Chapter 5
Chapter 5
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: The Saintess of the Back Alley (5)
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Let's rewind to the beginning.
The moment I had just started my part-time job. Having adapted somewhat to this city, I was searching for clues to return to my original world.
Then, one idea popped into my head: revisit the place where I first woke up.
'Hidden elements at the starting point are an RPG national rule, after all.'
It might sound like a light joke, but I figured it was worth checking out at least once.
Because back then, I had been too frantic to look around properly.
Maybe the reason I came to this world—or a clue— was still there. That was my reasoning.
Honestly, I wasn't pinning high hopes on it... but right now, no other methods came to mind. It felt like grasping at straws.
So, on a day when my shift ended early, I set out.
Retracing my memories, I returned to that back alley once more.
'Still as creepy as ever.'
The scene was filled with shattered glass and rusted, dust-covered junk cars.
The dismal atmosphere made me fidget with the item I'd tucked into my pocket for some reason.
The pistol Kayla had given me. I hoped I'd never have to use it...
Fortunately, from what I'd scouted ahead, this place wasn't any gang's turf, so the risk of trouble was lower than expected.
It was just so remote that there wasn't a soul around.
That was why I'd dared to come alone, but the vibe was still pretty intimidating.
"......"
Scanning the surroundings, I ventured a bit deeper into the alley, where a vacant lot that was half a junkyard appeared.
Beyond the rusted chain-link fence, discarded scrap littered the ground here and there.
'Strike out, huh...'
I poked around every corner for a while but found nothing.
Just random junk, no matter how I looked. Seemed impossible to find anything meaningful.
I'd said not to expect much from the start, but having my low prediction prove spot-on still left me feeling empty.
It was right then, as I let out a sigh—
A rustle—something suddenly shifted amid the piled-up scrap in the lot.
I flinched and instinctively ducked behind a wall.
'W-what? Is someone there?'
Tensing up, I held my breath for a moment. The presence I'd sensed vanished completely. It got so quiet I wondered if I'd imagined it.
What the heck was that? A wild animal? Just the wind rustling something?
The already gloomy surroundings had me on edge for real now.
But since I'd come looking for clues, if there was something, I had to check it out before leaving, right?
Gripping the pistol in my pocket out of habit, I cautiously approached the direction of the noise.
'This is...'
What was there was a person. A person buried in the scrap.
At first glance, they looked so wretched I thought homeless bum, but upon closer inspection, something was off.
Their condition was a mess. Clothes soaked in blood, hardly a spot on their body without bruises or wounds. Sparks even flew from cyberware all over.
Judging by build and hair length, a woman. But her face was so swollen and battered it was unrecognizable.
Just her deathly pale complexion looked dangerous, like someone on the verge of suffocation.
If not for the occasional slight convulsions, I'd have thought she was already a corpse.
'What do I do with this?'
Coldly speaking, pretending not to see and slipping away was the no-risk option.
In this shady street, someone dumped in that state meant some incident was involved. Best not to touch it rashly.
Yet I couldn't easily turn away. Because our eyes had met.
Golden eyes peering through tangled hair.
What they held wasn't a desperate craving for life, nor resentment toward someone who wouldn't help... just resignation.
A quiet pessimism, accepting her own death was imminent, without even a twitch of struggle.
No matter how tough, yearning for life is a creature's natural instinct— so what kind of life had she lived to defy even that and so easily surrender her existence? Without a single plea for help. Without a single gesture...
For some reason, an irrelevant memory surfaced, making me feel even more uneasy.
"Ah, damn it..."
Someone once said that when people see a child fall into a well, they rush to save them without hesitation—not for any gain, but simply because pitying a child in danger is a natural human sentiment.
Helping others without reason is the instinct of a social animal.
So, just once...
Just this one time, wouldn't it be okay to act on impulse without any calculations?
'Yeah, just this once.'
Steeling myself, I halted my backward steps.
Then I approached again and placed my fingertips on the stranger's forehead.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Employee number ST-780199's final memory was a voice.
"Good work all this time. Now retire."
That faint voice announced her end without mocking or pitying her.
It was utterly emotionless, like discarding a used-up tool.
'Who? Who said that to me?'
She reflexively tried to dig deeper into her memories, but it only brought sharper headaches.
'My head... hurts so much...!'
In that agony, ST-780199 thought once more.
That feeling pain at all was abnormal.
The measure taken against her shouldn't have ended with mere pain.
What her 'superior' had triggered in her mind was the 'Apoptosis Protocols'.
A system created by Asecure Corporation for frontline operatives, used to terminate agents who had outlived their usefulness or posed too great a risk to retain under contract.
The effect was simple: complete deletion of the target.
From company secrets known to the agent, access rights, records, assets, identity, memories, to life and existence itself.
A single button erased it all cleanly.
That was why ST-780199 could hardly believe her thoughts were still coherent now. Normally, the moment her 'superior' pressed the button, all implants and neural circuits should have burned out, leaving an empty shell.
No need to worry about the remains either. Dumped in the lower streets, scavengers would dismantle them thoroughly.
Cleaner than burial or cremation. Any valuable cyberware would be stripped down to the nails and sold. Once piecemeal disassembled and scattered through black markets everywhere, tracing the body was impossible.
Thus, existence erased with a mere flick of a finger.
That was Asecure Corporation's leash for handling its most dangerous hounds.
A process she'd known from personally 'cleaning up' 'seniors' on orders.
Her own fate, as she'd sensed just before.
Yet somehow, she was still alive.
'How...?'
Scattered effects of the measure lingered in deleted memories, but ending at this level made no sense.
Malfunctions were impossible in that protocol. It was designed impeccably. In decades, not a single failure reported. Asecure Corporation's ironclad reputation needed no explanation.
'Then how am I still alive?'
A hazy memory resurfaced.
In a landscape of gray and discarded junk, the shadow approaching her fallen form... was a girl in near-pure white.
The instant their eyes met, she'd thought her achingly beautiful—even in death's throes. Never once believed in the afterlife, yet in that moment, she fancied an angel descending from heaven to greet her.
And then, something utterly incomprehensible unfolded.
"......"
Retracing the memory briefly, she slowly rose to her feet now.
As if the recollection of losing all cyberware control, unable even to support her own weight, was a lie.
The body that couldn't breathe properly moved freely again.
Even her heart, which should have stopped with severed neural circuits, beat vividly.
Only the leash was gone.
"........Ah."
The control chip embedded deepest in her neural network during the protocol had burned away too.
Thus, the comm implant that had relentlessly dumped tasks without respite fell eerily silent.
The forcibly linked security network had vanished cleanly.
The moment she realized she was no longer subordinate to anyone—
The golden eyes of the hound too dangerous to release freely gleamed in the darkness.
