[This train is about to arrive at the Border Alert Zone. Esteemed martial artists, please prepare your entry and exit permits...]

Inside the brightly lit carriage, a kind and friendly smiling face spoke eloquently to the passengers in their seats.

[In addition, to thank all martial artists for your support of the Solares Group, our company provides the highest-quality supplies, equipment and coordinate maps within the Border Alert Zone and all new users receive at least 20% off～]

‘Solares…’

Hearing that name that everyone in the hive city knew, Li Chen’s gaze flickered slightly.

‘Tsk, those bad women really won’t go away. But come to think of it, even the rail transit train I’m riding is probably manufactured by one of her subsidiaries, huh?’

Looking at the properly polite yet slightly distant artificial intelligence on the screen, Li Chen’s mind had already summoned a certain figure.

‘No wonder people say there are three things a hive city citizen can’t avoid in this life—birth, death and Solares.’

And that woman was now the highest ruler of Solares.

“Just a low-tier martial artist and you want to apply to be my bodyguard?” [TL: Italics here are for past conversations.]

Golden hair radiated a chilling nobility inside an elegant manor.

In those arrogant-looking crimson pupils, there was faint surprise.

“I’m curious. Who gave you the confidence?”

Her hands folded on her long legs as she leaned forward slightly.

The fullness at her chest, half-hidden and half-revealed, was practically calling out.

Her whole body exuded a tempting aura.

To Li Chen back then, Daili Solares was dazzlingly alluring, making people unconsciously want to sink into her.

“Because I can help you.”

Bowing slightly, Li Chen replied with confidence.

“Help me? What can you help me with?”

The business genius, Ms. Daili, narrowed her eyes.

That powerful pressure around her abruptly rose.

“A mere low-tier martial artist—what could you possibly help me with? You were even expelled from the mercenary group you founded yourself like some stray dog by the roadside.”

Faced with Daili’s rude provocation, Li Chen only continued to meet it with a smile.

“Just like you, isn’t it?”

Li Chen analyzed with certainty.

“Maybe to others, you’re a high and mighty uppermost-hive aristocratic princess. But to me, you’re nothing more than a caged bird trapped in a golden cage, depressed and unable to realize your ambitions. And I’m the one who can forge the key that unlocks your shackles.”

Li Chen wasn’t lying.

He really did accomplish that plan that had seemed like pure fantasy inside that luxurious uppermost-hive manor.

He helped Daili hold onto everything when her situation was perilous and she was not only being exiled but was even about to be stripped of her right of succession.

‘But what did I get out of it?’

[Hello, esteemed martial artists.]

On the projected screen, after a long string of commercials, that familiar face stood out all the more under the eye-catching spotlight.

[I am the newly appointed president of the Solares Group, Daili.]

[This group has been established for more than four hundred years. Since the founding of Pureland City, we have been the most reliable partner of humanity’s last refuge and the parent company of workplaces for the vast majority of citizens.]

[Our company has always upheld a win-win principle of benefiting others and ourselves when executing our strategies. Especially for all martial artists, we provide the most help possible. Join us. You may not immediately receive monetary returns, but you will gain the opportunity to leap like a fish becoming a dragon and raise your potential...]

Beep.

Unable to stand that face any longer, Li Chen irritably shut off the screen.

[Dear member Mr. Li Chen, your VIP ad-removal service for this week has 3 remaining uses. Would you like to use it?]

‘Even turning off ads is this annoying?’

Li Chen rolled his eyes.

‘They talk about win-win, mutual benefit and reciprocity but it’s all a scam.’

Beep—

He pressed the option hard, finally removing that face from the screen and only then did Li Chen breathe a sigh of relief.

However, even though the projected screen vanished, the long-sealed painful memories in his mind rose up like a shadow clinging close.

Pa-da pa-da.

In the pouring rain, surrounded by many high-tier martial artists, Daili coldly turned her face aside.

“Sorry, Li Chen, but… you’re no longer of value.”

“No… value?”

Li Chen’s pupils shrank, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly, “Miss, you’re not joking, are you?”

He reached out, about to grab her shoulder.

Pa.

But another arm forcibly yanked his wrist.

A voluptuous middle-aged woman in a butler’s uniform said indifferently, “Mr. Li Chen, you heard what Miss said. Get lost. The uppermost-hive arena of fame and profit isn’t a place for a mongrel from a slum like you.”

“Y-You…”

Li Chen blinked in disbelief.

“Hah, fine. Miss, I’ll ask you one last question. Is what your butler said your thoughts too?”

“…”

After a moment of silence, Daili took a breath, but she didn’t answer directly.

“To thank you for your hard work these past years, I’ve ordered them to transfer funds into your account. Let’s… part on good terms.”

Shua.

