NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 4 - Gorilla man
Chapter 4 – Gorilla man
Jenny was a rather competent BH editor.
Being a skilled BH editor meant having the talent to maximize visual aesthetics.
It was about trimming or modifying unnecessary emotions, emphasizing or minimizing certain sensations at just the right moments.
Maybe that’s why, at first, she made a lot of money.
After producing a few BH experiences of upper-class lifestyles, vain commoners eagerly opened their wallets.
The numbers steadily appearing in her bank account were immensely satisfying.
For the first month or two, she indulged like the protagonists in her videos, staying at hotels and picking whatever she pleased.
Of course, that enjoyment didn’t last long.
“…Experiencing extreme poverty? Are you crazy? Who would even watch that?”
“Who else? The filthy rich, of course. Pigs so loaded they even want to buy the experience of being poor.”
That was what the PD she worked with had said, baring his yellowed teeth.
The raw footage he brought was nothing short of horrifying.
A ragged beggar became the target of someone’s pent-up rage and was brutally beaten.
Afterward, the beggar wandered the streets, body battered and torn.
Unable to endure hunger, he reached for discarded food scraps.
While he desperately devoured them, the sudden roar of a shopkeeper startled him, and as he fled, he was struck by an unmanned truck and sent flying.
The video faded out as the beggar lay sprawled on the ground, staining the pavement red, while indifferent passersby looked at him like discarded trash.
Jenny’s head burned with anger.
Who had implanted the BH in him in the first place?
And the beggar—he was just a child.
“Make sure to adjust the pain and taste properly. If it’s too painful or disgusting, people will freak out. Hmm, we’ll need to tweak the smell too. Damn brat, eating that garbage… Oh! And don’t forget to minimize suicidal impulses. Also…”
Jenny couldn’t remember the rest of the PD’s instructions.
The only thing she recalled vividly was vomiting into the toilet.
That day, she quit.
She donated all the money she had earned to support the impoverished.
It was only much later that she saw on the news that the charity organization was a scam.
Editing was the only skill she had, so when she eventually returned to BH work, she focused solely on public service projects.
Workplace safety guidelines, public facility evacuation instructions—things like that.
The pay was measly, but at least she could sleep at night.
Then, she was kidnapped.
By a gang planning to enter the illegal BH business.
Their standards were just as predictable.
Providing drunk customers with victims for sexual abuse.
When she refused, throwing a fit that she’d rather die than make such content, first, they cut off her food.
Then, they took away her water.
That was a day ago.
Was this the pain that child had endured?
And people wanted to experience this?
Sick bastards.
Her mind was starting to fade.
Then, from outside the room, came the sound of loud thuds and frantic shouting.
What the hell?
Jenny weakly lifted her head—
Crash!
The metal door buckled inward.
The doorknob rattled violently up and down before stopping, as if the intruder realized it was locked from the inside.
A brief silence.
Then—BOOM!
The door was ripped off its hinges.
Beyond the doorway stood a stranger, silhouetted against the crimson glow of the emergency lights.
In one hand, he clutched the bloodied head of a gang member.
“Jenny?”
“…Huh?”
“Blonde hair, green eyes. That must be you.”
The man—Jin—said that and flicked his hand.
The gang member’s body followed the motion, slamming face-first into the wall before sliding down, leaving a streak of blood behind.
“Wh-Who are you?”
“Here to get you out.”
Jin crouched to examine her.
Hollow eyes.
Pale complexion.
Her limbs were bound behind her back, leaving her collapsed in a pitiful state.
“How did you even know I was here…?”
“Your brother told me.”
Jin slipped a finger under the cable tie restraining her wrists.
With a quick pull—snap!—the tie burst apart.
“Ugh.”
Jenny groaned, rubbing her freed wrists as Jin moved to cut the bindings on her ankles the same way.
“…Are you alone?”
“Probably?”
Snap!
The second tie broke.
His strength was shocking.
Jenny was startled, and so was Jin.
Huh.
I’ve gotten stronger.
Just one more reinforcement, and his power felt twice as potent.
No wonder this was the final star of the constelation.
“Can you walk?”
“Sorry… I can’t move.”
Jenny tried to push herself up from the floor but collapsed again.
Anyone who goes three days without food and an entire day without water ends up like this.
Even now, Jenny was struggling to stay conscious, the dizziness overwhelming her to the point where she couldn’t tell whether the wailing emergency alarm in her ears was real or just a hallucination.
“Just stay still for a moment.”
Jin took off his jumper and balled it up.
Then, after placing it under Jenny’s head, he pressed his knee against the ground to push himself up.
As he stepped past the threshold, his widened field of view caught the twisted faces of the gangsters.
“Son of a b—”
“What kind of shitstorm is this?”
As some of them cursed under their breath upon noticing their writhing comrades on the floor, a heavy set of footsteps echoed from behind them.
