"What the hell are you talking about? Get that bastard!"
"You think Tyger Claws are a joke, you psycho?!"
The Tyger Claws were howling like a swarm of ants as they surged up from below, veins bulging with rage.
Ignoring that noisy, annoying racket, Ji-hwan calmly analyzed the enemies closing in from every direction with his cool, detached eyes.
'Seven in total. Two cheap smart guns with bargain-bin target-assist chips, five melee fighters.'
Before he’d even exhaled, Ji-hwan had already finished calculating their numbers, their weapons, and even the attack angles they’d spring from instinct alone. He let out a deep, lazy sigh.
"Haa... what a pain."
He didn’t draw the weapon at his waist. He didn’t even lower his stance into a defensive posture.
He only loosened his wrists and thick neck with a light crack, crackle, sending a creepy series of popping sounds through the air.
His loose natural-leather jacket had soaked up the rain and grown heavy. Beneath it was a 177-centimeter frame—nothing impressive in this rough merc world—and more importantly, constant training and battle recovery had already turned his face, which looked like it belonged to a man in his mid-thirties, into something that could pass for mid-twenties at most.
From his jawline to the hair by his ears and the back of his neck, there wasn’t a single visible [cyberware panel] or chrome seam to be found. His skin was smooth, the kind of clean, alien look that fit a meek office drone or college student in a corporate district far better than some blood-soaked back-alley merc.
And yet Ji-hwan started walking forward, slow and easy, toward the seven murderous thugs charging him like they were about to turn him into minced meat.
Clunk. Clunk.
The sound of his dress shoes stepping through puddles echoed strangely heavy over the rooftops.
He looked like some slick, ordinary young man, but with every step he took, the pressure rolling off him grew thicker and thicker—like a massive, starving predator taking a leisurely stroll through a flock of lost sheep.
Meanwhile, on the first floor of the abandoned building, behind cover by a moldy old sofa...
"Hey, hey! Sis! What are you doing just standing there? Run! Now’s our chance! He’s got all the attention on him, so grab the bag and get the hell out of here!"
"....."
Pilar grabbed Rebecca by the collar with a pale, panicked face and whispered urgently.
But Rebecca, clutching the old Militech Lexington in her hand, couldn’t tear her eyes away from the bizarre scene unfolding before them.
Ji-hwan’s almost suicidal, leisurely walk had brought the distance between him and the Tyger Claws down to point-blank range in Rebecca’s sight.
"Die, you son of a bitch!!"
The moment the bastards roared like wild animals and raised their assorted weapons, the red laser pointers from the smart guns jittering across Ji-hwan’s forehead and heart—
Kwaang!
Rebecca sucked in a breath and doubted her own eyes.
The form of that ordinary-looking young man, who had been walking with such a blank expression just a second ago, vanished from the spot in a flash, leaving only a grotesque afterimage behind—like a severe glitch had hit a paused frame on an old braindance device.
There was none of the acrid ozone stink that came from a mid-tier Sandevistan used by common back-alley mercs, nor the blue sparks and sharp metallic shriek that accompanied top-shelf military cyberware.
What she saw was an unbelievable burst of elasticity and speed, born from muscles compressed like steel wire beneath that thick flight jacket and exploding outward all at once.
But Rebecca was only twelve, and her mind—so soaked in the common sense of this machine-crazy city—interpreted that miraculous movement in a completely different way.
'Holy... not a single activation sound for speed that insane?! Just how expensive an implant did he stuff into himself?!'
And after that, a strangely cheerful series of friction noises began to ring out through the entire abandoned building, like a chain explosion across the taut silence.
Slaaap!Smack!Smack!Slaaash-!!
"Kyaaaagh!"
"Ghk...!"
It wasn’t the horrifying crack of a blade slicing bone or bullets tearing flesh apart.
It was the sound of bare skin slamming against bare skin at absurd physical speed—a slap sound that was sticky, vulgar, and at the same time so brutal it seemed to shake the bones themselves.
In Rebecca’s dazed view, the heavy black arcs drawn by what had seemed like a slender body whipped through the air like a storm.
And where that storm passed, the Tyger Claws who had been surrounding Ji-hwan and growling like they were about to rip him apart began collapsing one after another like bundles of wheat cut down at harvest.
