Cyberpunk Orc (6)
Cyberpunk Orc (6)
Smith looked down at his wrist.
- Jalgurak.
He saw handcuffs forged from thick iron chains—restraints clasped around his wrists.
A deeply archaic object.
But sometimes, it was effective.
Especially when his cybernetic signals were being controlled, as they were right now.
Normally he could have shattered them with just a little force.
But now that he couldn't move his cyberware at will, these ordinary chains felt like an insurmountable wall to Smith.
Smith let out a short sigh.
"Haa."
As he did, he thought.
'...It's been about a week, I suppose.'
His neural computer chip, along with his cybernetic signals, had been hacked, so he couldn't know the exact time.
It was a guess based purely on gut feeling.
His senses, honed razor-sharp ever since he'd been confined, told him that about that much time had passed.
It turned out the gang turf war was far fiercer than Smith had imagined.
That was also the reason he'd been captured.
The annual gang turf war was a kind of seasonal ritual, but Smith had never dreamed he'd be abducted and imprisoned the moment he set foot in Redwood to gather related intel.
That said, it wasn't something he couldn't understand.
If the turf war had truly begun,
then any Orc who wasn't an 'ally' could become an 'enemy' at any moment.
'They don't seem likely to take my life.'
At worst, they'd just hold him until the turf war ended.
Smith sorted out the current situation like that.
The only thing Smith was worried about right now
was the fact that he'd been abducted without reporting to his 'Boss.'
Even though they were bound by a contract,
Smith's loyalty was genuine.
'...I wonder how things will turn out.'
Then, abruptly,
Smith recalled the 'Mage' he had met before entering Redwood.
When he thought of the Mage, Smith chuckled briefly.
"Hoo."
The Mage.
A profession that had already vanished and was being ignored.
But despite that, a remarkable person whom others called the 'One and Only Mage.'
Of course, the first impression hadn't been good.
He'd looked terribly frail, after all.
Rumors swirled among the people around him that he was someone who latched onto money without any ability.
The misunderstanding was cleared up quickly,
but some thoughts didn't change.
Even thinking about it now, he didn't suit the word 'mercenary.'
Because.
Right then.
The firmly shut iron door suddenly swung open.
Smith stopped his train of thought and naturally turned his gaze toward the open iron door.
The light flowing in from outside illuminated the dust inside. Carried by the wind, the dust spread outward.
"Excuse me, is there a Mr. Smith here? Ah, yes. I'm talking about the 2-meter-tall male Mr. Smith employed by No Answer. Of course, I'll let you go even if you say no."
A voice utterly at odds with the atmosphere came through.
'...This is why I thought he didn't suit being a mercenary.'
The person was simply too good.
To a degree that was hard to find in this city.
And when he thought about it further, the only person who ever greeted him warmly—who usually served as the 'gatekeeper' for 'No Answer'—was that very person.
Smith chuckled briefly.
He raised his chain-bound hands and waved toward the Mage, Lee Si-woon, who had entered.
"Oh, are you unharmed?"
Smith answered Lee Si-woon's question.
"...Are you moving on a request? If you move around without a request like this, your name value as a mercenary will drop easily. Haha."
It was half a joke.
Lee Si-woon laughed along at Smith's words and continued.
"Well, what does it matter. I already quit being a mercenary a while ago."
Lee Si-woon extended a hand to help Smith up from where he was sitting.
24. Cyberpunk Orc (6)
The base of the gang that went by the name 'Red Orc' was an abandoned factory lot.
And,
just as the Orc named Michael had explained,
the gang members' gear had indeed been special.
"It's an ambush! Shoot them!!"
Orcs clad in red hoods opened fire with machine guns.
While I used mana to create a barrier,
Catherine, who had shot forward like an arrow, deflected bullets and neutralized the machine-gun-wielding gang members.
Easily passed.
"Die!!"
From a piece of equipment an Orc was holding, a grenade was launched with a burst of flame.
Just as I was about to make another barrier with mana, I didn't even have time to form one this time.
Catherine, who had leaped forward, sent the grenade right back at the opponent.
Naturally, passed.
"This, this is insane...! There's no way you could hack something like this!!"
A hacker (Orc) who had witnessed Eve's firewall wailed in self-destruction,
so Catherine slowly approached and knocked him unconscious with a flick to the forehead.
Of course, passed.
"......!"
At the very end, a tank burst out.
Whoa, these really aren't an ordinary gang.
While I was admiring the sight, Catherine quickly hijacked the tank through its boarding hatch.
"Phew, that was a good workout."
As if nothing at all had happened,
Catherine looked at me and spoke.
