1.
55 million credit points.
With that kind of money, I could do anything I wanted in Neon City.
It was enough to open a proper fixer office, or even start a business of my own.
I kept feeling the urge to gamble it all away again, but I clenched my teeth so hard I thought they might crack, barely managing to hold myself back.
It was obvious the host was watching me.
If I had pushed my luck any further, I would have absolutely lost everything, leaving me with exactly one million.
“Gotta keep moving!”
I’d been playing for so long that I hadn't noticed the time; it was already 9 a.m. the next morning.
Perfect. This was exactly when the shops were opening for business, wasn’t it?
First, I headed toward a nice-looking establishment, rather than the kind of butcher shop you'd expect to find in this neighborhood.
“...What, LV.9? Bad luck first thing in the morning.”
“Is that any way to talk to a customer?”
As expected of Neon City, the place was overflowing with discrimination.
The man had checked my level the second I walked through the door.
“What, is a beggar considered a customer now?”
“I came here because I have money. Did you think I came to chat with you like we’re old friends?”
Mm. Now that’s Neon City small talk.
Nothing had changed.
The butcher’s eyes shifted the moment I set down the pouch full of credit points.
The change was almost comical.
It was obvious what he was thinking: How the hell does this beggar have that kind of money?
“Won it gambling.”
“...Haa, fine. You are a customer.”
The meat here was basically the same as it was back in Korea.
It wasn't as if they were selling minotaur meat or something; across the universe, unless a planet had some special quirk, people’s lifestyles were surprisingly similar.
I picked out only the tastiest cuts, and surprisingly—perhaps because this was near the city center—the butcher didn’t try to rip me off.
“Be careful. It’s good that you made money, but with that much...”
He even gave me a parting word of advice on my way out?
He had the personality of the top one percent of Neon City.
“Don’t worry, sir. Nobody knows how this works better than someone from the bottom like me.”
Even when I left the gambling den, there had been a few people giving me sly looks.
People who were calculating how to carve me up and make that money their own.
So, what happened to them, you ask?
We each generously shared a wrist and an ankle, then ran our separate ways.
I had considered killing them, but I didn’t want to spill blood on such a good day.
After buying some Penacony wine from a shop that looked like it would pair well with the meat, I walked the streets.
It really was different.
Good music played on the street, and ordinary families and children strolled by.
It was the kind of difference you’d describe as heaven and earth.
By the time I’d made it all the way to the outskirts...
I stopped in front of a shop that looked like an electronics store.
The latest game console visible through the glass was worlds apart from the old one Silver Wolf had bought at a pawnshop two months ago.
It was compatible with every legacy game and came with every new release.
It was exactly the kind of gift Silver Wolf would love.
“Hah, this is the kind of day you spend money for. When else would I use it?”
I bought it without hesitation.
A single console was insanely expensive.
1.05 million credit points, seriously.
It was shocking.
My hand shook as I paid, but thinking about how happy Silver Wolf would be made it worth it.
“Big brother’s coming home!”
Tonight was going to be a luxurious party.
I loaded up on snacks, sweets, meat, and alcohol. Everything.
By the time I entered the deeper outskirts of the city, the atmosphere had already turned damp and gloomy.
The contrast was insane.
A cesspool and a normal city. You couldn’t get that kind of experience in Seoul.
As I wandered along with both hands full of groceries, the homeless people watching me began to light up with greed.
“Look away before I gouge your eyes out.”
I growled, threatening them while gripping my hatchet, and the passersby and vagrants immediately dropped their gaze.
The weak don’t survive.
Here, instead of showing pity, you had to be cold. It was the classic routine: the strong bully the weak, and the weak bully the weaker.
I’d been living with Silver Wolf for two months now.
Since I’d been the one teaching her how to survive...
In terms of time alone, Silver Wolf had actually spent longer in Neon City than I had. And yet, the reason I knew this place so well was simple.
Silver Wolf was treated as if she basically didn’t exist.
On the planet Punk Road, LV.0 meant exactly that.
An illegal orphan, an illegal baby.
I’d never even heard those terms before.
“Ahh... I’m tired. I should go in and rest.”
How long had I been walking?
