Cyberpunk: Nirvana of Shoko Toyokawa

"Oh~"

In front, Miao Meng, who got off the bus earlier than Xiangzi, was already looking around.

What Miao Meng was looking at was a whole row of townhouses that were gradually emerging in the morning sunlight.

Should you say it is a "building" or a "box"?

These buildings, which seemed to have been lifted directly from the container area of ​​the industrial zone by crane, were neatly and tightly put together. Each one was exactly ten stories high.

The building has a grayish-white exterior. It is very new, and obviously just completed a few years ago. Judging from the structure of the building, it is more neat than the shantytowns in Pastel*Palettes, the farms outside the Afterglow area, and even the outermost apartments in the Roselia area.

But the surrounding environment is much worse.

Outside all the "boxes", various illegal platforms were installed. Those platforms were like parasitic plants growing out of towering trees in a steel jungle.

The road around us was bumpy and uneven. It had just rained and the ground was very muddy.

Poor drainage.

The puddles reflected the sky and the "parasitic plants" reaching toward the sky.

This gives the place a modern yet primitive feel.

"Morfonica's low-rent area is always like this no matter when you come here~"

Miao Meng looked forward and smiled.

"The building environment feels super dangerous. You can see that a cyber-psychopath will jump out from a corner and say 'Wow!'"

"It seems to be better recently." Hai Ling came up from the side and said, "When I came here on a mission before, it didn't feel so quiet."

"You call this quiet?"

Miao Meng glanced at the noise reduction index of the image on his retina.

The noise reduction was turned up to the maximum, but I could still hear the humming of music, the sound of the hammer drill, human voices and vehicles.

It is simply impossible to imagine that this is the sound environment that should be present in the early morning.

The loudest thing was the music. There were at least a hundred different songs mixed together, all turned up louder to drown out each other.

"When I came here on a mission last year, someone drove a bulldozer that had been modified with the Sternmeyer SMG21 and collided with it on the road," said Hai Ling.

"...Is this the Cyber ​​Psychiatric Asylum?" Even Miao Meng couldn't help but be surprised. "Oh my god! I was thinking about living here permanently before-"

Tread, step.

"Planning controls in the Morfonica area are not in place."

Xiangzi said.

She walked forward, past the two people who were talking.

“Because they were in a hurry when they moved into [Phase 1 of Reclamation New Land],” she said, “In many places, the best time to control them had been missed, and bandits had entered.”

Bandits...

This is also what Xiangzi is worried about.

[Phase 2 of Reclamation Land] Now it seems that it will become like that... ?

Xiangzi absolutely doesn't want this to happen.

"Morfonica lost control of the bandits in his territory, so many areas could not be successfully connected to the BCPD's riot warning test system." Hailing said, "This created a vicious cycle, making the situation worse."

"However, precisely because there are bandits in this area, the cheap rental housing in Morfonica is really cheap!" Miao Meng laughed, "Almost all people without money come to live here!"

"..."

Xiangzi, who was standing by, frowned.

"Prepare for the mission."

she says.

Xiangzi's golden prosthetic eye flashed.

Miao Meng's red eyes and Hai Ling's green eyes flashed at the same time.

The task status was shared with everyone.

……

[Mission Target: Gui]

[Task content: "Assisting" the relocation of nail households]

【Location: Room 701, “Danchi”】

[Task requirements: vacant houses]

[Target status: unknown]

……

The process is almost the same as the task that the Ave Mujica team took over before.

"Invade ordinary people's houses! My favorite mission!" Miao Meng spread his hands and said, "No funds, no prosthetics, no weapons, no defenses! Knock on the door, [electromagnetic short circuit], pick up and run - complete it quickly, and make money quickly!"

“It’s better to live in a cheap building like this—it’s simple and quick!”

"Will it be so smooth?"

Hai Ling asked.

"Oh my! This is how missions work!" Miao Meng said, "How can you say things won't go smoothly before the battle begins? You have to tell yourself 'it will go smoothly, it will go smoothly, it will be simple and quick', and then when you actually take action, you will really feel that it will go smoothly!"

