Seoul Cyberpunk Story-Chapter 15: Heart Drill (6)

As the battle raged on, Onyx was forced to take a step back, unable to do anything but watch the brutal scene unfold.

Her father, Conrad, the boss of the Concrete Family, was no longer a human in any recognizable way.

A massive hole had been drilled through his chest—an injury that should have meant death.

His skin had turned ashen, no longer resembling the skin of any living creature.

From his body, red energy poured out, and he had transformed into something monstrous. This sight only deepened Onyx's sorrow.

On the battlefield, blue and red lights swirled together in a chaotic mix.

It was a spectacle that could have been considered beautiful under different circumstances, but to Onyx, it was nothing but pure sadness.

If only... If only I had noticed sooner...

Suddenly, overwhelming guilt rushed through her, and Onyx clenched her fists.

When she had first noticed something odd in her father’s behavior, she should have intervened more actively.

If she had just been a little braver at that time, perhaps this outcome could have been avoided...

When she snuck into her father’s office to search for the shooting assistance AI, she had already sensed something was terribly wrong.

Father had never been gone for so long before... Why did I just think I was lucky?

When Hexa Core Armory's weapons flooded the gang, she had thought it was just the family getting stronger.

Even though she knew gangs didn’t have easy access to megacorp weapons, she had still believed her father’s power was incredible.

I should have told him not to get involved with the corporations. I should have asked what the price was for those weapons.

When her father distributed the suspicious shooting assistance AI to all the gang members, she had simply accepted it.

Her father said it was for the family, and she took it at face value.

She hadn’t even thought to doubt it.

While the battle between her father and A continued in the background, Onyx’s mind was overwhelmed with countless "what ifs."

If only I had questioned him a little more... If only I had asked more forcefully...

Everything felt like it was her fault.

As the daughter of the Concrete Family boss, she should have been more cautious, more suspicious.

She should have watched her father more carefully.

She should have protected the family better.

But now, it was too late.

Her father was beyond saving, and many of the family’s members had sacrificed their lives.

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Onyx whispered a small prayer for her father.

I hope A can truly liberate him, even in death—so he won't be manipulated any longer...

The moment Onyx severed the Concrete Family boss’s head, everything seemed to flow by faster than the rushing waters of a stream.

There was no time to gather my thoughts as events sped past.

Looking back now, everything started when I contacted Amber.

...

In truth, I was already disoriented before reaching out to Amber.

The corpse with a hole in its chest charging at me, the ring formed in my heart, and the mini AI that appeared out of nowhere—all of it had already descended into chaos.

In the middle of that madness, a conversation from the past flashed through my mind.

It was a conversation I had with Amber after getting involved with the corporations.

"A, you have to contact us, no matter what. If there's even the smallest trace of corporate involvement, you contact us immediately!"

"Ugh, do I really have to? Sounds like a hassle."

"You’re our ace in the Seoul office, of course you have to! It’s mandatory, no exceptions!"

Of course, that advice wasn’t always followed.

I often forgot to reach out when I should have.

But this time, for some reason, the thought of contacting Amber felt urgent.

The weapons the gang had from Hexa Core Armory.

The Heart Drill, with its highly sophisticated design.

Even I could see the traces of corporate involvement all over it.

When Amber arrived in response to my call, her face changed immediately upon seeing the Hexa Core Armory device on the boss’s body.

She quickly pulled out a special device, starting work to block any corporate tracking.

"This... it's a top-tier tracking device. Fortunately, it hasn’t sent a signal yet."

Her fingers moved quickly across the device’s interface.

"I’ve delayed it, but Hexa Core agents will arrive within the hour."

Amber’s work was astonishingly proficient.

It was as if she had been a part of the corporation herself.

Then, approaching Onyx, Amber placed a hand on her shoulder and spoke with seriousness.

"We need to leave here immediately. The corporation is coming. Erase all the evidence and get as far away as possible."

The funeral was rushed.

In the Concrete Family’s way.

After placing the boss’s body on a tomb made of white solid fuel, they set it on fire.

The intense flames spread instantly, reducing everything to ashes.

The solid fuel’s exceptional heat left no trace of remains.

Onyx silently cried as she stared at the empty tomb, now only filled with white smoke.

Once the funeral was over, Onyx approached me.

"Thank you, A. The contract has been fulfilled."

Her voice was trembling.

Her face mixed with sadness, regret, and a small resolve.

Now, she would have to become the new boss of the Concrete Family and lead them forward.

After declaring the contract complete, Onyx looked into my eyes for a moment and gave me a faint smile.

"I heard you really like pizza... If we meet again, I’ll buy you pizza."

With that, Onyx began to walk away with the Concrete Family.

They were heading toward the outskirts of the city, a place far from the reach of the corporations.

In the world changed by the Great Convergence, the farthest outskirts were nearly impossible to track.

The deeper you went, the faster the convergence mixed, and even the patterns became unpredictable.

