Chapter 29

Ahh… how, how incredibly cool she is.

I still remember the warmth of your arms when you carried me out of that alleyway, where I lay dying, limbless and drenched in blood—and you didn’t even flinch.

You didn’t ask who I was. Just said you helped because you saw me. Like some kind of heroic figure straight out of a Japanesque tale. That side profile of yours is still burned into my retinas.

It was because you—who hate the evil in this city more than anyone—saw something in a half-baked kid like me, who only admired heroes from afar. That’s why you saved me.

The Goliath Arm you gave me, to crush evil.

The Bunny Hopper legs you installed, so I’d never let evil escape.

You gave me back my arms. My legs.

More than that—you gave me a purpose, a place to live through Jackie, even a direction to move in. I’ve only ever received from you.

You told me I didn’t need to pay you back. But if I said I wanted to repay you just to stay connected to you… you'd probably just give a wry smile and forgive me. You’re that kind of person.

"Jugra-san!"

And that’s why I wanted to blast away that faint, shadowy smirk of yours that reeked of this city’s darkness.

I launched myself at Jugra-san, who was standing at the office entrance with her arms crossed.

These legs—mounted from mid-thigh down using parts typically found in reinforced joints—were named so I could bounce like a human-sized rabbit.

Jugra-san, caught off guard, dropped the evil-faced look for a second and sighed softly.

Her left eye glowing red, she smoothly caught me in her arms, spinning to absorb the impact.

“A teenage girl jumping into someone’s arms—have some modesty, would you?”

“It’s fine! I only do it with you, Jugra-san!”

“Don’t go looking for maternal affection from someone older. You’re eighteen, damn it…”

There are nutrients in life you can only get from being clung to by a cute girl three years younger than you!

…But I didn’t dare say that out loud, or I’d probably get judo-flipped.

Still, she saw right through me and gave my cheek a long, squishy pinch with that deadpan stare.

“Well, whatever. You’re probably wondering, but that wasn’t a live broadcast. From the start, the whole thing was set up to tank Biotechnica’s stock and force an NCPD raid. Ziggy Q’s show? Just a stepping stone to elevate Delamain Medical Services.”

“J-Jugra-san…!”

The usually cool and catlike Sachi was crying from both eyes.

Seeing that, Jugra-san gently wiped her tears with a handkerchief and gave a soft smile.

A smile so warm, so prince-like, it could fill anyone with comfort. Sachi stared at her, a little dazzled—and just like that, the tears were gone.

“All I had to do was whisper to our parent company, N54, about the little tip-off you sent their way. They bowed their heads deep. I told them I’d keep it under wraps, but in return, they had to let us put on a grand show ending Biotechnica. One TV appearance later, here we are. Never doing that again—what a pain.”

“Thank you… thank you so much…! You avenged my mom… you avenged me…!”

“Right now, you’re Sachi, the girl we picked up. …Now you can walk outside with your head held high, yeah? No reason to avoid old friends anymore.”

This whole ordeal… it was probably all for Sachi’s happiness.

Ahh… just how much must one revere a person like her?

Sachi looked overwhelmed again. …Heh, she’s fallen too.

Another new believer added to Jugra-san’s cult of personality.

Guess I better go tell David-kun, I thought.

…Only to find him awkwardly slipping in through the front entrance.

Wait—you were with Jugra-san earlier, weren’t you!?

When he saw me still clinging to her waist, he quickly looked away, gaze fixed in the opposite direction.

“Well then. Sorry to keep you waiting, Nomad V. I’m Jugra Kagura, fixer and handler for this crew of strays. Since you’re here, I’ll take it to mean you’re joining the team?”

Just like Vitt calls her “Little Boss,” Jugra-san asked Vali with that same evil-charisma aura she always carried.

Vali, caught in the aftermath of everything, looked completely frozen—like her brain had short-circuited.

With no reply in sight, Jugra-san tilted her head, a little puzzled. It was… cute.

She strode up to Vali, and the contrast in their body types became glaringly obvious. Not that Jugra-san cared. She wasn’t interested in appearances, nor did she envy anyone else’s.

“…Hmph. You’re big. …Sigh. Reality sucks. There’s no making sense of this kind of disparity.”

She muttered while studying Vali’s impressively full chest. Then, maybe running out of patience, she gave Vali’s wide, birthing-hips a sharp smack to snap her out of it.

"Hyahn!?" Vali yelped with a cute little shriek, drawing everyone’s attention. Flustered, she tried to compose herself.

“Y-Yeah, I’m Vali, the Nomad V. I’ll be in your care from now on.”

“Yeah, likewise. I’m counting on you too. Now, to welcome our new recruit—we’ve got work! Rejoice, you lot!”

With a double tap on Vali’s shoulder, Jugra-san turned toward the office. I followed close behind and took a seat next to her on the edge of the tatami mat.

Jugra-san’s so sweet to her own people, it’s like she pours condensed milk and sugar over honey. She never minds a little casual skinship.

