How To Live as a Cyberpunk Solver

34. snowball

Leonard slightly raised his hands. It is a traditional gesture of surrender to indicate the absence of weapons, but in today’s era when only hand attacks are not required, it has no other than symbolic meaning. In fact, the hacking program had finished uploading.

“Get rid of that nasty thing. Because you are a guest.”

The homeless who did not know the fact, or the Volcano gangsters who were similar to the homeless, opened their guns and clubs.

“We don’t do business with people we don’t know.”

“Leonard Walker. It’s a fixer.”

“What’s the fixer… Who?”

“Leonard Walker. You can call me Leo when you get to know him.”

Solver is a more familiar city on the ground than a lawyer, but ‘Named’ was a little different. It was Leonard Walker who was sent to several junkyards due to frequent quarrels with gang members. The gangsters’ faces quickly changed from suspicion to horror.

“Former Hexagon…?”

“What the fuck! Didn’t you do something to my head?”

The Volcano gang hastily withdrew. They ranged from a gang that checked the brain chip’s security program to a gang that checked the memory chips used to view adult content. In the case of the latter, social death seems more frightening.

“If you can block a backdoor with something like that, who would hack it? Don’t be fooled, find someone. Call someone you can find.”

Several pipe guns trembled. Max’s shotgun also tilted slightly. Gangster and complex calculations came and went. The final conclusion was ‘There is nothing good about fighting’.

“…Who are you looking for?”

Leonard’s hands slipped down. The victory smile was natural.

“Tom Weiser. A drug lord who left the detention center five days ago.”

@

Unlike other gangs, the Volcano gang was cooperative.

They were hanryangs who joined gangs because they could buy drugs cheaply, so they bluffed but didn’t flaunt themselves. It would be different if he was a mid-level executive who distributes electronic chips and collects credits, but this request was enough for the end.

“I thought I saw it around here…”

The drug dealer was also a business person, so he carefully checked new customers. Once you buy it, you have a high probability of becoming a regular customer, so it was only natural to see how far you would go to pick up the mulberry.

“How do you pass such a regular like this?”

“That’s not to say I’m not a VIP.”

Leonard set aside the wire mesh and pushed the oil can with his foot. There was only one way for one person to pass. Max grumbled as he dusted himself off.

“Are e-drugs that good? Enough to hide in a place like this?”

Leonard, who does not drink or smoke, warned seriously.

“Very bad. Don’t even think about trying it out of curiosity.”

“Ah, I don’t even have a brain chip.”

“Because only e-drugs are not drugs. Don’t do it later.”

Leonard’s worries were unfounded. Half of the acquaintances I met on the ground died from e-drugs. The direct cause of death was gunshot wounds, stab wounds, burns, and falls, but the cause was drug addiction and addicts no matter what anyone said. And one more was added today.

“go away! Get out of here!”

An out-of-the-ordinary scream erupted from the 17th-9th street alley. Leonard and Max looked at each other and lowered their stances. It’s out of shape, but it was better than getting hit by a blind bullet. Moments later, sobs followed.

“Leave me alone… please… please disappear… just go…”

Leonard motioned for a moment and then peeked around the corner. A man with prosthetic arms larger than his head crouched down and muttered. I screamed from time to time, but there was no context.

“Does it seem right?”

“I hope not.”

“Then it will be right. That’s how the world works.”

As I said, the taste went away. It would have been better to catch it before it was too late. Leonard got up and straightened his clothes. At times like this, the atmosphere is important.

“Mr. Tom Weiser?”

“Who, who, who, who! Someone else is here!”

“Ah, don’t be alarmed. A solver sent by your older brother.”

“Tongue, brother? brother? brother…?”

Brotherhood doesn’t seem so good. Or you don’t know what ‘brother’ is. Tom Weiser kept repeating the word ‘bro’. I suddenly felt pathetic.

“The gangsters are too good. Did you sell drugs to someone at this level?”

“Gang? gang? where’s the gang Gang! Come out!”

It was like dealing with a broken first-generation Android. Leonard checked the matching of the face and implant configuration by floating the photo transmitted by the protruding jaw in the corner of the field of view. With 99.4%, Tom Weiser was right. Max came creeping up.

“This request was easily resolved.”

“Sometimes you have to be like this.”

But convincing a madman wasn’t easy either. With a full-body implant, you only need to take the head and torso after separating the limbs, but it was a living body except for the right arm and leg. The mediocre cyborg was more troublesome than the full body cyborg.

Leonard rolled the electronic chip on the floor with his toe and examined it. The crude handwriting caught my eye.

“Snowball?”

Tom Weiser flinched. Suddenly, an extraordinary idea came to my mind.

“If you come with me, I can give you a snowball.”

“Wow, a kidnapper! But isn’t it usually candy?”

Good adults are candy, but bad adults are snowballs. Both are similar to sugar, so it wasn’t very wrong. Mr. Tom Weiser staggered to his feet.

“right. right. Come on, let’s go.”

A smile crept across Leonard’s lips. But there is a third rule that should never be forgotten. Tom Weiser’s face reddened and steam gushed out of his prosthetic arm. Max freaked out and ran away.

