IDKjust
patreon
Chapter 320 c
🕑 Added 2025-07-14 15:00:18 +0000 UTCChapter 320 c
2-in-1-chapter
-------------------
Leo knew that Gloria’s condition wasn’t critical. The trauma team had been updating him regularly—her injuries had been severe, but their advanced medical tech had stabilized her quickly.
Her coma was due to exhaustion and physical weakness from overwork and malnutrition.
She just needed rest and she’d recover. Trauma Team’s customer service had even promised that Gloria would be fully healed within a month, including recovery from her old underlying conditions.
So what did David need this money for?
Leo wasn’t planning to scam David out of the implant—he just worried the boy might get conned himself.
Even in 2077, scams still existed—they’d simply evolved, but their core remained unchanged: deceit for profit.
€$100,000 wasn’t much to Leo—but to David, it was a fortune.
David hesitated. “It’s a long story… if I explain everything, it’ll take a while.”
Leo calmly took a sip of his coffee. “I don’t mind. We’ve got plenty of time, haven’t we?”
“…Alright.”
David then explained what had happened at Arasaka Academy.
“So, you’re trying to sell this implant to repay the school?”
“Yes.”
“But according to what you said… didn’t they already expel you?”
“Yes… but I thought if I explained myself properly, the principal might let me back in…”
By the time David reached the latter part of his sentence, his voice gradually softened.
Clearly, he himself felt the chances weren’t great.
But even if the chances were slim, he still had to try.
What if—by some stroke of luck—it worked?
Leo looked directly into David’s eyes; David, after briefly meeting Leo’s gaze, lowered his head, feeling uneasy and conflicted.
Suddenly, David regretted his impulsiveness.
Leo said nothing more to him, but spoke into the comm channel—David couldn’t hear what was said.
After finishing, Leo picked up his coffee cup and drained the now lukewarm coffee. “Drink up. If you wait any longer, it’ll go completely cold.”
David picked up his coffee and finished it too, but didn’t set the cup down—instead holding it between both hands.
For the next few minutes, no one spoke.
David had no idea what Leo was thinking, nor who he had just been communicating with.
Just as he was about to speak again, V arrived, carrying the €$200,000 David had requested.
But V hadn’t brought cash—it was two credit chips.
Leo had thought carefully about this.
A standard electronic bank transfer wouldn’t do, because a poor person’s account receiving such a large sum could attract scrutiny if reported.
While corporations didn’t monitor every poor person’s account, David would need this money for paying Arasaka Academy, and who could guarantee that no one inside the academy would tip off the authorities?
It might sound paranoid, but when it came to these things, better safe than sorry.
Cash wasn’t ideal either—€$200,000 in bills would be far too conspicuous for a kid to carry, making him an obvious target.
As the saying went: "an innocent man carries guilt simply by holding a treasure." Leo understood this perfectly.
So, credit chips were the best option.
Credit chips were about the same size as credit cards: easy to carry, compact, and discreet.
Slip them into the inner pocket of your clothes, and even two chips together wouldn’t attract attention.
Moreover, Leo had instructed V to divide the money carefully.
One chip contained €$88,000; the other €$112,000.
The €$88,000 chip was for Arasaka Academy—the compensation they demanded from David for damaging their online education system.
The €$112,000 chip was for David’s living expenses, tuition, and future needs.
Leo had split it this way so David would only need to hand over the €$88,000 chip to the academy while keeping the other, ensuring no one would suspect he still had a substantial sum left.
If someone suddenly won €$500,000, what would their expression look like?
Probably exactly like David’s right now.
Eyes dull and vacant, staring blankly at the two credit chips V handed him, frozen on the spot with an expression of disbelief on his face.
It took a while before David snapped out of it.
He slotted the credit chips into his neural link to verify them—€$200,000 in total.
“So much?” David was stunned again.
He had thought getting €$50,000 would have been a stroke of luck.
After all, that quack doctor—the one who got him into this mess—had only offered him a few thousand.
€$50,000 would have been ten times what that doctor had offered.
But what he hadn’t expected was that Leo would give him €$200,000—four times more than he ever hoped for.
Realizing this, David made an unexpected move that surprised Leo.
He took only the chip with €88,000, leaving the other one with €112,000 on the table.
“Sir, you’ve given me too much. I can’t accept it.”
David didn’t understand why Leo was being so kind to him and his mother.
Covering their medical bills was one thing, but now paying an exorbitant price to buy a second-hand cyberware unit of questionable origin?
According to that quack doctor, no one should dare buy such an item—or at least, they’d use it as an excuse to drive the price down.
So why…
“Just take it,” Leo said.
In the end, under Leo’s insistence, David nervously accepted both credit chips.
“Well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll get going now, sir.”
“Mm… wait, David.”
“Is there something else, sir?”
“I almost forgot to ask—how did you get here?”
“I walked.”
“You walked?”
It would take at least one or two hours to drive from Santo Domingo to Rocky Ridge; walking would take at least a full day.
And David’s dusty, travel-worn appearance suggested he was telling the truth.
Leo thought for a moment.
“V, drive him to Arasaka Academy.”
Before V could respond, David quickly interrupted.
“No need, sir. I can walk back.”
Leo shook his head. “Even if you can walk back, what if you run into the Raffen shiv?”
Anyone familiar with Night City would know its reputation for poor security—but outside the city was even worse.
Because outside, there was the Raffen shiv.
If they spotted a lone pedestrian or vehicle, they’d open fire just for fun—even when there was nothing to steal.
They didn’t care whether their victims survived or what happened afterward.
And if they thought there was profit in robbing you, they wouldn’t hesitate to act like highway bandits.
