I grumbled as I broke down another piece of broken scrap metal watching as it disappeared into thin air as the raw materials were sucked into my inventory as it was being broken down by my Salvage skill.
'Slow and steady. Slow and steady. Just think of this as a game like Viscera Janitor Simulator.' I reminded myself mentally as I dealt with the frustration of doing repetitive manual labor endlessly.
Cleaning the back alleyways of the city was just not working, the concentration of pests were too low compared to the insides of the megabuildings, and if I kept killing off the gang members hanging around there I would eventually start attracting attention I was not yet ready for. A sweep of the city's sewers while extremely rewarding, due to all the pests and super pests that counted as small animals, had the same problem as the megabuildings. They could not be repeatedly farmed in quick succession. I had to leave the some alive so they could repopulate for another harvest. Something which I had mistakenly NOT done with the megabuildings with my much too thorough scrubbings. That meant I had to find a new place to farm experience.
Location? The Night City Junkyards, a junkyard that spanned the horizon for miles, filled with literal mountains of junk. Over 50 years worth of materials being dumped without care and a absolute cesspit for breeding of endless amounts of pests. The smell was indescribable, a potent blend of chemicals, metals, and biological materials all fermenting for years under the sun, the sheer amount of disease present would make this a really bad place to get cut in. All of which made this the perfect spot for me.
I methodically, repeatedly proceeded to in order clean the area in front of me, killing anything small living inside for experience, break down the junk with Salvage, absorb the materials, then kill whatever small animals too big for my Cleaning skill to automatically eradicate for additional experience. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Hour after Hour. Day after Day. Week after Week. I recycled, I exterminated, endlessly repeating except for when I have to make my daily cleaning circuit around the city's megabuildings and buying supplies on the same trip.
I watched as my skills slowly returned to me one by one, each one taking longer and longer than the last, my perk list getting longer and longer with every check. My curse still there, my system still broken. I clean, I kill, I recycle.
As I got rid of the latest batch of trash and super pests I looked up, cocking my head to the side. I heard the distinct sound of a car approaching. Now normally it would not attract my attention except for one thing. It was past midnight, and no one came here so late at night and I mean no one. Not one person has been seen here passed midnight in the weeks I have been salvaging here. Did someone finally decide to come and investigate the disappearing mountains of trash? No, despite weeks of constant work, there were still a LOT of trash, with no one here frequent enough to possibly notice the difference.
So only other plausible thought is that it must be some kind of criminal activity. Guess I got some free exp coming my way. Why not? I could use a break right now.
Silently I traversed to the top of the tallest junk pile and pulled a metal box over my body, disguising myself as just another piece of junk among many. Scanning the junkyard and listening I quickly see the car that is approaching by the illumination from its headlights.
As luck would have it it proceeded to turn onto the dirt path that led to the newly made trash free valley that I had cleared out. I watched as a fancy looking future cadillac appeared down the road and stopped at the end of the trail. Out from the car stepped two men. One your stereotypical bodyguard looking dude, tall white man, all muscles and big frame with sunglasses. The other, whew, he looked like he needed to lay off the buffet, a black man with dreadlocks, a huge gut, and a golden cybernetic arm. The fat guy ordered the bodyguard to hurry up and the guy proceeded to pop the trunk and pull out a dead body. Guess this was just a getting rid of evidence thing then.
It's time like this that I missed my Observe skill so I could find out more about people without having to do things manually. I really wanted to the know what the deal is with these guys before I killed them in case I am missing a opportunity by just killing them. Sigh, oh well.
I looked on as the bodyguard dumped the body on a random patch of junk and proceeded to drag a bunch of more junk over the body hiding it. Well, looks like nothing else is going to happen so might as well kill them now.
I removed the box from me and jumped silently over and behind the fat guy before proceeding to Rip his head clean off his shoulder in one smooth motion, dropping the head in my inventory in case there was a bounty on him, as Night City Police Department regularly assigned bounties on people due to their lack of people to police the city themselves without bounty hunter help. I then dashed towards the bodyguard who saw me too late to do anything before his head was taken off as well.
A quick looting of the bodies netted me with some eddies and weapons but not much else. I turned towards the hidden body and strolled on over to take a look, maybe the body wasn't looted, they did look to be in a bit of a rush after all. Recycling the junk cover the body revealed a surprise. It looked like a corpse of a corporate, or corpo in Night City slang. Guy was wearing a suit, had a head of black slicked back hair and minimally expressive cybernetics. Man, no wonder those two were in a hurry, killing a corpo usually drew the attention of the corporation that owned them, and for what seemed like two Night City small timers that was basically a death sentence.
I knelt down and began rummaging through the guy's pockets to see if he had anything, nope looks like he was cleaned out. Looking at the guy's face I saw a bullet wound in his head, judging by the entry angle it was execution shot. Strange.
Looking down at the guy's face I jolted back in shock as the guy's eyes opened, he was alive! Not for long since he had a bullet in his head, unless he got to a doctor quick. I paused as an idea came to mind. I needed connections, and a guy being saved from the literal edge of death does tend to be extremely grateful, and said guy being a corpo does mean he should have connections of his own. Looking down at the visibly flagging man I felt a wide grin form on my face as I spoke with a whimsical tone of voice.
"Well, it's your lucky day, pal~"