The next morning Ken woke up too early for the academy.
He hadn’t rested very well. Gloria’s dead body and the hollow surprised eyes of Elena Gomez haunted his dreams all night.
Ken shook his head, his eyes flew to the mini-map, which showed the immediate area was clear. Just above that, the HP bar sat at 64%.
Ken frowned at that. Last night he checked, it stood at 59%. That netted him 5% of healing after a night. In a whole different league compared to yesterday’s 30%.
As he brushed his teeth and freshened up, he checked the Megabuilding’s security settings once again.
The sound settings remained unchanged. He especially cared about it because the settings originally were set so high that it might have been possible to have an image of what the people inside did if the data were put in a proper daemon.
With that in order, he entered the bathroom and forced himself to do what he found himself avoiding this entire time.
Yeah, the dead body in his inventory.
With just a mere thought, a corpse was in the already narrow bathroom.
The expected rotting stench didn’t hit his face. No. It was so fresh that the still oozing blood carried a hint of metallic scent of iron.
Ken finally noticed what actually killed his stalker.
It wasn’t the two bullets to her head. No, she had some metal plating on her skull but the second bullet did get an inch in. What really killed her was the two lucky shots he fired after being flung away. He could notice one of the lodged inside her neck. From the angle, however, he could only guess it must’ve ricocheted after hitting her prosthetic jaws.
He pried out the three chips and money shard slotted on her neck. After some hesitation, Ken took the interface plug from his left hand and connected it on her neck.
As expected, there was still some energy left on the system. Ken quickly accessed the contacts, copied them to D’s channel and tried to find anything related to him.
Good news, he found why the now dead Elena Gomez was after him.
Bad news?
Someone wanted him dead.
The content of the gig itself most likely went over holo-call as he couldn’t find any more data.
And the power died off very soon after he connected. Unless he had dedicated to tools, it would be impossible for him to extract any more data.
“Now, what do I do with this?” Honestly, he had no idea how to handle corpses. If he informed Gin she could take care of it for him, he would even get paid. But with her criminal record, the possibility of her memory being extracted was high. He couldn’t risk his secret.
He could pulp her brain and dump the body in a dumpster. He did hear mercs doing that often. It was so common that they didn’t make it to the news unless they were a bigshot.
Ken suddenly thought of the looting functions in the game. You just kill, the body disappears in light, leaving an item or two. “How convenient. If only my system had something like that too–”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lootable items detected. Loot?
→ Yes / No
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ken gulped. “Fuck, it really was there... What is happening with my life?!”
It was becoming more and more like a game and less like real life. Then again, after killing a gonk, not taking their belongings meant you suffered a loss, whether it was the bullets used, chrome maintanence, every cost eddies.
“Fuck it ...yes.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Available Loot:
Mantis Blade
Projectile Launch System (damaged)
Brain Dance Chip
Kiroshi Standard Mk.III (Custom)
Zetatech Syn-Lungs Mk.I
→ Confirm
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“...Everything?” Ken tried.
He tapped Mantis Blade, and a checkmark appeared. He tapped Projectile Launch System, the same Brain Dance Chip. Kiroshi Standard Mk.III (Custom). Zetatech Syn-Lungs Mk.I.
Every option accepted his selection.
However, he also realized not everything appeared as loot.
Skull Plating was missing. Jaw Reinforcement too. If the woman had a Braindance chip, she should’ve had a recorder as well, yet the recorder wasn’t listed either.
Ken confirmed.
Instantly, the still warm corpse began to disintegrate at a visible pace, including her clothes. In a matter of moments, all that remained of the corpse was the loot Ken selected and a thick layer of faint crimson dust.
A wave of fatigue washed over Ken. His legs weakened for just a second. It felt strangely familiar.
Like skipping food for a day and running everywhere.
“...What the...” The feeling disappeared almost as quickly as it came. Looting clearly consumed something.
Just... a glance said not HP.
The 28 boxes didn’t feel a lot anymore.
Ken looked at the chips and shard on his hand. He wouldn’t chip them on without checking what they were. They also went in his inventory.
A new notification popped up.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Transfer Balance to Inventory?
→ Transfer All / Select Amount / No
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“What’s this about?” Ken suddenly thought of something. He glanced at the [Balance: 0] at the right corner of his inventory and the Money Shard he just deposited.
“Holy shit!”
Money-shard thieves weren’t uncommon in Night City. If you weren’t careful, they’d crack your shard and clean it out.
Security existed, but nothing a skilled enough techie couldn’t bypass. And even then, you'd have to trust whoever cracked it to tell you how much had actually been inside.
“No, Ken. Chill, it doesn’t change things that much.” Ken reasoned himself as he transferred the whole amount to his inventory.
[Balance: 1268 E$]
“Cool! Now, transfer it to my money shard.” Ken thought out loudly but it didn’t work as he expected.
With some hesitation he took out his own shard and placed it inside the inventory. Once again, the same pop-up came up. He dismissed it and tried again.
This time a new window popped up.
Ken transferred the whole balance to his shard and slotted it back.
“Damn! The money came in my shard without even any record!” The happiness practically evaporated all the pain from bad sleep and the stress of handling a corpse.
Ken ran the shower with blood-mode to wash away any signs. Yeah, it was an option you would practically find in almost any washroom in Night City.
That day, Ken bought a Monthly Cafeteria Pass for 3600 eddies. It allowed him to eat at the cafeteria’s first floor for a month and 40% discount on the second floor.
As he read a DataShard book in the library called, “CC: Cyberware & Compatibility,” he realized he could actually go into Sandy mode and finish reading faster. Since he wouldn’t be physically moving, other people had no way of finding out his secret.
