RUMBLE! An anti-gravity train roared overhead with a deafening screech, while unidentified steam continuously billowed from the manhole covers underfoot. In this world where magi-tech and cybernetics were grotesquely intertwined, the fusion-punk city was, as always, simultaneously chaotic and desolate.
Flick. The flint of a cheap lighter sparked, catching a small flame. The man lit the end of the cigarette dangling from his lips. He took a deep drag, letting the smoke seep deep into his lungs before exhaling it into the rain.
Leaning against a wet brick wall, he stared into the empty air with apathetic eyes. In the corner of his vision, the Augmented Reality (AR) interface projected onto his retina blinked.
[Identification: Ren] [Affiliation: Ark City Government Security Bureau, 7th Department Patrol Officer (Level 9)] [Status: 15 minutes until shift resumption]
Ren. That was what they called him in this world. He couldn't remember his original name. He didn't particularly try to, either.
Three years ago. The moment he finished reading the final chapter of the novel
Infinite Gearwork. A story set in a dystopia where magic and machines coexist, following a protagonist fighting against a ‘Machine God’ seeking to devour the world. However, ‘Ren’ was a name that didn't appear anywhere in that epic saga. His original fate was probably something along the lines of Passerby 1, or Soldier A crushed to death under the rubble of a collapsing building during a battle.
Just one thing. This was merely a world that followed the mainstream of the novel's story. It wasn't actually inside the novel. Perhaps it was better described as a twisted parallel universe...
Regardless, Ren slowly exhaled a plume of smoke. Wrapped around the back of his right hand was a bizarre wavelength—invisible to the naked eye and only perceivable through his senses. An absolute ‘Authority’ that not even the final boss of the novel, the Machine God, could dare approach.
He didn't know the reason. All he knew was that when he fell into this world, he was granted a power that the world's law of causality couldn't handle.
He twitched his finger. A single raindrop stopped in mid-air according to his will, then fell again, pulled by gravity.
Despite possessing the power to instantly shatter the world, he was living exactly as his given identity dictated: as nothing more than a lowly patrol cop for the city government. A rat's tail of a salary, a nagging boss, and the occasional drunkard to deal with. There was no way he was satisfied, but he didn't particularly want to change it either.
He didn't want to be the protagonist of this damned world, nor did he want to become a hero and save it. He just wanted to quietly breathe and observe from the sidelines in this unfamiliar, dangerous place. That was the way of life chosen by the man who had suddenly become Ren.
Besides, the guy who was originally the protagonist of the novel would take care of saving the world anyway, so there was no reason for an extra who hadn't even been given a name to care.
Squish, squish. The sound of sloshing footsteps echoed from the entrance of the alley. Ren's pupils moved ever so slowly toward the sound.
“Hey. Mister! Smoking the good stuff, huh?”
It was three men. One with a rusted buzzsaw attached to a modified mechanical arm. One with an infrared sensor jammed into his eye socket. And one with magic circuits covering his neck like tattoos.
Typical back-alley hyenas.
Ren didn't answer. He simply pinched the cigarette in his mouth and lowered it.
“You a city government lapdog? What's a pig doing in a sector like this? Did you come knowing the toll fee?” The man with the mechanical arm snickered and revved the buzzsaw. The whining motor tore through the sound of the rain.
Ren remained silent. His gaze wasn't on the men's threatening weapons, but was sweeping over their footwork, their breathing, and the microscopic tremors of their muscles.
Are they worth fighting? No. Are they a threat? No. Do I need to kill them? Not really...
“Is this bastard ignoring us right now?” The man with the infrared eye pulled a monomolecular cutter from his coat and lunged.
At that moment, Ren's time slowed to a crawl. He didn't dodge. He didn't panic. His movements were concise, utterly devoid of any unnecessary motion.
