Seoul Cyberpunk Story-Chapter 35: Machina (5)

Scarlet was climbing the steps of a building on the outskirts of Burning Duct, a small backpack slung over her shoulder.

“What the hell did she put in this thing...”

She was gasping for air, fully realizing the weight of the so-called “simple self-defense gear” inside the backpack.

She should’ve checked the contents earlier, but she’d been in too much of a rush—heading straight toward the Machina Cult without even thinking about it.

“I swear, it didn’t weigh this much when I first got it...”

It was a classic rookie mistake—Scarlet had little field experience and didn’t know what her own carrying limit really was.

“One, two. One, two.”

She regulated her breathing as she climbed the stairs, one step at a time.

Occasional gusts of wind sent her hair flying—and made the rusted iron staircase sway unnervingly beneath her feet.

When she finally reached the rooftop, she dropped the cursed backpack to the ground.

“Finally made it!”

She took a moment to scan her surroundings from the rooftop.

From here, she had a perfect view of the Machina Cult.

In the distance stood a white building—glowing with an almost surreal brightness against the darkness of the city.

Scarlet sensed a familiar presence on this rooftop.

“A must’ve been here.”

The faint lingering smell of perfectly baked cheese and tomato sauce.

A Black Bio pizza box left on the ground.

Even a premium insulated delivery bag.

The only person who would eat such ultra-high-end pizza like it was nothing, and in a place like this, was A.

“She really loves pizza, huh...”

Scarlet shoved the pizza box aside and looked down again at the gleaming white building of the Machina Cult.

That place, intentionally camouflaged in pure white, was bustling with people.

Priests in robes greeted people with bright smiles.

A line of poor citizens had formed along the street, and the priests were handing out food.

“Looks like the perfect charity on the outside...”

With a sigh, Scarlet pulled out a basic calorie bar and took a bite.

“Well then, let’s see what’s actually in this thing.”

As the artificial sweetness filled her mouth, she opened the backpack Amber had given her.

What came out completely shattered her expectations.

A lump of metal, layered with countless overlapping metal segments—shaped exactly like the backpack itself.

Scarlet knew what this was.

As she pulled the metallic lump from the bag, it began unfolding into the shape of a person.

“This is supposed to be simple self-defense gear?”

A portable power armor suit—also known as a combat exosuit.

It had external metal plating for protection, and a jetpack mounted on the back.

Even the hands had built-in compact firearms.

And despite all that, it was lightweight enough for Scarlet to carry herself—clearly not ordinary.

This was straight-up megacorp-grade equipment.

And even then, Scarlet had never seen anything like it on the open market.

She inspected the gear carefully.

She couldn’t tell which megacorp it came from—but one thing was certain: no civilian was ever meant to own something like this.

“Looks like Hexa Core tech... but I’m also getting Nexus Node vibes...”

She’d never seen it in person before, but it reeked of the kind of gear used by corporate black ops agents.

While examining the armor, she found a piece of paper at the bottom of the bag.

Scarlet picked it up and read:

<This is gear I got a long time ago.> <No need to return it. Just destroy it after use.> <Not that you would, but seriously—don’t try to sell it. It’s illegal gear. You’ll end up in a *huge* mess.> <PS: Netwitches probably can’t infiltrate alone. Use the jetpack.>

“...Suspicious as hell.”

Scarlet narrowed her eyes at the note.

“You just... got something like this?”

The part about it being “never meant to be seen” was definitely shady too.

Not to mention—the armor was clearly designed for a woman, and it was seriously worn down.

Still, Scarlet decided not to dig deeper.

Nobody in Burning Duct was here without a story.

And right now, the only thing that mattered was infiltrating the Machina Cult and finding the children.

She began putting on the armor piece by piece.

As soon as she wore it, it automatically adjusted to fit her body.

And with each movement, the suit responded fluidly to her motions.

Once she donned the helmet, a heads-up display appeared across her field of view.

An intuitive interface aligned itself with her eye movement, projecting all necessary data.

