A hotel with ocean-view rooms and private swimming pools, an amusement park for the whole family, a pier on the beach, umbrellas... Well, there was also trash.
But what could they expect with Night City right next door?
Besides, this was prime real estate. It was bound to turn a profit.
--That was the common idea among the first batch of generous investors.
However, they did not hold out for long.
Halfway through construction, even better opportunities began to emerge, and they realized that investing in Night City's other districts was far more profitable than investing in Pacifica.
So the capital pulled out, and the unfinished buildings were abandoned.
The Voodoo Boys and the Animal Gang moved in and took over.
Pacifica, originally planned as a seaside paradise, became a war zone.
City Hall neither put in the effort to repair it nor bothered to demolish it.
They simply built a high wall around the entire area and called it a day.
As a result, Pacifica, which should have been the first stop for tourists visiting Night City, became a place where every step was fraught with danger.
It became a lawless land only lunatics would visit.
Many people would rather take the long way through Santo Domingo than cut through Pacifica.
Since Pacifica was a place even the NCPD did not care about, the gang members and even the street thugs here were exceptionally arrogant.
It was common to see sudden shootouts erupt on the roads or in the streets.
Sometimes it was revenge; sometimes it was robbery;
but sometimes they simply disliked the look of one another, drew their guns, and opened fire in a fit of passion.
On Su Xiao and the others' first day in Pacifica, several groups of thugs set their sights on the three of them.
So Su Xiao kindly sent them to meet the old man upstairs.
Some might think that not all of those thugs were born evil, and that giving them a chance to reform might be better than killing them outright.
Su Xiao only had this to say--
"Whether to forgive them is God's business. I only handle sending them to meet God."
When Su Xiao and the others carried out their... physical salvation, they did it in full view of the public.
The nearby passersby all watched those groups of thugs die at Su Xiao's hands.
But no one called the police.
The passersby merely pretended nothing had happened and hurried away.
The other thugs in the distance, meanwhile, were so frightened they nearly wet themselves.
Even the gang members listed the three of them as dangerous targets.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: You Can Fool Your Buddies, Just Don't Fool Yourself
Although the black market was located in an underground parking garage,
cars were not allowed to drive directly inside.
They either had to be parked by the roadside;
or driven upstairs.
Of course, parking upstairs also required paying a parking protection fee.
Su Xiao simply had the car return to Wolf Bar.
If they needed it later, they could just call it back.
After getting out, the three of them began surveying the terrain.
They discovered that this black market also had surveillance cameras.
One camera had been installed at each of the two entrances.
There was another on the street outside.
There were even several inside the black market, monitoring it from different angles.
However, the people watching these cameras were not the NCPD.
They were Scavengers hired and paid by the black-market vendors collectively.
Although Scavengers made their living harvesting kidneys, they were not completely brainless.
Nor did they harvest everyone they saw.
Places like black markets and underground clinics were important sources for their trafficking of human organs and secondhand cyberware. Even the stupidest person would not smash their own supply channels.
Not only would they avoid smashing them, but some clever Scavenger gangs would even cooperate with the black-market vendors, with the Scavengers providing protection.
Using the scanning mode of his Tactical Goggles,
Su Xiao located the surveillance room.
V and Sasha worked together.
They switched all the surveillance cameras inside and outside the black market to friendly mode.
That way, the Scavengers watching the screens in the surveillance room would not be able to notice them through the cameras.
Then Su Xiao sneaked into the surveillance room.
He killed the Scavenger, who was not watching the surveillance feeds at all but playing games on the computer.
He tossed the body straight into a trash bin.
After that, they began lying in wait with Mann's team.
They guarded the black market's entrances for two straight days, but the target never appeared.
It was not until the third day that Sasha's slightly soft voice finally sounded over the comms.
"Attention, the target has appeared. Repeat, the target has appeared."
Su Xiao, V, and Jack's spirits all lifted.
At last.
Jack took out the technical double-barreled shotgun Su Xiao had made for him, "Sadala," and opened it to check the shells inside.
