IBACT Chapter 1

Guilty (1)

Even looking up at the sky, I couldn’t see any stars.

To see light, I had to look down. I was standing on the tallest building in this city, and there wasn’t a structure that could meet my gaze at eye level.

Turning my gaze toward the business district, I saw countless office workers’ tormented souls shining like sparkling lights illuminating the city.

Despite the late hour, those lights hadn’t gone out yet. Perhaps they wouldn’t go out even after much more time had passed.

Ironically, the corporate employees being worked like dogs right now would invite envy and jealousy rather than sympathy when walking down the street.

Turning my gaze slightly, I could see the entertainment district. It appeared tiny, almost imperceptible to the eyes of ordinary people, but even they could capture those lewd and decadent lights.

I could see people buying cheap pleasures at bargain prices. For those with no tomorrow and no future, all they could enjoy was the sense of conquest that came from devouring each other’s bodies as entertainment.

Some of them were gasping, high on drugs. It was an ugly sight, but there wasn’t a person in this street who wasn’t ugly. The pleasure provided by drugs was the cheapest, most convenient, and quickest pleasure these people could obtain.

People living in places like this could find neither hope for the future nor happiness in today.

Even knowing how terribly drugs destroy the body and how disgusting and horrible the aftereffects are, they couldn’t quit.

Turning my gaze a bit more, I could see the harbor. Some people were visible, but what stood out more clearly were the massive machines.

For manual laborers to prove their value to corporations, they had to constantly demonstrate how cheap and desperate they were.

Tilting my head slightly, I could see the industrial complex. Automated machines clanked and moved.

Machines running on human blood continued to operate nonstop in pursuit of profit—a noble purpose, at least in the minds of business people.

Turning my gaze again, I could see the apartments where people lived.

These weren’t like the ordinary livable apartments I’d seen in Korea.

The slightly better apartments consisted of one-room studios of a few square meters. The worst ones were set up like cramped goshiwons. (T/N: A goshiwon provides the cheapest and most flexible form of rental housing in Korea)

In the terribly bad apartments, a person couldn’t even have a full floor to themselves. The space allowed to residents was capsule-like, just enough to barely raise the upper body and lie down.

The management was poor, security was unstable, and the streets were so full of homeless people and garbage that it was hard to find a place to step.

Residential facilities were made by people who believed that higher floor area ratios and building coverage ratios were always better—places so terrible that chicken coops would seem humane in comparison.

But even this wasn’t the worst.

Looking toward the outskirts of the city, I could see somewhat decent houses.

Though hard to spot at first due to the lack of light, with my eyes it wasn’t difficult to make out their structure.

Even if they were shabby shacks or humble wooden houses, at least they had space where people could breathe.

But the people living there would look with envious eyes even at those living in the chicken coop-like apartments.

A small flash of light. A gun.

Though living in the poor apartments didn’t guarantee safety, there was at least some basic management.

Unless you were a skilled mercenary, a determined gang member, or a criminal with nothing to lose, you couldn’t start shooting inside the apartments.

But those outskirts were literally battlefields. Crime reports weren’t properly filed, and it wouldn’t be strange to be shot dead just walking down the street.

You might be somewhat safer after establishing connections with gangs, but even that safety was laughable.

If living in such areas without the protection of criminals was like suicide—equivalent to putting a revolver to your head and pulling the trigger—then those under protection were like playing Russian roulette with a revolver loaded with two bullets.

Bringing my gaze back closer, I could see people enjoying comfortable daily lives happily.

People smiling warmly with their families, enjoying sports in spacious fields, or playing games flickering with holograms.

The wealthy gathered in the heart of the city, enjoying pleasures safer and more comfortable than anyone else.

Security guards armed with the latest equipment and security procedures that prohibited the entry of the poor protected them.

They enjoyed pleasures brought by technologies unimaginable in the 2020s on Earth, living happier lives than anyone else.

Someone with a living conscience might be troubled by the suffering of others. But most humans had grown weary of compassion.

Continuing wars and the rise of corporations had taken away the generosity that remained in their hearts.

Now, no one cares about each other.

They don’t grieve when someone is shot dead in the street. They don’t feel pain when someone is crushed to death by a machine in a factory.

They only mock: “Who told them to walk that street at that time?” “If they had followed safety procedures properly, wouldn’t they have been fine? Who forced them to work at a factory?” They only belittle others’ pain with such words.

Their sense of justice only erupts when criticizing each other.

When an incident occurs that could attack corporations, the poor and gangs become furiously angry and spew hatred toward them.

