episode_0051

“How’s work these days, John?”

“Well, same as always. They dump mountains of work on me, so I cut down on sleep, my brain feels like it’s shriveling up, the higher-ups keep hounding me to finish quickly, and I get paid peanuts. Just living a normal life, you know.”

“I’ve never worked for a corporation, so I don’t really know, but it sounds tough.”

“What can I do? Everyone lives like this.”

I sighed, my face gloomy with chronic fatigue and deep dark circles, as I sipped my soybean coffee.

The bitter, rough taste of the low-grade imitation coffee, a mix of synthetic coffee flavor and burnt notes, filled my mouth, making my tongue feel like a field of loess.

Across from me in the cafe, Luna sat in comfortable clothes.

‘This is…’

I became aware of myself, spouting off without any reflection of my own will.

Furthermore, thinking about it, this ‘me’ was from a time when I was being squeezed by a megacorp, a cog earning a few credits in exchange for my vitality.

After becoming unemployed and then a mercenary, and obtaining the nanowear inserted into my body with Martina, who was an Ayakashi, my dark circles and troubles vanished.

And somehow, this conversation, which I vaguely overheard, felt like one I had truly shared with Luna before.

“Everyone lives like this… It’s bleak.”

“Why are you acting surprised? It’s always been this way.”

Luna, conversing with ‘me’, looked out the cafe window at the ceiling of the lower city.

There should have been a clear, wide-open blue sky displayed on a colossal screen, but for some reason, it was just black.

Was it broken and not working?

In the completely black sky, white sunlight shining from the outskirts of Eclipse Points, like Golden Arch or Rossmore, formed rings in the distance.

It was a strange sight, one I wouldn’t normally see.

“Indeed, it’s common to be subservient to a megacorp or corporation, working for profit, and then when your production efficiency drops, you’re retired and replaced with new parts.”

“Luna, you’re being unusually talkative today… Even if you asked to borrow money, I’m barely scraping by to pay my rent right now.”

“Who said I’d borrow money from you? If you’re going to say something like that, at least get out of that cheap mega-apartment first.”

‘Idiot. You should have said you’d lend it.’

Of course, at that time, I was so broke I could barely afford kibble, let alone a meal pack, so even if I wanted to lend her money, I had none to give.

Luna had introduced me to various places for work, so I, a penniless man, could barely make ends meet, but it was only after becoming a mercenary that I gained some financial ease.

I wanted to slap myself for not even offering to lend money, even if it was just empty words, but I couldn’t move, and Luna didn’t seem to care much, as if she hadn’t really expected it.

In the first place, Luna was richer even now.

“John, do you think it’s right for everyone to be oppressed like this?”

“Why are you talking so strangely?”

Oppression.

The act of suppressing and ruling others with power, violence, and such.

Considering that megacorps have grown to rival states and are trying to manipulate the world and its people, it’s fair to say that this is an era of control and oppression.

“Well, I don’t really know… It’s definitely a shitty era to live in, but if you ask if there was no oppression before things became like this, the answer is no. It’s just that as the times have progressed, the means of control have increased and their intensity has heightened, so the strength of the oppression we feel is simply greater.”

There were chieftains, there were councils, there were kings, there were emperors, there were dictators, there were general secretaries, and there are presidents.

Humans always have heads, so the subject has merely become corporations, and the principle of action has shifted from the survival of the state to profit generation.

“Of course, if I were to evaluate this shitty era, I certainly couldn’t say anything good about it.”

Luna, who had been stirring her coffee, seemed to chew on my opinion for a moment before a slight smile touched her lips.

“So, in the end, you’re saying it’s not right?”

“Our ancestors told us to be careful with a loose tongue.”

“Hah. Did you come from Unity Korea or something?”

“I told you, I’m Korean…”

Luna and I burst into laughter as we drank the terribly tasteless coffee.

It wasn’t much, but it was the only enjoyable time in a life that was merely waiting to wither away and die.

Luna laughed with me for a long time, then murmured as if passing a thought.

“Someday, I want to end this eclipse. That’s my dream. Remember it.”

This was a memory from several years ago.

A conversation I had with Luna in a cafe on a rare day when the lower city’s sky display was temporarily shut down for maintenance.

Luna told me a small dream.

‘To… end the eclipse… Why had I forgotten this?’

In a space where time had stopped and only the gray cafe floated, I felt my consciousness rapidly drift.

A vision dyed so red it was hard to see clearly, and a head-splitting pain overwhelmed me as I opened my eyes, but I didn’t scream.

Because it wouldn’t be cool to scream or shriek while a little kid, seemingly shocked, put their hand on my chest and shook me as if telling me to get up.

“Kid. Were you crying?”

“This AI doesn’t have such a function…”

I chuckled, placing my hand on Martina’s head.

Although it was soaked in blood, looking like it had been dyed with red paint, perhaps because it was immersed in blood, the traces of blood were instantly absorbed and vanished.

That’s amazing.

It seemed I’d been shot in the head and knocked out by a concussion.

Fortunately, it seemed to have been a pistol, so it hadn’t pierced through.

My vision was blurry and my stomach was unsettled, but I spotted Kathleen, who seemed to have made a decision, watching Wade and Patton desperately fending off the Fiftystar masks.

