Chapter 1: Guilty (1)

Even when I looked up at the sky, I couldn’t see any stars.

I had to look down to see the light.

I was standing in the tallest building in the city, and there was no building that could meet my gaze.

When I turned my gaze to the business district, the ghosts of countless office workers who had yet to leave work were shining and illuminating the city.

It was late, but the lights had not yet gone out.

Perhaps they would not go out even after more time had passed.

Ironically, the employees of companies who were being overworked like dogs would be envied and jealous instead of pitied when walking down the street.

If I turned my gaze a little, I could see the entertainment district.

It felt so small that it was hard to see with the eyes of an ordinary person, but even those people could see the obscene and decadent lights.

I could see them buying cheap pleasures at a low price.

The only thing these people with no tomorrow or future could enjoy was the feeling of conquest, sucking each other’s bodies as entertainment.

Some of them were also struggling under drugs.

They were ugly, but there was no one on this street who wasn’t ugly.

The pleasure that drugs give is the cheapest, easiest, and fastest pleasure they can get.

People living in such places can find neither hope for the future nor happiness for today.

They cannot quit drugs even though they know how terribly they destroy their bodies and how disgusting and horrible the aftereffects are.

If you look a little closer, you can see the port.

You can see a few people, but what stands out more is the huge machine.

In order for manual laborers to prove their worth to companies, they had to continuously appeal how cheap and desperate they were.

If you turn your head slightly, you can see an industrial complex.

Automated machines move with a clanking sound.

The machines that run on human blood are constantly running with the noble goal of pursuing profit, at least to the businessmen, a noble goal.

If you look again, you can see apartments where people live.

These are not the ordinary apartments that I saw in Korea where people could live.

The slightly better apartments consist of one-room apartments that are a few pyeong in size.

Even worse apartments are built like cramped goshiwons.

The apartments are so bad that one person can’t even use the entire height of one floor.

The space allowed to residents is like a capsule, barely enough for a person to raise their upper body and lie down.

Management is poor, public safety is unstable, and the streets are filled with homeless people and trash, making it hard to find a place to set foot.

These are horrible residential facilities that people who think that the floor area ratio and building coverage ratio are better than nothing can create, making chicken coops seem more humane.

But even this isn’t the worst.

If you look around the outskirts of the city, you can see houses that are somehow in good condition.

It’s hard to find them right away because there’s no light, but it’s not that hard to see their structure with my eyes.

Even if they’re shabby shacks or shabby wooden houses, at least they have space for people to breathe.

However, the people living there probably look at the people in those chicken coop-like apartments with envy.

A small light flashes.

It’s a gun.

It is not safe just because the apartments are for the poor, but they are minimally managed.

Unless you are a skilled mercenary, a determined gangster, or a criminal with nothing to lose, you cannot shoot inside the apartments.

However, the outskirts of the city are literally a war zone.

It is a town where crimes are not even properly reported, and it is not strange to get shot while walking down the street.

You may be a little safer if you make connections with gangs, but even that safety is ridiculous.

If living in such an area without the protection of criminals is no different from shooting yourself in the head with a revolver, then those who are protected are like playing Russian roulette with a revolver loaded with two bullets.

If you draw your gaze closer again, you can see people happily enjoying their comfortable daily lives.

People who enjoy sports in a large playground with their families, smiling happily, or playing flashy hologram games.

The rich gather in the city center, enjoying the safest and most comfortable pleasures.

They are protected by state-of-the-art security guards and security procedures that prevent the intrusion of the poor.

They live happier lives than anyone else, enjoying the pleasures brought about by technologies that were unimaginable on Earth in the 2020s.

A person with a living conscience might be distressed by the suffering of others.

However, most people are tired of recognition.

The ongoing war and the rise of corporations have taken away the leeway they had in their hearts.

Now, no one cares about each other.

They don’t mourn when someone gets shot on the street.

They don’t feel pain when someone gets crushed by a machine in a factory.

They just mock.

“Who told you to walk down that street at that time?”

“Wouldn’t it have been okay if you had followed the safety rules? Who forced you to go to the factory?”

They just belittle the suffering of others.

Their sense of justice only explodes when they criticize each other.

When an incident occurs that could attack a corporation, the poor or gangs become furious and express their hatred toward them.

They say that all the people in the corporation are trash who have sold their consciences, that those disgusting people are ruining this city and this world, and that all the employees who agree with them are part of the same gang.

It’s not wrong.

