Jimmy, who had graduated, suddenly appeared.
Sonia was about to greet him in excitement, but Amon stopped her.
She could react like that because she had no idea about Jimmy’s recent whereabouts, but Amon was different.
He had heard about Jimmy’s activities through the director.
‘Why is that drug addict…’
After graduating from the orphanage, the place Jimmy went was a gang.
He hadn’t studied, nor had he built any connections.
The only thing he knew how to do was bully people, and he had always acted as if he admired gangs.
So it was no surprise that he ended up joining one.
After joining the gang, he spent his days shooting guns, robbing people, and extorting “protection fees,” all while being chased by the police.
He probably got shot at least once, but without insurance, there was no way he could afford a hospital visit.
Naturally, he would have turned to drugs.
The drugs he started to forget the pain would soon become his hobby, and before long, he’d be just another lowlife gang member, with weed in his left hand and a gun in his right.
Amon knew well that Jimmy hadn’t strayed much from that path.
He didn’t pity him.
It wasn’t the environment’s fault.
Amon had changed the atmosphere of the orphanage, and Jimmy’s peers were living honest lives now.
The excuse that he became a gang member because of his environment didn’t hold up.
Instead, Amon was wary of Jimmy.
Drug addicts’ thought processes are incomprehensible, and he couldn’t know when Jimmy might snap and try to harm him.
And now, that very Jimmy was standing before him.
He didn’t even try to hide his weapons, with something bulging in his left pocket and several low-level junkie gang members trailing behind him.
It was clear he didn’t have good intentions.
Sure enough, instead of a greeting, Jimmy began spewing nonsense.
“Give me my money back! You’re a bad guy, you bastard…”
‘Did he even know what he was saying?’
The needle marks that hadn’t yet faded from his left hand answered for him: probably not.
Amon quietly moved to shield Sonia behind him.
Somehow, that gesture triggered Jimmy’s wrath, and he began to lose it.
“You! You always get the good stuff! Why is it always you? That old hag of a director too…! Even though she’s old, all she cares about is men! You probably sold yourself to her, you damned gigolo!”
Amon frowned at Jimmy’s incoherent, illogical rant.
Although it was hard to understand, he could still feel the deeply offensive accusations within it.
It wasn’t just that Jimmy was slandering him—insulting the director of the orphanage like that was beyond infuriating.
Sonia, standing next to Amon, seemed to have picked up on the general meaning, as her gaze grew cold.
But the oblivious Jimmy continued his tirade.
“You’re so lucky! Always getting special treatment, you piece of crap!”
Amon didn’t argue.
He knew very well that he had received special treatment from the director.
She was only human, after all. Of course, she would show favoritism.
Not even a goddess would extend universal love to all mankind.
Someone who could do that probably just didn’t care about humanity as a whole, Amon thought.
Still, that didn’t mean the other orphans didn’t feel the relative deprivation from the favoritism.
Because of that, Amon had always lived a life of generosity, sharing with the other orphans.
Spreading love.
That might not grant him forgiveness, but at the very least, it was a reason not to be criticized by someone like Jimmy, who lived only to cause trouble for others.
But arguing with a drug addict was one of the most pointless things in the world.
So instead of engaging, Amon decided to ignore Jimmy.
Whether it was his pride still lingering even after becoming a drugged-up lowlife, or his insecurity making him sensitive to insignificant slights, Jimmy spat in fury at Amon, who continued to ignore him.
“You think you’re so great? I’m an adult now too! I’ve got friends, I make money… and I can shoot a gun too!”
Jimmy pulled out a gun and aimed it at them.
With his finger on the trigger, Amon and Sonia instinctively moved to take cover.
But it was clear Jimmy didn’t even understand the gravity of what he was doing, as he toyed with the weapon.
Judging that any further interaction would be dangerous, Amon decided to end this toxic connection.
He had with him a real sword, a parting gift from his old swordsmanship dojo.
Just as he was about to make a quick sign of the cross and rush toward Jimmy—
Sonia stopped him.
“I’ll handle this.”
Amon was puzzled by her words.
“For what?”
She pointed at Amon and said,
“I said I would protect you. I’ll show you that I wasn’t just saying that.”
Amon didn’t have time to argue with a drugged-up junkie, so he quickly made a decision.
“Don’t get hurt.”
He trusted Sonia.
With a pleasant smile at Amon’s words of caution, Sonia grabbed her sword and charged at Jimmy.
The fight lasted just one minute.
In that short span, Jimmy and his gang were subdued by Sonia.
At first, the group whistled and made lewd gestures as she approached, but they were soon knocked out cold by the blunt side of her sword.
The fact that they were drugged and slow to react played a role in their defeat, but even if they hadn’t been, the outcome would have been much the same.
After all, a gun without any special engraving was no match for two people who had spent two years mastering their sword skills.
Sonia was able to deflect bullets and knock out the gang members with the back of her sword.
The gap in skill between her and them was immense.
With the thugs subdued, Sonia handed them over to the police.
Logically, it would have been wiser to finish them off to prevent any future threats.
However, Sonia was still too young to go around confirming kills by stabbing each incapacitated gang member.
