Chapter 35
You’re Lucky
***
“I don’t trust it. You could take to where your comrades are and put in a difficult position. Isn’t that right?”
“N-no, no.”
One of his tal teeth was missing, so his pronunciation leaked, but even so, the man desperately expressed his intentions. Seeing that he had clearly lost his will to fight, Baek Ga-on loosened the fist he had been clenching and spoke.
“Then guide .”
***
The unlicensed clinic was not far away.
A slightly lower area than ground level. The back side of a shopping district where old buildings were packed tightly together. It looked like an ordinary residential complex had been built there, but when he went down the stairs, a back door that had been hidden by a blind spot revealed itself.
It was a choice of location that would be easy to miss, so an outsider would pass by without realizing it.
The man who had been dragged along by Baek Ga-on opened the closed door as if it were only natural.
“Here it is.”
Judging by the light leaking out, it was still in business. When the man stopped walking, Baek Ga-on frowned.
“Why?”
“A-are we going in together?”
“Then what? Don’t waste ti and walk.”
As they went inside, a television chattered noisily without pause. The content was today’s news. Since it was a topic he wasn’t interested in, Baek Ga-on imdiately turned his head away.
Sitting at the counter was an old man.
Indian, perhaps, or South Arican.
He had thick eyebrows, and his facial features were unusually distinct. More than anything, what emphasized such an appearance was an intellectual atmosphere.
He had expected a greasy middle-aged man, but instead there was a face that looked like it must have been quite popular in his younger days.
That was when the old man took his eyes off the television.
“Who is it?”
“I heard that you can get cybernetics surgery if you co here.”
“I don’t know what kind of talk you heard to co all the way here, but this isn’t that kind of place.”
“Hey, he says it’s not. Did you lie?”
“N-no, no.”
The man hurriedly appeared from behind Baek Ga-on and awkwardly greeted the old man.
“It’s been a while.”
“Ah, was it you? Looks like you caused trouble again.”
Without needing to hear the long-winded story, the old man seed to understand and clicked his tongue briefly.
“Well, if even a guy like that ca here on a recomndation, I suppose that makes you a custor. Co in.”
“Then I’ll excuse myself for a mont.”
Following the old man inside, equipnt that didn’t suit a semi-basent ca into view.
It seed to be maintained regularly. The color had only faded a little, and there was practically no rust or damage.
“Sit there.”
Where the old man nodded, there was a unit chair combined with dical devices. On the ceiling, countless surgical instrunts were installed and waiting.
“It’ll say that unauthorized access to the device has been detected. Accept it.”
As the old man said, the mont he sat down, a warning ssage popped up. When it was ignored, new information was projected onto the retina.
It was the current body data.
It was data that was supposed to be managed strictly by default.
“Oh? A natural, huh. That’s pretty rare in this day and age. So, what’ll your first procedure be?”
“That’s so confidence. Even ripperdocs are known to all have different specialties.”
A doctor who perford only specialized cybernetics surgeries, a ‘ripperdoc’.
Unlike ordinary doctors, they had to be well versed in chanical engineering and bioengineering. They implanted foreign objects that should never exist in a human body without triggering rejection.
The amount of knowledge and experience that had to be accumulated was beyond description, and since each oversaw different fields, their scope was inevitably limited.
What’s more, in the underworld, those factors stood out even more. If a surgery failed, you could be killed without a trace.
To Ga-on’s skeptical reaction, the old man replied.
“Didn’t you hear it from that guy earlier? Being able to do all sorts of miscellaneous things is my specialty.”
Whether it was true or false wasn’t really worth checking.
The fact that the old man had been doing business intact all this ti was proof enough of his skill.
“Now that I look at it, I failed to recognize a distinguished guest. Well, no need to drag this out. I’ll ask for a hormone regulator.”
“That’s an unusual choice. Usually people insert Emil Corporation’s Brain series first.”
“I need a hormone regulator more than that.”
“You’re not so kind of junkie, are you? I’d rather not get dragged into sothing troubleso.”
“You can tell just by looking at my face that I’m not.”
Since there was none of the worn-down look unique to addicts, the old man didn’t press further and moved on to the next step.
“For now, what I handle are the Protel B-type and the Ryungcheon No. 07.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The forr has a larger storage capacity, and the latter absorbs faster.”
“Both are modified so they can be used without distinguishing between drug types, right?”
“If not, would there be any reason for you to be sitting here?”
“Then the forr.”
“Got it. Relax and lean back in the chair.”
At the sa mont the old man finished speaking, a surgical robot descended from the ceiling. Thread-thin tubes coursed through blood vessels and nerves in an instant.
Without any surgical incision, the procedure and implantation were carried out simultaneously through a tiny pinhole.
Before there was even ti to register the alien sensation burrowing deep into the body—
“It’s done.”
The old man’s declaration was heard.
“Already?”
“For implanting a re hormone regulator, what more were you expecting?”
Hard to believe, but a device for injecting drugs was visible on the inside of the upper arm.
About the size of a coin.
Its actual shape was exactly that.
In an instant, an item for managing a new slot appeared in the device’s internal interface.
It was skill impressive enough to draw admiration. It was enough to make one wonder why he was in a place like this.
