By the time Tyler realized Ethan had been right, his soul was already halfway out of his body.
What he thought was the start of a romance turned into a blind date with someone's mother.
What Ethan thought was a game had already become a battlefield.
And that night, for the first time, he stopped dying like prey... and started killing back.
The Japanese restaurant was crowded, warm, and full of movement.
Plates clinked. Servers drifted between tables in neat uniforms. Couples laughed quietly over sushi and grilled skewers. Soft music floated through the room, trying its best to create the atmosphere of an elegant evening.
Tyler sat stiffly at his table, checking the time for what felt like the tenth time.
Ten minutes.
Then twelve.
Then fifteen.
His confidence, which had started the evening shining brighter than polished gold, began to crack.
A bad feeling crawled into his stomach.
"It can't be..." he muttered, staring at the photo on his phone. "No way Ethan was actually right..."
He zoomed in on the girl's picture again.
Long legs. Fair skin. Soft eyes. Gentle smile. Delicate shoulders framed by a thin camisole.
Perfect.
A little too perfect.
Tyler swallowed.
Just as he was about to call Ethan and demand one last judgment, the restaurant door opened again.
A woman in a cherry blossom kimono stepped inside.
Tyler froze.
She was young, elegant, and composed. The pale floral kimono wrapped around her figure with almost painful grace, making her neck appear even whiter and more slender under the restaurant lights.
Then she walked directly toward his table.
Tyler's pulse exploded.
"Are you Mr. Tyler?" she asked with a smile.
"Yes. Yes, yes—yes!" Tyler shot upright so fast he nearly knocked over his glass.
For two full seconds, his eyes were completely unfocused.
Then his brain caught up, and he sat back down with the expression of a man who had just been personally blessed by heaven.
"Are you... Japanese?" he asked, trying and failing to sound calm.
The woman gave a shy nod and sat across from him.
Tyler immediately compared her to the photo on his phone.
Same face.
Same body.
Same flawless impression.
No obvious editing.
No visible trick.
His confidence roared back to life so fast it nearly gave him emotional whiplash.
Inside, he practically puffed up with pride.
Heh. After all these years wandering the battlefield of online dating, I've seen every kind of fake photo there is. How could I possibly trip here?
What does Ethan know about filters? Can he really know more than me?
With a beauty sitting across from him, Tyler's entire posture changed. He straightened his back, adjusted his hair, and began ordering food with the trembling excitement of a man already imagining wedding photos.
He hadn't even finished a few bites before the conversation leaped straight past polite small talk and slammed into the dangerous zone.
"Mr. Tyler," the woman said softly, lowering her eyes. "You really are a gentle person."
Tyler almost floated off the chair.
Then she added, "But if we are going to be together... there is one condition."
Tyler's heart skipped.
There it was.
The real test.
House.
Car.
Dowry.
He'd seen enough stories online to know how this went.
Still... he stole another look at her face and gritted his teeth.
If the number wasn't too outrageous, maybe it was worth it.
His family had assets. If he pushed hard enough and got beaten only moderately by his father afterward, perhaps this could still work.
So he forced a smile and asked, "What condition?"
The woman's cheeks turned pink.
"No need for a house or a car," she whispered. "My family already has those."
Tyler blinked.
Not house. Not car.
His hopes suddenly climbed to absurd heights.
Then she leaned in just slightly and said in an even softer voice, "It's just that... in that area... I need it several times a day."
Tyler stared.
Then he spat rice.
"Ahem—cough—!"
He nearly choked to death on happiness.
His face went red. His pulse hammered in his ears. Every survival instinct in his body immediately surrendered.
Several times a day?
He would agree to ten times a day.
He would agree to training.
He would agree to Olympic qualification standards.
His breathing turned uneven as his imagination instantly began trying to ruin his dignity.
"Good," the woman said with a bright smile when she saw his reaction. "Then tonight... we can start our first time."
Tyler almost passed out on the spot.
"Isn't... isn't this a little fast?" he stammered. "We only just met..."
"Not fast," the woman said. "My mom is already getting impatient."
Tyler's smile froze.
His brain stopped.
Then, with horrifying naturalness, the woman stood up, walked a few steps, and returned with a stout middle-aged aunt whose face was round, rosy, and very, very enthusiastic.
Tyler stared at the aunt.
Then at the young woman.
Then back at the aunt.
A terrible chill spread through his spine.
"This is...?" he asked weakly.
The young woman smiled politely. "I'm not Jiang Xue. Jiang Xue is my mother."
Tyler's soul detached from his body and hovered in the air.
"What?"
"I'm just here helping my mom with her blind date," the girl said.
She even pulled out her phone and held the profile picture beside the middle-aged woman's face.
"The person in the photo is my mom. We only used a little skin smoothing."
Tyler's vision darkened.
A little?
A little?!
That wasn't smoothing. That was digital reincarnation.
