"CLANG~!"
A grating metal-on-metal sound rang out. The blade of the machete, twisted like a pretzel, clattered to the floor. The Scavenger boss clutched his ruptured right hand, his teeth chattering.
He looked in shock at the black man's hand, seeing cold metal beneath the sliced skin.
This guy had completely replaced his arm!?
Before Lawrence's drug-addled brain could process what had happened, the large man delivered a punch that sent him flying to the ground.
Stars swam before his eyes, and he felt like his limbs weren't his own.
Lawrence's vision was dim. He clawed helplessly at the ground, trying to get up, but a large hand grabbed his clothing and pulled him up.
This was followed by the rush of violent motion and the sound of bones snapping as his body slammed against the wall. Lawrence, his head pulped, slid down the wall and collapsed onto the ground, ending his criminal life and descending to hell with only half a head remaining.
Berry didn't even twitch.
As they came up the stairs, the enemy's pathetic position behind the crates was plainly visible to Arnold's thermal vision. The sneak attack had, naturally, become a joke.
Stepping over the fool, Berry pulled open the door and entered the slightly cleaner room.
Inside were an office desk, a lamp, and a computer—all unimportant. What mattered was the safe in the room.
The moment Berry saw the safe, her eyes locked onto it.
She could smell the oil and ink of the money.
She pulled the door open easily; the fool hadn't even locked it.
What was inside? Needless to say, stacks upon stacks of Eurodollars—Berry's favorite sight.
Grabbing a cardboard box, Berry stuffed the rolls of currency inside.
There wasn't just cash. There were many credit chips loaded with money, and some scattered necklaces and jewelry, likely stripped from victims.
No matter what it was, Berry took it all.
"What is this strange thing."
Berry found a chip, but it wasn't a credit chip. It was jet black, looked more complex, and more expensive. It looked like a data vault used to store confidential information.
Well, never mind.
After studying it briefly and failing to figure it out, Berry tossed it into the box anyway. She would have plenty of time to study it later back home.
"Something feels off."
After Berry finished packing all the valuables, she saw something suspicious downstairs through Arnold's surveillance feed.
Several cars had pulled up outside the door, and armed personnel were getting out.
Scavenger reinforcements? Or NCPD detectives who heard the gunshots?
Berry closed the box, clipped it to her waist, and, with her gun raised, prepared to rush downstairs with Arnold. She didn't want to be trapped on the second floor with nowhere to escape.
"Wait, Old Vik!?" Berry poked her head out from the stairwell with her gun, only to see a completely unexpected person at the door: the Ripperdoc, Viktor.
"Whoa, Berry!" Old Vik led his people in, equally shocked to see Berry, but he was even more stunned by the floor full of Scavenger corpses. The place looked like it had just been through a massacre.
"You... you did all this!?"
Old Vik and the armed people accompanying him were dumbfounded, especially Old Vik, whose sunglasses were almost sliding off his nose.
"Just a small contribution," Berry said, relaxing as she realized they were allies, and she stood up, walking down the stairs.
"But, Old Vik, why are you here? And who are these people?" Berry leaned against the stairwell, looking at Old Vik and the people behind him with confusion.
She hadn't called Vik for backup. How did they know to rush over here?
"You left in such a hurry earlier, I was worried," Vik said, finally tearing his gaze away from the corpses and looking at Berry. He explained why they had come.
"I have a contact working in Kabuki. After asking him, I learned that a large number of Scavengers were gathering here. I was afraid of delaying you, and I didn't dare call you, so I just brought a few friends to support you."
"Who knew we'd hear gunshots at the corner? We hurried over, and I can't believe you handled this many Scavengers all by yourself. My god, Berry, you're tougher than a merc from the Afterlife."
At this point, Viktor had somewhat recovered from the shock of Berry single-handedly wiping out a Scavenger crew.
"Of course! Who am I? I'm Berry, the future legend of Night City, the fiercest and most brutal mercenary!"
Berry placed the box full of money under the driver's seat of the van. Then, leaning against the car door, she bragged to Old Vik and the mercs who had come to back her up, though her face showed none of the brutality she was boasting about.
"It's settled now. The truck is back, most of the goods are recovered, and most importantly, the troublemakers are gone. From now on, the cyberware market in Kabuki is ours," Berry proudly told Vik, patting the hood of the car.
"Yes, yes, I never would have expected it," Vik said, adjusting his sunglasses and sighing with emotion.
