Tatatatang!
Blinding flashes tore through his vision, and the acrid stink of gunpowder filled the air. Ji-hwan’s figure shot straight into the crossfire of dozens of muzzles.
He was different from the Ji-hwan who had fought in Pacifica before.
Through nonstop real combat, he had tuned his body like an instrument and grasped the subtle art of technique. His movements were smooth as flowing water, and his speed was far greater than before, overwhelming in a way that made the old him look slow.
He ducked low and twisted his upper body.
Bullets skimmed past his cheek and shoulder. Ji-hwan charged straight through the storm of fire as if it were nothing, and when he reached the scavengers at the front line in an instant and swung his fist—
Kwaang!
The struck man’s ribcage caved in as he was blasted backward, and three or four tangled scavengers flew through the air like billiard balls.
Crack
Wheeeing—!
In the next instant, a shriek of metal cut the air as a spinning chainsaw came crashing down toward the back of Ji-hwan’s neck.
He turned half a circle, letting the blade slide past, then caught the handle of the weapon outright.
Crunch!
Pure brute force crushed the steel grip and the bones in the man’s hand all at once.
Before the man whose hand had been smashed could even scream, Ji-hwan yanked the blade free and swung it back in a wide arc.
Slash!
The arms and legs of the scavengers rushing in were sent flying through the air.
As blood sprayed from the severed stumps and the wretches rolled across the floor shrieking, Ji-hwan tossed the bloodied blade behind him and muttered, "Not much of a feel."
With that verdict, he hurled himself at the next target.
Every time Ji-hwan’s arms and legs cut through the air, the body parts he struck snapped or burst with dull, ugly sounds.
The gunfire that had been echoing nonstop like a battlefield slowly vanished, and in its place there was only the sound of impacts and screams.
Right in the middle of it all.
Boris, who had gathered every last scavenger remnant in the Pacifica Combat Zone to strike at Ji-hwan’s back, stood there watching with his whole body trembling like a leaf.
Ssshhhkkk—!
The lieutenant Boris had brought with him. A man of similar build who had been implanted with a high-end [Sandevistan] surged into the acceleration zone, blue sparks crackling around him.
The moment he slipped behind Ji-hwan to launch a surprise attack, what filled his vision was Ji-hwan’s eyes, tracking him in perfect step with his accelerated movement.
Pow! Thud! Crunch*!
The man had deployed his [Sandevistan], but Ji-hwan matched the accelerated rhythm without a single error and began mercilessly hammering his face and stomach.
Unable to defend himself at all, the man became a delicious punching bag as Ji-hwan crushed his bulletproof subdermal armor like paper.
With every hit that landed, his body jolted in midair and spat blood.
Thud.
At last the [Sandevistan] ran out, and the lieutenant, every bone in his body broken, foamed at the mouth and rolled across the blood-slick floor.
Even Boris’s grotesquely swollen face twisted as he watched his friend, the strongest of his lieutenants, reduced to a screaming wreck crawling on the ground.
Overwhelmed by terror, Boris was also seized by a strange, bitter sense of injustice.
"What the hell did I even do wrong...?"
His dull eyes, full of resentment and despair, wandered over the floor.
At the edge of his vision, he saw Ji-hwan’s worn combat boot sole grinding down on the lieutenant’s ribcage, the same man who had been rampaging with his [Sandevistan] just moments ago.
"Any more?"
Ji-hwan’s casual question landed like a stone. At that dry voice, the remaining scavengers all shook their heads violently left and right as if they had rehearsed it.
Clatter, thunk!
Rough assault rifles and combat knives hit the cement floor in a heap with heavy, clumsy sounds.
The men who had thrown down their weapons raised both hands over their heads at once, trembling like leaves.
Ji-hwan brushed the blood from his hand and stared at them with clear contempt.
Then Boris, still sitting on the floor, instinctively hunched in on himself and began crawling sideways.
A shut steel door. The cold metal handle came into view.
"Now. I can get out...!"
Just as hope filled Boris and he held his breath, grabbed the handle, and tried to push himself up—
"Run and I’ll kill you."
Ji-hwan’s voice from behind was calm.
He hadn’t even looked at Boris. He had just tossed the words out while scanning the collapsed scavengers.
But that one sentence slammed into Boris’s ears like a death sentence.
Boris stiffly turned his neck and looked across the slaughterhouse floor.
"Ghh..."
"P-please... spare me..."
The rough breathing and moans of the men clutching broken bones and writhing on the floor. In that hellscape, astonishingly, there was not a single corpse with its breath gone.
In the blood-soaked slaughter of Night City, for one side to subdue the other by breaking bones instead of killing them—that was only possible when the gap in force was so absurdly overwhelming that the other side’s life was already in your hand.
When Boris realized that, all strength drained from his grip.
Click.
He quietly let go of the steel handle, crawled back over the blood-smeared floor, folded his hands neatly, and lowered his eyes.
Thud, thud—.
Ji-hwan’s heavy footsteps approached.
For all his massive frame over 190 centimeters tall, Boris couldn’t even bring himself to lift his head and meet the East Asian man’s eyes. He could only stare at the bloodstains on the floor.