"Yeah."

As they were talking, the three of them walked into the corridor.

They climbed all the way up.

At first, it looked like an ordinary corridor.

Some residents were chatting downstairs, and ordinary people were coming in and out.

But gradually, some unusual situations emerged.

5th floor.

"……Um?"

Deep in the corridor, there was the sound of gunfire.

There were a few thugs with assault rifles and shotguns moving around the end of the hallway and through the rooms.

"Will people with assault rifles and shotguns enter ordinary residential buildings?" Hai Ling asked.

"Uh... maybe... there's a team of mercenaries living here?"

Miao Meng said.

The three of them went up one more floor.

6th floor.

Deep below the ground, the artificial eye scanned many gasoline barrels.

"Would ordinary people place so many gasoline barrels in their residential buildings?" Hai Ling asked again.

"Maybe they are going to [Phase 2 of Reclamation Land] as well!" Miao Meng said, "They know that gasoline is hard to get there, so they prepared it in advance--"

7th floor.

The bandit guard in leather jacket stood at the stairs holding a submachine gun.

They glanced at Xiangzi, Hailing and Miaomeng who were walking up.

"..."

"Sorry, we took the wrong staircase."

Xiangzi raised his hand and said.

Chapter 231: The only choice is to use the ultimate weapon

With the peripheral vision of his artificial eye, Xiangzi watched the opponent's alert status in the [Sound Pressure Analyzer] change from red [Extreme Alert!] to yellow [General Alert], and then disappeared completely. Xiangzi silently retreated from the stairs and returned to the first floor.

The three of them walked a long distance before finally stopping.

“…What’s going on!” Miao Meng turned around and shouted, “Hey, hey! Something is wrong since the 5th floor!”

“Is this really an ordinary nail house?” she shouted. “What kind of nails are these—nails from fragmentation mines? What are those things piled up in the corridors? When I scanned them, they were all red dots from thermal imaging!”

“It’s a markup indicator.”

Hai Ling said.

Xiangzi beside her didn't say anything, but was making a call on his computer.

chapped.

The communication is connected.

The upper left corner of the artificial eye lit up, showing the icon of [Murakami].

"Murakami," Shoko asked calmly, "Last time I asked you what your tenant in Room 701 of the Danchi did for a living, you said he was a programmer."

"…He logged in as a programmer."

Murakami said on the phone.

"I don't think programmers would share a house with gangsters in a public housing estate."

Xiangzi said.

"Then I don't understand." Murakami said, "You know, the housing situation here is very chaotic... Maybe my house was resold to the second or third hand? Who knows?"

"…The mission will continue?"

Xiangzi confirmed.

"I would like to continue with the execution," Murakami said. "After all, I don't want to just leave the property lying around."

"I understand."

Xiangzi said this and hung up the phone.

With a long "beep" sound, she exhaled the air in her lungs.

Unexpected mission situations arise.

The difficulty of the task increases.

Usually, when encountering such a situation, Xiangzi would ask the other party to resend the order to the middleman and let the middleman re-evaluate the task coefficient...

…let the middlemen increase their pay.

But this time, there is no need to reassess.

Because this middleman never told us what the reward was at the beginning!

"..."

Xiangzi rubbed his brows.

You'll know it as soon as you listen.

Murakami bought a house that was judged to be in a "dangerous area" in order to get a bargain.

After I got in, I found out it was difficult to rent a place, so I just rented it to a dangerous guy.

It is a difficult order to place when the payment is due and the money cannot be collected.

...If possible, Xiangzi really wanted to persuade Murakami - and individual entrepreneurs like Murakami - not to engage in such dangerous speculation.

If you don't buy it, there will be no troublesome eviction mission.

But... well. Just as many policemen would be out of work without criminals, the mercenary squads would have no work without the troublesome deportation missions...

In this sense, it is better to have

"The mission continues?"