Half a step. He took exactly half a step to the left. The man's cutter cleaved empty air, failing to even graze the collar of Ren's uniform. At the same time, Ren's left hand pressed against the man's wrist joint—precisely at the junction where the neural circuits connected.
He didn't even need to apply force. Disrupting the flow was enough.
“Gah!” Even the death rattle was too long. Feeling his arm go limply numb, the man face-planted onto the ground.
The remaining two men flinched in panic. Ren took that opening to place the cigarette back between his lips. The cherry was still glowing.
“Wh-What the? You little shit!” With a roar, the mechanical arm charged toward Ren's head. It had enough destructive force to smash through a brick wall.
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Ren didn't even sigh. He had no desire to mock his opponent. He was just doing his job. Keeping his right hand—still holding the cigarette—in his pocket, he dug into the inner blind spot of the extending mechanical arm.
Thud. A dull impact was swallowed by the sound of the rain. Ren's shoulder concisely struck the man's solar plexus. Enhanced skeletal structures and magical energy shields were useless. It wasn't an overwhelming difference in mass; it was a completely different level of existence.
Unable to even scream, the man stumbled backward and collapsed onto a pile of garbage.
The last remaining man, the one with the magic tattoo on his neck, backed away. His eyes were wide with terror.
“Y-You... What the hell are you?! You're j-just a lowly patrol cop...”
Ren checked the fallen men. They weren't dead. He had avoided their vitals; recovery would take quite some time, but there would be no permanent disability.
Brushing his wet bangs back, he looked at the final man. There was no bloodlust. Only an unfathomably deep stillness surrounded him.
Overwhelmed by that stillness, the man slumped to the ground. The man in front of him wasn't growling like a beast, yet he exuded a crushing pressure, as if a massive mountain had suddenly risen before his eyes.
Ren dropped his burned-down cigarette to the ground and crushed it out with his combat boot.
“I'm on the clock.” That was the first thing he said after opening his mouth. “Get lost.”
A low, dry voice. But within it lay an absolute command that could not be refused. Screaming, the man abandoned his comrades and bolted out of the alley. The two fallen men groaned, crawling away and vanishing into the darkness.
Once again, only the sound of the rain remained in the alley.
Ren straightened his attire. He brushed the dust off his uniform shoulder and fixed his crooked cap.
[Current Time 21:58. Return to patrol sector requested.]
The interface notification blinked red. Turning his back to the darkness of the alley, he walked toward the main road flashing with brilliant neon signs.
Whether the protagonist of the novel saved the world or not, whether the final boss tried to destroy the city or not, the only thing that mattered to him right now was clocking out on time without having to write an incident report.
The monster wearing the mask of an ordinary extra blended back into the city's crowds.
Stepping into the plaza, the damp silence evaporated instantly. The main street of the City-Break sector had no night. The holographic billboards covering the sky created an artificial daytime.
Along with a burst of static noise, an anchor's voice blared from a massive electronic display.
[Breaking News. The 'Knights of the Dawn' have raided an illegal magi-tech factory in Sector 4. Leading this operation once again is Ark's youngest A-Rank Guardian and our hope, Sir Kyle von Leonhardt!]
The screen was filled with the blonde young man swinging the Holy Sword Ascalon, slicing through mechanical soldiers. It was flashy. Truly befitting a protagonist.
Ren looked up at the screen with apathy.
Kyle von Leonhardt. The protagonist of
‘Working hard, I see.’
Ren withdrew his gaze as if looking at someone else's problem—which it very clearly was. That guy needed to run wild like that to draw the attention of the final boss, the Machine God ‘Antares.’
Antares. A mad god seeking to realize perfect order by replacing all organic matter with steel. Strictly speaking, an entity impersonating a god. If it were truly a god in the first place, would it even make sense for it to be defeated by mere mortals?
By now, deep underground in the Core Level of the city, it would be gathering followers and preparing for its resurrection.
Roughly two years left until the ending where Kyle slices off Antares's head. Until then, Ren's only job was to avoid getting involved and diligently collect his paycheck.
