Chapter 27

I was leaning against the back corner of the elevator, watching the recording of our night of debauchery. Somebody in this elevator definitely had some kind of intestinal issues, because it absolutely reeked in here today. I lit a cigarette in the hopes of cutting down on the smell. Watching the recording, I came to the conclusion that, while it looked like we were having a lot of fun, it was definitely a bit cringe worthy seeing yourself trashed out of your mind. At this point in the recording we were hours deep into our cups and were in our second or third bar, or maybe the second bar had some sort of connected back room? It was kind of blurring together a bit, especially given that I wasn’t paying all that close of attention to the recording as I went about my day.

I’d returned all of my purchases to the apartment earlier, including picking up my delivery of customized AeroMed inhalers from AeroTech. I’d spent a bit of time unpackaging most of them and putting them in my inventory. I'd left a couple dozen on the shelves of my little storage room/workshop in my loft. And I was also now sporting my brand new tier 2 Sakura pink vest. I’d shown it off to Sara back at the apartment, she was spending the day chilling out in front of the TV, and she’d approved it. Apparently I’d been correct to not simply get it in black.

The elevator cleared out more and more the higher up it went. I was headed all the way to the top, to 200.

I’d just finished checking out the pawn shop on level 190 that I’d recalled from the game as having some of the best swords available, and indeed it had. But I’d rather forgotten just how expensive they were. I’d seen thermal katanas available that ran hundreds of thousands of creds. They had a wide variety of vibroblades, swords made from all kinds of different alloys in all the colors of the rainbow, and even a single Sakura CherryBlossom alloy katana that was purported to have been seized during the corpo war a few decades back. That last sword had run into the millions.

Needless to say, they were, by and large, well out of my price range. Besides, I was more or less basing my build on handguns anyway. Hence the trip to the top. I knew there was a damn fine gun shop up there that had some of the best tier 2 guns on the market, and even some tier 3s if I was remembering correctly. I had 369,144c to my name, and I was absolutely going to be getting a tasty upgrade to my arsenal.

When the elevator stopped at floor 199, the last occupants of the elevator other than myself departed, and the door closed, bringing me up alone to my final destination. Hmm, I know I remember from the game that you just needed to be able to speak Japanese to shop on floor 200, but I don’t really recall the specifics. It’s not like they have some greeter that just speaks to you in Japanese to check right?

The elevator door opened to floor 200, and I stepped out. It was almost jarring how different it appeared from the other levels of the megabuilding.

While on most levels the floor and walls were the same rusty red duracrete that was all but omnipresent throughout the building, here the floor was a shiny black that almost looked wet. Where pretty much everywhere else in megabuilding B9 the public spaces were lit by a white glowing ceiling that mimicked natural sunlight, here the ceiling wasn’t visible at all. It must have been painted with one of those light eating black pigments like I’d originally gotten for my hair, because I couldn’t see a thing up there. It gave the distinct impression of the night sky above, and the only sources of light were the myriad neon signs ubiquitous throughout Noir CIty. There weren’t even as many holograms as I had become used to.

The other difference that immediately came to the forefront of my mind was the traffic. So to speak. There weren’t any actual vehicles, but there were a lot of folks riding around on bicycles up here. This being all the more nonsequiturious since I don’t think I’d seen a single bicycle since waking up in this new world.

Taking a few steps from the elevator I took a moment to look around at the various shops in the area, all labeled in Japanese that I found myself fortunate to be able to read. Hmm, lot of ramen shops. Ooo, sushi place there, hells yeah. Haven’t had sushi in forever. Interspersed with a few tea shops and the myriad random general goods stores not dissimilar from what you’d find on lower floors, I also saw a brothel that seemed to be going with some sort of geisha type theme.

Definitely a different, but still equally cyberpunk, vibe from the lower floors. I shook my head with a smile as I pulled up my map app in my IA and plotted a quick course to the shop I was pretty sure I was after, ‘Mama’s Guns.’ Looked like I had a good 15 minute walk ahead of me.

