Beyond Night City’s glittering neon border, the Badlands stretched out endlessly in a gray wasteland.
This was a land of death, ravaged by severe desertification and environmental pollution caused by the corporations’ reckless development and the city’s neglect.
The ground was soaked through with chemicals and acid rain, leaving nothing able to grow. Small farms had once existed here, but most had long since been bought out by the megacorp Biotechnica and abandoned, leaving behind nothing but the barren, Old West wasteland atmosphere typical of the region.
And right in the middle of that vast cesspit, in the sweltering heat and choking fumes, a man was running while gasping for breath.
"Huff... huff...!"
The man cut across the horizon in silence, pushing through the contaminated sandstorm. His back and shoulders were caked with sweat and dust, and the stitched scars on his bronze skin stood out starkly.
It was Ji-hwan.
After being dramatically rescued from Raffen Shiv’s camp by the Aldecaldos family led by Saul, he had started driving himself to the brink the moment his battered body was patched up enough to move.
"Grrr...!"
Several thick, rough ropes were wrapped around Ji-hwan’s upper body in layers. And at the end of those ropes, digging deep grooves into the harsh sand and kicking up dust as it was dragged along, was a massive discarded tire.
With the tire’s absurd weight strapped to his back, Ji-hwan charged forward, kicking through the sinking acid sand with nothing but raw physical strength.
But before the searing pain that burned all the way to his bones and the agony of a body pushed to its limit, even Ji-hwan, who had been running in silence, finally let out a rough cry of frustration.
"This damn body!!"
Ji-hwan clenched the rope in his hand until blood welled up, then roared toward the smoky sky like a beast.
"Aaaagh!! Why can’t I install chrome?!"
The implants he was talking about were the same implants that even the most common street punks in Night City would get from a ripperdoc the moment they had enough eddies.
Everyone else could buy strength and speed with money, but for him, sentenced to 0% cyberware compatibility, not a single benefit of machine civilization was available.
All he had been allowed was one thing: a body with abnormal regenerative speed.
"Hah... haah... hah...!"
How long had he been running? Ji-hwan, who had been sprinting while pouring out his rage, finally staggered and came to a stop as if his lungs were about to tear apart.
With his hands on his knees, he panted like an animal and let sweat drip onto the ground.
His instincts screamed at him to collapse in the shade and rest right now, but after catching his breath for a moment, Ji-hwan swept his damp hair back and ground his teeth.
"Haa... shit. This is seriously brutal."
He spat a rough curse at the smoke-choked sky, then tightened his grip on the slack rope again.
The scene then rewound a few days earlier, to right after Ji-hwan’s first meeting with Saul Bright during the raid on Raffen Shiv’s camp.
With Saul’s booming laugh and firm handshake completely dissolving their caution, the Aldecaldos family invited Ji-hwan, who had protected the survivors while covered in blood, back to their camp.
They weren’t so heartless as to leave him behind in the middle of the wasteland in that condition, and more than that, they had developed a strange sense of admiration and respect for the man who had been willing to risk himself for others.
"Get in. Catch some sleep on the way."
Ji-hwan carefully climbed into the back seat of the Aldecaldos’ armed vehicle, and the smell of old leather seats that had weathered countless sandstorms hit him at once.
In the driver’s seat was a man with a half-shaved head, Mitch Anderson.
And in the passenger seat sat a sharp-faced man with a brown bandanna tied around his forehead.
He was Scorpion, Mitch’s longtime comrade and partner.
When Scorpion’s eyes met Ji-hwan’s bloodied face in the rearview mirror for a moment, he gave him a short, heavy nod of greeting without saying a word.
At that blunt reaction, Mitch, who was holding the wheel, laughed heartily and lightened the mood.
"Haha, don’t mind him. Scorpion here’s always been a man of few words. But he’s got a good heart, so don’t worry. I’m Mitch Anderson. Nice to meet you, friend."
Receiving Mitch’s easygoing introduction and Scorpion’s silent greeting, Ji-hwan felt a strange stir in his chest.
