Chapter 11
Again, a new morning dawned.
Blinking my sleepy eyes as I searched for the smartphone that should have been beside my head, I realized I wasn’t in twenty-first-century South Korea and let out a yawn-filled sigh.
“Yaaawn….”
A fairly refreshing morning.
No, wait, was it even morning?
‘What time is it….’
Oh, right.
The clock is inside the store.
Guess I have no choice but to get up.
Softly, the blue tarp draped over my body slid downward with the pull of gravity.
The tarp was made of polyurethane fiber, which wasn’t exactly suitable as a blanket, but what could I do?
I’d have to make do with it.
Still, it was much better than sleeping directly on the cold floor.
‘I miss ondol floors. Or at least a mattress.’
I had only briefly recalled the scenery of the room where I had first opened my eyes when yesterday’s ‘homeless-person assault incident’ in the vacant lot behind the grocery store came back to me, bringing on a headache.
Whew.
I straightened my stiff lower back and dragged myself over to the bathroom sink.
There wasn’t a single smudge on the sink’s mirror.
That was thanks to having so much time on my hands that I had cleaned the bathroom thoroughly as well.
‘In movies or games, people get furious and smash mirrors, too.’
Since it was the very mirror I had spent over an hour cleaning with some mysterious detergent, I had no desire to smash the innocent thing.
I examined my face reflected in the mirror.
I looked slightly tired, but that was only because of how I felt.
Apart from the mental fatigue that had built up, there were no shadows beneath my eyes, and my skin was in better shape than I had expected.
That meant no physical fatigue had accumulated in my body.
Aside from my slightly—or perhaps extremely—sharp eyes, I might barely manage a seven out of ten, even if a ten was out of the question.
‘What a handsome fellow.’
After indulging in a little self-praise, I thoroughly washed my face and feet before leaving the bathroom.
First, I packed the microwave with hot dogs nearing their expiration date, then checked the condition of the grocery store while they heated.
Nothing particularly unusual seemed to have happened while I was asleep.
Clean as ever today.
At the same time, a turret descended from the ceiling.
[Dyu!]
“Morning, Turret.”
[…Dyu, Dyu.]
It looked as though it wanted to say something, but I was still drowsy, so it was difficult to interpret.
Maybe it had been trying to say good morning, just like me.
Anyway.
I also checked the view of the street outside through the opaque glass wall.
Blackish clouds, as if covered in static.
Neon signs flashing regardless of day or night.
And beyond them, a filthy-looking face….
“Eek, you scared me.”
“May I come in?”
I thought it was a customer.
I locked eyes with the young homeless man who had pressed his face right against the glass wall.
Before I had even given him permission, Michael coughed a few times, opened the entrance door himself, and walked inside.
“Good morning, Hotdog Man. Have you eaten lunch?”
A ‘ding!’ rang out at the same time as his question.
It was the notification that the microwave timer I had set earlier had finished.
Michael tightened the tie of his worn-out suit and maintained a proper, dignified attitude.
“Oh my, it seems you haven’t eaten yet. Then I’ll take care of my business quickly.”
“…Why the sudden honorifics?”
Had yesterday’s food disagreed with him?
I was sure we had mutually agreed to speak casually.
(No.)
In response to my question, Michael swept his hair back and gave me the bright smile of a salesman.
“Our positions have changed, so naturally our attitudes should change accordingly.”
“For all that, your attitude yesterday was pretty raw….”
“I’d appreciate it if you understood that I was mentally and physically unwell, since I hadn’t seen proper food for several days.”
Did people normally use the expression ‘mentally and physically unwell’ in situations like this?
Still, the fact that this guy’s mental state was seriously strange had been apparent since he clubbed those gang members yesterday.
“So what is it?”
If you’re not here to buy something, then scram.
It was true that I had shown the homeless people a kindness yesterday, but that was a separate matter from allowing it to cause problems for the grocery store’s operation.
When I narrowed my eyes at Michael, he shrugged and took a step back.
“There’s no need to be so wary. That doesn’t mean the attitude I showed yesterday was a lie, Hotdog-Man.”
Should I just tell him to call me by my name?
But whether it was Hotdog Man or Abel Anderson or whatever, I was equally unable to get used to either name.
“And what I wish to tell you now concerns the incident that occurred yesterday.”
“Did you come to ask when the food distribution is?”
“…That is something I’m extremely curious about as well, but it isn’t immediately important.”
Michael took something round out from inside his coat.
That was….
“An eyeball?”
“Correct. More precisely, it’s one of the Sentry series developed and sold by Corporate Logic Systems. To put it simply, it’s a cybernetic ocular assist device.”
The mechanical eye Michael held was dry, like a glass marble.
Perhaps because it was designed to replace a human eyeball, I found it rather unsettling.
Ugh, creepy.
“One of the Sentry series’ main features is that it primarily preserves stored data within the cyberware.”
When I fiddled with the mechanical eye, its contents popped out with a click.
Judging by its shape, it looked similar to an SD card.
