"Hey, Lucky, you here yet? We're ready to head out."
Jackie's call came in, and a moment later he saw a familiar figure emerge from the side alley beside the Afterlife.
There was also a masked woman with him—
someone Jackie had never seen before.
"This is…?"
"One of my… friends. She's coming with us to Konpeki Plaza." Luo Qi greeted V, then got into the front seat.
Jackie couldn't hold back anymore. He climbed into the back and pulled the door shut, glancing around nervously.
"But T-Bug only set up fake identities for the three of us. What about her?"
"She'll stay in the car and support us," Luo Qi explained, "and handle… special-case backup."
"Nice. Thorough as always," V said. "From now on, your name is Erwin William. Jackie is Ramon Victorino. I'm Harry Conwell. We're going to meet an Arasaka military representative named Takigawa Hajime."
"That name sounds awkward as hell," Jackie complained. "Here—your suit. Put it on and you'll look like a respectable citizen."
"Alright, enough complaining. If we're ready, then let's move." Luo Qi clapped his hands and took the clothes.
Jackie scratched his head, feeling that something about the atmosphere in the car was a little strange.
"Lucky, your friend doesn't look very talkative."
Then he got hit by a cold stare. Even through the mask he couldn't see clearly, but the feeling it gave him was like being glared at by a violent wild beast.
"Mower, calm down. He doesn't mean anything by it," Luo Qi soothed her.
Suddenly, once all the doors had closed, every screen inside the car—including the rearview mirror display—lit up with the pale face of a terrifying blue bald head.
"Welcome to Delamain Excelsior service. Choose Delamain, leave your troubles at the door."
Delamain's familiar voice rang out, and just hearing it made Luo Qi's head ache.
Not because the voice was unpleasant.
But because the first time he'd ever ridden with Delamain Taxi, things had gone very badly. Ever since then, Delamain and that gentle trademark voice had become synonymous in Luo Qi's mind with disaster.
No. No. Today was different.
Luo Qi repeated that silently in his head, trying to force the knotted tension in his chest to loosen.
"Holy shit! This is definitely gonna be fine!"
Jackie stacked three swear words together in a single sentence, planting a flag so hard Luo Qi nearly threw him out of the car on the spot.
"I do not understand why you felt the need to swear," Delamain asked mechanically.
"Oh yeah?" Jackie was getting worked up. "You remember when I tried to hire you to celebrate my nephew finally getting a girlfriend, huh?"
"Unfortunately, we do not provide that type of service," Delamain replied with polished courtesy.
"I saved up for three whole months…" Jackie was still clearly bitter over the experience. "Uh, whatever, that's all in the past. Let's go, old D!"
At that moment, Luo Qi suddenly laughed.
He found himself wondering what would happen if GLaDOS and Delamain were ever put in the same room together.
Actually, no.
He was pretty sure the result would just be GLaDOS cheerfully mocking poor old D while Delamain failed to keep up. Those two wouldn't really be able to argue at all.
But his expression was starting to stiffen again.
The story Jackie had told about his nephew was, in hindsight, a pretty obvious hint about how rigid Delamain followed its rules. Yet somehow Luo Qi hadn't noticed it before—neither then nor later—not until he was sitting in this car himself.
No.
That was the script.
And this world had no scriptwriter.
Luo Qi tried to convince himself.
"Before beginning the trip, I must verify the identities of all passengers," Delamain intoned according to procedure. "Please connect your personal link."
Luo Qi looked at V. Jackie looked at V too.
V rolled his eyes helplessly and pulled a data cable from his palm to connect with the car.
"Thank you. The Excelsior package has now been activated."
"Excelsior? Oh-ho-ho-ho, now that's more like it!" Jackie laughed loudly.
"Why are you so excited?" V asked curiously.
"Wait, look at this…" Jackie grinned the way someone grins when showing off a favorite toy. "Delamain! Activate combat mode!"
But old D promptly doused his excitement with cold water.
"I am sorry, but you are not currently in any immediate danger."
"Hmph… forget it then." Jackie sighed, disappointed, and shot V a look that clearly said what a letdown.
But Luo Qi heard something else hidden in those words.
What the hell kind of situation had Jackie's nephew gotten into that made Delamain's combat mode come up in the first place!?
Combat mode!
Just imagining that scene put a very suspicious grin on Luo Qi's face.
Unfortunately, Mower in the passenger seat shot him a look like she was staring at an idiot.
"Trust me. If it comes down to it, he can wipe out an entire Arasaka ninja army," Jackie kept enthusiastically praising Delamain's combat capabilities.
"What exactly does this Excelsior package include?" V asked.
"It includes a full suite of health insurance services, including postmortem body handling and burial should a passenger die inside the vehicle," Delamain explained.
"Shut up." Luo Qi's face darkened instantly. "Mention that again today and I'm dismantling you."
