A Request for Three Bowls
“You want me to save your dad?”
“Yes. He hasn't come home in over a week.”
Oh, dear.
Maetan was a relatively safe place.
Even in this day and age, with the government long gone, the city maintained its own police force. It governed the "employees" living within its walls under the guise of corporate regulations, striving to keep society stable.
Of course, it wasn't perfect. Kidnappings, robberies, and organ trafficking were common occurrences on the outer edges of the Civilian Zone. Still, compared to the wild wilderness outside Maetan, it was practically paradise.
“Where do you want me to save him from?”
“The cult.”
“The cult?”
“They call it... the Cradle Cult.”
I'd never heard of it. Then again, I had never paid any attention to the names of religious groups in the first place.
“He used to go there almost every day... but he always came home. Now, he doesn't come home at all. I think something bad happened to him.”
The child mumbled, doing her absolute best to hold back her tears.
Suddenly, her gaze drifted to the tabletop. Following her eyes, I saw...
My prosthetic arm was holding her hand.
What the hell?
I pulled my left arm back under the table.
Ah, why'd you do that?! The kid is about to cry! The least you could do is hold her hand!
Is she out of her mind?
A grown man holding a ten-year-old girl's hand in the middle of the street? That was a one-way ticket to getting horribly misunderstood.
“What's his name?”
“My dad's? Kim Chang-gyu.”
“No, yours.”
“Kim Ye-eun...”
“Alright, Kim Ye-eun. You've got the wrong idea. Players don't take real-world requests. We only take commissions on the Internet. No matter how high-ranking an S-Grade Player is, they're just ordinary people in reality. We don't have the power to make the impossible possible like we do in the virtual world.”
Ye-eun's face fell instantly. She forced a smile, but her eyes remained filled with despair.
“And a Player's fee isn't this cheap. You need at least a few hundred thousand Maetan Points. A single bowl of gukbap isn't—”
Zzap!
“Gah!”
A sudden electric shock surged from my prosthetic arm. My muscles seized up instantly, slamming my nose straight into the table.
An angry message from CC flooded my vision.
╰（‵□′）╯ Mister, are you a demon?! The poor kid is begging for help! And you're complaining about a single bowl of gukbap?! I can't believe you're this kind of person!
Zzap!
Thud!
Another shock rippled through me, sending me tumbling out of my chair. Startled by my sudden seizure, Kim Ye-eun peered over the table at me.
“Mister...?”
(╯▔皿▔)╯ Apologize to her right now! And find her dad!! Adults are supposed to help children...!
“Let me finish!”
I forced the words out, fighting against my spasming tongue.
I climbed back onto my stool and looked at Ye-eun.
“...But you're in luck. In the real world, I'm stronger than any other Player.”
“Then...!”
“However, the fee is still too low. Did you really think you could hire me for just two bowls of gukbap?”
“H-how much do you need? All the money I have right now is...”
Ye-eun frantically fumbled through her pockets. Her large, anxious eyes darted to mine, filled with worry.
I dipped my spoon into the soup and said,
“I'll need at least three bowls. Go get me one more.”
A bright smile broke across Ye-eun's face, and she dashed off.
So you did have a plan... But you know exactly how little that kid makes, and you still ordered another bowl?
“You didn't look in her pockets, did you?”
Her pockets?
“I saw several wallets sticking out of her jacket pockets. She probably swiped them from those pawnshop thieves I knocked out earlier.”
Through the bustling crowd, Kim Ye-eun carefully made her way back, carrying another steaming bowl of gukbap.
“She might be young, but she's already got the makings of an exemplary citizen of Maetan.”
After parting ways with the girl, I slung my burlap sack over my shoulder and headed toward the studio apartment where Choi Soyeong lived.
Last time, I had snuck in through a third-story window to avoid the guard, but this time, I walked right through the front entrance.
“Can I help you?” the guard asked.
“I'm here for Room 23 on the 13th floor.”
“Do you mind if I check that sack?”
