Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: Surviving in Fusion Punk
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In Lost City, a commission is just a means to handle filthy jobs that can't rely on public authority.
It's safe to say they're almost always illegal.
Assault gigs, theft, kidnapping, murder, hacking, and the like.
None of them are remotely ordinary, and the man before him was asking for a rescue.
"So, you want me to save your little sister?"
The man nodded with a haggard face at Jin's question.
"Yeah. She's in danger."
"Hmm."
Jin clenched his fist, crumpling the wrapper into a ball.
He sorted through the story he'd just heard in his mind.
"Your sister... she's that BH editor or something? BHC?"
"BH editor. Brain Holic. You don't know it...?"
"Should I?"
"Ah, no, not that, but..."
The man looked flustered as he scanned Jin up and down.
Then, as if realizing something, his eyes widened.
"...You don't have a neural socket. Are you a Purist by any chance?"
"Purist? Oh, a faction? Nah, I'm not in one. I picked Street Rat."
"...?"
"What?"
The two men, failing to grasp each other's intentions, both floated question marks over their heads.
Jin knew nothing about anti-implant ideology,
and the man couldn't make sense of Jin's vague ramblings.
And why would he? Jin's knowledge of this world came solely from攻略 posts he'd skimmed before starting the game.
He hadn't even bothered reading the story.
Thus, proudly displaying his bottom-rung common sense limited to this worldview, he asked boldly.
"So, what's this BH thing? Lay it out for me."
"Uh, yeah, well..."
Swept up in the mood, the man stammered through an explanation.
"BH is tech that lets you indirectly experience someone else's memories through neural transmission. Not just the five senses—sight, smell, touch, hearing, taste—but even the emotions the subject felt, all vivid as hell."
Damn, that's a thing?
Jin raised an eyebrow.
This really is an advanced world.
Experiencing someone else's life...
Anyone wanna let me try theirs?
One day, tossed into a game like organic trash.
"BH's used to rehabilitate criminals or as training material across all sorts of fields—positive stuff like that throughout society. Of course, that's not the whole story..."
The man sighed deeply, as if part of his soul leaked out with it.
"But BH gets traded on the black market too, as a tool for unethical, immoral thrills. Pure hedonism. Like snuff films, basically."
Jin got it instantly.
Experience? More like full possession.
No need to look far—even in Korea, deepfakes spawned all kinds of crimes. Imagine recreating full senses and emotions...
No further details needed.
"My little sister's an editor making safety training vids for construction sites. Like, what happens if a worker skips his hardhat? That kinda thing. For her to end up in gang BH production... She won't last sane."
As the man muttered in a trembling voice,
Jin stood with arms crossed, chewing the inside of his cheek.
Should I? Or not?
Sounds like picking a fight with a gang.
Screw this up half-assed, and it gets messy.
As his deliberation dragged on,
the man, gauging Jin's expression in the silence, cautiously spoke up.
"I'll pay whatever I can."
"...!"
Jin's eyes went wide.
Right.
Forgot to ask the most important part?
New to commissions, Jin had no set rate yet.
So he figured something reasonable in his head.
100K credits sound good?
Nah. Start at 200K, pretend to haggle down...
"200K credits work? All in cash."
Pop.
Jin's mind blanked out.
Moments later, his subconscious fumbled for the reasoning fuse, jammed it in, and hammered the calculator.
Meatball spaghetti's 2K credits.
200K is 1,000 plates.
Three squares a day in luxury for 333 days.
Still 0.3 days left for an extra waffle.
"Leave it to me."
Before he knew it, Jin had both hands wrapped around the man's, shaking his arm up and down.
Gang, gangsters.
Street mafias, unpacked.
Sound intimidating, but not always.
In Downtown, gangs pop up like violence clubs from any three punks teaming up—dozens launch and vanish daily.
Sure, some are powerhouses that could flip Downtown, but luckily, Steel Hands weren't that league.
Mid-to-lower tier by rep, somewhere in the mushy middle.
Still, not to be dismissed.
True to their name, every Steel Hands member packed cyberarms—lethal fighters.
To Jin, though, they were just psychos chopping off perfectly good limbs to swap for steel.
Body hair from your parents—know that?
What're you doing to the precious flesh they gave you?
But Jin had no room to talk.
His body wasn't inherited.
Just a combo of stats, skills, traits.
So Jin looked up at the night sky and thought,
in this godforsaken world, if there's anyone who can't be understood, it's me.
