When the blaze of the explosion spread and swallowed everything whole, Lucy stared at the scene in a daze.
It took a long while before she finally came back to herself — and when she did, she found herself sinking into a deep, profound confusion.
This is what you called use sparingly?
What the hell did you stuff into my soul?!
She didn't even have time to wonder how she'd walked away completely unscathed from an explosion that violent. Lucy's first reaction was pure, blank bewilderment.
And really, that was understandable. For someone like Lucy, this scene was simply too absurd to process.
In fact, the very first time Anthony had laid eyes on this thing, his reaction had been exactly the same — specifically:
You people, you Artificers — you actually call this the [Basic Resource Extraction Series]?
What's basic about it? What's extraction about it?
It wasn't until he'd dug deeper into the research that Anthony finally understood what this bunch of lunatics actually got up to in their spare time.
To put it simply: there was a period when the Artificers had been perfectly well-behaved, using mining robots and various other sensible contraptions to harvest resources. But within just a few years, they ran into a problem.
Mining like that was just too damn slow.
Faced with the utterly offensive inefficiency of tools constrained by their own mechanical structures and physical laws, the Artificers eventually arrived at a singular conclusion:
The most efficient method of resource acquisition was blowing things up.
And so the collective Artificer mindset began its long, steady slide — from small bombs to large nukes, with every conceivable explosive concept spawning its own forging blueprint. But all of it orbited a single core question:
Hey, what if I just blasted this resource deposit and scooped up the pieces?
And so, through the tireless iteration of generations of Artificers, the [Basic Resource Extraction Series] blueprints came to contain one thing and one thing only: explosives of every conceivable variety.
They called it efficiency.
And as the most fundamental of all crafted items, the internal competition had reached utterly insane heights. Those madmen had competed on blast radius, then blast intensity; once they maxed out intensity they competed on cost; once cost was optimized they competed on functionality; and when even functionality had been thoroughly exhausted, they started brainstorming ways to make the thing double as fireworks.
By the time the blueprints landed in Anthony's hands, the version he held — [Lachimaeus's Roar] — had been refined to a degree that beggared belief.
In terms of blast radius and destructive yield, it had already wrung out nearly every last drop of performance possible from a bomb costing 1,000 points. And on top of that, those lunatics had somehow also produced a soul-compatible version of the thing.
It could attach directly to a soul, using it as camouflage.
As for the concern that an explosion might destroy the very resources it was meant to extract — the generations of Artificers had apparently anticipated that problem long ago.
[Lachimaeus's Roar] even came with a built-in friendly-fire identification system.
Its detonation would cause zero damage to the one who triggered it — and likewise, it would leave completely untouched anything that had been designated as having value.
At its core, this was an explosion targeted at the souls of living beings and inanimate objects alike. The visible blast was merely the surface presentation.
Sneaky didn't even begin to cover it.
After reading through that long list of effects and iterative improvement notes, Anthony had nothing left in his heart but a profound sense of admiration for the Artificers — followed immediately by the decisive action of stuffing the thing into Lucy's head.
He had exactly 1,000 points left over, after all. No point wasting them. It was a perfect opportunity to field-test the bomb's actual potency.
And so, in that moment, Anthony had tucked away this little contingency inside Lucy's soul without a second thought.
Until just now — when Lucy activated her [Soul Shatter] ability — the Lachimaeus's Roar Anthony had hidden away was exposed.
And so, quite naturally, Lachimaeus's Roar detonated. Immediately after, the entire factory was swallowed by roaring pillars of flame.
Lucy herself, as the user, was the first to be excluded from the blast radius. Following her, every valuable piece of cyberware and technological equipment on the premises was likewise excluded.
And then those roaring flames poured, in their entirety, in a single direction.
Toward flesh — and toward the souls of everyone else present.
It was as if they'd been doused in solvent. By the time Lucy fully returned to her senses, it was all over.
The world had gone quiet.
No more gunfire. No more chaotic shouting. Every grating noise had been muted at once, as if someone had pressed a silence button. Now there were only two souls remaining in this place — Lucy and David.
