“No matter how much time devours everything before it, we must strive to leave a mark while we still breathe, so that not even its scythe can take away what we have gained.”
The voice came from the radio, while the host’s deep, pleasant voice slowly spread through the room.
Time flies, and days and months pass like arrows.
Outside the window, the sun shone with full force; Night City rarely had the chance to see such an endless and clear sky.
The vast expanse above the city, like a blue curtain covered with a thin haze, turned into an almost unreal backdrop reflected in the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows.
Gentle ripples played across the surface of the pool on the lawn outside.
A warm, pleasant breeze slipped through the slightly open window and entered the room, moving the photo album lying on the table.
The half-open album gently flipped through its pages, revealing carefully preserved photographs.
Only two people appeared in them: a boy and a woman.
It was as if time moved together with the pages of the album.
The boy grew almost before one’s eyes, while the girl’s height did not change.
Until one day the boy finally grew taller than the girl, and his once-childish face turned into the handsome and cheerful appearance of a young man.
Traces of youth still remained on him, but compared to before, he was much more mature.
The scenes in the photographs were not always the same either.
In some they were at an amusement park, in others they were eating at a bar, and there was even a photograph from Leon’s elementary school graduation, where he was already wearing the Arasaka Academy uniform.
Eight years had passed since Vanessa Hale took Leon under her wing.
Eight years was a long time.
Long enough for many things to change.
In order to avoid too many unforeseen problems, Leon had not caused a single major incident during the past eight years.
Instead, he had mostly followed the life path previously shown to him by the simulator and reached the age of sixteen without any major problems.
During those eight years, many major events unfolded exactly as he had known them from the game world.
Because of numerous historical consequences from previous decades, the New United States of America did not have complete control over all the states on what had once been American territory.
In 2069, NUSA President Rosalind Myers launched a reunification plan, seeking to extend federal authority over the Free States.
However, many territories that had already functioned independently for years were unwilling to give up their autonomy.
Armed conflict soon broke out.
The Unification War officially began.
Night City chose to remain neutral in that conflict, but even neutrality was not enough to completely protect it from the war.
In early 2070, federal forces deployed troops on the approaches to the city.
However, thanks to the urgent intervention of Lucius Rhyne, a direct clash was avoided.
Rhyne requested protection from Arasaka, which by then had already largely recovered from the consequences of the Fourth Corporate War.
In only a few days, Arasaka’s enormous supercarrier crossed thousands of kilometers over the ocean and reached the coast of Night City.
Its arrival felt almost like an imperial proclamation.
As if Arasaka were telling the entire world that it had returned to the summit of global power.
And in essence, that was exactly what happened.
Fearing that Arasaka’s direct involvement could destroy the fragile balance that had been established and turn a regional war into a much broader conflict, President Myers soon signed a peace agreement with representatives of the Free States.
Hostilities came to an end.
Night City once again retained its status as an international free city, outside the direct control of NUSA.
Of course, Arasaka’s help was not free.
In return, the company was allowed to rebuild its destroyed headquarters in Night City and thereby restore a powerful foothold on the west coast of North America.
At the same time, Arasaka’s global reputation and influence once again reached their peak.
…
The expected events unfolded one after another, but some things had still subtly changed because of Leon’s own actions.
Thanks to the simulator, once per day he could simulate the events of the following day.
That ability to briefly glimpse the future allowed him to gain considerable benefits from many events.
For example, through stock trading, he significantly increased his own savings.
Still, the greatest benefit was that Vanessa, thanks to the information she received from him, successfully used her “predictions” of events to advance through Kang Tao’s hierarchy.
Leon knew very well what was most important to him at the moment.
His life, safety, and development depended almost entirely on Vanessa.
The higher her position became, the more benefits he, as her adopted younger brother, could enjoy.
Because he occasionally and unintentionally revealed such almost “prophetic” analyses of future events to her, Vanessa spoiled him more and more with each passing year, and the bond between them grew increasingly stronger.
With a big sister who spoiled him so much, one thought would occasionally pass through Leon’s mind:
Ah…
living off someone else really is a wonderful thing!
His sister was a high-ranking Kang Tao employee and had a secure position in the research sector.
Even in chaotic Night City, Leon could live luxuriously and comfortably thanks to her.
Why would he even become a merc then?
A few jobs obtained through fixers probably would not earn him as much as his monthly allowance.
He was not V, that poor bastard from the game.
He had no reason to risk his life in such a way.
But such thoughts would remain in his mind for only a few moments before Leon quickly dismissed them.
“This world is much more dangerous than it looks. How can I allow myself to become this complacent and lazy? Have I forgotten all those conspiracies from the game? Even a high-ranking corpo director can end up dead in some alley one day!”
While enjoying his comfortable life, Leon would constantly remind himself of exactly that.
Corporate schemes and traps.
Ruthless people.
Mysterious AI systems.
Dangerous cyberpsychos…
Leon never forgot that if the player chose the Corpo lifepath in Cyberpunk 2077, they were almost immediately dragged into an internal power struggle and given the task of arranging the assassination of a high-ranking superior.
For only a few tens of thousands of Eurodollars, they were supposed to organize the murder of a high-ranking corporate executive.
Of course, since it was a video-game mechanic, many things could not be literally transferred into the real world.
Forty thousand Eurodollars seemed far too little to buy the life of someone so highly positioned in a megacorporation.
But the situation itself clearly demonstrated just how ruthless internal power struggles among corporate colleagues could be.
Only one’s own strength could guarantee that a person would keep everything they possessed!
That was exactly why, one day, after this finally sank fully into Leon’s mind, he began buying various training devices.
He turned one storage room in the house into his own small private world, filling it with different kinds of physical training equipment, as well as combat shards and skill chips that he acquired through various channels.
Unfortunately, his little activities could not escape Vanessa’s notice.
Because she did not want her younger brother to one day become a walking mass of muscle without a brain, Vanessa quickly solved the problem in her own way.
She enrolled him in school.
“You’re constantly shut inside the house training. Did those Animals fill your head with nonsense? Do you know that those muscular idiots have taken their obsession with the body so far that they’ve completely lost all sense of proportion? If you turn into one of those grotesquely buff maniacs… I’m seriously going to be angry with you!” Vanessa told him irritably.
Coincidentally, at exactly that time, Arasaka was preparing to further expand its influence over education in Night City through Arasaka Academy, so Vanessa simply arranged for Leon to be enrolled there.
It was not healthy for him to stay at home all the time.
Of course, Vanessa knew very well that her younger brother was incredibly talented.
Even as a child, he had acquired an amount of knowledge that made ordinary classes almost unnecessary for him.
But simply to give him something to do every day, Vanessa still hardened her heart and made the decision…
It was the first time Leon had been forced to do something he truly did not want to do.
He had no choice but to reluctantly sling his bag over his shoulder and head to school.
Although there was no arguing with Vanessa once she firmly decided something, going to school was actually already part of Leon’s long-term plans.
According to the simulator, that was exactly where he was supposed to meet one very important person.
David Martinez.
That schoolmate, whose name would one day end up on the Afterlife menu, would undoubtedly at some point live a life incredible enough to earn legendary status.
A partner with the potential to one day become a legend was someone Leon had absolutely no intention of missing.
In that simulation, he had ended up torn apart by Scavs probably precisely because he had grown too accustomed to handling every job alone.
If he could not survive as a lone wolf, then if he wanted to make a name for himself in this life, he would definitely need a real team.