Chapter 1 Prologue - Outlaw in Cyberpunk

 I fell into the world of a cyberpunk game I watched lightly half a year ago.

Literally light, I’m not a fan of this game, and I can’t remember the strategy.

And, I fell here basically naked. Nanomachines in the body, cyberware, biometric IDs that everyone here has… but I don’t have any of that.

In a dark future city with a dystopian worldview, I’m an illegal resident of the lowest class with nowhere to go and nothing I can do.

I’m f**ked.

* * * * *

And half a year has passed. Not exactly half a year, but about five months.

It was five months, but it was a very hellish time that felt like five years.

Many things happened in that time span.

Having endured so many ups and downs, thus I may have exaggerated a bit.

 And yet, here I am.

 In the world of cyberpunk game, where are megacity of the Americas—a metropolis full of chrome and neon, drones and robots, only Dusk City feels familiar like home.

It started with suddenly falling into the middle of a street full of neon signs while taking a shower and humming lululala in the bathroom at home.

After the research center was blown up due to a dispute between companies, I managed to escape and survive.

However, only my life was saved, and I had no proper status, no money, and no ability to stand on my own. Help me please! I even tried praying to god for help.

Luckily, I entered a company under a high-ranking CEO, worked like a dog, and somehow ended up here…

Looking back on the past like this, it makes me sad.

What did I do wrong to end up in the middle of this f**king city?

Of course, I liked cyberpunk.

A gigantic forest of skyscrapers, media façades filling up the walls, and monorails running through the city center, and billboards full of oriental paintings underneath…

Internet encompassing both cyborgs and androids, machines and humans, a system of surveillance and control that coexists within vastness and freedom.

And megacorp overlooking everything, and small bars in the slums. A decadent arcade filled with purple and blue lighting.

All of this in one game. It’s romantic in itself, how could you not like it?

But I don’t like it to the point where I want to end up in it myself.

It is said that anything is beautiful when viewed from a distance, and cyberpunk is also beautiful when enjoyed only as a game.

Just because technology and science have advanced doesn’t mean it’s good. At least here, there are many, many times more bad than good.

Even in Korea in the 21st century, not the Dusk City of 2107, where I am now, the plight of illegal immigrants without their resident registration card was truly hopeless.

An unidentified person from a past world, in this insanely controlled society where every citizen’s biometric ID is stored in a database, tracked and monitored through the nanomachines inside the body, and every job and entire society is under Megacorp’s grasp. What is the situation of illegal immigrants?

So in long story short, terrible.

Although, he somehow managed to find a job and a fake identity by beating the CEO.

 It does not change that he is in a position of fear that he will be detected whenever drones, city police, or corporate android soldiers pass by.

And it doesn’t end there. It is not just a problem that only he is experiencing, but a fundamental problem of this city and the world itself.

Cyberpunk is a world where it is difficult for people to make a living. It’s not harsh, but really harsh. It’s not just hard, it’s f**king hard.

It’s like the world of an edge lord, where gangs run rampant—the police who have to stop it are corrupted, life is tough due to the tyranny and extortion of the companies that dominate the city, and environmental pollution has reached the level of world doom.

People have lost hope and are addicted to real drugs and even virtual electronic drugs.

Hundreds of people take their own lives every day, but companies don’t even care.

Because they have reached a level of technology sufficient enough to replace the meager human labor force.

Even if hundreds of people die, thousands of workers migrate to the city of freedom and openness with unrealized fantasies.

In a world where human life is worth less than that of a fly, it is a city where people die more easily than a fly. Well, a dystopia is not a dystopia without lots of death.

How will I get out of this world?

Even Korea in the 21st century, which was so cursed, is like a paradise on earth when compared to this place.

I don’t know how many times I cried because I missed the old world.

There are so many games that I have enjoyed playing, why the hell did I have to fall into an f**king cyberpunk game?

If Gods do exists, I want to argue with them for why I ended up here.

Of course, I’m glad I didn’t get caught in a game that makes you fight against demons in hell, a game that makes you hunt monsters in the Middle Ages, or a horror game where you’re chased by aliens….

If only it wasn’t a game with such a terrible worldview, but a dating simulation game, or a game set in a fantasy academy, that follows the clichés of modern web novels.

There are plenty of good and happy materials to choose from. I’m not a masochist, who only plays games in a dark world.

Yes, let’s say the world view is like that. I can understand.

I have no idea why I had to fall into the game world in the first place, but if I had to go into the game world anyway, cyberpunk is better than a medieval setting, a hellish setting, or a horror game setting. If it’s Safeng, it’s probably a flat hit.

Maybe the problem isn’t the world. But because the world is so polarized, the life of the lower class is a life of livestock, which is not like a human being, but the life of the upper class is truly a luxurious life that fully enjoys the benefits of technology.

In the end, the reason the world looks so f**king crazy to me is because I’m not the upper class, but the lower class.

I am not able to fully adapt to this society because of my lack of ability. Damn it.

But is that my fault?

Still, in modern times, he was a promising college student who went to a school that would make people nod their heads just by hearing his name. It is said that he was in a position of about the middle class, if not the upper class.

As the world we live in has changed, the class will change and our abilities will also change.

The things he studied had no meaning whatsoever here, and he is left alone with nothing to do.

All the problems, I think, are because I came into this world as a normal, lower-ranking citizen.

Of course, if it’s completely normal, it’s not like that, but let’s talk about that later.

In the end, what I’m trying to say, that it is unfair.

If only I was given the cliché ability to take a gun and cut everything like the main character in a novel. If only there was a rough sounding man who tells you what you have to do, like in RPG games.

Or, according to the popular cliché these days, if you could continue from where you left your in game character.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if you had entered the game as my character who had taken the ending and half-conquered the city? The customization was well done, and the weapons, and hacking were all leveled up to a standard level.

Either that or give me a warning. Then I would have memorized everything like game strategy and hidden pieces from the internet before coming here.

If I were a person who knew all the information in the game, I would have been able to eat in an upper-class seat as easily as a cake.

There are so many pro players in earth, but why did fate choose me, who left these people alone and watched the ending after playing lightly for about ten hours?

Just why… It was half a year full of such complaints. While I have been living in this hell, almost half a year has passed.

I hate to admit it, but I have adapted to this city. I’m somewhat used to living here now.

Hologram advertisements illuminating the billboards embroidering buildings, and at night drones and air vehicles flying through the city.

Flashing neon signs and Japanese and Chinese signs, mechanized soldiers and gang members walking around.

Even to the taste of the disgusting food, soybean meat and sponge-chewing seaweed bread.

It is now a part of my life. As I said before, I’ve gotten used to it, and now it’s like a second hometown. And It’s a second hometown that I’d like to leave.

If there’s one thing I realized while running around like that, it’s that this is a place where people live.

And although I am a small citizen who doesn’t have any special abilities, I do not want to die like this.

That is the conclusion I reached after contemplating suicide over and over again.

I still had the will to live. I had to live. Wanted to live, I also wanted to live a peaceful life.

I won’t let it end like this, the life of an ordinary, terrible, lower-class man who drowned in drugs and withered alive while chewing soybean burgers and fried worms.

If I could be the upper class, then it would be great, and if I could leave this horrible city, that would be wonderful. And if I could somehow find a way to return to the world I used to live in, it would be an added bonus.

If I could be one of the upper class, then I’ll live with my dignity as a human being, and thus die like a human. I will not be left to live as a bottomless, hopeless slave, never.

… And to do that, I have to go to work hard today.

As a foreign worker, I became a slave to a company and had to work hard.

F**k you, what an f**king cyberpunk world.