'Mitch Anderson... and Scorpion.'
Even though the year was ten years earlier than the 2077 he knew, the people from the game he had seen hundreds of times through a monitor in his cramped room, the people he had run quests with, were now breathing and moving right in front of him.
The dependable Aldecaldos allies who had supported V in every way and become a true family. Feeling Mitch and Scorpion’s sharp yet serious presence up close, Ji-hwan found that more than fear of this unfamiliar world, a deep, inexplicable sense of familiarity and relief was rising in his heart.
'As expected... Mitch really is a good guy, just like I thought. Exactly like in the game.'
Enduring the pain of his crushed bones throbbing, Ji-hwan carefully leaned forward and extended his bloodstained hand toward Mitch and Scorpion.
"I’m Kim Ji-hwan. Just call me Ji-hwan. Nice to meet you."
Mitch took his rough metal prosthetic off the wheel and firmly shook Ji-hwan’s calloused hand.
"Yeah, Ji-hwan! From here on out, let’s get alo-"
As Mitch greeted him casually and took Ji-hwan’s hand, his eyes suddenly went wide and his words cut off.
What shocked Mitch was the "wound" visible beyond their clasped hands.
Just a few hours ago, what he had seen in front of them was a horrifying arm with flesh hanging off in tatters and blood pouring everywhere.
But now, in the bright vehicle interior and up close, Ji-hwan’s forearm, though still stained and grimy with blood, no longer had those deep, fatal wounds; they had already healed over and mostly vanished.
'What the hell? I’m sure it was torn to pieces so badly I could see bone just a minute ago...?'
Mitch frowned in confusion and stared at Ji-hwan’s arm.
By the common sense of a veteran merc who had seen it all, it was impossible for a human body to repair itself that fast, without even leaving a scar.
But then Mitch scratched his half-bald head, chuckled, and shook it off.
'Well, there was so much dust and smoke flying around back then, and the situation was so frantic... I must’ve seen things. I was probably mistaken because I was covered head to toe in their blood and thought the wound was deeper than it was.'
Deciding he must have misread it in the dark, Mitch brushed away the unease, flashed his easy grin again, and gave Ji-hwan’s hand a light shake up and down.
"No, I must’ve been a little blind after rolling around in a dust pit. Anyway, you’re really something else. Nice to meet you, Ji-hwan!"
At Mitch’s friendly greeting, the taciturn Scorpion in the passenger seat also lifted the corner of his mouth slightly beneath the brown bandanna tied around his forehead and gave a silent nod.
Vroooom—!
How long had they been driving? The armed vehicle, racing furiously across the Badlands, gradually began to slow down.
Outside the window, in the middle of the red sunset pouring over the wasteland, the Aldecaldos family’s base camp, with dozens of campers and tents set up in a massive cluster, finally came into view.
The old armored vehicle kicked up rough dust as it slowed to a stop, finally arriving at the Aldecaldos family’s base, where dozens of campers and tents formed a small settlement.
After getting out of the back seat and looking over the camp, Ji-hwan’s eyes filled with a strange glint.
'The location... it’s completely different from the Aldecaldos camp location I saw in the game in 2077.'
Ji-hwan briefly wondered what had happened to them over those ten years, and why the camp’s location had changed.
But then he nodded.
He remembered that nomad families settling in one place to begin with was impossible.
The Badlands they wandered through were a death land where reckless corporate development and illegal dumping had soaked the soil in chemicals and acid rain, making self-sufficient farming impossible.
On top of that, their main means of survival—scrap recovery and smuggling goods across the border—also depended on constant movement.
More than anything, if they stayed in one place too long, they would become easy targets for corrupt law enforcement or the control and threats of megacorps, so nomadic life, with periodic camp relocations, was unavoidable for survival.
"All right, we’re here. This is where our family stays."
Mitch, who had gotten out of the vehicle, pointed toward the camp with his rough metal prosthetic and introduced it with his usual easygoing manner.
Just then—
"Hey, listen to me for once!!"
