novelraw Chapter 36 : Cyber Psycho (5)
Chapter 36 : Cyber Psycho (5)
Chapter 36: Cyber Psycho (5)
Baron Marlow quickly regained his composure.
The despair that had cast a shadow over his face soon faded. Abigail Baron Marlow was someone who possessed the guts to sit in that position. His martial strength might not have matched the other two executives, but when it came to sheer boldness, he was second to none.
He calmly felt around his solar plexus.
“Kh—.”
It seemed his ribs had bent inward as they broke. He felt the pain of a sharp rib spur stabbing into his lung. It was a critical injury.
However, it wasn’t to the extent that his life was immediately in danger. After all, organs could simply be replaced with implants. This was an era where even the heart could be substituted with steel.
There was only one exception.
The brain.
A damaged brain halted all functions.
Thus, modern humanity had gained a lifespan close to ‘immortality,’ but ‘invincibility’ was still a distant dream.
In any case.
That refined-looking human ‘butcher’ was someone who knew how to kill. He invaded the brain with a blade and made absolutely sure to end lives.
Moreover, contrary to his slender appearance, he possessed monstrous strength. With a thin blade, he cleanly chopped off necks one after another.
A human cervical vertebra did not sever that easily.
Even in an age overflowing with prosthetic bodies, the sturdiness of unmodified flesh still more or less held firm.
For instance, if repulsive force occurred between blade and bone, the one that broke was often the one doing the swinging.
And yet.
He was cutting through such living flesh as if an autumn farmer were harvesting rice heads? At a glance, he wasn’t even sporting cybernetic limbs.
In short, that butcher was strong. And not just strong—he was clearly a top-tier powerhouse.
Where the hell had someone like that been sent from? In the middle of enjoying happy time, what kind of thunderbolt was this…?
The baron reflected as he looked at the butcher.
‘…Someone who held a grudge against me….’
There were many.
Far too many.
It was meaningless to narrow them down.
If one were to compile an autobiography by stitching together the baron’s misdeeds, it would devour the length of any epic novel.
‘The faction I clashed with most recently was….’
Those moth bastards flying around in wingsuits brushed past his mind. If he remembered right, their name had been ‘Lilith Order’ or something like that.
A cult whose name contained a woman’s name, which was why he had mentally crossed it out. That place suddenly resurfaced in his thoughts.
‘I’ll have to investigate it separately later.’
Anyway, back to reality for now.
‘First, I need to stall for time.’
He had electrocardiogram monitors attached to his lovers. If they died, it would automatically notify the lobby.
‘They’ll come in at least five minutes.’
After that, he planned to thoroughly crush the nose of that arrogant human butcher bastard.
No, wait—no. He liked that slender nose bridge, so it would be better to break his limbs and make him into a toy.
Kukukuk.
That was when it happened.
Splat—
A vivid, wet sound as congealed blood, grease, and scraps of flesh stuck to the blade were shaken off. A moment later, the butcher lightly jumped and mounted the platform.
Step. Step.
The butcher walked across the table, approaching the baron.
Baron Marlow nearly suffered cardiac arrest, as if he had never sneered before. That brazen gait felt as though the Grim Reaper himself were paying a visit.
The butcher stopped abruptly at mid-range. From a distance where a single step would reach him, he looked down.
The baron opened his eyes wide. Pretending to be as calm as possible, he tried to bark out a threat.
“…Where did you crawl in from—”
He couldn’t finish.
The butcher swung his leg like a club and kicked the baron. A cracking sound echoed, blocked by the soundproof walls. A prosthetic popped free from the baron’s jaw.
The golden prosthetic bounced off the wall a couple of times before crashing into the wall display. By coincidence, it fit perfectly into the jaw of the man appearing on the screen.
Static flared across the wall display.
The man on the screen roared in pleasure.
The baron groaned in agony, clutching his jaw.
“Ghhhhh… f, fuuuck.”
The sudden sucker punch shattered the baron’s insidious plans along with it. You needed dialogue for scheming, didn’t you?
‘…A, a lunatic.’
The butcher had completely stripped him of the right to speak. Even in the world of violence, such a madman was rare.
Only the head of the gang alliance who called her own bike ‘Red Hare.’ That crazy bitch came to mind.
Already suffering internal injuries, thinking of that woman made his guts feel like they were twisting.
“Hey.”
“…….”
The butcher crouched in front of him and spoke.
Then he lightly slapped the baron’s cheek, pat-pat. When there was no response, he roughly grabbed his hair and yanked his head back like snapping a chicken’s neck.
