Chapter 43: Balancing Learning and Life (Part 2)

"Well done, Leo. Now Melissa's daughter can rest in peace. The money has been transferred, and this job is closed." Huh? Hearing this, Leo was momentarily stunned before realizing he had an unread message in his inbox—it was from Padre. He must have been too engrossed in his studies to notice it earlier. The message contained the details of the job: The 6th Street gang was planning to take over the Glen and set up a shooting range at the district's border as a scare tactic. Unfortunately, a passing girl was accidentally killed. Apparently, her body ended up mostly in the 6th Street territory, just before crossing the bridge. This territory wasn't just a marked line; Night City had specific legislation regarding 6th Street gang activities, so as long as nothing crossed the line, the NCPD turned a blind eye. But the girl's mother didn't see it that way. A middle-aged woman who ran a food stall scraped together every penny she had to hire Padre to seek justice for her daughter. After reading the message, Leo fell silent. "I made such a serious mistake. I didn't even read the mission details before opening fire. It's a good thing that guy wasn't someone important." As for the final payment, it was as Leo expected—2,000 eurodollars, casually split among the three of them. This job was easy: Pritt had already crossed the line, so his death was whatever, and it even helped the NCPD in the process—it hardly even classified as murder. Looking at it this way, Padre was quite generous. Perhaps he was unsure of Leo's capabilities and wanted to build some goodwill. Thinking this, Leo didn't slow down his actions. The three unlucky 6th Street gang members—now labeled criminals—were being dismantled by Leo. The cyberware on them was basic: bionic limbs, neural interfaces, and second-hand optic implants from the black market, many of unknown origin. Yes, cyberware is rampant in the Cyberpunk world—but most of it comes from small companies or is pieced together by gangs themselves. Take optic implants, for example. The biggest manufacturer is Kiroshi Optics, but there are plenty of other manufacturers catering to the poor. The optic implant Leo was dismantling came from some no-name workshop. Leo himself used a Kiroshi Mk.II, which had all the basic functions, including 30x optical zoom, and featured advanced AI recognition and scanning capabilities. For Leo, it was a cheap item, costing only a few thousand eurodollars. But for the guy lying on the operating table, it would take two months of no eating or drinking to afford it. Not to mention, some wealthy individuals even outfitted their pets with cyberware—though it was unclear why. Even pet cyberware generally cost more than these subpar products. "Sometimes, people aren't even worth as much as a dog... but you deserve it." The kid in front of Leo wasn't dead yet. If he were, the cyberware would lock up, making it impossible to operate. So he had to stay alive while Leo dismantled his cyberware, practicing the skills he'd learned today. Additionally, Leo had downloaded a tutorial on daemon programming from a hacker site and planned to write a few useful daemons, like "cyberware malfunction" and "optical reboot." The 6th Street thug's face was filled with terror—Leo had disabled his vocal system and severed his central nervous system, but hadn't killed him! He could only feel his body being slowly disassembled, implanted with bizarre daemons, activated, and then put back together! His optical implants shut down and rebooted repeatedly, while his body was overwhelmed with nausea. It was a double torture—both physical and mental! Before long, the brainwave monitoring device next to Leo started beeping—indicating the subject's mind had descended into chaos! He'd become a cyberpsycho! All of his cyberware went berserk, but... it didn't help. After all, cyberpsychosis is just a disease, and it doesn't mean every psycho can wreak havoc. "All right, I'll give you a quick death." Leo picked up the nearby Tamayura and finished him off. "Next... Oh, you're the target. I see you're indeed a small-time boss, with a custom palm module... interesting, very interesting." Pritt fell into despair—this maniac didn't even remember his name! [First completed practical daemon: Cyberware Malfunction] [First completed practical daemon: Optical Reboot] [First completed cyberware disassembly surgery] [First completed cyberware implantation surgery] [You have acquired a new skill: Cyberware Technology (Proficient)] [Note: You've learned to perform functional programming on common cyberware, but you're still a novice.] [You have acquired a new skill: Network Hacking (Proficient)] [Note: You've learned to upload daemons proficiently and even started writing simple daemons.] [Tech Points +700] [Current Tech Points: 2365] A night of hard work paid off, bringing in the most tech points Leo had earned in a while. Leo's newly implanted cyberware, the lungs and synthetic lung tissue, weighed a total of 1700g, while the auxiliary heart added 125g. The network access node and smart link in his palm added another 60g. In addition, to avoid wearing thick clothing all the time, Leo had Old Vic install a skin-mimicking cyberware called "Derma." This stuff was similar to real skin in appearance, feel, and even thermal conductivity, designed to cover up the exposed cyberware. It was originally invented in the early days of the cyberware boom to reduce the resistance of those being implanted. But nowadays, cyberpsychos even let their massive guns hang out of their pants, so no one cares about resistance anymore. The synthetic skin mainly covered the spine area, concealing the exposed Sandevistan, and weighed 100g. Converting everything into tech points gave him a total of 1985 points, which Leo immediately chose to transfer to his other self in the other world to avoid any sudden death. [Cross-dimensional cyberware binding complete, Tech Points -1985] [Current Tech Points: 350] Leo checked the time—6 AM, still early. By now, the murderers before him had been separated from their machines. On one side were the cleaned-up cyberwares, still usable and ready for the black market, while on the other were the bodies. In other places, disposing of bodies would be troublesome, but this was Night City. Here, the trash collectors were well-experienced in handling such situations. After all, these three had bounties in the NCPD database. Leo stuffed the three guys into black plastic bags and tossed them into the trash heap. Everything seemed natural and normal—no one would ask him, "Why does that black trash bag look a little red?" Could he be a serial killer? Such weird questions wouldn't be asked. Living in Night City means learning not to poke your nose into trouble; otherwise, some random psycho taking a leak nearby might pull out a gun and blow your brains out. Leo lay on the bed, quietly waiting for progress in the other world. [Reminder: Detailed and responsible thinking and communication work requires the deduction of Tech Points for in-person communication.] [10 points per hour, with less than an hour counted as one full hour.] Leo silently cursed at the stinginess, but he had no choice. Without understanding how far Connors' research had progressed, planning the next step was impossible. [The car stopped at the gates of Empire University, where students bustled about, full of youthful energy.] [This is the best university in New York City and also the place most likely to cure your body.] [Would you like to initiate in-person communication?] [In-person communication channel activated, Tech Points -10] Leo chose to initiate in-person communication and sat down at his computer, ready to look up any necessary information.