"Return to the Past."
With one hand gripping a few tied-together meat baskets and the other holding a knocked-out wild boar, Riku activated his Time Rewind ability.
The Time Rewind interface popped up with world selection options, and Riku chose Cyberpunk 2077.
[Traversal Complete]
[Current World: Cyberpunk 2077]
In a flash, Riku vanished from the forest and reappeared in his familiar shack.
The meat baskets came with him, but the unconscious wild boar in his hand was gone—it didn't make the trip.
"As expected, living things don't work, huh?"
Riku sighed, not too disappointed. He'd figured as much.
The shack was dim. He set the meat baskets down, flicked on the light, and pulled back the curtains, letting some life into the lifeless room.
Outside the window, Night City hadn't changed a bit, still glowing with neon lights, weaving unattainable dreams for everyone.
"Network connected. Time synced."
Back in the shack, Riku's brain implant, offline for days, automatically reconnected to the net.
"Hey, Devil, you there?"
"Riku? You still alive, choom?"
"Got trouble? Hit up the Coyote."
As soon as the connection kicked in, Riku got a flood of messages from Sasha, V, and Jack Welles.
He noticed a few missed calls too, all from them, from the past couple of days.
He'd been gone for about ten days, give or take. V and the others hadn't reached out at first, but in the last two days, they started to get curious.
I mean, ten days without a single message? If you're still alive, you'd at least ping back, right? Going completely offline was weird.
"I'm here, cat-head lady. What's up?"
Riku shot a message to Sasha first, then sent V an "Alive" and an "OK" to Jack Welles.
"Choom! You're actually still kicking?!"
V replied first. It was already past midnight, but this street kid clearly wasn't sleeping.
"Way to make it sound like I shouldn't be. I'm back in Night City, chilling in my room," Riku shot back, rolling his eyes as he let V know he was back.
V didn't reply again. Riku set the meat baskets down, scratching his head. His tiny fridge definitely wasn't gonna cut it for all this.
"Gotta rent a big freezer," he decided. This was just the "startup cost" for his new venture.
Getting a big freezer wasn't hard. As long as you had the eddies, the building's rental office had every appliance you could want.
Riku set the baskets down and headed for the door, but then he caught a familiar scent.
Before the knock came, he opened the door and saw V. His expression froze for a second.
V's red hair was down, soft and smooth, not slicked to one side like usual. She was in fuzzy pajamas, looking kinda cute—way different from her usual vibe.
"Choom! Did you just crawl out of a slaughterhouse?!"
But that cuteness? Total illusion. The moment V opened her mouth, it shattered.
As Riku opened the door, V pinched her nose in disgust, taking several steps back.
"You're not chopping up bodies in there, are you? No need for that hassle—just toss 'em in an alley, and the scavs'll clean it up."
V eyed him suspiciously, her face scrunched up.
The blood stench in the room was intense, and Riku was covered in it.
"No way. I just got a haul of real meat. Freshly processed," Riku said, stepping aside to let V peek into the room. No need to yell and let the whole neighborhood hear.
V, still pinching her nose, stepped inside. When she saw the meat baskets, her eyes went wide as saucers.
"You're saying… this is all real meat?"
She looked at Riku, disbelief written all over her face. She even stopped pinching her nose—the blood smell was starting to smell like eddies to her.
"100% real meat. Still dripping blood," Riku said, throwing up a thumbs-up. This was one-of-a-kind in Night City.
Deer, wild boar, wolf, rabbit—a random mix. You wouldn't find this stuff in Night City.
"Realer than the Slaughterhouse's?" V grinned. "70% real meat, still dripping blood" was the Slaughterhouse's slogan.
But she'd bet anything their "meat" wasn't real—at least not proper meat. Just synthetic junk.
"Don't compare that bug meat to this. This is pure, natural, no-pollution stuff, got it?" Riku waved her off.
The Slaughterhouse was a sub-brand of All Foods, and All Foods was under Biotechnica's thumb. In the synthetic meat game, Biotechnica was the undisputed king, using worms, crickets, whatever—cheap and low-cost.
Their protein farms out in the Badlands supplied most of Night City's meat and meat substitutes, feeding half the city's protein needs.
And the "meat" sold by All Foods' brands? Mostly from Biotechnica's protein farms.
"You didn't sneak into some nature reserve or raid a corpo's private farm, did you?"
V picked up a chunk of meat, inspecting it. She'd never eaten real meat, but she'd had synthetic stuff. This was clearly different.
Take All Foods' bestseller, Easy Beef. Who the hell makes beef into thin, stringy strips? You'd think it was duck intestine or something.
"Don't worry about where it came from. I've got a pipeline—endless supply. You and Jack just find buyers," Riku said with a smug, dragon-king grin. No risky business for him—this meat was safe, and the supply was steady.
"Don't worry, choom. This stuff'll sell like hotcakes. If you can keep this coming, we're gonna be swimming in eddies!"
V's cybernetic eyes practically turned into eurodollar signs as she stared at the baskets. This was a goldmine!
"I'm gonna go rent a big freezer. Stay here and keep an eye on things—don't wander off," Riku said, shaking his head at V's money-hungry look. He turned and headed out to secure a freezer for the meat.
"We're rich, we're rich…"
V ignored him, muttering to herself, lost in her money-grubbing daydreams, already calculating how much each chunk could sell for.
Riku couldn't help but chuckle. Was it really that big a deal?
It was kinda funny, though. This world had mind-blowing tech that'd leave you speechless, but a piece of real meat? That was a rare luxury.
Maybe that's the real deal with high-tech, low-life. Cutting-edge cyberware everywhere, but a plain old piece of real meat was rarer and more precious.
(End of Chapter)