An old tarp.
An item for striking at an enemy's blind spot by hiding under a tarp in the garbage truck's loading bed.
In the game it appeared as an item that could confuse enemies for one to five seconds.
It was an item that only worked in the early and middle stages.
Go into the mid-to-late stages and enemies equipped with thermal cameras, signal detectors and the like began to appear, making concealment difficult.
‘And with Daphne helping on top of that, the fight gets much easier.’
The garbage truck carried an autonomous driving system, and the autonomous driving system was fitted with all kinds of sensors.
Because a vehicle needs the ability to sense its surroundings in order to move without colliding with other objects.
The garbage truck was Lemming City property, and therefore Daphne, the City Public Service AI, could also access the truck's autonomous driving system freely.
Daphne took the environmental data the truck's autonomous driving system detected, turned it into a battlefield map, and transmitted it to Woojin's neural interface.
The 3D map floating before Woojin's eyes was exactly that.
‘Being a civil servant really is good.’
Even a bottom-rung civil servant could get truly great help by making good use of what he was given.
A benefit the unregistered, who had to crawl along the bottom of the city, could never dream of.
‘And the timing and the place are in my favor too.’
4:01 a.m.
A dim hour, with the sun not yet up.
Unregistered punk bastards didn't seem likely to be carrying thermal cameras either.
Good conditions for hiding in the dark.
The terrain and the enemy's deployment were extremely favorable to Woojin as well.
At least two of them he should be able to handle quietly.
‘The problem is the one with the prosthetic arms. There's no guarantee that bastard has only prosthetic arms.’
In a game the weak enemies come out in order, but this was reality.
There was a chance the one with the prosthetic arms, or someone else, was hiding a special weapon.
‘A martial arts implant doesn't show on the outside even when it's equipped.’
Woojin kept that in mind as he quietly moved his feet.
He gripped the dagger he had hung at his waist in his left hand and walked through the darkness quietly but quickly.
Even in thick-soled work boots, not a single footstep rang out.
The first enemy was hidden in the alley to the left of the garbage truck.
The bastard's role seemed to be attacking the truck's driver's seat.
He must have planned to open fire from behind once Woojin stepped down from the driver's seat.
Woojin circled quietly around behind the bastard.
Then he lunged as if wrapping him in an embrace from the back.
SQUELCH!
“……!”
He covered the mouth with his right hand and drove the dagger in his left deep into the neck.
He held the writhing body firmly and waited a moment.
When the strength drained out of the punk's body, he quietly laid the corpse down in the darkness.
―You have gained experience.
―[Dagger Technique] has risen to Level 2.
―You have acquired [Ambush (Level 1)].
Acquiring the [Ambush] skill made Woojin realize his own mistake.
He hadn't checked the trigger guard before making the surprise attack.
If the punk had had a finger inside the trigger guard, the gun might have discharged the instant he was killed and given away the ambush.
‘I got lucky.’
Woojin went straight for the second bastard.
To the stairwell of the building the punk had broken the shutter to get into.
The bastard was looking out the window, wavering.
“There's seriously nobody in the truck? Fuck. What are we supposed to do now?”
Those became his last words.
SQUELCH!
Woojin hid the limp corpse beneath the window and read the status window messages.
―You have gained experience.
―[Silent Movement] has risen to Level 3.
―[Dagger Technique] has risen to Level 3.
―[Ambush] has risen to Level 2.
―[Silent Movement], [Dagger Technique], and [Ambush] produce a synergy.
They were well-matched skills, so apparently there was a synergy effect.
Which was why he could kill two of them and still not be discovered.
Just then a voice came from outside the window.
“Everybody out! We need to search around the garbage truck!”
A change appeared on the 3D battlefield map.
The red dots hidden inside buildings and in alleys began crawling out one by one.
Perhaps because of the situation being hard to understand, the punks were bunching up around the square dot.
The square dot, in other words the bastard with prosthetic arms on both arms, was clearly the punks' leader.
