Leaving Rebecca and Pilar’s boisterous commotion behind, Ji-hwan stepped out of the old Asian noodle stall and headed down the main street lined with flashy hologram neon signs. Then he turned into a cramped, muddy alley where almost no light reached.
It was a little-used shortcut to Afterlife’s underground entrance, but more than that, it was to deal with the unpleasant sense of being followed that had clung to his back ever since a moment ago.
Tap. Tap.
In the alley, all that remained was the stench of rotting synthetic trash and the sound of acid rain dripping from a rusted outdoor AC unit. Behind Ji-hwan’s indifferent, steady footsteps came another set of footsteps in ordinary sneakers, following at a tiny but consistent distance.
"What the hell is this guy doing?"
The one tailing Ji-hwan in the dark looked completely ordinary, just some drifter or civilian with an old hoodie pulled over his head.
'Could he be one of Rogue’s underlings? Or someone else...?'
Ji-hwan analyzed the situation in his head.
Even if it was Rogue, for a big-shot fixer who pursued maximum profit in money and business, planting a few inconspicuous informants like this would be a far more cost-effective investment.
But that calculating choice was a fatal misjudgment in front of Ji-hwan’s extremely sensitive senses.
Even now, the slightest shifts in the air and the tiny scrape of a shoe stepping into a rain puddle were stabbing straight into his hearing in real time.
Keeping his pace unchanged, Ji-hwan turned naturally toward a dark corner littered with trash, then slipped into the blackness without even making a sound.
And a moment later.
As the target disappeared from sight around the corner, the informant in the plain hoodie couldn’t hide his panic and hurried after him.
The moment he looked around, trying to find Ji-hwan’s trail...
Swish—
Ji-hwan’s hand shot out of the darkness like lightning and clamped around the man’s throat.
"Ghk...?"
Bang!
Before he could even scream, Ji-hwan pinned him against the damp brick wall without letting go of his neck.
"Kghh...!"
The informant’s eyes bulged as if his spine were about to snap from the impact.
Ji-hwan simply stared at him with calm, expressionless eyes and slowly began tightening the grip around his throat.
It was a mechanical crush, steady and merciless, like a hydraulic press at work, not a single millimeter of error or tremor in it. It was strength that no human being should have been able to possess.
Crr...k...
"Grrk... ghk...!"
As his airway narrowed, little by little, and his blood flow slowed, the informant’s vision began to blur. A death countdown was ticking away in his head.
'N-no... if this keeps up, I’m dead!'
Just before his breath was cut off completely, the terror-stricken informant thrashed and squeezed out a desperate, metallic scream.
"Ro... Rogue...!!"
"...What?"
At that, Ji-hwan finally loosened his grip just enough for the man to keep talking. The man dragged in a little oxygen and shook like a leaf as he surrendered.
"I-it was Rogue’s orders...! I’m just a regular informant sent to check what you’re doing outside, and whether you might suddenly decide to leave...! Please, spare me...!"
As expected of the queen of fixers, Ji-hwan thought, and let go of the throat he’d been holding.
Thud.
The informant collapsed onto the muddy ground and coughed violently while clutching his neck.
But instead of ordering the man to lead the way immediately, Ji-hwan stood there in silence, looking down at the prostrate figure with cool, steady eyes, lost in thought for a moment.
A brief simulation of Rogue’s intentions, and of what would happen inside Afterlife from here on out. To Ji-hwan, it was only a silence of a dozen seconds or so, but to the informant lying at his feet, it felt like an eternity in hell.
'W-what is this? Why isn’t he saying anything?! D-did he really plan to kill me even after I used Rogue’s name?!'
The informant’s pupils shook wildly with fear.
Extreme tension battered his whole body, as if this man in front of him might strike him down at any second.
Cold sweat poured out like a waterfall, soaking the inside of his rain-drenched hoodie, and just as the fear of his heart bursting made him gasp and choke...
"Get up."