The baron’s exposed face was deathly pale. The look of a thug who tormented others by flaunting his pride was nowhere to be found.
“Wanna die?”
“…….”
“Where do you think you’re scheming?”
The butcher stood with the reddish, pinkish lighting unique to hostess bars crowning his head like a halo. In his other hand, he held up a liquor bottle.
“The last one left—especially the ones in executive positions—always try to stall for time.”
“……!”
“You probably strapped ECG monitors onto your subordinates’ hearts.”
“……!!”
Fuck, how did he know?
The baron’s hand covering his philtrum trembled uncontrollably. Blood poured between his fingers as if it were the essence of life itself.
“How do I know? After playing roughly two thousand games, your personality types automatically get categorized and sorted in my head.”
“……”
Baron Marlow keenly realized once more that the butcher held the power of life and death over him. He was a hamster trapped in the palm of a psychopath.
“Give it a rest. A thug’s plot is always more or less the same.”
“…What do you want.”
“What I want….”
The butcher, Lee Taebaek, lightly tapped his own forehead with the bottom of the bottle.
“I remember now. What I want.”
Lee Taebaek’s movement stopped.
“Do you happen to have a subordinate with the surname Lionheart? I’ll be visiting the other executives’ bases anyway, but I’d prefer it if he were here.”
“The other executives’ bases… why?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“…….”
“Lionheart. You know or you don’t. If you don’t, I’ll kill you quick and go look for another executive.”
How could he speak of murder without letting even a trace of emotion leak out? Thinking that, the baron replied.
“…If I tell you, will you spare me?”
“This bastard’s slow on the uptake.”
“At least… at least give me a chance to put my life on the negotiating table….”
“Depends on the price.”
Lee Taebaek tilted his chin slightly upward.
“Speak. Is there a Lionheart.”
“I know the names of the gang’s internal members. Of course, men only.”
The baron emphasized the last part.
“Anyway, among the Monterrey Gang, male, surname Lionheart—there’s only one. Leon. That’s the one.”
“…Leon Lionheart… a wife-beating bastard with a name like some kind of hero.”
“A hero in bed.”
“Bullshit. So where is he now.”
“He should be wandering the netherworld by now.”
Lee Taebaek frowned.
“If you’re trying to joke around, it’s not funny.”
“I told you the truth. He’s dead.”
“When.”
“Three minutes ago.”
“By whom.”
“Who else.”
The answer was short.
“…By you.”
The baron, with his hair still being yanked, jerked his chin toward the door. At the end of his gaze, the first man to die had his nose buried in a pool of blood.
“So… that’s how it went.”
Lee Taebaek let out a small sigh. It was good that he had achieved his objective by chance.
But to think that bastard, who even had a wife and kids, had been betraying his own boss…….
‘A gang lives off selling masculinity, damn it.’
Pretending to be the baron’s lover must have made him burst inside. That probably manifested as abuse toward his own wife and children. Violence breeding violence.
“Damn it! I kept one wrong subordinate……!”
The baron berated his dead subordinate. It was deliberate—a ploy to diminish his own presence.
“From the looks of it, that guy was your target, and the rest seem to have died after getting dragged into it. How about we part ways here? I’m the only one who saw your face, so if I keep my mouth shut, there’s no reason for either of us to see more blood.”
The baron began to nibble at the bait.
Abigail Baron Marlow. A man who had secured one of the Monterrey Gang’s three top executive seats with nothing but a silver tongue and raw guts.
He looked at Lee Taebaek with the eyes of a fisherman silently watching his float. Then he continued.
“And I swear on my honor, I won’t let today’s events slip. I’ll also pay my life’s price in clean, laundered cash.”
“How much.”
“When my life’s on the line, what does the amount matter? Say it. I’ll match it as best I can. You know Monterrey’s financial power.”
“…….”
“Even so, the amount I can move from my accounts is, at minimum, ten billion.”
The baron grinned inwardly.
After trading words a few times, this guy didn’t seem like the type who’d be completely unreceptive.
Getting kicked without warning was shocking, sure, but if there was a tangled grudge, it was understandable.
People naturally grew heated when buried in emotion. As a thug who lived while drinking resentment, Marlow was well-versed in a victim’s psychology.
“Ten billion.”
Lee Taebaek repeated it in a dry tone.
“That’s a lot of money. A real lot.”
“Damn right! The kind of money you might not even earn after retiring from a MegaCorp!!”
“So.”
Lee Taebaek nodded.
