There are too many non-believers in cyberpunk – Chapter 9

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Simzy
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After Jimmy’s possession incident,

Everyday life returned to the orphanage.

Amon and Sonia acted as older brother and sister, taking care of the younger children as they all looked forward to Christmas.

Having already forgotten that they had received gifts for Black Friday, they anticipated what presents would be placed at their bedsides.

Except for Jimmy, who for some reason now had seizures whenever he saw a Bible, it was a truly peaceful orphanage scene.

Within this peaceful daily life, Amon and Sonia headed to the now-familiar swordsmanship dojo.

A fortnight had passed since they started the lessons at the instructor’s suggestion.

They were already fully recognized as students of the dojo.

Of course, it wasn’t without its bumps.

Some students were jealous that orphans were receiving lessons for free, directly from the instructor.

However, as with any duel-based martial arts dojo, most complaints were resolved in the ring.

After being beaten to a pulp by Amon and Sonia, they had no choice but to acknowledge them.

Somewhere along the way, they had become the dojo’s talented and adorable youngest members.

It took an hour for the youngest members to arrive at the dojo from the orphanage.

““Hello.””

“Oh, you’re here. Go change your clothes.”

That day, as usual, the swordsmanship lesson began.

According to the instructor’s words on the first day, the training Amon and Sonia needed was different.

According to the instructor’s analysis, Sonia tended to rely too much on instinct and reflexes.

This was a common phenomenon among intuitive geniuses, and it could be compensated for by focusing on psychological warfare and fundamentals.

Compared to that, Amon was clearly strange, even in the instructor’s eyes.

“Why are your techniques so patchy?”

He had some techniques, but lacked the fundamentals that formed their basis, and suddenly, completely unrelated schools of swordsmanship would pop up.

Amon’s swordsmanship could be likened to a patchwork of techniques plucked from different schools, lacking any harmony.

In other words, it was as if he had learned various sword techniques from SNS and books, and was somehow perfectly executing them.

On top of that, he had partially mastered counter-strategies for each school, making it difficult to know what to say.

To put it another way, his techniques were stitched together like rags.

Most instructors would consider this a bad habit, erase everything, and instill their own style.

But this instructor was different.

He saw this as Amon’s individuality and strength, and didn’t try to correct it.

“The reason you’re a patchwork is because you haven’t learned swordsmanship systematically. If I teach you in a systematic order, wouldn’t that make you an all-rounder?”

Accordingly, Amon’s training consisted of the instructor demonstrating a sword technique, then explaining all its forms and systematically memorizing them.

He also incorporated variations on common techniques into sparring matches to broaden Amon’s improvisational skills.

The instructor’s method suited Amon very well.

‘I thought he would force a specific style on me.’

The instructor had studied various schools of swordsmanship while studying in Japan and had even won championships in China.

So, Amon naturally assumed he would be taught a specific style, but it was completely different.

On the contrary, when Amon brought up the topic of styles, the instructor reacted with disgust, saying,

“What? Styles? That kills your individuality. I’ll never teach that.”

Far from teaching styles, he discouraged them.

Saying that styles that didn’t suit a genius were poison, the instructor didn’t teach the two of them any formalized swordsmanship.

This was due to his teaching philosophy:

[Flaws should be corrected. Weaknesses are something you inevitably carry.]

According to his philosophy, weaknesses were like unavoidable side effects of strengths.

It was best if they could be compensated for, but one shouldn’t ruin their strengths by trying to forcibly fix them.

‘You can’t do everything alone in this world anyway. A swordsman should be content with their own capacity and entrust their weaknesses to their comrades. Trying to cover all weaknesses just makes you a jack of all trades, master of none.’

He preferred maximizing strengths overwhelmingly to compensating for weaknesses.

His teaching philosophy meshed perfectly with Amon’s playstyle.

As a result, Amon truly trusted and followed the instructor.

The instructor, seeing Amon’s daily growth, poured everything he had into him.

One who wanted to nurture, and one who wanted to grow.

The synergy between the two was tremendous.

“Winner! Amon!”

Amon’s sword stopped in front of the assistant instructor’s vital point.

It was an achievement made just one month after picking up a sword.

A purely technical match where high-lethality techniques and physical enhancements were forbidden.

In unrestricted swordsmanship matches where enhancements and physical abilities were added, there were still many opponents he couldn’t beat, but in purely technical matches, the only person Amon couldn’t beat in this dojo was the instructor.

