Cyberpunk: From Dogville to Legend

Chapter 503 Street
"Arasaka, your home defense and security solution—"

"Everything is in Warsaw, everything is in Arasaka."

The holographic Kabuki, with his hands hanging down in front of him, spoke an advertising slogan with a mechanical, soft, and gentle quality.

The futuristic, all-black metropolis is filled with a dense array of bright white lights. The gaps between the buildings flow with light like veins, and the floating vehicles act as the city's platelets, connecting every part—

Behind these rows of buildings, the towering pagoda appears to look down upon all living beings, and indeed it does.

This is Warsaw.

A company's authority represents absolute authority in a city...

The bustling crowds are swallowed up by the neon lights. No matter who controls the city, there are always places that companies can't manage in the gutter. Warsaw's D district is a ailment in the eyes of companies. This area, which bears the burden of the superstructure's domestic waste and all kinds of malice, will never be peaceful.

Mommy Bar.

It has a cheesy name, cheesy songs, and cheesy drunkards with red noses who speak fluent Russian, but this is Warsaw’s reincarnation, only it’s more like a free market where no one can truly make these bastards bow down.

The girl with white hair and colorful accents wasn't exactly dressed conservatively; the high-end black jacket with its milky white shimmering material perfectly matched the ultimate concept of kitsch—they wanted this greasy feeling. If it weren't for the jacket covering her waist, there would probably be quite a few people looking up at her.

This girl is, of course, Lucy.

The smoke from the slender woman's cigarette blurred the light, and behind the smoke, a girl's downcast eyes chuckled maliciously.

"Little beauty..."

A group of men with ill intentions approached one after another, but the less the girl reacted, the less likely they were to get close. After all, this was the entrance to a bar... They remained somewhat sober. Everyone knew that in this place, alluring women and men were objects, and it wasn't worth getting involved with people who shouldn't be bothered with such trivial matters.

But there are always exceptions.

For example, Russians and Soviets who drank too much vodka, the kind of liquor that was mindlessly purified and poured into their stomachs, tasted almost exactly like the disinfectant from the Trauma Group (an international organization), which numbed their brains.

A drunk person may not be interested in matters of love and sex, but that doesn't stop him from showing off. Plus, his dizzy eyes naturally cast an unbelievable filter of beauty on women.

“Suka…”

"I made a killing, who the hell doesn't know I killed those Scandinavian dogs? Arakawa... screw Arakawa!!!"

"Do you know how much money that bitch has in her card? A full 50,000 euros! I'm the toughest guy in District D right now!! I can't keep getting any big orders, and I'm always running into trouble... Hahaha—uh?"

The girl, leaning against the streetlamp as if waiting for someone, paused for a moment as she brought the slender cigarette to her lips, and a faint chuckle seemed to echo around her.

When the group of Soviet Russians came out of the bar, people around them intentionally or unintentionally made some distance. Everyone knew that Makarov was now the most powerful guy in District D. Generally speaking, there were arrogant idiots every day, and most of them would die within a day or two. But Makarov was a completely different person when he was drunk and when he was sober.

For example, those brand-new, ruthless items gleamed on his body, their skin covered in high-tech metal. He crushed the heads of an entire security team from the Nordic company, causing some cleaners who had never seen anything like it to vomit on the spot.

Clearly, Maklov had noticed the girl at that moment.

"call…"

Lucy's hair was slightly lifted by the other person's breath, revealing the cysts and lines on his face, yet she still stared at him with droopy eyelids.

"What are you doing, little beauty? *hiccup*"

The smell of the spray on Lucy's face certainly wasn't pleasant, after all, there were other prohibited substances in the alcohol, and it had a real chemical stench. But Lucy looked at him for a long time and smiled gently.

"Maklov?"

The drunkard stared blankly, the woman's voice seemed to possess a magical power, its hoarseness tinged with a youthful tenderness that made his head spin.

"Ah, it seems you know how to get by in District D."

Maklov's large hand, still slightly agitated from being drunk, pressed down on Lucy's shoulder in an instant.

The people around looked on with a variety of expressions. Some were resentful that they hadn't tried it themselves, some stared at Lucy with disdainful smiles, and some gritted their teeth and cursed this "business stealer"...

“Be a gentleman, Makarov…at least, don’t treat a delicate lady like that.”

It's true that alcohol impairs judgment.

Lucy's body showed no sign of swaying, as if she were glued to the streetlight behind her.

Maklov listened to the advice; who wouldn't want to be more refined?

