Seoul Cyberpunk Story-Chapter 34: Machina (4)

329 handed the letter to Victor and lost consciousness with a radiant smile.

The sourc𝗲 of this content is freēwēbηovel.c૦m.

That smile was so pure, it seemed to shine despite the twisted face and the body covered in implants.

“Sleep well...”

Victor carefully lifted a worn-out blanket and covered 329’s body.

As he adjusted the blanket, he could see 329’s chest faintly rising and falling.

329 was alive, but for some reason, a thought crossed Victor’s mind—that he might never wake up again.

It looked like he had been holding out, pushing past the limit this whole time.

Was it called a memory-assist device?

It seemed like an overload had occurred from using it far beyond its intended purpose.

Victor let out a sigh as he stared at 329, who had fallen asleep in an unnaturally distorted position due to the abnormally attached implants.

Then, he exited the narrow cave.

As Victor stepped out of 329’s cave, the black sky and acrid air greeted him.

But Victor deliberately took a deep breath.

Because he wanted to feel the unpleasant air of this place on purpose.

To never forget the cruelty of this place.

“Iris...”

Victor muttered the name written in the letter 329 had handed him.

To be honest, Victor already knew.

That this job was absurd.

Even after he had done the most cautious reconnaissance, he still got caught—so now he was expected to pull off a rescue?

They lacked intel, personnel, and equipment. If he were being coldly rational, the odds of success were close to zero.

Victor stared at the signal transmitter mounted on his arm for a moment.

Waiting for a rescue from the Seoul Dispatch Office would be the reasonable thing to do.

But...

“No.”

He shook his head.

Even if Amber received the emergency signal and dispatched mercenaries, it would take at least two days for them to arrive here.

Which meant the chances of survival for a ten-year-old child would drop even further.

Victor imagined the little sister described in 329’s letter.

<The sister is ten years old.> <Black hair.> <A slightly worn but tidy white dress.> <A necklace with a data shard tied at the end.> <A shard engraved with the name Iris.> <Inside that shard is the map data.>

A crude sketch, but Iris was drawn with an astonishing amount of detail.

The only memory 329 had clung to, even after losing his ability to think, was of his sister.

And to save her, he had pushed his brain beyond its limits, enduring the unendurable.

Victor looked around.

A sky like spilled black ink, chimneys endlessly belching black smoke, sharply rising spires.

With a calm expression, he moved forward.

Toward Iris—who must be somewhere in this hellscape.

****

I stood at the blackened boundary line and looked back one more time.

Beyond the boundary, the air was so choked with darkness and smoke that just looking at it made it hard to breathe. But when I turned around, I could see a backyard of neatly trimmed shrubs and green grass.

Beyond the yard stood a pure-white wall, towering so high it looked like it touched the sky.

Except for the hole shaped like my body in the middle, the wall was so white it resembled a blank canvas.

That wall, stretched out like a fortress, belonged to the Machina Cult’s facility, hiding this boundary completely from the outside world.

After admiring the pristine sanctuary for a moment, I stepped toward the border.

The moment I crossed the line, space blurred like I was sinking into water—and the world flipped entirely.

Choking black smoke and a stinging, needle-like poison enveloped me.

Cough. Cough.

I wasn’t in pain, but the coughs came out involuntarily.

From the sky, black ash fell endlessly like snow, and red lightning occasionally tore through the darkness above.

“Looks just like the photo Victor took.”

Even through the murky haze, the black spires stood out sharply—identical to the ones in the photo Victor had sent me.

I stared at the spires and transformed my right hand into a blade.

Blue circuit patterns flowed down the back of my hand, forming a sharp edge that glowed in the darkness.

With the glowing blade at the ready, I headed toward the building that looked the most important, covered in spires.

How far had I run through the thick fog?

Suddenly the view opened up, and an enormous structure revealed itself.

It was a bizarre mix between a Gothic cathedral and a factory.

Dozens of spires pierced the sky, each one spewing black smoke.

A massive door made of black metal stood at the building’s entrance.

As I approached, the stench of corroded metal and an oil-like substance leaked through the door seams.

I placed both hands on the enormous door and pushed.

Screeeech.

The unlubricated metal screamed as it opened.

A vast, cold space greeted me.

From the ceiling, crimson lights bled like dripping blood, and the floor was lined with cold steel tiles.

In the air lingered the stench of oil, rusted iron, and something burnt.

The walls were decorated with grotesque engravings depicting the fusion of man and machine, and countless metal pipes tangled like cobwebs hung from the ceiling.

Clank, clank.

The sound of my footsteps echoed as I walked across the steel tiles.

Bang!

Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind me—and from the darkness ahead, someone emerged.

A figure in a black robe slowly approached.

Just like the full-body prosthetic priests I’d seen in the cult, this one was no longer human.

It didn’t matter that the mechanical parts outnumbered the human ones.

The madness spilling from its eyes made it clear this thing could no longer be called human.