"Panam! Are you trying to throw the family into chaos?!"
From far off in the center of the camp, a shrill woman’s voice and Saul’s bellowing shout cut through the dust.
Ji-hwan’s gaze naturally turned that way.
A young woman in front of Saul, who was wearing an old leather jacket, was angrily pointing and shouting at him. Red leather jacket, a short top that exposed her midriff, and cornrows braided back with meticulous care. It was Panam Palmer.
'Wow... it’s Panam.'
Ten years younger than the 2077 Panam he had met in the game, and still in her early twenties, she looked far younger and far more full of life than the image in his memory.
She had the fierce energy of a rebellious teenage girl who hadn’t yet been completely worn down by the world.
"Shit, you’re acting like such a damn fossil!!"
Panam’s face flushed red as she spat out a string of curses, then stormed off toward her tent before Saul could argue back.
Left behind, Saul pressed a hand to the throbbing ache in his head and let out a deep sigh.
"What, did I come back too early and ruin the mood?"
Mitch, standing nearby, scratched his beard awkwardly and joked, and Saul walked over with a tired face while shaking his head.
"Haa... back already, Mitch. That girl never has a quiet day, does she? She’s about to drive me insane."
Saul brushed off Mitch’s teasing, then quickly noticed Ji-hwan standing behind him. His stern expression softened, and he greeted him warmly.
"Hey, Ji-hwan. How’s the wound? Was the trip here rough?"
"Thank you for your concern. Thanks to you, the ride was comfortable."
Ji-hwan and Saul firmly shook hands.
But as Saul shook Ji-hwan’s hand, his gaze suddenly swept sharply over Ji-hwan’s neck, forearm, and the area around his eyes.
He hadn’t been able to look closely back at the camp entrance because Ji-hwan had been a blood-soaked mess, but now that the blood had been cleaned off to some degree and he could see Ji-hwan’s bare body up close in the light, it was astonishing.
"Hmm...?"
Saul’s brow furrowed deeply.
"You... really don’t have a single piece of chrome in you? Hell, you don’t even have the common personal link socket at the back of your head."
Even the punks in Night City’s slums would get basic implants the moment they had enough eddies.
And yet the body of the guy who had ripped through a thick steel door was untouched by machine augmentation, like a newborn baby’s. It was shocking.
"What the hell are you, anyway? Some corpo-sponsored rich kid from somewhere? Or are you part of some weird naturalist cult or something?"
Ji-hwan scratched the back of his head and made an awkward face.
There was no way he could honestly explain his cursed condition of 0% cyberware compatibility.
"Ah... well, there are some complicated circumstances with my body. I haven’t been able to get implants yet."
At that dazed, matter-of-fact answer, Saul and Mitch stared at Ji-hwan from head to toe as if he were some rare hairless monkey in a zoo cage.
"...You’re telling me you’ve been rolling around in this insane Night City world with no implants at all? You’re a mutant, all right."
Mitch clicked his tongue and tapped his metal prosthetic.
Saul, too, let out a disbelieving laugh, then quickly hardened his expression and nodded.
"Well, if you’ve got circumstances you can’t talk about, I won’t pry. But surviving in this barren Night City with a body like that is basically suicide. If you want to communicate at all, you’re going to need at least a neural implant."
Saul flicked his worn leather jacket and roughly shoved Ji-hwan’s broad back.
"Come on. We happen to have a ripperdoc tent with a very skilled doc tucked away in the corner of camp. We’ll at least get you set up with the basics right away."
Inside the old, dim medical tent set up in a corner of the Aldecaldos camp, Ji-hwan lay shirtless on a makeshift operating table cluttered with all kinds of machinery and holographic scanners, staring anxiously at the family’s dedicated ripperdoc as he studied the monitor with a serious expression and stroked his chin.
At last, after checking the scan results, the ripperdoc let out a deep sigh and shook his head.
"Give it up, kid. It’s impossible to put implants in your body."
At that blunt sentence, like a death sentence, Ji-hwan’s eyes widened.
"Excuse me...?"