Scarlet glanced down again at the cult’s building.

Too many people.

And from her remote scans, the priests’ firewalls were far stronger than she’d expected.

Suspiciously so.

Just like Amber had warned—charging in headfirst wasn’t an option.

‘Amber really is a pro.’

Scarlet nodded to herself, thinking that.

Then she checked the jetpack’s control instructions.

Following the UI prompts, she activated the device on her back—and felt a soft vibration run through her spine.

She took a deep breath and got into the proper launch stance, just like the manual said.

“All right, let’s do this.”

She inhaled once more and activated the jetpack.

In that moment, unexpected thrust blasted her skyward.

“KYAAAAAAAAHHH!”

Scarlet’s scream echoed inside the power armor.

The acceleration was far beyond any commercial jetpack—it shot her into the night sky.

And just like that, she broke through the rear boundary of the Machina Cult’s base.

A perfect infiltration—executed without a single soul noticing.

****

Victor studied the blackened pendant lying in his palm.

Through the dust and grime caked over the metal surface, faint letters caught his eye.

“Iris...”

He murmured the name engraved into the necklace once again.

It matched exactly the name 329 had told him—his little sister.

Still, he couldn’t be sure it belonged to her.

To be sure, he’d have to check the data shard...

“I can’t read this shard right now.”

He muttered, carefully slipping the necklace into his pocket.

Jamming a corroded, dust-coated shard into a slot would almost certainly destroy the data.

It had to be cleaned first, with proper tools and in a safe environment.

Victor stood up and began climbing the steep slope of the implant graveyard.

He was nearly at the top when a blaring alarm rang out across the entire Machina Cult sector.

Then—faint noises from the direction of the building he’d named “the cathedral.”

Metal tearing. Explosions.

Judging by the distance, something serious was going down.

“No way...”

Hearing that, a hopeful thought surfaced in Victor’s mind.

A came, didn’t she?

It wasn’t just wishful thinking.

In a standard rescue op, everything would be done as quietly as possible.

But A? The A he knew? She’d absolutely kick the hornet’s nest.

At that moment, rough footsteps and the scraping of metal against the ground drew closer.

Victor instinctively dropped and hit the dirt.

Black dirt and ash clung to his clothes and face, but Victor didn’t move.

In front of his eyes, grotesquely modified priests marched past like a funeral procession.

Each priest had been altered in a completely different way.

Asymmetrical mechanical arms—hideous enough to trigger nausea—protruded from their backs and danced through the air. Some dragged limbs that had been entirely converted into heavy machine guns, leaving metallic gouges across the ground.

Victor held his breath and waited for them all to pass.

Once the last priest had vanished from sight, he slowly rose and scanned his surroundings.

‘I’ll leave the cathedral to A...’

Victor made up his mind.

While A was busy drawing attention, he would check out the place with the highest probability of housing “Iris.”

The black metal tower standing tall at the edge of the Machina Cult.

Victor moved like a shadow, swiftly approaching the tower.

Thanks to the racket A was causing in the distance, there was barely any security around the tower.

Victor slipped in without issue.

A windowless, ominous tower.

Surrounded by a suspiciously empty open lot.

Victor began crossing the lot, moving quickly toward the tower.

He was halfway across when—

Screeeeech.

A piercing screech tore out from the tower’s massive steel door.

Victor immediately dropped to the ground and activated his stealth coat.

Clank. Clank.

Just as he hid, something began emerging from the darkness beyond the door—its movements echoing with mechanical resonance.

A priest in a black robe, bristling with mechanical arms.

Behind it were dozens of weapons mounted to its back.

Rifles, SMGs, flamethrowers, saws, axes, drills—every weapon imaginable fanned out like a peacock’s tail.

Clank. Clank.

The monster crossed the lot, seemingly heading toward the cathedral.

...!

Victor held his breath and maxed out the stealth coat’s output.

To get from the tower to the cathedral, the thing had to pass right by where he lay.

Clank. Clank.

