episode_0059

*Crush!* A massive bear claw swings, slicing through the concrete wall as if it were tofu, then shoots forward to cleave my neck.

I raise my arm, blocking it with my wrist. Gripping his sleeve, I pull, rotate my upper body, drive my elbow into his liver, then release the sleeve, push, and extend my palm toward his chin.

Engaging in close-quarters combat, the bear-like man, repeatedly struck in vital points, staggered for a moment but *clenched* his resolve, ultimately enduring the assault and grabbing my shoulder.

“Don’t touch me, you bastard!”

I immediately hook my arm into the crook of his elbow, tightening the hold, then insert my foot between his legs, pushing outward while shifting my center of gravity forward.

The guy trying to overpower me momentarily lost his balance due to the force applied at his pivot point. He flinched, stepping out to regain balance, and I seized that timing. With a powerful electric stimulation spreading throughout my entire muscular system, I used strength beyond my latent muscular limits to reverse the pressure and pin him down.

*Thud!* With a look of annoyance, I slammed my knee into the chin of the guy who had fallen to his knees, his face hitting the floor!

The excruciating impact felt in his joints was enough to make him forget the pain of his torn muscles!

“Gasp…!”

“Only women are allowed to lay a hand on my body, you see.”

The man, concussed by the direct impact to his brain, lay on the floor drooling, supporting himself with his hands.

He probably won’t be able to properly control his body for a while.

‘Now that he’s subdued, if I call the others…’

*Grab!* Just as I briefly looked away to reach for the communication earphone in my ear for a radio call, a huge grip seized my leg. I looked down to see that thick, hairy hand crushing my leg so tightly it felt like it would shatter.

“I’m sure I split his eyeballs, but have they already fully recovered? And his legs don’t seem to be cyberware, yet they’re sturdy.”

“Damn it…!”

*Whoosh!* I briefly escaped the influence of gravity and entered the world of centrifugal force.

In other words, my skull had become a hammer, flying through the sky.

Having become a massive organic hammer being swung, I passed the brief moment of airborne suspension and truly began to fly, smashing through a flimsy aluminum door crudely attached to the concrete wall of the ramshackle Junk Palace, and tumbled wildly across the floor.

I sent flying discarded drink cans, cheap low-grade kibble bags, and syringes whose needles were completely mangled from how many times they’d been reused, finally coming to a halt just in front of a small terrace window.

-“Ohhh! Ahhh!”

“Haa… damn it…”

I roughly kicked away the syringe, unsure what virus might be on it, and as I finally collected myself, the sight of a square block apartment, smaller than a tiny birdcage, revealed itself.

It was filled with trash, as if it was never cleaned. Escaped food insects crawled around, and on the floor lay empty pornographic BD covers, explicitly displaying flesh tones.

Moreover, on the sofa, a guy was masturbating in a chicken-like posture, wearing a BD module, with beads of blood on his arm, as if he had just taken drugs.

“Ah, damn it.”

I just ruined my eyes for nothing.

I even wondered if I was thrown into such a place just to damage my vision.

“Because of you, I feel like gouging out my eyes.”

“Why don’t you gouge them out and regenerate them?”

Despite hitting his vital points repeatedly, the bear man merely spat a bit of blood and walked in through the completely torn-off door, seemingly unfazed. I readied my stance again.

My shotgun had already been shattered into five pieces by that claw, rendering it useless, less than an iron pipe, and discarded. Explosives like grenades couldn’t be used inside this building.

“What on earth is security doing letting guys like him in? Wage thieves, those bastards.”

“Well, I have a ticket code too.”

“So you’re a great and distinguished legitimate customer.”

***

A discolored, cheap display frame flew towards me.

Its somewhat sharp corner aimed for my eye, but the bear man, despite his large build, reacted swiftly, tilting his head to dodge.

That was merely to obscure his vision.

No matter how fast his reaction, it would be difficult to react to and parry a butter knife suddenly extended from his lower field of vision, unless it was anticipated or foreseen. So, *stab*, the knife pierced through his muscle fibers and dug in.

However, the bear man seemed unfazed, as if a mere butter knife, not even a military knife optimized for lethality, couldn’t harm him, and swung his arm.

As I instantly raised my arm to guard, *crack*, my body was lifted off the ground with the sound of bones cracking, and I was slammed into the wall.

My back crushing the wall as I stopped, I immediately reached out and threw a table. The adhesive plywood table hit the bear man and shattered from the impact.

“Tsk… looks nasty. It’ll fester later.”

*Plink!* The man pulled out the butter knife stuck in his abdomen. His muscles twitched, and the wound began to close up instantly.

The precision might be low, but the speed was unmatched even by real-time procedures using nanoware!

‘Healing Factor!’