Then, someone emerged through the parting gangsters.
“Who the fuck did this?!”
The man’s face, twisted in fury, bore a striking resemblance to a gorilla.
His cybernetic arms, equipped with massive hydraulic cylinders at the elbows, exuded an undeniable menace.
“You little shit. Was it you? Running around my turf like a goddamn mutt in heat, stirring up trouble?”
What a way with words.
Jin chuckled.
Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong.
He wasn’t sure about being a mutt in heat,but he had definitely turned this place upside down.
Seriously, why the hell did they have to hide her so damn well?
Made it a real pain in the ass to find.
“Looks like you were after our editor. I don’t know who sent you, but you’re done for. Should’ve known better than to pick a fight out of your league, you little shit.”
The gorilla-faced man scrutinized Jin from head to toe, his expression shifting ever so slightly.
His electronic eyes, embedded in his sockets, glowed red as they scanned him.
Then, his brow furrowed.
“…No implants?”
He sounded as if he’d just seen a man walking on his hands.
Someone without a single implant in this day and age?
Might as well be a walking relic.
Of course, such people weren’t completely unheard of.
There were the Purists—those old-fashioned lunatics who harbored an anti-implant ideology.
Descendants of sword and magic, refusing to move forward with the times.
Or at least, their followers.
But there was no trace of that signature blue aura—’mana’—around this man who had just manhandled his subordinates with his bare hands.
So, the gorilla-faced man arrived at another conclusion.
“Don’t tell me… you’re an Enhanced?”
At that moment, Jin kicked off the ground.
Damn, does he fight with his mouth?
Boom!
Jin closed the distance in an instant, tilting his torso forward and swinging his fist in a wide arc.
An overhand right hook, carrying a powerful gust of wind with it.
The gorilla-faced man flinched and raised his left arm.
A split second later, an impact resounded through the underground chamber—so fierce that it was hard to believe flesh had struck metal.
BOOM!
“…What the fuck!”
A curse burst from the gorilla-faced man’s lips as the shock reverberated through his entire arm.
But Jin wasn’t done.
His left fist shot forward, landing a vicious body shot against the exposed midsection of his opponent.
“Ugh!”
The man let out a strained gasp but managed to stay on his feet, thanks only to his reinforced exterior.
A synthetic hide, installed to withstand bullets.
Money well spent.
At least it bought him time to counterattack.
“You son of a bitch!!”
He gritted his teeth and swung his arms-No, launched them.
His cybernetic arms began a piston-like motion below the elbows, hammering Jin’s upper body at a rate of ten strikes per second.
Dudududududu!!
The relentless barrage could have demolished a concrete wall in seconds.
Jin staggered backward.
It felt like being pelted with shot puts at point-blank range.
His arms, raised in a tight guard, were already numb.
This is bullshit.
Jin clenched his teeth.
Blocking wouldn’t cut it.
No matter how tough he was, if this kept up, he’d be pounded into minced meat.
So, he lowered his stance drastically.
To the surrounding gangsters, it looked as if his legs had given out, and cheers erupted.
“Boss! You got him!”
“Finish him off!”
But the gorilla-faced man wasn’t smiling.
Because the enemy before him—
Had just vanished.
If he had collapsed, that would have made sense.
He just disappeared.
No way…!
In the next moment, the gorilla man’s ankle twisted with a crunch.
“Ahh!”
This place isn’t that sturdy, huh?
Twisting his opponent’s ankle with both hands like wringing out laundry, Jin then drew a large circle with his arm.
Following that trajectory, the gorilla man’s leg spun uncontrollably, causing him to lose balance and collapse.
In that moment, instinctively, he reached out with his palms to catch himself, but Jin didn’t miss the opportunity and charged.
Whoosh!
With all his might, Jin delivered a powerful kick to the gorilla man’s face, just as he turned his head.
The face jerked back.
Crack.
The sound of something breaking that shouldn’t have.
Soon, the gorilla man’s stiffened body toppled backward like a fallen log.
Without any more vital signs, the cyber-arm let out a deflating sound and slumped.
The boss of Steel Arms, Kirk, died like that.
His memory forever marked as the gorilla man in Jin’s mind.
“…Boss! This fucking bastard!”
“Is… is he really dead?”
“That’s a lie, right? It doesn’t make sense.”
The sudden death of their boss left the underlings wide-eyed in shock.
Meanwhile, Jin casually wiped his hands and glanced around.
In such a situation, there was one ritual every man in Daehan who’d played the “Mugyo” series had to go through.
Taking a deep breath, Jin proudly shouted.
“I defeated the enemy leader!”
***
The gray ridges of Metropolis swallowed the sun as the late evening fell.
A man sat, looking nervously out the darkening window.
His name was Jecky.
Sitting in the far corner of the second floor of RumPumPumPum, he nervously bit his thumb, and at some point, he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
“…!”