The middle-aged aunt broke into a huge smile that made his skin crawl.
"Very handsome," she said approvingly.
The daughter turned to her expectantly. "Mom, are you satisfied with Mr. Tyler?"
The aunt gave a vigorous nod.
Tyler shot to his feet like he had been electrocuted.
"Sumimasen!"
He bowed so hard his spine nearly snapped, turned in one jerky motion, and fled the restaurant with the pure speed of a man escaping psychological death.
He couldn't do it.
Absolutely couldn't.
Not even for six houses.
---
Meanwhile, back at Ethan's apartment building, the atmosphere was a great deal quieter.
The one-bedroom place he rented wasn't impressive, but it served one crucial purpose: privacy.
The dormitory at the university was cheap, but the constant smoke, noise, and lack of personal space had always irritated him. Renting his own place had felt like an indulgence before.
Now it felt like survival.
He could hide the V-mark here.
Hide the extracted items.
Hide the fact that his life had already split into two worlds.
His phone buzzed.
Tyler's name flashed on the screen.
Ethan answered, already half-smiling.
On the other end, Tyler sounded like a man whose faith in reality had just been murdered.
"Ethan! You were right! The woman in the photo was actually her mother! That was terrifying!"
Ethan let out a quiet, merciless laugh. "Told you."
Tyler sounded on the verge of tears. "Do people online just not have human limits anymore?"
Ethan leaned back in his chair and decided to stab once more for good measure.
"That's nothing," he said lazily. "That virtual streamer you watch every day? Also fake."
A pause.
Then Tyler asked, suspicious and shaky, "What do you mean fake?"
"It's a man using a voice changer."
Silence.
Then a howl of pain.
"No! I subscribed to her as a governor!"
Ethan almost laughed out loud.
"Is there anything real left in this world?!" Tyler cried dramatically. "Brother Night—"
Ethan hung up.
He had more important things to do.
His expression settled almost immediately.
The joking warmth left his face.
He raised his right hand, pressed the hidden V-mark, and opened the game panel.
Then he went into his inventory and selected Extract on the Lexington Kinetic Pistol (E-grade).
A solid weight dropped into his palm.
Ethan's fingers tightened around cold metal.
The weapon was real.
The M-10AF Lexington, one of the cheapest and most common firearms in Night City, yet still beyond anything he had ever personally owned. Crimson-painted body. Heavy, industrial feel. Brutally practical design.
He examined it carefully.
Even without formal training, he had watched enough videos and read enough online to understand the basics. He pressed the magazine release. The magazine slid free.
Twenty-one rounds.
And if he held the trigger, it could dump them all in just a few seconds.
Ethan stared at it in silence.
This wasn't just loot anymore.
This was a dividing line.
A real weapon from a future city of violence, now sitting in the hands of an ordinary college student in Seabrook City.
After a few moments, he slid it back into the inventory.
For now, it was a hidden trump card.
Reality was still calm on the surface, but Ethan no longer believed that calm would last.
The upside-down appearance of Night City in the sky had already proven that the game wasn't contained. The hundred thousand beta players weren't simply gamers—they were variables.
Unstable ones.
Every player could bring back knowledge, items, cyberware, weapons, or skills that didn't belong in this world. If even basic hacker chips became widespread, modern digital security would collapse overnight.
Corporations would go to war for it.
Governments would panic.
Industries would shatter.
And when that happened, players like him would either be hunted, used, or erased.
Ethan had no interest in becoming a hero, a revolutionary, or some public figure waving the flag of a new era.
He only wanted one thing.
To become strong enough that nobody could casually decide his fate.
That meant power.
That meant preparation.
That meant moving before the rest of the world understood what was happening.
He reopened the game and resumed the simulation.
This time, the text felt different.
He had a hacker chip installed.
He had a gun.
For the first time since entering Night City, he was not completely helpless.
The prompt rolled forward.
[A passionate Dreamer, you now carry a freshly loaded handgun and have installed a new hacker chip. Power fills your body. ]
[Do you want to take revenge on those damned Scavs? ]
Ethan's eyes narrowed.
Of course he did.
Those organ-harvesting parasites were still lurking close to his apartment. Every few resets, they popped out like a cursed event trigger to steal his kidneys again.
His living conditions had become intolerable.
He selected Revenge.
The scene opened inside an unfinished building where the Scavs had holed up.
Ethan used the hacker chip to invade their security cameras, map their positions, and line up the first shot through a doorway.
Then—
Bang.
The game described the bullet entering a Scav's skull, blowing out the back of his head and painting the wall with brain matter.
A notification appeared.
[Ding—You killed 1 Scavenger and gained 200 US dollars. ]
Ethan's heartbeat kicked hard in his chest.
His first kill.
The first time he had struck back instead of dying.
The game continued rapidly.
More footsteps.
More gunfire.