But, before I could take more than two steps in the direction my map indicated, a punk looking asian kid, wearing a colorful leather vest and pants, stepped in front of me followed by his two similarly dressed cohorts flanking him. Hmm, I probably shouldn’t think of him as a kid, he’s roughly my own age after all. The punk had spiky neon green hair and an open leather vest that showed off myriad dragon tattoos on his chest and arms. While the tattoos on all three of them were subtly different, the three of them definitely looked quite similar, probably mostly due to the identical hair color and style. The katanas on their belts were a nice change up from the random punks I’d usually have seen down on the ground floor though, and only one of the guys behind the one directly in front of me was carrying a gun on his belt at all.

“Where do you think you’re going, outsider? This floor is for Dragon Claws only. No trespassing! We’re going to have to teach you a lesson,” he punctuated his statement by putting a fist in his opposite hand and cracking his knuckles, “Then we’ll tax you, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll let you live to tell the tale,” said spiky-haired guy number one as he walked up and sneered at me with his face uncomfortably close to my own.

Weird, he’s speaking English. Definitely don’t remember anything like this from the game. I just remember that you couldn’t even select the 200th floor if you didn’t have the ability to speak Japanese, and now here’s this asshole speaking English?

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

I mentally shrugged and figured I’d just give Japanese a try. “I’m just here to do some shopping, friend. But you’ll find that I’m perfectly willing and able to defend myself when sufficiently threatened. I strongly recommend you show me some respect and let me go about my business.” I was pretty sure my Japanese was all but flawless. My IA was good enough that Lizzy had told me I didn’t even have an American accent when I spoke it. That was a polite response from me, right?

“You dare to threaten a member of the Dragon Claws on our own turf?!” the punk all but screamed at me as he jumped back a step and put his hand on the scabbard on his left hip, his thumb flicking the hilt caused a finger's breadth of steel to show. “We will make an example out of your corpse! I was kind enough to offer to let you live, and this is how you repay me?! You’re dead, outsider." By the end of this tirade he’d reached across his torso to grip his katana’s handle tightly, rather obviously preparing to strike me as he lowered his stance.

“Young master,” one of his followers started to say, “He’s dressed like a merc. I don’t think it’s a good idea to-” whatever he was going to say was cut off when the ‘young master’ tried to take my head off.

He was pretty fast, if I was being honest. But I wasn’t particularly worried. I’d just spent the better part of the last hour perusing some of the finest swords in the entire megabuilding. I knew damn well what a thermal blade and a vibroblade looked like. The most obvious detail was of course the trigger mechanism where the handle met the hilt that turned the functions on in the first place. None of these three guys had such a sword. Which meant that there was almost no way that he could cut through my CherryBlosson alloy bones, no matter how strong he was. The only real potential vulnerability was my bare neck. I wasn’t sure how tough my new tendons and ligaments were, but they were still ostensibly flesh and blood, not chrome. If he hit me just right it was theoretically possible to decapitate me. Other than that, and/or possibly blinding me, he really couldn’t do shit that would cause me anything approaching actual harm. So the moment he began his draw strike, I’d already started raising my right arm.

I took the hit on my right forearm. And it didn’t hurt a bit. Whatever his sword was made out of, it hadn’t even penetrated my tier 1 trench coat, much less my skin. I didn’t even think he’d have left a bruise, even without my nanites preventing most bruises from forming in the first place.

The look on his face as I almost casually blocked his strike, with no hint of fear or concern, seemed to enrage him even further. With a flurry of blows he threw some sort of combo attack at me that it seemed to me he’d obviously practiced a lot. Most of his slashes and stabs I just ignored, taking hits on my sides or arms with zero issue. The only time I actually moved at all was when he attempted to hit my head, neck, hands, or feet. While I was fairly certain my tier 1 boots could take the hit, I didn’t really want to risk it. My shoelaces might have been cut after all. Feeling no need to let this guy make me bleed, I just shifted my hands a bit when he attempted to hit them, and continued to block the various attacks on my head/neck.

