"Clang, clang, clang..."

With a series of crisp metal sounds, Yuki, a boy dragging a large pile of scrap behind him, ran cheerfully on the street and said to everyone he met: "I have a dad! I have a dad!"

The residents of Recycling Town mostly looked at this scene with a smile —— a smile of ridicule. Yuki's biological father died many years ago due to the invasion of lithium bacteria into the biological brain, leaving behind a woman and seven children.

To support her seven children, the woman had to sell her spine, cerebellum, and pons and exchange them for a construction machine. The reason why Recycling Town is called Recycling Town is because a garbage dump from the "Sublimation War" era was dug up here. The people in the whole town live off the resources of the garbage dump.

She no longer had the hands and feet to care for her children after becoming a construction machine. Among her seven children, four died of illness one after another, and one was taken away by the tax collector as a genetic tax to maintain the diversity of the human gene pool. The eldest son went to the city for life, leaving the younger son alone. He's always been bullied since childhood.

Most people have no interest in Yuki's new dad. Only a few children gave Yuki a careless push. Yuki's body fell to the ground, making a loud "clang" sound - this is the characteristic of cheap prosthetics.

"You bastard without a father, where is your father? Huh? Why don't you let us take a look?"

A big boy laughed loudly.

Yuki snorted and raised the head in his arms: "Look! This is my new father!"

This is a... very miserable head. His frontal bone had completely disappeared, and the edge of the metal skull was still twisted, as if it had been ravaged by a huge force. Inside is a charred black mass, which seems to be some melted residue, hard to think whether the biological brain is still there. He should have had a bionic epidermis before, but now there's only a metal shell, and his eyeballs are protected by metal eyelids. A chunk of the mandible is also missing.

The big boy was stunned for a moment, and then burst into loud laughter: "Ha ha ha ha! This is a freaking head! It matches you! Poor bastard."

"It's not a freaking head!" The boy was furious: "He's still alive! As long as you give him a little water, his eyeballs can still move!"

"Hilarious! A weird head! " Now the big kids didn't even have an interest in bullying Yuki. He laughed wildly and waved his hand, signaling Yuki to go away.

Yuki hugged that head... or half of the head, and quickly ran home.

He found the head deep in a garbage dump. He accidentally dug into a new soft area - it was some kind of buffer structure of the battleship. The polymeric nanoparticle buffer material was still valuable in this era. The head just lay there. He thought that this was relatively rare garbage, so he was happy for a while. But when he left the garbage heap, he accidentally dropped the head into a puddle of sewage.

Then, he saw its eyeballs move.

"I will fix you!" the boy said to the head: "Then I will have a father."

...

I...

The man had a dream, a dream about martial arts.

In the dream, the war is intense.

vector nozzle, steel sticks, destroyer-destructed blades, Vulcan cannons, and wireless signal receivers…

Each one of them is a great weapon that shocks the past and present.

Maneuver footwork, devil-vanquished staff, gun lock, and YúnLóng Hacking…

Each of these is an astonishing ryū of martial art.

--What ...

Consciousness returned to the body. He opened his eyes, and the world swayed in his eyes, all the scenery in fluctuation.

"Oh, Yuki... how can you soak this head in water? And put the copper sugar in it? You don't even have enough for yourself ..."

"Mom! Look! Look! His eyelids are moving!"

"It is?"

"So I'll have a new dad!"

"We can't keep this head ..."

"Mom!"

There seemed to be an argument.

Then there was the sound of a car pulling up.

"Okay, okay, I'm going to call the sheriff over to take a look."

Inexplicable conversation.

The man's thinking was difficult to sustain.

Once again, he fell into a deep sleep.

But this time, he had a nightmare.

Countless fists and palms exchanged blows. He could no longer remember the ryū he used.

And then ... a Cyber prosthetic body with a five-meter body ...

"Yawg..." the man said with anger.

"Is that your name?"

Surprisingly, another voice chimed in.

The man opened his eyes. It was a wrinkled face. The face seemed to be original, the upper part of the head had been replaced with machinery, and lens-like cylinders stood out of the eye sockets.

The man was a bit stunned, "Who are you?"

"The sheriff of Recycling Town." The old man smiled, "What are you? 'Yawg', is that your name?"

The man pondered for a moment. But surprisingly, the mind went blank.

"I'm ... I'm ..."

The man tried to shake his head. But he realized that he seemed to have only one head left. This realization startled the man. He answered, "It shouldn't be my name ... My name is not 'Yawg.'"

"But it was the first word you shouted after awakening." The sheriff mused for a moment, "Then, for the sake of convenience, it would be better to call you 'Yog'?"

The man hesitated for a moment, wanting to nod. But he realized that he couldn't nod now. "Then ... okay?"

Even though there was a voice deep inside shouting, reminding him that this name had a profound meaning ... was not his name, definitely. One should never forget this name even if he forgot himself ... but he couldn't figure out why.

