How to Fix a Mistake (3)
How to Fix a Mistake (3)
- Ting, chalkak.
The old Zippo lighter flicked open and shut without producing a flame.
The sound of cold metal echoed quietly across the massive executive desk.
'How many years have I used this thing...?'
The woman, Monolith's Chairman.
'Taylor Blackstar' kept opening and closing the Zippo lighter with low-lidded eyes.
- Tiing.
She opened it mechanically.
- Chalkak.
And closed it mechanically again.
"Um... Chairman-nim."
"What."
Because the overhead lights were off, the office was darker than usual. From one corner, Chief of Staff Justin Borg managed, with considerable difficulty, to offer his counsel.
"...It's about time you attended to your work."
"......"
Lightly ignoring those words, Chairman shifted her gaze away from Justin Borg.
Once again she looked down at the Zippo lighter in her hand.
Already, a staggering number of digital documents were piled up on the executive desk.
Seeing that sight, Justin Borg felt the world going dark before his eyes once more.
Chairman-nim was famous for handling work more diligently than other corporate Chairmen.
How on earth did it come to this...
Justin Borg forced down a bitter sigh.
A few strands of premature white peeked through Justin Borg's neatly slicked-back black hair.
That his hair was reverting to its true color from stress weighed painfully on Justin Borg.
"Any contact?"
"......Not yet."
Contact from 'whom.'
He didn't need to ask again.
Dr. Terra had reported making contact, and Chairman-nim herself had even taken the time to send a message.
That man, that guy, that bastard.
Mage hadn't responded at all.
He hadn't even shown any sign of visiting.
Cursing internally with a vulgar F-word, Justin Borg raised his gaze slightly to look at Chairman-nim.
- Ting, chalkak.
At the news that there was still no contact, Chairman continued flicking the Zippo lighter open and shut.
A wordless pressure emanated from her.
"......"
Chairman-nim, a known tobacco lover, hadn't gone this long without smoking in ages.
It was already the third day.
To be precise, it started the very day the report came in that Dr. Terra had sent a message to that person.
If she switched bodies, she could smoke just fine.
He didn't know the reason.
Chairman-nim had been consistently maintaining a female body for the past three days.
A long silence followed once more.
Only the sound of the Zippo lighter came in an unbroken stream.
In the end,
Justin Borg had no choice but to voice the answer he hated to give, yet had to give, to restore Chairman-nim's motivation.
"I will go and pay a visit myself."
"Hm, the Chief of Staff himself?"
"Yes."
"...Then I'll leave it to you."
.......
Just what on earth was he doing?
He was curious why he wasn't picking up.
23. How to Fix a Mistake (3)
- Ding-dong.
"Let's see who came to visit."
At the familiar chime of my apartment intercom, I lifted my head.
Ugh, my neck ached.
Probably from staring at the monitor too much.
My forward head posture felt even worse than before.
Hoping someone else could go in my place, I glanced around the room.
"...I'll cast heal."
Eve, focused on the raid alongside me, was calmly enjoying the game.
[ Tokkigyeongdyu-nim (Archer) : I'll sync up the damage timing ]
But I couldn't ask Julia either, since she wasn't even in the same room.
Since she wasn't in the same room to begin with, she couldn't respond to the intercom anyway.
"Why does this feel so clunky to control?"
"Wow, there's not a single bit of info even when I search the net. This really is a piece of shit game."
Catherine and Andrea appeared to be in the middle of playing games on the computers they had just bought from the antique shop.
Nothing for it.
I'd have to go out myself.
Of course, I was also in the middle of running the raid with Eve and Julia just the same.
So to observe basic etiquette, I typed a quick message in chat.
[ I am a real mage (Warrior): Hey, someone came to my place, I'll be right back ]
[ P2034871140 (Warrior): ? ]
[ Does Sleep Come on This Crap (Thief): ??? Are you out of your mind? We're in the middle of a raid and our main tank is going where? Okay fine, you grabbed the raid loot and bolted, I let that slide, but this crosses the l ]
[ 'Does Sleep Come on This Crap (Thief)' has died. ]
As soon as my tanking disappeared,
someone's life vanished into the sky as well.
But there was nothing I could do about someone showing up in real life.
I roughly smoothed my disheveled hair and opened the front door where the bell had rung.
Hm.
Monolith's Chief of Staff,
Justin Borg stood before me.
What business did this man have—
"Ah."
A buried memory resurfaced.
Justin Borg, in a weary tone, posed a question instead of a greeting.
"...Why have you turned your message notifications off?"
Well, you see.
I turned them off for a bit because I was getting way too many spam messages.
"......"
But I couldn't answer like that.
I naturally remained silent.
Looking at me, Justin Borg continued with an even paler complexion.
I didn't know about anything else,
but he looked incredibly tired.
"...Let's go."
"...Yes."
This must be how a pig feels being dragged to the slaughterhouse.
After briefly explaining the situation to the Geumjjogis in the room, I followed behind Justin Borg.
* * *
Hmm.
A strangely familiar sense of déjà vu washed over me.
It felt similar to when Smith came to pick me up—or rather, kidnap me—from No Answer back in the day.
The luxury sedans surrounding us in an escort formation only intensified that feeling.
The drive to Black Monolith's headquarters, Monolith Tower, wasn't particularly long.
Since it was within a 30-minute walk, that was only natural.
"And someone who knows that, yet didn't come by..."
