Chapter 98
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Title: [Tips/Guide] For Your Sake (For You)
A linked quest that becomes available after clearing the [Bounty Tracking] quest, which is triggered by checking the bounty on Marcus Vogel, a corporate mercenary formerly employed by Veltech International Solutions, through the cyberweb, radio, television, conversations with NPCs, and so on.
It can also be started when you encounter him as a random encounter at a club, pharmacy, or restaurant in the outskirts of the city.
※ Personally, I think I encountered him most often while wandering around District 49.
For reference, if you approach him while out of combat, you can also talk to Marcus Vogel, but there is no route for helping him escape separately.
In this case, after ending the conversation, if you drink the beverage Marcus Vogel gives you, you can proceed with [There Is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch], a quest in which you are kidnapped by scavengers and escape.
Anyway, if you interrogate Marcus Vogel while he is subdued or successfully hack his smart chip, you can learn that he stole the weapons from the Veltech warehouse and sold them on the black market.
(An in-game screenshot of the NPC being subdued)
If you confirm the data chip's contents stating that he secretly hid the latest-model android prosthetic body from the warehouse in his hideout instead of selling it, you can finally proceed with the [For Your Sake] quest.
After that, if you follow the quest route, you will find the android prosthetic body in the District 49 sewer, Marcus Vogel's hideout.
There are a truly insane number of mechanical traps installed along the passage to the hideout, so I recommend equipping something like the Nostradamus series of ocular implants, which can scan for traps and bombs, before you go.
In the case of this android, there is no artificial intelligence installed, and since the game system has no function for installing an AI in an android, it is impossible to turn it into a maid-support NPC.
※ I've genuinely tried everything possible, so if it doesn't work, just accept that it doesn't work.
About a week of game time later, a corporate NPC named Paul Lucas will come looking for your character on his own, accompanied by his subordinates, from Veltech.
If he still hasn't appeared after a week, try fast-traveling on the world map.
※ For reference, you can also visit the black-market NPC before a week of game time has passed and simply sell it for money, but be warned that doing so makes the later linked quest, [The Golden Sparrow in the Iron Cage], impossible to complete.
※ If your Insight stat is at least 16, the [Spoiler] option appears. It does not make much difference to the overall quest progression, but if you visit the location later, you can confirm that Paul Lucas is diving while wearing concrete shoes.
(A screenshot of the world-map location recording the relevant spot)
Afterward, the corporation's AV takes the android prosthetic body, and you can choose your reward. I recommend a megacorp cybernetic implant──.
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─ Upvote for the effort
─ Ah, so clearing this is what makes that famous cyberpunk bratty idol appear.
└ Ugh.
─ Are concrete shoes really a thing for that lunatic???
─ Is there any way to stop the corporation from taking the android after a week? This is really urgent.
└ (Author) No.
└ What a garbage game…..
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Generally speaking, people do not talk to themselves.
If you ever see someone talking to themselves, it is probably because they are extremely bored, dumbfounded, or facing a shocking situation.
That was precisely why I, personally reenacting the famous scene from The Shawshank Redemption while repeatedly letting the powerful stream of shower water beat down on my body, suddenly began muttering to myself.
“…What?”
The quest failed?
What quest had failed?
But, as had always happened until now, the bright woman's voice did not repeat itself twice.
That also meant there was no way to tell whether the voice I had just heard was a stress-induced hallucination caused by PTSD or an actual notification sound.
‘…Let's think calmly.’
It probably wasn't a hallucination.
It wasn't as if I was hearing the voice of someone dead, and the chances of suddenly hallucinating a quest-failure notification seemed low.
Then, assuming the message was real….
‘For Your Sake?’
Just like you would expect from a garbage game, it was absurd that it could arbitrarily mark a quest I had never even received as failed.
These days, important quest-related NPCs were often simply made invincible, but that had not always been the case in the past.
- This character's death has tangled the threads of the prophesied fate. Try surviving in the world you ruined with your own hands.