Kind, beautiful, cool, and cute—she’s literally unstoppable.

“Alright, time to brief you on the mission. Our target this time is a transport truck that forced its way through the Watson lockdown and is now headed for the Badlands. The rats finally realized their own house is on fire, and they’ve stuffed it with critical gear and confidential cargo. In other words, it’s a goldmine. Make sure you grab it. Kill the driver if you have to, but if you see someone who looks like a higher-up—capture them. Don’t destroy the head or torso.”

…Even I survived getting my limbs blasted off by a shotgun while playing vigilante.

So yeah—Jugra-san really can interrogate people even after dismembering them. Literal limb removal, yet still alive. Scary… but amazing.

Still, doing everything yourself isn’t always ideal.

Not that saying that would stop her. She’d just go, “Faster and more accurate if I do it myself.”

“Alright, Vali! Time to show off that driving skill of yours! Me and Vitt will ride with you in the Thorton. Vanni, you’re with Sachi and Delamain. Come on, chop chop!”

With Jackie’s command, we all sprang into action.

I mean, my body is the weapon, so I’m basically always ready.

I glanced past Jugra-san to David-kun, who was sitting on her other side. He met my eyes and gave a firm nod.

While we’re out truck-hunting, there’s no doubt some punks will be sent after Jugra-san too.

And David-kun’s job is to protect her soft, smooth skin from creeps like that.

(That special seat’s not up for grabs.)

(You’re not getting it yet. Get going, already.)

After that brief exchange through eye contact, I reluctantly stood up, feeling as if something were tugging me back by the hair.

“When you get back, we’ll throw a welcome party for Vali. Come back in one piece, Victoria.”

“…Yeah! I’ll do my best! I’m off!”

“Man, you switch gears fast. Well, take care out there.”

“Got it. I’m counting on you for things here.”

“Yeah. I’ll protect it with my life… assuming they can even get past the shotgun, gatling, and tech rifle turrets.”

Well… yeah, true.

When Jugra expanded this place, she apparently upgraded the defense turrets too. To counter quick hacks, the system switches to a local offline mode during combat, cutting off outside access—so unless they get through physically, they’re not getting in.

And even if someone could break in, the Tiger Claws would come flying in from Jig-Jig Street.

She even said the walls were reinforced five layers deep with nuclear shelter-grade plating. Jugra’s got a flashy way of doing things, but her self-defense setup is no joke. Not someone you want to mess with… though I wouldn’t mind spending the night.

Even we who know the full setup feel this way.

Anyone charging in blind has my sympathy at this point.

“Come on, move it. You’ve got a job to do.”

“Yeees.”

Pushed out by Jugra, I shook off the hesitation and headed outside.

I hopped down the stairs from the second floor in one bound and slipped into the Delamain, taking the seat next to Sachi.

Sachi, for some reason, had a serious grudge against Biotechnica. She had this must-kill, absolutely no exceptions kind of vibe going on.

There was none of her usual composed, big-sisterly elegance. She was more like a hunting big cat in full predator mode.

Alright. Time to get to work.

I pulled out my device goggles and slid them on.

—Transmission.

I flattened the cyberspace view, tracing the movements of a truck that had apparently headed toward the Badlands.

Normally, cyberspace is a convoluted mess of 3D data, but by switching the perspective to an external “outside-the-box” view, I could simplify it into a top-down 2D plane.

It was a tool I originally made for a friend who got motion sickness from 3D games. Jugra later customized it just for me.

With it, I could pull surface-level data without a full net dive—and best of all, the pixel-art-style cyberspace was easier to interpret and way less overwhelming.

Thanks to the 2D simplification, the info was fast and lightweight.

Once I sent it off to Sachi, the real netrunner here, my part was done.

Using surveillance cameras, I located the runaway transport truck heading toward the Badlands and tagged it.

Sachi’s PING daemon locked onto the shared tag, and the breached truck lit up as a red dot on our optical implant maps, tracking it in real time.

‘Transport truck prepped and ready. Serve it up.’

‘Roger that. What is this—some kind of shortcut? Hah, they’ve got nerve. I’m gunning it. It’s gonna get bumpy!’

The moment Sachi plotted the fastest route to the truck, Vali practically snapped into a different personality—slamming the accelerator down like the law didn’t exist.

Guess Thorntons can hit that kind of speed, huh. I was starting to admire the thing… until other would-be hijackers burst onto the road aiming for the same truck. The main street quickly descended into chaos.

Oh boy. This is going to be a disaster.

“Delamain, prepare for intercept. Minimal force.”

‘Understood. Deploying in safe mode.’

…No one really says it, but let’s be honest—Delamain’s pretty much part of the team by now.

Just like David. Only difference is Jugra’s the one holding their contracts.

As other cars began pulling up alongside us, the road from Watson to the highway turned into total mayhem.

Everyone was gunning for the truck, though I caught glimpses of what looked like civilian cars mixed in.