“Old man. One synthetic ramen here. Extra chashu.”
Ren familiarly parked his rear on a worn-out stool at the food stall. The bearded old man skillfully boiled the noodles with his mechanical arm and replied gruffly.
“You're back, officer. Heard the rats have been acting up lately; it's a miracle you're still alive.” “I get by.” “Boring as always. Make the broth thick?” “Please.”
Splitting his wooden chopsticks, Ren pulled his vibrating terminal out of his pocket. He needed to write a summary report on the punks he had just dealt with.
‘No special issues. Simple altercation. Released with a warning.’
If he were to write the truth, it would be ‘Subdued with overwhelming force, instilled profound terror,’ but there was no need to poke a sleeping bear.
Slurp. A steaming bowl of ramen was placed before him. The chashu, made of synthetic protein, tasted like chewing rubber, and the broth had a faint smell of lubricating oil mixed in. It was a flavor truly befitting the staple food of this city's working class.
Just as Ren was about to take a sip of the broth.
RUMBLE—.
A microscopic vibration was felt from beneath his feet. It wasn't an earthquake. In the corner of the stall, a sewer cover rattled before a pitch-black shadow sprang out.
“KREEEEEK!”
With an ear-splitting screech, the thing that popped out was no ordinary rat. It was the size of a calf. A purple mana stone was embedded in its back like a tumor, and its teeth were spinning like buzzsaws.
A mutant magical beast. D-Rank, to be precise. A monster that would inflict heavy injuries on ordinary citizens with a mere graze, requiring a full squad of armed police to barely subdue.
“Aaaargh! M-Monster!” “Run!”
The customers at the stall screamed and tripped over themselves. The bearded owner turned pale and dropped his ladle.
With hungry eyes, the monster leaped toward the closest prey: Ren, who was holding his chopsticks. Its razor-sharp claws flew straight for the back of Ren's neck.
In that split second where time seemed to stop, Ren pinched some noodles with his chopsticks and thought:
‘Annoying.’
Without even turning his gaze toward the beast, he applied a microscopic amount of pressure to the fingers holding the chopsticks. No, it wasn't physical force. It was the projection of his ‘will.’
An absolute, overbearing pressure that crushed space itself was compressed into a point the size of a needle and slammed into the center of the beast's forehead.
THWACK.
A silent rupture. The pupils of the beast, which had leaped into the air, instantly lost their focus. Its brain wasn't destroyed, nor did its heart stop. Its biological functions were simply forcefully terminated by the overwhelming aura of an apex predator.
Carried by its own momentum, the massive carcass limply dropped to the ground right next to Ren's feet.
Thud. A cloud of dust rose. The broth in the ramen bowl rippled ever so slightly.
Only then did Ren turn his head and look down at the corpse at his feet. It was the indifference of someone who had just swatted away a fly.
“…….” Silence.
The panicking customers and the bearded owner stared at the scene, their jaws hanging open. To their eyes, Ren had just been sitting still, and the monster had flown at him only to suffer a heart attack and die on its own.
The bearded owner asked with a trembling voice. “O-Officer? What was that just now...?”
Ren calmly brought the ramen to his mouth. Chew, chew. Only after swallowing the rubbery chashu did he answer briefly.
“It must have slipped.” “H-Huh...?” “Hit its head on the sewer grease.”
It was complete and utter nonsense to anyone listening. But Ren's expression was so nonchalant, and the situation unfolding before their eyes was so surreal, that the people had no choice but to nod as if bewitched. It was a bizarre persuasiveness that made them feel like they had to agree.
“A-Ah, r-really? I guess so. The sewer maintenance has been a mess lately...” The owner chimed in, bewildered.
Ren went back to sipping his broth as if nothing had happened. The only thing that mattered to him right now was finishing this cheap ramen before the noodles got completely soggy.