Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 741, page 155: The Implication of a Warning
"compensation?!"

Carl's words stunned Slider, but what shocked him was not the fact that the nerves in the hands of the six subordinates affected by the battle had been reconnected—although such surgery was not easy, this level was only at the level of the medics accompanying the Terrorist Mobile Squad. If it were a professional medical team from a large company, it wouldn't be difficult to complete three surgeries in a minute. What truly made him find unbelievable was something else.

Karl, the supposedly ruthless guy, actually went out of his way to treat his men who were caught in the crossfire of the battle? And it seems he even said he was prepared to compensate for the prosthetic arm if the surgery failed?
This is completely beyond what we can understand about sliders.

In his world, subordinates are indeed valuable, but only because they can help him complete his work. If KK were to take action, even if he killed everyone, the slider could at most complain angrily. If KK showed displeasure, he wouldn't even dare to complain.

Rather, given KK's consistent style of doing things and the rumors about him, even if he really killed everyone, no one would be surprised.

But what happened? Not only did he not kill them, he actually performed nerve suturing surgery on them himself?

And all of this started merely as a consequence of his battle, and it was a casual move to eliminate the threat when his subordinates showed hostility. You could just grab anyone off the streets of Night City and not think you need to pay compensation at all. In fact, it would be a miracle if you didn't kill them. Leaving them alive would be a blessing.

To be fair, even if Sliding were to stand in KK's shoes, he wouldn't think it was a big deal that Karl affected his men during the battle, or that he accidentally or intentionally killed them. Yet KK, who shouldn't have cared at all, remembered this completely unnecessary matter, went to help afterward, and even planned to compensate him if he couldn't help.
This absurd move, which seemed to contradict the thinking of KK, or any normal Night City resident, immediately made Slide think of other possibilities.

He didn't think about how KK's moral standards were so high; instead, he thought about the rumors that had already spread widely in the city.

'Cyberpsychosis.'

Does KK have some kind of mental health issue?
"Ok?"

While washing his hands, Carl suddenly felt a strange sensation. He instinctively looked towards the source of the feeling and found the slider staring at him in disbelief, its face showing a hint of fear that the rumors were true.

"What are you looking at?"

Carl felt that the slider's gaze was a bit off, but the sticky feeling left on his hand after washing with a bottle of water made him uncomfortable: "Never mind, do you have any more water here, or a place to wash your hands? One bottle is definitely not enough."

"There are five bottles of water inside that thing on the left that looks like a computer case. That's a refrigerator, and there are some drinks inside too, if you don't mind."

For some reason, Slider, whose tone had unconsciously shifted to one of fear and respect towards Karl, quickly said, "If you don't mind, I left a portion of Bam in that computer case-shaped refrigerator. I was planning to eat it later. If you want it..."

"Baum? Baum cake, from Germany, a dessert known as the king of cakes. I never expected you to eat this."

Carl went to the refrigerator that the slider had mentioned, which was shaped like a computer case. He found a small groove on the 'case', reached out and pulled it open. Sure enough, a gust of cool air blew out, giving Carl a slight jolt.

Out of a sense of caution, Carl subconsciously analyzed the cool air using factors such as temperature and smell to determine if it was some kind of trap. But almost in a split second, he got the answer: nothing was wrong.

Carl had to admit that his increasingly sharp mind was a good thing. For example, he could now analyze things subconsciously, without needing to consciously observe them. He could basically tell what something was and whether it was harmful or harmless just by picking it up or smelling it. This was already quite remarkable; what level would he reach if he progressed further?
Such a thought flashed through his mind in an instant, but before he could focus on it, it sank to the bottom of the sea of ​​thoughts and disappeared. However, this subtle analysis and ripple of thought did not cause Karl to stop his actions in the slightest.

Whether in Kenichi Shiro's eyes or in Slito's 'eyes', he opened the refrigerator and took out the water with great ease.

Carl didn't think there was anything wrong with being quick-witted. Although it was sometimes difficult to concentrate on something, he had gotten used to it and could basically master it, unless he switched to a new access module, and one that was even better than the network monitoring network driver type 1.

However, such access modules are not available on the market at present. Even companies of the caliber of Arasaka and Military Technology cannot find many access modules that are better than this one internally. After all, in terms of access modules, there are very few that are better than Internet Monitoring.

After washing his hands, Karl happily ate the Baumkuchen, feeling rather rudely as he ate, and said, "Speaking of which, I originally came to find you, Sliding, to ask you to pass on a message to Mr. Kenichi Shiro, who is also here. But Mr. Kenichi Shiro himself came, so I don't need to pass on the message anymore. So you can help Mr. Kenichi Shiro, I'm fine."

As he said this, Carl noticed Kenichi Shiro's gaze on him. After hesitating, thinking, and struggling for a moment, he still broke off more than half of the Baumkuchen and handed it to Kenichi Shiro.

"Do you want some too, Mr. Kenichi Shiro? We were a bit tired from fighting, so it's normal to be hungry. Although this might be a little impolite to Haruko, this Baumkuchen might taste a little better than Haruko's, but it's not as good as Maki's."

"I will tell Haruko the truth."

Kenichi Shiro glanced at the Baumkuchen in Karl's hand, his gaze lingering on it twice before finally looking away, adopting a serious and earnest expression: "I don't accept foreign food casually."

"That's what they say, but the first time we went on a mission together, didn't we eat Jed's fried pork cutlet? Remember Jed? Jed from the logistics center? He's the manager now. You even praised how delicious it was back then. Do you, Mr. Kenichi Shiro, prefer meat? But we don't have any here."

"Shut up, Karl."

Kenichi Shiro turned to face the slider, and at that moment the slider, through the connected vision, saw a certain action that he had been hiding.

He was touching his stomach.

Are you hungry?

Just as the slider had this thought, his vision caught sight of a pair of eyes.

A pair of eyes staring directly into his vision, filled with a warning.

(End of this chapter)