At last, I reached my sweet home.
Going a whole day without sleep just to gamble was hard work too.
While I was in the gambling hall, I hadn’t noticed it, but once I stepped out, the dopamine and excitement vanished, leaving me feeling like I was about to collapse.
“Big brother’s home!!!”
I kicked the door open and stepped inside.
Yeah, yeah. Now it was time for heroes and legends...?
It was dark as hell.
The curtains hadn’t even been opened; it looked like the room of a gaming addict.
“Silver Wolf?”
When I called her name, something on the sofa started wriggling.
“Eek—!”
Just as I let out a girly scream, thinking it was a ghost, the black shape shot at me like a bullet and knocked me over.
“I-I was worried about you...!”
Ta-da, the black shape was Silver Wolf!
“You weren’t answering, and when I looked around, you were nowhere to be seen. What the hell were you doing?”
“Aww, our Silver Wolf missed me that much?”
Heh. I really must have worked hard these past two months.
Where had the Silver Wolf who hissed at me the first time we met gone? This adorable version was way better.
“......”
Huh? If I said that, she should be pouting and saying, “I-it’s not like that!”
“I thought you were dead... I was worried...”
I could hear sniffles as she buried her face in my chest.
Who’s dead?
I still had so much to do!
“I’m not dead. I still haven’t finished my bucket list.”
“...What do you want to do?”
“Hang out at a pool party with two pretty girls?”
Smack
“Ow!”
Silver Wolf smacked my forehead.
Hey, I even bought you a game console!
“I was worried about you...”
“You looked way too much like a corpse, so I was joking.”
All right, all right. That’s enough of the emotional reunion.
I could understand why she had been worried.
Suddenly saying I was going out, then disappearing for a whole day with no contact?
In a place like this, it was easy to assume, Ah, he got caught up in something and died a miserable death.
“Silver Wolf, this is for you.”
I tossed her the latest game console.
Then I grinned.
“W-Where did you get this!?”
Silver Wolf stared at the console, eyes wide.
I’d bought it just to see that reaction.
“I made a ton of money. Hold out both hands for a second.”
“...Why?”
“Just do it, hurry.”
I placed the thick money pouch in Silver Wolf’s hands.
She looked at the console, then at the pouch, and opened it as if wondering what it was.
“Adrian, you...!”
“What do you think? Pretty awesome, right?”
Our Silver Wolf’s shocked face was adorable as hell!
“Did you sell a kidney or something!?”
“...Why would that be your conclusion?”
Silver Wolf... I couldn’t make 10 million credit points by selling my organs.
Though, to be fair, I was a healthy, vigorous man in my twenties.
“It’s yours. Spend it however you want. Buy whatever you want, do whatever you want.”
This was an investment.
I’d bought Silver Wolf stock, and with time, it would soar by 1,000 percent.
“...No.”
“?”
“It’s too much! I don’t know what you did to earn this, but taking money like this for doing nothing...”
She fidgeted and handed the pouch back to me.
“I can’t accept this...”
“Silver Wolf.”
Anyway, it was gambling money.
Rather, if I ever blew the rest of my money on gambling, she needed enough to live on and keep the household running.
“I won it all gambling. It’s fine.”
“Gambling?”
“Yeah, I went out and filmed an episode of Gambling Apocalypse.”
Silver Wolf looked at me as if she had a lot to say, but she was silenced by the weight of the money pouch.
“It’s an investment. Use it to buy gear, go hunting, climb higher. Let’s climb up together.”
“......”
“I’ll trust you.”
I’d also gotten [Level Up] all to myself.
It was obvious that Adrian Servet’s life was about to skyrocket.
I didn’t want to be alone. Games are only fun with friends, and adventures are only possible with companions.
And if you thought about it, getting the new cartridge was thanks to Silver Wolf too.
I never give up what’s mine.
Even if Silver Wolf had no talent and was just an ordinary kid, it didn’t matter.
She was already mine.
“Refusal rejected. Let’s just have a party tonight!”
“......”
She said nothing.
Silver Wolf lowered her head and just stared at the floor.
“Hey, are you getting emotional? You getting emotional?”
“You... you really...”
Her eyes were turning red again. She was crying again.
