Support me at patreon.com/CulturedOne and read 50 Advanced Chapters
_______________________
Next came the first iconic encounter between the protagonist, David, and Lucy. Lucy did not agree to the paramedics' proposal to slaughter the temporarily paralyzed David for his cyberware. Instead, she took matters into her own hands and initiated a high-speed skirmish inside the moving ambulance.
With a decisive kick, she sent the gurney carrying David flying out the back doors. Lucy herself clung to the edges of the careening stretcher, positioning herself face-to-face with the prone David as she used her body's weight to steer through traffic.
They rocketed through a high-speed tunnel at over a hundred kilometers per hour. The gurney skidded across the asphalt, trailing a shower of sparks behind them. David, flat on his back, felt like he was on the verge of losing consciousness from her actions. Yet, there was Lucy, laughing wildly, exhilarated by the danger as she expertly guided the stretcher between speeding vehicles.
Lying there, the boy stared up at the girl above him, at her reckless grin and the raw excitement in her eyes. Slowly, his gaze began to change.
Sosuke, watching from home, felt himself being pulled deeper into the story.
A silver-haired wild woman... this heroine is amazing!
Sexy, bold, and entirely without pretense, unlike the typical heroines who blush if a boy even breathes near them. Lucy's assertive personality was exactly what Sosuke found captivating.
After dragging David to a back-alley ripperdoc, she helped him secure two doses of immunosuppressants.
"I can't believe it. You used the Sandevistan eight times in a single day," the ripperdoc noted with a dangerous smirk. "You've either got thick skin or you're just a freak. But listen: don't push it past twice a day, three times at the absolute most. Even if your body holds up, your mind won't. It'll erode your humanity."
"You mean I'll become a cyberpsycho?" David asked, his voice eerily calm and his expression unshaken.
At that moment, Sosuke finally felt a connection to the protagonist. Since his mother's death, every shackle holding David back had vanished, including his fear of death. The anime didn't say it outright, but Sosuke could feel the weight of that detachment.
When they stepped out of the underground clinic, Lucy was waiting for him with a smile. She invited David back to her place. There, they began to talk about the moon. In this world, the moon had been colonized as a high-end resort destination, though it required an astronomical amount of money to visit. To share her dream, Lucy had them both hook up to a braindance, a simulation of the lunar surface. Inside the virtual world, they stood amidst the desolate, cratered landscape of the moon, bathed in the harsh light of the sun from millions of kilometers away. The boy and the girl wandered across the lunar plains, alone in the silence of space.
Suddenly, the heart-wrenching and unforgettable track, "I Really Want to Stay at Your House," began to play.
The boy and the girl leapt into the air. The gravity allowed them to drift like balloons before gently touching down. Lucy skipped ahead of him, her hand tucked behind her back as she playfully gestured for him to keep up.
Sosuke felt a surge of jealousy; he wanted to jump into the screen and follow her himself.
They experienced lunar rovers and zero-gravity soda in the simulation. For one brief moment, the boy believed he had found "the one"—the person you only encounter once in a lifetime. Sitting on the edge of a massive crater, they looked out at the giant blue marble of Earth floating in the void.
"This is the first time I've ever brought someone here," Lucy said softly, a small smile on her face.
"Really?" David asked, somewhat awkwardly. "Then... why bring me?"
"I don't know. I just felt like I could," Lucy replied, turning her head. Her profile was silhouetted by the brilliant glare of the sun. "I think we could make a good team."
The camera pulled back, showing the two figures sitting on the moon, looking back at their home. In the vast, lonely perspective of the universe, the scene somehow felt warm and complete.
In that instant, underscored by the melancholy background music, David lost his heart to her.
And so did Sosuke.
'The character writing for this heroine is just too good,' he thought.
Then, the world shattered. A deep, masculine voice growled in David's ear.
"You're done, kid. Wake up."
David's headset was ripped off. He was staring down the barrels of several guns held by a group of mercs and gang members, hardened killers who were clearly not ordinary street punks.
"Sorry to ruin your fun, kid, but that Sandevistan... it belongs to me," a hulking, muscular man growled at David. "Time to return it to its rightful owner."
The man was Maine, a true cyberpunk whose body was full of high-end military hardware. His massive arms had been completely replaced by chrome, concealing auto-cannons and rapid-fire weaponry.
He was a walking tank.
David looked over at Lucy.
She was leaning against the wall, eyes closed as she took a long drag from a cigarette. The girl who had just bared her soul to him on the moon was gone. She looked at him with a cold detachment, exhaling a series of perfect smoke rings.
Before David could even process the betrayal, Maine's iron fist slammed into his face, pinning him to the floor.
Episode 2: END.
