No Time Limit for the Boss

"This was a real adventure..."

Dugu Yan murmured, her voice still tinged with wonder.

Just as she was about to get up and savor the shock Night City had given her, several anguished cries rang out across the Internet Cafe.

"Aaaah! My Euro! That damned Maelstrom boss was one slash away from dead! Let me back in! I'm going to kill him!" Ning Rongrong, at station one, raged helplessly.

"Damn it... I almost had enough money for that subdermal armor that boosts neural reaction speed..." Qian Renxue, at station two, fought to keep her composure as she muttered in frustration.

"Sigh." Zhu Zhuqing, at station three, let out a nearly inaudible breath.

The icy catgirl quietly left her seat and slipped back into her little pink Origin Internet Cafe apron. Her face was expressionless, but her feline eyes plainly said, I still want to play.

The four gaming addicts in the Internet Cafe, each from a more distinguished background than the last, met the same fate: the six-hour play limit had forcibly logged them out!

"Evil boss! Evil six-hour limit!"

Ning Rongrong slumped over the counter, pouting as she drew circles on its surface.

Dugu Yan came over too. She was less dramatic than Ning Rongrong, but she could not hide her irritation. She was clearly still caught up in the story that had put her through the wringer with Johnny Silverhand.

As the four young women gathered at the counter, exchanging looks of mutual withdrawal, they noticed something strange.

At the far end of the counter, the screen of Lin Ye's private computer was still lit.

Lin Ye himself wore holographic glasses that were clearly more advanced than their VR headsets, his fingers tapping lazily at the keyboard.

A holographic screen beside him displayed his game in real time.

"Wait..."

Ning Rongrong rubbed her eyes and pointed at the big screen. "The boss has been playing since he finished that bowl of instant noodles this morning, right? It's afternoon now. He passed six hours ages ago! Why hasn't he been kicked out?"

At that, Zhu Zhuqing and Dugu Yan stopped in their tracks. Even Qian Renxue, who had been preparing to return to the palace, turned her gaze on Lin Ye.

Feeling several murderous stares, Lin Ye calmly paused the game, took off his holographic glasses, and flashed them an infuriating smile.

"Because I'm the boss."

Lin Ye spread his hands, as if the answer were obvious. "The play limit is for you customers and employees. What does it have to do with me?"

His shameless yet irrefutable answer left all four of them nearly coughing up blood.

"You... you're abusing your authority!" Ning Rongrong stamped her feet, grinding her little canine teeth.

"Objection denied. This establishment reserves the right of final interpretation." Lin Ye picked up his ice-cold cola and took a delighted sip.

Qian Renxue forced down the urge to draw her sword and cut the crooked shop apart. Then she glanced at the holographic screen hovering in midair.

What she saw stopped her cold.

"Boss Lin, what... what are you doing?"

At her words, the other three looked up at the screen.

It showed a heavily guarded gang hideout in Night City.

Normally, Ning Rongrong would have drawn her Mantis Blades and charged in, while Qian Renxue would have used cover to land precise headshots.

But Lin Ye's character stood brazenly at the hideout's front gate without so much as a weapon in his hands!

On-screen, Lin Ye merely glanced at a sniper on the second floor.

Crackle!

The sniper's cyberware erupted in blinding blue sparks. He convulsed twice as though electrocuted, then toppled straight off the building!

Next, Lin Ye turned his gaze toward several heavily armored thugs inside the hideout.

[Uploading quickhack: Suicide.]

Before the four women's horrified eyes, the vicious thugs went blank, as if struck by a legendary mind-control soul skill. They raised their shotguns and shoved the barrels into their own mouths.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three shots rang out.

The hideout was cleared in an instant.

Lin Ye had not lifted a finger from start to finish. He had even bought a can of Nicola from a roadside vending machine!

"He... he kills whoever he looks at?!" Ning Rongrong dropped onto a barstool in fright. "What kind of External Soul Bone is that? That's ridiculous!"

"It's a netrunner build. You fight by hacking into the enemy's nervous system over the network! You wouldn't understand even if I explained it!"

Lin Ye leaned back in his chair and chuckled at the women, who had been struck speechless by his "advanced technique."

In his previous life, he had been a veteran who had completed Cyberpunk 2077 more times than he could count. He had long since grown bored of builds that did nothing but shoot or slash.

"There are plenty of ways to grow stronger in this world."

Lin Ye's gaze drifted into the distance, as though recalling something long past. "In my previous life... Ahem. A long time ago, I visited this city countless times! I carved my way through Arasaka Tower with Mantis Blades, and I collected bounties with a sniper rifle from hundreds of meters away. I've experienced more than enough of the brutal killing people do to survive or take revenge."

All four women shuddered at his words!

Qian Renxue's pupils contracted slightly.

What did he just say? He visited this city countless times? Did that mean the city had actually existed?

Dugu Yan was thinking about something else.

He said he carved his way through Arasaka Tower. I saw for myself today how powerful Arasaka Corporation is in that world, yet this boss fought his way through their headquarters?

Zhu Zhuqing's thought was simpler: He said he grew bored of it. If I could train with the Sandevistan until even I got bored of it someday...

Ning Rongrong's mind went in a different direction entirely: What's a previous life? Does he mean a life before this one? Do people have those? What was I in mine? Was I an incredible fighter too?

The four women's imaginations ran wild. They looked at Lin Ye with reverence, as though gazing up at an unreachable peak.

"Th-then what are you playing for now?" Dugu Yan swallowed and asked cautiously.

"The scenery."

Lin Ye pointed at the screen, where his character was racing a sleek Kusanagi motorcycle through the desert of the Badlands toward the setting sun.

"While you're still risking your lives on the streets for a few hundred Euro and celebrating every extra piece of cyberware you install, I've already stepped outside the cycle of killing."

"I'm not playing for Attributes anymore. I'm playing for a higher state of mind." Lin Ye delivered the line with a perfectly straight face.

"I look for the Tarot Graffiti hidden around the city. I listen to street drifters play guitar. I experience the absolute control of destroying a gang with nothing but code, without firing a shot. That's the romance of a second playthrough!"

A higher state of mind.

Romance.

A second playthrough.

Those lofty words struck the four women deeply.

Watching the effortless netrunning on-screen, Qian Renxue's eyes burned with excitement.

Zhu Zhuqing clenched her fists and silently vowed to master stealth tomorrow.

Dugu Yan and Ning Rongrong were equally won over by Lin Ye's profound-sounding words.

"I get it! This is how an expert plays!" Ning Rongrong's eyes lit up.

"Tomorrow! Tomorrow I'm going to be a netrunner too! I want to kill people just by looking at them!"

"Dream on. With your pitiful Intelligence stat, you'd burn out your own chip," Dugu Yan mocked without mercy.

"You with the purple hair, are you looking for a fight?!"

"Bring it on! You think I'm scared?"

Watching the young women start squabbling in the Internet Cafe again, Lin Ye stretched with satisfaction.