Chapter Two: Accidentally Entering a Gang Shootout Scene

In the alleyway of the abandoned town.

"Damn it! Those bastards actually tried to welsh on the deal! Fuck!" Tuck stomped violently on a corpse's head.

The scum had suddenly opened fire just a moment ago, gunning down two of his best men. If it hadn't been for his newly purchased reactive pistol—which had detected the combat state, automatically linked with his cybernetics to counterattack, and shattered the kneecaps of the five bastards across from him—he might have already been dismantled and sold for scrap-metal value.

Beside him, the newcomer, K-Ai, tried to pacify him: "Easy, Boss Tuck. Don't crush those optic implants. Who knows what kind of valuable data might be recorded in them?"

"If we didn't get the money, at least we still have the goods and we're still alive. Let's clean up these bodies; selling them will recoup at least some of the losses. It’s a waste to smash them up just to vent your anger."

Tuck’s cybernetic eye flashed red. He grabbed the newcomer by the throat and hoisted him into the air. "Who's in charge here, me or you? Since when did you start chirping away at me!"

K-Ai, well-versed in gang politics, realized Tuck’s behavior was abnormal. While trying to decipher the coded signals from Tuck’s flickering eye, he played along: "No, no, I was just..."

The other lieutenants nearby also sensed the anomaly. They turned in silence alongside Tuck and K-Ai, raising their weapons toward K-Ai—or rather, toward the target lurking behind him—as if to prove their loyalty.

Tuck sneered, "So many people have died today anyway; no one will care if one more pest bites the dust, don't you think?"

Through his thermal optics, the uninvited guest around the corner remained motionless, seemingly with no intention of leaving. The opponent was clearly a veteran of stealth; even at such close range, there was not a scent or a sound. It was fortunate that he never skimped on his cybernetics.

Tuck didn't know who the guy was, but if someone saw all this and didn't leave—insisting on getting their hands dirty—then they wouldn't be leaving at all.

In the next instant, he yanked the trigger, and the other three gunmen fired in unison.

However, Mo Wen had locked onto the trajectory of the bullets faster than they could.

He had not expected to stumble into a scenario reminiscent of a gangland double-cross. After eavesdropping and pondering the information conveyed by the term "optic implant," he certainly hadn't expected someone capable of shooting through walls. But death, which had clung to Mo Wen like a second skin, had long ago left an indelible mark on him, allowing him to clearly sense the approach of demise, while the strength he had accumulated to this point granted him the possibility of resistance.

As the bullets tore through the wall, Mo Wen charged from the corner where he had been hiding toward the gunmen.

Facing enemies who could easily detect him while he was in stealth and who were armed with firearms, Mo Wen had no way to run. His only chance was to kill them all.

The bullets chased his silhouette, but they didn't miss by a hair's breadth as they might in some works of fiction; these gunmen had predicted his movements almost instantly, adjusting their aim to converge into a net of fire. A total of four guns sealed off every direction—up, down, left, and right—in the shortest possible time.

But before the web of bullets could converge and turn Mo Wen into a sieve, he had already lunged forward, grabbing a corpse from the ground.

The hundred-kilogram body, modified with cybernetics, was swung with ease by Mo Wen, whose arm strength had already surpassed the limits of a normal human, and smashed into the enemies.

The gunmen did not hesitate; they didn't release their triggers, and to maintain the lethality of their fire net, they didn't step back a single inch.

The storm of metal followed its predetermined path, instantly shredding flesh and steel alike. Even as bits of gore splattered onto their optic lenses, it didn't cause them to falter in the slightest.

But this degree of interference was enough; it was exactly what Mo Wen wanted.

After diving to throw the body, he didn't rise. Instead, he curled his limbs tight, minimizing his target area. Pushing off with one hand, he propelled himself forward in a posture almost impossible for a human to achieve—let alone imagine—leaping over the blind spot in the fire net and grabbing the leg of the lead man.

Now, the tide had turned.

Mo Wen swung his makeshift weapon.

A human body was not a convenient tool, but with enough brute force, anything could be forced into service as a weapon.