“What is it? Is it a hack?”

“Why are you hacking a quiet person!”

“Wow! Careful!”

It was fortunate that I didn’t take three steps closer. Even when Tom Weiser suddenly swung his arm, it didn’t hit. The bangs flew slightly and the shacks with strange graffiti were blown away. Kwakwang-!

Leonard ran away from the collapsing building. It was a slum made of waste materials, but it was not so poor that it would sit on a fist that was wielded at will. It was power beyond common sense and uncontrollable violence. It was the first time I had seen it in person, but I knew it because I had heard it.

“Psychoization?”

There are many signs of a psycho cyborg, the most representative of which is overheating and melting of the brain chip. My senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, etc. were gone, and I went crazy in hallucinations.

“The difficulty of the quest suddenly goes up?”

Leonard drew his revolver. It was not difficult to kill because it was a human body minus one limb. 45 caliber magic missiles would have been fired if Max hadn’t shouted.

“You’re the younger brother of Mr. Jaggertuck!”

“What is it? Ike-!”

Tom Weiser’s eyes turned completely upside down. The psychosis ended in an instant.

“He’s a person who will be killed anyway.”

“A request? The request is to bring you alive, right? It’s not a contract killing, is it?”

“You call that persuasion?”

He had an excessively good chin, but he was not an idiot. If you told him to become a psycho cyborg and kill him, he would be depressed, but not angry. Leonard raised the gun and then finally let it down.

“This is why I don’t accept requests from people I know.”

“The conditions for being commissioned are really strict, aren’t they? Hit!”

“Are you laughing? Is there a madman in front of you?”

Psycho Tom Visor went on a rampage. He kicked the wreckage of the building to pieces, pulled out a long pipe, and swung it left and right. It was cheap plastic, so it broke after being used a few times, but the momentum was ugly.

“First the damn implants…”

It was polite to plant a hacking program first. The brain chip melted, so ‘suicide’ or ‘function stop’ could not be used, but it was possible to block the signal of the prosthetic arm and leg. It was a broken limb leaking lubricant, so a simple ‘disruption’ paralyzed it. Tom Weiser’s limbs sagged. Max liked his job.

“As expected, Mr. Leonard! Great!”

Tom Weisser’s immobile right arm suddenly twisted his body strangely. Leonard avoided the punch with a sway and took a step closer. Unlike Max, he wasn’t happy.

“Did you know that the probability of a psycho cyborg being cured is less than 3%?”

“Is that so?”

“Because the chip in your head melts and destroys your brain and nerves.”

Even when the hardware was stopped, the mind did not return. Tom Weiser attacked Leonard with his left arm. Even though Leonard’s implants were lightweight, they weren’t soft enough to lose to living humans. I punched out and put a foot in my stomach. It came pouring out with yellow gastric juice. It looked like he hadn’t eaten for at least a day.

“Your sympathy is not pretty. Even I, who sympathized with them, is helpless.”

In a world where the end came early, it was beneficial for all to die. Looking at her now, she was sincere.

“Ah, ripe! What is it, why don’t you pass out!”

I had a great line, but it didn’t finish. Tom Weiser continued punching and attacking. even bitten off. You have to pass out neatly to make a picture, but maybe it was because I went out of my mind once, I didn’t go out twice.

“Oh little! Fall down!”

Leonard banged his head and slapped his fist left and right. Max felt desperate and pitiful at the same time.

“Maybe I would have been happy to die…”

“Shut up and find something like a rope! Quickly!”

@

You have completed the Juggerk Jaw’s quest.

The process is messy and the results are unexpected, but Tom Weiser was caught as the client wanted. Jaws Jaws looked at his step-brother who was drooling and snarling in agony.

“What happened to that guy…”

Leonard shrugged his shoulders. The lunatic cyborg had bitten off, peeling off a handful of skin. Did you know that Kevlar synthetic fiber muscles would be damaged by biting? Anyway, the crazy guy didn’t have an answer.

“If you can’t handle it yourself, call the gang. Jack will help you on the second floor.”

The word kill was turned around. He said with a gloomy face.

“… even if I do, I have to do it. Because it’s my fault.”

“What did you do wrong?”

The chin didn’t answer. Leonard wasn’t particularly curious.

“The canned food is over there.”

“It wasn’t because of the canned food.”

“I will also send you the commission money.”

Leonard shrugged his bare shoulders. Max pursed his lips as if to comfort him. However, due to his short years of experience and lack of vocabulary, he was unable to attempt it. The gang of fixers packed canned food and left the house on the 8th floor. The stairs I climb every day were exceptionally high today.

“A request like this is very embarrassing.”

“There will be many times like that.”

“This is why you don’t accept requests from people you know.”

“Not necessarily because of this.”

Upon reaching the ninth floor, Sigma opened the door. Just because he was poor at expressing his emotions didn’t mean he was ignorant of emotions. Without saying anything, I received canned food and prepared dinner.

I ate as usual, checked my firearms as usual, watched TV as usual before going to bed. The 7-year veteran solver and the newbie little assistant also had a good experience. It was an experience of not being surprised when gunshots rang out from the house below.