I loosened the tie of the burlap sack and showed him the contents. The guard stared at me, his expression practically screaming, What on earth is this?
“Go on in.”
I took the elevator up to the 13th floor. It had been over two years since I arrived in this city—including my time at the intern dorms outside Maetan—but I realized this was the first time I had ever ridden an elevator here.
I knocked on the door of Room 23. A loud crash echoed from inside.
“Yes! Yes, coming!”
A moment later, the door swung open, and Choi Soyeong appeared.
“W-welcome...”
Her apartment was still messy, but it was a massive improvement from before. The trash was piled neatly in one corner, and there were no discarded clothes strewn about. Most importantly, I could actually see the floor.
“I-I looked into Choi Minseol, j-just like you asked...”
We sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Soyeong spoke hesitantly, fidgeting with her fingers.
“Th-that name... there's something really strange about it. The moment I type 'Choi Minseol' into a search bar on the Internet... all the nearby digital residents go on high alert. They freeze in place and start st-staring at me.”
It was a phenomenon I had experienced myself back in the PC Cafe. The residents of the virtual world, who had been going about their daily lives, would suddenly freeze and stare at me with expressionless faces.
“If you leave the area, they return to normal pretty quickly, but... j-just to test it, I tried searching in an empty room. Even then, the people outside the window stopped and stared right at me. I thought my heart was going to stop... It felt like I was on the verge of being detected by the rogue AI.”
“Is the Internet hiding Choi Minseol?”
“Hmm...” Soyeong scratched her head.
“When I did indirect searches using the name of your unit or my own thesis, nothing happened. So I don't think they're hiding her. If they wanted to hide her, they would have just blocked her name from showing up in search results entirely. There are plenty of things that return zero results when searched...”
“Then what is it?”
“Rather than hiding her... maybe they're looking for her?”
“Who? You mean F is looking for her?”
“Yes. I think that whenever the name 'Choi Minseol' pops up, the system enters surveillance mode to gather information on her.”
“F is looking for her... She's as popular as ever.”
“Is there any reason why F would be searching for her?”
I searched my memories of Choi Minseol.
Back then, the human military, overwhelmed by the ever-growing number of orphans, selected us as test subjects for a newly developed enhancement surgery.
We were barely ten years old when we signed the contracts presented by the government and underwent the procedures. That was when they severed our perfectly healthy left arms and replaced them with cybernetic prosthetics.
Afterward, they formed a unit comprised entirely of these augmented orphans. They called us the Shoeshine Unit. It was a cruel play on words, referencing orphans who used to shine shoes on the streets.
Without even the basic shield of parents to protect us, we were treated as disposable assets. We were thrown into every high-risk mission imaginable, from rear-guard delay actions to blocking maneuvers. Our comrades died almost daily. Actually, back then, we didn't even think of each other as comrades. We just saw one another as people who would probably die tomorrow.
'Hi there. I'm your commander starting today.'
Then, one day, Choi Minseol took command of our unit.
She had a gentle, slightly scatterbrained personality that didn't fit a soldier at all, and a slender frame to match. She seemed entirely unsuited to lead a unit that danced with death every single day. Yet, the reason we all looked at her differently was simple: her left arm was a prosthetic, just like ours.
And from that day forward, our Shoeshine Unit began to be hailed as the strongest force in the human military.
“...Nothing specific comes to mind. Perhaps because of her achievements in the war against F? If that's the case, we'd need to check if the Internet reacts similarly to the names of other commanders...”
“U-understood. I'll look into it from different angles... But... what is that?”
Soyeong pointed to the burlap sack I had brought.
I stood up and emptied the sack onto the floor. Old, worn-out cybernetic limbs clattered noisily across her apartment floor.
“W-what are these?”
“The belongings of my fallen comrades from the Shoeshine Unit.”
I picked up one of the prosthetics. Scratched deeply into the back of the metal hand were the words: please save yuri.