Ji-hwan’s low, calm voice broke the alley’s stillness.
"Lead the way."
"Y-yes...! Y-yes!! This way!!"
Like a prisoner whose death sentence had been revoked, the informant scrambled to his feet in a panic. As he took a shaky step forward, he realized that the dampness running down his back was not rain at all, but the massive amount of cold sweat he’d poured out during those few seconds of silence.
But he didn’t have time to care about that unpleasantness now. Bowing and hurrying ahead, he started walking in front.
Ji-hwan followed quietly behind him, and at last arrived at the underground stairs leading to the front entrance of Afterlife, the graveyard of legends where neon light poured down in brilliant sheets.
At the bottom of the stairs, in front of the heavy iron door, a giant bouncer named Emmerick stood like a mountain.
Ji-hwan studied Emmerick’s real face, the one he had only ever seen through a monitor in the game, and the texture of those monstrous muscles, with great interest and in fine detail.
Maybe sensing the stare, Emmerick frowned and looked over the two approaching men in surprise.
The man in front of him was Rogue’s informant, and the sight of him sweating and stumbling around while guiding someone was odd enough. But the young Asian man calmly following behind him was even more surprising.
Wiiing—
For an instant, Emmerick’s ocular scanner swept over Ji-hwan’s entire body.
In Night City, anyone human would normally leave traces somewhere—biometrics, neural port data, at least some criminal record or a mark in the NCPD database.
Even wandering nomads had basic cyberware identification codes.
But the message that flashed in Emmerick’s vision contained only a baffling line.
[ No Data Found ] [ ??? ]
It wasn’t a scanner malfunction. Ji-hwan wasn’t a resident of this cyberpunk world at all, but a perfectly pure human who had crossed over from an entirely different space-time.
His body had no corporate barcode, no Night City resident registration data.
And with not a single implanted mechanical part inside him, the digital signal and radio emissions he gave off were zero.
The only digital traces proving Ji-hwan existed were the cheap ID chip in his pocket that fixer Dakota had cobbled together for him, and his temporary phone signal. To the system’s eyes, Ji-hwan was a perfect ghost, an error made flesh.
'What the hell... In this business, a blank like this can only mean one of two things. Either he really has no implants at all—not even the minimum... or he’s some insane big shot covered head to toe in top-tier stealth chrome, with real skin layered over it so even a scanner like mine can’t see through.'
As Emmerick hesitated to approach and grew increasingly wary of the Asian man in front of him, the informant noticed the change in mood and hurriedly spoke up.
"R-Rogue’s waiting for him. I’m the one who was told to escort him personally."
At that, the blue light in Emmerick’s right cybernetic eye flashed as a direct holo-call connected to Rogue. After a brief exchange, Emmerick politely nodded and stepped aside with his massive body.
Pshhh—! Thud—!
When the hydraulic iron door opened, Night City’s signature air poured out from within, thick with heavy electronic bass, alcohol, and the metallic tang of blood.
Ji-hwan walked into Afterlife with calm, measured steps.
For the first time, he saw the real interior of the club. Beneath red and blue neon lights, it was packed with mercs and netrunners covered head to toe in vicious weapons and chrome.
'So the famous mercs really are all here.'
With that thought, Ji-hwan crossed the hall under escort, his eyes moving busily.
He carefully took in every detail: the subtle difference between the game’s 2D graphics and the real world, the sticky texture of the floor, the resolution of the holograms floating in the air, and the murderous looks on the faces gathered here.
The edge runners around him also quietly activated their scanners and tried to identify this chrome-less outsider, but all that appeared in their eyes was the same baffling question mark: [ No Data ].
An existence not found in Night City’s database. That unknown absence of information instead gave off a strange pressure, making Ji-hwan seem like some superhuman monster armed with absurd stealth gear.
Ignoring the murmurs around him, Ji-hwan approached the main bar at the center of the club and sat on an empty stool. There, a familiar face was polishing glasses: the bartender, Claire.