“You know the fee has to be paid entirely in cash, right?”
“Of course.”
Transactions conducted through devices left records in the system. It wasn’t a welco thod for either the old man or .
In a world where everything was taxidermied into the virtual realm, it made one wonder whether paper currency had any aning at all, but the desires of the upper class who wanted to indulge in deviation made that possible.
That was why it had remained viable to this day despite having already fulfilled its role.
It was also the reason the two of us were able to benefit from the trickle-down effect.
As we ca out to the counter and were settling the paynt, a sudden blackout occurred. In the semi-basent where not a single ray of light could pass through, darkness spread like ink bleeding through water, all in an instant.
All that lingered inside was air that had sunk cold and heavy.
When the ergency generator kicked in and the lights ca back on, a bulky figure that hadn’t been there just monts ago entered my field of view.
Despite it being midwinter, he was dressed freely and carelessly.
His overly developed trapezius muscles and the steel fra mounted around them reminded of a carapace. At his waist, a sawed-off shotgun dangled like an accessory.
Most striking of all was the hook-shaped tattoo running across his cheek.
It seed to be a familiar face to the old man, as he imdiately spat out a sharp voice.
“What’s the aning of this? What if you’d been in the middle of surgery?”
“That’s not my problem. What matters is that the old man here still hasn’t paid the tribute. I can take this as defiance against us, the Pier Gang, right?”
“If you want to play alley boss, didn’t I tell you to do as you like? But don’t drag the people around you into it.”
What the old man ran was an unlicensed clinic. It wasn’t all that rare for the criminal organization occupying the area to demand rent or protection money. No, in so ways, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it a custom.
Of course, it had nothing to do with as a custor, so I tried to quietly slip away, but—
“Hyungnim!”
With that single word from the man, the situation changed completely.
The bulky figure who had been glaring at the old man finally recognized the man’s presence.
“Tug? What happened to your wrist?”
The mont Tug’s gaze shifted to , the bulky man seed to understand the sequence of events and growled.
“Did you do this to him?”
“It was self-defense.”
The bulky man leaned his head in close enough that I could feel his breath and glared at , but I rely looked back without expression.
“To think there’s soone who doesn’t know the rules of this place. You’re new here.”
“Well, even if I knew, I don’t think anything would change.”
“Good. I was just wanting to test out the slot I had installed.”
As the two of us stared at each other in silence, a heavy stillness settled over the room. At the mont I tensed every muscle in my body, ready to counterattack at any ti—
“That’s enough.”
A third party intervened.
Sohow, he had an aggrieved-looking face. His large eyes looked as if tears might fall at any mont.
A harmless frog.
That was the first impression Ga-on got.
“You……”
But unlike that impression, the bulky man did not let down his guard and took a step back.
“I hear you’re demanding tribute money from the old man? Isn’t that going too far? That slot of yours was probably installed by him too, wasn’t it? Or did you suddenly find yourself in need of so pocket money, Gesto?”
“It’s a directive from our Pier Gang. No one gets to avoid it.”
“I’m curious whether my acquaintance would share that sa opinion. Mind if I call him?”
At the word acquaintance, Gesto flinched and turned his back.
“I’ve lost interest. Let’s end it here for today. I don’t feel like stooping so low as to trade words with you.”
On his way out, he t Ga-on’s eyes and muttered quietly.
“The next ti we et will be the day of your morial service. If you don’t want to die, you’d better know how to behave.”
“Oh my, how scary. Is this the timing where I’m supposed to piss myself?”
As if it wasn’t worth responding to, Gesto didn’t even look back, simply raised his middle finger, and left.
***
So ti later, Ga-on ca out of the unlicensed clinic and was about to head ho when a suspicious figure blocked his path. It was the sa middle-aged man who had just driven Gesto away.
“You’re lucky.”
“In what way?”
“You ran into the Pier Gang and still survived. You wouldn’t know since it’s your first ti here, but they’re an erging force that’s started to bulk up around this area. Maybe it’s because they’re trying to uproot the entrenched powers and expand their territory, but they’re brutal beyond asure.”
An explanation so detailed it felt like pus might start leaking from my ears.
Still, the middle-aged man seed unsatisfied and added another layer.
“On top of that, even if Gesto isn’t an executive, he’s at least an enforcer. Once he latches onto soone, he’s the troubleso type. If I hadn’t happened to pass by just then, you would’ve been in quite a bind too. He’s the type who invests all of his earnings into himself. If I had to guess, he probably had one or two trump cards prepared.”
It was around then that the middle-aged man noticed Ga-on’s cold gaze.
“Oh dear, did I ramble too much? My apologies. Talking with strangers is always interesting and enjoyable, you see. Ah, co to think of it, I haven’t introduced myself yet. I am……”
He was about to say his na, but—
“So you figured out that I killed Sprinter.”
Ga-on cut him off and forced his mouth shut.
If they had t in a busy district, it would have been hard to pin him down, but this was a back alley. A place where betrayal and conspiracy breathed and lived. No matter how much of a saint one was, it wasn’t a place where you could easily show goodwill to a stranger.
And yet, the middle-aged man approached in a friendly manner.
As if he already knew exactly who he was talking to.
Because of that, it wasn’t difficult to make a guess.
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