The Unexpected Ms. Sey

“…Ms. Sey?”

My voice trembled. This was a truly Unexpected appearance.

Dragon’s Lair Head Bartender.

Befitting that Position, she boasted tremendous professional Customer Service and cocktail-making skills, and Outside of work, she was a Senior Colleague who possessed unfathomable Force and a unique Charisma that made people admire her very being.

On top of that, she was breathtakingly beautiful.

She seemed even more so today.

The wind blew fiercely.

In front of the window colored like a broken television, her Dark Blue Hair fluttered in a scarlet-purple hue under the sunlight.

Her small face featured a prominent nose, and dark eyebrows beneath bangs that were roughly scattered, which was unlike her usual self.

Full, moist eyelashes and eyes that trailed off faintly like crescent moons above her gray pupils, which could freeze a person’s heart.

Red Lips that looked like they would be truly pretty if she smiled, yet stubbornly remained closed, never revealing her teeth in a full smile.

Sey strode toward me without a word.

Every single Step was incredibly threatening. I instinctively stepped back without realizing it.

It wasn’t a threat to my life or anything like that; the timing was just too bad.

I was tired; I was exhausted.

I had become far too vulnerable at that moment.

If even I felt this way about myself, I couldn’t even begin to guess how I looked through someone else’s eyes.

I didn’t want to show such a pathetic state to someone I knew. Even more so if that person was Sey.

But there was nowhere to run. The torn sofa I had been sitting on just moments ago blocked my retreat.

Sey, who had closed the distance in an instant, reached out her arms.

She hugged me.

[Oh my.]

“…!”

At first, I was flustered.

I felt my face flush bright red like an adolescent girl.

My Heart Pounded wildly.

Men and women are supposed to keep their distance, so what in the World was this…!

I even wondered if I was dreaming right now, or if this was an assassin disguised as Sey, because it wasn’t an action the Sey I knew would do.

But after a moment, as my head cooled, I realized that it wasn’t physical contact meant for The Opposite Sex.

It was, through and through, a warm hug.

It was a natural physical contact filled with Friendship between friends or colleagues, meant to calm and help the other person.

It didn’t take long to figure out why she thought a hug was necessary.

My cheeks were hot. At first, I thought it was because of my flushed face, but when I absentmindedly touched them, they were wet.

It was tears.

I had been crying.

* * *

There is a saying that A man cries three times in his life.

It is an incredibly anachronistic and sexist proverb.

In my case, even if we count crying at birth, I was abruptly dropped into Dusk City in 2107 AD, meaning I wouldn’t get to see my parents pass away or my country fall to ruin; so, does that mean I can use my remaining two cries in advance?

Tears shed from time to time are actually a symbol of masculinity. Liu Bei of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms also frequently used tears as his weapon.

Furthermore, tears caused by emotional stimulation provide various positive effects for a person’s body.

Not only do they help with eye health, but thanks to them, blood circulation speeds up and oxygen supply becomes smoother. They also play a role in discharging stress hormones that are harmful to the human body.

Tears are just this beneficial.

[I understand perfectly, Test Subject. So I believe you can stop with the self-defensive rationalization regarding the tears you shed.]

“…”

In truth, it was an extremely natural phenomenon.

The things I had gone through recently weren’t just one or two.

They included the manhunter, then Ned Ludd, and even the cyborg Ninja.

There were many desperate crises.

I was consecutively swept up in massive incidents that an ordinary person would struggle to Encounter even once in their entire lifetime.

Not only was I physically overworked, but there were also many times when I reached my mental limits.

Conversations with magnates like Isiho’s Iron Blood Chairman and the Mafia Godfather Red Mountain, as well as the Biological Experiment I underwent, the Microchip in My Head, and the Complex behind-the-scenes circumstances entangled with the city’s current situation, were all present.

It was a continuous string of tension and pressure, an accumulation of stress.

Still, I thought I had fully rested and recovered through the past three days of vacation and the lively company Dinner where the employees opened up and talked with each other.

It seemed the inside of my heart, unknown even to me, felt differently.

If being kidnapped by the cyborg Ninja and my escape after many twists and turns were the primary causes, the sight of my completely smashed house was the Decisive Blow.

I felt dizzy, as if I had been struck in the back of the head.

Thinking about it now, that was my reverse scale.

My house

It was a smelly and noisy lower-class honeycomb studio apartment rented by the company, but at the same time, it was the foundation of my life that I had painstakingly cultivated over the past few months.

And I have a history of losing my familiar Hometown and the World I lived in, only to be dropped into an unfamiliar Cyberpunk City.

I’ve adapted to it now, but the helplessness, anxiety, and fear of that time…

There was a time when The Entire World felt like an unknown enemy.

I think seeing my room so thoroughly violated brought back those memories, leading me To Infer my own condition with my clumsy psychological knowledge.

The fear of losing the foundation of my life yet again had become a kind of Trauma switch.

“Mmm.”