V and Jackie both froze for a second, not understanding why Luo Qi had reacted so strongly.
But Luo Qi just waved them off, telling them not to mind it.
From behind, all V and Jackie could do was exchange a helpless look and shrug.
"This combat mode… is that even legal?"
"Of course it is legal. It is protected under the Second Amendment," Delamain explained. "While inside the vehicle, you are entitled to assume and exercise full operational authority over me."
"Second Amendment, right, I know that one. Wilson's gun shop uses the name," Luo Qi said. "NCPD doesn't have enough manpower, so civilians are supposed to arm themselves and uphold justice on their own. That's the idea, right?"
Jackie snorted dismissively.
"Dexter sure is generous, huh?"
"At least now we know where his sixty-five percent is going," Jackie said. "That fat bastard really is black-hearted. He's only giving us thirty-five. Lucky, don't you think that's way too low? We're the ones risking our necks here."
Yeah. It was absolutely too low.
If Luo Qi had been the one negotiating, he would've demanded at least one hundred percent—
plus Dexter's pig life on top.
"Excelsior…" Jackie sighed. "If you want to mix with the big shots, you've gotta ride in a car like this."
"The car is just surface-level stuff. If you want real bargaining power, you need actual capital to back your words," Luo Qi said. "No matter how important some 'big shot' is, they still can't sit across the table from a corporation as an equal, because nobody has more capital than they do."
"That's true…" V agreed.
But Jackie had gone tense again, just like back when the three of them had first come to Night City and were trying to make it through the border inspection.
"Madres… this is the most important day of my life."
"Shut up. If you say something like that again, I'm throwing you out. Right now. On the spot." Luo Qi turned around and glared at him viciously through clenched teeth.
"Whoa, mano, isn't that a little much?" Jackie raised both hands in surrender.
"No. It is not a little much. It is extremely much. It is very, very fucking much." Luo Qi took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Treat today like it's an ordinary day."
"How is that even possible…" Jackie muttered, looking vaguely wronged.
As they passed the luxurious high-rise walls, they entered Arasaka Waterfront, a zone of elite architecture and wealth. Ordinary people with no status could never have crossed all the layers of security to come here.
"We are about to arrive at our destination," Delamain said warmly.
At that moment, T-Bug called in.
Luo Qi didn't connect his PDA to the call, so only V and Jackie joined the communication.
They exchanged a few words, synced their route maps, and completed the final confirmation before the operation.
Judging by V and Jackie's side of the conversation, that genius netrunner was apparently talking to them about Aristotle.
The car came to a smooth stop on the red carpet before the front entrance of Konpeki Plaza.
"Thank you for choosing Delamain transportation services. I wish you luck. I will be waiti—"
"Wish my ass." Luo Qi cut in irritably. "Thanks for the flag."
How had he not noticed it before?
Today, yesterday, the past few days—from the moment preparations for stealing the Relic had started—it had been flags, flags, and more flags raining down from every direction.
Enough flags to make him want to turn around and walk away on the spot.
Taking a long breath, Luo Qi left the gun he was carrying in the car, then turned to Mower in the front passenger seat.
"Remember what I told you. Stay in contact at all times…"
Mower didn't answer with words. Her calm, almost cool eyes were enough.
This bob-haired lieutenant really did have a strange personality. Compared to the crazed state she'd been in before, she was like an entirely different person.
Luo Qi smiled faintly, more to ease the tension in his chest than anything else, then pulled a case out of the trunk.
"What's in that case?" V asked curiously. It hadn't been part of the original plan.
"We're military representatives. Besides the Flathead, we've also got cutting-edge weapons tech to discuss and negotiate over." Luo Qi snapped his fingers.
Jackie, holding the Flathead case, looked anything but relaxed.
Because standing right in front of them—
was Arasaka.
Not Arasaka Tower in Corpo Plaza, maybe, but still Arasaka property all the same.
Konpeki Plaza.
A name that sounded bizarrely awkward when translated into Chinese.
Huge slabs of long white marble. Silk-smooth red carpet. Glass so clear it felt like air. Luxurious yet understated dark-gold and cool-gray décor. Fresh green landscaping. Perfectly trained attendants with warm, polished smiles.
Everything here radiated one thing:
high class.
And beyond the massive walls not far away, ordinary people in the outside world would never truly know what it felt like to live with heaven and earth divided by a single barrier—
except in gaudy, drunken braindances where they could borrow someone else's fantasy for a few minutes.
Before the three of them became mercs—
or more precisely, before they became mercs with real skill and real names—
scraping by at the edge of survival had been their real life, just like it was for most people in Night City.
Today, they had come here to drag themselves out of the mud.
Because they didn't just want to make something of themselves.
They wanted to become legends.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 175)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 119)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter79)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter125)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 60
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 40
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 73
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 55
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 66
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 64
The Way the Umamusume Look at 63
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 55
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 45
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 31
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 31
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 31
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