He ducked into cover, jammed enemy optics with quickhacks, hijacked the camera perspective, and fired again.
[Ding—You killed 1 Scavenger and gained 200 US dollars. ]
[Ding—You killed 1 Scavenger and gained 200 US dollars. ]
Then another notice flashed.
[Your specialization level has increased! ]
[Unlocked specialization: Pistol · High Noon LV1 ]
[High Noon LV1: Critical hit chance with pistols and revolvers increased by 40% ]
Ethan's breathing slowed.
His eyes sharpened.
That was huge.
He could feel the rhythm of it now—even through text alone. The camera angles. The quickhacks. The timing between shots. The precision. The mounting pressure.
The Scavs were panicking.
He was winning.
And then Night City reminded him exactly where he was.
A roar exploded from his flank.
A wall burst apart.
A large-caliber round tore into his abdomen, rupturing flesh, breaking bone, and sending him crashing into blood and rubble.
The final image on the screen was the Scav leader charging through debris with a heavy machine gun, face twisted in fury.
Then came the last burst.
And darkness.
[You are dead. ]
Ethan exhaled sharply and leaned back.
"Damn."
But this time, the frustration didn't last.
Because for the first time, he wasn't focused on the death.
He was focused on what came before it.
He had killed three enemies.
Earned six hundred dollars.
Unlocked a pistol specialization.
Confirmed that hacking plus firearms was a viable path.
That was progress.
Real progress.
He opened his hand.
A thick stack of cash appeared in his palm.
Six hundred dollars.
Not Night City currency in some abstract digital sense—real cash, converted and transferred across worlds straight into his hand.
He weighed it for a moment, then smiled faintly.
With a flick of his fingers, he had earned half a month's salary for some people.
And that was from a single failed run.
He slid the money back into his inventory.
At the moment, it was still pocket change compared to what he truly needed.
If he wanted to level up directly, he needed serious money.
A lot of it.
His current Body stat was 4. Just one point away from being able to equip the martial chip he had extracted earlier.
If he could install that cyberware, his combat power would leap upward.
But improving his body naturally through exercise would take months.
He didn't have months.
Not with the world already beginning to crack.
He paced slowly across the apartment, mind racing.
The hacker chip allowed him to see modern devices like open books. With enough focus, he could probably interfere with ATMs, cameras, security systems, and more. In theory, he could even directly transfer money between accounts.
But that would leave digital traces.
It would expose him too early.
And right now, caution mattered more than greed.
So he began thinking sideways.
No direct bank transfers.
No flashy hacks.
Something simpler.
Cleaner.
A thought rose in his mind, bold and dangerous.
"Robbing an ATM..."
He stopped walking.
Then he slowly smiled.
Not a bank counter. Not a direct confrontation with armed guards. Not some dramatic movie robbery.
A twenty-four-hour ATM booth on a quiet street.
He could block the cameras.
Hack the machine.
Force it to dispense cash.
Then deposit that cash into the game inventory by hand.
Quick in.
Quick out.
Minimal exposure.
In the current transition period, before banks and authorities fully understood what "players" were capable of, they would be almost defenseless against tech from Night City.
The window wouldn't stay open forever.
But right now?
Right now the opportunity was sitting in front of him like an unlocked door.
Ethan wasn't sentimental enough to ignore it.
He opened his laptop and began researching secluded bank branches in Seabrook City.
Soon, one institution caught his eye.
Blue Harbor Bank.
The more he read, the colder his expression became.
This wasn't some helpless victim institution. It was one of the banks tied to a notorious property scandal—partnered with a major real estate developer during the boom years, profiting wildly from loan contracts while projects expanded like weeds.
Then the developer collapsed.
Supervisory funds were misused.
Projects were abandoned.
Ordinary homeowners were ruined.
And while families lost their life savings, the bank dodged responsibility and even used legal pressure to force people to keep paying on homes that would never be completed.
Profits at the top.
Ruin at the bottom.
The comments under news reports were full of desperate accusations, broken lives, and rage.
Ethan read in silence.
Then he selected three branches and marked them down.
His face remained calm, but a quiet, sharp edge had entered his gaze.
He wasn't pretending to be righteous.
He wasn't some vigilante avenger of the common people.
He simply had no problem choosing his targets from among those who had already fed on others.
The next day, he bought a mask.
Then a trench coat.
Simple. Anonymous. Forgettable.
Late that night, under the cover of darkness, Ethan stepped out into the cold air of Seabrook City.
The streets were quiet.
The city lights flickered.
And somewhere beneath the calm surface of the world, the rules were already beginning to rot.
Ethan adjusted his coat, hid the mark on his arm, and walked into the night with steady steps.
He had died enough times to understand one truth:
Mercy belonged to people who could afford weakness.
He could not.
And tonight, he was done waiting for the future to come find him.
He was going to reach out—
—and take what he needed first.