Sure, this body had origins, maybe a backstory, but waking up face-down in the gutter made it all dreamlike to him.
Honestly, zero interest.
No one he knew anyway.
Like he'd dropped from the sky,
Jin had been Jin from the start.
Like any game character.
Enough. Cut it.
Just steadied my mental game, now this again.
Focus. First gig.
I'm a proper Solo now.
Forcibly shaking off the deepening existential doubt, Jin slapped his cheeks and hurried on.
He soon arrived at a club.
[STEEL NIGHT]
Under the blinking LED neon of a pistol sign etched with the name,
a guard with steel arms crossed scanned Jin top to bottom.
"Hmph."
Handsome face, tall frame.
Aviation jacket and jeans suited him well—early 20s guy with a suspiciously prominent bulge.
Passes with room to spare.
"...Go in."
Jin shrugged past the guard's chin flick.
Leaving behind a grumbled 'Fucking huge down there.' he pushed the door.
Thumping bass hit with a long stairwell down to the basement.
Steel Night.
Steel Hands' front business and hideout.
The man had insisted, haggard-faced, that his sister was held here.
Jenny, was it?
Recalling the kidnapped BH editor's name, Jin realized he'd reached the bottom and turned toward the racket.
Flashing lights and dancing crowds filled his ash-gray eyes.
"Whoa."
Jin let out a soft whistle.
The ecstasy-shaking crowd felt like another world.
What? Have I been scraping by alone all this time?
Feeling like half his life was wasted, Jin headed to the counter.
He smoothed out crumpled bills from his pocket and said casually,
"Cheapest shot you got."
"..."
As the bartender pocketed the credits with a 'another broke-ass' look, Jin spun 180 degrees on the backless stool.
One, two, three...
The club was big, but spotting gang members was easy enough.
Skip dancers, hunt cyberarm pairs.
Eight Steel Hands in Jin's sights.
One guarded an entrance leading somewhere.
There.
As Jin locked on mentally, something thunk! hit behind him.
Turning, he saw booze in an ice glass. Bartender already turning away.
"Jeez."
Jin shrugged, grabbing the glass.
A light sip of cheap swill burned down his throat with fiery warmth.
"...Shoulda got cola."
Truth was, Jin hated booze.
Hangovers always wrecked him with hunger.
Insulin-induced hypoglycemia? Pure misery for someone with fasting PTSD.
So Jin quietly set the glass down.
Standing, he headed to the bathroom—but really, tailing a gang punk clutching his gut.
"Ugh. Ate something bad?"
The punk dashed into a stall, fumbling his pants.
Jin arrived, checked around.
In the quiet, a guy shivering over the toilet hiked his belt.
"Phew... Wasted. So wasted."
Confirming the slurring drunk stumble out, Jin locked the door with a click.
Stepping to the explosive stall, he yanked the handle.
Wait. Why's it unlocked?
Expecting resistance to rip the door, Jin frowned at the open stall and the punk on the throne.
"Shit. Why not lock the damn door? Wasn't ready."
Between hairy shins, sagging white briefs like a hammock—gross. Looking away, the still-dazed punk finally yelled.
"Hey! You fucker! Close it heghk!"
But Jin's kick landed first—shoe sole smashed face, blood spraying as the head snapped back.
"Sleep it off."
Jin shut the door.
A subtle fullness swelled deep in his chest.
"...Perfect."
Jin pumped his fist.
Nailed it! Knew one more would do it.
Truth be told, Jin had a plan.
Taking on a gang solo? Even for big money, life comes first. He'd accepted 'cause he had an ace.
Like, level-up.
Jin closed his eyes.
Focusing inward,
his expanded awareness lit the vast night sky.
Stars twinkled before sealed lids.
A fist-shaped constellation, starting from the first gleam named [Quick Recovery].
Jin's achievements needed one last dot.
One year of rolling through hell connected the stellar path point by point.
Yesterday's punks and dawn quest XP nearly maxed proficiency.
Felt like one more dip would light up the darkroom.
And now.
That one lay slumped on the john,
a beam linked straight through the nebula,
waking the final sleeping star in brilliance.
It was the moment a new phrase surfaced in Jin's depths.
[Superhuman]
Finally completing one constellation, the stellar cluster shone bright—Jin opened his eyes.
Feeling his body tougher, senses sharper.
"Let's go."
Jin cracked his neck side to side, exiting the bathroom.
Then strode toward the guarding gang punk.
Fist slowly clenching. The club's pounding beat heralded what was coming.