It made no difference whether they had raised a flashing katana or already had a finger on the trigger. Everyone was equal.
Every single one of them hit the ground with a vivid red handprint stamped across the cheek like a gravestone, their necks twisted half a turn in grotesque angles as they spun through the air like tops before crashing down.
Ji-hwan’s palm had looked plain and ordinary, but the instant it landed, the sheer mass and destructive force behind it delivered a terrifying amount of impact.
It was a breathtaking, overwhelming work of violence made entirely of sticky, merciless slaps—no wasted weapon use, no bloody slaughter, just pure, ruthless cheek-smacking.
"Hiiik... hiiiik...!"
The two remaining Tyger Claws at the edge, who had been late to raise their smart guns, froze with trembling hands and fingers locked on the trigger after witnessing that impossible slap-fest unfold in just two seconds.
Instinctive, primal terror crushed their brains white: the moment they pulled the trigger at that monster, they’d be the next meat tops spinning through the air with their cheeks blown apart in a single second.
But Ji-hwan didn’t spare those piss-scared leftovers even a glance. He casually shook out the palm that had gone a little numb from slapping about ten faces in a row, wiping it against his wet pants, then looked up at the darkening gray sky.
"It’s already this late? My snack got ruined by the rain, so I guess I’ll go find dinner nearby."
Leaving behind that absurdly, almost offensively ordinary remark, the young man strolled through the frozen gang members and vanished into the deep darkness of rainy Night City beyond the old overpass, as if melting away without a trace.
Rebecca’s jaw trembled as she watched the entire shocking scene in silence.
'He didn’t kill a single one of them...'
This was Night City. A place where a human life was worth less than a synthetic rat-meat skewer on the street. In this city, the one and only absolute rule of common sense was that if someone pulled a gun, you blew their brains out and finished the job.
And yet that strangely beautiful man had used his terrifying strength only to knock armed gang members unconscious with nothing but slaps, never taking a single life.
It wasn’t some flimsy morality that made him hesitate to kill. It was indifference—the kind that didn’t even see the lives of crawling insects as worth the trouble, the same way you’d flick away a fly stuck to your face as you walked down the street.
'I don't like this...'
Clean, flawless skin with not a single machine part in sight. A smooth neck with no panel seams. And that unreal back view as he walked away peacefully, worrying about tonight’s menu after dropping five gangsters with nothing but slaps.
A strange, almost mystical chill ran up Rebecca’s spine. In the mind of that young survivor, the existence of Ji-hwan the outsider was already being painted over with something beyond imagination.
'I got completely fooled. I thought he was just some lucky ordinary guy... but if there’s not a single seam on skin like that, it means he dumped a ridiculous amount of money into himself so there wouldn’t even be a scar or machine trace left behind! He’s a big shot covered head to toe in top-tier high-end realskin and military stealth implants! What the hell is he?!'
"Hey! Kid! Stop spacing out and grab the bag while those bastards are down so we can get out of here!!"
Beside her, Pilar had already rolled onto the sofa in a hurry and snatched up the leather bag Wakako had commissioned them to retrieve, acting all smug and excited.
Rebecca swallowed dryly, glanced one more time at the empty rooftop where Ji-hwan had disappeared, then quickly stuffed her pistol away and followed Pilar out of the damp abandoned building.
A few hours later, in Westbrook’s Japantown, where neon signs burned brightly.
Inside a back room of a pachinko parlor thick with cheap synthetic cigarette smoke, an old leather bag was tossed onto the heavy oak table of the fixer Wakako Okada.
"Alright, here’s the bag the old lady asked for! Not a drop of blood on it, handled clean and quiet. All thanks to the genius stealth infiltration skills of yours truly, Pilar! Hahaha!"
Oblivious as ever, Pilar thumped his chest and bragged shamelessly.
Wakako casually checked the contents of the bag with her pipe in hand, then slid an eddies-loaded data shard across the table without a flicker of emotion on her wrinkled face.
"Good work. But my informants say there was quite a commotion over by the Tyger Claws’ hideout just now. That wasn’t you two, was it?"
At Wakako’s cold, sharp question, Pilar flinched and waved his hands awkwardly.