‘An opportunity.’
An opportunity to sweep the enemies away all at once.
Woojin slipped out of the building nimbly and quietly.
Then he pressed himself flat against the garbage truck and closed on the enemy.
The punks' voices reached him.
“Everybody out? Why aren't Hiu and Tiem coming out!”
“Weren't they both hiding on the same side?”
“Over there?”
“Hiu! Tiem! Come out already! Somebody try contacting them.”
The punk bastards were beginning to grasp the situation too.
The longer time passed, the more the situation would turn against Woojin.
Woojin immediately murmured in a low voice.
“Daphne. Turn on the truck's rear lights.”
<Yes.>
Red light suddenly came on in the dim night street.
And it even blinked on and off.
It was a strange garbage truck that had driven up without a cleaner.
The punks, already on edge, couldn't help turning their heads on instinct.
Aiming for exactly that gap, Woojin burst out quietly from behind the garbage truck.
Without a word he leveled the submachine gun and pulled the trigger.
BRRRRRRRRRRT—!
The dawn alley was blanketed in the roar.
Muzzle flash flickered and brass casings poured out.
The punks, who had had their backs turned, screamed and dropped like puppets with their strings cut.
The 50-round magazine was emptied clean.
The sharp smell of gunpowder registered belatedly.
―You have gained experience.
―You have gained experience.
…….
―You have leveled up.
―Current Level : 7
―[Ambush] has risen to Level 3.
“Oh, fuck!”
Five of the six punks died instantly on the spot.
But sure enough, the bastard who had replaced both arms with prosthetics seemed to have had something more hidden.
Despite taking several bullets he didn't go down, and instead bent low and used a comrade's corpse as a shield.
And the instant Woojin went to change magazines, he burst forward.
<Officer Woojin. It appears the opponent is wearing a protective suit!>
Woojin saw it too.
Through the torn trousers of the prosthetic punk, black fabric was visible.
That could only be a protective suit.
Protective suit.
A full-body skintight suit made of ultra-high-molecular fiber.
Ballistic pads were attached to it, providing whole-body protection against gunfire.
The upper-grade item to body armor.
Lemming City's full plate armor, you might call it.
The 9mm rounds of Woojin's submachine gun naturally couldn't punch through it.
So what should he use to break it?
‘Close quarters!’
Woojin had no other option.
The enemy had closed right in front of him and was throwing a punch.
Woojin reflexively crossed his arms to block the attack.
It was a mistake.
THWACK!
A dull pain traveled through his left arm.
Almost simultaneously a fist landed on the right side of his face.
Then his left flank.
And then his lower abdomen.
THP-THP-THP—!
Woojin staggered backward under the attacks that came in succession.
He spread his legs and held with both arms crossed.
His head rang and his vision shook.
CLANG—!
He managed to swing the dagger, but it was blocked by the steel prosthetic arm.
Woojin gave two more steps of ground.
“So this is a martial art…….”
Woojin couldn't read the enemy's attacks at all.
He couldn't even react.
Woojin had [Dirty Brawling] at Level 1 and [Dagger Technique] at Level 3, but they were of little help.
Come to think of it, that was only natural.
It was the difference between defensive skills he had produced instinctively, leaning on the trait [Inexplicable], and combat techniques someone had systematically established with time and effort.
At the level of [Dirty Brawling] and [Dagger Technique], you couldn't face a real martial art.
To Woojin it felt as vast as the gap between heaven and earth.
Even though the punk was surely using some paltry Tier 1 martial arts implant.
But Woojin had skills that helped as well.
[Diamond Qigong] at Level 4, which let him endure the enemy's attacks, and [Observation] at Level 2.
And above all, the most powerful weapon Woojin possessed.
The trait [Inexplicable].
―[Observation] rises to Level 3.
THWACK-THWACK-THWACK-THWACK-THWACK—!
While blocking the steel fists, and while taking them, Woojin doggedly observed the enemy's movements.
