Swollen Hand

The Rest Area didn't have ice, but it did have Cooling Packs.

As I held the cold SAP, Super Absorbent Polymer Pack, to my hand, the pain gradually subsided.

However, it was still red and swollen, and it seemed it would take some time before I could move this one hand, which felt numb as if electrocuted, Freely again.

Awkwardly, I put on my mask with my other hand and went outside.

*Outside the back door connected to the Rest Area, I leaned against the chaotic wall in the corner of the Alley and caught my breath for a moment.*

Graffiti-covered Chrome Shutters, tangled wires, and signs steeped in dim light.

Glass tubes, cans, and wet scrap metal Pile of Trash lay beneath my half-closed eyes.

Cold, dry air blew through the narrow, high Alley walls, making one shrink.

*Above, Urban Environmental Facilities, clustered together like air conditioner outdoor units, further narrowed my field of vision.*

They were the Source of the deep shadows. There was a reason the Alley was so dark.

I looked up even higher.

The only light visible here was artificial.

The glittering of Skyscrapers that seemed to pierce the Ceiling, the flickering lights of Aerial Vehicles far off in the sky.

Buried in the glowing mechanized city, no stars were visible through the narrow gap in the Ceiling.

*I hadn't expected to see any, anyway. Even without artificial lights, the Chemical Smog would have obscured them.*

*Hoo—*

I exhaled a heavy breath, still wearing my mask.

*At first glance, it might look like I'm slacking off during Working Hours, and to some extent, I suppose I am... but it was a necessary slack-off.*

*I needed to restore my depleted Mental Resources, or something.*

*I'm not even sure what I'm saying right now. My head feels numb. My mind was hazy, like I'd pulled an all-nighter.*

*I thought a bit of cold air would help, but there's been no improvement yet.*

*...Did I overreact?*

*Suddenly, regret for what had just happened washed over me.*

*It felt like I'd just lashed out without thinking. Should I have held back?*

*Even if that Troublemaker Detective had openly provoked a fight, I'd made too much of a scene. I should have kept it moderate.*

*Now my hand is injured. What am I going to do about this swollen hand? I'm afraid it won't be better by tomorrow morning.*

*It felt satisfying, though.*

*Seeing the Self-Proclaimed Holmes's broad face stiffen and his small eyes widen, I even felt a sense of Catharsis.*

*He must have never seen a Fallen Angel made in such an absurd way.*

*Then again, I would have been surprised too.*

*What Server or Bartender, no matter how angry, would slam a cocktail down so violently like a crazy person to finish it?*

*And it must have been shocking to see the liquids, which should have completely burst and spilled, float up and fall back into the glass in a bizarre way, like flipping pancakes with a frying pan.*

*Even thinking about it again makes me dizzy.*

*It's a good thing the outcome was positive; what would I have done if it had gone badly?*

*Of course, I had roughly anticipated this outcome.*

*It wasn't just something I did in a fit of pique.*

*By the time my thread of reason was frayed, I had my own conviction.*

*An intuition that “this would work.” It's not like I've only experienced these strange situations once or twice.*

*My head hums, strange noises echo in my ears... my emotions surge, hormones spike.*

*At such times, inexplicable things occasionally happen.*

*The Mental Switch clicks on, and how should I describe it?*

*I feel like I'm high on drugs.*

*I've never actually done drugs, but hearing my rooster-headed friend next door, who's always high, describe it, it sounds pretty similar.*

*My Perceptive Ability expands. I can feel each thin hair on the back of my hand as the wind brushes against it.*

*Everything in the World flows in Slow Motion, slow enough to make me yawn.*

*The music's beat splits into hundreds of fragments, and I can catch every single bouncing droplet with my eyes.*

*In that moment, I feel like I can do anything.*

*Of course, I can't actually do anything.*

*At most, I can pull a stream of water floating in the air, like I just did, or perform more delicate and swift Movements than usual, or see further and hear even the smallest sounds without missing them.*

*Even that doesn't last long. 0.7 seconds? 0.8 seconds?*

*I don't know exactly, but the time it took to slam the glass down earlier was probably around that.*

*It only lasts that long before it turns off. The switch clicks down again. My Mental Resources can't sustain it any longer.*

*My head aches and spins as if it's about to shatter. It feels like someone is trying to split my skull with a chisel and hammer.*

*Even now, after using it for just a moment, I'm suffering from such severe after-effects.*

*My hand hurts, but my head feeling messed up is a bigger issue. It feels like a part of my brain has melted into jelly.*

*What's more, I can't Activate it whenever I want. No matter how much I use Concentration, tense my body, or try to control my emotions, the switch just won't turn on at will.*

*It's rare to have the certainty I had just now, thinking, “Ah, this will turn on.” Usually, it's completely unpredictable.*

*Sometimes it turns on at truly critical moments, but often it remains silent even when I think 'now's the time.'*

*There were also times when it would randomly click on during completely mundane everyday life.*

*Its Operating Conditions are unclear in many ways.*

*It's a very unhelpful and restrictive type of... Extrasensory Perception, or perhaps a Manipulation Ability.*

