Devil in Night City (Cyberpunk) (Patreon)

Chapter 1: No Pain, No Game

My pity party didn’t last long. Night City made sure of that when I watched Trauma Team swoop in, scoop up some rich bastard who was having a seizure for some reason, and vanish in their actual flying vehicle.

Worse, it was getting dark. If I didn’t want one of those nightmare scenarios to actually happen to me, I needed a plan, fast.

I slapped my cheeks once to shut down the useless spiral and force myself to focus on finding a safe place to crash for the night, then started walking again.

“Hmm… I should head to Little China. That’s where V lived in the game,” I muttered quietly, keeping clear of everyone around me.

Didn’t know who might suddenly turn into a Cyberpsycho and randomly start going on a murdering spree, so it was best I start getting used to keeping a reasonable distance from everyone.

“Lucky for me, I’m not too far. From what I’ve managed to figure out since arriving, I’m in Japantown right now. Just need to head northwest.”

My quiet muttering stopped when the familiar ding from earlier sounded again. The System window popped open in front of me.

[Usurper Activated! 1 Ant killed]

[Choose ability to Usurp]

·           Super Strength – 10 times that of a normal human.

·           Pressure Resistance – Withstand pressure five thousand times heavier than yourself.

·           Vibration Tracking – Pick up sounds coming from the ground and vibrations through your feet.

I blinked at the floating screen. For a second my brain went completely blank… then a slow grin spread across my face.

“Hehehe… huhuhu… hahahaha!”

A genuine, slightly manic laugh slipped out. A few people gave me weird looks as I held my stomach, still laughing at the sheer absurdity of my luck.

‘Okay… I take it back. You’re still an asshole for dumping me here without explaining a damn thing, but I can’t deny this is a genuine OP cheat skill.’ I thought in delight referring to the R.O.B. who brought me and made this possible.

I decided to wait until I was somewhere more private in case there was a visible change to my body, or in case gaining the ability hurt like hell. I wouldn’t put it past that R.O.B. asshole.

Scanning the ground, I spotted two more ants and deliberately stepped on them as I kept walking.

I ignored the next two pings, shoved my hands into my pockets, and pulled out the three debit-card-looking chips I’d taken earlier. I turned them over slowly, inspecting them.

‘Hmm. These should be money shards I think, basically prepaid cards with a set amount of eddies on them. Only question is how much is actually on them.’

I pocketed them again, figuring I would find out soon.

“Well… at least now I probably have enough to rent a hotel for the night,” I muttered, a small skip in my step.

While I was turning over the problem of surviving without any cyberware, because there was no fucking way I was letting anyone cut open my head or any other part of me, a useful detail suddenly surfaced.

“Wait… weren’t there some monk-looking guys in a park somewhere in Watson who didn’t use cyberware?” I muttered out loud, then smiled in triumph.

“There totally were. Alright. First order of business after finding somewhere to crash is hunting down those monks and asking how they get by without chrome. They seemed pretty chill from what I remember.”

I laughed quietly to myself as a small weight lifted off my shoulders.

Now I just have to hope I don’t need some kind of ID to rent a hotel room…

=====

Several Hours Later

I feel like I have to once more remind myself that this is Night City.

Of course the shitty hotel didn’t ask me for any ID. The lady at the counter was actually more surprised that I didn’t have any chrome on me, calling me a rarity as she handed me my room keycard for the evening.

She had also propositioned me for sex, but I had politely declined her with a practiced smile.

Once more, getting into bed with a complete stranger was dangerous and that’s not even mentioning what sort of diseases she might be carrying so for the moment, or at least until I got an ability to resist sickness, I was better off holding back on my sexual escapades for a while.

Tired from having to walk several miles, and mentally exhausted after the long day I had, I opened the door to my room and after giving it a brief scan to make sure there were no obvious cameras, I finally let my back hit the bed and groaned pleasantly.

