Seoul Cyberpunk Story-Chapter 20: That Pizza (4)

"Kyuu-hing-hing..."

As soon as I saw Agu collapse, I lunged at Titan Tech's robot.

Pushing my speed to the limit, the circuits glowing across my body lit up like a meteor streaking through the sky.

Right before impact, I gathered blue light into my fist and swung it at the Titan Tech robot.

Thwack.

But contrary to expectations, my punch never connected.

‘!’

A black shadow had unfurled like a curtain in front of me.

Its edges broke apart in a pixelated shimmer, like a corrupted digital image.

“AI corruption?”

It looked eerily similar to the shadows I'd seen in the corrupted zones.

A shadow that looked like liquid.

It resisted like real fluid, slowing my punch to a crawl.

Even when I forced my fist through with all my strength, it only drifted sluggishly through the shadow.

By the time I broke through the curtain, the Titan Tech robot had already put a good distance between us.

Just then, another machine gun emerged from its abdomen.

Drrrrr.

The bullets tore through the air.

I ducked quickly to avoid the gunfire, but then the missiles launched one after another, making it much harder to dodge.

BOOM! KA-BOOM!

Explosions rocked the inside of the plant.

The mist-like vapor that had filled the space evaporated instantly under the blasts, and the machines that once produced food began to collapse one by one.

“No—!”

One of them was the machine that had been filled with round, jiggly pepperoni.

I dashed toward the robot at full speed, determined to protect the pizza.

The bullets and missiles filled my vision—there was no way to avoid them all.

But I didn’t plan to dodge every attack.

With the Ring of the Heart, I could ignore even large-caliber rounds.

A few bullets struck my shoulder and thigh.

‘!’

Shockingly, the bullets left small wounds on my body.

That was... unexpected.

Since the Heart Drill incident, my body had become even more durable—yet this?

That level of firepower might’ve been enough to put down that Heart Drill maniac with just a machine gun.

“That prototype must’ve been born from real AI tech.”

Not the kind of fake AI that can’t improve itself—but a true AI, one capable of causing corruption.

“What now? I can’t break that shadow with punches...”

I kept breaking through the bullet storm, landing hit after hit, but the same thing kept happening.

Should I draw the blade?

But the MK Girl was a mascot who fought enemies with her bare fists...

Then a very obvious thought struck me.

“Why am I sticking to the MK Girl’s canon? No one even knows who this character is...”

With that short reflection, I ended the thought, formed a blade in my right hand, and charged at the Titan Tech robot.

****

Agu looked down at the gaping hole torn through his belly and let out a pitiful whimper.

"Kyuu-hing-hing..."

“I” didn’t know what to do as they watched him.

[Are you okay?]

It didn’t look like Mecha-Agu's life was in danger.

Even while crying, he kept glancing at “I” for a reaction—he didn’t seem to be in much pain.

[Does it hurt?]

But “I” didn’t notice that and just stared at him with a worried expression.

BOOM! KA-BOOM!

The fighting inside the Black Bio plant escalated. Loud crashes echoed everywhere.

Bombs exploding. Steel supports collapsing.

And then came the blaring of emergency alarms, followed by the sound of countless footsteps racing toward them.

As the noise grew closer, Agu quickly looked around to assess his position.

He realized he was right in the middle of a corridor people were likely to pass through.

Dropping the act, he scrambled to a corner where people were unlikely to look—and immediately started crying again.

"Kyuu-hing-hing..."

“I” stared at him in stunned silence, wearing the face of someone who’d just been betrayed.

Then, arms crossed and with an offended look, “I” turned their head away.

Just moments ago, their face had been full of concern—now it was pouting in irritation.

No matter how much Agu kept whimpering and crying, “I” wouldn’t even glance his way.

Eventually, Agu gave a sheepish look and plopped down on the ground beside them.

An unexpected explosion echoed through the Black Bio Plant—an area where only battles prearranged by the secret deal between the two megacorps were supposed to take place.

Red emergency lights began rotating from the ceiling, and a blaring alarm filled the space.

[Intruder detected in the hangar.]

A mechanical voice rang out from the overhead speakers.