After carefully organizing my thoughts, I realized just how emotionally cornered I had been.

It might actually be a relief that it ended with me just pathetically crying my eyes out. Didn’t it allow me to discover and Resolve early on a problem that could have easily led to a more serious mental illness?

In that sense, what was the conclusion? My crying was not something to be ashamed of at all.

It was incredibly natural and a good thing. What I shed were the hot tears of a man…!

Sob.

[That is quite a reasonable analysis.]

“Right?”

[But if you are so confident and have nothing to be ashamed of, why are you hesitating to Step Outside the room? You have been pacing back and forth in the exact same spot for the twenty-seventh time now.]

That was true.

I was pacing inside the room distractingly. It was a restless Movement that would have definitely earned me a Scolding from my mother back in my School Days.

And the 'room' mentioned here… was naturally not my house, Condominium Unit 0973, which had been reduced to an unlivable state.

The Living environment was an issue, but I couldn’t sleep there for safety reasons either. What if cyborg Ninja Mk.2 came barging in?

Especially when my address had already been compromised.

So, I inevitably moved and imposed on an acquaintance’s house. I planned to stay here for a while and look for other options.

Fortunately, the conditions of this 'acquaintance’s house' were quite good.

First of all, it was very close to where I originally lived. Thanks to that, there were few difficulties in moving my luggage.

Though I didn’t have much luggage to speak of anyway.

Actually, it wasn’t just close; it was the same building.

The location was East Monica, Asian Town’s A-149, the Kabuki Building.

However, it was only the building that was the same. When one delved into the Details, there was a very big difference.

While I resided in a lower-level Condominium on the 10th floor, this acquaintance was an upper-level resident on the 50th floor.

The 53rd Floor, to be exact.

To talk about what this means, I need to explain the structure of the Kabuki Building.

The mega residential Complex owned by Isiho Corp. is the Kabuki Building.

There are lower-level convenience facilities on the 1st floor, and the 2nd to 14th floors comprise the Lower-Level Residential Facility.

Then, the 15th to 20th floors are entirely filled with middle-level convenience facilities, transportation facilities, and so on, while the 21st to 40th floors are block-style apartments where the Middle Class resides, which can be considered “living quite well.”

Here is a question, then.

What is there from the 41st floor onwards?

The Answer is, “I don’t know either.'

From the 41st floor onwards is an unknown Territory. It is a space for the Upper Class that the Lower Class can only Encounter through rumors.

It wasn’t just this Kabuki Building; that was the nature of Dusk City.

The higher you go, the better you live.

It was a fact you could tell just by looking at where the Iron Blood Chairman Karin Isiho’s secret office was located on the top floor of Gintoki Tower, the 111th Floor.

The Kabuki Building? It wasn’t certain, but judging by its height, people said the total number of floors was around 60.

And yet, it was the 53rd Floor.

If the 10th floor where I lived was a gosiwon studio village where people lived crammed together, this 53rd Floor was on the level of a Cheongdam Penthouse or a sky Lounge.

Up to this point, it was good. It was burdensome, but good is good. The quality of life itself had changed, hadn’t it?

The small room given to me as a Guest Room was five times the size of my previous Condominium room.

That’s not to mention the entire house. It was absurdly spacious.

The view was also amazing.

Even if it wasn’t the star-studded universe you could see from the top floor of Gintoki Tower, the dizzying scenery Outside the window overlooking the entire view of East Monica was the best view anyone would long for.

It felt like I had suddenly won a Premium travel ticket and ended up staying in a five-star hotel where everything was expensive and luxurious.

The best part of all was that I didn’t need to worry about my safety.

The security of the Upper Levels was literally said To be on a different level.

Unauthorized personnel couldn’t even come up here in the first place, and even if they did, if there was even the slightest Suspicious point, they would be immediately subdued by robot guards and Ronin-turned agents.

Net Security also inspected all connected subnets with a malware scanner every 30 seconds, and it was protected by a “Black Wall”-grade Hardware firewall and Software ICE.

- Or so the Armchair hacking expert in my head told me. Honestly, I couldn’t understand what it meant, but it seemed impressive.

Actually, from my perspective, the most reassuring factor wasn’t the security agents or firewalls, but the House Owner here.

The cyborg Ninja? Of course, he was a Powerful enemy. He was the most terrifying hitman I had encountered so far.

However, it was clear that he wouldn’t stand a chance against the House Owner here.

And rightfully so, as that person was the Owner of a high-output Implant, the body acceleration cyberware, which was treated as end-game gear in the game.

The class was different. While staying here, there would be no reason for me to feel a threat to my life, at least in this house.

Ironically, that was also the reason why I was pacing and feeling anxious like this while simultaneously feeling relieved.

The House Owner was a Bartender. She was not just an acquaintance, but a Senior Colleague.

Her name was Sey.

That’s right.

I ended up imposing on Sey’s House.

We ended up living together in the same space for a while.

In other words, we call that cohabitation.