This remarkable achievement had been accomplished in just one month.

At this point, even Amon had to admit it.

He had a talent for swordsmanship.

Finally, he added a checkmark to the swordsmanship section of his talent list and checked his skill tree once more.

Sword and Disguise.

A skill tree clearly specialized for assassination.

While he was nodding, solidifying his career path, someone approached him from behind.

“Congratulations!”

Sonia hugged him from behind.

Amon, almost losing his balance, managed to catch himself with his reflexes and support her weight.

He tapped the arm wrapped around his neck, and Sonia’s arm loosened.

Amon said with a wry smile,

“I’m really sweaty.”

“It’s okay. I am too.”

Wasn’t that hardly an answer?

Amon almost retorted, but as the more mature one, he silently accepted her nonsense.

Soon, the two washed off their sweat in the dojo’s shower room and left.

On their way back to the orphanage, as always.

The city was bustling with the approaching Christmas.

It was a situation where they could easily get separated in the crowd.

Since they were teenagers, they could find their way back to the orphanage, but it was safer for them to stay together to prevent any unfortunate incidents.

Amon and Sonia’s hands naturally intertwined.

Looking at the crowd, Sonia exclaimed,

“There are so many people!”

“Don’t let go of my hand, stay close.”

“Okay…”

Slightly bashful at Amon’s words, Sonia clung to him.

They pushed through the crowd, heading for the bus stop.

The route to the bus stop was so familiar that they didn’t get lost, even in the massive crowd.

But when they were just one corner away from the stop, a sudden change occurred.

“Linia!!! Liniaaa!!!! Daddy’s sorry!”

A man’s loud voice came from the bus stop around the corner.

Most people looked towards the source of the voice with puzzled expressions.

But not Amon.

From his multiple playthroughs of Punk City, he knew that a person shouting in the middle of the street always triggered a random event.

Ninety-nine percent of those random events weren’t good.

‘Uh oh!’

Sensing danger, Amon pulled Sonia inside the corner and took cover.

Sure enough, gunfire erupted from beyond the corner where the shouting had come from.

Bang, bang, bang!

Screams!

A scene of pandemonium unfolded, filled with a mixture of people’s screams, cries, and death throes.

Amon grasped the situation almost reflexively.

‘Crazy.’

The word was laden with multiple meanings.

The shooter, the situation, and this world.

Everyone had gone mad.

Amon knew the words to define such a madman and the cause, but this wasn’t the time to be thinking about that.

While those around them were still unaware of the situation on the other side of the corner, Amon grabbed Sonia’s hand and pulled her.

‘I remember them saying it would be a white Christmas this year.’

As far as Amon could see, this street corner, at least, would be a red Christmas.

He didn’t go far, but immediately dashed into a nearby clothing store.

Sonia, pulled by Amon’s hand, was dragged into the store with him.

“Excuse me, sir!”

An elderly gentleman greeted them.

Judging by his facial features, he seemed to be of East Asian descent.

If the situation had been different, Amon would have asked,

“Do you know kimchi?”,

But he didn’t have time.

Whether due to poor hearing or his age, the old man didn’t seem to grasp the situation yet.

Amon quickly explained the situation to the old man and took refuge with him further inside the store.

To avoid the possibility of being hit by stray bullets or ricochets, they headed towards an attic located deeper within the building, instead of staying on the shop floor.

While moving further inside with the shop owner, Amon asked the old man,

“Is there a back door or something?”

“I’m sorry, young man. The landlord had a container extension built over the back door.”

“Seriously?”

Amon clicked his tongue at the landlord’s disregard for building codes.

But going back outside now, with the shooting spree in full swing, was insane.

The three of them had no choice but to hide in the attic, which served as a fabric storage room.

Surrounded by countless fabrics and clothes, Sonia voiced her question to Amon.

“Wouldn’t it be better to run away?”

“No. This is the best option right now.”

Running away in that crowd was a huge gamble.

Not only was there a significant chance of being trampled to death, but their movement speed wouldn’t be very fast.

And the crazed gunman wasn’t aiming selectively.

He’d probably wipe out everyone near the bus stop, then start mowing down those a corner away.

And there was a high probability that Amon and Sonia would become those victims.

Amon didn’t bother explaining this in detail to Sonia.

He simply wrapped his arms around her head, pulled her close, and reassured her.

The shop owner, watching the two, cleared his throat awkwardly and looked away.

