Chapter 1

Chapter 1. Cold City

“...I’m fucking starving.”

―Drip-drip, tap.

As always, harsh acid rain fell today.

A small tavern tucked into the corner of a back alley, damp moisture seeping in.

―Shhhhhhh.

An old neon sign that looked ready to fall at any moment flickered through the rain.

“Goddamn weather.”

―Clunk.

A strange man who had come through the rain sat down in front of the bar counter.

“Give me anything to drink. With ice, if you’ve got it.”

The man said so as he took off his rain-soaked coat and draped it over the chair beside him.

Then he placed several crumpled bills on the counter.

“...”

The dignified elderly bartender watched the unfamiliar customer for a moment.

Perhaps he found it strange that the man had handed him paper money, something hardly used anymore in an age where personal links and electronic currency had become commonplace.

Or perhaps because it was far too much for a single drink.

Only the quiet clinking of glasses echoed through the establishment.

“Haven’t seen your face around here before...”

As he moved a glass, somewhat cautiously.

But in a voice wary of a stranger, the bartender asked.

His eyes gleamed covertly in the silence.

At that, the man sighed as though he knew exactly what was going on and replied.

“I’ll leave after one drink, so there’s no need to be so wary. Scan me all you want, I don’t have any weapons.”

Caught in the act, the bartender awkwardly changed the subject.

“Ahem, did you come from far away?”

“From Jamsil. I just happened to cross the river today.”

“From Jamsil all the way here in this weather... I heard the SCPD was going to blockade the bridge. Must’ve been rough. Sorry for scanning you without permission.”

“It happens. The world’s a dangerous place.”

“Ahem, thanks for understanding.”

The man neither blamed him for searching him without permission nor neglected to answer his questions.

Seeing how courteous he was on top of that, unlike most people in this city, the bartender apologized and lowered his guard.

“It’s quite late. Don’t you need something to eat? Doesn’t look like you’re short on money.”

Apparently the place doubled as a restaurant, judging from the bartender’s offer.

“As an apology, I won’t charge you for the food. How about it?”

“Ah...”

Although a faint growl could be heard from the man’s stomach as he sighed.

“Tch, I’m fine. I’ve got circumstances.”

“Mm, if that’s the case.”

Not prying deeply into a customer’s circumstances was the secret to surviving for a long time in an alley like this.

Especially when it was something they clearly did not want to talk about.

“Here, one vodka with ice―”

―Clunk!!

“That bastard definitely came in here...!”

The bartender’s voice as he set down the glass was drowned out by the shout that followed.

A group of hulking figures shoved open the tavern door and barged inside.

Menacing faces and excessively burly physiques.

Rough skin tinged a murky green, with tusks jutting upward.

“Orcs?”

They were the sort commonly called orcs.

“Fuck! Where’d he go!”

“I definitely saw him come in here!”

They possessed physical strength several times greater than ordinary humans.

Aggressive by nature and fond of fighting, they were the race most sought after by gangs and mafias.

“Why are those things all the way out here...”

“This area is supposed to be...”

But what drew even more attention than their appearance was...

Where their arms and legs should have been.

Savage metal components brazenly attached there, not even covered with artificial skin.

Cyberware that was obviously not for fashion.

And judging by the identical markings engraved on all of them, they already belonged to some organization.

Most likely a gang.

“What the fuck are you looking at! Eyes down!”

“Lower your eyes unless you want your fucking head blown off!”

Those orcs glared around the establishment.

“Hmm.”

“Ahem, ahem.”

At that, the few customers present all shut their mouths.

Soon, a strange silence settled over the tavern.

“...Would you like to order?”

The bartender asked, gambling on the possibility that they might actually be customers.

“Order, my ass. Stay out of this, old man!”

“...”

They seemed rather far removed from the position of customers.

“Ah!”

“Boss, over there!”

After scanning the tavern, the orcs’ attention soon turned toward the man seated at the counter.

The largest orc stepped forward, apparently their leader.

“A gloomy-looking human with black hair...”

Muttering that, the orc scanned the man’s body and shouted with certainty.

“And an N-Tek with no cyberware! You’re the bastard, aren’t you?! The one who took out our boss!”

“...”

But the man did not reply.

He did not even turn his head.

Instead, he reached for the freshly served glass of vodka on the counter―

“You fucking bastard! Don’t pretend you don’t know!!”

