Chapter 4
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Title: How’s the starting setup?
(Screenshot labeled AREA 49)
For now, my character’s stats and condition are fine.
I went straight into the combat tutorial as soon as I started the game;
Random definitely seems brutally difficult.
─ Beginner Drug Dealer Start: ON
└ (Author) LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO fuck
└ For real, it’s pretty decent for making money early on, better than I expected.
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Title: Oh, fuck.
I got shot while eating at an unmanned convenience store.
There’s nowhere else around here to fill my hunger, either.
─ ???: You do have to pay for your food, sir.
─ (Meme of a chibi turret going “Dyu!”)
─ If you’re in a Sector 40-something, I recommend farming the trash cans scattered nearby, yeah. It’s even better if you install Internal Combustion cyberware right at the start.
└ (Author) Oh, that’s a great tip.
└ This game really does make people sick.....
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Title: Why is Sector 49 so much more screwed up than the other districts?
Come to think of it, isn’t there really no reason to come here unless you’re planning to farm gang XP?
Even after walking around nonstop in case there was some quest, I haven’t seen anything.
Does it have some other setting or something?
─ (Side-eye meme)
─ I see... You don’t know...?
─ [Something along the lines of: trash who post questions without putting on a spoiler tag can’t even be sorted for recycling]
└ (Author) I forgot, sorry.
└ Yeah, the lore there is surprisingly complicated. It’s a special administrative district where the police don’t spawn at all.
└ (Author) Oh, so there really is some lore behind it.
└ Your eyes have been opened. Fire up KingmuGod Wiki.
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* * *
“I should be heading out soon.”
“…Already?”
Christine pointed at the electronic clock hanging on one wall.
Every time the numbers on the electronic clock changed, a series of clicking sounds rang out. Apparently, my hearing had improved along with my eyesight.
It was practically ASMR.
“Unfortunately, time’s up.”
What kind of workplace dragged someone in this late at night?
But people who called their workplaces black companies often had no qualms about casually ignoring ordinary social conventions, so she seemed to be suffering from that kind of workplace abuse as well.
Besides, wasn’t this a cyberpunk world steeped in an extreme capitalist ideology?
The corporate abuse was probably beyond anything I could imagine.
- Don’t you want to make money? Sleeping just two hours a day is plenty, isn’t it?
- Contract extension? What a strange thing to say. Haha. Of course we won’t renew it. Hurry up, clear out your desk, and leave.
- Overtime pay? You’re joking, right? Why don’t you sue us instead? Our corporate task force will deal with you.
Damn, cyberpunk, guarantee labor rights already.
Anyway.
There wasn’t really any difficult handover involved in running a futuristic convenience store—or rather, grocery store—so Christine didn’t actually need to stay there.
Still, having experienced a crisis of my life the moment I entered the game, I felt like a three-year-old who had gotten lost at an amusement park.
……
“I don’t like that frown, so smooth out your face.”
“I don’t like it either.”
“Sure, sure.”
Christine stretched my cheeks out to either side.
She even looked a little worried....
Or maybe that was just my imagination....
I did my best to maintain a composed expression as I saw Christine off.
‘…But isn’t the distance between us a little strange?’
Hmm, who knows.
It was still difficult to properly understand the situation I was in.
Christine said I had been deeply asleep for an entire month, but from my perspective, not even a few hours had passed.
Even now, I felt miserable enough that if I closed my eyes, I could almost see my old studio apartment.
‘Well, still.’
Having even the status of a grocery store manager was probably better for my mental health than starting from zero in a bottom-level street I knew nothing about.
Ding.
The bell attached to the entrance rang.
That was a remarkably old-fashioned preference.
A bell instead of an electronic chime in a cyberpunk world.
“Oh, right.”
Christine suddenly stopped just as she was about to open the door and leave, then strode back toward me.
Did she leave something behind?
“And just in case I haven’t mentioned it.”
She looked straight at me and spoke.
“Make sure all products past their expiration dates are properly disposed of.”
“…Isn’t that obvious?”
What had the slogan at the entrance of the grocery store said again?
‘Edible groceries for sale,’ wasn’t it?
Of course, even if I hadn’t seen that common-sense sentence, selling expired products was impossible for someone like me, born and raised in twenty-first-century South Korea.
I could understand Christine’s concern as an owner worrying about a new hire, but it was also the kind of concern that poked at my pride.
I decided to shrug and act nonchalant.
“Still, it’s okay to eat a few, right?”
“That’s up to you. If you get an upset stomach, I’m not taking responsibility.”
Come to think of it, in lawsuit-happy America, there had been cases of people being directly sued after donating expired food to homeless people.
