Chapter 72
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Title: [Info] Let's Learn About Marcus Vogel
A mid-boss-tier corporate mercenary NPC encountered while starting [For You], a quest associated with the corporation Beltech International Solutions.
As befits a mercenary belonging to a megacorp, his entire body is armed with extremely high-spec implants.
You’ll mainly encounter him in Area 49…….
(Omitted)
The unique-tier cyberarm obtained by farming this NPC has a fire attribute, allowing you to exploit the weaknesses of humanoid and animal-type enemies well into the midgame. If you’re following the cybernetic implant tree, don’t forget to loot it.
If you check the data chips [The True Face of a Corporate Mercenary] and [The Flow of Battle], which can be examined separately in the game, you’ll realize he’s a complete fucking bastard.
(Omitted)
For your information, if you spare him by taking the pacifist route, he’ll appear again later as a random encounter.
From this point on, he has completely transformed into a Chrome Junkie. Since it can later be linked to the [Chrome Junkie Solution] quest, refer to the post at this [link].
─ Info addendum
─ He’s such a nobody that there aren’t even any comments here
└ (Author) ㅠㅠ
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* * *
When I had just finished my first call with Christine, the true king of our grocery store─.
I gazed blankly at the cityscape.
Beneath clouds the drab color of a television channel after the broadcast had ended.
At the city’s nightscape, which shone more brightly than the daytime.
Although Area 49, where I was staying, was mostly home to the city’s marginalized classes (criminals, vagrants, and a wronged young man who had fallen into a game), it couldn’t quite blend into that dazzling sea of starlight.
Even atop the thick walls divided into crude sections as though a beginner had played SimCity, it was more than possible to admire the Milky Way made of neon signs and holograms….
Therefore.
I knew very well that Risk City’s nightscape was brighter than I had expected, and even more brilliant than I had expected.
The corporations’ lofty skyscrapers flaunted a dazzling presence like lighthouses, regardless of their distance from the streets,
and between the complicated words on neon signs, enormous holographic billboards floated in the air like UFOs piloted by aliens.
The luminous clusters created to advertise various products, subscription models, and corporations fulfilled their roles sometimes in two dimensions and sometimes in three.
‘…It’s only a game, after all.’
A self-deprecating laugh escaped me.
Because a trailer for the game I had watched beyond a monitor suddenly flashed through my mind.
The homeless man who saw me laughing awkwardly scratched his head.
At the same time, white dandruff came raining down from beneath his head─, damn it.
Let’s move a step away.
But perhaps that homeless man interpreted my laughter differently, because he quickly followed after me by the same distance I had moved away, fully baring his yellowed teeth.
“…It’s not in bad shape, right? For hologram modeling pulled together out of nowhere on the street, this is really quite good.”
“Hmm, it’s decent.”
I gazed up at the ‘black Pac-Man image’ clumsily cobbled together by a former hologram designer and current homeless man, and let out a small exclamation of admiration.
This wasn’t empty flattery.
The city’s nightscape was so flashy that it didn’t stand out very much, but even this seemed sufficient to accomplish my purpose.
‘Actually, at first I was just planning to shine a spotlight against the clouds.’
Michael had brought this person along after saying there was a better way.
And indeed, that choice had not been wrong.
For the record, Walter repaired the hologram transmitter after someone picked it up from a garbage dump.
- You’re going to pay me separately for repairs? Are you really determined to make me look like a shameless bastard─.
- Dad!!
- …I haven’t even paid off my debt yet. What money? I absolutely won’t take it, so understand that.
Afterward, I secretly left the money behind, and had a bit of trouble avoiding Walter as he chased me with a wrench.
Anyway.
“Even if I look like this, I used to be a fairly talented hologram designer when I lived in the inner city.”
“Oh.”
“Even now, there are loads of holographic billboards floating around in there that passed through my hands─.”
“Ah-ha.”
