Meanwhile.
In the cyberpunk world, Night City.
"Beep-click."
The rusty electronic door lock gave a faint, grating sound.
Seventeen-year-old David Martinez gently pushed open the door, looking somewhat awkward and shy.
Behind him.
Lucy, who had just been "captured alive by purely flesh-and-blood Clock Up" on an NCART light rail train, slowly followed him inside in her high-heeled boots, still tightly clutching that tiny, priceless fragment of pure gold.
By now, the aloof young hacker's mind was already in complete turmoil.
Her expensive, custom-made Kiroshi optical implants were still continuously refreshing the previous scan logs-[Mechanization: 0.00%], [Pure human flesh and blood]!
A slum high school student with absolutely no cyberware signals, yet a speed even more terrifying than a Military-Grade Sandevistan?
To get to the bottom of this monstrous boy, Lucy had followed David all the way to this shabby apartment, half reluctantly.
"Um... the place is a little messy. Don't mind it."
David scratched his hair sheepishly, casually set the shoulder bag containing the original Sandevistan on the dusty table, and walked over to the battered sink to pick up two cheap plastic cups:
"Want some water? All I have is tap water filtered through the municipal pipes..."
However.
David had not even managed to finish the final syllable!
"Buzzz-!!!!"
In the center of the cramped little living room, which measured less than ten square meters, the air violently warped without warning!
"An attack?!"
Lucy's reflexes were lightning fast!
Within a thousandth of a second of the brilliant light erupting, icy-blue streams of hacking data surged wildly through her pupils, and the monowire at her fingertips shot out with a metallic twang,
Her entire body instantly leaped backward against the wall like a startled little wildcat, assuming an assassination stance for a fight to the death!
However.
When the