“Haah, while not the most comfortable bed I’ve ever laid on, nor the best room I’ve ever stayed in, I can at least be happy about the fact that I won’t be forced to find a place under a bridge or a park bench for the night.” I let out with a small sigh.

“Well, I definitely need to find some way to get money going forward since I just wasted one of my money shards. Each one had 500 eddies, exactly how much this hotel had charged for the evening so at most I have two more days to get my shit together.” I muttered as I looked at the ceiling in deep thought.

“…I’m totally stalling, aren’t I?”

Already knowing the answer to my own question, I groaned and got back to my feet before quickly finding the bathroom and locking the door.

Then I searched for any cameras once and not finding any that I could see with my naked eyes, I decided to risk it as I brought up my System seeing the still pending notifications of when Usurper had activated.

“Seems I was right and I will actually be allowed to choose what ability to gain after every successful kill. Too bad that animals in this setting are all but extinct or only available for the mega rich or my first plan would have been to bomb a zoo or something.”

“If I could have gotten my hands on a gorilla and one of the various animals that are able to regenerate, I would instantly shoot to the top of this world.” I groaned with a disappointed sigh before shaking my head.

“What am I saying!? Am I really bitching about not instantly getting OP when I hated that playstyle in every RPG I ever played!” I exclaimed before slapping my cheeks and getting my shit together as I glared at my reflection in the mirror.

“Alright, let’s start with the basic and most useful one.” I muttered and mentally selecting the Super Strength Ability.

Tensing my body for whatever may happen, I was just able to slam my mouth shut as unimaginable pain wracked my body the next moment and I dropped to the ground.

My entire body was on fire. It felt like I was literally boiling alive before the pain became too much and I passed out on the dirty bathroom floor, not that I cared at that point of course.

After some indefinite amount of time, I groggily came to again and slowly got off the floor immensely pleased that my body wasn’t feeling like I was dipped in lava anymore.

“Fuck, I had a feeling the change wouldn’t happen seamlessly. I’m just glad I decided to wait until I was here or I would be who knows where right now.” I muttered in relief as I looked at myself in the mirror again and blinked.

Staring back at me was the same face that I had looked at last time which caused me to slump forward in relief that I hadn’t turned into some kind of ant/human hybrid monstrosity.

I was still the same tall, handsome bastard — 6’3”, soft black hair, green eyes, and the piercings in my ears. When I lifted my shirt, though, I got a pleasant surprise.

I’d always been a slim guy. I never really went to the gym before if I’m honest; my sex life had been more than enough exercise to keep me in shape.

Now I’d gone from a swimmer’s body to a genuine eight-pack and visible muscle everywhere I looked.

“Nice. I genuinely got the Peter Parker upgrade. Visible muscle, but instead of looking huge and grotesque, my body’s lithe and compact.” I muttered in awe, striking poses in the mirror without a single shred of shame for a few solid minutes.

Once I was satisfied, I hesitated. Did I really want the other two abilities if it meant going through that pain again?

“Well… either way, I really don’t want to end up on the dirty floor again, even if the bed won’t be much better.” I muttered, walked out of the bathroom, and laid down on the bed.

Looking out the window, I was glad it was still dark. Only a few hours seemed to have passed, so I still had time.

“No pain, no game, as they say.” I sighed, opened the System again, and this time accepted the two remaining abilities at once.

Couldn’t get much worse after all…

Of course I jinxed myself.

This time I couldn’t hold back the scream that tore out of my throat. It felt like someone was shoving a red-hot poker straight into my skull. I clapped a hand over my mouth to muffle the sound.

Luckily the pain only lasted a moment before it vanished, leaving me conscious but panting hard.

“F-Fuck… that was horrible. I sincerely hope I don’t have to go through that every fucking time.” I muttered, rubbing my forehead.

It took a few minutes for me to settle down. I used the time to keep my mind busy, because I was still starving, I’d skipped food the entire day.

“Now all that’s left is to experiment and find out just how much I’ve changed in the last several hours.” I muttered, then blinked as a rhythmic thumping reached me through the floor. I concentrated.