That those in corporations have all sold their conscience and are trash, that those disgusting bastards are ruining this city and this world, that the employees who comply with them are all accomplices.

It’s not wrong. Corporations that have gained tremendous power have infiltrated politics and are sucking up enormous sums of money.

Policing, infrastructure like subways, buses, and roads, and even water and electricity—most have been privatized.

Those working for corporations were no different from those participating in those crimes.

Conversely, the relatively well-off corporate employees criticized the poor and gangs.

Trash who shoot first at the slightest provocation, disgusting humans who have no intention of earning money through honest work but commit crimes at every opportunity, potential criminals all connected to gangs without exception.

That was how the middle and upper classes of this city viewed the poor. This, too, was correct.

A man walking through dangerous streets in a neat suit was more attractive to criminals in the slums than a naked woman.

So attractive that they couldn’t resist taking him down, stripping him, and stealing all his money.

It was true that gangs were anti-establishment criminals, that they treated human lives as worthless, and that the majority of the poor were connected to gangs.

It was natural selection. A lowlife who had to protect themselves with cheap guns had to form groups to protect themselves, or they would quickly become corpses.

I sighed involuntarily.

In that trial full of villains, if one were to judge whose sin was greater, corporations would probably be worse villains than the poor and gangs.

The poor had no power, and corporations had power. That was all.

Gangs were no different from small corporations, and corporations were no different from well-packaged massive gangs.

They were essentially the same: sucking money from their territories and brutally dealing with those who rejected their order.

But corporations are stronger. Compared to gangs that barely controlled a few areas of the city, the world’s corporations were securing influence across cities and nations, tormenting people.

And I, who had fallen into this cursed cyberpunk world, had become one of them. No, I had become central to them.

I was a member of the Hansan Group, the largest conglomerate in this city—no, in the world—occupying the tallest building in this Stella City where crime and pleasure were mixed.

I wasn’t just an ordinary employee. I was someone with the bloodline of the Hansan family who could enter this tall building without any issues.

I wasn’t the only heir. I, or more precisely, the former owner of this body, had been pushed out of the competition halfway due to incidents he had caused.

The world is vast. Considering the influence of the Han Group, which reached every country, ending up in a conflict zone like Stella City could be considered exile.

But at least within this city, I was the highest person.

I could do anything. Except for checks within the Hansan Group or attacks from other corporations, there was no one in this city who could stop me.

I could fill my room with women who had undergone extensive body modifications for beauty at any moment.

If there was someone I disliked, I could kill them regardless of who they were.

As long as the other party wasn’t from another corporation or within the company, it didn’t matter what crimes the heir to the Hansan family committed.

This advanced technology and ridiculously cheap human life.

Thinking about society as a whole, it was a terrible and disgusting dystopia, but for those with sufficient money and power, it was a place no different from a heaven sweeter than paradise.

Being able to enjoy that, I could live a life overwhelmingly more comfortable and full of pleasure compared to before I possessed this body.

But that wasn’t the end.

I can’t change the system. I can’t change the world. Politicians are already no different from corporate dogs, and there is no hope in people’s eyes.

Even as the highest person in this city, I am too weak compared to this world.

After all, what creates my power and wealth isn’t my personal ability but just the name of the Hansan family.

Still, I must act. Even if I, the heir to Hansan corporation, try my hardest, I may not be able to stop the system or the runaway corporations, but I can kill one person.

Conversely, one incredibly strong person, while unable to change the system, can destroy one corporation. They can kill one person.

Just a figure carrying a few guns, walking straight into this building, slaughtering the core members of the Hansan family in one go, and slipping away to become a legend.

The protagonist of the cyberpunk game world I’ve possessed must be alive somewhere.

I don’t know who they are. I can’t predict their gender, age, name, personality, or background.

This game, which boasted perfect freedom from before its release, prepared numerous options as promised.

Wanderer, vagabond, corporate, ex-military, mercenary, detective, gang member, hacker, journalist, and with DLC, even chef or taxi driver.

I can’t know now whether they will move for justice, for their own desires, or for pure destruction.

Still, either way, there was no future like this.

To avoid fighting a good protagonist, I need to do good deeds in advance. To avoid fighting a protagonist moved by self-interest, I need to amass plenty of money.

To fight a protagonist moved by destruction, I need to gather enough reliable allies.

I took a deep breath.

It was a terrible era. Even for me, who could look down on everyone in this city from this building, to be considering and striving not for other values but for survival.

Perhaps, that’s the way of Stella City.

And I will succeed.