In Lost City, requests are a means to resolve dirty work that can't rely on public authority.
In other words, they're almost inevitably illegal.
Instigating assault, theft, kidnapping, murder, hacking, and so on.
Not a single ordinary thing among them,
And the man before him was requesting a rescue.
"So you want me to save your sister?"
The man nodded with a haggard face at Dan's question.
"Yes. She's in danger."
"Hmm."
Dan crumpled the wrapper into a ball with his fist.
While organizing in his mind what he'd just heard.
"Your sister is what? BC? BHC? Some kind of editor?"
"A BH editor. Brain Holic. Don't tell me... you don't know?"
"Should I?"
"Ah, no, that's not what I..."
The man looked Dan up and down with a bewildered expression.
Then, as if suddenly realizing something, his eyes widened.
"...You don't have a neural socket. Are you a purist?"
"Purist? Ah, Family? No, I'm not Family? I chose Nomad."
"...?"
"What?"
Both men floated question marks above their heads, unable to grasp each other's meaning.
Dan knew nothing about anti-implant ideology,
And the man couldn't understand Dan's nonsensical talk.
That's because Dan's knowledge of this world was limited to the strategy guide he'd skimmed before starting the game.
He hadn't even bothered to read the story, finding it tedious.
Thus, with rock-bottom common sense limited to this world, he proudly asked:
"So what's this BH thing? Let's hear it."
"Oh. Well, that..."
Caught up in the atmosphere, the man stumbled through his explanation.
"BH is a technology that lets you indirectly experience others' experiences through neural transmission. Not just the five senses like sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste, but even the emotions felt by the subject are vividly transmitted."
Wow, there was such a thing?
Dan raised an eyebrow.
This really is an advanced world.
Being able to experience other people's experiences.
Wonder if anyone wants to try living like me?
Being abandoned in a game overnight.
"So BH is widely used as a positive element throughout society, like rehabilitating criminals or as educational material in various fields. Though that's not all..."
The man sighed.
Deeply, as if a part of his soul escaped with it.
"BH is also traded underground as an unethical, immoral tool pursuing only pleasure. Like a kind of snuff film."
Dan understood that immediately.
Nice way of saying experience, but it's practically possession technology, isn't it?
Without looking far, even in Korean where all sorts of crimes were rampant with deepfakes, let alone being able to reproduce all five senses and emotions...
Mm, further detailed explanation is omitted.
"My sister was an editor who produced things like construction site safety guidelines. Making people experience what accidents might happen to workers not wearing safety helmets. For someone like that to be making BH for a gang... She won't survive in her right mind."
While the man muttered in a trembling voice.
Dan was chewing the inside of his cheek with his arms crossed.
Should I do it? Should I not?
From the sound of it, it means going against a gang.
Meddling half-heartedly could make things complicated.
As his contemplation dragged on,
The man, who had been watching Dan's expression in silence, carefully opened his mouth.
"I'll pay as much as I can for the request fee."
"...!"
Dan's eyes went round.
That's right.
He hadn't asked the most important thing!
Being his first request, Dan didn't yet have a set price.
So he mentally estimated.
Should I say I'll do it for 100,000 credits?
No. In these situations, start by demanding 200,000 then pretend to give in and lower it...
"Would 2 million credits be enough? All in cash."
Pop.
For a moment, the power in Dan's head turned off.
After a while, his unconscious mind, fumbling to insert the fuse called reason, frantically pressed the calculator.
Meatball spaghetti is 2,000 credits so.
2 million means 1,000 servings of spaghetti.
Living luxuriously with three meals a day for 333 days.
With 0.3 days left to buy one more waffle.
"Leave it to me."
Dan, who had suddenly clasped the man's hand with both of his, shook it up and down.
==
Gang, gang group, gangster.
In other words, street mafias.
It might sound terrifying, but not necessarily so.
In Downtown, a gang was like a violence circle that could be born just from three thugs coming together, with dozens forming and disappearing daily.
Of course, there were several gangs powerful enough to control Downtown, but fortunately, Steel Hands wasn't in that class.
By name value alone, somewhere in the lower-middle ranks.
But they weren't to be underestimated.
True to their name, Steel Hands was a group of savage fighters with all members equipped with cyber arms.
Though to Dan, they were just lunatics who cut off perfectly good arms to replace them with steel ones.
Don't they know about cherishing the body given by parents?
What are they doing to their precious bodies received from their parents?
But Dan couldn't say much about this part.
His body wasn't inherited from parents.
It was merely a combination of stats, skills, and traits.
So Dan looked up at the night sky and thought.
If there was a being not understood even in this messed-up world, wouldn't it be himself?
Of course, this body might have an origin and corresponding background story, but to him who just woke up face-down in the gutter, it was like a dream.
Honestly, he wasn't interested either.
He didn't know anyone in reality.
As if he'd fallen from the sky,
Dan was Dan from the beginning.
Like all game characters typically are.
Alright. Enough.
Just got my mental state under control and here I go again.
Focus. It's my first request.
I'm now a proper Solo too.