"What can I get you? You look like it’s your first time here."
Claire eyed Ji-hwan with a strange look and asked. Ji-hwan rested a hand on the bar and remembered the taste of that special drink he had always wondered about whenever he played the game.
"An Old Fashioned glass with ice. Pour in plenty of tequila, mix in a little beer on top of that... and finish it with chili garnish."
Not a single second of hesitation in the recipe order. Claire’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
"Johnny Silverhand. You’re looking for something strong."
A moment later, when the harsh golden cocktail topped with chili was placed in front of him, Ji-hwan lifted the glass with interest and took a small sip.
Instantly, his face twisted hard.
"Ugh...!"
Frowning deeply, Ji-hwan stuck out his tongue without meaning to, trying to shake off the burning sting of the alcohol.
In truth, even before he crossed into this cyberpunk world, he had only ever drunk alcohol about three times a year, and then only one or two bottles at most.
A man strong enough to leave dents in steel with his bare hands, tearing up at a sip of tequila.
That was not a sight the edge runners here were used to seeing, so Claire, who witnessed it firsthand, let out a snort of laughter at the very human reaction.
"Pfft. You look like you’ve been through hell and back, but you’re terrible at drinking, huh?"
"...Actually, this is my first time having tequila. It’s way stronger than I expected...?"
As Ji-hwan honestly admitted while soothing his numb tongue, Claire wiped the glass and asked with interest.
"If it’s your first time drinking it, how do you know Johnny Silverhand’s recipe so well?"
"Well... anyone from Night City would know it."
Ji-hwan swallowed the real reason—because he’d ordered it countless times in the game—and brushed it off vaguely. Just then...
"Yeah. There isn’t a single idiot in this city who doesn’t know Johnny Silverhand’s legend."
At the cold, familiar female voice behind him, Ji-hwan’s face stiffened.
"But for an outsider, you seem pretty damn familiar with Night City’s history?"
When Ji-hwan turned his head, there stood Rogue Amendiares, Night City’s greatest fixer and the queen of Afterlife, arms folded as she looked down at him with sharp eyes.
Her face had even more charisma and veteran authority than it did in the game.
It was a sharp question, testing how an outsider knew the city’s inner workings so well.
Ji-hwan swallowed the taste of tequila lingering on his tongue, thought for a brief moment, and then answered calmly.
"The fact that you people once carried out a terrorist attack by nuking Arasaka Tower is common knowledge, even for outsiders."
The moment the taboo words "Arasaka Tower" came casually out of Ji-hwan’s mouth, Rogue’s cybernetic eye contracted slightly.
"Do I need to go further into the private details of the past? For example... your relationship with Johnny."
As Ji-hwan set down his glass and added that casually, a faint but very dangerous smile spread across Rogue’s lips. After a brief silence, she gave a small nod in agreement.
That cold, dense, murderous smile made even Ji-hwan feel a tiny shiver rise at the back of his neck for an instant.
Even with the overwhelming power to tear steel gauntlets apart with his bare hands, Ji-hwan’s senses were warning him that the old woman in front of him was an absolute monster who had ruled this place for decades.
Ji-hwan forced that instinctive tension down inside himself and kept his expression utterly calm and languid on the surface.
After a brief silence, she gave a small nod, confirming Ji-hwan’s knowledge.
"No need. You’re an interesting one... Fine. Come with me."
Rogue turned and walked toward the darkest corner at the back of the club. Ji-hwan rose from the bar stool, swallowed the rest of his tequila, and calmly settled the heat in his stomach before following behind her.
The place she led him to was the deepest corner of Afterlife’s hall, her own private reserved seat: a red, worn leather sofa that overlooked the entire club at a glance.
There were no soundproof doors or thick concrete walls, but an invisible line had been drawn around that old leather booth.
No thoughtless merc in Afterlife would dare approach the table where the queen of the club was sitting.