“These contain the personal records of my fallen comrades, their final locations before they died, and the combat logs of those moments. Using this data, do you think you can reconstruct the Event Zone of the day they died?”
If we could recreate the battlefield where they fell, Choi Minseol might be inside that simulation.
Soyeong carefully picked up one of the prosthetics. Some of the rusted limbs still bore dark, dried bloodstains. She gave a slow nod.
“I'll try.”
“Thank you.”
Just before I stepped out of Soyeong's apartment, CC spoke up.
Mister, ask her about the Cradle Cult.
“Ah, by the way, do you know anything about the Cradle Cult?”
“Huh? Why? Are you planning on joining them, Juhyeok?” Soyeong's eyes widened in surprise.
“No. I'm looking for someone who got caught up in it.”
Soyeong let out a sigh of relief.
“O-of course. You wouldn't be interested in that kind of thing. Th-there are some really bad rumors about that place. I heard it wasn't even a religious group originally, but a different kind of business that rebranded itself as a cult... You need a recommendation from an existing member just to get in...”
“A different kind of business?”
“Well, it's...”
Soyeong's face flushed bright red. Her eyes darted around the room before she squeezed out a whisper barely louder than an ant's crawl.
“P-prostitution...”
“Ah, Big Brother, why are you doing this to me? Are you betraying us too, sir?”
Hee-cheol slammed his beer mug onto the table with a loud *thud*, raising his voice.
After leaving Soyeong's apartment, I had headed straight to Garden, the establishment run by Hee-cheol.
Leave the business of prostitution to the experts.
If the cult had evolved from a prostitution ring, Hee-cheol was bound to know something. After all, Garden was the largest cyber-prostitution establishment in Maetan. I had wanted to avoid visiting during peak hours, but CC had nagged me to get it over with, leaving me with no choice.
Contrary to my expectations, Garden was practically empty despite it being the evening rush hour.
Except for a few rooms, almost all the private booths had their doors wide open, indicating a complete lack of customers.
When I brought up the cult to Hee-cheol, who was looking thoroughly depressed, he suddenly raised his voice.
“Keep your voice down. Who's betraying who? I'm just looking for someone.”
Hee-cheol replied in a dejected tone.
“My apologies, Big Brother. I thought we were losing another regular, sir...”
“Do you actually consider me a regular?”
“...Now that I think about it, you've only ever used our place as a restaurant and never actually bought any of our 'flowers', have you, sir? How about tonight, then? Our ace, Min-jae, happens to be working today. I promise to escort you to a land of pure pleasure, ecstasy, and bliss, sir. We've even prepared a brand-new scenario, I'm telling you, sir. Would you like to try the Dangun Myth? It's an NTR scenario where you have to resist the temptations of a tiger with a killer body while staying loyal to your devoted bear-wife, Ungnyeo...”
Min-jae was a C-Grade Player whose arms and chest were covered in thick hair. And that man was going to pilot the *SexyJennifer_PerfectBody_Custom3.3_0821_Last_RealLast_v3* avatar to provide services...?
“We've even upgraded the avatar, sir. Sexy Jennifer is up to Custom 5 now. She boasts an even more innocent face and a flawless figure, I'm telling you, sir.”
“I don't need it. Just tell me about the cult.”
“They call themselves a cult, but it's not a religion or anything, sir. Their original name was Dowon. Along with our Garden, they were one of the two giants of private-server cyber-prostitution. We had the southwest split, and they had the northwest. But once we brought in our avatar customization expert, the customers chose our Garden! Thanks to that, our Garden reigned supreme as the undisputed king of cyber-prostitution in Maetan, sir!”
Hee-cheol's veins bulged in his neck as he boasted proudly. But his shoulders slumped and his voice shrank almost immediately after.
“But things are different lately... Those bastards changed their name to the Cradle Cult, and whatever the hell they did, they've been stealing our customers one by one behind our backs... I was actually planning on sending someone to investigate them soon, sir...”
Mister.
“Take me with you on that investigation.”