Seoul Cyberpunk Story-Chapter 19: That Pizza (3)

As the sun began to set, I circled the area around the Black Bio plant.

Steam rising from the plant mixed with the darkening sky, casting a strange and unsettling atmosphere.

Not exactly a place I wanted to go—but for pizza, I had no choice but to head inside.

The plant’s perimeter was more heavily guarded than I expected.

The Low-Tech Street gang had stationed guards at every door and window.

“Definitely unusual...”

Even at a glance, the Low-Tech Street guys looked peculiar.

The first thing that stood out were the weapons they held.

Mechanical firearms with zero AI integration.

They couldn’t rely on auto-targeting or aim assist embedded in most modern guns, but they were also immune to netwitch interference.

Seeing those simple, mechanical weapons made it feel like I’d been thrown back a hundred years.

“Tight security...”

Maybe because Victor had been discovered here recently, but this would’ve been a huge pain to infiltrate under normal circumstances.

But I had a secret weapon—something only someone crazy enough to take on a megacorp would think to use.

“Agu, come out.”

I muttered quietly, and Mecha-Agu gently poked its head out from behind my back.

Its chubby, rounded body and stubby legs didn’t seem like they belonged to something so agile, but Agu climbed up onto my shoulder with surprising grace.

Kyu.

Agu’s blue eyes sparkled.

Mecha-Agu hated moving around and loved lounging, but it was unexpectedly skilled at infiltration and stealth.

Full-field optical camouflage.

Silent footsteps.

Agility that totally didn’t match its plumpness!

“Cover the area.”

At my words, Agu gave a small nod, then blanketed the surroundings in a stealth field.

It was active camouflage that projected the surrounding environment over our figures.

A perfect companion robot for someone with zero stealth skills like me.

Of course, the wider the camouflage field, the higher the chance of detection at close range.

That’s where the kid came in—the one always tagging along behind me.

“I” was like a living hallucination—perfect for scouting ahead.

When I asked them to find a safe path, “I” crept forward like we were playing hide-and-seek, slowly and carefully approaching the corner before peeking around it.

After confirming no one was there, they dashed around the corner so fast I could hear the swoosh.

Technically, no one but me could see “I,” so they didn’t need to act like a ninja...

But they looked like they were having fun, so I let it be.

Maybe ten minutes passed, and “I” returned.

“I” rounded the corner silently, approached me, then covered their mouth with a hand and whispered like they were sharing a secret:

[Found it!]

They said there was a section near the northern outer wall with barely any guards.

No windows, no ventilation shafts—probably deemed unworthy of guarding. The Low-Tech Street guys seemed to be ignoring it completely.

With Agu’s optical camouflage and “I”’s scouting, I made my way toward the plant’s northern wall.

[This way!]

Moving cautiously in the direction “I” pointed, I finally arrived at the northern outer wall.

What stood before me was a slab of reinforced concrete, at least a meter thick.

For a normal person, it’d be impossible—but for me, it was nothing.

I turned the ring near my chest, and the blue glow running through my body flared brighter.

The circuit patterns beneath my skin pulsed like veins, glowing with light.

I placed both hands on the wall and slowly applied pressure.

At first, nothing happened—but gradually, my hands began to sink into the concrete.

Like it was made of soft tofu.

That made me pause for a moment.

“Tofu, huh...”

Suddenly I remembered the soft tofu stew I used to eat back in Korea.

Warm broth, delicate tofu floating on the surface, the spicy aroma tingling my nose...

But here in Babel? I’d never even seen a restaurant that served tofu, let alone that stew.

Did tofu vanish when Koreans disappeared?

Or was it considered Korean food and purged elsewhere, too? I didn’t know.

I pushed the thought aside and returned to reality.

In front of me was a hole I’d made in the wall, and beyond it lay the dark interior of the Black Bio plant.

From the darkness drifted the scent of machines and oil—completely unlike a food factory.

“Alright, let’s go.”

I smiled softly at Agu and “I.”

It was finally time to enter the Black Bio plant.

The real mission—for my pizza—was about to begin.

****

Seoul Office, after A had left.

Amber stood, staring for a long time at the door that had just closed.

The glass in her hand was already sparkling clean, but she kept wiping it out of habit.

A faint shadow of worry flickered across her amber-colored hair.

“If it’s A... he’ll be alright.”

Truthfully, Amber hadn’t wanted A to charge into the Black Bio plant.

No matter how prepared you were, it was always better to avoid getting entangled with megacorps.

But even if she’d tried to stop him, A would’ve ignored her and gone anyway.

In that case, it was better to arm him with as much information as possible.

And deep down, she believed A would be okay—even if he clashed with the megacorps.

