Chapter 602 - 573: Dog Town Night Talk

Residents of Dog Town theoretically don’t need to buy a house. You just need to find an empty spot and make sure no one robs, ambushes, or injects you with a sedative while you sleep, selling you to the Scavengers as merchandise.

If Burger King only had three people, those three would have to take turns keeping watch, but now they have the Animal Gang as bodyguards.

The thirty-some members of the Animal Gang can guarantee the safety of an entire floor, so Lille took over one floor.

"... Elizabeth Cress Street, that seems to be the name of a former president of New America."

V pointed to a road sign in the distance and felt a vague familiarity with the name.

In an abandoned building, Lille was directing the Animal Gang to set up equipment, and if all went well, this would become his temporary base in Dog Town for a while.

One can’t deny that having cybernetic equipment is comfortable. After reactivating the neural interface, Lille could directly upload the schematics into the prosthetic eyes of the gang members, showing them how to set up and wire the equipment in their vision.

This feature was stolen from the visual sharing function of the Qilusi Eye plugin, which Lille had slightly upgraded, allowing the simple-minded Animal Gang members to handle technical tasks.

That way, Lille could slack off.

This visual plugin should become a standard plugin for the Hamburg Criminal Group.

"A former president of New America, who held nine terms. Honestly, she was a capable woman, but no matter how capable, she couldn’t handle traitors."

The Wild Man King finished assembling the last piece of the antenna dish, and after Lille confirmed it was functioning correctly, he gave him a thumbs-up, signaling they could rest.

[OCT Network Expansion—Dog Town]

[Description: An emergency expansion of the information network, adopting a low-profile communication mode to remain covert, mainly for liaising with criminal gangs near Taiping State]

[Little Octopus: Boss, it’s done.]

V picked up the popping-out Little Octopus and poked it while holding it to her chest: "This little thing stays with me from now on?"

[Little Octopus: Boss said I’m useless now and to stay here and train QAQ]

"We currently don’t need the Octopus Arm, and even if we do, I can handle simple movements myself."

In Lille’s Reality Distortion Swastika lived Munemasa, collaborating with Atlas on design work and expanding Lille’s old network knowledge and data.

All of Little Octopus’s core systems were in V, primarily used for high-power operations of the Reality Distortion Swastika.

Bang!

A gunshot rang out from outside the window, and the two looked out to see a junkie who had just committed suicide on the street.

Staring at the corpse, V suddenly asked, "Once your body recovers, what do we do next?"

"Next..." Lille repeated the question, didn’t answer, and instead said, "Some things can’t be stopped once they start. We’ve severed the direct connection between companies and gangs, foiled Ye Group’s plot, and weakened the relationships between Night City’s municipal government and various companies..."

"Why bring that up? Don’t tell me you’re an anti-corporate supremacist too?"

"No." Lille shrugged, deciding to rephrase it, "You’re the street boss now, would you allow anyone to provoke your dignity every day?"

V was indeed poorly educated and lacked knowledge, but she wasn’t dumb.

The "street boss" in that remark referred to the corporations.

Seeing that V seemed to understand something, Lille continued, "To put it another way, we have too many underlings right now... If we retire now, no one would take it well."

"So we just keep doing this until we die?"

"Some things can’t be stopped once they start." Lille shrugged, "Remember that job in Atlanta?"

"I remember it well." V glanced at Lille, "Sometimes it feels like the skinny monkey I picked up off that Scavenger operating table isn’t the same person as now."

"That’s what I mean—"

"I get it. Once things start, they don’t stop easily."

They stared at the busy construction machines in silence for a while before V spoke again, "Did we ever find out about that earlier job? I remember you said the raid on the Voodoo Gang was to... figure out something?"

"To figure out if Dante investigating Hot and the Dante hired by the Ye Group were the same person."

"So what’s the result?"

"It’s hard to say. So far, we can only confirm that investigating Hot has some connection with Moon agents, and Hot seems to have some unspeakable secrets with Arasaka."

"What do you think the secret is?"

"There are too many possibilities. The information isn’t sufficient. If I make assumptions, it might lead my thinking astray."

"So, you don’t know anything?"

"I should say we lack solid evidence."

Lille had a hypothesis, but it was difficult to confirm.

"Hey..." V said, returning to the previous topic, "Although we can’t retire permanently, taking a vacation shouldn’t be difficult, right..."

"Like visiting those places from your Super Dreams? Is there really a place like that left in this world?"

"Work hard, and soon everywhere will be like that."

V’s expression changed, and she kicked Lille’s butt: "Can you talk about something other than work?"

"Uh..." Lille rubbed his butt, "They definitely exist. Why, feeling a bit eager? Doesn’t seem like you’re the traveling type."

"I—" V paused, "Jack said that after he and Misty got married, they definitely wanted to honeymoon in a place like that."

"That’s... going there in person might be tough—"

"Tough means it’s possible? It can’t be harder than infiltrating the Biotechnology Building, right?"

Lille chuckled, "If you put it that way, then it’s definitely possible."

"So we..."

"First, we need to finish this job." Lille shrugged, "Night City is far more dangerous than it appears. Get some rest, tomorrow I’ll contact Hans to see if there’s a suitable identity and location to infiltrate."

V swallowed her words, glaring at Lille and giving him another kick—

"Night City is dangerous? I think you should worry about yourself first, buddy!"

"I’m protecting you from jinxing it!"

Nearby, Jack and the Wild Man King were lifting weights with Matt, sharing fitness tips.

But seeing Lille and V’s actions, Jack suddenly sighed.

He sighed, and the Wild Man King glanced curiously: "Why are you sighing?"

"I..." Jack glanced at the Wild Man King—

The Wild Man King seemed to be a woman.

So she definitely wouldn’t understand what he was thinking—considering her wild appearance.

"You wouldn’t understand."

"Why wouldn’t I understand?" The Wild Man King glanced at Lille and V by the window, "You’re thinking about a girl, aren’t you?"

"You... understand?"

"Of course I understand! I’m the boss of the Animal Gang! Not some newbie!" The Wild Man King added, "Actually, it’s you guys who wouldn’t understand my stuff."

"What don’t we understand?"

"I like young guys with big guns."

"... Then indeed I don’t understand you." Jack paused and looked at Matt, who also paused, and added to the Wild Man King, "Though we at Burger King are lawless, seeing big shots as idiots, mainly dealing in this line of work, we don’t mess with underage boys..."

"I’m talking about young men, not little boys! Besides, everyone in the city knows you obliterated the Tiger Claw Gang? No need to repeat that to me!"