With the final crisp crack of the Copperhead, another body hit the dirt in the abandoned lot.
Lin Mo flicked his blade, casting off the blood that clung to it. The surface gleamed clean, flawless. The blue-green runes etched into the blade pulsed faintly, fading only once the sword returned to its sheath.
Hiro Kitagawa followed suit, ejecting his empty mag and smoothly slotting in a fresh one.
"That should be the last one, right? I doubt that sicko had enough clout in the Tiger Claws to command more than eight grunts," Lin Mo asked, unsure.
"Yeah, probably the last. Lin-kun… thank you."
Hiro finally allowed himself to relax. Gratitude filled his eyes as he looked at Lin Mo.
If the kid hadn't stepped in, Hiro knew damn well he wouldn't have made it out alive. At best, he might've taken out that depraved bastard and a few henchmen—then died alongside them.
And his sister? She'd still be trapped in that hellish dungeon. Her future? Either suicide… or complete ruin—forced into dark braindance recordings, chewed up and discarded as nothing more than consumable data.
After all these years in Night City, Hiro wasn't afraid of dying. His only weakness—his only soft spot—was his sister. And just imagining what they might've done to her... that alone was unbearable.
"I get paid to fix problems," Lin Mo said with a casual shrug, then smirked. "Hope this little punk met your expectations, Mr. Client."
"I'm sorry. I admit I was an asshole earlier," Hiro said sincerely.
"What Wakako's paying you doesn't even begin to cover what this job really cost. But I dumped every last eddie I had just to post it. I can't offer more right now, but I owe you. Seriously. You ever need backup, call me. I'll be there."
Lin Mo holstered his blade and started picking up the empty mags he'd discarded. He didn't seem all that moved by the apology.
"Save it for later. This gig ain't over. Shouldn't you be hauling ass to get your sister?"
Hiro nodded without another word and took off toward the restaurant. But halfway there, he paused, turned back, and asked, "You staying to clean up the mess?"
After everything Lin Mo had done, Hiro felt it'd be wrong to leave him with corpse duty.
"Nope. I'm staying to grab the loot," Lin Mo replied, scanning the scattered weapons littering the ground.
"As for the bodies? Forget it. Scavs can sniff this kind of mess from miles away. They'll be on it like flies."
This junk… worth something? Hiro didn't get it.
These were low-level gangbangers. Their gear was cheap. Any licensed shop would laugh you out the door if you tried selling bloodstained, secondhand pieces stripped off corpses.
Even in the black market, people preferred legit goods over Nth-hand trash.
Weapons like the Arasaka-manufactured Yokaze or Shigure weren't exactly high-end. Even brand-new, they didn't cost that much. And these weren't even factory-fresh.
Unless it was rare gear—like salvaged loot from a wiped-out corpo convoy—nobody paid decent eddies for this junk.
Hiro figured even if Lin Mo gathered everything, it might net him two or three hundred eddies. Tops.
And it's not like Lin Mo could carry it all—he wasn't a pack mule.
"Guess Lin-kun's the frugal type," Hiro muttered. It still puzzled him, but he chalked it up as a virtue.
With that thought, he left Lin Mo behind and sprinted toward the diner.
Lin Mo smirked and began wandering the battlefield, scooping up whatever guns looked salvageable and stuffing them into his bag like a professional looter.
Honestly? He never thought of himself as a trash hoarder.
But seeing weapons scattered after a fight always made his fingers itch. It was just like playing the game—leaving loot behind felt like tossing eddies down a drain.
It was his first real combat gig. He deserved some damn loot.
After a moment's hesitation, he gave in to the urge.
The rest? Not his problem.
Night City had its own "ecosystem." Trash like this would be cleaned up by the Scavs.
Scavengers—aka organ rats—were the city's vultures. To Lin Mo, they were the worst of the worst.
They weren't like other gangs with turf and rules. The whole city was their hunting ground.
They'd bash your head in, kidnap you, strap you to a slab with no anesthetic, and carve you open like a turkey—scraping out every cyber implant and organ they could sell.
Even your emotions and memories could be harvested and turned into nightmare-tier black BDs for the highest bidder.
They squeezed people dry—like human juicers—until nothing was left.
And that was just the pros. The real predators.
Most Scavs? Total bottom-feeders. Rats in the gutter. They didn't hunt—they waited. Bums on the sidewalk, unlicensed ripperdocs in alleys, even low-end corpse haulers… When the time was right, they'd flip the switch and scavenge "defective inventory."
A corpse left in a narrow alley, a busted weapon lying in the street—these were gifts from the city to its parasites.
And why?
Because in Night City, survival came first.
Before leaving, Lin Mo glanced back at the chaos he'd helped create.
Every shootout in this city left behind wreckage—just like a whale fall in the deep sea. It drew scavengers of every kind.
In the end, the strong got the meat. The next tier got the soup. And the weakest? They licked the damn bowl.
Then someone came along to rinse that bowl and drink the rinse water—hoping to taste what never existed in the first place.
Just as Lin Mo stepped onto the street, he caught sight of a few ragged scavengers sneaking into the alley, avoiding his gaze like cockroaches skittering from light.
The alley behind him was dark and narrow, walled off by towering buildings. But out here, on the street, warm golden light stretched across the pavement.
Lin Mo tightened the strap on his gear bag, sighed, and headed toward the restaurant.
.
.
.
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