In Lost City, a request is a means to resolve dirty work that cannot rely on public authority.

It's almost illegal, to say the least.

Instigating assault, theft, kidnapping, murder, hacking, and so on.

There was nothing ordinary about it,

The man before me was asking for a rescue.

"So you want me to save your sister?"

The man nodded with a haggard face at Jin's question.

"Yes. She's in danger."

"Hmm."

Jin crumpled the wrapper into a ball with his fist.

While organizing the story he had just heard in his head.

"Your sister is what? BC? BHC? Some kind of editor?"

"She's a BH editor. Brain Holic. Don't tell me... you don't know?"

"Should I?"

"Ah, no, it's not that..."

The man looked Jin up and down with a bewildered expression.

Then, as if he suddenly realized something, his eyes widened.

"...You don't have a brain socket. Are you a purist by any chance?"

"Purist? Ah, you mean family? No, I'm not from a family. I chose Nomad."

"...?"

"What?"

The two people who failed to grasp each other's intentions simultaneously raised question marks above their heads.

Jin knew nothing about anti-implant ideology,

And the man didn't understand Jin's nonsensical words.

That's because Jin's knowledge of this world was limited to the strategy guide he had skimmed before starting the game.

He hadn't even bothered to read the story because it was troublesome.

Thus, with his rock-bottom common sense limited to this world, he proudly asked.

"So what's this BH thing? Let's hear it."

"Uh, well. That's..."

Caught up in the atmosphere, the man stumbled through his explanation.

"BH is a technology that allows indirect experience of others' experiences through neural transmission. It vividly conveys not only the five senses like sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste, but even the emotions felt by the subject."

Wow, there was such a thing?

Jin raised an eyebrow.

This is certainly an advanced world.

You can even experience other people's experiences.

Is there anyone who wants to live like me?

Being abandoned in a game overnight.

"So BH is widely used as a positive element throughout society, such as rehabilitating criminals or as educational material in various fields. Of course, that's not all..."

The man sighed.

Deeply, as if a part of his soul had escaped with it.

"BH is also secretly traded as an unethical and immoral tool that only pursues pleasure. It's like a kind of snuff film."

Jin understood that statement immediately.

It's called experience, but it's essentially no different from possession.

You don't have to look far, even in Vietnam, where all sorts of crimes were rampant with deepfakes, let alone being able to recreate all five senses and emotions...

Well, I'll spare you the details.

"My sister was an editor who made things like construction site safety guidelines. Experiencing what kind of accident might happen to a worker who doesn't wear a safety helmet. For someone like that to be making BH for a gang... She won't be able to handle it sober."

While the man was muttering in a trembling voice.

Jin was chewing the inside of his cheek with his arms crossed.

Should I do it? Or not?

From the sound of it, it's a matter of going up against a gang.

If I meddle clumsily, things could get complicated.

As the deliberation dragged on,

The man, who had been watching Jin's expression in silence, carefully opened his mouth.

"I'll pay as much as I can for the request fee."

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"...!"

Jin's eyes widened.

That's right.

I didn't ask about the most important thing.

As this is his first request, Jin doesn't have a set price yet.

So he inwardly estimated.

Should I say I'll do it for 100,000 credits?

No, in this case, I should start with 200,000 and then pretend to reluctantly lower it...

"Would 2 million credits be enough? All in cash."

Pop.

For a moment, the power in Jin's head went off.

After a while, his subconscious, which had fumbled to find and insert the fuse called reason, frantically pressed the calculator.

A meatball spaghetti is 2,000 credits.

2 million would be 1,000 servings of spaghetti.

Enjoying three luxurious meals a day for 333 days.

And still have 0.3 days left to buy one more waffle.

"Leave it to me."

Jin, who had somehow wrapped both hands around the man's hand, shook his arm up and down.

----------------------------------------

Gang, gangsters, gangsters.

In other words, the mafia on the streets.

It might sound terrifying, but it's not necessarily so.

In Downtown, a gang is like a violent circle that can be formed when just three thugs unite, so dozens are launched and disappear every day.

Of course, there were several gangs powerful enough to shake Downtown, but fortunately, Steel Hands wasn't in that league.

If judged by name value alone, they were somewhere in the lower-middle tier.

But they were by no means to be underestimated.

True to their name, Steel Hands were fierce fighters with all members equipped with cyber arms.

However, to Jin, they were just lunatics who deliberately cut off their healthy arms to replace them with steel ones.

Don't you know your body is a gift from your parents?

What are you doing to the precious body given by your parents?

But Jin had nothing to say about this part.

His body was not inherited from his parents.

It was merely a combination of stats, skills, and traits.

So Jin looked up at the night sky and thought.

If there was a being that couldn't be understood even in this messed-up world, wouldn't it be himself?

Of course, this body might have an origin and a corresponding background story, but to Jin, who woke up with his face buried in a gutter, it was just like a dream.

Honestly, he wasn't interested either.

He didn't know anyone in reality.

As if he had fallen from the sky,

Jin was Jin from the beginning.

Just like all game characters usually are.

Alright. Enough.

I've just got my mental state under control, and here I go again.

Focus. This is your first request.

I'm a proper solo now too.

Jin, shaking off the existential doubt that kept trying to deepen, patted his cheeks and hurried his steps.

