"Oh my, Mr. Kuse, long time no see!"
"Long time no see, ma'am."
"Well~ It's been over a month since you've shown your face, hasn't it? Where have you been?"
"I had some business to take care of out of town... The usual, I'll take some of the apple-and-orange-flavored synthetic jelly."
"Alright, alright I'll still give you a 20% discount, hehe"
"Then I'd be rude to refuse."
"Not at all, not at all. I still owe you for last time... Here you go, thank you for your business!"
---
Clutching a bag of synthetic jelly that contained no fruit components whatsoever yet tasted quite sweet, Ryu walked through a gloomy alley. Empty cans and wads of paper littered the ground by his feet, along with a homeless man occasionally stirring in a corner... Perhaps 'homeless man' wasn't the right term; the man had been living here longer than he had, a true native of this place.
Night City, a fictional metropolis from Cyberpunk 2077, a chaotic and disorderly place yet brimming with passion. Here, the myriad desires and ambitions of humanity intertwined, giving birth to legends—or what one might call 'romantic tragedies.'
And the time of Ryu's arrival was before a certain 'renowned V' had come to Night City (or perhaps before he had gone solo), meaning he hadn't jumped directly into the game's main storyline.
Curiously, however, he happened to meet certain characters, kicking off another story within the same world. Since this was a few years before the main game, it could probably be called a prequel.
—Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
Of course, regardless of the story, the fundamental nature of Night City remained unchanged. It was still a wretched world fraught with danger and temptation, where opportunity and challenge coexisted, and where the vast majority of people struggled to survive. To establish a stable foothold and get what he wanted, Ryu had to abide by the basic creed of caution.
Santo Domingo. Between the towering buildings formed endless sunless alleys, a sprawling network connecting one slum to another, scattered across the city's corners.
Gangs, drug dealers, casinos, doll clubs, underground banks... People from all walks of life, the good, the bad, and the ugly, converged here. It was by no means a virtuous place.
And Ryu's residence was here—more precisely, on the border between Santo Domingo and Arroyo, in an unlicensed clinic converted from an abandoned garage and basement.
—That's right, Ryu was a 'doctor.' Perhaps the presence of the Arasaka Corporation had popularized Japanese culture; many people, seeing his East Asian features, would call him doctor (or sir) using the Japanese word 'sensei.'
Navigating the chaotic zone with practiced ease, he arrived smoothly at the base of the building. The colossal, towering structure looked down on everything like a mythical giant, while humans could only eke out a meager existence in the corners obscured by its shadow.
Ryu took out an orange-flavored jelly and casually tossed it to the homeless man leaning against the wall. A cybernetic hand, its casing broken and circuitry exposed, automatically caught it, waking the man from his slumber.
"...Huh?"
Beep!
A notification sounded from behind the man's ear. His electronic account showed that a 'donation' had been received. After a quick glance at the amount, he stood up satisfied, gathered his things, and turned to leave—
—and sat down against the wall of the building across the way.
"Don't forget to call me next time you have business like this."
The homeless man mumbled this before pressing his face against the jelly and falling back asleep. Just for moving his sleeping spot for a month, he'd received such a handsome payment. For him, it was an absolutely profitable deal.
Ryu smiled, walked up the half-painted, half-exposed staircase to the second floor, verified his identity, entered his key, and opened the door.
The first thing he did was connect to the security system to check for any intrusions over the past month. After going through several more security measures and finding nothing unusual, he finally relaxed completely.
"Phew..."
Lying on the sofa, he turned his head to look at the minimalist interior decor and chuckled.
Living conditions were a bit rough. If he were back at the Kuse mansion, a maid would be fussing over him by now. But in this world, he was just an unlicensed doctor scraping by in the black market. The life of luxury and comfort was out of the question~
A Ripperdoc. It's a profession somewhere between a surgeon, a tech expert, and an artist (did something strange get mixed in there?).
As the name implies, they're doctors who can install or replace your cyberware (or human organs). They can take a person apart piece by piece, and conversely, reassemble a pile of junk back into a human form. Of course, the extent to which they can do this depends on their skill, taste, and the size of their commission~
Ryu actually did know medicine. After all, back in the main world, he had acquired many practical skills for free through the monthly updates of his 'System Card,' making him a highly professional and versatile jack-of-all-trades. While he couldn't be called a national-level expert in medicine, serving as a proper doctor with slightly less experience was no problem at all.
But being a Ripperdoc was a different matter entirely!
This profession specialized in 'taking people apart'!
Besides, the technological level was vastly different. At the very least, in the early 21st century, it was absolutely impossible to make cyberware transplants as convenient as swapping car parts, let alone hot-swapping them—
What do you think this is, the Sharingan!?
Forcing Ryu to do this would put him under too much psychological pressure, so he hadn't initially considered using a Ripperdoc as his alternate identity. It was only after meeting a special person who showed him the ropes that he started down this bumpy road.
Now, the garage and basement downstairs were filled with medical equipment. Although it was all secondhand, its performance in every aspect was outstanding, perfectly sufficient to meet the needs of an average person wanting a cyberware change.
—Using this equipment, Ryu barely needed to do the work himself. As long as he could stomach the bloody scenes, the job's intensity and technical difficulty weren't that high.
Thinking of this, Ryu couldn't help but open his private inbox and start scrolling through the messages one by one.
That girl Lucy only contacted him for minor things. Most of her messages were diary-like accounts of her 'encounters of the day,' as if she saw him as some kind of best friend she could tell anything to. Nothing that needed special attention.
On the other hand, Gloria... the woman who had led Ryu down this path, sent messages that were almost always work-related.
"In any case, I should message them back first and let them know I've returned," Ryu thought with a slight smile.
---
Early the next morning, Ryu went to another slum in Santo Domingo and knocked on a small door on the second floor.
"Coming~"
Click~
The door opened, and a teenager with a trendy hairstyle appeared from the waist up. He was wearing a rocker jacket over a mismatched school uniform blazer.
"Hey~ Long time no see, David."
"..."
Lifting his eyes to meet Ryu's for a moment, David Martinez gave a bitter, resigned smile tinged with disgust.
"I came today to—"
"My mom worked the night shift yesterday, she's probably still asleep... I'm heading to school."
David sidled past him, his steps quick and short as if he were dodging something, and swiftly went downstairs and left.
"—I came to talk business."
Ryu watched David's retreating back and scratched his head. Did this kid misunderstand something?
It's normal for someone in the throes of a restless adolescence to let their imagination run wild.
Ryu paid it no mind, almost forgetting that he himself didn't look much older than David, as he walked into the narrow, dim room, carrying the bag of synthetic jelly...
________________________________________
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