All masters of Cyberpunk,

Episode 7

 

 

7. A Third-rate Ending for a Third-rate Villain

 

 

“A deal?”

 

His face crumples at my words.

 

Or maybe he’s always had a crumpled face. Maybe he was born with an angry face.

 

Well, it doesn’t matter now.

 

I turn to Oh Ki-young and offer him a deal.

 

“I won’t hurt you if you give me the guy in garage number five.”

 

“Garage 5… how!”

 

The man’s surprise was palpable.

 

Garage 5 is where the Halberd Davidsons are stored, which are considered luxury motorcycles in Seoul 2056.

 

In the game, it’s a kind of “hidden reward” that can be unlocked with a key that can be obtained from the office after wiping out the junkyard.

 

“There’s a way to do it,” I answered leisurely, looking at Oh Ki-young, who couldn’t hide his embarrassment.

 

“I have a way of knowing, so do you want me to go find it myself? Or do you want me to hand it over to you?”

 

In the best-case scenario, Oh would hand over the motorcycle himself.

 

There’s no fighting, and no one gets hurt. Like I said, there’s no need to start a fight.

 

But, of course,

 

“Oh, that’s a little awkward.”

 

“Oh well, whatever.”

 

I threw the metal pipe I was holding to the ground and assumed a fighting stance.

 

gang leader who looks like that.

 

Only the most marginal members of a gang can land a good hit with a metal pipe picked up off the street.

 

It’s much more reliable to actively use the shockwave ability to repel them.

 

“You’re trying to pull a fast one, aren’t you?”

 

As I immediately jumped into a combat stance, Oh Ki-Young spat out a phlegm and began to glare.

 

“Are you sure you’re an A-class hunter?” Bring me your Hunter registration. I’ll give you a good deal if you do.”

 

“Why would you do that? You turned down the offer first.”

 

“Heh, heh, heh… I can tell it’s a fake! Are you trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, you guys? Just fuck off!”

 

I knew this was going to happen.

 

When you tell a guy with nothing but a gao to obey you, he usually growls and bares his teeth.

 

He’d have to pay for his fearlessness.

 

“Mr. Haan, take care.”

 

“Ouch.”

 

Mr. Haan shakes his head in pain as I shake my head.

 

Soon, the gang members, who had surrounded us in a circle, began to rush forward.

 

“Ma!! We’re too much for you!”

 

“You bastards! Kill them both!”

 

Taang!!!

 

And just like that, haan’s pistol burst into flames.

 

The tip of haan’s gun glowed, and the trigger squeezed judgment.

 

A trickle of cerebral fluid dripped from the crushed skulls of the unfortunate Extras who had rushed in without realizing it.

 

“Tsk.”

 

As she clicks her tongue in disgust, I can’t help but laugh out loud.

 

Now she’s starting to show her true colors.

 

There was no mercy in haan’s shooting. With each pull of the trigger, gang members dropped to the ground like marionettes with their threads cut.

 

Bang, bang, bang!

 

Emptying her entire magazine in a matter of seconds, she fought through the hail of bullets and threw the pistol at the head of the gang member who had managed to get to her.

 

Woof!

 

Then she lunged at him, snapping his neck.

 

This was no ordinary woman’s strength.

 

By this point, the Underdog Bikers should have seen what she was capable of.

 

Oh Ki-young, who had an ugly run backwards as soon as the shooting started, started screaming at the top of his lungs.

 

“It’s a technician! She’s definitely wearing a tech body!”

 

“Take care of her first!”

 

“Now, wait a minute! Brother, this guy is no ordinary guy either.”

 

Of course, I couldn’t just sit there and play along while Agent Undercover was beating the crap out of me.

 

I punch out with my clenched fist. My sleeve flapped in the wind, and a shockwave swept across the room.

 

The two big men who had charged at once fell to the ground in a heap.

 

The blade he was carrying went flying as well, embedding itself in the thigh of the man next to him.

 

 

 

“Mee, sorry!”

 

Stabbing a coworker with the weapon he was carrying?

 

That’s the epitome of a misfit.

 

With this kind of power, he had been traveling around the North District, where ‘Aunt Oewol was. I couldn’t hide my admiration for Oh Ki-young’s discernment.

 

Boom, a nailed bat whizzed past my head.

 

It was such a slow attack that I didn’t even need to react immediately. As I leisurely dove and dodged, he let out a thick stream of profanity.

 

“You son of a bitch!”

 

The green mohawk is very impressive; it’s as if he’s a cyberpunk.

 

I dodged another whizzing bat, dove inside, and drove my fist straight into his face.

 

Thud, thud, thud!

 

The sound of crunching ribs echoed clearly. Mohican lunged forward, his whites cracking and falling to the floor.

 

“Take it, bro!”

 

At this point, the underdog bikers’ offense began to slow down.

 

In a matter of seconds, over twenty of them had been swept aside.

 

I rubbed my hands together and looked at Oh Ki-young, who shuddered and stepped back.

 

“You still think the same?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

I was screwed.