"......"
I'd managed to forget that for a moment.
Without answering, I replayed the memories of the past three days.
Hunting, raiding, questing, hunting again.
...Hm.
A truly fulfilling three days they were.
"Good day, Chief of Staff-nim. The person accompanying you is—."
"We're in a hurry, so skip the petty formalities."
"...Excuse me? Even so, regulations state—."
"Chairman-nim's orders."
"......! Please go on in!"
After a few more exchanges like that.
By the time I snapped my dazed mind back to attention,
I had already arrived at the 153rd floor, Chairman's executive office.
"...Well then, have a comfortable chat."
Beyond the elevator doors, Justin Borg, who had guided me, left a brief farewell and disappeared.
- Chalkak.
In the vast space where nothing was visible except the executive desk placed in the center, a cold metallic sound rang out.
Amid the sprawling panorama of Neon City,
a woman with violet-tinged purple hair—the Chairman—shifted her gaze toward me.
Her complexion brightened slightly as she greeted me.
At the same time, the darkened office grew brighter.
"You came?"
"...Yes, Chairman-nim. It's been a while."
It didn't feel like it had been that long though.
I left the greeting as a superficial formality anyway.
"First, take a seat over there."
Chairman pressed a button on the executive desk.
From the opposite side of the desk, a luxurious guest chair rose from the floor.
It was always fascinating.
Since I had a chronic condition where my heart fluttered when standing before the Chairman of the number one ranked Mega Corp,
I sat down with a slightly tense heart.
"...I couldn't get in touch recently due to some circumstances, but I trust there's been no trouble? Haha..."
"Oh, I'm always the same. Honestly, once you're at the level of Mega Corp Chairman, there isn't actually that much work to do."
With a small smile at the corner of her lips, Chairman waved her hand nonchalantly.
Frankly, I didn't believe it.
In cyberpunk megacorps, Mega Corps were generally powerful enough to rival nations.
By all rights, they'd be busy.
The top-ranked among such Mega Corps would be even busier.
But if I said that here,
the corporate security team hiding somewhere could appear and turn me into a mag/ic/ian on the spot.
Partly to shift the mood, I asked Chairman a light question first.
"You're a woman today, unlike last time."
"Well, I was born female, so honestly, this is what's comfortable."
.......
Was that so?
I didn't know.
I remembered her being a total man's man last time.
"Oh, right."
Leaving me in my confusion, Chairman switched the topic.
"That thing you asked of me last time, did you get it all resolved? That Virtual Terrorist guy, was he really Koozaka's Vice Chairman?"
"Ah."
I hadn't told Chairman about that either.
"Yes, well. It ended well, for the time being."
"How?"
I briefly explained the process.
I inevitably had to bring up Eve, the Super AI, and her involvement, but there was no way around it if I was going to explain the hacking of the broadcasting station.
Besides, I'd already told everyone around me by now.
With another Mega Corp, who knows.
But with Monolith's Chairman-nim, to whom I owed a great deal, I figured it'd be fine—I'd thought that to some extent.
When my brief explanation ended,
Chairman downed the tea that had already gone cold.
"A Super AI, and the identity of the terrorist they were after being old man Koozaka, huh."
Hmm, she hummed through her nose.
"Now that I think about it, I didn't even offer you a cup of tea. I feel so bad about that."
"No, it's fine—."
Beside the chair I was sitting in, a cup of tea with wisps of steam rising from it came up from the floor.
I moistened my parched throat with the warm tea.
"So then, the one who ended my call during the broadcast, the one who hacked the broadcasting station building, that was all the AI's doing too."
"...Yes."
There was no need to lie about this part either.
I answered with a nod.
"Then what about the polygamy talk? Was that real, or a lie?"
"Ah, about that."
Just recently, actually.
I'd been having a lot of worries because of that.
Catherine, whom I'd known for a long time, I could handle, sure.
But Andrea, who came over every day as if she'd moved in, was another headache.
At some point, another new double bed had appeared, attached right next to the double bed Eve had changed, which only made it worse.
At this rate, a future where four people slept side by side would come into existence.
The only reason I'd managed to endure was that I'd barely slept at all for three days.
If not for that, it was a grueling situation where who knows what else might have already happened.
For real.
Did those girls have no worries at all?
No matter how you looked at it, I was a guy too.
"...Is that so?"
Along with those words, Chairman-nim set down the Zippo lighter she had been holding.
A smile still lingered at the corner of her lips.
But to my eyes, which had recently become exceptionally perceptive, something about it seemed to carry a trace of dissatisfaction.
Presently, Chairman spoke to me.
"Then, want to marry me?"
"Pardon?"
I nearly spat out the tea I had been sipping.
What.
"Fufu, a joke. Just a joke."
"Hahaha... Right, of course?"
The problem was, it didn't sound like a joke in the moment.
"...If I say that, I wonder if she'll come out now?"
"Pardon?"
Chairman-nim pressed another button on the executive desk.
Between me and Chairman-nim, an empty hologram screen materialized in midair.
"If you're there, come on out. Let me at least see your face."
"...Chairman-nim, what do you mea—."
Just as I was about to answer—Are there ninjas hiding here?—a familiar figure appeared on the empty hologram screen.
[...Did you know?]
"She pulled that during the broadcast too; think she wouldn't do it here?"
It was 'Eve.'
.......
So this is what being cyberstalked must feel like.
I thought to myself.