"Were you waiting for me, lovely lady?"

Makarov wanted to go further, his thick fingers attempting to grope Lucy's face, but the moment he reached out, the dazed Makarov froze...

The girl's soft hand gripped his prosthetic hand, remaining completely still.

Lucy turned her head slightly to throw away her cigarette butt, a smile appearing on her face. "To be precise, yes..."

Maklov tried to pull his hand away, only to find that his fingers were being gripped by some kind of iron clamp, and an unnatural red flush appeared on his drunken face.

"Maklov is such a common name."

"KongBU members would use this name, toilet cleaners would use this name, and even the bar next door sells food with this name... As a newcomer, I have to wait for the right person, right?"

A gasp of astonishment erupted from the surrounding crowd…

Who is this bastard? How dare he talk so arrogantly?
Maklov's alcohol-deprived mind finally began to function somewhat; a sliver of clarity returned to his dazed eyes, and his two companions behind him drew their guns just as quickly—

This is the street.

No one is stupid enough to act like a drunkard when things are going wrong; they should at least show some reaction, otherwise they would have been killed countless times over.

However, as Lucy's eerie, colored prosthetic eye watched Maklov's movements, circles of orange, barely perceptible threads had already somehow clung to Maklov's thick, projectile-launching arm.

Wow!

At the same time, a sudden burst of power!
The arm that Lucy was holding by one finger disintegrated instantly!

Various chunks exploded and scattered, splashing the surrounding onlookers with a thick, fishy red liquid. Among them, the guy with the prosthetic eye that protruded like a telescope felt a gentle touch on his face. He stuck out his tongue and licked the corner of his mouth, a rusty taste spreading wildly in his mouth!
"Oh ho ho!"

The guy suddenly let out an excited whistle.

At the same moment Maklov lost his arm, a shot rang out.

The bullet distorted the air, creating vacuum zones within the dense monomolecular lines. Lucy's lithe body slammed onto Maklov's thigh, which was forced to bend due to pain. Two extremely accurate shots instantly killed Maklov's longest-serving and most skilled soldier.

Maklov instinctively looked up and saw the girl who was standing on his shoulder, her hair tied up, smiling at him with narrowed eyes. He felt a chill run through him.

The feeling of something wrapped around his throat drove him so crazy that he wanted to reach out and grab it.

For some reason, the perspective began to tilt, and my eyes seemed to have been spinning for a long time as if they had hit some rolling device. Finally, I saw a girl holding strings in her hands stepping lightly off a body that was like a fountain, with its neck broken and its body swirling around.

She firmly grasped a shiny chip from mid-air.

In the last moment before Maklov closed his eyes, his brain was filled with error messages. All he heard was the strange girl whispering amidst the shouts of the bloodthirsty thugs around him, "Maklov, we've taken your order..." A heavy thud behind him brought Lucy back to her senses.

She clutched the chip in her hand, looked around at the people with bloodshot faces shouting, and shook her head slightly. Her gaze, however, was fixed on the dark area behind the pink neon lights of the Mama's Bar.

What happened next was no longer her concern.

So she stepped slightly to the side, lowered her head and whispered, "Boss."

The crowd's attention quickly locked onto a vintage car that had appeared out of nowhere on the roadside. A gaunt woman, dressed entirely in black, sat by the side of the car door; her hair, illuminated by the neon lights, was neither clearly pink nor white.

However, a leather shoe sticking out from the doorway kept these busybodies craning their necks to look at it.

The man, who was smiling with his eyes narrowed, had two completely different kinds of light in his eyes. He was wearing a suit that was out of place in the D district, and his appearance was completely unremarkable.

The entrance to Mama's Bar seemed to be invisible to this guy; he simply walked slowly inside, completely ignoring the malicious stares around him.

clack, clack...

The leather shoes made the perfect reflection in the puddle begin to blur. The gaunt woman standing by the car door didn't react at all, watching helplessly as someone in the crowd pulled out a knife and rushed towards the arrogant guy from a slow pace to a rapid one.

Crack!

The assassin, who hadn't yet charged out from the front of the crowd, suddenly convulsed. The crowd parted, and they discovered that the gaunt woman's nonchalant eyes were full of light.

hacker?!
Given the appalling environment of District D, anyone with even a basic understanding of networking would only be found in the slightly better areas to the east. Furthermore, due to Arasaka's absolute control over the network, any hacker who manages to survive in Warsaw is an extremely valuable individual…

To hire these online executioners, you need real power; even throwing money at them won't get you anywhere.

coming!