I staggered up, slowly approached her, and firmly grabbed her hand as she reached for the transport truck’s key card.

“Gasp..!”

“Don’t hand it over.”

Kathleen trembled as if startled by a sudden assailant who had grabbed her, but then her eyes widened in surprise when she saw it was me.

It was quite amusing to see emotions beginning to show in eyes that had seemed so empty.

I panted, looking at her through my blood-soaked hair.

“…Can I trust you?”

“Is there any way?”

A way, huh.

I looked at the container of the Extreme Military transport vehicle, where it was stored.

As I alternated glances between the key card and the container, Kathleen, realizing what I wanted, was astounded.

“Surely, if it’s what I’m thinking, no. That wasn’t made to be used by a person…”

“Even if you hand it over… Kathleen, wouldn’t you just end up being handed over to a megacorp, giving away your knowledge like a slave, and then discarded? If that’s the case, bet on me.”

“…You’ll die.”

“Heeheehee… Didn’t you see me blow their heads off without giving them a chance to dodge?”

As I swept my hand over my forehead, revealing the bleeding wound, Kathleen, whom I was holding, twitched.

If you don’t, you’ll simply die.

“Mr. John, couldn’t you have just escaped and lived?”

“Are you asking why?”

“I know that things like ‘trust is life for a mercenary’ only apply to official requests, and if things go even slightly awry, mercenaries settle matters of life and death with their clients.”

To me, a professional mercenary with a 100% mission completion rate who always finished jobs laughing with clients, it was a distant story, but I also felt like I would shoot a client who tried to stiff me.

I simply curled my lips into a smile and looked at the Fiftystar captain, whom Wade and Patton were holding back, ready to die.

“My friend told me she wants to end the eclipse.”

“The eclipse… you mean?”

It could probably be interpreted in several ways.

But at least for now, I decided to interpret it this way.

“It’s shitty to live being pushed around by guys like them, isn’t it?”

“…Alright.”

After a brief hesitation, Kathleen took my hand.

***

*Thud*

“Ugh..!”

The dagger plunged deep into the flesh.

Although the mercenary, who had been raging like a madman, had a tough muscle layer, possibly due to inserted bioware, his delicate internal organs were smoothly sliced by the sharp blade, and he dropped his katana and collapsed.

“As expected, those using Berserkware are tough and annoying. They just drag it out when they’re going to die anyway.”

“Fuck..! In a place like… this…”

The short-haired mercenary, sprawled on the floor, cursed and liberally splattered blood.

As the life burning like a berserker slowly faded from him, a tingling sensation of pleasure, somehow wetting below, came over her.

“Still, I enjoyed it quite a bit. You guys weren’t half bad.”

A robust-looking man lay among crushed grenades and a pair of split glasses, with a large stab wound in his chest.

Wade and Patton had fallen and were dying, unable to handle even one opponent.

Other Fiftystar members had already arrived and were waiting for their leader to finish toying with and enjoying herself with the mere mercenaries, so she had truly won against two seasoned mercenaries without a single scratch.

She, who had found entertainment in their excellent skills—remarkable for mercenaries comparable to corporate soldiers—wore a slightly disappointed expression beneath her mask.

“I thought I’d get to enjoy myself with a big-shot mercenary, but they couldn’t even dodge a single bullet…”

Where she had turned her head, there should have been a corpse with a bullet-pierced head, but there was no one there.

Given that even the researchers were gone, it was highly likely that he had somehow survived, abandoned the facility, and escaped with just his body.

“Just when things were getting good, it has to cool down… Well, if I just find the traces…”

Indeed, those with a reputation have high survival capabilities, so regardless of whether I liked them or not, they could be considered quick to assess situations.

Just as she turned around, one of her subordinates urgently flew towards her, seemingly having detected something.

“Captain! Dange..!”

*Splat!* The mask of the squad member who had lunged to protect her suddenly shattered, bursting like a tomato and splattering juice around.

Seeing that surreal sight, she instantly realized that her ambush detection sensors, naturally higher-grade than those of her squad members, had failed to detect him if she hadn’t caught him with her naked eye, and she immediately spun her body around.

There, through the open rear door of the transport vehicle, were the implant insertion device and the target, Kathleen Rossmore.

“No way…”

*Boom! Boom! Boom!* Her doubts were short-lived as an explosion sounded from behind her, and the nauseating smell of internal organs, making her want to hold her nose, spread around.

Rivulets of blood flowing across the floor soaked the soles of her boots.

Concealing her pounding heart and rising smirk beneath her mask, she turned around to find a shirtless man standing there.

It seemed the wounds from the procedure hadn’t healed yet, as blood flowed down his waist, and he was gushing blood from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears due to the tremendous recoil.

Yet, despite his dying appearance, she couldn’t let her guard down.

Even though she had only turned her back for a very brief moment, a full ten subordinates lay dead, every single one with their heads and chests caved in.

Even though every single one of them was trained to a level comparable to corporate soldiers!

“…You’ve made the item for the client secondhand. You must be prepared, then.”

“Accelerate.”

The two of them plunged into the stretching time.