Chapter 948 Cyberpunk: Arriving at Rebecca’s Apartment, Killing Scavs, The Famous Afterlife, and Meeting Maine, Dorio, and Sasha.

The Chevillon passed through Japantown, but it drew little attention. The vehicle fit the area.

So even though they saw many members of the Tiger Claws along the way, they had no problems.

It took them fifteen minutes to reach the Watson district.

What can be said about Watson, the northern district of Night City?

Industrial and run-down were the words that defined it.

In its subdistricts, such as Little China and Kabuki, there were black markets and alleyways. In the Northside Industrial District, or NID, there were factories, and there was also the Arasaka Waterfront. In the past, it had been a prosperous district, but now it was defined by immigrants, crime, and poverty.

The contrast with Westbrook was absurd. Despite being practically right next to each other, they looked like two completely different worlds. However, this environment fit much better with what Pilar and Rebecca were looking for in a place to live.

Allen drove to Watson Northside and stopped in front of an apartment building.

It had three floors and a green-and-yellow facade. There were no other buildings around it. Behind it, an alley could be seen with a few people rummaging through the trash.

Allen parked to the left of the building. It wasn't a parking lot, but the vacant dirt lot was a good place to leave vehicles, assuming you weren't afraid of having them stripped for parts.

In front of the vacant lot was a fence, and beyond it was a group of armed men sitting on a battered couch, watching television while drinking.

It wasn't the best place to live, but at least from here, they could take the highway that led out of Night City and into the desert. Best of all, in such a remote location, neither the 6th Street nor the Valentinos would be able to move around easily.

The only problem was that Watson Northside was Maelstrom territory, and among the major gangs, they were some of the craziest. Although, considering that Pilar and Rebecca lived here in Edgerunners, there shouldn't be any problems.

"This place?" Pilar said as he got out of the vehicle. "Good thinking, Lil bro! I like it! If those 6th Street idiots want our asses, they'll have to cross all of Westbrook and a large part of Watson. They'll definitely have trouble avoiding conflicts with the Tiger Claws and Maelstrom! Hahaha!"

"That's true." Allen smiled.

Allen had simply brought them to the place where they were supposed to live in the future, so it was just a coincidence that it also happened to help them avoid the gangs from Santo Domingo and Heywood.

"Not to mention Afterlife is nearby!" Pilar said with a smile.

For mercs, Afterlife wasn't just a safe bar where they could relax. It was basically the equivalent of an adventurers' guild, where they could find jobs and contact fixers and clients.

"Something wrong, Rebecca?" Allen asked.

The girl had remained silent while staring at the building in front of her.

"No... It's just that I didn't expect to see this place again."

Allen placed his hand on Rebecca's head and smiled. "Well, let's go inside."

The three of them walked toward the double metal doors at the entrance. They opened when they approached. Immediately to the right was the reception desk, if you could call a desk with a shelf and a fat man sleeping behind it a reception desk. He was supposed to be the manager.

MJ – The contrast with 2077 is incredible.

Rogue – That's right. They completely trashed the place in just a few years.

"Heh," Allen chuckled.

Who hadn't visited Rebecca's building in the game?

Upon entering, the hallway stretched all the way to the back. On the right was the reception desk followed by the elevator. In the future, it no longer worked. The door was half-open, and sparks of electricity seemed to be coming from it as if it were going to explode at any moment. Unexpectedly, nobody cared, and they simply ignored it.

At the end of the hallway were two apartments, but there was also a mountain of garbage, and it didn't look habitable.

On the left was the first safe apartment, followed by the stairs to the second and third floors. There was trash, rust, a mattress with someone sometimes sleeping on it, and perhaps even a corpse once a week. The lighting was also a problem.

But five years earlier, none of that decay was there. There was some trash, but not too much. None of the apartments seemed unusable, and the elevator still worked. There were only a couple of graffiti tags, but nothing extreme like the curses that could be seen in 2077.

"Hey, wake up!" Rebecca shouted, banging on the desk.

"Ah! Don't kill me!" the man shouted, but when he saw that neither Allen nor Rebecca had a weapon in hand, he calmed down.

He wasn't the owner. No man or woman capable of building an apartment complex would come through these neighborhoods. They stayed in their homes in Westbrook, collecting the profits from their properties every month, and hired people like this to act as managers and scapegoats in case something happened in the building.

Remembering that there was never anyone at the reception desk in 2077, it was easy to figure out what this man's fate would be.

"What do you want?" the man asked while extending his hand underneath the desk.

Allen, Rebecca, and Pilar noticed, but none of them reacted.

"We need two apartments. How much would that cost?"

"Two?!"

The manager exclaimed, then examined the three of them and realized they were mercs after noticing Pilar's implants. His eyes lit up.

You have to understand that the economy was shit. As already mentioned, police officers made one thousand Eddies a month. That's it. You could imagine how little people made in other professions. Now, the rent for even the cheapest and shittiest apartments in Northside, Watson, was 250 Eddies, so people usually lived together in the same apartment.