Another assassin looking to get revenge on the man behind Maklov!
This guy's speed was clearly different; his afterimages left the onlookers, whose expressions were quite animated, completely unaware, only making them feel a gentle breeze passing by...

This guy, whom the girl with the colored hair called "boss," showed no signs of modification. As long as S.A.S. assassins approached, the success rate was extremely high!

At the same time, a woman closer to the assassination target in the crowd growled and raised her gun. Sure enough, the hacker's attention was drawn to this woman. Everyone present with a high-precision prosthetic eye noticed that the mysterious man's hacker bodyguard had fallen for a diversionary tactic.

I am afraid…

Under the gaze of the slender woman, the woman who was raising her gun and growling missed her first shot, which landed right behind the mysterious man.

However, upon hearing the gunshot, the man only paused slightly before continuing forward.

The assassin concealed on Sianwistan's person rushed out of the crowd, his mantis blade gleaming with a sinister grin, seemingly oblivious to the man's presence...

The woman, who fired the first shot but missed, desperately raised the gun, shouting "No, no, no," and moved the muzzle to the side of her temple.

The woman, dressed in black and as thin as a bamboo pole, paused the moment she stopped twirling a single finger around her ear, and then she committed suicide…

Those around swallowed instinctively, and the crowd began to back away.

However, as the woman dies, little does she know that the mysterious man is also about to face a crisis…

"Go to hell, you bastard! You have no right to kill other people's dogs in District D!"

The mantis knife's downward crisscross slashes are almost never missed, and at the very moment the attack is about to strike, some spectators are already preparing to shout excitedly!
But... a sound of metal clashing echoed through the crowd, and the mysterious man stopped in his tracks.

His eerie eyes stared at the mantis knife, which was being stopped by a black arm. Beside him, a sweet-looking girl, as cute as a cat, chuckled and said in Russian, "How impatient you are, uncle."

The mantis knife-wielder reacted immediately, trying to use the momentum to retreat. However, the moment the girl's pink prosthetic eye suddenly lit up, the crowd erupted!

Or a hacker?!
The instant the cyberpsychosis was uploaded, the guy's blood-red, trembling prosthetic eye turned towards the crowd, including Lucy, who was holding the chip and waiting for the mysterious man to come and collect it...

"Mistake!"

The cat-like girl tried to salvage the situation, but Lucy had already made her move…

The instant the monomolecular thread wrapped around the mantis blade, Lucy used the simplest method to make the guy's entire body of prosthetics malfunction and kneel on the ground, his body covered in arcs of electricity that pierced the air...

The crowd began to retreat in panic.

Three hackers?!
In Sector D... no, when did Warsaw have so many hackers who would take orders from a boss?

How the hell is this possible...?

The black armor-like substance on the cat-like girl's arm began to melt rapidly. She winked and quickly stood behind the mysterious man. Everyone held their breath as they watched the guy, who showed no signs of making a move, walk up to Lucy and pick up the chip.

It most likely contains intelligence about the new commission that Maklov has taken on.

This is probably being pointed at...

Everyone looked into the Mama's Bar without prior arrangement.

Whoever Maklov works for, this mysterious guy is ready to cause trouble for them.

The noisy bar and its entrance were now completely silent, as everyone inside waited for the mysterious man to make his move.

The guy who had been examining the chip chuckled softly, "Thanks for your hard work."

He then turned around, picked up the chip, and asked a question that nearly made everyone around him spit out their saliva.

"So, does anyone know who Makarov's boss is?"

Everyone looked at each other, wondering what this evil dragon crossing the river was up to...

Lin Yue sighed slightly as he looked at the various gazes around him.

Warsaw is completely different from Night City. There are no legendary middlemen like Rogge in District D. Maklov's boss is very likely not the same person... That's why he asked that question, but now it seems to be useless.

So Lin Yue looked at the entrance of Mama's Bar. This bar was backed by a mountain of garbage and had only one entrance. The interior was complicated, and he had to think of a way to deal with his body, which had little fighting ability.

So he planned to burn the turtle; someone was bound to be unable to resist peeking out...

"Then we'll trouble you to get our friends out of there."

As they spoke, amidst the fearful gazes of those around them, the three young hackers gathered behind the mysterious man.

The ejection of the prosthetic body sent chills down everyone's spine.

Lin Yue stared silently at the extremely tacky door for a long time before revealing a meaningful smile.

"I overestimated you guys; you have so little self-control..."

……

……

(End of this chapter)