Dan, forcibly shaking off the existential doubt that kept trying to deepen, patted his cheeks and hurried his steps.
Finally, he arrived at a club.
[STEEL NIGHT]
Under the gun-shaped LED neon sign with the name engraved, flashing like a bullet.
A guard with steel arms crossed looked Dan up and down.
"Hmm."
A fairly handsome face with tall height.
A man in his mid-twenties wearing a flight bomber jacket and jeans that suited him well,
With suspiciously well-defined lower body contours.
This much easily passes.
"...Go in."
Dan passed by the guard who jerked his chin.
Leaving behind a grumbling self-mutter of 'Damn he's huge,' he opened the door to find long stairs leading underground, accompanied by thumping noise.
Steel Night.
It's both a business establishment and hideout managed by Steel Hands.
The man had emphasized several times with a haggard face that his sister must be held captive here.
Jenny, was it?
Dan, recalling the name of the kidnapped BH editor in his mind, suddenly realized he had reached the bottom of the stairs and turned his head following the loud noise.
Simultaneously, his gray eyes took in the sight of flashing lights and people dancing beneath them.
"Oh."
Dan let out a small exclamation.
Seeing the crowd swaying in pleasure made it feel like he'd come to a different world.
What's this? Was I the only one struggling to survive all this time?
With thoughts of somehow losing half his life, Dan turned toward the counter.
Then casually said while unfolding crumpled bills from his chest:
"The cheapest one."
"..."
While the bartender collected the credits with a look that said 'what a beggar,' Dan sat on a backless round stool and turned 180 degrees.
One, two, three...
The club was spacious, but picking out gang members wasn't particularly difficult.
Just had to look for the odd ones out who weren't dancing and had cyber arms on both sides.
Thus Dan spotted 8 gang members in total.
And one of them was guarding an entrance that led somewhere.
That's it.
While Dan was inwardly certain, he heard something being set down behind him with a thud.
Turning his head, he saw a drink in an ice glass.
And the bartender's back as he turned away coldly.
"Really now."
Dan shrugged and grabbed the glass.
The cheap liquor he lightly sipped traveled down his throat, delivering a burning sensation.
"...Should've asked for cola."
Actually, Dan didn't like alcohol.
Because he always felt hungry the day after drinking.
The temporary hypoglycemia from insulin secretion was an unpleasant feeling he didn't want to seek out, having PTSD about hunger.
So Dan quietly put down his glass.
Then he got up from his chair and walked toward the bathroom, or more precisely, followed a gang member who passed by with his hands on his lower abdomen.
"Ugh. Did I eat something wrong?"
While the gang member who hurriedly chose a stall was frantically undoing his pants, Dan, who arrived at the bathroom right after, surveyed the surroundings.
In the silence, he saw a man shivering in front of a toilet, pulling up his belt.
"Phewww. Ah, I'm drunk. So drunk."
After confirming the man stumbling out of the bathroom with drunken self-talk, Dan locked the bolt behind him.
Then he walked to the stall where continuous popping sounds were coming from and pulled the door handle.
Wait. Why does this just open?
Dan, who had originally planned to tear off the door, frowned at finding the gang member sitting on the toilet through the door that opened without resistance.
"Damn it. Why didn't you close the door? I wasn't mentally prepared."
Between shins covered in leg hair, disgustedly averting his eyes from white underwear hanging like a hammock, the gang member who had been wearing a stupid expression until then belatedly shouted.
"Hey! You bastard! Close it right n-guhek!"
But Dan's kick was faster, instantly striking the gang member's face with his shoe sole, snapping his head back with a spray of blood.
"Get some sleep."
Dan said while closing the door.
Simultaneously, a subtle sense of fulfillment felt deep in his chest.
"...Perfect."
Dan clenched his fist.
As expected! I thought there'd be about one left!
Actually, Dan had a plan.
Taking on a gang alone - no matter how good the money, it couldn't outweigh his life, so he had his own reasons for accepting this request.
For example, leveling up.
Dan closed his eyes.
As he concentrated his mind,
His expanded consciousness illuminated the vast night sky.
And before his surely closed eyes, a constellation appeared twinkling.
The fist-shaped constellation starting from the first twinkle named [Fast Recovery].
Dan's achievement had left just one final point.
The result of rolling and rolling desperately for the past year, connecting the stars one by one.
The proficiency was almost full from dealing with the thugs yesterday and the XP received from the quest reward this morning.
He felt certain that taking down just one more would light up the darkened bean sprout head.
And now.
That one person had fallen on the bathroom toilet,
A beam of light connected straight through the nebula,
And thus the light awakened the final sleeping star.
It was the moment a new phrase arose in Dan's mind.
[Superhuman]
Dan opened his eyes as the group of stars that had finally formed a constellation shone brightly.
Feeling his body grown tougher and senses honed just as sharp.
"Shall we go?"
Dan walked out of the bathroom while cracking his neck left and right.
Then he steadily walked toward the gang member guarding that entrance.
His fist slowly clenching. The club's beats blaring chaotically seemed to presage what was about to unfold.