*It's better than nothing, but having it doesn't mean it provides immense help or allows for great feats.*

*Just enough to use in small ways, like just now.*

*It was useful at the Restaurant. It contributed significantly to me lasting five months without major mistakes during the Plating process.*

*That's why I say I'm a Common Citizen, but not an entirely ordinary one.*

*It's true that I have a Special Ability, but that ability doesn't make me anything more than a Common Citizen.*

*I was still a Lower Class undocumented Foreign Worker with no great Force, wealth, or power.*

*Just a Common Citizen, trembling at DCPD Stop-and-Frisks, constantly worried about being fired from work, and struggling to adapt to a new Workplace.*

*Not a protagonist in a novel, nor a Player in a game, but simply myself, cast into a cold reality.*

*I was just me. If I could lose this measly ability and return to my past life, I'd say okay without a moment's hesitation.*

*It wasn't even originally mine, to begin with.*

*This ability, it goes without saying, I didn't have before coming to Dusk City.*

*Before I was suddenly dropped into this World, I was an ordinary University Student, a Citizen of 21st century Korea, with no abilities whatsoever.*

*It was an ability that suddenly appeared after I came to Dusk City.*

*More precisely, it would be accurate to say “after escaping the Research Institute,” rather than “after coming to the city.”*

*After being dropped naked in the middle of the Street, I was dragged away by Bio-Android corporate soldiers in white hazmat suits and became a Test Subject at the Research Institute.*

*It was still a shocking memory, practically my first impression of Dusk City.*

*It's not for nothing that I'm afraid of being exposed as an Unidentified Person, sold off, and becoming a Test Subject.*

*It's because I've had a similar experience before.*

*Actually, I don't remember much about my time at the Research Institute.*

*Perhaps my brain refuses to recall those memories, or maybe the Researchers at the time did something to prevent the experimental process from remaining in my head.*

*Amidst all the blurry, fragmented pieces, all I remember is that I was a Test Subject at the Research Institute, and it wasn't a Pleasant Experience.*

*One day, the Research Institute suddenly exploded, and I was able to escape as a free man. Later, I learned that it was a stroke of luck caused by an Inter-corporate Dispute.*

*Not wanting to be a Test Subject anymore, I knelt before the Iron Blood Chairman of a Giant Corporation, begging for a Workplace, identity, and residence.*

*And during the Detailed Examination ordered by the Chairman, I discovered a small Microchip embedded in my head.*

*That very thing, which I suspect is the Source of Power, the identity of the clicking switch.*

*A circuit so secret and deeply embedded that even the Chairman's direct Cyberware Technicians and the most advanced medical teams couldn't ascertain its true nature.*

*The most they could figure out was that since it was connected to my brain, trying to forcibly remove it would kill me and stop the chip as well.*

*They also surmised that this chip might be a Miniature Supercomputer created for a specific purpose, completely cut off from the external environment and sustained solely by my brain's Energy Metabolism.*

*A chip of a Sleeping AI, existing silently in my head, without any signal, net, relay, or connection to any facility.*

*I don't know why or how the Research Institute implanted this chip in my head... but this is how it turned out.*

*I was in a Symbiotic Relationship with this chip. An inseparable bond.*

*My first and last cyberware.*

*The claim that I hadn't received any Body Modification was a lie.*

*I did have one modification. It was just an unidentified Forced Brain Implant from a Secret Research Institute that I neither requested nor desired.*

*Thinking about it, it was quite ridiculous.*

*If they were going to implant something like this in someone's brain without permission, they should have at least given me a powerful one, not some half-baked chip that's hard to even use.*

*It must mean it was a clumsy study, an inadequate chip, and an incomplete experiment.*

*A Prototype, a failure, that I couldn't control myself and had weak output.*

*The fact that they still haven't looked for me, their Test Subject, might mean they've completely abandoned the research.*

*Perhaps they think I died when the lab exploded, or that even if I'm alive, I'm completely meaningless, so they left me alone.*

*They might have judged that this switch would be difficult to use in real combat for military purposes.*

*Even though I escaped and fled, and even though the Chairman hid me, 'they' should have been able to find me somehow.*

*But according to the Chairman, there wasn't even the slightest sign of Tracking.*

*If they were tracking my movements, even if they hired the most secretive Technicians, there would inevitably be traces left, whether in reality or cyberspace, but it was completely clean, he said.*

*It was as if they had no interest in my whereabouts or even whether I was alive or dead.*

*In a way, it might have been a stroke of luck.*

*Because if they, the Parent Company of the research lab, ever tried to find me, it would be truly terrifying.*

*Five months had passed, but there was one thing I still vividly remembered.*

Militia.

*A rigid, angular logo just from its sound. Prideful Promotional Slogans plastered all over the Research Institute.*

Dusk City's top Military-industrial Corporation and second in the Global Corporate Ranking.

A Megacorp boasting overwhelming military and technological power that even our Headquarters had to defer to.

The Secret Research Institute where I was imprisoned was operated by them.