Then, suddenly,
Ji-hwan’s hand seized Boris by the collar.
Rrrip—!
"Hhk...!"
Boris’s huge body, armored in thick subdermal plating, was lifted into the air in one motion like a small child.
It was strength that was impossible to believe came from a body with no implants at all.
Before Boris could even flail in panic at that crushing grip, Ji-hwan clicked his tongue.
"Tch."
The collar was released, and Boris’s massive body slammed back down onto the floor.
"Ugh...!"
The impact rattled his ribs, and Boris curled up, letting out a stifled groan.
He hurriedly gathered himself and looked up, only to find Ji-hwan staring down at him.
Ji-hwan’s mouth was curved in a faint arc.
"That’s funny."
There was no mockery in it, no bluster—just genuine amusement. Ji-hwan added lazily to the man lying there.
"Bring the boys again next time."
A cold sentence, urging betrayal once more from a man who had already surrendered. The moment Boris met that smile, he understood with painful clarity that his life and death were rolling around in that man’s palm.
It was the look of a predator strolling through the woods, bored, and just now noticing a pretty useful toy at its feet.
Later, Boris would remember that day in exactly that way.
In the silence that had settled over Boris’s private room, Ji-hwan lay stretched out on the leather sofa, eyes closed, in a space so tidy it felt alien compared to the bloody slaughterhouse outside.
Knock, knock.
A careful scraping sound split the quiet.
"Uh... may I come in?"
The voice from beyond the door was tightly restrained. It was Boris, sounding completely cowed.
"Come in."
The moment the short permission fell, the thick steel door slid open.
Boris stepped inside cautiously, shoulders hunched.
He looked miserable and worn out.
It was the aftermath of the battle.
Cleaning up the scavenger remnants whose bones had been broken all over by Ji-hwan was entirely Boris’s job.
As he dragged the bodies out from the slaughterhouse floor, Boris had thought more than a few hundred times about running away from here.
But each time, the overwhelming physical force Ji-hwan had displayed flashed through his mind, and in the end he had given up on the idea himself.
He had realized that the only way to survive was to stop trying to make a run for it and quietly do as he was told.
"The cleanup... is done."
Boris reported with his hands folded neatly, eyes on the floor.
At his voice, Ji-hwan slowly sat up from the sofa.
"Haaah."
Ji-hwan let out a lazy yawn.
He cracked his thick neck left and right to loosen his knotted muscles, then looked at Boris, who still kept his eyes fixed on the floor, and gave a small laugh.
"Why? You bring any more idiots to try again?"
It was a light remark, like a tiger nudging a toy with its paw. But Boris’s grotesquely swollen face went white in an instant.
"Ahahaha... n-no, of course not!"
Cold sweat poured from Boris’s forehead like rain.
For all his size, he frantically waved both hands and denied it with desperate, trembling vigor.
"I-I’m never doing anything that stupid again! I swear I came alone!"
Beads of sweat dripped onto the tile floor. Watching him, Ji-hwan scratched his chin indifferently.
"Any other scavenger remnants like yours around here?"
At the dry question, Boris’s eyes wavered uneasily.
He swallowed and hesitated.
"There... is. One group with about the same numbers and weapons as us..."
"Give me the location."
Ji-hwan’s demand came instantly. Boris flinched and looked for a way out.
"W-what are you planning to do...?"
"If they pull anything stupid, I’ll kill them. Otherwise, I’m thinking of taking them over."
As Boris hesitated over his answer, Ji-hwan added, "I’ll handle the cleanup. You just do the aftermath. You can keep all the leftovers."
Leftovers.
The moment that word dropped, Boris’s ugly face brightened.
At the thought of swallowing a rival group’s base and weapons for free without spilling a drop of his own blood, Boris slammed his head down to the tile floor and shouted with fervor.
"Thank you! I, Boris, will devote my life to loyal service from now on..."
"Don’t bother with loyalty."
Ji-hwan cut him off casually and snorted.
"Just gather the boys and try hitting me in the back again like yesterday."
A strange joke, urging betrayal as if it were some fun game. At those words, Boris’s face went white again.
He pressed his lips tightly together, swallowing the oath of loyalty he had been about to say, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with shaking hands.
Ji-hwan drove the point home as Boris wiped his face.
"There’s only one rule."
The air in the room sank heavy in an instant.
Ji-hwan’s dark eyes pressed down on Boris’s trembling shoulders.
"If you or your men get caught kidnapping ordinary civilians, ripping out their organs, and killing them, then—"
Ji-hwan tugged at the corner of his mouth in a smile.
"—you’ll get to watch your own bodies torn apart alive with your own eyes."
It was a lazy, lightly tossed sentence. But the cold killing intent inside it froze Boris’s heart solid.
The joy he had just felt at the thought of taking over a base for free evaporated without a trace.
Boris, who had just had a death sentence hammered into his ears, could only pray desperately that this monster would disappear as soon as possible.
Leaving Boris trembling like a leaf behind him, Ji-hwan pulled a crude hologram device from his pocket.
Whirr.
With a mechanical hum, the shape of a strange red goblin slid over Ji-hwan’s face.