While listening to his story with one ear and letting it flow out the other,
I figured he would keep talking for hours if I left him alone, so I cut him off partway through at an appropriate point.
“But how did a promising hologram designer end up all the way down in Area 49?”
“Ah, that’s because….”
He lightly wiped beneath his nose and continued awkwardly.
“I secretly hid insults about corporations in some hologram modeling I had received as an outside contract, and they found out….”
“……”
He was a crazy bastard.
“So I ran away immediately. Fortunately, I had prepared in advance, so it wasn’t difficult.”
Apparently, choosing not to do it hadn’t been an option.
“Well, thanks to that, I was able to help the boss, so I think it all worked out. Haha!”
“R-right.”
Since I had already received more than enough help, I couldn’t bring myself to say, ‘The Risk City average….’
“…Enough. If you’re all prepared, hurry back now.”
“Yep, understood!”
The homeless man gave an awkward salute, then scurried off toward the grocery store’s vacant lot.
I was waiting for him a few blocks away from the grocery store building.
Considering the advantage of home ground, calling him near the grocery store wouldn’t have been a bad idea, but another strange variable might arise, so….
Crackle….
The flames of a burning oil drum drove away the cold air.
I waited for him to arrive while watching the breath flowing from my mouth, as though giving form to a sigh.
‘The weather’s getting colder….’
Was it almost winter already?
The passage of time felt meaningless.
I still hadn’t found even a clue about how to return to my original world.
With the surroundings growing quiet, my thoughts naturally began drifting in a negative direction again.
Perhaps thanks to the 【Iron Mind】 trait, though, my mind wasn’t particularly troubled.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“I’m fine for now.”
I answered the voice from behind me without turning around.
I already knew who it was from the sound of his footsteps.
Michael set the box of cat food he had struggled to carry down on the dirt, then nodded as he wiped away the sweat running down his face.
“I see.”
“So why did you come here? And what’s that? I told you to wait at the grocery store.”
“Heh heh, if I don’t assist Hot Dog Man, who will?”
“Rivera. Nova. The ninja. And various others.”
“…I suppose I should be grateful that I wasn’t included among those ‘various others.’”
Michael plopped himself down on the cat-food box and began warming himself by the flames of the oil drum with me.
He didn’t seem to have any intention of going back right away.
“Sigh. Do whatever you want. Whether I’m in danger or you are.”
When I took out a hot dog I had prepared in advance, Michael wore a momentarily flustered expression.
“…A hot dog again?”
“I won’t give you any even if you ask.”
“Honestly….”
He immediately returned to his expressionless face, but for some reason, I felt as though Michael was grinning right now.
“…Hot Dog Man really is exactly the same. No matter whether your position changes or your circumstances change, you’re always consistent.”
“That’s a compliment, right?”
“Of course. I truly mean it.”
I had only asked as a joke, but Michael’s response was more serious than I had expected.
“Faith, trust, and repaying kindness. Things like that are extremely rare in Risk City.”
“What are you, some middle-aged man going through male menopause….”
“…I’m just saying.”
The unexpected compliment made me feel awkward for no reason, so I grumbled.
“Go away if you’re going to say weird things.”
“…Heh heh. I’m sorry.”
Contrary to his words, he didn’t seem particularly sorry.
Michael’s eyes, which had been as cloudy as rotten pollock, took on a strange light.
My reflection appeared in those eyes.
Someone who had become a stranger to the city overnight.
My trying to act like a human
was, of course, for my sake.
So that I wouldn’t change.
So that I wouldn’t be swept away by this world.
That was the only reason.
“…Tsk, I want some kimchi stew loaded with Spam.”
There should still be plenty left in the refrigerator at my studio apartment.
I muttered, longing for my hometown.
“Speaking of kimchi stew─.”
Before Michael could finish speaking.
The terminal in my pocket vibrated faintly.
At that moment, I grabbed Michael by the nape and jumped backward.
