Li Pan jolted like he'd been stabbed with a live wire, eyes snapping open.
He was sprawled on the apartment floor.
K, the bodysuit, was crouched over him, icy blue eyes staring down, an injector jammed into his chest. A stimulant shot—dragging him back from the edge.
"What the hell was it this time?"
As his senses came back, pain flooded every nerve. He realized he'd gone into shock… and had one hell of a weird dream. He spat a mouthful of blood to the side.
"Ninja…"
K's brows drew together.
"Onitei? I haven't run into a real Onitei in three years. How do you manage to piss off people like that?"
Li Pan thought for a moment.
"Maybe… not a real Onitei…"
The kunoichi who'd attacked him tonight was, most likely, Akiyama Ayako—daughter of the Akiyama Dojo. But something didn't add up.
The blade wasn't right. She used a ninjatō that couldn't even scratch Tonbokiri. If she'd been swinging the one from the warehouse, he'd be sliced in half already.
And the cyberware—off too. Ayako had neural acceleration, sure, but nothing close to military-grade. No alloy spine implant. There's no way she could've snapped it just because he hugged her too hard.
Which meant, if the one who ambushed him tonight had actually been the warehouse swordswoman who shredded the Vortex Gang… Li Pan would already be in another dimension, dead no matter how loud you screamed.
So, if the ninja who hit the company warehouse was someone else entirely… why did the Akiyama family shove their own daughter out to take the fall once they knew the corporation had eyes on them?
What the hell are they after—
"Hey! Don't lick my blood off your fingers! I'm still in the danger zone here! Take me to the company! Please!"
"Tch. Such a pain," K muttered.
So yeah, Li Pan got saved by K again.
Tsundere girl—mouth says "get lost," but the body? Completely honest. The moment she got the call, she came running. Otherwise, no way she'd have made it in time to resuscitate him. Not that she'd ever admit it.
But now wasn't the time to flirt. If things kept going like this, he wouldn't even have rice to eat.
This reset alone had cost him the brand-new chip and ballistic processor set he'd just bought. Still warm from the store, and now gone. The debt, though? Rolling higher and higher.
He'd learned his lesson—the hard way. Cheap crap was a trap. Civilian-grade gear was just that—civilian. Level 3 was unreliable as hell. His fancy-ass "13PRO"? One pop and a hacker's puppet fried it. In the middle of a life-or-death ranked match? Blind, malfunctioning, blue-screening? Yeah—real great.
If every fight ended in a bloody "victory" followed by a full reset, all that cyberware might as well not exist.
At this point, it'd be better to load up on top-tier kit from the start. If it keeps you alive, it's worth it.
And that apartment? Not safe anymore.
Dammit. Cerberus was on him now. You try taking a dump in the middle of the night, and bang!—sniper shot to the head? Who could live like that?
Problem was—where the hell do you find a place in this city for 1,000 creds a month? That unit was a hard-won military vet welfare apartment, paid for in literal blood, sweat, and near-death experiences.
And all his discounts and perks were burned. A second rental? Full market price plus taxes. Cheapest place online? A grimy industrial-zone shoebox with the Vortex Gang as neighbors—rent plus utilities, net, and community fees came to 5,000 easy.
Sure, you could say, "Screw it, I'll sleep under a bridge!" But in Night City, your legal citizenship is tied to your residence.
No registered address, no legal job. Credit cards, benefits, utilities—all linked to your official home. Criminal record, military service, civic duties—all tied to your housing. Immigrants looking for work here? First thing they apply for is a "temporary residence permit."
So Li Pan sat at the breakroom table, chin propped on both hands, listening to the system loop in his earpiece:
"Citizen Li Pan. Account balance: 182.27. Next loan payment due: 8,291.43. Total debt: 31XXXX.XX…"
He was down to one gun, one blade, and three rounds of level-5 ammo.
Which was easier? Finding a new apartment—or using what little he had left to hunt down every Cerberus and ninja hiding in the dark?
He didn't know how long he'd been stewing when Shiba—plus a curly-haired kid he'd never seen before—sat down in front of him, unpacking boxed lunches. A-7 poured coffee for all three.