If Allen wanted two apartments, that meant one of them would be for a single person.

"Sir, as you can see, the building is in good condition, and we have all the services. The apartments are decent, comfortable, and spacious..."

"Just tell me the price," Allen interrupted. He didn't want to listen to a salesman's bullshit.

The man wasn't offended and simply smiled. "Yes, of course. On the first floor, the cost is 380 Eddies. On the second and third floors, it's 415 Eddies..."

It was expensive, but Allen didn't react to the price. How could he? Literally, his cheapest implant was worth twenty thousand Eddies.

"Give us two on the second floor." Allen didn't even hesitate and transferred the money. It was almost everything he had stolen from 6th Street, but he didn't care.

The manager gasped. Despite being a good building, its prices were among the most expensive in Northside.

A lot of people cursed him, saying it wasn't worth it, since it was much cheaper to live in the Megabuildings, not to mention that this area was heavily occupied by the crazies from Maelstrom.

The manager received the transfer and didn't hesitate any longer. He stood up and guided them toward the elevator. The three of them went up to the second floor, and Rebecca immediately ran to the right, toward the apartment that was both her old and new home.

"I want this one!" Rebecca shouted.

"Huh?"

The manager blinked for a moment before nodding. The apartments were basically identical, so it didn't matter. Then he looked at Pilar and Allen questioningly.

"I'll take the one on the left," Pilar said before walking forward.

Allen remained silent before realizing that, in Pilar's eyes, he was his brother-in-law, and obviously Allen was going to live with Rebecca.

The manager went with Pilar, and Allen followed Rebecca.

Inside the apartment, Rebecca laughed. Her things weren't there, but the layout was the same. On the left was a table and the kitchen. In the center was a piece of furniture dividing the room. At the back, on the right, was a living room with a table and a holographic screen above it. There was a two-seat sofa and a single armchair. On the right side were two closed doors. One was Rebecca's bedroom, and the other was the bathroom.

Pilar had his bed in the living room in front of the bathroom, but obviously he wasn't there at the moment.

In the canon story, Rebecca and Pilar first worked for Wakako Okada, who was a Fixer with a good reputation. Unfortunately, things didn't go very well during their first missions, and it wasn't until they joined Maine's crew that they could afford to pay for this place.

"This feels strange. I never thought I'd visit this place, much less live here," Allen laughed.

Rebecca turned toward him with a flirtatious look as she opened her jacket and let it fall to the floor, then walked toward the bedroom.

[God, this girl should give me a warning first. If I weren't so good at my job, I wouldn't have been able to cut the livestream.]

"..." Allen smiled and sent a message to Pilar, telling him to take the Chevillon to the chop shop to make a few thousand Eddies and arrange a meeting with Maine.

Then he took off his jacket as he walked toward the bedroom, where Rebecca was already waiting for him on the bed wearing only underwear.

The door closed, and Allen proceeded to break in the bed.

....

An hour later, Allen and Rebecca left the building and called a taxi. This time, it was a normal one. Hiring Delamain was expensive, and they were only going to Little China, which was south of them in the same district.

"The taxi should be here soon," Allen said.

Rebecca nodded. She was standing beside him with her hair loose, wearing a slight smile and a faint blush on her face. Her hand was intertwined with his like a happy couple, a very unusual sight in this city, where people were always worried that someone might kill them.

Was Rebecca happy? She was very happy, extremely happy. Not only had she returned to her world, not only had she seen her brother again and now had the opportunity to see her friends, but she was also beside the man she loved.

While they waited, a message arrived from Pilar. He was waiting for them at Afterlife with Maine.

"I guess it's time to meet the rest of the gang," Allen laughed.

"Maine is a nice idiot," Rebecca said with amusement. "But if you want to trust someone with your back, he's the man~."

Allen knew that. It wasn't until he lost his mind to cyberpsychosis that the man became a monster. Even then, some of his humanity remained.

Allen decided to scan the people around him while waiting for the taxi. Sure, he could steal a vehicle, but since he wasn't in a hurry, there was no need to ruin someone's day.

[George Morgan

Night City Resident

No Affiliation]

[Regina Morales

Night City Resident

No Affiliation]

"Having access to the NCPD database is really useful," Allen said. Then he remembered the hooligans and looked behind him.

[Brayan Jefferson

Hooligan

Affiliation: Scavenger

SP: 150

⭐⭐⭐

Crimes: Multiple Murders, Cyberware Theft, Criminal Activity.]

Allen's eyes widened. When he scanned the other two, he got similar results. All three were Scavs!

The Scavengers were the scum of Night City. Even Maelstrom didn't compare to these sons of bitches. As their name implied, they specialized in stealing people's implants, but most of the time they did it from people who were still alive.

These guys didn't primarily fight other gangs. They didn't have a fixed territory. They were all over Night City.

They were predators of ordinary people.