And before them, the factory, freshly reborn after being washed clean by Lachimaeus's Roar:
Fragile souls had been utterly shattered in under a second. The flesh they'd inhabited had been reduced to ash in the blast.
Only the cold, metallic gleam of cyberware, chips, and equipment remained, scattered across the floor, radiating a most inviting light.
No reinforcements were coming. Or rather — when the entire factory had been swallowed by the explosion, any reinforcements that might have arrived had been warmly converted into cyberware and points.
Lachimaeus's Roar — the Artificers' magnum opus, the go-to blasting solution for resource extraction. You deserve one.
"Lucy... did we actually... take care of it?" David finally broke the long, stunned silence, his voice carrying a note of genuine confusion as he asked.
"...Don't ask me about that." Lucy was quiet for a moment. Then she silently reached into her pocket and produced a slim lady's cigarette.
"Go call Mr. Smith over," she said at last, exhaling lightly. "My guess is — this is probably exactly what he wanted to see."
And as she said it, a feeling rose unbidden in her chest.
Honestly speaking... the feeling of that explosion just now was a little bit addictive.
Lucy gazed thoughtfully at her own fingertips, flexed them closed, and finally let a small smile cross her face.
She kind of wanted to do it again.
---
One hour later.
A blond, blue-eyed young man stepped into the still-intact factory, glanced around casually to confirm he was in the right place, and walked inside.
A moment later, Lucy, sitting behind the door, sensed someone approaching. She raised her head, saw it was Anthony, and looked back down:
"It's you. The haul's all in there. What are you planning to do with it?"
She asked idly, but Anthony didn't answer immediately. Instead, he swept his gaze around the room, and then sighed from the heart:
"What a harvest."
In the time it had taken Anthony to arrive, Lucy and David had been responsible for collecting everything of value from the factory.
Which was how Anthony now found himself staring at towering mountains of cyberware and chips piled high before him.
A single glance told him this wasn't top-tier merchandise — but the sheer volume of it meant that even in bulk, there were still a considerable number of points to be had.
Under Lucy's gaze, Anthony stepped forward, casually picked up a chip, and selected Recycle.
[109 points recycled.]
[122 points recycled.]
[...]
In the blink of an eye, the mountains of cyberware began to melt away at a rapid pace. Anthony's hands moved faster and faster, until the very last piece of cyberware had been recycled and he finally let out a long, satisfied breath.
Total haul: over twenty thousand points. His account balance, which had been running dry, had suddenly surged back up.
Naturally. He'd always known that coming to the Cyberpunk 2077 world was the right call.
Playing nice — trading and building infrastructure — how many points did that actually earn? One heist, one run, and you're already raking in tens of thousands!
"Mr. Smith, what do we do next?"
It wasn't until Anthony had recycled the last piece of cyberware that Lucy finally spoke up, her voice carrying what was unmistakably a faint note of anticipation.
"Next? We regroup a little, then move on to the next target," Anthony said, pausing briefly before a bright, cheerful smile spread across his face.
"It's time to let Night City know we exist. In short — get ready."
He said it while rolling his wrist, his eyes on Lucy, turning something over in his mind.
Truth be told, Lachimaeus's Roar had performed even better than he'd expected.
Whether it was the particularly brittle nature of the souls in the Cyberpunk world, or something else entirely, the number of survivors left standing after Lachimaeus's Roar finished detonating was remarkably small.
As for the ones who remained, Lucy's hacking abilities combined with the effects of [Soul Shatter] were more than sufficient to mop them up without effort.
At the moment, Anthony felt that aside from restocking the cost of producing Lachimaeus's Roar, the bulk of the points could be saved up toward David's resurrection.
100,000 points was the hard minimum. And beyond that, on the physical body front — the Angler's fishing seat had stubbornly refused to reel in a single K-ampule, so that would have to be solved by other means.
But the thing about David's body... well. Anyone who knew, knew.
Adam Smasher had literally pulped him into a fine paste. Where exactly was Anthony supposed to source a ready-made physical body from?
And so, after turning it over repeatedly in his mind, Anthony had eventually arrived at an unexpected solution.
What if he just handcrafted a body for David himself?
