Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: How to Survive in Fusion Punk
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Jin had become a stranger in the gray city overnight.
When he looked up, skyscrapers piercing the clouds formed a jagged skyline.
Aerial vehicles known as AVs buzzed around like flies.
Acid rain drizzled down without warning.
It was a massive city plastered with garish neon signs of every color.
The place was called Lost City.
The spot where Jin first opened his eyes was the very bottom of that Lost City—Downtown.
To borrow knowledge from his hometown, it felt like a mashup of 1980s Harlem's lawlessness and the gritty visuals of old Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong.
A true lawless zone.
For Jin, who had grown up in South Korea—where gun laws were the strictest in the world—everything here was overwhelming.
In fact, on the first day he woke up, he'd been wandering the streets when someone shot him right out in the open.
Shoulder, chest, abdomen. Three rounds, no less.
Yet he hadn't died. Purely because his body was tough as nails.
His life path as a Street Rat granted a 30% stamina bonus.
The perk Quick Recovery was invaluable for skimping on potion costs.
And the Irregular trait, which transcended racial limits.
Those three elements combined to give Jin a tenacity for life unmatched by anyone else.
And so, relying solely on his sturdy frame without any real savvy, Jin learned the laws of the streets the hard way.
Bruises, gashes, broken bones—all in a day's work. Days of starving or lying bedridden like a corpse became routine.
Like that, a year passed.
Jin somehow survived.
"Somehow" was the perfect word.
He hadn't expected himself to last this long.
Of course, a year hadn't changed much of anything.
Today, too, Jin was just sitting in his usual corner of the pub, ordering dinner.
"Here."
A plate piled with fried chicken thudded down onto the table.
Jin glanced at the owner heading back to the kitchen, rubbed his palms together, and was about to dig in when...
The translucent window that popped up before his eyes twisted Jin's expression into a grimace.
"Fuck..."
The curse slipped out on its own.
This goddamn status window had a knack for jumping out without any warning or useful hints, always ruining his mood.
Jin hated the status window.
Hated it beyond mere dislike—loathed it.
It pissed him off that it was plastered with question marks, that it popped up out of nowhere without warning, and above all, its translucent, out-of-place design made everything around it feel fake—like his struggles were just a show for someone watching from beyond a monitor.
In a world where even the body was steadily being replaced by machines, his senses sometimes felt unreliable.
What if all this was just a reckless mashup of 0s and 1s?
"Get lost."
Jin swatted at the air to dismiss the status window.
Then he forced a smile.
The chicken he tore into with anticipation after that? Good lord.
It tasted like absolute shit. The spongy texture made his eyes twitch.
He'd been had. It had definitely been tasty last time. How could this happen?
But what could he do?
His pockets were already lighter.
Good was good enough. Jin quietly chewed away.
Of course, having not a cent left was a problem.
Jin lived hand to mouth, earning just enough for the day.
In Downtown, stashing away personal cash was like tattooing "Kill me" on your forehead.
Born and bred on the streets, where credit was a foreign concept, he couldn't even get a basic credit card—which played no small part in his day-to-day grind.
Looking back, he had plenty of regrets.
Ah, I should've picked a corporation or a clan.
What was I thinking, going with Street Rat?
If he'd chosen a corporation, he could've been shuffling papers in one of those skyscrapers—not rotting in a shithole slum like Downtown—sipping wine in leisure.
A clan would've been fine too.
Magic, swordsmanship, spirits, and so on.
Joining the Purists inheriting ancient legacies would've surely been a noble life.
But Street Rat?
The streets were a jungle of survival of the fittest.
If you didn't grasp its rules, you'd just end up as prey.
Truth be told, the reason Jin had picked Street Rat as his life path was because that backstory sounded cool.
Let's be real—as long as you were born with a dick, how could your blood not boil at that setup?
City strays equating life with desperate struggle.
A gritty journey starting from rock bottom.
The keywords alone reeked of badassery, so it naturally appealed more than some spoiled highborn prick from day one.
But that allure was only for those peeking in from beyond the monitor.
Reality was incomparably brutal.
In that sense, Jin took pride in himself.
For somehow lasting a year.
For still being alive with all his limbs intact.
"Hey."
It was a gravelly voice.
Jin, mid-chew, lifted his head toward it.
His naturally slanted gaze met the man's eyes.
A face he'd never seen before.
But in Downtown, strangers didn't get polite greetings.
And Jin was no different.
"What."
Jin kept munching casually, rolling his eyes without drawing attention.
Suddenly, the table was surrounded by men.
One, two, three, four, five.
No visible cyberware.
Or maybe internal implants.
As Jin silently sized them up, the first guy spoke again.
"Heard you beat the shit out of our youngest."
"Huh?"
Jin cocked his head.
His narrowed eyes belatedly spotted a familiar face lurking slyly behind the others, shooting venomous glares.
That swollen-shut mug rang a bell.
"You?"
Jin pointed his index finger at the guy.
This morning, the pickpocket who'd bumped his shoulder on purpose and swiped his wallet had looked exactly like that.