Yuki jumped up, "Sheriff! Could my dad be a warrior from the old days? The super powerful kind!"

The man jumped in shock ... unfortunately, he couldn't. "I have a son?"

"No, no, no, he picked you up." The sheriff explained a few words, then said, "Dad and all that is this child's idea, he is somewhat lacking ... the necessary caring."

"Sheriff!" Youki stomped his foot, "You haven't said if it is or not!"

"Oh ... this landfill was unearthed fifty years ago. The 'Sublimation War', on the other hand, was even earlier. No brain cells can be able to live that long." The sheriff tried to explain a couple of things but realized that Youki couldn't understand at all, so he could only shake his head.

"Maybe it's the trash from the city a few months ago, right?" Outside the window, an unusually mechanical voice came in.

The sound was almost noisy, making the glass shaked. The man rolled his eyes and saw a truck parked outside the window ...

Should that vehicle be called a truck? The man did see the huge cargo hopper. But the front of the truck was so small that it couldn't possibly fit a human in it. On the front of the car, a camera was looking at him.

The man then realized that he ... or his head was lying on a bed with a large lamp set above his head. The lamp should have been brought by the sheriff, and its electric wire was plugged directly into the socket on the sheriff's neck.

The bed was facing the window.

"Yulia sold her spine, cerebellum, and pons to raise money for her child's treatment, then used the rest of the money to buy construction machinery." The mayor pointed to the door, "That earns a bit more than she used to, but she can't get into the house with a body like that, so she has to set up the room like this."

The man was somewhat dismayed.

He vaguely felt ... that humans shouldn't be like this. This wasn't how people were supposed to look.

Yuki looked at the sheriff expectantly. The sheriff thought for a moment, "Maybe he used to be something? Like an athlete?"

"Wow!" Yuki made a sound of surprise.

The men remained confused.

"Alright, thinking like that should be tiring, right?" The sheriff turned to the man and shook his head, "I've got another driver chip here that my grandson just replaced - I don't know what you've been through, but all of the equipment on the outside of your brain is burned up, only a few components left. It's a good thing your brain-machine barrier is so reliable ..." the sheriff put his hand on the top of the man's head, "I've cleaned you up a bit, and it seems like there are still a few working interfaces left, let me replace them for you."

The man then realized that he seemed to have only half a head, no tongue, and a transmitter wired directly into his mouth.

——Why can't you tell me earlier... Ouch!

An electrifying sensation.

[New device found]

[Necessary drivers being installed]

New signals ran among the nerves.

——This feeling ...

The man suddenly felt that his body was "alive".

The only body he had, suddenly came alive!

"Without the aid of the driver chip, it's hard for a biological brain to manage a prosthetic body. ... You got a pair of good eyes, maybe it's worth a lot of money. Why don't you consider selling it to me, I can get you a prosthetic body."

The man tried to shake his head again. "No, thank you for your kindness. But I think ... maybe my eyes hold clues about my past. I don't want to replace them yet."

The sheriff shook his head, "Then there are no free prosthetics ..."

Yuki jumped up, "I can go look in the trash!"

"Not so easy." The sheriff left with his hands behind his back and shaking his head.

Yuki jumped up, "BoringI can find ..."

"Enough!" Yulia's horn chirped solemnly. Yuki immediately stopped talking.

In the evening, Yuki wrapped his arms around the man's head and fell asleep.

Outside the window, Yulia's camera focused on the man. The man looks like he can't sleep at all.

——What is this "Yawg" thinking?

Yulia wondered. She didn't have much of the old-time woman's shyness. Her body was made of steel except her brain. With such a body, what need was there to be shy?

She only had one wish now, and that was to watch Yuki grow up, have a nice prosthetic body, and then ... and then ...

She couldn't imagine the further future.

This was why she hadn't been adamant about Yuki throwing away that head. Maybe the kid would be happier that way.

But there was no way their family would be able to buy another prosthetic body, not even cheaply. All the money was going to be used to replace Yuki with an adult prosthetic body. In a few years, Yuki's biological parts would exceed the maximum limit of the child prosthesis.

But adult prosthetics were expensive.

Sometimes Yulia wanted to sell her temporal and frontal lobes again. But she'd heard it said that people who sold their temporal and frontal lobes were no longer people but machines.

Becoming a machine was no big deal. But if she couldn't love Yuki anymore, could she still work?

Must save up the money quickly!

Hopefully, that head will be able to work soon!

Think of it as repaying Yuki for saving him.

The man also saw Yulia's eyes. Honestly, this kind of camera's "eyes" always made him feel a little uncomfortable, and he didn't know why.

And that's not all. Right now, the name "Yogurt" had temporarily become his pronoun. It made him feel very uncomfortable.

In the darkness, he was finally sure of one thing.

The real owner of the name "Yawg" was definitely, definitely, his rival.

An irreconcilable big rival.

——I am ... the one against...

——What was I fighting against...?