The butler held up a large umbrella and left amid the escort of many martial artists.

“Tsk, a kept pretty boy from the lower-hive slums who’s only relying on his looks and he still has the nerve to keep being Miss’s bodyguard? With his low-tier martial artist strength? Why doesn’t he go piss and look at himself in the mirror?”

Mockery surged instantly through the tense atmosphere.

In the poetic rainwater that looked so beautiful in the eyes of uppermost-hive big shots, Li Chen stood alone, staring at the departing Daili, his clenched fists bulging with veins.

‘Power. I need power.’

Finally, after staring blankly for a long time, Li Chen made up his mind.

But he failed.

Unlike back then, when he had Miss Daili as a banner and resources, relying on only himself and his ordinary talent, even though Li Chen knew the main storyline, he couldn’t change his own weakness.

In the hive city where the weak were prey, he was at the bottom of the food chain.

‘If I had something to rely on like other transmigrators… would the ending have been different?’

Thud.

With the swaying motion, Li Chen slowly woke, bleary-eyed.

He opened his eyes and saw the train slowly docking in midair.

The huge carriage was sparsely populated.

It wasn’t because of the expensive ticket price of luxurious first class, but rather…

Li Chen looked out the window at the huge electronic display.

Border Alert Zone.

A place belonging exclusively to martial artists, those special individuals who, since the Great Catastrophe, had undergone genetic mutation, possessed extraordinary power and dominated the order of the new world.

And Li Chen had once been one of them—though only at the very bottom.

In the past, even after pouring in endless effort on the path of martial arts, Li Chen could never break through the bottleneck and wasn’t even an official first-tier martial artist.

‘But this time, things are different.’

Glancing at the familiar player panel, confidence rose naturally and the fatigue caused by those painful memories vanished without a trace.

[This train has arrived. This train has arrived.]

Ka—

The train doors swung open.

Outside the carriage, it was bustling and packed with people, full of everyday smoke and heat, forming a sharp contrast with the clean and orderly, headlight-bright interior.

“Esteemed martial artist, please, have mercy. Please pity my little brother.”

Wearing patched, shabby clothes and holding an old, battered machine, a pitiful young girl cried while hugging a handsome little boy.

“Ah, Martial Artist sir, are you going out to hunt in the outskirts? Welcome to hire our agency guide. Minimum is only 1,000 credits!”

A smiling information broker locked onto a target and enthusiastically bragged.

“You want to find someone under the Solares Consortium? Oh my, ma’am, this is your first time in the hunting zone, right? Solares is good, sure, but their commission is terrifying. After one hunt, you might not even earn enough to cover the hiring fees and you could even lose money.”

“Come on, come on—latest military-grade tech, combat agents and yes, we also do buyback services!”

“Appraisal of pre-civilization ruin items—first appraisal free, second half price! Limited slots, first come first served～～”

Adjusting his combat suit, Li Chen walked into the crowd with a calm expression.

“Eh, handsome brother, are you alone?”

“Wow, male martial artists are really rare.”

The moment Li Chen stepped out of the carriage, he immediately became the center of attention.

However, faced with the surging crowd and the local residents who looked difficult to deal with, Li Chen simply unhurriedly took a badge from his pocket and pinned it to his chest.

“S-Security Bureau?”

Shua—

Almost the instant Li Chen produced the badge, those locals who made a living around the Border Alert Zone scattered in fear like rats in a sewer.

And that was indeed how it was.

In front of the Security Bureau officers who enforced the hive city’s laws and order, those rat-like people who did small business and never paid taxes were, in plain terms, “criminals.”

But after the locals fled, there were still a few well-dressed figures who did not move at all.

And Li Chen walked straight up to one of them without hesitation.

“Hey, is Weasel here?”

He asked a ponytailed girl who looked young, extremely nervous and had obvious freckles on her face.

“Weasel… you mean Miss Caroline?”

“Yeah, tell her an old acquaintance is here and I want to bring her some business.”

“Business… sorry, what kind of business do you want to do?”

Lowering her head, the freckled girl timidly stole a glance at Li Chen from the corner of her eye.

‘Mm, he’s really handsome. No, no, what am I thinking? I just started interning and I already ran into a big deal?’

“I want a detailed coordinate map of the desert zone and…”

Touching the badge on his chest, Li Chen thought for a moment.

“Equipment that can disguise the activity range of a locator’s coordinate positioning.”

‘Sorry, Xiao Wei.’

Stroking the “talisman” his fiancée had specially applied for him, something with extraordinary influence in the hive city, Li Chen muttered guiltily.

‘But I didn’t mean to lie to you. Just this once.’

Thinking of his fiancée who always cared for him in every possible way, Li Chen’s heart was full of guilt over his “deception.”

Maybe… after he got back, he should buy her a gift…