―Crash!

When the orc’s steel arm knocked away the vodka glass along with the man’s hand, a sharp shattering sound rang throughout the tavern.

“...!”

At the explosive situation, the other customers hid beneath their tables.

The bartender also moved well out of the way.

Yet as though such incidents happened all the time.

No one screamed or fled.

Or perhaps they knew that if they drew attention to themselves, they might be made an example of.

“Haa...”

At last, the man let out a deep sigh and turned toward the orc.

“Why the fuck are you barking like a dog that needs to shit? Want me to change your diaper or something?”

“You bastard...!!”

The orc thrust out his enormous steel arm.

―Bang!

The sound of air tearing apart.

The defenseless man’s face was about to be mercilessly crushed by the iron fist―

“?!”

“Finished?”

―It wasn’t.

The man blocked the steel arm with one hand and stared at the orc.

‘What the fuck is with this bastard’s strength...?!’

An orc’s strength was several times greater than a human’s.

And it should have been amplified even further by illegally modified cyberware.

And yet.

“How can an N-Tek without any modification surgery!”

Not only had his fist been easily stopped by the man before him.

The man did not budge in the slightest.

“Perfect timing. I was hungry anyway.”

“Urgh!! What the hell are you doing! Kill him!!”

Perhaps realizing that simple punches would not work.

The orc hurriedly pulled back his arm, retreated, and shouted.

―Ratatatatat!

Who knew when they had drawn them.

Gun barrels erupted with fire all at once toward the man.

The orc who had thrown the punch also extended a massive gun barrel from his arm and fired repeatedly.

―Ratatata! Boom!!

Caught in the merciless storm of bullets fired without any concern for wrecking the establishment, the man was hurled into the wall.

The counter, along with the wall the man had crashed into, shattered and collapsed.

“Haa...”

“Hoo...”

At last, perhaps their magazines had run dry, the blazing gun barrels fell silent.

“W-we got him...”

“Shut the fuck up, idiot!”

The lead orc hurriedly silenced the youngest member, who had nearly invoked the resurrection spell while intoxicated on dopamine.

But despite his quick reaction.

“Ah... damn, that hurts.”

The man casually emerged from beneath the wall’s rubble.

“What a goddamn fucking city.”

He sighed as he looked down at his shirt, riddled with holes like a honeycomb.

“I was already pissed because it was damp, and now I’m covered in dust and my only set of clothes is full of holes...”

“H-how?!”

There were certainly traces of blood on the tattered shirt.

Yet there was not a single wound on the man’s body as he brushed debris from his sleeves.

“Maybe I really should’ve done the tutorial properly instead of using a shortcut.”

As he muttered incomprehensibly, several thick bullets were clenched between his teeth.

“You’re really finished now, right?”

―Crunch!

The man bit through the bullets as though chewing snacks and rolled up his sleeves.

“You attacked first, so this counts as self-defense, right?”

With those words, the man kicked off the floor and surged toward the lead orc.

‘F-fast!!’

A distance that looked to be easily ten meters vanished in an instant.

Caught without enough time to defend himself, the orc thrust out his steel arm and gun barrel instead.

Seeing that, the man opened his mouth wide―

―CRUNCH!!

And bit straight through the steel arm, gun barrel and all.

The arm tore away with clear teeth marks, as though he had bitten into tofu.

“N-no way―”

“―Way, asshole.”

The man twisted his body and swung his fist.

―BANG!!

Despite the casual form, it landed with a sound like an enormous iron hammer smashing down.

The steel arm and the orc’s skull were crushed like a Couque D’asse.

―Thud!

The massive body collapsed helplessly, having lost its right arm and head in an instant.

“Wh... at?!”

The remaining orcs were stunned only briefly.

“What are you standing around for? You’re next.”

The man kicked off the ground again and charged at them.

From that point onward, it was nothing short of a one-sided massacre.

The orcs panicked, while the man shattered and crushed their steel bodies one after another.

With nothing but his bare hands and teeth.

As an added bonus, wherever the man passed, sounds like iron being smashed with a sledgehammer followed.

―BANG!!

The youngest orc, who had nearly invoked the resurrection spell earlier, barely managed to reload his large-caliber revolver and fire―

“―I told you this hurts.”