Startled, he looked up and saw a chubby middle-aged man holding a tray piled high with French fries.
The man found an empty spot and sat down, while Jecky let out a long sigh, shifting his gaze away.
Was it all a crazy mistake?
The unease wouldn’t leave his mind.
It was hard to find a decent solo in Downtown.
Not only was the pay high, but even meeting someone who could help wasn’t easy.
Through intermediaries, word of mouth, and everything else, his sister was close to death.
So, he asked a nameless man for help with his sister’s rescue.
It wasn’t hard to tell that he wasn’t a solo.
After all, who in the world doesn’t know BH?
But that was something Jecky couldn’t control.
He was desperate enough to ask for help from someone like him.
“Sigh…”
A heavy breath misted up the glass window.
How much time had passed?
His heart, not even his own, thudded uneasily inside him.
Then once again, the sound of footsteps echoed from behind.
Despite the many times his hopes had been dashed, Jecky still turned around, hoping once more.
And then he saw it.
A fake solo carrying someone limp over his shoulder.
Yet, he couldn’t help but believe in the man.
“Here you are. Sorry, I got lost for a bit.”
Jin walked over, raising an eyebrow as he made his way toward Jecky.
“Je… Jenny!”
Jecky, after confirming his sister’s face on the couch, scrambled to his feet.
As he lifted her eyelids, put his finger to her nose, and checked her pulse in a panic, Jin groaned and flopped down onto the couch.
Every part of him ached.
It was the result of getting hit, stabbed, and torn apart while taking care of the remaining underlings.
God, this hurts.
Isn’t it supposed to feel like your energy is drained when you defeat an enemy leader?
Thinking about the underlings who came charging at him like they had fire in their eyes, Jin sighed again.
Well, at least he had gained a lot of skill points.
It might come in handy later, if not now.
“Did you really do this?”
“Why? Did you leave the job to someone else while I was gone?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why ask such an obvious question? I’m already dead tired.”
Jin said this while staring at Jenny, who had lost consciousness.
“The Steel Arms bastards locked her up and starved her, I think. I gave her some water to drink, but for meals, start with IV fluids. Soup would be good too.”
At that, Jecky suddenly dropped to his knees, tears like chicken droppings streaming down his face.
“Thank you. Really, thank you.”
“Hey, hey. Why are you crying?”
Could there be anything more confusing than a grown man crying right in front of you?
As Jin waved his hands in confusion, Jecky, even through his tears, fumbled to reach into his coat pocket.
It was clear he was trying to pull out the payment for the commission, so Jin quickly stopped him.
“Let’s be careful with this, alright?”
“Oh, sorry.”
Realizing his mistake, Jecky hurriedly wiped his eyes.
Jin sighed deeply, recalling how he had once cried when searching for his mother a year ago.
After Jecky regained his composure and sat back down, Jin suddenly felt a strange sensation on his skin, and his eyes narrowed.
Sweat was dripping down Jecky’s pale face.
His breathing was irregular, and his lips were trembling slightly.
The sound of a mechanical heartbeat echoed, and there was the unmistakable smell of dying earth and wood.
Jin, with his heightened senses, absorbed all the information through his body, not just his eyes, before slowly opening his mouth.
“Where’d you get the money?”
“What?”
“I said, where’d you get the commission money?”
“…”
After a brief pause, Jecky wiped his dry lips and replied.
“I sold my organs.”
“Your heart?”
“H-how did you know?”
“That’s not the issue. Why the heart of all things?”
“…It’s in high demand.”
That meant he’d taken a perfectly good heart out and replaced it with a cheap, low-grade implant.
No wonder his condition had seemed off from the start.
“Shit… for real.”
Jin scratched the back of his head.
“Just give me 100,000 credits.”
“What?”
“100,000 credits. I would’ve taken the job for that much anyway.”
“That doesn’t… what…”
Jecky made a dumbfounded expression but then looked like he was on the verge of tears, so Jin continued.
“Listen to the whole thing. The rest, 1.9 million credits, you’ll pay little by little. Every Wednesday at 7 PM, at this spot on the second floor of RumPumPumPum. The menu will be my choice. Got it? By the way, I eat a lot.”
“Ah, got it.”
“Then hand it over. I need to buy waffles.”
Jin held out his hand flat.
After Jecky carefully handed over the 100,000 credits, Jin stood up and said,
“Take care of your sister, and you better get that heart fixed with a proper model. Even if it was cheap now, it’s still too cheap. If you keep going like this, you’ll be lucky to last five more days.”
“…Thanks.”
“I’m off.”
With a short farewell, Jin walked away, and as Jecky shouted at his retreating figure,
“Really, thank you!”
Jin didn’t answer.
He simply waved his hand behind him as he trudged down the stairs.
After buying two waffles on the first floor, he stepped out into the darkening streets.
Another ordinary day in Downtown was coming to a close.