He also took the chance to record if RCD was different if he moved during Sandevistan time and stayed still.
After that he joined the people in the Game Club.
Among the five games he made with the daemons last time, only one of them triggered [Gaming Supremacy], even then, the concentration and understanding level didn’t reach 1/10th of what he experienced previously.
He had hoped to luck out with a survival game. However, he found around 20 members deeply engaged in an old-era multiplayer game.
“Hey, Ken, why don’t you join us too? This one is seriously great!” Chen Zhi, the senior who introduced the daemon last time, invited him.
“I would really like to, but I didn’t bring my laptop...” and he doubted it would run on his 28th Gen Laptop.
“We have a few old laptops around here, you can use that. This game just gets better with more players!”
The ‘old laptop’ Chen handed him was a 42nd Gen Arasaka SecureBook.
Truly, how comparisons work.
It took Ken 6 minutes to download and set up the game, and another few minutes before he set up his character and joined them.
And the moment he joined? He jolted. Ken knew he was in the game.
However, this time there was no tunnel vision. He was more aware of his surroundings than normal.
“Quick, inta-plug to join the com channel.” Chen instructed among his heavy keyboard pressing.
Ken followed with a swift motion.
<Black_Sword: Join my party.> It was Chen Zhi’s voice.
<Ken_M: How do I join?> Ken couldn’t see any option for that.
<Black_Sword: I just sent you an invite, join and follow my direction on the mini-map! Don’t skip the tutorial! Follow as you complete the tut!>
<Ken_M: Got it!>
Ken clicked on the [Accept Invitation].
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
You have grouped with chooms:
Chen Ri Sen
Albert Erry
Quinn Smith
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Party Member Chen Ri Sen is not linked with RED Framework.
Link now? → Yes / No
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Party Member Albert Erry is not linked with RED Framework.
Link now? → Yes / No
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Party Member Quinn Smith is not linked with RED Framework.
Link now? → Yes / No
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
<Ken_M: Fuck! It was a multiplayer game!>
<Black_Sword: What do you mean? I told you, right?>
<Ken_M: R-right! It’s awesome!>
/ / /
The gaming session had been intense. If it wasn’t because they had to clear before the academy gate closed, Ken assumed they would still be playing.
Finally free from all the prying eyes, he pulled up the party page.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Party 1
Ken Martinez Lv. 1 / 68%
Chen Ri Sen / 97%
Albert Erry / 98%
Quinn Smith / 97%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ken hadn’t disbanded the party when the notification to do so popped up, as Chen Zhi–or Chen Ri Sen–disbanded the in-game party. Since he sat just beside the latter, Ken kept an eye on the guy. However, he didn’t show any odd reaction.
‘Either they really couldn’t see it, or hid it very well like Chen Zhi did.’ As for why he used a fake name to enter Arasaka Academy, he couldn’t care much. Not that any half-assed forged identity could get past the big ‘Saka, Ken knew that much.
Whether the guy was a corporate spy or some illegitimate Arasaka child, Ken had nothing to do with it.
Still he had to keep an eye on those guys if they were able to see this window.
After all, only his name had a Lv. and compared to everyone else’s, it was too eye-catching.
As he boarded the NCART, Ken silently commanded, ‘Disband Party.’
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Disband Party 1?
→ Yes / No
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ken mentally thought ‘no’ and tried once again.
‘Disband Party 1.’
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Party 1 disbanded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Then, there was the log. However, unlike the game where it showed party log and contributions, his log showed every system notification or page he ever accessed on it.
It also came in a blue window, meaning it was his own system log and not the RED Framework.
Not that he understood the difference between the two yet.
‘If only I could use an in-game name like Ken_M like I used earlier.’
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Set Ken_M as your RED Framework Alias?
Note: Alias can only be set once per Framework.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
‘I should really start thinking about whatever, but let’s decide on the alias later on.’
Just then.
<D: Gin?>
<Gin: D. Another gig, check the location.>
He frowned. The pickup for delivery was the same engine grandpa. More importantly, there was a gang hideout around the area and he almost died.
<D: I will take the day off. Have some loose ends to take care of.> He cut the line immediately.
He had yet to go through Elena Gomez’s BD chip, maybe he could find about the people who wanted him dead.
Ken slotted the chip on the wreath and put it on his head. Honestly, the bed in the cubicle was uncomfortable. Soon, the wreath flickered to life with a blinding white and darkness swallowed him whole.
/ / /
“Kid has gotten some black info on one of our meatwagons. The guy is a bit weak of heart and can’t seem to concentrate on getting more chromes for us. Remove him.”
“A young man? Isn’t he mostly meat? I will have fun with him.” Gomez eyed the injured boy’s image on the picture and licked her lips.
‘A little mule, ha. Or is it another wannabe edgerunner? Last night’s supper was great! My favorite pizza in a long time–This gig just keeps getting better.’ She licked her lips and thought with amusement.
“Entering such an abandoned building? You’re just making it easy for me to have fun with you.”
‘Huh, what is he doing there, let me zoom.
‘Did the bag just disappear?! No how is that possible– It just came back and disappeared once again. How?!’ all sorts of thoughts flashed through her head. Even in her imagination she never entertained such a ridiculous possibility.
‘Am I really going cyberpsycho like that quack was saying. No! I can’t let the boy survive–I can’t kill him. How will I know which chrome gives him the ability to do that? How is he doing it?! –eh?! My sweet lover...’
“Huff-huff-huff!” Ken forcefully tore off the wreath sitting on his head.
{Alternate Titles: Spoils of the Dead; The Cost of Loot; Inventory Balance; Money Shards; No Corpse, No Evidence; A Better Way to Read; The Party System; Unexpected Party; Corporate Spy?; Into the Braindance;}