…Biotechnica must’ve racked up a lot of enemies.

The look on that guy’s face said no way in hell I’m letting it get away.

The truck, facing pressure from the rear, started swerving in an attempt to avoid getting its wheels shot out.

The highway had turned into a free-for-all death race, and one by one, people started dropping out.

“…Hah. I feel Jugra’s presence.”

“Vani’s sixth sense strikes again. There, right?”

Sachi pointed skyward near the Badlands entrance—where Jugra’s customized aerial-package Delamain floated in place.

Zooming in with my retinal scanner, I spotted David in the back seat, hefting a seriously massive Boorya.

As the custom Delamain dropped altitude and lined up alongside the truck, I could tell the chase was about to end.

A moment later, a deafening blast ripped through the highway—two of the truck’s rear wheels exploded, sending the vehicle skidding and grinding to a stop with a shriek of tortured metal.

"...You're so kind, Jugra-san. You came to stop things before the death toll from the dead heat got out of hand."

"...Feels more like David wanted to test out that gun of his... But either way, it’s over now. Nobody’s gonna try scavenging after seeing that."

Apparently, nobody wanted to have a weapon pointed at them that could punch through a multi-ton industrial-grade corporate tire in one shot. Vehicles that seemed to belong to private military groups like Militech or Arasaka quietly started merging back into civilian traffic and returning the way they came.

With that, the transport truck was successfully secured by the Jackals and delivered into Jugra-san's hands.

Of course, Jugra-san didn’t keep it for herself. She checked the contents and handed everything over to the NCPD.

Wondering why she handed it over to the NCPD, I asked her directly.

"Mm. The Biotechnica headquarters in Rome will likely cut their losses by pretending they know nothing and abandoning their Night City branch altogether. That means their local office, factory, and affiliated hospital facilities will default to the next eligible party—NCPD. But the NCPD can’t exactly run a pharmaceutical plant, so they’ll auction it off. And now that I’ve acquired some classified data from this whole incident, other companies eyeing the factory will think twice. If they try to reuse the facility as-is, they risk me exposing them and shutting the whole thing down. So they'd have to replace the equipment entirely—which drives up the cost. Unless they're serious about entering the pharmaceutical industry, all they'll be left with is land full of dead inventory. That drastically lowers the value of Biotechnica's local assets."

"...Wow."

"And that’s where I come in. I’ll buy it under my name and convert it into a Delamain Medical Services facility—factory and hospital included. Robots only cost production overhead, and there’s no shortage of companies wanting to enter Night City's pharma scene. If I screen them properly and partner up, Biotechnica-branded drugs will disappear from this city entirely. Sucks to be them, ha-ha-ha!"

With a villainous laugh that could've come from a demon king, Jugra-san crushed a megacorp’s finger with the full weight of capitalism—and looked absolutely thrilled about it.

Jugra-san, defeating the giant evil... So cool!

"...The part that pissed me off the most was needing Biotechnica’s own gear to extract their damn drugs. That’s exactly why I hate narcotics. And with all these junkies pumped full of Biotechnica meds, who the hell knows who’s a real cyberpsycho? If it weren’t for the Buddhist guy this time, we might’ve kept making the same miscalculations forever. It’s infuriating."

...Jugra-san really, really hates drugs.

She pulled a bulky, radio-like phone out from under the table and started dialing somewhere.

I was still in the room, wondering if it was okay for me to be here, when the call connected.

"Faraday. Hey. You listening, asshole? I’m giving you a shot. A chance to crawl from the bottom back to the top. You watching the news? Huh? Is that why you're shaking? Snap out of it—this is work. You’re gonna be the director of Delamain Medical Services’ new hospital. Veto power? Don’t be stupid. Think real hard—do you really wanna turn this down? You’d be at the helm of the city’s next top-tier medical institution. Throughout history, the names in textbooks usually fall into two categories: those who killed a bunch of people, and those who saved them. Obviously, saving lives is the harder path. Remember what you said back then? That you worked your ass off to escape that life? And how you wished someone had reached out to help you? Then be that person. Do what nobody else could. Not even an Arasaka exec can pull this off—you get that, right? …Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You think I’d give you a job where I just toss you aside like trash? …Ha. Good. Glad to hear you bark back. Delamain handles eighty percent of operations. The other twenty percent is for your charity work. Go make those idealistic dreams real—I’ve got the funds for it. But don’t go rogue. Submit a solid proposal first. I’ll always be here to consult. Get back to your roots, Faraday. Turn what you once needed into someone else’s reality. I’m counting on you."

...What is this? Who wouldn’t fall for a boss like that?

Just as I was thinking Okay, what’s next?, Jugra-san smoothly transitioned into the next task, and I found myself falling for her all over again. I glanced at Sachi.

She gave a nod, pulled out a teapot and some leaves from the cupboard, and began preparing tea so Jugra-san could keep working smoothly.

Until the victory party-slash-Wally’s welcome celebration was ready, we continued supporting Jugra-san with everything we had.