They said that if you went further than the outskirts, you’d find an environment as harsh as the Assimilation Zones...

The so-called "Uncharted Zone."

I had never been there.

Because once you enter the Uncharted Zone, the chances of returning home are slim.

Just walking slowly could make you pop out from the opposite side of Babel City, which was notorious for its chaotic fusion patterns.

Why not just cross Babel City to come back?

I’d thought about it, but quickly gave up.

Babel City was as large as the entire Earth’s surface.

No exaggeration.

After the Great Convergence, the only thing left was Babel City.

It wasn’t just that all the cities of the world were destroyed—

Everyone and everything had become Babel.

In the corner of Tokyo, an apartment complex now connected to a department store in Paris.

Next to the Statue of Liberty in the U.S., the Eiffel Tower emerged.

Everything connected in the Great Convergence.

The only thing left out of all this was South Korea—the origin of the Convergence.

As I gazed at the receding figures of Onyx and the Concrete Family, lost in my thoughts, I ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) felt a subtle movement on my palm.

A tiny AI was already fast asleep.

It had taught me how to forge a blade before dozing off.

Still, I couldn’t shake off the suspicion that this thing was just a hallucination.

No one else had noticed anything in my palm.

'Well... an AI that only I can see. Not exactly new for me...'

Amber, in particular, remembered me conjuring up an "air pizza" when I was starving, so she even said this:

“...I’ll buy you a pizza when we get back.”

As I waited for that promised pizza, Amber approached me, looking rushed.

“A, we need to leave now. Considering the speed of corporate aircraft, we have to withdraw immediately.”

That familiar urgency flickered in her eyes.

I nodded slowly and followed Amber out of Concrete Family territory.

As we turned to leave, a white plume of smoke rose slowly into the sky from the graveyard.

****

By the time Rina Cortez’s Hexa Core Armory aircraft reached the skies above Concrete Family headquarters, her instincts had already begun warning her that something was off.

“We are arriving shortly.”

The pilot’s voice was mechanical and detached.

Rina looked out the window.

The headquarters, a cluster of pristine white buildings, stood in stark contrast to the dark outskirts of Babel City.

But within those spotless buildings, there wasn’t a single sign of movement.

“Wide-area scan complete. No biological signals detected.”

The pilot added another grim update.

Rina furrowed her brows.

There should have been at least dozens of gang members here. But now... nothing.

As the aircraft landed, Rina adjusted her red sunglasses and stepped outside.

The sound of her heels clicking against the concrete echoed through the empty plaza.

“Begin a full security scan of the area.”

She issued the command to the security team following her.

Rina checked her signal tracker and headed toward the last known location of Conrad’s signal.

As she reached the central plaza, the faint scent of smoke pricked her nose.

At the center of the area, charred marks formed a circular pattern, with traces of solid fuel residue scattered across the ground.

“Interesting.”

She crouched down, touching the ashes with her fingertips.

They were still warm.

Her integrated scanner swept the surroundings, data flowing across the lenses of her sunglasses.

Nearly all traces had been erased.

'Who the hell went this far to wipe the scene so thoroughly?'

She walked slowly, scanning the buildings and the plaza.

Faint signs of a hurried evacuation caught her eye—gang members had packed up and left in a rush.

But the exit routes had been meticulously erased, leaving no clear direction of their escape.

This wasn’t the work of amateur gangsters.

“There’s a faint trail leading west.”

A security officer reported.

“The city outskirts of Babel.”

Rina nodded.

“Go much further, and you hit the 'Unconfirmed Zone.'”

She fell into brief contemplation.

Tracking anything in the outermost regions was a nightmare.

The ever-shifting space, warped by the effects of the Great Convergence, meant that traditional mapping was useless.

In other words, tracking the remnants of the Concrete Family would take an immense amount of time and resources.

And no corporation was willing to waste that much effort on a disposable gang.

She surveyed the surroundings once more, piecing things together.

A gang that had vanished without a trace. A crime scene that had been surgically erased.

'This is the work of professionals. Not mercenaries or gangsters—this is corporate-level clean-up. Maybe even a megacorp’s black ops team.'

“The remaining traces leading to the outskirts... it could be a deliberate decoy.”

She muttered under her breath.

A memory surfaced—she had encountered something similar before.

A site where an AI Assimilation attempt had failed had been wiped clean just like this.

'...'

On her way back to the aircraft, Rina removed her sunglasses and pressed her fingers against her temple.

'Looks like Titan Tech caught the scent of the Circle Project... and they’ve started interfering.'

Feeling the weight of corporate warfare creeping into her investigation, she uploaded her report onto the datapad with a grim expression.

At the end of the document, she included her professional assessment:

High probability that Titan Tech has become aware of the Circle Project.Need to advance the project’s public reveal timeline.Agents required to track and eliminate Titan Tech operatives interfering with the plan.

Closing the datapad, Rina cast one last glance at the receding white buildings of the Concrete Family headquarters.