Under normal circumstances, Anthony wasn't sure this plan would work on just anyone — but at the end of the day, the person standing here right now was David.
What made David special was this: being a native of the Cyberpunk world meant that, under the chat group's assessment parameters, his soul and cyberware had already begun to show signs of mutual adaptation.
Which meant that David's Perfect Resurrection didn't necessarily require a flesh-and-blood body. Instead, it was entirely possible to skip straight to mechanical ascension — a pure cyberware resurrection.
Yes, a 100% cyberware modification rate would normally cause Cyberpsychosis. But who said Anthony had to use Cyberpunk-brand cyberware?
Ah, this was exactly where the Artificer's technological advantage made itself known.
Back when David had still thought V's 100% modification rate was an outrageous impossibility — now Anthony was about to demonstrate for him personally what actually possible looked like.
[Complete Soul Equipment — Artificer's Frame Series: Terra Full Set. When equipped, converts all body parts of the user into Soul Equipment.]
[While massively amplifying Soul Strength, it also dramatically enhances the user's physical capabilities. It additionally includes a variety of extraordinary functions, making it the Artificer's Frame series' most combat-oriented equipment set.]
Unlocking all the blueprints plus the forging costs came to a grand total of 50,000 points.
Which meant: as long as he could scrape together 150,000 points and nothing else, David could be resurrected. No other conditions required.
All that was left was the money.
Though — this grade of low-tier cyberware really wasn't an efficient money-maker. Recycled this much and it only yielded 20,000 points.
So Anthony picked up a notepad, flipped through it for a moment, and then asked:
"A crooked small-company CEO who's been secretly in bed with half the factions in the city, and a gang with a nasty reputation — which one do you want to hit first?"
"Uh... aren't we doing both?" David blinked, then reflexively asked the question — and in an instant Lucy opened her mouth, stopped herself, and turned to look at David with a long-suffering expression.
When Anthony heard that answer, a radiant grin spread across his face.
He snapped the notepad shut and said in a light, breezy tone:
"Excellent. I like that answer. Then both of those are this afternoon's targets."
"Keep up the good work, you two."
He said it with an encouraging little gesture. Lucy listened to Anthony deliver that god-tier motivational speech and could only let out a helpless sigh in the end.
But soon enough, a faint flicker of anticipation rose again in her chest.
This... actually doesn't seem too bad, does it.
But almost immediately, Lucy caught herself.
Watching Anthony rummage around for anesthetic, she felt a creeping unease stir inside her. A moment later, she looked at him and blurted out instinctively:
"Um... aren't we going back to rest first?"
"Go back for what?" Anthony looked up with a genuinely bewildered expression. "That's such a waste of time! We can rest right here on-site — don't worry, trust in my Artificer craftsmanship!"
"Even in a rough environment, there won't be a single mistake!"
"No, that's not what I'm asking about!" Lucy hesitated, then finally managed to get the words out: "We're starting immediately — no time set aside for rest at all?"
"Uh, well..." Anthony cleared his throat and said with a straight face: "I believe that even without rest time, you two are fully capable of completing the mission perfectly."
"Anyway — time is tight, the mission is heavy, I won't say more — overtime it is, miss."
Watching Anthony approach with anesthetic in hand, Lucy felt her vision go dark at the edges.
A sudden thought occurred to her.
Before she strung up those damned capitalists on the lamp posts — hanging this dog right alongside them might just, in one move, benefit untold numbers of people.
...
---
For three days straight, the news broadcasts had barely paused for breath.
By now, practically everyone knew: there was a maniac loose in Night City, blowing up everything she walked past. People had taken to calling her the Bomb Demon.
The news had been wall-to-wall coverage of her for days. She'd appeared here, devastated this place, gotten this person killed... and every segment ended with the obligatory sign-off: "Defeating the Bomb Demon is everyone's responsibility."
Night City's collective response to that was: go f* yourself.
You want to die, you go die on your own — don't drag the rest of us into it, alright?
Who'd dare mess with her?!
In Night City's unofficial oral tradition, the legends surrounding the Bomb Demon had grown taller and wilder with every retelling.