The creature’s sharp, spider-like metal legs drew closer and closer.

Victor froze, locking his body in place so even the tiniest twitch wouldn’t give him away.

It stopped.

As if it sensed something was off.

Then—

Clank. Clank.

It moved on again.

Whew.

Victor exhaled a quiet breath of relief in his mind.

And then—

Shk!

A slicing noise cut through the air—straight at Victor.

!

Victor, who hadn’t let his guard down for a second, immediately rolled along the ground.

Grrrrrrrk.

A serrated saw blade sliced just past the tip of his nose and tore into the floor.

Strands of his hair scattered in the air, severed.

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["Intruder detected. Beginning elimination."]

The priest’s helmet emitted a mechanical voice.

“Knew it wouldn’t be that easy...”

Victor felt his mouth go dry from tension as he swiftly drew the SMG from his hip.

****

I slashed and kept slashing through the priests reeking of blood and something worse.

As the blue circuit patterns flowed across my whole body, the blade I’d become carved streaks of glowing light through the air.

With the metallic clang of tearing steel, the priests’ bodies were cut down one after another.

“To the Guide’s... paradise...”

Even as one priest was cleaved in half, it muttered those words to the end.

No clue where they’d all been hiding—but there were so damn many of them.

From the ends of hallways, from vents above the ceiling, even bursting out from beneath the floor tiles—deformed priests kept pouring out.

‘After killing this many, Victor’s gotta be safe by now, right?’

To someone like me—whose heart had fused into a ring—these priests weren’t a threat at all.

Just like the Heart Drill lunatic from before, regular bullets didn’t work on me.

But there was one thing that gave me chills.

The priests—never retreated.

When one fell, another immediately took its place. Even with limbs severed, they kept attacking with what remained.

Their eyes burned with a zeal that looked a lot like madness.

Textbook religious fanatics.

‘Impressive, really.’

To instill this much loyalty in implant-addled psychos... not even megacorps had pulled that off.

["In the name of the Guide—"]

Another priest dropped from the ceiling.

Its back was embedded with surgical drills and saws, and instead of arms it had an array of blades.

I slashed it in half.

“...”

That was the last one.

Finally, I could catch my breath.

The building’s walls had all been wrecked—now, I could see the outside clearly.

Beyond the shattered wall, the black sky and spire-choked skyline loomed, smoke endlessly pouring from the towers.

Beneath it all were the torn-up remains of the priests I’d killed.

Not just inside the building—but out beyond it, too.

To be precise, they weren’t bodies. They were parts.

Neural bundles from AI frames, hydraulic pistons, alloy skin.

“Whew.”

I let out a satisfied breath, like I’d just exterminated a nest of pests.

The ring embedded in my heart still glowed with a faint blue—but the spin had slowed a little from energy loss.

...!

That moment—I felt something wrong and whipped around.

A violet slash whistled past my side, and my forearm was sliced off before I could dodge.

When I turned, I was greeted by something I couldn’t believe.

Standing at the far end of the hallway—

Was me.

Identical copies of me.

Everything was the same—height, build, face—

Except the color.

They were violet.

And they were staring right at me.

Black dirt and ash clung to his clothes and face, but Victor didn’t move.

Grotesquely modified priests passed in front of him, marching like a funeral procession.

Each priest had been transformed in a completely different way.

Hideously asymmetrical mechanical arms sprouted from their backs, dancing in the air. Some dragged arms fully converted into heavy machine guns, leaving deep metallic scars across the floor.

Victor held his breath and waited for them all to pass.

Once the last priest disappeared from sight, he slowly stood and looked around.

‘Leave the cathedral to A...’

Victor made his decision.

While A kept the priests distracted, he’d check the place that looked most likely to hold “Iris.”

A tall black metal tower, rising up along the edge of the Machina Cult’s outer perimeter.

Victor moved like a shadow, quickly closing the distance to the tower.

Thanks to A’s chaos echoing from afar, the area around the tower had almost no security.