"…Wait. Who bought these lunches?"
Li Pan stared—three meats, two veggies. Three meats!
Shiba shrugged. "From the cafeteria."
His voice trembled. "Since when do we have a cafeteria?"
Shiba bit into a drumstick. "CSI's security mess hall downstairs. Their firewall's garbage. I got Rama a meal card."
Oh. So this curly-haired kid was that Rama from the cage. Guess the kid was decent with files. Not that losing an arm bothered him—easy enough to swap in new skin.
Li Pan's grin stretched ear to ear. "Shiba… get me one too?"
Shiba eyed him. "You're the GM. A real citizen. And you're gonna mooch lunch from another company?"
Li Pan almost cried.
A-7 slid him a card, typing,
"You probably rushed over without breakfast. Miss Shiba got me one, but I won't use it. You take it."
"A—SEVEN—!"
Come to think of it… if she didn't even use her salary card, maybe— No. No, have some dignity.
Still—a win. Monthly food budget, slashed. Having a hacker on the team was handy.
"Shiba, since you've got the Big Snake installed, think you could clone me a credit card to use?"
Shiba narrowed her eyes at the corrupt, fallen adult in front of her.
"Sure. But if CSI catches me, they'll just raise the company's rent. If the Security Bureau catches me, you go to prison. That cool with you?"
Li Pan thought about it. "Prison's not so bad. At least they feed you…"
Shiba decided this man was beyond saving.
She barely ate half her meat before dumping the rest of the veggies into Rama's box. The kid teared up—looked like he was already fully tamed.
Li Pan skimmed Rama's contract. Thanks to A-7's referral, the kid had signed on as a temp, codename 0791003. Shiba used his mom's address to update his residence permit. With health insurance, work history, and Monster Corp's name backing him, Rama was now legally employed.
Of course, no military service meant no citizenship, so no cyberware loan perks. And with his first paycheck still weeks away, he lived at the company—ate off the meal card, slept in the warehouse broom closet.
Night shift security, technically. Useless in a fight, but still company staff.
Li Pan downed his coffee, grabbed a stack of faxes, and started delegating.
"Shiba, you and Rama handle the Big Snake rig delivery to Warehouse 7. Buy whatever you need—no saving the company money. Rama signs off. Any issues, call me.
A-7, the HQ's temp-hire approval for the off-site warehouse came through. Make the runs, get them onboard. Keep recruiting.
I'm gonna go bag two monsters."
He grabbed a corp car, slung his blade, and headed straight for Akiyama Dojo.
Damn Japs—smiling and apologizing one moment, flipping the table and swinging swords the next. Zero trust factor.
His mind was made up. Whatever the hell they were scheming, he was walking in and kicking their asses. And unless they forked over tens of millions in medical costs, not even Akiyama Masako's bare-ass apology would cut it.
The dojo was closed.
"Fuck!"
Furious, he slashed at the decorative trees outside—plastic. Cheap.
Then he leaned into the camera.
"Akiyamas! You can run for now, but you can't hide forever! Tonight—let's see if you kill me first, or I blow your whole place sky-high! Ptooey!"
He left the camera dripping with spit and went to work.
This time? Another "monster containment" job. HQ intel had dug up a new clip—goddamn desk jockeys browsing vids on the clock.
It was from a paranormal vlogger channel. In this age, office drones commuted between two points, homeless stayed in with VR, and a few "outdoor streamers" wandered around filming nightmare dives for the rest of the net to watch.
Pure travel or food reviews? Too boring. You needed a gimmick to get clicks. Paranormal tours—scripted haunted houses, staged encounters, sex, gore—anything to skate the edge of legality.
And in death zones like that, gangs were everywhere. Sometimes you really did stumble into a drug deal and end up in a firefight. Viewers loved watching some thrill-chaser risk their neck instead of them.
The video in question was a death-dive. The streamer had gone ghost-hunting in the "Ghost Tower" and walked into a drug deal—got shot dead.