"What?!" Sosuke shouted, staring at his screen in disbelief.
'It was all a trap?'
Lucy wasn't flirting with him; she was lulling him into a false sense of security so that Maine and the crew could move in for the kill? They were after his spine? This show... is there really not a single decent person in this world?
Sosuke was distraught.
Even the "heroine" was a cold-hearted betrayer. He had grown up on wholesome high school romances and comedies.
He was utterly unprepared for the ruthless reality of the cyberpunk genre.
'Night City is a godless place,' he realized.
The medics kill for parts, Gloria scavenged from corpses, and the Trauma Team leaves the poor to die. Even the ripperdoc only installed the implant because he wanted to harvest David's "test data" as his brain rotted.
"Damn, this is dark. If I were in that world, I wouldn't last three days," Sosuke muttered. He was dazed, yet he felt a burning curiosity about what would happen next.
If the first episode had merely intrigued him, the arrival of Lucy and her subsequent betrayal had officially hooked him. The show had completely stripped away the familiar tropes of the medium, offering something raw and unpredictable.
By the next morning, the number one trending topic on the forums was,
"What is the name of the song from Edgerunners Episode 2?"
In the discussion threads, the fanbase was in a state of excitement.
"Holy crap, that second episode was a masterclass!"
"I never saw that ending coming. Lucy is a pro-tier manipulator. I fell for it just as hard as David did."
"That gesture she made on the moon... she had me in the palm of her hand."
"The world-building is so tight. 'Cyberpsychosis' mechanic is terrifying. Using too much chrome literally erases your soul until you turn into a mindless killing machine."
"Everyone says you can only use it once or twice a day, and David used it eight times. Is he special, or just stubborn?"
"He's clearly high-spec, but he's not a god. He collapsed because he didn't have his meds. If he keeps this up, he's going to hit a wall fast."
"I'm dying to see how they resolve the romance. How do you go from 'I lured you into a trap to harvest your organs' to 'I love you'?"
"Who knows, but I'm locked in. Every plot beat is a surprise. There isn't a single cliché in sight."
"The animation in the ambulance chase was legendary. When Lucy kicks the gurney, the framing, the perspective, the fluidity…. everything was perfect!"
On Monday, Tokyo TV 1 released the ratings for the second episode: 4.33%. It was a significant jump from the premiere, placing them at the number two spot for the week, trailing only Red Dragon's 4.35%. The industry veterans were starting to sweat. Usually, a 3.5% rating is enough to win a season. This quarter was an anomaly with four shows breaking 4%, but Edgerunners' growth rate was the most aggressive.
The smell of a "Summer Overlord" was in the air.
Haruto, currently lounging at a beach resort, checked the reports on his phone.
"Second place, huh?" he muttered, taking a deep breath.
To be honest, beyond the original racing series Terminal Descent, he wasn't worried about Red Dragon or The Otherworld Reformer. Both were excellent, and he had read their source material, but he knew they didn't have the potential of Edgerunners. Once Maine's arc reached its tragic conclusion in the middle of the season, the raw, beautiful cruelty of Night City would take over, and no other show would be able to compete.
Haruto put his phone down and watched Shizuru and Reina building sandcastles further down the beach.
Vacations are a strange thing. You spend weeks looking forward to them, the first two days are a blast, and by the third day, the novelty begins to fade. Haruto had reached that point. He found himself bored with the sun and sand, preferring to scroll through industry news.
However, the two girls seemed to be having the time of their lives. Despite their past rivalry, they had found a common language in art. They had been working on an elaborate sand fortress for two hours without showing any signs of stopping.
"What are we doing for dinner?"
Yukino, dressed in a light white bikini, sat down on the lounge chair next to him. Haruto caught her in his peripheral vision.
"I'm asking you a question," Yukino said, her voice a bit louder.
"Oh... sorry. What did you say?" Haruto blinked, trying to regain his composure.
Yukino narrowed her eyes playfully. "Are you even listening?"
"Want some juice?" Haruto offered, handing her his glass of orange juice to mask his embarrassment.
"Thanks..." Yukino took a sip and looked over at the other two. "Listen, Haruto..."
"Yeah?"
"Why don't we take one of the motorboats to that small island over there? We can go fishing by ourselves and leave Shizuru and Reina to their sandcastles," Yukino suggested.
"Wait, is that okay?" Haruto asked, a bit surprised. "Shouldn't we tell them?"
"Why? They're clearly obsessed with their project. We don't have to sit here and watch them, do we?"
Haruto was about to say he wasn't really a fishing enthusiast, but then he saw the look in Yukino's eyes. The gears in his head finally clicked.
He stood up immediately, a grin spreading across his face. "You're right. Let's go."