Chapter 2 MARKET RATES
The old wooden cart groaned under the weight of the delivery drone. Jiho pulled from the front, his shoulders straining, sweat glistening on his skin in the humid night air. Minjun pushed from behind, guiding the salvaged wheels as they sank into the muddy paths of Guryong Village with every step.
Seoul at four in the morning felt like a ghost of its usual chaos. The bright neon from the distant Gangnam high-rises bled faintly into the low clouds, casting a sickly violet glow over the flooded alleys. Down here in the village, the only light came from flickering street lamps and the occasional blue pulse of cheap power banks. Everything else was swallowed by darkness and rain.
“Stop,” Minjun whispered.
He felt the shift before he saw anything. The quiet of the alley suddenly felt too crowded.
Three figures stepped out from the shadows between two makeshift shacks. Mismatched clothes — stolen task force jackets over worn hoodies, pants reinforced with duct tape and scrap leather. The Crows. They preyed on people like Minjun who dared to find something valuable.
The one in the center was tall and spindly, a man named Minho. He chewed on a toothpick, a rusted pipe swinging loosely in his left hand.
“Minjun. Jiho,” Minho rasped. “You boys are out late. And carrying something that looks way too heavy for scrap.”
Jiho’s grip tightened on the cart handle. “Just junk, Minho. Move aside.”
“Junk doesn’t shine like that.” Minho flicked the toothpick into a puddle and stepped closer. The faint violet light caught the drone’s polished casing. He let out a low whistle. “Where does a bottom-feeder like you find a factory-fresh delivery drone? You steal this from a task force warehouse?”
“I found it,” Minjun said calmly. He moved around the cart, his hand closing around the iron pipe.
[INSPECT]
[Target: Minho (Human)]
[Attributes:]
• [ Aggression: High ]
• [ Reflexes: Above Average ]
• [ Weapon: Rusted Pipe (Tetanus Risk) ]
• [ Weakness: Left Knee (Old Injury) ]
The cursor hovered over Minho’s left knee — a clear flaw in the man’s code.
“You found a mint-condition drone in the mud?” Minho laughed, and his two men joined in. The heavier one on the right, with a cheap cybernetic eye glowing red, pulled a snub-nosed pistol from his waistband. “You’re a terrible liar, Minjun. That drone belongs to the Crows now. Leave the cart and walk away. Maybe I forget to mention you to the task force.”
“No,” Minjun said.
The single word hung heavy in the damp air. Jiho froze. The Crows stopped laughing.
“What?” Minho leaned in, the pipe dragging through the mud.
“I refuse.” Minjun focused. A sharp needle of pain stabbed behind his eyes, but he pushed it down. He needed to be fast.
[Target: Minho’s Pipe]
[Attribute: Structural Integrity]
[CUT]
The sensation hit him like a physical weight — the cold strength of the metal draining from the pipe and settling into his mind.
Minho swung in a lazy arc meant to intimidate rather than kill.
Snap.
The pipe shattered against the wooden side of the cart like cheap glass. Shards scattered into the mud with dull splashes. Minho stared at the broken handle still in his grip, stunned.
“Shoot him!” he screamed, stumbling back.
The red-eyed man raised his pistol.
Minjun moved. He pushed his [Velocity] and the alley blurred beneath his feet.
[Target: Minjun]
[New Velocity: 15 m/s]
Ten feet disappeared in less than a second. His boots skidded on the wet ground but held. He swung the iron pipe before the man could pull the trigger.
Pistol Firing Pin.
[Attribute: Tension]
[CUT]
The gun clicked uselessly. Minjun’s pipe connected with the man’s ribs with a loud, wet crack. The impact sent him flying backward into the shallow water, his cybernetic eye flickering once before going dark.
Minjun spun. The third man was reaching for a knife.
“Wait! Stop!” The man dropped the blade and threw his hands up.
Minjun halted in the middle of the narrow path, dripping wet, chest heaving. Red spots danced at the edges of his vision.
[Stamina: 18%]
[Caution: Brain strain imminent.]
Minho was on his knees in the mud, staring at the shattered pipe. When he looked up, genuine terror filled his eyes — something Minjun had never seen on the man’s face before.
“What the hell are you?” Minho whispered. “You’re not normal. Some kind of freak?”
“I’m just a businessman,” Minjun replied. He tasted blood on his lip, his nose running warm. “And you’re standing in my way.”