Rufus, the chief engineer of Titan Tech, raised his head visor and muttered,

“Who the hell wandered near the temporary hangar again? I told them the prototype’s not ready yet...”

The chief engineer looked visibly irritated, and one of the nearby team members cautiously replied,

“Chief Engineer, that’s not it...”

The team member informed Rufus that it wasn’t the dumbasses from the Low-Tech Street Gang—it was an actual combat situation.

And judging by the constant sound of missile detonations, it definitely seemed like an emergency.

Rufus immediately stood up and sprinted toward the hangar.

He ran full speed, gasping for air, and when he finally reached the hangar, the scene in front of him left him speechless.

“Wh—what the hell is this?”

His prized creation—the prototype he proudly claimed to be the strongest in Babel—was being overwhelmed.

Its opponent? A figure streaked with black and electric blue... A cyborg?

Rufus pulled down the visor over his eyes and began recording the battle in detail.

The CCTV system inside the Black Bio Plant had been broken for a long time, so it was up to him to document everything firsthand.

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“Start recording! All of you!” he snapped, waving his hand irritably at his team.

Even as he barked orders, Rufus’s mind was racing.

‘What company built that cyborg?’

‘Abyss Aerotics? No way. They only build drones.’

‘Jinlong Technologies? Maybe...’

As he kept recording, Rufus realized the fight was nearing its end.

The cyborg—now reduced to a blur of blue afterimages—had unsheathed a vicious-looking blade.

‘Why only now? Why bring out a weapon this late?’

Rufus couldn’t understand it.

Up until now, the cyborg had been using nothing but basic punches—nothing that would even count as a real weapon—and now it was pulling out a blade?

But Rufus, a fast thinker, quickly figured it out.

‘Performance testing.’

If the point of this fight wasn’t to destroy the prototype, but to test the cyborg’s capabilities, then it all made sense.

‘Ha. A performance test... against Titan Tech?’

The moment Rufus came to that conclusion, the blue-glowing blade sliced cleanly through the prototype’s shadow barrier like paper.

Then came a flurry of follow-up strikes.

The streaks of blue light cut through the dark factory like a meteor shower, ripping the prototype to pieces.

Rufus stood frozen, shocked.

“That’s it. That’s the path Titan Tech should take...”

The glowing blue cyborg had already disappeared, but Rufus couldn’t stop murmuring as he stared down at the wreckage.

****

Inside the darkened Black Bio Plant, Rufus stood surrounded by a sea of holographic screens, laser-focused.

Titan Tech employees bustled around the debris and the shattered robot parts, but Rufus had carved out a private space to analyze the data.

Dozens of recordings—his own visor footage and visual implant data extracted from the other staff—floated above the glowing holograms.

He flicked through the footage with sharp, fast gestures, examining the battle frame by frame.

“You’ve been watching that same clip nonstop, Chief Engineer.”

An assistant engineer walked over holding a cup of coffee.

Rufus reached out without looking and took it silently.

“...”

He didn’t even bother answering. His eyes burned with focus and adrenaline.

He kept rewinding, zooming in, enhancing—searching for something.

And then it happened.

The moment the blue-powered cyborg drew its blade and cleaved through the prototype, Rufus froze the footage.

His eyes narrowed.

“There.”

He muttered under his breath.

He zoomed in on a single frame.

There was a faint logo engraved on the cyborg’s chest.

At first glance, it looked like part of the blue circuitry patterns, but once magnified and sharpened, the shape became clear.

“This is...”

A company logo.

It was his first time seeing it—but the name?

He knew that name all too well.

MK Corporation.

A company that vanished 100 years ago, swallowed by the Great Convergence.

And yet, it was a name Rufus had hoped never to see again.

Because of a bizarre rule that existed within Titan Tech:

If any trace related to MK Corporation is suspected:

Immediately report to headquarters.

Abort all related missions and return.

Do not attempt independent investigation.

Do not share related information with outsiders.

It was a hidden internal regulation Rufus had learned the moment he ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ was promoted to management level.

He’d thought it strange from the very beginning.

As if the rule itself were screaming that MK still existed.