Instead, she opted to hand them over to the authorities.
Amon respected her decision.
‘Reality isn’t a game.’
Killing people in a game and committing murder in real life are worlds apart.
The burden of guilt on the human mind is enormous, and Amon didn’t want Sonia to carry that weight.
It might be a soft choice in a world like this, but sometimes, such purity was necessary.
That’s why Amon decided to spare Jimmy and his group as well.
However, even if they were spared, there was something that needed to be said.
“If I see you within a kilometer of the orphanage, you’re dead. If I run into you outside the city, you’re dead.”
It was a clear warning to live quietly and stay out of trouble in the city.
It might have seemed like an excessive threat, but considering Jimmy had pulled a gun and pointed it at them, it was quite merciful.
Jimmy knew Amon well.
Amon was kind, but not naive.
He sought goodness, but he never hesitated to carry out what he believed was right.
Jimmy, who had experienced Amon’s decisiveness through countless beatings that left him on the verge of death, knew Amon would keep his word.
So Jimmy couldn’t take Amon’s grim warning lightly.
He accepted Amon’s words, saying he would remember them, and was handed over to the police who had arrived in response to the call.
With Jimmy’s group taken away, Amon and Sonia headed back to the orphanage.
As they disappeared from sight, Jimmy and his gang were loaded into police cars and driven away.
Inside the car, the gang members, with their hands cuffed, sat in silence, heads bowed.
An eerie silence filled the car.
In that silence, Jimmy ground his teeth.
Regret?
There was no such word in a junkie’s vocabulary.
His mind was filled only with thoughts of revenge.
Of course, in order to take revenge, he needed to escape from the police and avoid going to prison.
But he had a plan.
‘That businessman…!’
He thought of the businessman who had given him this job.
Slick suit, slicked-back hair.
The face seemed familiar, but in his drug-addled mind, Jimmy couldn’t quite place him.
What he did remember was that the businessman had orchestrated this attack, promising more drugs and a payment of ten thousand dollars.
It had seemed like a perfect opportunity to get revenge on Amon and take Sonia for himself, but he had failed.
‘It’s fine. Once I get that ten thousand dollars…’
With that money, he could get better enhancements and take proper revenge on Amon.
As Jimmy sat quietly, smiling to himself in the silent police car, he suddenly heard a familiar voice from the passenger seat.
“Your mission results have been confirmed, Mr. Jimmy. Thanks to you, we now know who possesses the mystical power.”
Startled, Jimmy looked up toward the front seat.
There sat the businessman who had given him the job, fiddling with a tablet as he spoke.
Seeing him, Jimmy’s face lit up, and he tried to strike up a conversation.
Although he couldn’t see it, the businessman wore an irritated expression as he reluctantly acknowledged Jimmy.
Jimmy mistook this for a positive sign.
“Hurry up and give me the money and the powder… and get these cuffs off me!”
Jimmy, as if completely convinced he would soon be free, demanded his reward.
The businessman didn’t bother hiding his disdain.
“That’s why it’s so exhausting to deal with lowlife junkies…”
He shook his head in frustration.
From the driver’s seat, the police officer chimed in with a grumble.
“Well, that’s why they’re cheap.”
“True.”
Jimmy, failing to grasp the meaning of their conversation, sat confused.
He finally realized something was wrong when the police cars, instead of heading to the station, arrived at a dock.
Soon, Jimmy and his gang were dragged out of the cars.
By this point, even a drug-addled fool like Jimmy could figure out what was happening.
In retrospect, Jimmy had violated the number one rule of the cyberpunk world.
Money doesn’t lie.
The price of paying each junkie gangster without insurance or family ten thousand dollars compared to the cost of twelve bullets to their heads was incomparable.
A rational person would have suspected something from the start.
But Jimmy had overestimated his own value, blinded by his inflated ego, the lure of the drugs, and his lust for Sonia, leaving him too oblivious to see the obvious trap.
“Please… save me…”
Jimmy wept, begging for his life.
But neither the policeman nor the businessman paid any attention to his tears.
Without hesitation, they pulled the triggers, aiming at the heads of Jimmy’s comrades.
The spare-handed policeman, as if it were routine, tossed the limp corpses into the sea.
There was no emotion in their efficient division of labor.
To them, it was just another day at work.
As one by one, Jimmy’s comrades became waterlogged ghosts, his turn drew near.
As the barrel of the gun approached, the last thing Jimmy remembered was the salty taste of a french fry he couldn’t even recall eating.
After disposing of twelve bodies, the businessman climbed into his car, escorted by police, heading to his next destination.
“Yes. Yes. It’s been handled.”
The businessman muttered to the air.
Nodding his head, he spoke politely to whoever was on the other side of what sounded like a one-sided conversation.
“Yes, it’s certain. Mystical powers that emerge in a life-and-death struggle can’t be hidden.”
With unwavering confidence, the businessman addressed the unseen entity.
“Yes. It’s the girl. I’m sure of it.”
Escorted by numerous police cars, the businessman cut through the city’s night.
The logo of the Hexen Group engraved on his vehicle reflected the glow of red neon lights.
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