“Unified Korea’s foo─.”
Michael’s idiotic voice almost made me laugh, but I held it in, considering the situation.
Then, a black shadow dropped at high speed onto the spot where we had been standing.
Thud…!
It was a tense situation in which Michael might have been flattened like a hotteok if I hadn’t moved first.
Perhaps he had run at full speed as soon as he discovered the hologram, because hot air billowed from over his shoulders.
“Y-you’re…. Here.”
However, he didn’t look to be in very good shape.
Unlike when I had met him in Black Square, he seemed to have replaced a considerable portion of his cybernetic body, and the balance of his limbs was abnormal as well.
And what about that awkward, half-witted way of speaking?
Dark-red liquid dripped from beneath his sloppily tied bandages.
Marcus Vogel─, the elite who had once worked as a corporate contract mercenary, had appeared before me again in a wretched state.
He gazed blankly at the machine broadcasting the hologram.
Then, trembling like an aspen, he watched Michael and me with unstable movements.
At last.
He pulled ‘something’ from inside his filthy clothes.
“Hmm, hmmm….”
The smile-shaped badge roughly painted black looked quite similar to the holographic image floating above our heads.
What was that?
“…Is that the man?”
“Yeah. But the other guy’s pretty far gone.”
He was trying to hold that ‘badge’ up to our faces from a distance.
“I-is it this guy? N-no, maybe th-that guy.”
Seeing that, Michael whispered softly.
“…A Chrome Junkie.”
Could it be a problem caused by cheap implants?
I hadn’t expected him to show up looking perfectly fine, but I never imagined he would be this broken.
Marcus Vogel pointed at the two of us with a trembling hand.
“Y-you. You.”
“Why?”
Since he had called me, I answered for the moment.
“T-tell me.”
“…What?”
I felt a strange sense of déjà vu here.
The memory of storming into the Hol Paradise building flashed quickly through my mind, like a scene repeating itself.
“W-what was it? Ah, right. That. Those words. Say ‘sorry.’ ‘Sorry.’ S-say it.”
Michael frowned when he heard that.
“…It seems to me that he wants Hot Dog Man to apologize.”
“……It might not be me. Want to give it a try?”
I then looked toward Michael.
After exchanging a glance with me, Michael awkwardly opened his mouth.
“…I’m sorry?”
“No!!!”
Then he angrily stomped on the badge he had dropped on the ground several times.
Bang! Bang!!
Right.
Marcus Vogel wasn’t asking someone else for an apology.
That word, ‘sorry,’
was the last thing I had said
before I knocked his peanut loose.
“No!! That’s not it! It wasn’t you─.”
“S-sorry.”
“……”
At that moment.
His body froze as though he had been injected with a sedative.
Krrrk.
The sound of his neck turning rang out as though something in it were broken, perhaps because his cybernetic body was in poor condition.
Red veins rose across his entire face.
At the same time, the capillaries in his eyes burst, and dark-red tears streamed down.
“You.”
Unlike just a few dozen seconds earlier, Marcus Vogel pointed at me with precise pronunciation.
“It’s you.”
Taunting is a highly effective tool in a fight.
And because Christine’s serum had made my personality somewhat hot-blooded, I often used that method unintentionally.
However, it seemed that its effect had been far too powerful this time.
‘I should’ve just said what I first thought: “No Grain, No Pain…. Since the kernel is gone, I guess the pain is gone too.”’
Michael, having sensed that something was seriously wrong with him, asked me in a quiet voice.
“…What exactly did you do to earn such a grudge?”
“……”
I didn’t answer him.
It was something I absolutely had to hide to protect my image.
·
·
·
In the middle of the battle.
“My balls, my balls! Give them back!!”
“A grown man crying over something like that…. Ah, I guess that doesn’t apply anymore. Sorry.”
Michael, who had been listening to the two of us from the side, was left with a horrified expression…!