And then the rules behind the attacks, which at first had seemed impossible to make out, began to come into view.
The gulf in level he had thought was as wide as heaven and earth narrowed rapidly.
It wasn't that the opponent had come down; Woojin had soared.
―You have learned [Incomplete Black Snake Fist (Level 0)].
‘So just facing a martial artist lets me grasp and learn the opponent's skill.’
With the [Observation] skill alone it would have been impossible.
A result made possible because [Observation] and [Inexplicable] had come together.
If Woojin invested a skill point into [Incomplete Black Snake Fist (Level 0)] now, he could get a complete Level 1 [Black Snake Fist].
Then he might be able to fight the opponent on even terms.
‘But skill points are too precious to spend on a bottom-grade martial art.’
THP-THP-THP—!
A steel fist grazed Woojin's left forearm.
Woojin's right fist knocked the enemy's attack aside.
He let the follow-up attack slide past along his flank.
Thanks to gaining [Incomplete Black Snake Fist], the shape of the fight changed.
Though he did still have to take the punk's fourth attack.
“Hup!”
“You bastard……!”
Tension flickered in the punk's eyes.
The bastard seemed to have noticed that something had changed in that last exchange.
CLACK!
In that moment, blades sprouted from the punk's two prosthetic arms.
They weren't ordinary blades.
Twisting, misshapen blades that looked like they would tear flesh away with a mere graze.
‘I'll finish it with this! You damn cleaner bastard!’
The snake-like blades rushed at Woojin riding the forms of Black Snake Fist.
And landed precisely on the nape of Woojin's neck.
CLANG……!
A strange sound rang through the dawn alley.
A sound like metal striking metal hard.
“Huh?”
The prosthetic punk couldn't understand it.
A blade is supposed to bite into flesh.
That was the way of the world.
So why?
Surely not external arts?
A lowly cleaner had external arts of that level?
“Ah. I wanted to save this a bit longer.”
Woojin grinned and caught the blade with his bare hand.
His hand should have been cut, but the hand was unharmed.
“This……! Let go! Son of a bitch!”
The punk panicked and pulled his arm back.
But the blade extending from the prosthetic arm didn't budge an inch in Woojin's grip.
As if it were caught in an industrial press.
―Investing 5 skill points into [Diamond Qigong].
―[Diamond Qigong] has risen to Level 9.
“Haha.”
Even trying not to, Woojin found laughter spilling out of him.
As [Diamond Qigong]'s level rose, tremendous vitality and strength welled up inside Woojin's body.
The sense of omnipotence that power gave made his blood run hot.
And not only that.
Woojin could feel qi soaking into every part of his body.
The qi made his skin, muscle, and bone as hard as steel.
Not in a figurative sense.
A blade thrust with nothing but the power of a prosthetic, without even sword qi dwelling in it, could not pierce Woojin's skin.
Woojin had become that kind of being.
“Time to finish this.”
“You bastard!”
The punk attacked Woojin with his free left arm.
The snake-like blade stabbed at Woojin's cheek, his neck, his chest.
Woojin swatted the blade aside like a fly, then seized the punk's right prosthetic arm.
The very hand whose blade Woojin had caught a moment ago.
“No matter how I look at it I can't beat you with martial arts. So I'll just crush you with strength.”
“What……?”
Woojin grabbed the punk's prosthetic arm and slammed him down on the other side.
The punk drew a half circle and was driven into the asphalt.
SLAM!
A technique only possible with a grip that never lets the opponent escape and overwhelming physical strength.
In truth it barely deserved to be called a technique.
Woojin had simply grabbed hold of his opponent because he couldn't hope to match Black Snake Fist.
Once he had hold of him, [Diamond Qigong]'s monstrous physical ability could handle the rest.
SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM!
Woojin slammed the punk down five more times.
As easily as a certain movie's green monster.
The asphalt ground boomed like a drum, and the garbage strewn about the alley shuddered.
―You have gained experience.
―You have leveled up.
―Current Level : 8