The man bit the bullet apart with his teeth, then swung his fist and crushed the final orc.

―Splat.

The orc collapsed with the center of its chest crushed inward.

“Tch, disgusting. I just can’t get used to this shitty feeling.”

The man roughly wiped his hand, soaked with blood and bits of flesh, using a nearby napkin.

Then tossed the used napkin among the orcs.

“Then again... I definitely shouldn’t ever get used to something like this.”

He crossed the tavern, now filled with a strange silence of a different sort from when the orcs had first barged in.

“Sorry the place got wrecked because of me. I didn’t think they’d follow me across a blockaded bridge in the middle of the night.”

“Ah...”

It was hard to believe this was the same man who had just fought a fierce battle against multiple opponents.

His voice was polite and calm.

“There’s an elven mafia in this district too. Are they trying to start a war or something? Bunch of lunatic battle maniacs.”

Clicking his tongue, the man put on the coat he had hung up earlier.

Then placed a thick bundle of bills on the counter.

“Use this for the repairs. If it’s not enough, sell those bastards’ equipment or something.”

Then he snatched the vodka bottle from the stunned bartender’s hand.

And poured it down his throat like water.

After emptying the entire bottle in one go, he rummaged through the corpses of the orcs.

“Do you bastards carry nothing but cheap junk...”

It looked like he might take their credit cards.

But what the man gathered instead were bullets and broken guns.

“...Still, this should fill my stomach well enough.”

On top of that, crisp new banknotes occasionally spilled out.

Gathered together, they looked to amount to well over a hundred.

For people to deliberately carry this much cash in an age like this⋯⋯.

“Your so-called boss dies and you raid his safe and split the money among yourselves, yet you act like you’re loyal.”

The reason they had not pursued him immediately must have been because they were busy dividing the money and sorting out the hierarchy.

And the reason they had chased him even after taking the money was probably because they needed someone to pin everything on.

The man chuckled and shoved the thick bundle of bills inside his coat.

The bartender finally managed to force out his first words toward the man’s back.

“W-were you a hunter?”

Hunter, tracker, fixer, mercenary, runner.

The name differed slightly by region or country, but they all meant the same thing.

Their résumé consisted solely of their own strength.

People who, with that alone, forced an unreasonable world to acknowledge them, taking on all manner of commissions and resolving them for a living.

Most tended to have broken personalities, making them dangerous people to become involved with in the first place.

Yet the bartender had unconsciously asked because the man seemed more alien than any hunter he had ever seen.

Hearing that, the man gave a bitter smile.

“No. Not yet.”

“What? But...”

How could an ordinary human take bullets head-on without so much as flinching.

And crush combat-grade cyberware with his bare hands?

“Thanks for the drink.”

Before the bartender could finish speaking, the man placed the empty vodka bottle on the counter.

Then simply walked out of the establishment.

―Shhhhhhh.

The rain outside was still pouring heavily.

“What a seriously unlucky day.”

Sighing, he turned his head toward the distant scenery visible beyond the rain.

Skyscrapers towering high into the sky and a jungle of neon signs bright enough to blind anyone just from looking at them.

Aerial vehicles and airships flying between the buildings like flies.

A place where those who flowed in chasing money and pleasure, claiming they would become legends...

Were routinely washed away with the vicious acid rain, becoming fertilizer for the city.

【Neo Seoul】

Its official name was Hanseong Special City under the Imperial House of the New Korean Empire.

But those who lived day to day called this city something else.

The City of Coldhearted Bastards.

And that―

“Goddamn acid rain, goddamn game.”

A man who had once been an ordinary office worker in the Republic of Korea, only to lose his life overnight.

A man who became an uninvited guest in this bitterly cold city.

“What a fucking city of goddamn coldhearted bastards.”

Was true for Lee Gang-sik as well.

I Became an Immortal Who Chews on Steel

Author |

Mwiu

Publisher |

Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.

Managing Editor |

Editorial Department

Published by |

Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. - Dream Books

Address |

Rooms 806-810, Kolon Science Valley I, 187-10 Guro-dong, Guro-gu, Seoul

UCI |

G720:N+A063-20261006118

Blog |

blog.naver.com/dreambookss

Twitter (X) |

@dreambookss

Submissions |

fansycnc@samyangcnc.com

No part of this book may be used in any form or by any means without the written permission of Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. - Dream Books.