Definitely glad I pumped up my Reflex stat to 3 though. As if that thought triggered the system I got a notification.

+100 Reflex XP

After weathering more than a dozen strikes in a row, I was starting to get irritated. This moron really can’t take a hint, can he? So, when he telegraphed a heavy two handed blow to the left side of my neck, I stepped into it. Briefly blocking his katana with my left forearm, I then grabbed his hands around the sword's hilt and yanked him towards me, hard, putting him off balance. Simultaneously I drew my Overseer with Quickdraw, and before he knew what was going on I’d pushed the barrel into his panting mouth. I was not gentle. As he choked on the barrel of the gun that had all but teleported itself into the back of his throat, I stepped around his right leg with my own and pushed him with my hand on his sword and with the gun in his throat. He tripped neatly over my leg, and I followed him to the ground, where I quickly straddled him with my knees on his upper arms. Stripping his sword from his hand was child’s play given his current level of distraction. I carelessly tossed it to clatter at the feet of his chums.

This seemed to jolt his companions and they immediately drew their own katanas. “Ah ah ah, gentlemen,” I said, still in Japanese. I thumbed back the hammer of my Overseer with an audible CLICK. “I don’t particularly feel like fighting y'all three on one today. So if you don’t put your weapons away,” I looked down at the choking punk beneath me. “Your ‘young master’ here gets a new hole to breathe out of.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” came a calm voice off to my right. I glanced over to see a middle aged asian man, wearing a red suit embroidered with some kind of dragon motif, strolling casually over. “You have my apologies for my nephew’s actions. He is rather headstrong.” The man sighed regretfully. “If he cannot correct his behavior in the future, I suspect the next time he encounters someone stronger than himself he will not survive…That said, I have reviewed the video Yoshiro sent me,” he gestured to one of the guys that were currently sheathing their swords and bowing deeply to the man as he came to a nearby stop. “And it seems that all you wished to do was to make use of our business district. If you will release my nephew, I will guarantee your ability to access our shops whenever you wish. However, should you choose to kill him, I will be obliged to rally The Claws to hunt you to the ends of the earth.” His tone of voice didn’t really express a preference as to which option I chose. Damn, that’s cold. And this is your nephew?

I shifted my weight to put a foot on the ‘nephew’s’ chest and yanked my Overseer out from between his teeth just in time to dodge a splash of vomit. I was fairly certain I’d just accidentally chipped one or more of his teeth when I did so, but suppressed an inward wince as I stood up. Putting my weight on the foot on his chest, I stepped over him to stand closer to the fancily suited gentleman. I ignored the wheezing, choking, gagging noises coming from behind me as I offered a polite, if a bit shallow, bow. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir. My name is Malcolm Reynolds, local merc. I heard Mama’s Guns has an excellent selection, and as I happen to find myself a bit flush in the cred department, I just had to come take a look,” I said politely.

He returned my bow, more shallowly than my own, saying only, “Hiro,” I guess that’s his name then? He looked to the two punks standing nervously at attention nearby. “Yoshiro, get my nephew to the ripper. Toshi, call up two more men to replace them, on my authority.” He returned his attention to me. “Mr. Reynolds, will you join me for a cup of tea?” He gestured at me to join him and started walking without waiting for a response.

I fell in step beside him, he was going the right way towards Mama’s Guns anyway. “Sure. Oh, do you happen to know any place that serves AraAra BluBerry? Love that stuff, but can’t find it anywhere.”

I saw a faint curling of his lips indicating amusement. “Ah, I see you’re a man of culture. I know just the place,” he said, chuckling.

“Well I don’t know about all that. I have permanent amnesia, so I’m not particularly versed in the different kinds of tea anymore… if I ever was. But I’ve had AraAra BluBerry, and it’s delicious. So, yeah.” I responded.

This seemed to elicit a more sincere chuckle from Hiro as I followed his lead through the dark pseudo streets of level 200.

Good tea and good guns. Level 200 is great!