Because A was likely an AI legacy.

The functions he used were things no one else in Babel could replicate.

Especially Amber, who knew megacorp tech inside and out, was certain—A’s abilities weren’t something they’d built.

The TV still droned on in the background, broadcasting news of the Black Bio plant occupation.

The reporter on screen spoke urgently about the tension at the site—but none of it reached Amber’s ears.

Time passed slowly in the Seoul Office.

The mercs returned to their routines. The bartender resumed her daily rhythm.

She cleaned bottles, wiped down tables, took orders—but Amber’s thoughts remained with A.

About an hour had passed.

Jingle.

The bell above the door rang again.

This time, a man in a typical corporate-style suit entered.

His overly neat attire, stiff movements, and the cutting-edge ocular implants—something rarely seen this far out in Babel—stood out immediately.

But to Amber, he looked less like someone from a corporation and more like someone desperate to look like he was.

As soon as the man reached the counter, he glanced around anxiously and blurted out:

“I heard there’s a mercenary here with a 100% success rate! I want to put in a request for him.”

Amber placed a drink in front of him.

It was one of her signature cocktails, but the man, clearly in some kind of rush, didn’t even glance at it.

Amber gave him a businesslike smile.

“Well then, why don’t you tell me more about the job?”

She pulled out a tablet as she spoke.

****

I had no idea how much time had passed since I entered the Black Bio plant through the hole I’d made in the wall.

Thanks to Agu’s optical camouflage and “I”’s advance scouting, I’d managed to slip past the guards and make it pretty deep inside.

The Low-Tech Street Gang had a tight perimeter, but oddly enough, once I reached the center of their territory, all traces of people vanished.

“Too quiet for a place that’s supposed to house a new weapon...”

I muttered under my breath as I walked toward a wide manufacturing platform.

Steam filled the space, blending with the dim ceiling lights into a bluish haze that clung like mist.

As I moved deeper into the fog, a massive silhouette began to take shape through the smoke.

“What the hell is that?”

A machine monster, the size of a military tank, stood in the distance.

A giant quadrupedal robot.

Each ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) of its legs looked like a thick pillar supporting its body, and the chassis was encased in black armor, giving off a faint glow.

Missile launchers appeared to be mounted on either side.

Just from the look of it, you could tell—this had to be one of the new weapons.

I hid behind a dark column and observed.

The strange part was that neither Low-Tech Street members nor Titan Tech employees were anywhere near such an important prototype.

Only a few security cameras were mounted nearby. That was it.

“Why would they leave it so unguarded?”

I ran through several possibilities in my head.

The most uptodate nove𝙡s are published on frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓.

Was there a strong radiation leak?

Or something else?

While I was holding my breath and analyzing the situation, a blur of motion caught the corner of my eye.

I turned—and saw that Agu and “I” had started playing, apparently bored of watching me study the robot.

Agu, relying on its cloaking ability, was darting across the space with “I” riding on its back, clearly having the time of their lives.

With an agility that didn’t match its chubby frame, Agu zipped between pipes and machines.

[Heehee!]

“I” spread their little arms to balance, beaming like a kid riding an amusement park ride.

Even at that speed, there was no sound from Agu’s steps—which was pretty impressive.

If only I could move that quietly... no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t replicate it.

“Time to get to work.”

I began gathering more energy into the blue ring near my heart.

The circuit patterns running through my body glowed brighter and stronger.

And then—

Ziiing...

A high-voltage hum suddenly vibrated through the air.

It sounded like something between a massive transformer and a high-tension power line.

Without any warning, the massive quadrupedal robot suddenly came to life, slowly beginning to move.

Metal groaned as its sensors lit up through the fog.

It started scanning its surroundings like it was searching for something.

And then—the impossible happened.

The massive robot began to melt—its form blurring as if made of ink, vanishing into the shadows.

“Stealth function? No... that’s different.”

I sprang to my feet in shock.

How could something that big just disappear completely?

I scanned the area, eyes wide, but there wasn’t a single trace of the robot.

Then I instinctively looked toward where Agu and “I” were playing.

‘!’

The Titan Tech robot that had vanished was now slowly rising behind Agu.

From a shadow behind it that looked like a bottomless swamp.

Just as I tried to shout a warning, a machine gun extended from the robot’s abdomen and began to fire mercilessly.

In the blink of an eye, a hail of bullets tore straight through Agu’s chubby belly.

Kyuhee-hee...

Agu let out a pitiful cry as a hole the size of a fist punched clean through its soft gut.

Its limbs drooped, and it collapsed limply to the ground.

[Nooo!]

“I” tried to shake Agu’s stomach in shock, but being an entity without physical form, they couldn’t touch it.