If cyberware protects the user with defensive power that can deflect bullets, then bioware sustains life with regenerative power that allows one to endure and recover from bullet wounds.

This guy, who overwhelmed my strength, despite my body gradually transforming into a superhuman one through nanoware body modifications, must have received the highest level of healing factor implant.

‘Annoying…!’

It was certainly possible to infer how high their level was, given that they could contend with Hellstream despite their loosely structured organization.

The bear man immediately embedded his hand into the wall, tore off a section, and spun to hurl it at me.

I quickly lowered my stance, dodging the massive cement block that flew, scattering rubble, by running on all fours. Then I charged and tackled him, activating my potential-ware.

With the force of my charge, the bear man, whose body size was double mine, was lightly pushed back and slammed his head into the wall.

A hole was cleanly punched through the wall, collapsing it and creating a direct passage to the next apartment without going through the corridor. The scene inside wasn’t much different from the previous unit, but a resident watching TV, perhaps drinking and watching flip soccer, screamed.

-“Ugh, ohhh!!!”

An unpleasant sound, as if someone was climaxing, came from there. I took mount and activated my speed-ware.

In the accelerated time, my fists struck the nose, jaw, mouth, shoulder, chest, solar plexus, abdomen, flank, and liver of the man pinned beneath me, and returned.

All this took less than 0.01 seconds.

*Splat!* Due to the excessive physical exertion, an enormous burden spread throughout my entire body, causing blood to spurt from my nose. Was the impact of the rapid blows, while being pinned to the floor, finally registering? His face and the struck areas caved in, and another layer of the floor collapsed.

Having fallen through, we swung sofas at each other, slammed down cutting boards that had no business being there, and hurled holographic flowerpots, engaging in a frantic exchange of blows.

My damage per hit was higher, but his regenerative ability was too great. Even as I evaded his clawing attacks and continued the fight, his wounds were already healed.

He recovered even when hit and didn’t feign pain, so there was no satisfaction in hitting each other.

So, deciding to lose my mind, I frantically smashed all the household items, turning the floor into a wasteland.

This was the result.

The man lay prone, his face a bloody pulp, oozing blood, as if even his healing factor’s regenerative power had finally reached its limit.

It was clearly a victory born of my tenacity, but my own condition wasn’t great either, even with Martina bearing some of the burden.

I was now capable of securing victories, not easily but comfortably, against formidable mercenaries like Blake or Jay Q. The fact that this fight was so difficult meant he must be at least a regional champion.

Bleeding profusely from my nose, I barely managed to collect myself, standing and looking down at him, with Martina’s voice continuously speaking in my head.

The hulking man, his raincoat completely torn, revealing massive muscles, had a large synthetic beast head tattooed on his back.

That must be the mark of J. World.

“Damn it… such a skilled opponent… He’s not Hellstream, since I don’t see any monstrous cyberware… Is it Wild Hunt? To lose to a lunatic bastard who hunts our kids…”

“What nonsense are you spouting?”

Wild Hunt? I felt like I’d heard of it a few times as a mercenary network, but with my head not working properly right now, I couldn’t be sure.

First, I need to sever his limbs before his healing factor kicks in again…

I drew my knife, and he seemed to accept this outcome, lowering his head.

And I aimed the knife at his joints.

“Jun! Stop for a second! That man is the acquaintance, the uncle who gave us the ticket code!”

“Uncle Bob, calm down too. Jun is our master, no! Lover…?”

*Halt!* What stopped the raised knife was the urgent voices of two foxes, filled with panic, rushing towards me.

Yuki and Kana blinked their eyes as they saw the bear man collapsed at my feet.

***

“His common alias is Bearhand, his real name is Jang Dae-geon. He’s the boss of J. World.”

To summarize the situation, Luna was safe.

From what I heard, the J. World executives who followed – the wolf-headed suit and the snow leopard-headed suit – did rush towards Luna, but Yuki and Kana immediately intervened, so no fight broke out.

Of course, Luna, seeing that the bear man had lost, didn’t seem likely to lose to the two who looked incredulous. Still, it was a relief that she wasn’t hurt.

“Ugh… I’m going crazy. I can’t believe you two know such a monstrous guy.”

“Yuki, Kana. This J. World boss, he’s that uncle you know?”

“Hehe. Actually, there aren’t many places where you can get Beast-Parts bioware modification procedures. Uncle is the husband of the director of the clinic we go to.”

“Your connections are incredible… Will I find a megacorp chairman among them if I keep going?”

I scratched my head, watching Jang Dae-geon, Bearhand, whose wounds were rapidly healing, as if his healing factor had started working again.

“Anyway, what was that you just said?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like. J. World never made any ‘murder threats’ to Closing Age.”

Somehow, things seem to have started getting complicated.