And in a barely audible voice, he muttered,

“Young love.”

Meanwhile, a few seconds after Amon fled into the store.

People began to flee in panic.

The chaotic escape of so many people inevitably led to accidents.

A scene of hell unfolded.

Corpses were strewn everywhere.

It was impossible to distinguish whether they had died from being crushed, shot, or in traffic accidents.

As Amon predicted, most of those who ran openly died.

Most of the people within a block of the bus stop when the shooting started were dead, and half of those about a corner away were also dead.

Even those out of range of the madman’s gun died for various reasons.

But that didn’t mean Amon’s method was the correct answer.

Even among those who took refuge in nearby buildings, those who were slow to act or chose poor hiding spots became silent corpses.

Amon’s method was simply the option with a higher survival rate, not the definitive answer.

The only right answer in this situation:

Was to avoid encountering such a madman in the first place.

“Linia… why did I buy you pizza if you can’t eat it!!”

The culprit who created this mayhem wailed mournfully.

He was an impressive man with shaggy hair reminiscent of a gorilla and a massive physique.

It was unclear whether he was a Beastkin or had undergone gorilla-related augmentations.

But at least one thing was certain: he had undergone a lot of cybernetic and techno-magical augmentations.

This was evident from the mechanical parts and magic tattoos that were more visible than his flesh.

The crazed gorilla fired the machine gun connected to his right hand, shedding artificial vitreous tears that resembled blood.

A baby doll was strapped to his back, swaying limply.

The gorilla would cry madly, and when a “Papa~” sound came from the doll, he would suddenly become calm and start stroking it.

Then he would try to feed the doll pizza, which, of course, the doll couldn’t accept.

Then the rampage would begin again.

The gorilla’s cycle of rage-depression-calm repeated every five minutes or so.

Meanwhile, the police, already on high alert due to the Christmas season, arrived at the scene.

They immediately surrounded the gorilla with police cars and returned fire.

However, true to form, the gorilla’s skin didn’t budge against the bullets.

With a clear, ringing ting! sound that shouldn’t come from human skin, the bullets bounced off.

The problem was that those bullets were enough to irritate the gorilla.

“You came to kill Linia! You pig cops!”

With slurred speech and spraying saliva, the gorilla exploded in rage.

His target shifted from innocent civilians to the police.

Rat-a-tat-tat!

A machine gun, not available in the regular civilian market, spewed fire.

Several police cars were shredded like paper, and the police officers taking cover fell, hit by bullets.

Those lucky enough to benefit from the combined synergy of police cars and bulletproof vests got back up.

But the officers who were directly hit without cover, hit in areas not protected by their vests, or hit in vital points by ricocheting bullets never got up again.

“Damn it! That’s a military-grade machine gun! Where did he get that!!”

One officer shouted.

But there was no one there who could answer.

The officers’ meager pistols and rifles couldn’t even scratch the gorilla, and they were swept away helplessly like extras in a movie.

“When is the SWAT team arriving?!”

“They’re on their wa-”

Splat!

The head of the responding officer exploded.

“Fuck!”

That was all the fellow officer could say.

He wanted to run.

But this world wasn’t kind to fleeing police officers.

Dishonorable discharge was a given, and a future of him and his family being ridiculed on SNS for the rest of their lives awaited.

It was better to die honorably here, so his family could receive national veteran benefits and exemptions.

The young officer, who had only worn his badge for a month, cursed under his breath as he fired his gun from cover.

Knowing it was pointless, he didn’t even aim, just sticking his gun out.

However, that choice wasn’t very wise.

Indiscriminate firing in a situation where they were forming a perimeter could lead to friendly fire and could also hit unintended targets.

Yes.

For example, the head of the doll on the gorilla’s back.

Splat!

The doll shattered.

At the same time, the gorilla’s rampage stopped.

Sudden silence fell over the scene.

One police officer muttered,

“Is it over?”

Whether those words were the problem, or whether it was fate, is unknown.

But one thing was certain: something was wrong with the gorilla.

He started bleeding from his eyes.

The red liquid flowing from his eyes was no longer artificial vitreous fluid, but real blood.

And with the baby gone from his back, his back opened, revealing launchers, plasma cutters, and other weapons.

Waving the three pairs of arms that sprouted from his back, the gorilla beat his chest.

“$#^&%@#!!!!”

Watching this, a police officer muttered softly,

“Fuuuuuuck.”

Phase 2 had begun.

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