A moment later the sounds grew clearer, and other noises mixed in with the thumping.

“Is this… Vibration Tracking?” I whispered, sitting up. Sure enough, my feet were hanging off the bed and touching the ground.

I lifted them. The noise disappeared. I settled back onto the bed, relieved. “Alright, that’s a yes. And if that’s working, the other abilities should be too.”

I looked around the room for something to test my strength on. My eyes landed on the metal handle of the empty fridge. I stood up, walked over, and hesitated for a second before wrapping my right hand around it.

I took a deep breath, then tightened my grip.

The sound of metal bending and grinding filled the room. I froze for a second, then pulled my hand away and stared at the warped handle.

“Yep. I definitely have super strength now.” I muttered blankly.

I stood there in silence for a moment. Then a grin slowly spread across my face. The next second I threw my arms in the air and cheered.

“Woo! Fuck yeah! I got genuine superpowers now, baby! I literally just had my heroic awakening!” I cackled, hunger completely forgotten.

“Speaking of the Spider-Man treatment, I really need to find a spider soon for the full package. I hope those didn’t go extinct like most of the other animals in this shitty world.” I said excitedly, already starting to search the corners of the room for one.

My first day in Night City hadn’t turned out so shitty after all.

=====

Next Day

Unfortunately I never did find that spider, so my full Peter Parker superpower upgrade had to be put on hold for a while longer. And I had been really been looking forward to climbing skyscrapers too but oh well.

I was out of the shitty hotel nice and early. Unable to keep my hunger in check any longer, I decided to risk it and bought some kind of paste and something to drink.

It was worse than I imagined.

That’s saying something, because I had eaten at some really shady places back when I still lived with my family as they liked traveling the world. The food I ate back home was thousands of times better than the utter slop that dared call itself food here.

And I was saying that as a guy who once ate fucking roaches, man.

At least the drink was somewhat passable, and I say that with great hesitation, since I had no idea what my stomach was going to say later.

“Tsk. No wonder most people become alcoholics if the food here is anything to go by. Probably helps keep the food down.” I muttered with a small scowl as I made my way toward Reconciliation Park, the only park that could be found in this shitty city.

I had found out there was a Metro in Night City that could get people around faster, but since I was poor as dirt I had to settle for walking everywhere for now.

On the positive side, walking everywhere gave me the chance to keep an eye out for other animals I might run into.

I knew there were different types of ants even stronger than the ones I killed yesterday, so I had been stepping on every one I found along the way. With some success, Super Strength had already almost doubled from its previous level to being as strong as fifteen men.

Not wanting to risk passing out in the middle of the street though, I was waiting until nighttime to upgrade it properly.

I had also discovered that thanks to Pressure Resistance, my skin was now really tough. When I tried stabbing myself with a knife I could only manage a small scratch even after trying for a while, and that was with my new strength mixed in. I was pretty sure I was safe from at least low-caliber bullets now.

It had been nerve-wracking at first, but every time the knife failed to pierce my skin my confidence grew and I tried harder. I just hoped I didn’t turn into a fucking masochist by the end of this.

All of these abilities were basically pushing me toward the path of a mercenary or Edgerunner. And if I ever wanted to finish that stupid main quest, I didn’t think I had any easier choice.

“The question is, how the fuck do you get in touch with a Fixer? It was never really explained in-game and I doubt I could just walk up to someone and ask if they want to hire me.” I groaned quietly in frustration.

“Hah… at least I’m no longer a squishy human who’ll get taken out like a chump by a stray bullet.” I muttered, trying to encourage myself. I had been doing a lot of moping since ending up in Night City.

I was no whining little bitch after all, despite what that asshole R.O.B. said.

That was when the world once again reminded me that fate was a complete bitch.

I looked up from searching for more ants just in time to see a car closing in at full speed. A girl with weirdly white skin and a faint blue tint along with colorful eyes was at the wheel, yelling something at me in a panic.

“…Fuck my life.”

Those were my last words before darkness greeted me.