That’s why the Raffen shiv was universally hated by Night City residents—and that hatred extended to any nomads they couldn’t distinguish from them.
So Leo insisted V escort David.
His armored SUV was protected with composite plating equivalent to a main battle tank’s armor—completely bulletproof.
It also had a 40mm grenade launcher on the roof, fully operable from inside the vehicle.
If they did run into the Raffen shiv, a volley of fire would be enough to send them straight back to hell.
As V and David reached the door, Leo added one more thing.
“And if you ever can’t go back to the academy, come find me—I can give you a job that’ll put food on your table.”
Leo’s offer was tempting.
If only he’d met Leo a few days earlier, David would have agreed without hesitation.
Arasaka Academy? Forget it.
But now, David couldn’t accept.
His mother, who wished for him to succeed academically, was still lying in the hospital.
David felt out of place at Arasaka Academy. He knew he didn’t belong—and that even if he managed to graduate with excellent grades and enter Arasaka Corporation, what would it matter?
Without a background, he would always be nothing more than a background prop for others.
He didn’t want to live a life where he had to grovel before those spoiled Arasaka brats.
David didn’t think he was inferior—but reality offered no “if.”
And he didn’t want to let his mother down.
So he would endure—for her.
…...................................
...................
.
After David and V left, Leo took the Sandevistan that David had brought and stepped out of the prefab shack to find Lucy at the edge of the construction site.
“What’s that?” Lucy asked curiously, seeing Leo holding something from a distance.
Leo handed her the bag. “See for yourself.”
Lucy opened the bag, pulled out the spinal-shaped cyberware, and immediately recognized it.
“A Sandevistan? Where did this come from?”
“A kid dropped it off—the one we saved on the overpass.”
Lucy tilted her head, examining the Sandevistan again.
“There’s no markings on this at all. No indication who manufactured it.”
Leo said calmly, “They were deliberately removed. It’s a prototype.”
Anything developed had to be rigorously tested before it could go into mass production.
That applied to drugs, weapons—and cyberware too.
The Sandevistan, being a military-grade combat cyberware, even more so.
And unlike a gun, all cyberware must be implanted directly into the body.
No matter what the manufacturer claimed about minimal side effects or low physical strain, the reality was that any implant would bring health issues to some extent—whether mild or severe.
That meant a qualifying cyberware device needed repeated testing.
And a Sandevistan—designed for combat—would logically need test data collected from combat personnel.
That meant its previous owner was likely a veteran of the last war—handpicked to serve as a test subject.
Leo’s conclusion wasn’t based purely on conjecture.
He had evidence.
When he first acquired this Sandevistan, he scanned it and discovered a hidden backdoor.
The company that built this Sandevistan had left that backdoor deliberately, so they could continuously collect experimental data from the implant.
So, Leo had come to Lucy because he wanted her to help remove the backdoor from this cyberware.
“That’s easy. Give me half a day and I should be able to take care of it,” Lucy said, draping the Sandevistan over her arm like a jacket. “But once I clear out the backdoor, what do you plan to do with this cyberware? Sell it?”
Leo simply nodded without confirming verbally.
Even though this Sandevistan was just a prototype, not the more stable models available on the market, a Sandevistan was still a Sandevistan. There would definitely be cybermercs willing to buy it.
After all, Leo had paid 200,000 to purchase it from David—it wasn’t something he could just leave sitting in a warehouse collecting dust. Even for someone with money, this wasn’t the way to waste it.
Once the backdoor in this cyberware was removed, it wouldn’t matter which company had manufactured it—they wouldn’t be able to remotely reclaim it.
In that sense, he wouldn’t exactly be passing a liability on to anyone.
….............................
..........
.
Arasaka Academy, Principal’s Office.
The short-statured principal sat with fingers adorned in gold-colored synthetic skin, gleaming under the neon lights streaming in from outside.
“Mr. Martinez, you’ve really put me in a difficult position,” he said.
David sat across from the principal.
They were alone in the office.
David spoke earnestly. “I know, Principal. That’s why I brought compensation money. Please, I’m asking you to give me another chance.”
“I don’t think this is about money. Yes, repairing the academy systems will require a substantial sum. But Mr. Martinez, the academy already gave you several days to resolve the issue. You missed that deadline, and so the academy has decided to expel you.”
“That was because my mom and I were in a car accident on the way home that day! We were in the hospital for several days and didn’t receive the academy’s message.”
“Is that so? How unfortunate,” the principal said with polite words but without any genuine trace of sympathy on his face.
“Well then, while I personally sympathize with your situation, the academy has already made its decision—it can’t be reversed.”
David couldn’t help but argue: “Aren’t you the principal? Isn’t it your decision who gets expelled or not?”
The principal replied slowly, “Mr. Martinez, I need to clarify: expelling a student is not some autocratic decision I make alone. It is the result of deliberation and unanimous agreement by the school’s board of directors.”
“And if I remember correctly, Mr. Martinez, you never really fit in with your classmates, did you? You didn’t have many friends at the academy, isn’t that right?”
David frowned.
Normally, a school principal wouldn’t pay special attention to a particular student.
Especially someone from a background like his—a poor kid from a working-class family.
But the principal had clearly noticed his isolation in class and was paying him special attention.
That was definitely not a good thing.
Comments
Striker
True. Even if he finishes the academy he would still be one of the lowest corporate slave. But they seam to target him specifically so a slave might be a better future for him if he goes through this route...
ZeroLink21
Definitely don't let yourself get sucked into any of that corpo school bullshit David they gonna try and turn you into a lab rat or something just tell your mom there was nothing you could do. Tftc