As Ji-hwan stammered in confusion, the ripperdoc pointed at the grotesque full-body hologram data projected by the scanner and continued his explanation.
"This isn’t just a simple neural rejection response. Your body... its resistance to foreign matter from the outside is absurdly, unnaturally strong. The moment I shoved even the most basic personal link socket into the back of your neck, your cells would go berserk and trigger an immediate rejection reaction or some fatal abnormality. And with that insane resistance, even if I forced something in, there’s a good chance the hardware wouldn’t function properly in the first place."
The ripperdoc clicked his tongue as he looked over Ji-hwan’s solid bare body in disbelief. But soon, a scholarly, persistent curiosity rose in his eyes.
"I’ve spent my whole life handling machine parts and chrome, so I don’t know the finer biological details... but I’ll stake my ripperdoc career on this: your body is fascinating as hell. How about it? Can I get some blood or tissue samples for research?"
Ji-hwan knew that if his absurd regenerative ability and unusual constitution were ever exposed to corporations or anyone else, he might be dragged into a laboratory alive. He flinched and scratched the back of his head.
"Ah... that’s a little difficult."
When Ji-hwan politely refused, the ripperdoc shrugged lightly, as if he wasn’t too disappointed.
"Haha, fair enough. I won’t force it. Still, one thing’s clear: your body works in a very strange way. For a chrome specialist like me, there’s a limit to how precisely I can diagnose a body like yours."
The ripperdoc turned off the holographic scanner and added casually,
"If you want a proper diagnosis of your body’s condition, you’ll need to find a real expert who specializes in the flesh itself, not some guy like me who only handles metal. Maybe that old man Viktor Vektor tucked away in downtown Night City could do it."
At the name of Viktor Vektor, the dependable ripperdoc from the game, the most human and skillful ally V ever had, Ji-hwan’s eyes flickered faintly.
The ripperdoc finished with a dry prescription.
"Anyway, for now, don’t waste your time. Just get yourself a decent dust mask and wear it. Other than that, the only thing you can do is wrap that organic body of yours in thick, pollution-resistant clothes and protect it as best you can. If you can’t install machines, then at least wear sturdy clothes if you want to survive the acid rain and fumes of the Badlands."
In Night City, chrome meant survival. It meant power.
In a world where anyone with enough money could buy strength and speed, the reality of having to survive with nothing but his own bare body, unable to benefit from machines for the rest of his life, hit him hard.
Overcome by a crushing sense of loss, as if one of the most important functions of his body had been permanently cut away, a line from an old internet meme from 21st-century Korea slipped out of Ji-hwan’s mouth before he even realized it, half-mad.
"I... I’m a eunuch...?"
"Huh? What was that?"
Startled by a strange word he had never heard before, the ripperdoc frowned and asked again. Ji-hwan snapped back to his senses and hurriedly shook his head.
"N-no, nothing..."
Ji-hwan miserably pulled on his outerwear and trudged out of the old medical tent with heavy steps.
Waiting outside the tent until his checkup was done was Mitch Anderson.
Just from the look on Ji-hwan’s face as he walked out with slumped shoulders, Mitch could guess the situation well enough. He came over and patted Ji-hwan’s shoulder with his remaining warm bare hand instead of his usual rough metal prosthetic.
"Don’t take it too hard, Ji-hwan. You took down that brute from Raffen Shiv without implants, didn’t you? That’s enough."
Even with Mitch’s easygoing, gentle comfort, Ji-hwan’s expression didn’t brighten easily.
"Where’s Saul?"
"Saul just got called out on some urgent family business and took an armed vehicle out a moment ago. He’ll be back soon."
"I see..."
Ji-hwan answered with his head lowered weakly.
He had wanted to tell Saul about the ripperdoc’s diagnosis and ask what he should do next, but he couldn’t exactly corner the busy family leader and start complaining about his lot in life.
"I’m going to rest in my tent first, Mitch."
Leaving Mitch, who was still trying to comfort him, behind, Ji-hwan headed for the temporary tent assigned to him by the family.