The massive guard who had silently followed behind also did nothing more than stand several steps away from the booth, serving as a human wall so no idiot intruder would try to eavesdrop on or interrupt their conversation. The club’s pounding electronic beat and the acrid smell of cigarettes rolled in as they pleased, but the air inside the booth itself felt strangely cut off, heavy, and cold.
Rogue, sitting with her legs crossed in the seat of honor, tilted her chin toward the opposite side.
Ji-hwan sat down with a casual, arrogant posture, his old flight jacket fluttering as he leaned back into the sofa. Rogue rested her arms on the table and interlaced her fingers before speaking.
"Let’s make it official. Rogue Amendiares. Fixer who coordinates all the garbage this city throws around."
"Kim Ji-hwan."
With one hand in his pocket, Ji-hwan added in a deep, weighty voice.
"I’m not officially tied to any corpo or gang right now... but in spirit, I’m a merc working with Dakota Smith in the Badlands."
The way he introduced himself without flinching before the queen of Afterlife, proudly claiming Dakota—the fixer from the backwater wasteland—as his own. At that one line, a deep, interested curve appeared at Rogue’s lips.
Her sharp cybernetic eye flashed faint blue in the dark as she stared through Ji-hwan, as if trying to see straight into him.
"A merc working for Dakota, huh. For the kind of shit you’ve been doing, that’s a pretty tame and modest title, Ji-hwan."
Rogue propped her chin on her interlaced fingers and sharply examined Ji-hwan’s handsome face, and the unreal strength hidden beneath it.
"According to my information, the first time you showed up in this fucked-up world was exactly one year ago. That would be 2067."
Ji-hwan’s gaze sank ever so slightly, and Rogue, not missing the change, continued in a soft but cold voice.
"Out in the barren Badlands on the outskirts of Night City... a strange Asian man with no chrome supposedly appeared out of nowhere, as if he’d fallen from the sky. Right in the middle of Dakota Smith’s territory."
Rogue’s eyes moved to Ji-hwan’s smooth neck, his scarless wrists, and his firmly set shoulders.
"No corporate barcode, no NCPD criminal record, no trace from wandering nomads, not even a record from some cheap ripperdoc in a back alley. A perfect blank slate. A man even my information network can’t dig up a past on."
Beyond the heavy bass shaking the club, Rogue’s sharp voice kept digging into Ji-hwan’s ears.
"For a year. From 2067 until now, you’ve been hiding quietly under Dakota’s shadow, just breathing in the desert sand. I thought you were just a big, useful hound helping her with annoying little jobs now and then. But over the last few days... the crazy shit you’ve pulled in the middle of Night City is beyond anything I can ignore."
The chain of events Ji-hwan had caused yesterday, today, and days before spilled out of Rogue’s mouth one after another.
"You punched straight through Maelstrom’s core stronghold with your bare hands, then crushed heavily armored Centaur plating like it was paper. And on top of that, you took down Tyger Claws without firing a single shot, just by slapping them unconscious."
Rogue leaned forward slightly and met Ji-hwan’s eyes.
In the gaze of the old fox who had seen every kind of hell, there burned both deep caution and an intensity of curiosity she simply couldn’t hide.
"I’ve seen all kinds of lunatics in Night City, but I’ve never seen someone as alien as you, someone who seems to have appeared out of thin air with his past completely erased."
Under the red neon glow, the living legend of Afterlife and the human from another world locked eyes in the air between them.
Rogue moistened her lips and asked a question in a voice that was very low, seductive, and poisonous enough to kill.
"So now I’m really curious. What exactly did this man crawl into Night City to do?"
That question was not simple curiosity.
It was a blatant probe, and a warning, from a predator ruling the apex of Night City’s ecosystem to a mysterious new beast that had stepped into her territory.
Ji-hwan leaned back into the sofa and calmly met Rogue’s gaze as if she might swallow him whole. As expected of the queen of fixers.
Her information network had perfectly traced the major events from the moment he dropped into this world a year ago until now. Against her, a half-baked excuse or a lie would never work.
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