"......"
Michael's reaction, him running away out the window, made more and more sense.
Anyway, machine guns, a hacker, and even a tank.
It was no joke.
The only thing I found a little disappointing
was that there hadn't been a single gang member charging at us with a hammer and sickle.
The red wave of revolution was still a long way off in this cyberpunk world, I suppose.
That was what I thought.
In the end, on the top floor of the factory,
"...Just who the hell are you people?"
we got to meet the leader of the Red Orcs.
The bright red mohawk hairstyle was striking.
I'd heard that orcs have thick skin that makes their hair hard to grow, so this looked like a hairstyle achieved through hair transplant surgery.
Finally, an opponent worth having a conversation with had appeared.
I stepped forward a pace.
"By any chance, among the orcs you've recently detained, is there an orc named Smith?"
Formal speech was a virtue in Confucian society,
so I even addressed an orc (the gang leader) I was meeting for the first time with due politeness.
"...Smith, you say? There's more than one or two named Smith—."
I'd asked the question wrong again.
"He's male, about two meters tall— no, never mind."
Come to think of it,
I didn't need to describe him like this.
"Anyway, it seems like someone I know is among the orcs you've detained."
"...So, what of it?"
"I'm asking you to free all the orcs you're holding."
I'd said it with a sufficient level of politeness.
Since (probably) no orcs had been killed by Catherine on the way up here, it was best to resolve things through dialogue if we could.
"...Right, so that was your objective."
The leader of the Red Orcs—a sharp light shot from his eyes. It was a light source from his mechanical eyes.
Perhaps intending to calm his nerves,
he pulled out an e-cigarette filled with a mysterious liquid of unknown nature.
When the bizarrely colored smoke from the e-cigarette billowed out of his lungs, the gang leader regained his composure and smiled.
With a slightly hazy expression, the gang leader continued in a slow tone.
"...No can do. No. I've finally gathered enough power to devour Redwood, so I can't just end it like this."
"...No, we're—."
I used the quintessential Korean four-word sentence opener, 'No, but—', to speak to him.
Other common examples include 'fuck,' 'for real,' and 'but anyway.'
We weren't saying we'd wreck his forces.
We'd just asked him to free the detained orcs.
I was about to say that,
but the gang leader, his eyes glazed over, naturally cut me off.
"I understand your goal. Now I must put my heart into this as well."
We'd already smashed a tank on our way here,
and he still had more he could call 'putting his heart into it'?
Finally, the gang leader's gaze settled on Tom. A slick killing intent filled his eyes.
"So it was you, the orc who called in another faction."
"?"
Thomas, who had been quietly keeping his mouth shut while reading the atmosphere, looked around. He realized the gang leader's words were directed at him.
"...You mean me?"
"Yeah, you. Where did you come from, bastard? Iron Fist? Green Horde? ...Yeah, well, it doesn't matter where."
The gang leader muttered to himself.
"...I'm just a taxi driver—."
"Calling another faction in this neighborhood was something you started first. And I'll personally strip off that green skin of yours."
"......Excuse me?"
It seemed he wasn't in his right mind.
When we'd first met, I'd thought we'd be able to have some kind of conversation, but I once again felt firsthand how dangerous mental care drugs (narcotics) could be.
The leader orc, his pupils already hazy, flashed a grin full of madness.
"Hehehe, you must have thought only you could call in another faction. But no."
The leader orc manipulated his vision interface.
- Kwaaaang!!
Someone broke through the ceiling and dropped down from the sky.
Oh, a clean hero landing.
"Like I said before, you were the ones who called another faction first. I didn't start this, heheh."
The gang leader spoke in a voice brimming with confidence.
I turned my gaze to the 'orcs' who had crashed through the ceiling and landed in the room.
They heaved their thick bodies upright.
You could tell at a glance.
These opponents were heavily armed from head to toe with military-spec cyberware.
They absolutely didn't look like an ordinary gang.
Sure, the tank was also 'military-spec,' but it was a product several generations old. You could easily get one even on the black market if you looked.
However, no matter how roughly I scanned them, the gear these guys had on was current-generation military-spec.
I hadn't expected it to be this serious.
I raised the gang's danger level inside my head by another notch.
【Are they the ones?】
One of the orcs who had appeared from the ceiling spoke through a mask. An emotionless voice sounded mechanical.
"If you're from Redwood too, you've probably heard the rumors about the 'Eco Warriors.'"
Eco, what?
I'd heard that name somewhere.
In fact, it felt like this wasn't even the first time I remembered this name.
"I'll make you regret coming here!"
The gang leader's shout echoed through the room.
