Bare-handed in Cyberpunk

Half a year ago, I fell into the world of a cyberpunk game that I had casually finished.

Literally, 'casually.' I'm not a veteran of this game, and I don't even remember the walkthroughs well.

What's more, I'm bare-handed. I have none of them—internal nanomachines, cyberware, Bio-IDs... things everyone here has.

I'm an illegal resident of the lowest class, with nowhere to go and nothing I can do in this grim future city of a dystopian setting.

I'm screwed.

And half a year passed. Or, to be precise, not quite half a year, maybe around five months. Though it was only five months, it felt like five years—a truly hellish time.

Many things happened. It's no exaggeration to say that this place, Dusk City, the cyberpunk game world's massive metropolis in the Americas─a city filled with chrome and neon, drones and robots─having endured so many twists and turns, now feels as familiar as home.

While humming happily in the shower at home, it started with me suddenly dropping into the middle of a neon-lit street. Then, while disoriented, I was dragged away by corporate soldiers who appeared out of nowhere, locked in an unknown research facility, and became a lab rat. After the facility exploded due to inter-corporate conflict, I barely managed to escape and survive.

However, I only saved my life; I had no proper identity, no money, and no ability to stand on my own. So, I walked right up to a corporate chairman, infamous in the game world, and cried out, “If you just let me live, I”ll do anything! Please, just give me work!' Fortunately, I got lucky and managed to get a job under the esteemed Chairman, working like a dog, and somehow, I ended up here... .

Looking back at the past, I feel wronged all over again.

What did I do wrong to end up in the middle of this *fucking* city?

Of course, I did like Cyberpunk.

A forest of colossal skyscrapers, their walls covered in media facades, monorails cutting through the city, and signs below them filled with East Asian block characters... .

Cyberspace, embracing cyborgs and androids, machines and humans alike, is a surveillance and control regime coexisting within vastness and freedom.

There are Megacorps overseeing everything, contrasted by small pubs in the slums. There are decadent arcade game rooms filled with purple and blue light.

All of this was contained within a single genre. It was romantic in itself; how could I not like it?

But I never wanted to be a part of it myself. They say everything is beautiful when viewed from afar, and Cyberpunk was most beautiful when I enjoyed it only as a game.

Just because technology and science developed didn't mean it was all good. At least here, there were far, far more downsides than upsides.

Even in 21st century Korea, not 2107 AD Dusk City where I am now, the plight of illegal residents without resident registration cards was truly bleak. What would it be like in a future city nearly 100 years later?

In this insane society of control, where every citizen's Bio-ID is stored in a database, internal nanomachines are used for tracking and surveillance, and all jobs and society itself are under the thumb of Megacorps, what would be the fate of an unidentified illegal resident from the past world?

In a word, it's terrible. I managed to cling to the Chairman and somehow secure a job and a fake identity, but the anxiety of being caught whenever drones, City Police, or corporate android private soldiers pass by hasn't changed.

And it doesn't end there. It's not just a problem I experience; it's a fundamental issue with this city and the world itself.

Cyberpunk is a world where it's hard for people to make a living. It's not an exaggeration; it's truly so. It's not just hard; it's *fucking* hard.

True to a grim and twisted punk society, gangs run wild—and the police who should stop them are corrupt. Life is harsh due to the tyranny and exploitation of the corporations that dominate the city, and environmental pollution has reached world-ending levels.

People, having lost hope, were steeped in real drugs and virtual electronic drugs. Hundreds take their own lives every day, but corporations don't even care.

This is because technology has reached a level sufficient to replace humanity's meager labor. Even if hundreds die, thousands more workers migrate to this city of freedom and openness, harboring illusions that can never be realized.

It's a world where human lives are worth less than flies, a city where people die more easily than flies. A dystopia isn't a dystopia for nothing.

How did I end up in a world like this? The 21st century Korea I used to complain about was truly a paradise compared to this place. It was practically heaven on earth.