"Ah, no, of course not! We really did just grab the bag and get out without anyone noticing... Oh, right! We did see one really funny idiot there, though."
Wiping away cold sweat, Pilar greedily shoved the eddies shard into his pocket and went on.
"Some slick-faced guy, average height, looked like a pretty-boy office drone. The bastard must’ve lost his mind, because he was just slapping gang members around instead of shooting them. Not a single piece of chrome on his body either, so he was probably some solo who got high on illegal combat drugs and started thinking he was hot shit. Man, what a joke—some pretty-faced loser trying to act tough right before he dies..."
Kwaang!
"Aaaagh!"
Suddenly, Rebecca, who had been listening quietly from behind, jumped up and kicked Pilar’s shin mercilessly. The impact sounded like bone about to snap, and Pilar screamed, rolling on the floor.
"You useless, long-legged idiot. If your eyes are that bad at judging people, why don’t you just gouge them out along with those expensive sunglasses you’re wearing?! Did that guy’s plain, clean face really look like some broke, chrome-less loser to you?!"
As Rebecca spat the words out in a fury, Pilar clutched his shin and whined in injustice.
"No, my scanner said chrome was at zero percent, and there wasn’t any visible hardware on him either!"
"You hopeless blockhead! Do you not understand what it means when someone can move that fast and hit that hard without a single seam or wire showing on their skin?! That means he’s covered head to toe in ultra-expensive stealth implants and top-grade realskin the kind corpo chairmen and VVIP assassins wear! If you’d really pissed that guy off today, you might’ve had your head blown apart by one slap and died without even knowing it!"
"Ohhh."
As she listened to the siblings bickering on the floor, Wakako’s deep, murky eyes flashed with a sharp glint of greed.
The sharp-eyed brat’s words made sense. Her eye for talent was better than most mercs in this business.
If someone could unleash that kind of overwhelming violence without showing up on a scanner and without any visible sign of machinery, then that meant a staggering amount of capital and top-level tech beyond the reach of some back-alley drifter.
'Unless...'
"Rebecca. Come closer."
Wakako tapped ash from her pipe into a crystal ashtray and leaned forward with an interested expression.
"That high-end, top-shelf whatever-you-call-him... why don’t you tell this old woman exactly what happened, in detail?"
But Rebecca only turned her head away with her usual annoyed, guarded expression and shifted her weight onto one leg.
Her back-alley instincts were screaming that if she got too deeply tangled up in this story, she’d be dragged into a nasty mess where even two lives wouldn’t be enough.
"Ugh, too much trouble. We got the bag and got paid, so we’re heading out now..."
"I’ll double the fee for the information."
Wakako cut her off with a snake-smooth smile at the corner of her wrinkled mouth.
"Don’t play hard to get, kid. I sent you on this Tyger Claws job because I didn’t want you and your brother starving to death on the street, remember? In Night City, you only become a true legendary edgerunner if you know how to give and take."
"...Tch. You sure talk a lot for an old hag."
Money and immediate survival left Rebecca with no choice. In the end, she pouted and surrendered, telling Wakako everything that had happened with the Tyger Claws earlier, without leaving out a single detail.
The young man’s appearance, the terrifying speed, and the casual way he had loosened his wrists, dropped seven armed gang members with nothing but sticky slaps, then wandered off while worrying about dinner.
After hearing Rebecca’s vivid account, Wakako slowly exhaled a long, thick stream of smoke from her pipe and murmured,
"Hmm... so he subdued seven men and didn’t kill a single one... Listening to you, the scattered bits of information floating around among the fixers are finally starting to fit together."
"Who is he? You know him?"
Rebecca asked in a tense voice, and Wakako snapped open her fan.
"I did hear a rumor about someone similar operating out in the dusty Badlands since about a year ago. A crazy rookie who tears enemies apart with his bare hands without firing a single shot."
"The Badlands...?"
"Yes. [Dakota Smith] over there has been hoarding his combat data like he’s her personal special merc, so there wasn’t much information leaking into Night City. And now it seems that Dakota’s precious little toy has wandered all the way into the middle of this city."
At the mention of another big-name fixer, [Dakota Smith], Rebecca’s face went gray.