Once inside the small tent that blocked out the harsh sandstorm, Ji-hwan flopped onto the old, hard cot.
Feeling the ache in his back from the bed, Ji-hwan clasped his hands behind his head and stared quietly up at the tent’s dark ceiling.
'0 percent cyberware compatibility. Permanent No-Chrome.'
The ripperdoc’s cruel verdict rang in his ears like tinnitus.
Ji-hwan let out a heavy sigh as he lay on the narrow, shabby cot assigned to him.
As he stared blankly at the ceiling, memories from the moment he had first fallen into this hellish world flashed through his mind like a panorama.
The Badlands wasteland where he had fallen from the sky and been crushed into a lump of meat, and the horrific struggle in that camp of despair just moments ago, where Buck’s massive frame had pinned him down and shattered the bones in both his arms.
All those terrible sensations and searing pains had never been some nightmare from sitting at home.
Ji-hwan slowly lowered his head and looked down at both of his arms.
Just a few hours ago, they had been mangled by Buck’s chrome prosthetic, the muscle fibers torn to shreds and bone fragments bursting through the skin, yet now they were smooth and solid, restored without a single trace of injury.
'So it really did... heal itself.'
Even after experiencing it several times, it was still a bizarre phenomenon hard to believe.
Ji-hwan’s gaze suddenly landed on a rough utility cutter lying alone on top of an old equipment box in one corner of the tent.
Slowly rising from the cot, Ji-hwan picked up the cold blade.
As he swallowed dryly, his throat bobbed hard. What if the miraculous regenerative ability he had experienced was just a temporary hallucination caused by adrenaline and extreme fear? What if it had all been a mistake? But if he wanted to survive in this insane city with no chrome and nothing but his bare body, he had to figure out the limits and nature of the only weapon he had left: this body.
With a tense, grimacing face, Ji-hwan brought the sharp blade to the skin of his left forearm.
Thuk-
"Ghk!"
A sharp stab of pain made Ji-hwan let out a short groan before he could stop himself, and he dropped the cutter to the floor. Dark red blood began to bead out through the freshly sliced wound in his forearm.
But before Ji-hwan’s wide eyes, something strange happened at the wound.
The blood that had been about to spill stopped dead in place, and the torn flesh knitted together in an instant at a speed that could not even begin to compare to ordinary healing, sealing shut without leaving a scar.
"Huh...?"
Shocked by the miraculous scene before him, he reached out again with trembling fingers and picked up the cutter from the floor.
This time, there was not the slightest hesitation in his eyes.
If anyone from the Aldecaldos had seen this from outside the tent, they would have pointed at him and called him a lunatic carving up his own flesh, but after already receiving the ripperdoc’s verdict of zero implant compatibility, he no longer had the luxury of worrying about what other people thought.
Thuk-!! Kkrrk!
This time, without hesitation, Ji-hwan drove the cutter blade deep into his forearm muscle with no mercy at all.
"Hah..."
With the horrible pain of living flesh being torn open, blood gushed out in a rush.
But the moment Ji-hwan yanked the blade free, a faint, bizarre [red haze] began rising between the split muscle fibers.
Accompanied by a scorching pain like he had been burned, the wound stitched itself together in real time, stubbornly knitting shut as if it were being sewn by invisible hands, then fully regenerated back to its original state.
And at last, Ji-hwan became completely certain that the regenerative power dwelling in his body was real.
Grrrrrrr—!!
But that relief lasted only a moment. The instant the deep wound healed, an intense, savage hunger slammed into Ji-hwan’s brain as if his stomach had been twisted inside out.
It was a murderous, hollowing hunger that made his insides ache.
'This regeneration... it’s not just magic that happens on its own. It’s explosively drawing energy from my body to force the cells to recover.'
Instinctively realizing that enormous amounts of nutrition were being burned like fuel in the process of this super-regeneration, Ji-hwan urgently turned his head and snatched up one of the ration energy bars sitting on the table.
