we got is that it’s carrying military-grade cyberware.”

“So you’re going to raid it and get new parts?”

I thought there was a high possibility they’d do that, being the machine-obsessed fanatics they were.

But Hellstream member A shook his head.

“Are you crazy? Of course, we’d like to, but if we did something like that, the corporations would be determined to crush us and reclaim their cyberware. Military-grade cyberware does circulate on the black market clandestinely, but if a large quantity like that was released, it would be a threat to the corporations.”

Despite his appearance, he seemed surprisingly thoughtful.

“But unlike us, who are deeply rooted in Rossboard, those bastards who are ready to leave at any time are different.”

“Indeed, for guys like them, it’d be a chance to make one big score that could let them live a lifetime of leisure.”

Even a top-tier civilian model could be considered a walking house worth tens of thousands of credits, and military-grade models have vastly superior performance.

It was an event tantamount to a shortcut to an easy life, whether by selling it off and retiring or equipping it themselves and becoming a legend.

There’s no way those low-class hyena-like gang bastards would miss out on that.

“What’s more fucked up is that if, by any chance, it gets raided, the bastard who took the cyberware will have already split, and we, the Rossboard locals, will be screwed.”

“Sounds like we’re about to do free trade ship escorting, which only benefits the corporations.”

“Damn. Friend, you really didn’t get anything implanted in your brain, did you?”

I wish I had that kind of money.

As I shrugged, Hellstream member A let out a deep sigh mixed with mechanical sounds and nervously grabbed a handful of mealworms that were laid out as a snack.

Bang! At that moment, the shipyard’s large door was violently thrown open.

I wondered just how strong someone had to be to open that in one go, but when I saw the guy who’d opened it, it made sense.

He was nearly 3 meters tall, a giant with a strength-enhancing cyberware arm as big as my torso, and it seemed he had all sorts of things packed into his body.

“Boss! The trade ship is coming!”

“Damn! Stop dawdling, everyone, grab your gear and move out!”

At Hellstream member A’s words, the chrome-heads who had undergone all sorts of procedures and were waiting in the shipyard each grabbed a firearm and rushed out.

The Hellstream gang rushed outside en masse at the sudden turn of events.

Left alone in the empty shipyard, I downed the remaining vodka in my glass, wore a flabbergasted expression, and could only stare in the direction they had gone.

“Wait, damn it. He was the Boss?”