Chapter 29
Five days later.
“…Gasp!”
I sat up from the plastic bed, dripping with cold sweat. I felt like I had just had a terribly unpleasant dream.
I tried to piece together the scattered fragments of my memory before shaking my head.
It was a dream where an employee of a famous Thai massage shop suddenly transformed into a giant dragon monster and breathed fire upon the city, and while running away from it, I met a rainbow-colored mecha unicorn shouting that it was a Great Detective.
In short, it was absolute nonsense.
Why have my dreams been so turbulent lately?
It pisses me off even more that the red dragon mascot character of Dragon's Lair appears in my dreams every time.
Last time, thousands of them chased me demanding to see my back, and this time, my back transformed into a super-massive size and spewed its breath like crazy.
I thought it was cute when I first saw it, but now, every time I see it, it reminds me of Dragon President and a surge of annoyance rises up.
That Yangban teases me by bringing up the Ever Vending Machine-Bobby story every time he sees me these days. Doesn't he ever get tired of it?
With a sigh, I raised my heavy body and checked my Watch Device.
The current time was 2:16 PM.
The date was March 26, 2107 AD.
It was Saturday morning, five days after my monumental First Day of Work.
The sun was probably high in the sky, but since I had just woken up, it was morning to me anyway.
I slept a filthy amount today, too.
I fell asleep as soon as I got off work around six in the morning, and since I am only waking up now, I have basically been passed out for nearly eight hours.
I still haven't gotten used to this Lifestyle Pattern. Yesterday's work was also a bit intense….
Just thinking about it made my eyes sting. I got hit hard yesterday while trying to break up a fight between some crazy thug bastards.
They were a gang that went around blabbering about how they were going to become robot boxing fighters, and their punches were definitely fierce.
And my Mental Switch didn't trigger a single time while its Master was getting beaten to a pulp.
It has been completely silent ever since that time with the Fallen Angel.
The Experts whom the Chairman entrusted with the examination clearly said it would continue to operate by sucking up the nutrients in my brain as long as I was alive, but its silence was making me anxious instead.
It's not going to suddenly malfunction on me, is it?
I moved my body and checked the mirror in the Shower Room Restroom attached to my Bedroom. My face was reflected in the metal Mirror Display floating with various UIs.
Normally, I would have had frivolous thoughts like, 'Isn't this pretty handsome?' but today I was too busy just checking the condition of my eyes.
"This isn't too bad."
I suppose I should call it a relief. There wasn't any major bruising, the swelling had all gone down… it didn't really look like I had been beaten up.
The area around my eye socket was a bit red and raised, but it wasn't too noticeable.
I was spared the worry of being teased for having bruised panda eyes.
That Bionic Ointment or whatever I received from Head Bartender Sey that day seemed to have worked.
Rather than the swelling, I was more concerned about my Dark Circles. They were too black under my eyes. Was it really a lack of stamina?
Dragon President had been nagging me so much to exercise lately that my consciousness naturally drifted in that direction.
But there was no chance. I was already exhausted to death, and if I added exercise on top of this, I would literally die from overwork.
"I can't spend my precious free time on exercise."
Muttering to myself, I rolled up the window shutter where hazy light was seeping through.
It would have been nice to be greeted by bright sunlight, but the weather was gloomy again today. The sky was filled with dark smog, and the mortal world was blanketed in thick fog.
A perfectly normal afternoon in Dusk City.
In my Previous World, I would have taken a long nap fitting for a Saturday, but this was a dystopian city with a 7-Day Work Week, and my shift at Dragon's Lair was waiting for me today without fail.
Even though I had just woken up, I only had three hours until work.
After showering and brushing my teeth, I roughly threw together a breakfast of a Low-grade Meal Pack and a Strawberry Flavored Cola, then immediately left the room.
I had a heavy calling to utilize these three hours as fruitfully as possible in this world.
And I happened to know just the right place to spend them.
* * *
'Kabuki Game Center'
An entertainment facility occupied the large mall space on the first floor of the building all by itself.
It greeted visitors with flashy extravagance right from the Entrance.
Red lighting, so blinding it almost hurt, flashed around the signboard.
Even though it was still daytime, green lasers shot out in all directions from the dark interior.
As I went inside, countless Arcade Game Machines were lined up as if forming a Barricade.
Thick CRT Monitors under the Darklight illumination you'd typically associate with an Arcade Pub and the beeping title screens of classic games were present.
While dense wires, mechanical devices, and large computer facilities stretched out next to the game machines to steal one's attention, the arcade controllers with joysticks were covered in a thick layer of dust.
That was merely a disguise meant to obscure the view; no one actually played the arcade game machines.
Even in 21st century Korea, arcade game machines were becoming relics of the past, pushed aside by computers, mobile devices, and console games, so why would it be any different in the 22nd century Dusk City?
The reason this place was called a game center—the "games" truly popular in Dusk—were located much further inside.
Stepping over the floor littered with dirty wires, I passed by the Rhythm Game Arcade Machines lonelily flashing their five-colored arrows and headed deeper inside.