So Victor reached the tower without much resistance.

A suspicious tower with not a single window.

And an open lot encircling it like a moat.

Victor crossed that empty space at a brisk pace, heading for the tower.

He was halfway across when—

Screeeech.

A deafening shriek rang out from the massive steel door of the tower.

Victor dropped flat to the ground and activated his stealth coat.

Clank. Clank.

The moment ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) he hid, something began emerging from the darkness behind the door, accompanied by mechanical reverberations.

A priest in a black robe, bristling with mechanical arms.

On its back, dozens of weapons were mounted.

Rifles, SMGs, flamethrowers, saws, axes, drills—every weapon imaginable, fanned out like a peacock’s tail.

Clank. Clank.

The monster crossed the lot, moving as if headed toward the cathedral.

!

Victor held his breath as tight as he could, pushing his stealth coat to its maximum output.

To get to the cathedral from the tower, it would have to pass right by him.

Clank. Clank.

Sharp steel legs, spider-like, drew close enough to touch.

Victor locked every muscle in his body, freezing in place to avoid even the smallest movement.

It stopped.

As if something felt off.

Then—

Clank. Clank.

It continued forward again.

Whew.

Victor exhaled a silent breath of relief in his head.

And then—

Shhhk!

A slicing noise cut through the air—aimed directly at him.

!

Victor, who had never let his guard down, instantly rolled across the ground.

Grrrrrk.

A sharp saw blade grazed past the tip of his nose and tore into the floor.

A few strands of hair floated into the air, severed.

["Intruder detected. Beginning elimination."]

The priest’s helmet emitted a mechanical voice.

“Knew it wouldn’t be that easy...”

Victor felt his mouth go dry from the tension as he quickly drew the SMG from his waist.

****

I kept slashing and slashing through the priests stinking of blood and rot.

Blue circuit patterns flowed across my entire body, and the blade that had become my arm sliced through the air like a glowing signature.

With cold metallic shrieks, the priests were carved to pieces.

“To the Guide’s... paradise...”

One priest muttered that even as its body split in half.

No clue where all these freaks had been hiding, but there were a lot of them.

From the ends of the hallway, from the vents above, even bursting out from beneath the floor tiles—grotesquely mutated priests kept pouring in nonstop.

‘After all this slicing, Victor better be safe by now.’

To someone like me—with a ring forged into my heart—these priests weren’t even a threat.

Just like that Heart Drill psycho, ordinary bullets didn’t work on me anymore.

But there was one thing that sent chills down my spine.

The priests never backed down.

One fell, and another took its place. Even with severed arms, they kept attacking with whatever limbs they had left.

In their eyes was a kind of madness—absolute, fanatical conviction.

They were the very definition of zealotry.

‘Fascinating.’

To instill this much loyalty in implant-crazed lunatics—no megacorp had ever pulled that off.

["In the name of the Guide—"]

Another priest dropped from the ceiling.

Its back was jammed with surgical drills and saws. In place of arms, it had a bundle of blades.

I swung the blade and cut it in half.

“...”

With that last one down, I could finally catch my breath.

The building’s walls were completely demolished, and the view outside spilled in freely.

Beyond the broken wall, I could faintly see the black sky and the endless smoke rising from the spires.

Below it all, torn-up corpses were scattered everywhere.

Not just inside—but far beyond the structure.

Though technically, they weren’t “corpses.”

They were parts.

AI frame neural bundles, hydraulic pistons, alloyed skin.

Whew.

I exhaled, satisfied. Like I’d just finished exterminating a bunch of cockroaches.

The ring in my heart was still glowing blue, though its spin had slowed from energy consumption.

!

Suddenly, a bad feeling surged through me—I turned.

A violet slash cut past my side, and before I could dodge, my wrist was severed.

I turned fully—and what I saw froze me in place.

At the end of the hallway—

Were beings who looked exactly like me.

Same height. Same build. Same face.

Except for one thing:

They were violet.

Identical clones of me—staring straight at me.