They kidnapped living citizens, took them to their hidden workshops, and ripped out their implants and organs.

"Becca..."

"What's wrong~?" Rebecca smiled sweetly at Allen.

"Those three guys behind us... they're Scavs."

Before Allen could finish the sentence, Rebecca's face became savage, and she pulled out Guts in a single motion.

Allen also summoned a weapon just as quickly. It was a huge black pistol.

In a single motion, Allen fired, and Rebecca did the same.

Allen's bullet struck with the force of a cannon and pulverized the Scav's head.

Of course, some of the pellets from Guts pierced the body of one of the Scavs, making him scream, but he didn't die. Rebecca smiled and fired again, killing him this time.

The third immediately activated his implant. It was a camouflage implant, and he disappeared. Allen mocked him, using his legendary Kiroshi optics to locate the Scav before firing once more. This time, the bullet struck the right side of his body, opening a hole through him and blowing off his arm in the process.

"What the hell is that weapon?!" Rebecca exclaimed.

Allen himself was surprised by its power, so he scanned it.

– ARMS 13mm The Jackal

Origin: Hellsing

Weight: 6 kg

A beautiful weapon designed by Walter C. Dornez at Alucard's request.

It fires 13mm explosive bullets with depleted uranium cores.

[Allen, since we're playing on hardcore mode, to balance your weapon, each shot will cost one hundred Eddies.]

"Shit."

Allen looked at his balance and realized he had no money. His last two hundred Eddies had vanished.

"Lenalee, couldn't you have told me that before?!"

Rebecca and the Chat laughed. The weapon was powerful, but Allen definitely wouldn't be using it often.

[Transfer]

+ 450

"Huh?" Allen looked at his balance and suddenly saw four hundred and fifty Eddies arrive. "What happened?"

[The NCPD database has a star system indicating the danger level of gangs and criminals, and it also includes mercs. When you take them down in the game, you gain reputation, but since this is the real world, that doesn't make sense because people wouldn't know if you killed them. Instead, that SP is converted into a reward in Eddies.]

"But why did the transfer arrive immediately?"

Allen wasn't unfamiliar with hunting criminals. He had done it in One Piece, and he knew that people also had bounties in Cyberpunk. But in One Piece, he had to bring proof to the Marines before collecting the reward.

[I simply sent them a recording of the corpse and the scan data. Their system released the money instantly.]

"You're telling me I can make money by killing these cannibals who prey on ordinary people?" Allen smiled.

[Yes, basically.]

Rebecca looked into Allen's eyes and felt that, at this rate, he would become more corrupted by this city.

"Hey, look! That's our taxi!" Rebecca exclaimed and pulled Allen toward it.

"Wait, Becca. We haven't looted them yet!"

....

Half an hour later, Allen arrived at Afterlife, the favorite bar of mercs. Just outside, in the parking lot, there were at least ten people with combat implants.

When Allen got out of the taxi, he attracted some attention because of his face, but the people quickly stopped paying attention. Among mercs, strength and reputation were valued more than appearance.

At the entrance, someone was discreetly checking people, but upon seeing Rebecca, they simply let them pass.

The atmosphere inside Afterlife was relaxed. It was this world's version of the Continental from John Wick. At least people didn't cause trouble there, as it was one of the few places where they could actually relax.

Allen didn't go to the bar for a drink. He followed Rebecca to a private room. When the door opened, Allen saw four people waiting.

One was Pilar, who greeted him with a wave. "You're here, Lil bro."

"Yeah." Allen smiled as he looked at the people in front of him.

On the right was a tall, large, muscular woman with short blonde hair and a sullen expression. She wore an open jacket with no shirt underneath and had implants in her legs and arms.

On the left was a pretty girl with black hair and blue eyes.

She wore an elegant, tight-fitting black suit without sleeves, with a V-shaped neckline trimmed in cherry red that revealed part of her thighs. She paired the suit with a short baby-pink high-collared jacket and finished the outfit with pink sneakers.

'So she's Sasha, the Netrunner before Kiwi and Lucy,' Allen thought.

The girl returned his gaze with surprise before becoming embarrassed.

Finally, in the center of them was Maine, a dark-skinned man with blonde hair, large and strong, with a shrewd look that seemed to be evaluating Allen.

He wore a black vest, pants, and military boots. Others might have been intimidated by his size, but Allen looked at him with a certain amount of pity.

The man had replaced his arms, back, bones, chest, skin, and who knew how many other implants.

Five years apparently hadn't been enough...

"So, kid," Maine smiled, "Pilar says you came to recruit me into your crew. Is that true?"

Allen's eyes widened, and he glared at Pilar, who had told him that.

Maine laughed and stood up, slamming his gorilla arms together and producing a loud metallic sound.

"So, wanna take this outside?" Maine smiled.

'Pilar, I'm going to beat the shit out of you!' Allen thought.

====

A/N: Well, thanks to Pilar, a wild Maine has shown up. 🗿