Only then did the baron’s face openly light up. For a fleeting instant, he saw a glimmer of hope—
“-Selling kidnapped boys and girls to perverted MegaCorp executives. Once they grew a bit older, sending them straight to MegaCorp labs as experimental mice…….”
“H-h-h-how did you know that?!”
“Because I know all that, I picked you first out of Monterrey’s three executives, you piece of shit.”
Killing intent. Lee Taebaek showed an expression for the first time in front of Abigail Baron Marlow.
“That ten billion you squeezed out of one life—no, hundreds, thousands of lives. That blood-soaked money. You thought you’d dump it on me to preserve your trash life? I told you. If you start scheming, you die.”
“That was! Under threat from MegaCorp—!”
“You hear that? That’s right.”
In the next instant, the door opened. Two people walked into the room, their shoes clicking sharply. At the faint scent of powder, Baron Marlow retched again.
“Uweeek! Fuck! How dare you in a sacred place—!”
The liquor bottle brushed past the baron’s mouth like a gust of wind. He slammed his cheek into the table and passed out. Foam bubbled up from his vomit.
“He even goes out in style.”
Lee Taebaek left the sour stench behind.
Spin.
Still crouched, he turned his body and took in the sight of two women. Battalion members he hadn’t seen in a while—Yoo Dahee, and Rock.
“So the person involved confessed?”
“…….”
“…….”
As if on cue, they stiffened their expressions while pinching their noses shut. The smell had to be that bad. Lee Taebaek put his mask back on as well.
“Is all of that true?”
Yoo Dahee asked in a nasal voice. Lee Taebaek raised his thumb and pointed over his shoulder.
“That’s why Hyunseong sent you and Rock upstairs to check, right? There should be a socket under that bastard’s ear. Hack it.”
Before entering the Stiletto Club, Lee Taebaek had informed Kang Hyunseong of what he was about to do. At the same time, he had requested support from the 9th Battalion.
As expected, Kang Hyunseong had flown into a rage. To be clear, Kang Hyunseong wasn’t a self-preservation type—if anything, he was the opposite.
But the scale of the incident was too large. Without proper justification, there was a strong chance the 9th Battalion would end up bearing full responsibility. It could even lead to open conflict with the Gang Alliance.
Unless the Resistance mobilized its full force. However, to move the Resistance, MegaCorp—the primary enemy—had to be firmly implicated. That was why Lee Taebaek had decided to deliver the evidence on-site.
“Hit the bathroom once before hacking. Unless you want to vomit side by side with that bastard.”
“…….”
“Lee Taebaek… how did you even—”
“I heard it from an anonymous tipster.”
Lee Taebaek said as he tossed the bottle. The glass crumbled like sand. The power of a Nerf.
“That’s what an external agent does. Get information, hand it over to the main force, and let them plan the operation.”
In the end, Marlow had confessed.
He had deliberately not [Nerf]ed Abigail Baron Marlow’s mind. The extra effort was to provide a more vivid sense of the scene.
Thanks to that, he could reduce the battalion members’ suspicions. Judging by the lantern-bright eyes of Yoo Dahee and Rock, it had worked perfectly.
If asked whether all of this had been planned—
My answer was yes.
Didn’t I say it before?
‘I don’t start games I’m going to lose.’
And “games” weren’t limited to clicking buttons.
To a hardcore gamer, life itself was a quest, an obstacle to overcome.
“Where are Hyunseong and Humito?”
“Downstairs… by now, they should’ve tied up every gang member on the first floor.”
“No dead among the gang?”
“Probably not. Even if there are casualties, one or two at most? Just in case.”
“Good.”
Lee Taebaek stepped down from the table and spoke as he brushed past them.
“Hack Baron Marlow here.”
“Lee Taebaek, what about you?”
Lee Taebaek only smiled quietly. After all, he couldn’t exactly say he was going human hunting.
[EXP x2 Event is currently in progress!]
[Time: 17:30 ~ 21:00 (3.5 hours)]
The basics of farming were mob hunting.
And it had been confirmed that they were all bastards who deserved to die.
Now then, it was time to level up.
[Quest ‘Stiletto Club Raid’ completed]
[Reward: Unique Skill ‘Emergency Inspection’ granted!]
[Operator Score increased by 5 points!]
[Name: Lee Taebaek]
Level: 11
Point: ‘15’
☑ Play in Administrator Mode (Activated)
[Access to the Operator Menu has been unlocked]
[Approaching unlock of a medium-scale patch!]
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[…May your dedication be rewarded…….]