A conflict over ownership between heavy hitters. This was one hundred percent—no, a thousand percent—the kind of grave-digging mess that would get you killed without a sound if you got involved.
"Ah, yes. What an amazing person he must be. Well, I answered all your questions, so pay up the extra info fee you promised. We’re going home to wash up and sleep."
Rebecca hurriedly reached out and snatched the shard with the extra eddies, then kicked Pilar in the back as he lay face-down on the floor and headed for the pachinko parlor door.
"Wait! Wakako!"
Pilar, who had apparently been born with zero sense in his mother’s womb, suddenly lit up, wiped the blood from his nose, and stepped forward toward Wakako.
"Wouldn’t that Dakota or whatever be wasting such talent under some country fixer? Then how about I, the rising star of Night City, sweet-talk that rich merc bastard and bring him right to you, ma’am?!"
"Hey, you brain-dead lunatic!!"
Rebecca screamed in horror, veins popping in her neck, but the tall idiot’s hunger for praise and empty glory had already gone past the point of control.
Wakako looked at that pathetic, easy-to-handle piece on the board, and her old eyes narrowed with the greedy smile of someone luring prey into a trap.
"Oh? You would do that for me, Pilar? If you truly want to, this old woman won’t stop you. If you bring me that mysterious man, I’ll make sure you and your sister never have to crouch on a leaky street again for a while."
A few minutes later, outside the pachinko parlor in the rain-soaked night streets.
"You long-legged idiot with nothing but udon noodles for brains!!"
Kwaang!
With a splash of rainwater, Pilar’s miserable scream echoed through the alley. Rebecca’s flashy flying knee had slammed into his jaw.
Face-first in the mud, Pilar was bleeding from the nose, yet he was grinning like an idiot for some reason.
"Ow, why do you keep hitting me? You’re gonna break my bones! Hey, you saw Wakako smiling just now, right? If we get in with that incredible guy and earn a fat finder’s fee from Wakako, we can get out of this sewer and level up into major mercs!"
"Level up my ass! You saw with your own eyes how terrifying and alien that monster was, and now you want us to drag that bomb back here?! You think we can just walk up to some chrome-covered predator worth millions of eddies and say, ‘Excuse me, could you come meet our fixer granny’? Are you insane?!"
"Hey, a man has to think positively if he wants a path to open up! Don’t be scared, kid! I’ll try to sweet-talk him, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll use my brand-new smart gun to lean on him a little and threaten him..."
At her brother’s reckless optimism, which made no sense whatsoever, Rebecca pressed a hand to her rain-soaked forehead and let out a deep sigh that seemed to sink into the ground.
"Haa... fuck. What did I do in my past life to end up with a brother like you? Fine, whatever. Do what you want. Just do it your damn way."
The realist, Rebecca, shifted her weight onto one leg, spat out a mouthful of cold rainwater, and asked a very calm, very essential question.
"So... do you even know where that monster of a guy is right now, in this huge-ass Night City?"
"......Huh?"
The tall body of Pilar, who had been wiping away his nosebleed and acting all proud a moment ago, froze like a stone Buddha, just like an android with the power cut.
"Uh......"
"Haa......"
A heavy silence, and a sigh, filled the alley along with the sound of rain falling.
The blood drained from Pilar’s face as he finally realized the painfully obvious, utterly hopeless fact: he had no idea where that man had gone after coming down from the roof, no contact info, and not even a name tag to go on.
Rebecca stared at her brother’s blank, fish-eyed face and let out a contemptuous snort.
"Ha. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day. Of course it’s you."
She shrugged and started trudging down the dark, rain-soaked alley.
"Ugh, fuck. We’re late. Stop talking nonsense and let’s just go home for today. I’m tired enough to die."
The siblings’ cozy little "home," if you could even call it that, was nothing more than the back seat of a broken-down car dumped in a trash lot on the outskirts of Japantown, with all the wheels gone and the stink of rot hanging in the air.
Pilar scratched the back of his head awkwardly and followed the small shadow of his younger sister as she stomped away at a brisk pace.
And so Night City’s cruel night deepened, carrying with it a mess of ridiculous misunderstandings and empty desires.
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