All kinds of versions were circulating. Some said she was a natural disaster. Some said she was a cyberware freak that made Adam Smasher look tame. Others swore she was a military tech prototype.
As the stories grew stranger and more outlandish with each telling, Night City's residents could only hunker down and pray, terrified that one day the Bomb Demon might show up on their own doorstep.
As for the actual instigator behind all of these stories — Anthony himself had absolutely no comment.
Let them talk. Keep the stories going.
What did any of this have to do with him, a diligent and hardworking Artificer quietly toiling away in his corner of the world?
Slander had its limits, didn't it?
Besides, it was all Arasaka's fault anyway. If you had a problem with the Bomb Demon, you could direct your complaints to Arasaka Corporation.
He was just an ordinary, helpless, tiny little citizen!
And early that morning, in Lucy's apartment, ordinary citizen Mr. Anthony was busy performing maintenance on the Bomb Demon's body — and delivering a heartfelt rant in the process:
"I'm pretty sure I stuffed four Lachimaeus's Roars into your soul last time. How is there only one left now?"
"I thought you only went to one target in between?"
"Got used to it. And those targets were thorny." Lucy replied flatly. "And cut the commentary — just hurry up and restock."
"We finally get a rare trip home and a bit of rest time, and you're going to drag us back out to the next target and make us work overtime."
Hearing Lucy's remarks — soaked through and through with barely-concealed resentment — Anthony pressed his lips together but ultimately said nothing more, and simply got to work forging.
For Lucy, these past three days had been her only time to rest aside from sleeping.
In fact, this was literally the first time she'd been home in three days.
The routine in between had been brutally simple: Lucy arrives at location, David scouts it out, detonate the explosives, check for survivors, clean up any stragglers — and done.
Then Anthony would arrive at the scene, collect and recycle whatever Lucy had produced, finish resupplying her, and immediately push the two of them to the next location.
For Lucy, these three days had contained exactly zero rest outside of sleep.
For Anthony, however... the fact that sleep was even still on the schedule meant time wasn't quite as tight as it could be, and the mission wasn't quite as crushing.
He himself had been practically itching to run on a twenty-four-hour cycle. Over three days, he'd been simultaneously rushing between locations, recycling loot, restocking Lucy, and constantly scouting for new targets.
He couldn't help it. This was his first time robbing anyone, and once he saw his account balance jumping so fast, he couldn't stop even when he wanted to. Stopping felt like a crime.
That was living money right there!
Every minute he rested was points he wasn't earning!
At the very least, these three days had let Anthony absolutely gorge himself on points. At present, after deducting all costs incurred over those days, he still held approximately 140,000 points in hand.
One more score, and he'd have just about enough for David's resurrection.
But oddly enough, Anthony didn't feel particularly rushed about that anymore.
When he thought about it, some of the groundwork he'd been quietly laying over these past few days should be generating results around now... If his read on the situation was correct, the final sum he needed should hit his account before long.
The forging started quickly and ended just as quickly. After producing Lachimaeus's Roar in large quantities over these past days, Anthony had grown extremely fluent at it — the actual crafting took very little time at all.
And so Lucy flopped back over on the couch, idly chatting with David beside her, savoring the rare luxury of a quiet moment.
Anthony, meanwhile, turned on the TV and settled in with his characteristic enthusiasm to watch the news.
On screen, the "Bomb Demon" incident was still the top story.
Lucy glanced at the near-nonstop coverage that had filled the screen for days, fell silent for a moment, and then — seemingly puzzled — turned to Anthony and asked:
"By the way... Mr. Smith, there's something I've never quite understood."
"Which part?" Anthony turned his head to look at her.
"Why make our actions so public in the first place?"
Lucy asked softly: "If you'd wanted to, you could have covered your tracks — handled all of this in the shadows without anyone noticing, right?"
"Ah, certainly." Anthony nodded, understanding immediately. "If I wanted to do that, it'd be easy enough. It just wasn't necessary."
Not necessary?
Lucy listened, puzzled, unable to quite figure out what Anthony was getting at.
But then she noticed Anthony looking at her — calculating something.
"Timing-wise... it should be just about time."