He tore open the wrapper roughly and shoved the dry lump of cheap insect protein and synthetic meat into his mouth like a madman.
The disgusting artificial texture filled his mouth, like chewing cardboard.
"Ugh... tastes awful, damn it..."
Ji-hwan grimaced at the fishy, stale taste and muttered in disgust, but he kept chewing and swallowing the energy bar in silence to feed his body.
Around the same time, in the central clearing of the Aldecaldos camp, Saul Bright had just returned from handling urgent business and was hearing the results of Ji-hwan’s examination from Mitch Anderson. With both hands shoved into the pockets of his worn leather jacket, he let out a deep sigh.
"Zero percent cyberware compatibility... you say? Haa, so that’s why he had no implants at all even while fighting like that in the camp."
"Yeah. According to the ripperdoc, his cells just reject machines in a freakish way."
At Mitch’s bitter answer, Saul narrowed his brow deeply and looked toward the tent Ji-hwan had been assigned with a pitying gaze.
"In this rotten world where power is survival and power is authority, to be stuck living your whole life in a body like that... Ji-hwan’s got a rough road ahead of him."
They themselves lived while enduring the harsh Badlands winds, but at least they could benefit from basic neural sockets and mechanical parts.
Saul knew all too well how hard the future would be for a man denied even that tiny advantage.
Mitch also rubbed his rough metal prosthetic and gave a heavy nod in agreement with Saul’s words.
"He’s probably in his tent right now cursing his own body and either bawling his eyes out or sinking into a deep depression. Maybe I should bring him a drink later to cheer him up..."
Before Mitch could even finish speaking out of sympathy—
Far off, the flap of the old tent assigned to Ji-hwan was pulled back, and a large figure stepped out.
Since it was right after hearing such a hopeless verdict, Saul and Mitch assumed Ji-hwan would be walking with his head hung low, drowned in disappointment and gloom.
But there was not a trace of that expected despair on Ji-hwan’s face as he pushed through the dust and approached them.
On the contrary, his steps were steady, and there was nothing but bold confidence in the way he walked out of the tent.
At that unnervingly composed sight, Mitch blinked in surprise and asked,
"Huh? Ji-hwan... are you okay?"
"Yes, I’m perfectly fine."
Ji-hwan answered with a calmness and composure that made it impossible to believe he had just been crushed by despair moments ago.
Then, glancing back and forth between the blank-faced Saul and Mitch, he got straight to the point.
"Saul. Is there somewhere nearby that’s deserted? Somewhere people don’t go at all?"
At Ji-hwan’s sudden question, Saul stroked his rough beard and thought for a moment before answering.
"A deserted place? Well, it’s a bit far from here, but there is a huge scrapyard nearby. That said, it’s been completely contaminated by chemicals because of the corps’ reckless development and illegal dumping, so it’s been designated a no-go zone. Naturally, not a soul goes there because of the toxic fumes."
Saul, who had been explaining it casually, suddenly noticed the sparkle in Ji-hwan’s eyes and flinched before asking,
"Wait. Don’t tell me... you’re planning to go to that polluted dump?!"
"Yes. I’m thinking of going."
At Ji-hwan’s unwavering answer, Saul’s patience finally snapped.
"Are you out of your damn mind?! What the hell are you planning to do going into that toxic scrapyard with no implants and nothing but your bare body?! Panam’s already been driving me crazy, and now you want to give me a headache too?!"
As Saul shouted with veins bulging in his neck, Ji-hwan just scratched the back of his head like a mute. When Saul kept raging and trying to stop him, Mitch, who had been watching from the side, hurriedly stepped in and grabbed Saul by the shoulder.
"Saul! Calm down first."
Mitch soothed the agitated Saul, then quietly studied Ji-hwan’s steady eyes over the top of his rough metal prosthetic.
"We’ve only known this kid for a day, but still. Look at his eyes. He’s not going there just to get himself killed for nothing. I bet he’s got his own reasons for all this."
At Mitch’s heavy-handed restraint, Saul finally forced down his anger with a rough breath.
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