Holding the steel door handle, Ji-hwan turned his head halfway as if something had just occurred to him.
"Oh, and from now on, gather every useful scrap of information you can find on the streets of Night City."
At the order, Boris bowed his back ninety degrees toward Ji-hwan’s retreating figure.
"Y-yes, sir!"
Creak, bang.
Only after Ji-hwan’s heavy killing intent had completely vanished from view did a suppressed, ragged breath finally burst from Boris’s chest.
Ji-hwan stepped out into the acid rain and headed straight for the coordinates Boris had given him.
Before long, beyond the mud and piles of trash, an old concrete building marked on the map came into view.
Two scavenger guards with assault rifles were loitering around the entrance, scanning the area for anything suspicious.
Thud, thud.
Instead of hiding or taking a detour, Ji-hwan stepped forward openly, splashing through the filthy puddles as he approached head-on.
"Hey. Nice to meet you."
A casual greeting, like he’d run into an acquaintance. At the unfamiliar voice cutting through the rain, the guards jumped and raised their guns at once.
The red goblin shape that had burst out of the darkness made them flinch. While they hesitated in confusion, Ji-hwan ignored the muzzles entirely and slipped smoothly in to stand right in front of them.
"W-who the hell are you!"
At the startled shout, Ji-hwan replied lazily, "What, your dad."
At the same time, Ji-hwan’s fist cut through the air.
Thud!
The lead man’s jaw snapped sideways, and he dropped unconscious to the ground in one shot.
The remaining guard stared blankly after the falling body, then panicked and put a finger on the trigger.
But Ji-hwan’s movement was far faster than the contraction of the man’s muscles.
Ji-hwan kicked off the ground, and the sole of his combat boot pierced the air and slammed heavily into the man’s stomach.
Kwaang!
The man’s body was hurled backward, smashing straight through the old steel door behind him and into the building.
Crash, bang, clatter!
The sound of his body rolling violently across the cement floor. Before that racket had even died down, urgent shouts erupted from inside the building.
"Intruder!"
"Who the hell is it?!"
Then, over the broken steel door, the shape of the red goblin walked into the haze of concrete dust.
Seeing that, the scavengers hiding behind the old pillars and cover on all sides unleashed their fire all at once.
Under the rain of bullets, Ji-hwan lowered his upper body and pressed himself to the structure, then closed on the first man who charged him.
Thud!
He dodged the scavenger’s swinging weapon as the man burst out, and at the same time Ji-hwan’s kick smashed into the bastard’s shin.
The leg bent the wrong way with a scream, and Ji-hwan used the man as a shield to push forward, his hand slipping into the man’s clothing.
Several throwing knives sliced through the air.
Slash, thud!
"Aaaagh!"
As if by design, the knives avoided the vital spots and sank deep into shoulders and thighs.
Leaving behind the screams of the small fry writhing on the floor and spraying blood, Ji-hwan kept walking and stepped onto the old concrete stairs.
But the moment he reached the second floor, Ji-hwan stopped dead.
What filled his sight was a temporary operating room reeking of rotten blood.
On the rusty operating tables, civilians bound alive were thrashing in terror.
All around them on the floor, bodies already stripped of arms and legs lay cold and motionless, scattered like chunks of meat.
Scavengers in bloodstained aprons and surgical gear turned to face Ji-hwan, electric saw blades in hand.
The hellish sight of living people having their chrome ripped out while still conscious. At that disgusting scene, Ji-hwan was briefly left speechless.
"W-who the fuck are you! Get the guns!"
The panicked noise of men scrambling for weapons. Even then, Ji-hwan’s mind flashed back to the bloodstains in the slaughterhouse he had just taken over, and Boris’s face as he had lain there trembling.
"That bastard was probably living off the same kind of shit."
Should he go back right now and rip that bastard’s throat out for good? Suppressing the cold surge of killing intent, Ji-hwan thought of his own situation, forced to hide like a rat to avoid corporate pursuit.
He shook his head once and brushed the thought away.
In that split second of vulnerability, a scavenger leapt out from the blind side and slashed a knife toward Ji-hwan’s throat.
Thud!
Ji-hwan’s fist shot out like a whip loaded with spring tension and smashed into the man’s face. With a bursting crack, the man’s head exploded like a watermelon.
Blood and brain matter sprayed everywhere as the body collapsed to the floor.
The people who witnessed it froze in place.
The men in surgical gear, drenched in blood, trembled like leaves and muttered, "D-did you see that bastard’s punch just now?"
"N-no... I didn’t see it."
"Shit. We’re fucked..."
Ji-hwan looked down at their despair and let out a deep sigh.
"Trash that can’t even be recycled."
His voice was lazy and dry. One scavenger, failing to understand him properly, raised his gun and shouted, "What the hell are you babbling abou..."
Thud!
The man’s shout never finished, because a knife shot from Ji-hwan’s fingertips and buried itself deep in the center of his forehead.
His eyes rolled back as his body went rigid and toppled to the floor. Ji-hwan, still holding the throwing pose with his outstretched hand, muttered, "Just die, all of you."
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