He glanced at the broken pieces of the pipe in the mud and selected the [Structural Integrity] still sitting in his clipboard. The cursor moved to Minho’s left leg — the old injury, the weak point in his code.
[Target: Left Femur of Minho]
[Attribute: Structural Integrity]
[PASTE]
Minho let out a strangled scream. In an instant, the density of his bones tripled. His muscles tore as they tried to keep up with the sudden change, the pain like being crushed in a machine. He collapsed, his leg now stiff and heavy as iron.
“Take him and go,” Minjun told the third man. “Next time I see any of you, I’ll Cut the friction from your heart valves.”
The man scrambled forward, grabbed Minho by the collar, and dragged him screaming into the darkness. The gunman was already crawling away on the other side of the alley, disappearing into the shadows of the shanties.
Silence returned.
Jiho stepped closer on quiet feet, his eyes wide as he looked at Minjun, then the cart, then the spot where the pipe had shattered.
“Your nose…” Jiho said softly, reaching out a hand.
Minjun wiped the blood away with his sleeve. His head swam and the world tilted slightly — no system holding him up this time. Only the muddy path, the deep puddles, and the heavy drone still waiting to be moved.
“Help me with the cart,” Minjun said. “We’re almost at the night market.”
“You broke their weapons… you broke their bones without even touching them properly,” Jiho muttered. “They’ll spread the word. The Crows have connections with the task force.”
“Good,” Minjun replied, leaning into the back of the cart. “Let them come. I’m tired of dealing with low-quality scrap.”
---
The night market sprawled through a maze of narrow alleys and under plastic tarps near the edge of the village. The air was thick with the smell of grilled street food, cheap cigarettes, and diesel exhaust from generators. It was one of the few places in Seoul where you could move high-end tech without too many questions — as long as you knew the right people.
Minjun pushed the cart through the tight aisles. People instinctively moved aside, not because of the drone, but because of the cold, detached look in his eyes. He already carried himself like someone who had decided other people were optional.
The stall they wanted was tucked at the back, covered with heavy black tarps. Behind the counter sat Ajumma Soojin — a tough, no-nonsense woman with short, dyed hair and a prosthetic arm that hummed softly with expensive servos. She was the gatekeeper of this market. When she saw the drone, she paused mid-bite on a piece of dried squid.
“Minjun,” she said in her gravelly voice. “I heard a scrapper fell off a construction site tonight and died. Yet here you are.”
“I’m a fast learner,” Minjun replied. He tapped the smooth casing of the drone. “Model-4. Mint condition. Battery and logic boards are perfect.”
Ajumma Soojin stood up and ran a gloved hand over the drone, checking the serial numbers. They were clean — Minjun had already edited away the scratches and marks.
“No way,” she muttered to herself. “This wasn’t issued to anyone. No wear, no micro-scratches… it’s too perfect.”
“One point eight million won,” Minjun said.
“Eight hundred thousand. Something this clean is hot. I’ll need to scrub the signal.”
Minjun leaned on the counter. His gaze drifted to her prosthetic arm.
[INSPECT]
Target: Ajumma Soojin’s Prosthesis
[Attribute: Energy Efficiency (92%)]
“Eight hundred is an insult,” he said. “One million. And throw in two sets of Grade-A combat stims. My head is killing me and I still have work to do.”
Ajumma Soojin glanced at the blood on his shirt and the trembling Jiho behind him. She sucked on her teeth for a moment, thinking.
“One million,” she finally agreed, reaching under the counter. “Now get out of here. The task force is already sniffing around. I never saw you, Minjun. You’re a ghost tonight.”
“I’m not interested in being a ghost,” Minjun said as he took the digital credit transfer and the stim pens. “A ghost can’t change anything.”
He stepped away from the stall and jabbed the first stim pen into his neck. Artificial adrenaline surged through him, clean and sharp.
[Stamina: 45%]
[Neural Load: Temporary Bypass Active]
“Jiho,” Minjun said, looking out toward the alley entrance.
“Yeah?”
“We’re not going back to the shack.”
“Then where are we going?”
Minjun stared upward, past the sagging tarps and tangled wires of the market, toward the bright lights of the luxury towers in the distance. The glow of Gangnam pierced through every gap in the city like it owned the night.
“We’re going to find the man who controls the task force,” he said quietly. “I want to see what his Status looks like.”