Sometimes, when a quest NPC died, they would directly insult the player.
Or, as in this case, the most common outcome was for the quest to be marked as failed altogether.
‘Still, shouldn't it at least have told me that the quest existed….’
I could only sigh.
Since it was nearly impossible to infer the quest's contents from the name ‘For Your Sake’ alone, it seemed better for my mental health to stop caring altogether.
When I could no longer see the foamy wastewater flowing down the drain, I left the shower room after shaking the water from my body.
Outside the shower room, in the changing room, the cat was waiting for me with some old clothes prepared in advance.
There was no way he could have finished washing my clothes in the meantime.
He had probably found some old clothes with a similar design in a clothing-collection bin and brought them over.
“Thanks. You should wash up, too, if you're going to. The hot water here comes out better than I expected.”
“Hmm…. Understood.”
The shower facilities, which I was using for the first time, were even more spacious than I had expected.
So we could have washed together like we did in the military, but the cat had gone out of his way to wait for me outside.
Maybe he was self-conscious about his scars.
Anyway.
I shoved my head roughly into the old clothes the cat handed me and picked up my terminal.
I had no idea why the terminal had gotten hot again.
When I stepped outside the changing room like that,
what came into view was an interior as neat as a high-end office, rather than the cluttered appearance of the grocery store's logistics warehouse.
“Were the facilities satisfactory?”
“Yeah, they're nice. I should come here more often.”
The building Michael had established as a homeless shelter was what had saved me from wondering how I was supposed to wash myself at the tiny sink attached to the grocery store.
What, had they been secretly keeping something this nice for themselves?
“That is a relief. Not a single person has used the shower yet…. I was curious to hear an honest evaluation.”
“……”
So they didn't use it themselves, either.
Even Michael, who had said that so confidently….
‘……Right.’
As long as I wasn't covered in ■, that was what mattered.
Having just returned from District 50, my standards of hygiene had become fairly lenient.
Remembering the horrific experience there made it feel as if the strength were draining from my body again.
When I plopped down on the sofa I could see, Michael quietly placed the things he had prepared on the table in front of it.
An aluminum can of bottled water with a flashy label.
And……
I slowly, very slowly, raised my eyes to Michael's face.
His expressionless face felt strangely different now.
‘Is this lunatic giving me a paper straw so I can drink water….’
Perhaps he had belatedly realized the situation, because Michael opened his mouth with an ‘Oh, no’ tone in his voice.
“Ah, I'm sorry.”
Still, a paper straw was going too far.
And a few minutes later.
Michael brought over several hot dogs that looked as though they had just been warmed.
“……”
“……”
A quiet sigh escaped me on its own.
Although I had scrubbed myself thoroughly before coming out, I still felt as if a strange smell lingered at the tip of my nose, so I wasn't particularly hungry.
Munch, munch.
I never said I wasn't going to eat.
When I lightly filled my stomach with water and hot dogs while ignoring the paper straw,
Michael stood behind the sofa and asked me,
“Did you resolve everything you went there to do?”
“Yeah.”
Now, for real.
Really, really, really this time……
‘…I even heard that it had failed as a quest, so it really must be over, right?’
But there was no need to force myself to give a definite answer and build an unnecessary flag.
“Probably.”
I ended the conversation with that much of an answer.
I crushed the aluminum can labeled ‘Fluid Bomb’ completely flat and set it down on the table.
Hmm, no matter how I drank it, it just tasted like ordinary water.
“Are things going well with what you're doing?”
Was America's version of Kim Seon-dal actually running his business well?
Michael nodded at my question.
“I was just waiting for you to ask that.”
Michael suddenly pulled out a large tablet and handed it to me.
“I would appreciate it if you could start by looking at the first page. I've organized everything so you can see the progress of the business at a glance, in an orderly fashion….”
Michael began explaining things about the break-even point, cash flow, MOM figures, and so on.
He started going on about things that made my head hurt just listening to them.
From an ape's perspective, this was probably what the sound of humans speaking would have sounded like.