How could she cry so much?
“Don’t cry. We’re just getting started.”
“......”
“Let’s do this. A rebellion from the bottom.”
I pulled the crying Silver Wolf into a tight hug.
Mm. Warm. Feels nice.
2.
When I stepped out for a moment to look into something with the money Silver Wolf had received, I smoked a cigarette on the balcony and looked out at the view.
“Yeah, expensive stuff really is better.”
It was a far cry from the cheap cigarettes I’d bought at the neighborhood mart.
As expected, city rats are better than country rats.
After burning through about five cigarettes in a row, it was time to clear my head and make plans for the future.
I’d gotten a special status window called a daily [quest], and I had enough money. I still hadn’t checked the reward for clearing the daily [quest], but I planned to have a few drinks tonight and take a look then.
“Perfect...”
It was so perfect it almost felt familiar.
Even in Korea, things rarely ever worked out this smoothly for me.
“The goddess of luck is on my side.”
I even grinned like I was in a game and tossed out a cool line.
I was going to get out of this chicken-coop apartment and set up a proper office.
“Damn, it’s cold.”
Had I stayed out here too long?
As the chill seeped into my body, I shut the balcony window and came back inside.
Thud
The front door opened.
Suddenly, the light from the apartment hallway spilled into the room.
There stood not Silver Wolf, but a woman who didn’t belong here at all.
“Huh? Who are you? I think you’ve got the wrong place.”
Thinking she might be a robber, I grabbed the hatchet from the table.
I hid it behind my back and looked at the woman in front of me.
She wore a clean white coat that didn’t fit the back alleys at all. Under it was a candy-colored evening dress. In one hand, oddly enough, she held a slender scalpel aloft.
And when I looked at her face...
I sensed I was screwed.
Her face was breaking apart in a mosaic, as if it were slipping between reality and unreality.
The color of her hair, her features—every part that should have defined her was shattered into mosaic fragments.
A hacker?
Was the host so furious that I’d won 55 million credit points at the gambling den that they sent an assassin?
Whatever she was, there was no way I could beat her, even if I died and came back.
So much so that my instinct, the one I always trusted, was telling me to run to the balcony and jump.
“I think you’ve got the wrong place...”
I repeated the same words like a parrot.
I had to move.
And when the woman casually exposed an opening, I threw the hatchet without hesitation.
The hatchet flew straight and true toward the woman’s head.
There was no way she could dodge it. The distance wasn’t even that far, and throwing hatchets was one of the main techniques I’d practiced.
But then...
As if making the impossible possible,
the hatchet failed to hit her.
“......?”
She was clearly in a position where she should have been hit.
And yet, when I looked again, the hatchet was embedded in the wall without even grazing her.
“Adrian Servet.”
Even her voice sounded as if it had noise layered over it.
She had come looking specifically for me.
“Who’s that? I’m not Adrian Servet.”
I’d somehow earned a second life.
I was just about to make a fresh start.
I had to buy time.
“I had a hard time finding you.”
I heard a tsk of disapproval.
The scalpel in her hand pointed at me.
I was going to die.
This was absolutely going to kill me.
“Wait—!”
The scalpel moved in a gentle horizontal line.
Swoosh
Like cutting paper with a utility knife, like lightly slicing meat with a blade.
With the sound of something being cut far too easily, my vision flipped.
My body was falling. No, it wasn’t my body that was falling. What I saw as I fell were my own legs.
A grotesque sound rang out as my innards spilled.
Pain hit me, and blood poured out.
Unable even to scream, I stared wide-eyed at the woman beyond me.
“You’re below my expectations.”
As if she’d done what she came to do, the woman turned away without hesitation.
The problem was...
Outside the door, Silver Wolf was staring at me as I collapsed, and then at the woman.
Death was coming soon.
It was a second life I’d barely managed to get, but now there was nothing I could do.
I squeezed every bit of strength I had left into my body. I could hear the air leaking from my lungs, but I clenched my teeth. My whole body trembled, convulsing from the pain.
“Si...lver Wolf—!”
The words I had to leave her with.
I managed to shout her name, at least.
“Ru...n...”
But I couldn’t say the last word properly.
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