He had originally prepared to come out of retirement one last time to help Berry, but he never expected her to be so capable. Besides witnessing Berry's victory, he hadn't been able to help at all.
Young people these days were truly formidable.
Old Vic sighed, feeling like he was truly a relic of a bygone era.
"By the way, Old Vic, aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?" Berry raised an eyebrow, finding the gunfighters who were staring at her with such eagerness somewhat baffling.
Was she really that impressive to warrant such admiration?
"Oh, them." The now-alert Viktor smiled at the gunfighters. "They came to see you, Berry, the boss of the 'Hive' corporation, more than they came to help me."
"Hmm?" Berry raised an eyebrow, looking at the smiling Old Vic with confusion.
She was slightly confused about the situation. These people were looking for her? What did that mean?
"Several of them are my patients, and also users of the cyberware you manufactured..." Seeing Berry's confused eyes, Vik began to explain.
These gunfighters were all former soldiers from the Fourth Corporate War.
The plight of Night City's veterans was a disaster.
During the war, corporations had abused psychoactive drugs and installed high-powered military cyberware that caused severe bodily harm in these soldiers to achieve victory. After the war, however, they simply cast these veterans aside.
The pensions promised before the war, as well as post-war treatment, were all denied.
Many veterans were impoverished and suffered from severe psychological distress caused by their cyberware and drug withdrawal. To numb their painful nerves, many of them frequently used tranquilizers, developing a dependence on sedatives.
And the veterans, who lived paycheck to paycheck, couldn't afford the exorbitant costs of medication and cyberware maintenance. They were forced to join gangs and sell their combat skills to buy cheap tranquilizers to dull their painful nerves.
But many veterans were unwilling to participate in the corrupt dealings of gangs. They chose labor jobs, working as security guards, construction workers, and so on, selling their physical strength to survive, enduring the pain of their cyberware and drug withdrawal alone in their rundown rented rooms at night.
Many people eventually cracked under the prolonged mental pressure, turning into Cyberpsychos and going on killing sprees in the streets.
Night City police officers openly stated that at least four out of every ten Cyberpsycho cases were committed by retired soldiers.
Because of this, the people of Night City increasingly discriminated against and hated these veterans, making their situation even more difficult.
Viktor had dealt with similar issues.
As a Ripperdoc, he helped some poor retired soldiers maintain and regularly disinfect their cyberware at a relatively fair price.
However, this was only treating the symptoms, not the root cause. If these soldiers didn't completely replace the military-grade cyberware designed for war, they would eventually break down.
They would either commit suicide under the torture or turn into rampaging Cyberpsychos.
But now, Berry's cyberware seemed to be having an unexpected effect.
A few retired soldiers who couldn't afford to replace their implants with standard ones started using Berry's handcrafted knockoffs. They discovered that this semi-plastic, semi-metallic cyberware was gentler and didn't put as much pressure on their nerves as other implants.
Therefore, it was natural for them to feel grateful to Berry, who created this cyberware.
"That's all I know. Maybe you should let them tell you themselves." Viktor turned to a gunfighter with a cybernetic right arm. "Anthony, didn't you want to thank Berry personally? Now's your chance."
As soon as Old Vik finished speaking, Anthony, his face flushed with excitement, stepped forward. "You must be the famous Berry, right? I'm so grateful to you."
"My arm was driving me crazy, but thanks to the cyberware you made, I can finally sleep at night now."
The man's tone was sincere, not sounding like a joke. The expressions of the others were mostly the same.
It seemed her imitation cyberware had some unexpected therapeutic effects.
Looking at the man's milky-white, metallic prosthetic arm, Berry was surprised.
It was indeed something she had made. The white appearance was because she had used hard ceramic to replace some metal, but that shouldn't affect its efficacy.
Her hypothesis was that, with the System's enhancement, she had moved part of the cyberware's instruction source to the skeletal actuator and spinal neural center when designing the artificial neural pathways. This greatly reduced the pressure on the brain's nerves.
This design was actually a complex and outdated engineering approach. Its only benefit was lowering the cost of the artificial neural pathways, as fewer were needed.
But she never expected that this outdated design would become a lifesaver for retired soldiers.
However, Berry didn't speak, because judging by Anthony's excited expression, he clearly wasn't finished.
"Please let us work for you!"
The sudden request stunned Berry, who almost choked.