Suddenly, Anthony spoke — in words that meant nothing to Lucy. She blinked, just opening her mouth to say something, when her vision flickered black for a half-second.
But it passed immediately, and everything returned to normal — except for a chip still installed in her retina, which now showed an incoming call.
"Relax. Even if they've hacked in, nothing bad will happen. Your soul now exists in a significant way through the Artificer's Frame — a hack on your cyberware can't kill you directly."
Anthony waved his hand with an OK gesture. Lucy gave a small nod, then looked at the incoming call on her display and felt a creeping sense of confusion.
"So... what exactly is this?"
It was actually David who spoke first, asking Anthony. He hovered in front of Lucy, seemingly equally baffled by the current arrangement.
"Think of him as a big whale — or a hero, depending on how you look at it. Either way, he's most likely going to become our biggest backer and provide the last injection of points David needs to be resurrected."
Anthony finally raised a hand and turned off the TV, clearly in no hurry to take the call, and patiently began to explain:
"He's also the only reason we've been making such a spectacle of ourselves this whole time."
"Simply put — everything we've been doing so loudly and openly was to attract his attention... After that, things would take their natural course. He'd investigate, confirm the details, and if you met his criteria, he'd find a way to offer you something useful and recruit you."
"Most big players operate that way. This one just has his own particular quirks."
"So who is he?"
"Can't say for sure without picking up the call. But my guess is Yorinobu Arasaka."
Anthony said it calmly — and David instantly froze, then turned to stare at Anthony with an expression of absolute disbelief. Even Lucy's face shifted slightly.
"Arasaka... Yorinobu? Is it really him?"
"Hold on — Mr. Smith, if he's the one paying attention to us, doesn't that spell a lot of trouble...?"
David glanced worriedly at Lucy and then, with barely-contained urgency, asked the question. But Anthony only smiled.
"No... actually, he's one of the few where you can be a little less worried. Truth be told, I'd been racking my brain over how to get in contact with him. Now that he's reaching out himself — it's honestly a relief."
"Don't worry, David. The last installment for your resurrection has a source now. We're going to shake him down shortly — trust me, he'll be absolutely delighted."
Because this was that Yorinobu Arasaka, after all.
In Cyberpunk 2077 — the "traitor" of Arasaka Tower. Son of Saburo Arasaka, yet a genuine rebel who was actively working to tear Arasaka Tower down from the inside.
And as luck would have it... Anthony had a trump card that was tailor-made for this man.
He genuinely did not believe Yorinobu Arasaka would be unmoved.
In fact, over the past few days, Anthony had been painstakingly seeding information — even deliberately choosing specific targets — all in service of drawing Yorinobu Arasaka's attention.
In the original storyline, Yorinobu had been infuriatingly unreachable right up to the end, never calling V — but by his own account, he had a vast network of informants.
Under those conditions, as long as you made yourself obvious enough, and deliberately, through carefully planted hints, let slip that you wanted to have a word with Yorinobu Arasaka... it would all be picked up naturally by his informants and placed on his desk as intelligence.
And so, as a matter of course, everything had unfolded exactly as planned.
Yorinobu Arasaka would investigate the identity of the Bomb Demon — the woman behind the mask — and he'd find it. And Lucy's identity... was absolutely perfect for this purpose.
Extraordinarily skilled hacker. Her most important person was a legend who had ascended Arasaka Tower — and died in it. That kind of earth-shattering grudge against Arasaka Tower was the kind of thing that, once any member of that entire household caught wind of, they'd all have to agree: this one's a true-blue rebel. About as pureblooded as they come.
If Yorinobu Arasaka genuinely noticed her, Anthony was confident this man couldn't not at least entertain the thought of developing her as an informant.
Add to that the subtle hints he'd left — nudges, both overt and covert, signaling that he wanted to talk... and things had developed into exactly the situation they were in now.
As for what to do next — did that even need to be asked?
Obviously: the cheerful part where you fleece the whale!
Lucy gave Anthony one last uncertain look, then took a deep breath and answered the call.
"Hello — am I speaking with Miss Lucy? Or perhaps... the 'Bomb Demon'?"