["We are not accepting visitors at this time."]

The voice was mechanical—hard to believe it came from a living person.

It sounded like a pre-recorded message played through a speaker.

I ignored the priest’s words and kept walking forward.

As if it had been waiting for that, the priest tore off its black robe, revealing its grotesque form.

A monster with dozens of arms sprouting from its back—a form as twisted as its deranged mind.

Each arm held a different tool or weapon.

Starting with a saw still sticky with rotted blood and flesh.

To firearms like automatic rifles and shotguns.

["Eliminating intruder."]

With that mechanical voice, sparks flashed from multiple gun barrels.

I ignored the ordinary bullets and charged in a straight line.

Several rounds hammered into my torso, but such standard firearms couldn’t stop me.

The moment I reached the priest, I swung my blade radiating blue light.

The metal shield the priest had raised was sliced cleanly in two as if it were paper—and with it, so was the priest’s upper body.

Thick black oil poured onto the floor from the severed cross-section.

This monster didn’t have a single drop of blood in its body, yet it reeked more of blood than anyone I’d ever met.

Maybe that’s why—I got pissed off for no reason and diced the bisected freak into fine chunks.

Beeeep—

As I was turning the creature into scrap, a loud alarm began echoing through the entire building.

From afar, I could hear the clanging of steel boots colliding with steel floors.

And with it—an overwhelming scent of blood.

The moment I caught that scent, a single stroke of genius struck me.

A massacre plan!

At a glance, they all looked harmful to humans, so if I just chopped up every one of these bastards, I could rescue Victor too—a perfect plan.

Step one: Don’t bother wandering around looking for Victor. Instead, stir up a huge commotion and draw attention.

Then, all the priests’ focus would turn to me, giving Victor a window to escape.

Or—if I just wiped out every priest in this building, Victor would naturally end up safe anyway.

A kill-two-birds-with-one-stone plan.

I shook the dark, blood-black oil off my blade and turned toward the approaching footsteps.

Blue circuit patterns surged across my entire body, glowing even more fiercely.

****

After leaving 329’s cave, Victor moved carefully through the smoke and darkness.

Strangely, even when he stepped on solid rock, his footsteps made no sound—as if he were walking on soft dirt.

It was the result of long training, combined with implants designed to reduce noise.

‘First, I need to retrieve my gear...’

Thanks to his prior recon of the Machina Cult, Victor already had a good idea of where his equipment might’ve been discarded.

“The graveyard of implants...”

He muttered as he headed toward the northern sector of the cult’s territory.

A massive pit came into view.

A gigantic spiral-shaped hole carved out like an open-pit mine.

Just the depth alone looked to be at least 500 meters.

A mine this size... even Babel barely has anything like this. Impressive...

Standing at the edge, Victor peered down—and saw what could only be described as a true “graveyard of implants.”

Discarded prosthetic parts, rusted mechanical arms, shattered visual implants, damaged neural interfaces...

Hundreds—no, thousands—of implants were piled up chaotically, mixed with black ash.

Victor carefully began descending the spiral slope.

He could feel broken implant pieces constantly crunching underfoot, buried in the path itself.

A regular merc would’ve made a ton of noise just walking here.

‘Definitely suspicious.’

The Machina Cult had an oddly abundant supply of gear and implants.

Enough to bury even high-end equipment and implants brought in by outsiders like Victor.

Halfway down the spiral, Victor spotted something familiar.

It was almost completely buried—but he could tell it was his recon coat and equipment.

He rushed over and dug through the ash.

Some of it was damaged, but most of it still seemed functional.

“Lucky.”

He recovered his stealth coat, scanner, and compact weapons.

After a quick inspection to check functionality, Victor turned to leave the pit.

Then his gaze froze.

Something had grabbed his attention—powerfully.

Even he couldn’t explain why. It was like... fate was calling.

“What... is that?”

He turned his body and looked deeper into the pit.

His scanner’s beam cut through the darkness and caught a faint reflection on the black ash.

A tiny glint—barely noticeable—but Victor’s eyes didn’t miss it.

Sliding down the slope, Victor wondered why he felt so drawn to it.

Even so, he couldn’t stop himself.

He knelt and began carefully brushing aside the black ash.

His fingertips touched cold metal.

As he gently cleared away the dust and soot, a thin metal chain appeared.

He slowly pulled it out.

A small pendant, blackened and warped, popped out of the ashes.

Once it must’ve gleamed, but now it had been crushed under the weight of time, turned pitch-black.

“This is...”

His fingers slowly traced the surface of the pendant.

Beneath the crusted dust, he could feel a faint pattern.

Something engraved—he rubbed the surface gently with his thumb.

The letters beneath his fingertip began to take shape.

“I...ris...?”

He murmured the name again.

“Iris...”

The engraved word on the pendant seemed to read <Iris>.

But Victor couldn’t bring himself to accept ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) it so easily.

Because this necklace—buried under black dust and rust—looked like it had been here for at least ten years.