 

Warning bells were ringing in Oh’s head.

 

At first, he’d thought it was just a bluff, but was it really an A-class Hunter?

 

A Class A Hunter, a walking natural disaster and tactical weapon, came all this way just to rob a Halberd Davidson?

 

Why? What have I done? What have I done?

 

All sorts of questions popped into his head, but there was nothing he could do about them.

 

A woman wearing an expensive tech body and a man with superpowers at his disposal.

 

That alone would have been enough to overwhelm him, but the sum of the two was almost perfect.

 

At this point, the game was a foregone conclusion. Even if you take the power of the underdog Bikers and put it to work, you can’t beat these two.

 

Should I beg and plead now to take the bike and give it away?

 

Even my treasured vehicle was not worth more than my life.

 

If I’d known this was coming, I’d have put a tech body on it, or at least a hunter’s weapon!

 

“Wait.

 

A TechBody?

 

Suddenly, a piece of equipment flashed through Oh’s mind.

 

The body jammer he had bought from a black market arms dealer.

 

It was an expensive device that instantly emitted powerful jamming radio waves that could neutralize TechBodies for a period of time.

 

Originally, it was purchased to clean up the shambling vagrants in the North District, who would attach a few TechBodies to their aunts and uncles.

 

Right now, it was the most effective Trump card he could pull out.

 

“Get that!”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“That! Get the speaker!”

 

Oh Ki-young shouted, slapping the subordinate’s head as he asked back in a stupid voice.

 

The subordinate, who had stuck around for the wrong reasons, ran back to the office in a panic and soon returned with a speaker the size of my head.

 

“This is a body jammer! Don’t be a dick!”

 

This is Oh Ki-young, barely into his early 20s.

 

He was a douchebag, a hothead, and a man with no connections, but he was more confident than anyone else when it came to bluffing and blackmail.

 

His tongue was a weapon down here anyway. If they were really A-list hunters, they wouldn’t be unaware of the tricky nature of body jammers.

 

I’d use it to buy time to talk, and as soon as I saw an opening, I’d activate the jammer to neutralize it.

 

It was a perfect plan.

 

Until the person you’ve been blackmailing asks you, innocently enough, “What was that about?

 

“What was that for?”

 

“Jae, it’s a jammer, and if you don’t want to turn that expensive tech body you’re wearing into scrap metal, back off!”

 

The man flinched at Oh’s threat and looked at the woman.

 

“Mr. Haan, you don’t really care, do you?”

 

“Yeah, it’s not like there’s anything special about what you can get in this neighborhood; it won’t even hurt your head.”

 

“Then taste it, you bastards!”

 

Seeing that they were having a casual conversation despite his threats, Oh finally activated the jammer.

 

Woong!

 

“……???”

 

Sure enough, nothing happened!

 

“No way!”

 

Oh Ki-young’s pupils dilated frantically.

 

He had heard that it was capable of neutralizing even a B-class military TechBody.

 

If that was the case, didn’t that mean that both of them were wearing TechBodies above that level?

 

Oh, Ki young’s eyes widened.

 

Of course, that was a half-assed guess.

 

Daejeon, this is Lee Do-jin, an agent directly under the (new) government.

 

He’s a top-notch hacker, so the tech bodies he wears are S-class. Their standard EMP shielding is impenetrable to even the most advanced military body jammers.

 

And what about Lee Do-jin? He doesn’t even have the most basic economy chip, let alone a TechBody.

 

He never bothered with jammers in the first place.

 

“I never thought this trait would be so useful.”

 

The man muttered something in English and approached Oh Ki-young.

 

“What are you doing, man? Stop him!”

 

He screamed and cursed in fear, but there were no more underdog bikers listening to him.

 

As a third-rate gang that has been pushed aside in a power struggle, the Underdog Bikers don’t have much cohesion.

 

Now that they’re so deeply embittered, what kind of subordinate would stand up for a scumbag boss?

 

“Yi, yi, yi…! Yi profit!!!”

 

Finally, Oh Ki-young, his face red with anger, made a last-ditch effort to lunge at Lee Do-jin.

 

It was slow.

 

And too crude.

Oh gritted his teeth, but a quick step backwards was all he needed to dodge the attack.

 

His arms flailed in the air, instantly losing their target.

 

A counter from Lee Do-jin followed with his full weight.

 

Oh, Ki-young couldn’t even scream as he crumpled to the ground.

 

His face was fractured, and red blood poured from his nose and mouth.

 

Orbital fracture and concussion.

 

He might even have suffered permanent brain damage.

 

Lee Do-jin looked at Oh Ki-young pitifully, then turned to the rest of the group and said,.

 

“Anyone else want to bark?”

 

“No, no, no, no!”

 

“Elder brother, we’re just a motorcycle club! That bastard, Oh Ki-young, was the only one with a lot of problems in the first place!”

 

The bulldog that threatened to devour Buk-gu collapsed in a pool of blood.

 

It didn’t take long for the bikers, who had become a nuisance to one official, to voluntarily disarm.