We naturally prepared for battle.
Of course, just like before, having only Catherine would have been enough, but since their gear was what it was, there was no harm in being careful.
However.
The orcs called the 'Eco Warriors' stood completely still without moving, despite the gang leader's shout.
To be precise, they were staring at 'Catherine.'
"......"
What was this?
Catherine, who had also been in a combat stance, noticed it as well and wore a puzzled expression.
One of the Eco Warrior orcs spoke in a voice smaller than before.
【...By any chance, are you the human mercenary nicknamed 'Shooting Star'?】
Catherine nodded.
And at that very moment,
the Eco Warrior orcs who had been preparing for battle looked at each other, then nodded.
Eventually,
they jumped up on the spot and fled back through the ceiling they had entered from.
"?"
Everyone stared blankly at the ceiling they had escaped through.
Even I had been caught so completely off guard that, just like Michael earlier, I hadn't even thought of using telekinesis to bring them back.
At that moment,
"Ah."
A forgotten memory flashed through my mind.
The Eco Warriors.
They were the organization that had carried out a terror attack on the café I'd been in, under contract from Pit Mac.
Afterward, they'd also been massacred by Catherine.
"......"
If that were the case, it was only natural that information about Catherine was circulating among them.
It wouldn't be the case for a normal person.
Normally, when an 'individual' and a 'group' fight, the 'group' is bound to win.
But when it came to the legend of the mercenary industry,
'Shooting Star' Catherine—the more they dug up information, the more absurd things they would have found.
They must have decided that avoiding her was more profitable than confronting her, and I figured that explained their behavior just now.
Still, I'd never imagined they'd retreat without even showing their tail and just run off right away.
"......What the hell."
The gang leader couldn't finish his sentence.
He still hadn't grasped the situation.
Hm.
I walked toward him slowly.
Matching my footsteps, he flinched and shuddered.
"So."
"Yes, yes-sir!"
"Where are the orcs you've been keeping imprisoned?"
"This way!"
The newly hired guide led us onward.
* * *
"Well then, thank you for your hard work."
I said my final goodbye to Tom.
Even though Smith's condition had looked fine,
given that he'd been imprisoned for a week, it was best to get a detailed examination at a hospital.
I also needed to contact Natasha,
and I had to thank Catherine and Eve for helping me, so I had a lot to do.
It was probably best to part ways with Tom here.
However,
Tom hemmed and hawed as if he had something to say, sneaking glances at me.
Why was he doing that?
Tom spoke to me.
"...I, um. Will it be okay?"
"What will be okay—. Ah."
I thought I knew what he was worried about.
It was probably the words of the Red Orc gang leader that had been bothering him.
Being mistaken for an orc from another gang,
and threatened to have his skin stripped off—even as a listener, it had been a bit horrifying to me.
The gang, the Red Orcs, had already been smashed to the point of being unable to normalize.
But I, as a fellow ordinary citizen, could understand the worries of an ordinary citizen like him.
After finishing my brief deliberation, I sent a notification to his vision interface.
"This is my personal number. Please register it."
"...Excuse me?"
"If you ever need anything, I'll help you out."
It bugged me just a little that, in this cyberpunk world, the first person whose number I'd gotten was an 'orc male,'
but for his safety, I had no choice.
I added something to my words.
"Even if it's not something you necessarily need help with, you can contact me."
I said that because he was a likeable person.
Even though he'd guided us for credits,
this was a world where there were far more people who would take your credits and then betray you.
He'd also guided us neatly.
Tom's expression brightened faintly as he received my number. He looked a little relieved.
We were given one final bit of guidance from Tom, and then we parted ways with him at the Redwood boundary line.
It would have been fine to ride back in the taxi Tom had driven us here in, like when we arrived, but Smith's frame was so huge that Tom's taxi didn't have enough space.
While hailing a new taxi, I quietly looked up at the sky.
The sunset was spreading across the sky.
A pale red afterglow faintly illuminated the gray heavens.
Amidst the red trees of Redwood,
the light of a hologram billboard that had drifted in from the mid-layer settled hazily.
It's been wrapped up pretty cleanly, I'd say.
I stretched out with a big yawn.
I got into the mindset of going back and playing some games.
As I was soaking in the atmosphere to my heart's content,
Eve slowly approached and asked me a question.
"If you'll pardon the discourtesy, I ask: might it be that you would have preferred a male prosthetic body?"
"?"
Having my sexual identity called into question just because I'd gotten Tom's number was not a pleasant experience.
No matter how much this was a cyberpunk world,
that absolutely wasn't the case.
I mustered all my strength to make excuses to Eve.