Anyway, it seemed to mean that things were going well….
District 50 was in that state, yet it felt ironic that a product whose slogan was environmental protection was selling so well.
“That's enough.”
I cut Michael's explanation short before blood started coming out of my ears.
“Why are you explaining it for so long? All you had to say was that it's going well. One sentence would have been enough.”
There was nothing else I needed to hear.
But Michael, who had worked for a megacorp, did not seem to understand what I meant.
Having filled my empty stomach a little, I rose from the sofa and patted Michael on the shoulder.
“Anyway, looks like you're doing well. You must be working hard.”
“……Hot Dog Man.”
I had been the one who started this business, but Michael was the one actually running it now.
How could I criticize Michael for that?
I felt a little sorry for Michael, who was working under someone like me and calling me his boss, but he had volunteered for it himself….
Leaving Michael blinking rapidly behind me, I quickly walked out of the homeless shelter.
Along with a light snowfall, cool yet chilly air blew across the vacant lot.
I closed my eyes, slowly savored the wind, and muttered quietly.
“Tsk, what is there to life?”
Whether it was inside a game or not, all I had to do was live in rough peace.
Perhaps because of Trash Man (formerly Hot Dog Man), who had given off a horrific stench, or perhaps simply because the weather had gotten colder.
There seemed to be fewer people around than usual today.
Amid all that, I saw that the open-air bar operated by Vance Kim was still open.
There happened to be someone sitting at the counter, so I naturally slid into the seat beside them.
“Welco—, agh.”
“What, did you see a ghost?”
“…Something scarier than a ghost—no, never mind.”
Even though it was open on all sides, the bar had a warm electric heater inside the counter, so it did not seem particularly cold.
“W-what can I get you?”
Seeing Vance Kim's pupils begin to tremble little by little, I felt a brief surge of mischief.
“No. 49 Special.”
“Excuse me?”
Vance Kim reflexively expressed doubt at my words, then his face promptly hardened.
It seemed he had only now remembered the conversation we had shared when we first met at the Hakuga-gumi Club.
- No. 49 Special is ready.
- …That has a name, too?
- No, I just came up with it looking at you.
It was a strange drink made by generously mixing lime-flavored artificial seasoning into a cheap cola brand.
It would have been even better if only the calories were zero.
Then, all of a sudden, I turned my gaze toward the person sitting beside me.
It was not because she was one of the rare female homeless people in the vacant lot behind the grocery store.
Thump.
The moment the female homeless person in shabby clothes set down the glass of liquor she had been drinking on the bar table,
a strange, uncanny sensation that felt somehow ticklish spread through the surroundings.
…What was that?
It was a slightly different kind of feeling from ominousness.
I casually asked her,
“Um, are you a new homeless person, by any chance?”
It wasn't a particularly appropriate thing to say, though.
“……Homeless person?”
I had asked the question a little wrong.
If you heard it at a glance, it could easily be mistaken for an insult.
In effect, it was no different from asking someone I had just met, ‘Are you a beggar?’
When I awkwardly scratched my head, the woman muttered in a very low voice,
“…No. I have a home.”
That was hard to believe, considering how unmistakably homeless her shabby clothes made her look.
Was she still in the stage of denying reality….
The process of admitting that one was homeless proceeded much like the five stages of grief, so I did not take the woman's words to heart.
Although I had been the one to speak first, for some reason, the woman's gaze did not leave me.
Was this cyberpunk-style flirting…?
Or she might have mistaken me speaking to her first for me hitting on her.
‘I'd better gulp this down and head into the grocery store….’
But that wish could not be fulfilled.
Just as I raised the ‘No. 49 Special’ Vance Kim had brought me to down it in one gulp,
“……I can see why such a strange rumor is going around. A magic circuit that feels this pure.”
the contents of the glass transformed into a completely frozen state.
Indeed.
It was quite a remarkable trick for an ordinary homeless person.
“So I'm asking….”
Her blue eyes fixed themselves on me.
“That magic circuit…. Who taught you?”