## Chapter 149 – Became a Cyberpunk Reporter. (1)
“There’s no place like home.”
This much was an unchanging truth, even after experiencing wonderful places to sleep in other worlds.
It was funny, but now that I thought of this house as my real home, I felt comfortable as soon as I came back, even though it hadn’t been that long since I’d moved in.
I leaned back on the sofa and sat on the floor.
Perhaps because it was an expensive sofa, it was nice to lean on.
“…Should I have bought something cheaper?”
I think they said it was a sofa designed by a famous luxury bag designer with natural leather.
But I didn’t really feel much difference from other sofas.
Come to think of it, does it really matter if a bag designer designs a sofa?
Well, it looked good.
You could say it looked expensive.
Looking at the house like this, I felt like showing it off.
I felt proud.
“Yeah, should I have a housewarming party?”
With that thought, I turned on my phone and searched through my SNS and phone number list to find people to invite.
That’s when I realized.
You could say my social circle…
That the people around me were quite twisted.
Most of them were women.
I had hardly met any women through normal encounters.
The few men I knew were mostly boyfriends of those women.
I had no intention of inviting them.
“…In the end, there’s only Hanna.”
In the end, I decided to have a small housewarming party with Hanna.
She seemed busy with SNS activities and filming these days.
I checked Hanna’s SNS account after a long time.
Hanna’s popularity was gradually increasing, and now I could see Hanna’s videos and advertisements even on accounts that weren’t Hanna’s.
Of course, they were unauthorized uploads, but it was like an unavoidable fate for a popular influencer.
Hanna didn’t seem to care much.
I pressed the call button and called Hanna after a long time.
[Ye, hello?]
Hanna answered the phone almost as soon as the dial tone started.
I was taken aback by the speed.
“What? You answered right away?”
[Ah, I was just filming a short video with my phone…]
She seemed to be talking about the recently popular Shorts or Reels.
The video I saw earlier came to mind.
I remembered her mainly filming dances or challenges.
“Sorry to bother you. Should I call again later?”
[Ah, no! I can talk…]
I could feel her urgency even through the phone.
And then I heard a strange woman’s voice.
[Unni, is that the boyfriend you were talking about last time?]
[Hey, hey, shush!]
She must be talking about me even outside, even as her boyfriend.
I thought she might hide her boyfriend’s story since she’s getting famous, but it seems she’s proudly revealing me.
I was somehow grateful for that, so I decided to play along.
“Hello. I’m Hanna’s boyfriend.”
[Oh my! Hello~.]
[Ah, really…]
When I greeted her, a bright greeting came back from the other side.
Hanna was grumbling, but I could feel a subtle smile in her voice.
[Why did you call Hanna Unni?]
The woman next to Hanna asked instead.
I didn’t have anything to hide, so I answered casually.
“Actually, I moved and I was going to ask her to come to my housewarming party…”
[Really? Then, is it okay if I come too?]
[Why would you go there? No!]
[Ah, why~! Unni, I’m curious about your boyfriend!]
The two seemed to be very close.
It was understandable since I didn’t know much about the people around Hanna.
What I really found surprising was that Hanna was surprisingly preventing a woman from coming to my house.
Originally, she would have tried to coax her to bring her along.
Curious about her reaction, I answered instead.
“Well, it’s okay. Come.”
[Really? Unni, did you hear that? Take me with you!]
[Hoo… Okay, I’ll contact you later…]
Only after my permission was given did Hanna reluctantly answer.
And after hearing the sound of someone moving for a moment, Hanna answered quietly.
[Then, would next week be okay for the housewarming party? I think that’s when I’ll have time…]
“Yeah, then I’ll see you then.”
She’s busy, but it seems she can make time next week.
Two women are coming to this house.
I should buy some more cups and dishes just in case.
Now that the housewarming party is set, I decided to turn on the quest board and choose a quest as usual.
In fact, there were a few quests I had already decided on in my mind.
I selected a quest from the quest board and slowly fell into thought.
“The future…”
I muttered, looking at the quest board.