That wasn't unusual. What was? He'd spent four hours wandering the same stairwell, unable to find an exit. The livestream was glitchy as hell—electromagnetic interference, drugs, psychosis? Who knew. By the end, he was screaming, breaking down completely, and walked straight into the dealers' sights.
NCPA files said the body was dismembered, every sellable part stripped. The rest boiled in oil and fed to sewer rats. Biggest leftover piece? A synthetic-resin-filled cock—no one wants that second-hand.
No body for autopsy. Original files scrubbed. Only bootleg VR captures from viewers to go on. No way to tell exactly what happened.
But if it really was temporal distortion, physical space breaking down—that was monster territory. HQ wanted it checked. If a monster was in there, bring it back.
Haunted stairwells? Li Pan scoffed. Old horror cliché. Nobody liked climbing stairs anyway.
Still, it was an easy time-killer. Worst case? The stairs led straight to hell—and maybe hell didn't have overtime.
Knowing the dealers were nearby, he had the corp floater repaint itself in NCPA livery, throw up a crime scene holo, and chase them off before stepping inside the Ghost Tower.
The "Ghost Tower Zone" was a cluster of concrete apartment blocks way out past the outer ring—industrial-area relics. Far from the old city. No subway line. Nothing but weeds and rust. Why anyone built a massive housing complex out here was anyone's guess—maybe they'd meant for future ghost tours.
Records showed they were a late-Eighth New Tokyo project, peak bubble economy—developers flush with cash, carving out "green suburban communities" linked by planned rail, bridges, and highways to multiple megacities.
Then the economy tanked. Companies collapsed. Projects froze. Half-finished towers abandoned en masse.
Hundreds of families, priced out of the city, dumped into hollow concrete shells. At night, the wind howled through empty corridors like the wails of the bankrupt dead.
The Ghost Tower Zone—a long-time number one on paranormal streamers' hit list.
These days it wasn't totally empty. Gangs squatted there. So did temp-permit laborers too broke for real rent. No water, no power, no net—but it kept the rain out. Social service, in a way.
Li Pan's job was simple: retrace the streamer's route from top to bottom. See if he got lost too.
He figured he might as well practice while climbing. That dream he'd had—the blue-robed freak had shown him two moves. Now he worked through them, swaying left and right like a monkey, Tonbokiri jabbing and feinting.
It felt… different. Training in Nine Yin Body Refinement meant sitting still until he slipped into that half-sleep trance. This monkey dance loosened his joints, flushed cold from his chest.
Even crazier—the technique worked.
Ten floors up, he noticed a faint blue glow coiling along Tonbokiri's edge—a blade aura, like mist, curling around the tip. In the dark stairwell, it looked like the blade was burning with green fire.
In the dream, a few leaps and he'd been firing blade-wind like a cannon. Now? Just a magic glow.
"AAAAGH! GHOST! GHOST! MOMMY! MOOOOOM!"
The hell!?
Shouts from above. Li Pan bounded up three steps at a time, blade ready. He found a chubby guy loaded with gear—camera on his head, mic on his collar—collapsed on the landing.
"Where's the ghost?"
The guy just gaped, trembling, unable to speak. His pistol was stuck in its holster, glasses flickering with streaming overlays.
Right. Another streamer. Probably saw Li Pan waving a sword and pissed himself.
"There's no damn ghost. Stop screaming like an idiot."
Li Pan left him there and sprinted up three more floors—only to hear the guy bellowing down below:
"CHAT! You saw that, right?! A real Cyberpsycho! 666! Thanks for the likes, thanks for the tips!"
Oh, you little shit. Wait until I finish this climb—I'll show you what real cyberpsychosis looks like.
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⚠️ 30 CHAPTERS AHEAD — I'm Not a Cyberpsycho ⚠️
The system says: Kill.Mercs obey. Corporates obey. Monsters obey.One man didn't.
🧠💀 "I'm not a cyberpsycho. I just think... differently."
💥 High-voltage cyberpunk. Urban warfare. AI paranoia.Read 30 chapters ahead, only on Patreon.
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