I had a feeling I knew why Christine had added that warning.
“Don’t worry, Boss.”
“…Yeah, if anything happens later, contact me there.”
I turned my head to follow Christine’s gaze and—
No way.
A business card had appeared on the counter. I had no idea when she had put it there.
“Well, get to work.”
“…Yep. Have a safe trip.”
Christine blinked her large eyes several times, as if my farewell had been something entirely new, then closed the door and left the grocery store.
Was that her first time being told to have a safe trip?
Ding-ding.
Along with the lingering echo of the noisy bell.
“Hmm.”
Now I was truly alone.
‘Well, shall I start by sorting the boxes piled up?’
Grocery Store Work Log, Entry One.
Organizing inventory.
Just as I was about to move the boxes,
“Aaaaaaaagh!!”
A tremendously loud scream rang out from outside.
It wasn’t Christine’s voice. To give an appropriate example, it sounded like a Russian man who had stubbed his little toe on a threshold while drinking vodka.
“What now….”
I hurried outside.
Since Christine had left and then a scream had been heard, I couldn’t help assuming it had something to do with her.
But then.
“…??”
Only a few seconds had passed since she left, but
I couldn’t find Christine’s retreating figure anywhere.
There was only one drunk man who appeared to be the one who had screamed.
“Drugs, sky, drugs, sky…. Oh, heavens!!”
“……”
Seriously.
What sin had I committed to suddenly have to live in the same world as junkies like that?
Perhaps because I had suddenly opened the entrance, a black-painted mechanical turret made a heavy mechanical sound and turned to face me.
[Dyu?]
The red lens emitted a round beam of light.
“…No, it’s nothing.”
I didn’t know whether a machine could understand me, but staring at that massive gun barrel made it impossible not to say something.
I carefully closed the entrance again.
* * *
Inside an air vehicle.
Massive, towering skyscrapers flashed past at high speed beyond the tinted windows.
Christine, who had been in Sector 49 until moments ago, immediately manipulated the holographic UI installed in the vehicle to begin working.
And then.
[You don’t really need a person there, do you? You set it up so the unmanned system could run perfectly.]
Christine’s work partner pointed out what she was doing.
[Even after your work was finished, you suddenly applied for a month-long vacation. Do you know how much I had to argue with my superiors to get that processed….]
The man’s aggrieved voice continued, but Christine paid no attention to it.
[Ugh, it would be easier to get your attention by barking like a dog. Woof, woof!]
The moment the man finished imitating a dog, a sound effect like a howling wolf rang out inside the air vehicle.
Awooo!
Naturally, it was a sound the man’s partner had made on the spot.
“Quiet.”
[Is that any way to speak to the partner who hacked the city database and even issued you a new ID? If we get caught, a pay cut is the least of it, and I might even end up with a disciplinary record…!]
But apparently this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. In the end, the man let out a deep sigh and stopped whining.
[Well, let’s say rescuing one person is one thing.]
In fact, Christine had been building up to this one question the entire time.
[But why did you build a grocery store in that slum? That’s Sector 49, right? The people up top don’t seem too happy about it, either. They’re worried you might poke a beehive that was better left alone.]
Christine casually crossed her legs.
The interior of the air vehicle was extremely spacious, and she was the only person inside, so no one was around to find the gesture uncomfortable.
“Just a hobby.”
[If you wanted to make money, you would’ve bought a pile of stocks with all those snippets of inside information you casually overhear.]
“Like you?”
[Hey, what are you talking about? …If that got out, I’d be in serious trouble. Please don’t kill me.]
The man regretted bringing it up and adjusted the volume of the voice-input device.
The interior of the air vehicle soon fell silent.
There wasn’t even any music, so only a faint vibration hummed like background noise.
Christine watched the glittering cityscape through the window and thought.
‘It is a hobby.’
Because Sector 49 was where she had grown up.
She had simply remembered the days when she rummaged through trash cans day after day and rejoiced at finding clean food.
“……”
Still, she had never expected to save someone there.
* * *
The sun was high in the sky.
Although the fine dust was terribly thick and the sky was full of dark clouds, making day and night look little different from each other,
【11:30:AM】
if the numbers on the electronic clock were correct, it was clearly broad daylight.
Even so, the atmosphere in the grocery store was peaceful to an almost absurd degree.
“…They’re late.”
There were no customers.
Not a single one.
‘Groceries for sale, never eaten….’
I was incredibly bored.
* * *
And at that very same moment.
A dark alley where no light seeped in.
Gulp─.
The sound of someone swallowing saliva rang out, piercing the silence.