"Su, stay behind me later."
Jack had never seen Su Xiao in action.
Knowing only that Su Xiao could manufacture guns, he assumed Su Xiao was a technical expert with somewhat inferior combat ability.
"I can protect myself."
Su Xiao emphasized it again.
But never mind.
Once the fighting started, Jack would naturally see his strength.
Actions spoke louder than words.
Mann's solemn voice came through the comms.
"I'll repeat the plan. We'll only make our move after the target enters the black market and our two teams join up. Remember, do not attack early under any circumstances, lest we expose ourselves."
Two vans stopped on the road outside the black market.
The conspicuous insignia of the Animal Gang was painted on their bodies.
A group of muscular men climbed out of the vans.
The last one to emerge was even taller.
He could no longer be called a muscular man, but a giant.
He was the leader of the Animal Gang.
However, anyone familiar with the Animal Gang might have found this strange.
The Animal Gang had always loved flaunting their physiques, trained to the extreme.
Yet this leader wore a thick, long-sleeved trench coat over his upper body.
It covered his two massive arms completely.
Even so, the muscles stretching the sleeves were still obvious.
Their group was eye-catching and attracted quite a few thugs to watch.
But no one dared provoke the Animal Gang.
The Animal Gang was not as united as the Tiger Claws Gang, where the death of even a single underling would bring a large number of Tiger Claws down on someone.
But the Animal Gang members in front of them were not to be trifled with either.
Especially those bulging muscles.
They were enough to make people back away at a glance.
Just then, two young men walked out of the black market.
They came face-to-face with the leader and his group.
But the two young men were not watching where they were going. They were too busy chatting among themselves.
"Look what I dug up at the black market—a 'Shigure' Kinetic Submachine Gun, made by Arasaka. Its gunfire sounds as soothing as a cat purring."
His companion asked in confusion, "'Shigure'? Wasn't that model released in the early twenty-first century?"
"Okay, this submachine gun may be a little old, and its firepower isn't as good as newer models. But, without exaggeration, it fires more bullets in a minute than Arasaka steals in taxes. Just imagine how many that is."
"Accuracy isn't that important. Imagine emptying the entire magazine and seeing the devastation left in front of you after the smoke clears."
"You don't have to like Arasaka, but you should respect Arasaka. Without Arasaka Corporation, people wouldn't be able to buy guns to defend themselves. Arasaka's weapons meet people's self-defense needs and maintain social stability."
"And as for those claiming Arasaka employees are poorly treated, they should stop being jealous. That company even provides its employees with the latest cyberware technology. Those jealous types couldn't get hired even if they wanted to."
"I've always used Arasaka Corporation's products. Arasaka's weapons are worlds apart from those made by other weapons manufacturers. Their stats simply can't compare to Arasaka's."
"When you use Arasaka gear, everyone around you can tell you're using the latest Arasaka weapons. You look incredibly impressive carrying them!"
"Arasaka Corporation has had a few scandals, but they handled the problems very well. That won me over. Major corporations need that kind of responsible spirit!"
"In short, you don't have to use Arasaka products, but Arasaka is the greatest company in the world. Without Arasaka, you'd be stuck using weapons that are more expensive and worse, like Military Technology's junk."
"Glory to Arasaka!"
He grew more and more excited as he spoke.
By the end, he had even raised both hands high.
He struck a pose like he was hailing the sun.
But his companion was unimpressed. He even patted him on the shoulder and comforted him.
"You can fool your buddies, just don't fool yourself. It doesn't matter if your buddies are fooled by you—we can laugh it off and move on, and it'll even give you some peace of mind. But that's enough of this kind of talk between friends. We can humor you without losing anything, but don't go and start believing it yourself."
As the two of them talked, they suddenly felt as if they had run into a wall.
The two young men looked up in confusion.
A giant over two meters tall stood before them.
He stared down at them from on high.
And behind the giant stood twenty or thirty members of the Animal Gang.
An overwhelming pressure bore down on them, as if even the air had frozen.
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