I don't know how many times I've cried, missing my old world. I've played so many fun games, so why, *why* did I have to fall into this *fucking* cyberpunk game world? If God exists, I feel like grabbing him by the collar and demanding an explanation.

Of course, it's a relief I didn't end up in a game fighting demons in Hell, hunting monsters in the Medieval era, or being chased by aliens in a horror game... .

Even if it wasn't a game with such a terrible setting, a dating simulation game or a fantasy academy game like the popular webnovel trope these days would have been fine. There are plenty of good and happy themes out there. I'm not a masochist; I didn't only play games set in grim worlds.

Alright, let's say the setting is what it is. I can understand that. I have no idea why I had to fall into a game world in the first place, but if I absolutely *had* to enter a game world, Cyberpunk is better than a Medieval setting, a Hell setting, or a horror game setting. Cyberpunk might even be considered average.

Perhaps the problem wasn't the game world itself. It's such a polarized world that the lives of the lower class are like cattle, not even human, while the lives of the upper class are truly ultra-luxurious, fully enjoying the benefits of technology.

Ultimately, the reason this world looks so *fucking* awful to me is because I'm not upper class, but lower class. It's because my abilities are lacking that I can't fully adapt to this society. Damn it.

But is that my fault? Still, in modern times, I was a promising university student attending a school everyone would nod at if I mentioned its name. I was at least middle class, if not upper class.

As the world I lived in changed, so did my social standing and my abilities. Everything I studied became meaningless, and I became a bottom-tier foreign worker with no skills whatsoever.

In my opinion, the entire problem is that I came into this world as my original, ordinary, commoner self.

Of course, whether I was *completely* ordinary is another matter, but let's talk about that later.

So, what's the gist of what I'm saying? I feel wronged. If only I'd been given an overpowered ability, like a novel's protagonist, to slice through everything with guns and blades. If only that damn status window had appeared when I screamed for it until my throat was hoarse.

Or, if I had entered as a game character, as is the popular meta these days. How great would it have been if I had entered as my game character, who had finished the game and half-conquered the city? I'd customized him to be handsome, and his gunplay, blade combat, and hacking were all leveled up to expert status.

Or at least give me a warning. Then I would have scraped all the game guides and hidden pieces from the internet and memorized them. If I were a veteran player who knew all the game's information, I could have easily secured an upper-class position, like taking candy from a baby.

There must be many such veteran players, so why did they leave those people alone and drag *me* here—an ordinary person who casually played for a dozen or so hours and saw the ending?

Well, it was just... years filled with such complaints. Because I was living such a harsh life, nearly half a year had flown by before I knew it.

I hate to admit it, but I've adapted to this city. I'm somewhat used to it now.

The holographic advertisements projected onto the billboards adorning the buildings, the drones and aerial vehicles flying through the night city.

The glittering neon signs and Japanese and Chinese billboards, the mechanized soldiers and gang members monitoring the surroundings.

Even the taste of disgusting, vomit-inducing fried insects, soy meat, and seaweed bread that feels like chewing a sponge.

It was now a part of my life. As I said before, it had become familiar, like home. It is a second home I perhaps desperately want to leave.

If there's one thing I realized while being tossed around like this, it's that this place is, after all, a place where people live.

And even though I'm a commoner with no special abilities, I don't want to die like this.

This is the conclusion I reached after contemplating suicide countless times. I still had the will to live. I had to live. I wanted to live. And I wanted to live well.

I can't end up living a miserably ordinary, terrible lower-class life, chewing on soy meat burgers or fried insects, falling into drugs, and slowly wasting away.

If I can become upper class, I will. If I can leave this terrible city, I will. If I can somehow return to the world I originally lived in, that would be the icing on the cake.

I will live while maintaining my dignity as a human, and thus, I will die like a human. I will *never* die as a bottom-tier slave without hope.

...And to do that, I have to go to work today.

As a foreign worker, I had to work hard as a corporate slave.

*Fuck*, this *fucking* cyberpunk world.