“That means external information directly witnessed by a cyberware user remains inside the eye.”
“I saw it clear as day with these two eyes.”
“…Huh?”
Michael tilted his head after hearing my joke.
But perhaps he thought he had misheard me, because he continued speaking.
“Normally, that feature is used for post-incident reports, but the user hadn’t set a separate data-retention period. Thanks to that, while I couldn’t learn the complete story, I was able to determine to some extent what led to Hotdog Man being attacked.”
“Just give me the conclusion.”
I understood that cyberpunk people walked around with CCTV cameras in their eyes.
But his introduction was way too long.
Michael cleared his throat and calmed his excitement.
“My apologies. It’s been quite a long time since I last submitted a report.”
What had this guy really done before this?
Had he at least worked in an office for some corporation?
“Among the homeless people who shared food with us yesterday, there was a technician capable of hacking cybernetic components. He was quite skilled. I suppose he’s staying here because everyone has their own circumstances.”
Same goes for you.
“Anyway, to give you only the conclusion, Hotdog Man, you’re in an extremely dangerous situation right now. You’re being targeted by a gang that’s expanding its influence in Area 49.”
As I listened to Michael, I recalled the face of the gang member I had seen yesterday.
- Our boss told us to leave a warning. I think a corpse full of bullet holes should get the message across.
Judging by what he had said, it was probably related to the kid I had given food to.
Kid. Gang. Warning.
I had also heard that the probability of a random encounter occurring had increased.
“So?”
That was more or less what I had expected.
What kind of random encounter could result from taking down gang members?
WA! More gang members! More attacks!
At most, it would be something like that.
Michael looked flustered by my indifferent reaction.
“It’s not something you can just brush off. The gang’s boss is a man named Bogus, and from what I’ve heard─.”
“…Bogus?”
For the record.
I wasn’t the one who answered.
Michael and I turned our gazes toward the street outside the grocery store.
“There was an attack yesterday…?”
A little girl whose arrival I hadn’t noticed was looking up at us from there.
Judging by the fact that she knew about the attack, she must have been listening to our conversation from almost the very beginning.
I couldn’t sense her presence at all.
“Could this little one be….”
“Enough.”
I cut Michael off first.
I couldn’t let him call her a ‘crazy brat’ to her face.
“So the conclusion is that the gang, whether it’s Burgers or Bogus, might come back.”
“…That’s correct. And this girl seems to be what they’re after.”
“Why on earth?”
Let’s hear the reason, at least.
Michael shook his head.
“As I said, I couldn’t uncover the complete story either.”
I tried to think of a plausible reason.
…….
Gasp, no way.
Bogus, you crazy pedophile bastard.
The little girl charged at me as if she were about to grab me by the collar.
She looked flustered.
“An attack? Are you all right? Were you hurt anywhere….”
“Hey now, you little whippersnapper. How dare you speak informally?”
…??
I could feel the Confucian dragon within me awakening.
Hadn’t she used honorifics properly the last time?
Maybe because she was surprised, she must have spoken informally without realizing it.
The little girl, who didn’t even reach my chest, looked up at me with an incredulous expression.
“…Huh?”
…Come to think of it, since my build had grown as well, she wasn’t exactly a tiny little kid.
But I had already said the words.
Words once spoken couldn’t be taken back.
I decided to maintain a stiff, formal attitude.
“Kid. Don’t worry too much. Nothing will happen anyway.”
I wasn’t particularly worried.
Maybe it was because the situation didn’t feel real, but that was simply how I felt for now.
I thought carefully about why.
[…Dyu?]
I think it was because of Nova, the godlike machine—the mechanical device currently sneaking only its lens out of the ceiling to watch us.
Even if a dangerous situation arose, all I had to do was run inside the grocery store, where the turrets were.
A grocery store accompanied by a 20mm-caliber turret was practically an invincible zone.
There wasn’t even only one turret, so breaching this place would require dozens of gang members along with weapons boasting overwhelming firepower.
It didn’t seem likely that something like that would happen just because of a gang boss’s taste in women.
Common sense, anyway.
“Got it?”
“…I’m not a kid. My name is Rivera.”
Just like when we first met, the little girl—Rivera—was using honorifics again. Pretty name.
The ominous atmosphere lasted only a moment before Rivera asked me with a slightly dispirited expression.
“…So what’s the boss’s name?”
Why suddenly boss?
No way.
Was she still mistaken that I was a member of some organization?
I had clearly said that I wasn’t.
“I told you that was just an act. My name is—”
“Hotdog-Man.”
Michael, who had been quietly standing there, opened his mouth.
That damn Hotdog Man, seriously.
When I frowned, Michael edged backward.
And then.
【Special Random Encounter Occurred!】
An ominous voice rang out.
A bright female voice that only I could hear.
I had no choice but to reconsider my judgment.
‘They won’t send many gang members? There won’t be overwhelming firepower either?’
It was all bullshit.
…Vroooom!!
A heavy engine roared.
From the road in the distance,
a gigantic truck came charging toward us.
“This is fucking insane.”