The instant those words came through the line, Lucy's pupils contracted sharply — but she caught Anthony's signal, and held her tongue.
Anthony immediately cut in:
"Ahem — Mr. Yorinobu Arasaka, she is."
For a beat, complete silence from the other end of the line.
There's... another person here?
None of his prior intelligence reports had mentioned a partner for Lucy.
Though honestly, that wasn't the informants' fault. For all that 2077 was a hyper-developed modern society, the methods Anthony used to conceal himself were... well, a little abstract.
After all, Smith's true nature was a derivative of a Stand.
Anthony didn't move around by walking. He just picked a moment and phased through to Lucy's location.
What, you think every location still had security cameras after an incident? Seriously — if a single camera could survive after Lachimaeus's Roar went off, that'd be one hell of a quality product.
Artificer-grade construction?
"Mr. Yorinobu Arasaka — I'm Miss Lucy's agent. You may call me Commissioner Smith."
Anthony deliberated for a moment, then spoke into the phone:
"I was also the one who was trying to reach you earlier."
It took a moment, but Yorinobu Arasaka finally understood who he was dealing with — so it was this Commissioner Smith who had been quietly planting those hidden hints all along?
He tapped his knuckles against the desk surface, and after a long pause, spoke:
"Then... I'm afraid I'll need to ask about your purpose once more."
Fishing? Trying to lure me out? But why would they want to...?
He'd misjudged the situation. He hadn't anticipated the other side had someone buried this deep.
"I simply wanted to ask whether you'd be interested in investing in a business venture."
Anthony exhaled lightly, a bright smile on his face. Yorinobu Arasaka paused slightly: "A business venture?"
"Indeed. A venture... that could make your lifelong wish come true."
Yorinobu Arasaka felt a stir of something he couldn't quite suppress. He furrowed his brow, gazed out the window at Night City spread before him, and after a long silence, spoke again:
"You can speak plainly."
"We'll be going to Arasaka Tower in two days."
And with that, Anthony finally dropped the roundabout approach and said it straight: "And there's a very good chance we'll be delivering a major shock to Arasaka Tower."
David, standing nearby, felt his brain go completely numb.
He simply could not fathom why Anthony would say something like that in front of Yorinobu Arasaka.
Wait, hold on — wasn't Yorinobu Arasaka the heir to the Arasaka family?! Wasn't saying something like this to his face basically a declaration of war?!
"Oh? Tell me more."
To David's utter bewilderment, Yorinobu Arasaka's tone sounded... actually rather interested?
"I won't say too much. Let me just tell you the specific outcomes and conditions."
Anthony glanced at the time and spoke quickly:
"In two days, we'll arrive at Arasaka Tower. What Arasaka Tower will face will be an event no less significant than the one Johnny Silverhand set off. On top of that, we intend to kill Adam Smasher."
"For Arasaka Tower, a blow of that scale will inevitably trigger a great deal of subsequent turbulence. You know the specifics of that better than I do — I won't waste time elaborating."
"The reason I'm telling you all this is, of course, because we have our own objectives. I'll send you an address. If you'd be willing to invest a little in this operation — increase its odds of success — you can leave some equipment at that address as your contribution. Naturally, even if you choose not to, we'll still be doing this either way."
"That's all I have to say, Mr. Yorinobu Arasaka. The choice is yours from here. And if you'd like, you can reach us at any time."
Anthony finished, signaled Lucy, and she ended the call. She tested her connection and confirmed the hacked device had restored itself, then disconnected immediately.
Then she looked at Anthony, her voice a little uneasy:
"So... will he actually accept?"
"I still find it kind of hard to believe..."
Anthony didn't reply in words. He simply tapped Lucy's display panel.
On it was the final message Yorinobu Arasaka had just sent.
[Yorinobu Arasaka: Get here as soon as possible.]
"See?" Anthony said. "What did I tell you?"
And finally, he smiled, turned to David, and said in a mysteriously cheerful tone:
"In any case... David. You can start preparing for your resurrection."
"And — are you ready to go toe-to-toe with Adam Smasher?"
David: "?"
____
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