Corporations that have gained enormous power are infiltrating politics and sucking up enormous amounts of money.

Public order maintenance such as the police, infrastructure such as subways, buses, and roads, and even water and electricity have been largely privatized.

People working in corporations were no different from participating in the crime.

On the other hand, those who were somehow able to make a living criticized the poor and the gangs.

The trash who would shoot a gun if they got caught, the disgusting people who had no intention of working hard to earn money and living honestly, and who committed crimes whenever they had the chance, all of whom were potential criminals connected to gangs.

That was how the middle and upper classes of this city viewed the poor.

This was also true.

A man wearing a neat suit and walking down a dangerous street was more attractive to the criminals of the slums than a woman walking around naked.

He couldn’t stand it unless they immediately laid him down, stripped him of his clothes, and took all his money.

It was true that gangs were anti-establishment criminals, that they valued human life as nothing more than a fly’s, and that most of the poor were connected to gangs.

It was natural selection.

The lower class, who had to protect themselves with cheap guns, would quickly become corpses if they didn’t protect themselves in a group.

I sighed.

In that trial full of villains, if we started to argue about whose crime was more serious, the corporation would probably be a bigger villain than the poor and the gang.

The poor had no power, and the corporation had power.

That was all.

Gangs were no different from small businesses, and corporations were no different from well-packaged, huge gangs.

They were no different in that they sucked money from their own areas and brutally dealt with those who rejected the order they had created.

But corporations were stronger.

Compared to gangs that barely controlled a few districts of a city, corporations in this world were gaining influence and harassing people across cities and countries.

And I, who fell into this fucking cyberpunk world, became one of them.

No, I became the core.

Because I was a member of the Hansan Group, the largest conglomerate in this city, no, in the world, occupying the tallest building in this crime-and-delight mixed-up Stella City.

I wasn’t just an employee.

I was a person with the blood of the Hansan family, who could enter and exit such a tall building without any problems.

I wasn’t the only successor.

I was half pushed out of the competition because of the incidents that my previous owner of this body had been doing.

The world is big.

Considering the influence of the Hansan Group, which exerts influence on all countries, being dropped into a conflict zone like Stella City could be called exile.

But at least I was the highest person in this city.

I could do anything.

Aside from the checks and balances within the Hansan Group or the attacks of other companies, there was no one in this city who could stop me.

I could fill my room with women who had undergone body modification for beauty right away.

If there was anyone who was offending me, I could kill them.

As long as the other party wasn’t another company or a person within the company, it didn’t matter what I, the successor of the Hansan family, did.

This advanced technology and ridiculously cheap people.

It was a horrible and disgusting dystopia when you think of society as a whole, but for someone with enough money and power, it was a sweeter paradise than heaven.

Being able to enjoy it, I was able to live a life that was overwhelmingly comfortable and full of pleasure compared to before I possessed this body.

However, that wasn’t the end.

I couldn’t change the system.

I couldn’t change the world.

Politicians were already like dogs to the company, and there was no hope in the eyes of the people.

Even if I were the highest in this city, I was too weak compared to this world.

What gave me my power and wealth right now was not my personal ability, but the name of the Hansan family.

But I had to do it.

No matter how hard I, the successor of the Hansan company, tried, I couldn’t stop the system or the company’s rampage, but I could kill one person.

On the other hand, one incredibly strong person, even if he couldn’t change this system, could destroy one company.

He could kill one person.

Just a being who would enter this building with a few guns, instantly annihilate the core members of the Hansan family, and leisurely escape as a legend itself.

The protagonist of the cyberpunk world game that I have been possessed by must be alive somewhere.

I don’t know who it is.

I can’t predict his gender, age, name, personality, or origin.

This game, which boasted complete freedom even before its release, prepared countless choices that lived up to expectations.

A wanderer, a homeless person, a businessperson, a former soldier, a mercenary, a detective, a member of a gang, a hacker, a reporter, and even a cook or a taxi driver as DLC.

It is not yet known whether he will act for justice, selfish desire, or pure destruction.

Still, either way, there was no future if things continued as they were.

If you don’t want to fight a good protagonist, you have to do good deeds in advance.

If you don’t want to fight a protagonist who acts for selfish desire, you have to save up a lot of money.

If you want to fight a protagonist who acts for destruction, you have to gather enough trustworthy allies.

I took a deep breath.

It was a terrible time.

Even I, who could look down on everyone in this city from this building, had to think and work hard for survival, not for other values.

Maybe that was the way of Stella City.

And I, would do it.