K-Ai went flying the moment Tuck involuntarily let go of him. He stared blankly at Tuck—the man who had been gripping his throat a moment ago—who was now being swung like a club to smash into the other three lieutenants.

The fire net collapsed in an instant, and the gunmen's bodies were sent sprawling according to the laws of physics.

The curled-up humanoid monster suddenly unfurled. One hand reached for a lieutenant flying to the side, two fingers digging directly into his eye socket, dragging the body by its skull to swing it around, while the other hand violently yanked Boss Tuck back.

Before the remaining two could recover from the chaos to re-aim and pull their triggers, the two men held in the monster's grip were slammed down with a thunderous crash.

A pair of heads merged into one; a cybernetic leg was driven deep into a skull.

Three men were dead.

The lieutenant whose optic implant had been gouged out and whose leg had been severed finally had time to scream, but the sound lasted only an instant before the sickening crunch of a shattered skull cut it short.

What a thrilling battle, Mo Wen thought. If he had been struck by the bullets, even if he hadn't died, the difficulty of surviving afterward would have skyrocketed.

He lifted his foot, not paying much mind to the residue stuck to his shoe.

Killing and being killed were part of his daily routine; it was just that this time, he had killed some humanoid creatures. He could still distinguish between humanoid creatures and friendly humans, so he didn't bear much of a psychological burden.

Now, only one poor soul remained before him, one who had nearly been killed himself.

"Thud." K-Ai landed on the ground, face-first.

His nasal bridge seemed broken; amidst the sour ache and pain, blood and tears flowed together. He remembered how his bosses had looked after him, how they had naturally stepped in front of him during the transaction, and he could understand how Boss Tuck had used him as a meat shield and an excuse, only to let go suddenly rather than fight for his life.

First two went down, then all four were gone.

The gang leader might forgive those who survived, but K-Ai could barely accept reality. He was afraid to look back, as if by not looking, the scene he had just witnessed would be nothing more than a hallucination.

But Mo Wen had already reached his side, asking with concern, "Are you alright?"

K-Ai shivered, but he quickly calmed down.

He finally realized why Boss Tuck had once said that "Performance Behavioral Modules" and "Facial Expression Controllers" were such useful cybernetics for him. If he didn't have those implants, he would probably have gone insane and tried to attack this monster by now. Even if he tried to act like he held no hatred, his own acting skills wouldn't have been enough to pull it off.

"I-I'm fine. Thank you..." K-Ai struggled to stand, facing Mo Wen directly.

With the aid of his cybernetics, he wiped away his blood and tears, putting on an expression of someone who had just been saved. "Sincerely," he said, "If not for you, I might have been killed by them just now."

"I thought the gang was just... well, just a gang. Do a job for them, get some emergency cash. I didn't expect these lunatics to... sorry, I'm rambling."

"I won't hide it from you: they were in the middle of trading Life Pharmaceuticals' 'Resurrection Type-IV.' Twenty-four vials, all military-grade. Even if you're half-dead, these can bring you back. It's top-tier, black-market-only stuff that isn't sold on the open market."

"The briefcase is right there. Take it if you want. If you have the right connections, this stuff will fetch a high price."

Mo Wen tried to process the situation.

He didn't seem to have traveled to a post-apocalyptic era. Optic implants, corporations, gangs... he associated it all with "Cyberpunk."

A society where low-life and high-tech combined, where the social structure was filled with oppression and irrationality, where the government was nearly powerless or had simply vanished, replaced by corporations, and where money was the absolute priority.

If Mo Wen had traveled from his original world directly to this one, he would surely have thought it was terrible. But having fought through countless "hell-mode" scenarios—where he had died so many times he could have built a mountain out of his own corpses—being transported to a world like this made Mo Wen almost want to shed tears of joy.

Humans here could be exploited rather than killed randomly; it wasn't an empty, dead city, but a metropolis with a complete production system.

He could even get on the internet!

Mo Wen’s voice grew even gentler. "I'm a drifter. I haven't made any local friends, and I’m lost. If you're truly grateful, why don't you tell me how to move this cargo?"

"Besides, your gang won't let it slide once they find out you lost the goods. Maybe I can help you settle that."