Finally, he arrived at a club.

[STEEL NIGHT]

Under the gun-shaped LED neon sign with the name engraved on a bullet that blinked on and off.

A guard with steel arms crossed looked Jin up and down.

"Hmm."

A fairly handsome face with a tall stature.

A man in his mid-20s wearing a flight jacket and jeans that suited him well,

With a lower body outline that seemed unusual.

This much is more than enough to pass.

"...Go in."

Jin passed by the guard who jerked his chin.

Leaving behind the guard's grumbling 'Damn, he's huge,' Jin opened the door to find a long staircase leading underground, accompanied by a thumping noise.

Steel Night.

It's a business establishment and hideout managed by Steel Hands.

The man had emphasized several times with a haggard face that his sister must be held captive here.

Jenny, was it?

As Jin was recalling the name of the kidnapped BH editor in his mind, he suddenly realized he had reached the bottom of the stairs and turned his head towards the noisy sound.

At the same time, the flickering lights and the people dancing under them were captured in his ash-gray eyes.

"Oh."

Jin let out a small exclamation.

Seeing the crowd swaying their bodies, intoxicated with pleasure, it felt like he had come to a different world.

What's this? Was I the only one struggling to make ends meet?

With the thought that he seemed to have lost about half of his life somehow, Jin turned his steps towards the counter.

Then, unfolding a crumpled bill from his pocket, he said leisurely.

"The cheapest one, please."

"......"

While the bartender was pocketing the credits with a look that said he'd seen quite a beggar, Jin sat on a round stool without a backrest and turned his body 180 degrees.

One, two, three...

The club interior was spacious, but it wasn't particularly difficult to pick out the gang members with his eyes.

He just had to look for the oddballs who weren't dancing and had both arms made of cyber arms.

And so, Jin spotted 8 gang members.

And one of them was guarding an entrance that led somewhere.

That's it.

While Jin was inwardly sure, he heard something being put down behind his back with a thud.

When he turned his head, he saw a glass of alcohol in an ice glass.

And the back of the bartender turning away coldly.

"Well, well."

Jin shrugged and grabbed the glass.

The cheap alcohol he sipped lightly provided a burning sensation as it went down his throat.

"...I should have asked for cola instead."

In fact, Jin didn't like alcohol.

Because he always felt hungry the day after drinking.

The temporary hypoglycemic state due to insulin secretion was an unpleasant feeling that he didn't want to seek out for someone with PTSD about hunger.

So Jin quietly put down the glass.

Then he got up from the chair and moved towards the bathroom, or more precisely, he followed a gang member who passed by with his hand on his lower abdomen.

"Ugh. Did I eat something bad?"

While the gang member who hurriedly chose a stall was frantically unbuttoning his pants, Jin, who arrived at the bathroom shortly after, looked around.

In the silence, he saw a man shivering in front of the toilet, pulling up his belt.

"Phew. Ah, I'm drunk. Drunk."

After confirming the man stumbling out of the bathroom with a drunken soliloquy, Jin locked the door behind him.

Then he walked to the stall where the sound of firecrackers kept going off and pulled the door handle.

Wait. Why does this just open?

Jin, who had initially intended to tear off the door, frowned at the sight of the gang member sitting on the toilet beyond the door that opened without resistance.

"Damn it. Why didn't you close the door? I wasn't mentally prepared."

Between the shins covered in leg hair. The white underwear hanging like a hammock was so disgusting that Jin turned his eyes away, and the gang member, who had been wearing a stupid expression until then, belatedly shouted.

"Hey! You bastard! Close it right no-urk!"

But Jin's kick was faster, and the gang member's head was instantly struck by the sole of his shoe, snapping back and spraying blood.

"Sleep for a while."

Jin said as he closed the door.

At the same time, a subtle sense of fulfillment felt deep in his chest.

"...It's done."

Jin clenched his fist.

As expected! I thought there would be about one left.

In fact, Jin had a plan.

After all, dealing with a gang alone. No matter how good the money was, it couldn't outweigh life, so he had his own reasons for accepting this request.

For example, leveling up.

Jin closed his eyes.

If he concentrated his mind like that,

His expanded consciousness would illuminate the vast night sky.

And before his eyes, which he was sure he had closed, a constellation of twinkling stars appeared.

The fist-shaped constellation starting from the first twinkle named [Fast Recovery].

Jin's achievement was left with just one last dot.

It was the result of rolling and rolling for the past year, connecting the path of stars one by one.

The proficiency was almost full with the XP received as a quest reward for dealing with the thugs the day before and this morning.

He was sure that if he just took down one more guy, the light would come on in the dark bean sprout head.

And now.

That one person had fallen on the toilet in the bathroom,

A beam of light was firmly connected between the nebulae,

And thus the light awoke the last sleeping star.

It was the moment when a new sentence arose in Jin's inner mind.

[Irregular]

Jin opened his eyes as the group of stars that finally formed a constellation shone brightly.

Feeling his body that had become more solid and his senses that had been sharpened just as much.

"Shall we go?"

Jin cracked his neck left and right as he left the bathroom.

Then he took steps towards the gang member guarding the entrance over there.

Slowly clenching his fist. The club's beat that was blaring chaotically seemed to foretell what was about to happen.