"You said if I let you off once, you'd never show your face again?"
He'd been about to snap the thief's wrist for his sticky fingers when the guy begged like a fly, spouting that line.
Please, just once. I won't cross your path again.
So he'd settled for just collapsing the guy's nose.
"Shut your trap, you fucker. You're dead now. Got it?"
And now the bastard shows up with his crew, yelling like that?
Jin sighed.
He speared the last piece of chicken with his fork and brought it to his mouth.
The men watching pulled blades one by one.
A chuckling voice drifted from the tip of a knife inching closer.
"You smashed his face up that bad, so you must've prepared compensation, right? Hand it over. If it looks good, we'll settle for just chopping off a limb or two."
Jin pulled the fork from his mouth and replied.
"No money. Spent it all."
Then he jabbed the shiny fork into the nearest guy's thigh.
"...?"
The man hadn't calculated for a mere eating utensil piercing cloth and sinking deep into flesh.
His scream came a beat late.
"Aaaagh!!"
In that split second, Jin spun on his heel and kicked the fork's handle—now jutting out.
The tines drove deeper, hitting bone.
The bone snapped under the force, and a louder scream filled the pub.
"Crazy bastard!"
"Kill him!"
By the time his crew snapped to and shouted, Jin was already on his feet, fist flying.
Crack!
The punch sliced through the air and smashed into the kneeling man's face.
Blood arced in a parabola as his head snapped back.
Jin didn't stop.
He pivoted and drove his knee into the gut of another charging in.
Guhk. Lungs squeezed like a vise, head lolling.
Jin grabbed it from behind and slammed it into the table. Bam!
Cracks spiderwebbed across the thin glass like a meteor strike, blood seeping through.
He released his grip on the hair.
He wanted to smash it a few more times, but a knife was whistling in from the side.
Grab.
"...?!"
The man gawked, never expecting bare hands on the blade.
But only for a moment. His eyes curved into crescents.
Pull the knife toward him now, and those fingers gripping it wrong would tumble off.
So he yanked hard.
What the—? It won't budge!
"What?"
The sensation was like the blade caught between rocks.
As the man strained with bulging veins, Jin's forehead smashed into his nose like a dump truck.
Blood burst. Yellowed teeth flew.
At the same time, a voice yelled over his shoulder.
You fucker!
Jin spun.
The blade grazed his cheek. His hand clamped the man's throat.
He hoisted him high and slammed him down hard!
A chokeslam crashing onto bare floor.
Bang!
Sudden gunshot. Searing heat spread through his right shoulder like spilled paint.
The pain he could never get used to furrowed Jin's brow as he turned.
A furious face aiming a pistol at him.
"Die!"
Enraged shout, trigger pulled.
But the bullet shattered only the ceiling light.
Jin had closed the gap and forced the wrist upward.
"Wh-what strength...!"
Fist met the face of the man thrashing in disbelief at losing control of his arm.
Jin snatched the pistol as it slipped from the now-unconscious hand.
He aimed downward and fired round after round into the five downed men.
That left just one.
The pickpocket slumped on the floor, jaw chattering.
He hadn't fled because the fight had ended too fast.
"W-wait. Just a sec."
Jin strode toward the guy dragging his ass backward, waving his hands.
"Hey."
"Y-yes? Yesyesyes."
"Know what today is?"
"Uh, th-that's..."
The pickpocket's eyes darted wildly.
What kind of day is today, out of nowhere?
No clue, but saying so felt dangerous too.
As he hesitated, mouth half-open, Jin kindly provided the answer.
"The answer's my one-year anniversary."
"...? One-year? D-do you have a girlfriend?"
"Girlfriend? Don't make me laugh."
Jin wiped his cheek with the back of his pistol hand.
Blood smeared to his ear along the path.
"It's the first birthday for the loser who cried his eyes out looking for his mom at 30. That's why I'm letting it slide nice and easy. It's a meaningful day."
"Wh-what do you... mean..."
"Doesn't matter if you don't get it."
A dry gunshot cracked by his ear right after.
Brass casing rolled across the floor with a clatter.
The slide locked back on the now-empty magazine, and faint gunpowder scent wafted up.
Only then did the pickpocket—with a hole in his forehead—faceplant dead.
Finally, Jin tossed the spent pistol over his shoulder and squatted to rummage the corpses.
Hold up. Does looting make me a thief too?
Nah, dead guys don't own shit.
Do they? Whatever, doesn't count.
South Korea might say otherwise, but not Downtown.
Goddamn slums.
Goddamn game.
Goddamn life.
Once he'd rationalized it enough, a wad of crumpled credits was in his hand.
He tossed more than half onto the table for repairs and cleanup.
Couldn't afford to piss off the owner.
That was just how things worked here.
Sure enough, the owner—who'd loaded a shotgun—checked the bills and quietly lowered his arm.
Jin gave him a quick wave and staggered out of the pub.
One step, two steps, three.
Leaving behind the day that had felt so special to him alone.
The trail of blood from his weary steps faded into the street's darkness at last.