I thought I had experienced various worlds by entering quite a few quests, but there were still countless different worlds unfolding before my eyes.
Among them, what caught my eye the most this time was none other than a quest in the cyberpunk world.
It was a world set in the future, the 2050s.
I had gone to the past many times so far.
Like China in martial arts novels, or fantasy worlds set in the Middle Ages.
They couldn’t all be said to be pasts based on actual reality, but they were depicting the past in terms of background.
In fact, the clothes, carriages, and food exuded the scent of the distant past.
“Those places weren’t bad either, but…”
I had been wanting to enter a quest set in the future.
In the meantime, I found a novel in the cyberpunk genre that I had read with interest as a quest.
It was a fun novel to read, but there were many disappointing points.
Perhaps because of the gloomy atmosphere unique to cyberpunk, the ending was also a bit of a lingering bad ending.
Also, since it was a novel, it was difficult to fully understand even if it described the scenery of the future.
For example, cars floating in the air, modified humans, and high-performance AI robots.
They are imagined in various ways, but they cannot be perfectly expressed with any description.
I felt a little excited thinking about actually seeing those things.
However, the uneasy thing isㅡ
“I might have to fight people with guns…”
And people with future guns and weapons.
I would try to avoid fighting as much as possible, but you never know what might happen.
I hesitated a little, but I clenched and unclenched my fists, checking my body.
I thought that if I were strong enough from this quest, I could at least run away even in the cyberpunk world.
No matter how futuristic it is, it won’t be easy to hit me running with internal energy.
“Okay.”
I slowly read the quest’s description.
[Expose the corruption of a gang or corporation.]
[In this quest, you will work as a righteous reporter.]
[To gather evidence of corruption, you must target the women of the gang or corporation.]
So that’s the quest.
This time, it seemed like I was possessing a good guy, but I didn’t feel very good.
Since the genre is basically based on gloom, the position and situation of the good guy were not very positive.
At least in the world of this novel, the bad guys were the ones who benefited.
I closed my eyes tightly and accepted the quest.
***
I felt a sense of floating as if my body was rising for a moment, and when I opened my eyes.
“Here… is this a car?”
I woke up inside a car.
And inside a very foreign car.
It was a car that lacked many things that a car should have.
Navigation, air conditioning, emergency light buttons, instrument panel, and even a steering wheel.
If it weren’t for the seats or the car’s unique semicircular windows, I wouldn’t have known it was inside a car.
“There was no description of the inside of the car in the original…”
Then suddenly the window next to me flickered.
[Cyan]
[Call / Reject]
A strange name appeared on the window along with a call icon.
Is the window also a screen?
I touched the call button on the window with my finger.
Then a woman’s voice rang out from inside the car.
[You finally answered, did you find the gang’s base?]
“The gang’s base?”
Hearing those words, I looked at the front windshield of the car.
I could see the outside.
Like a lie, a group of men armed with guns were lined up and entering a building.
“…Uh, I think I found it?”
[Good, record the location and come back here right away.]
“…I’ll try.”
The call ended like that.
Touching the side window to make a call, that’s pretty novel.
“What do I do now…”
Honestly, I have no idea.
How do I know where this is, record the location, and know where the person I talked to is and go back?
Even if I knew, I couldn’t go.
Because this car didn’t have a steering wheel.
I can’t drive either.
I don’t have a license.
I was at a loss from the start, so I was blankly staring when suddenly I heard a voice.
[Shall we record the location and go to New Koreatown?]
“…Who?”
[I’m the car’s AI, Sky.]
“…Okay, please.”
I answered in a daze, and it really recorded the location and the car started moving.
I think I know now why there is no steering wheel or navigation.
This car AI solves everything.
It was a future technology that was hard to keep up with.
I couldn’t hear even a little noise as the car moved.
I glanced out the window and saw that the car was subtly floating in the air and moving.
“…Wow, I’m getting dizzy.”
Even if my head couldn’t keep up, I just blankly stared out the window.
A city filled with apartment-sized holograms and huge neon signs slowly began to appear.