It suddenly went pitch black, as if I had stepped into a darkroom. In a place where I couldn't see an inch ahead, someone suddenly spoke to me from the side.
[Who… Ah, is it Masked Asian?]
Looking back, a masked center employee wearing a light amplification lens emitting a red light was staring in my direction.
It seemed he recognized who I was at first glance.
It was a peculiar feeling, as if this thick Darth Vader Mask had become my Self-Identification Card.
[You've been coming around this time lately. You may enter. You haven't forgotten the rules of the game center, have you?]
"Of course."
The rules weren't anything special.
Only recommended members could enter, and causing trouble would result in an immediate Permanent Expulsion Measure.
And if anyone were to report the game center facility to the City Police, bad things might happen to the Informant.
That was about it.
I didn't really need to worry about it. I wasn't going to cause trouble, nor was I going to report them.
I wasn't burning with that much of a sense of justice, nor was I close with the DCPD.
Close my ass! I just wished I would never run into them.
Even if I did report it, the police officers who showed up would all be the same, in on it together, so they'd just pretend to look around the room with the arcade game machines up front a few times before leaving.
[Then, follow me this way.]
A strange sensation of descent washed over me, as if the Darkroom were heading Underground, and then the masked Employee pulled back a curtain and stepped forward.
Without any fear, I familiarly followed behind him.
Was there any reason to hesitate? I was an officially recommended member here, too.
As for who recommended me, that was an obvious story. Did I have any other connections in this Kabuki Building besides that one person?
It was a membership I had obtained by asking Shimizu Dick from next door, of the Rooster Comb Yakuza, a while ago.
True to his affiliation with the Yakuza Faction that ruled Asian Town, he had wide connections and was perfect for this sort of thing.
He had looked at me with a highly surprised expression, but then readily helped me gain access to the game center.
This was the only game center nearby that I could go to, so thanks to him, things went smoothly.
Whirrrr—.
The further I followed the Employee, the louder the mechanical noise became. A sweltering heat that couldn't be quelled by coolers and Temperature Control Devices alone wafted over.
What soon revealed itself was the sight of dozens, hundreds of people sitting blankly in rows, wearing Electrode Helmets connected to electronic equipment.
It was a sight I had already seen several times, but it was chilling every time.
While they were buried in Capsule-Type Seats, those dead fish eyes stared only into the void from within their blinking helmets.
There were so many people, yet no one opened their mouths, making it bizarrely quiet.
With only the humming noise of machines echoing amidst the silence, it felt more like being in an industrial facility than a game center.
In reality, it was closer to a factory than a PC Bang or an arcade.
Addicts, Derelicts, Slaves to Game Money, Day Laborer Virtual Currency Miners… the Dark Side of the Net that produced them was right before my eyes.
“…….”
The Rooster Comb Yakuza had been puzzled when I told him I wanted to enter the game center.
In Dusk City, "game" was a word that referred to electronic drugs, and going to a game center was synonymous with soaking oneself in Primitive Pleasure through a Sensory Amplification VR Program.
And right now, the sight of Pleasure-Soaked Zombies was laid bare before my eyes.
Their bloodshot eyes, their gaunt faces, and the computing machines connected to the illegally modified wires wrapping around their dirty skin were visible.
Small letters were engraved on the exterior of those bulky Hardware mainframes. The same thing was written on all the machines.
Isiho (Isiho, Isiho) Corporation.
A sigh naturally escaped me the moment I saw that name.
It was a company I knew.
It was Megacorp ranked 4th in the Corporate Overall Ranking that everyone inevitably knew.
If Militia International was Dusk City's top Military-industrial Corporation, Isiho Corporation was Dusk's worst Tech Company.
Its Catchphrase was BTL (Better-Than-Life). It meant providing pleasure better than life itself.
It had its hands in various industries, but true to its slogan, it was a corporation that primarily gifted Citizens with immense pleasure—and simultaneously, horrific addiction—through electronic drugs and Lover Bots.
It was a company deeply connected to the Yakuza, practically ruling Asian Town from the shadows.
As you could tell from its bizarre name, it was a company of Japanese descent and, at the same time, a terrible Black Company that would resort to any means and methods for its own profit.
It was the company that built and managed this Kabuki Building, a Megacorp owned by the Chairman who bore the alias Iron Blood.
I think I've said it all by now.
That's right.
It was our Headquarters.
The reason I was able to get a home in the condominium of this Kabuki Building, of all places, was that this entire building complex belonged to the company.
The name of the place I belonged to, the place I received my salary from, was Isiho (Isiho).
I told you. Our company is a very impressive unethical corporation.
I wasn't afraid of getting on the Headquarters Chairman's bad side for nothing.
Hotel Operation, high-end Restaurants, and Bar Franchises were merely the Chairman's trivial hobbies for rolling money around.
The main events weren't things like that, but dangerous big catches like electronic drugs and Sex Robots. He was someone who played in waters unimaginably large and dirty.
I, Aaron Nakamura, was the on-site manager of Dragon's Lair, and at the same time, an employee personally handpicked by the Iron Blood Chairman of that black corporation, 'Isiho Corporation'.