“Are you done reading, Carl?”

“Almost, just the last bit left.”

Carl replied to Oliver’s question.

The three of them had already left Vik’s clinic and found a small roadside diner to sit in. After making sure there was no one at the nearby tables, Carl began reading out the details of his new identity to Jack and Oliver.

“Gaius, 17 years old, born in Heywood. An abandoned baby left on the streets, picked up and raised by an unknown scavenger. When he was four, the scavenger who took care of him was caught in a gang shootout and died on the street. He survived by digging through trash cans until he was twelve, when he caught Father’s attention and started working for him. Now, he’s seventeen.”

“Sounds exactly like a kid who grew up in Heywood.”

Jack commented as a local of the district.

“Is that kind of situation common?”

Carl asked, and Jack responded:

“Not exactly common, but definitely not rare. Old Freight was the same. I remember he didn’t even officially register with NCPD until he was twenty-one. Before that, his life story was pretty much identical to Gaius’s.”

“So, no issues?”

“Seems fine.”

Hearing Jack’s confirmation, Carl flipped through Arasaka Academy’s enrollment documents, then entered Gaius’s information into the official website. A payment screen immediately popped up.

“By the way, would it look suspicious for some street kid to suddenly have 10,000 eddies and use it to enroll in school?”

Before making the transfer, Carl decided to ask.

“What’s so weird about it? Any normal person could have at least 10,000 saved up.”

That was Oliver’s answer, but after hearing it, Carl shot him a skeptical look.

“If I remember correctly, didn’t someone once tell me that before completing his first gig, he barely had 2,000 eddies to his name? Are you sure you’re the right person to be saying this?”

“Hey, don’t misquote me—I had less than 1,500, okay?”

Oliver waved his hand dismissively, then looked at Carl, whose face had returned to normal after leaving the clinic.

“How does the face-shifting feel? Easy to switch?”

“It’s alright. But every time it shifts, I can feel the nerves in my face getting pulled. Honestly, if I do it too fast, it actually hurts a little. Feels like this thing shouldn’t be used too many times—otherwise, I might end up with phantom pain in my facial nerves. I should probably have Vik remove it as soon as the job’s done.”

“Well, if it were perfect, Militech wouldn’t have let it get passed down to their underlings. R&D guys are always like this—ignore all the side effects and just get the thing working first.”

“That’s one way to do research, I guess. But usually, human test subjects aren’t supposed to be part of the equation.”

As Carl spoke, he noticed a waiter approaching their table, so he immediately stopped talking about the mission.

“Gentlemen, what would you like to order?”

Oliver: “Large pork cutlet bowl, with a Zen-brand tea drink.”

Jack: “Extra-spicy Italian sausage pizza, large. And a bottle of My Will.”

Hearing their orders, Carl instinctively translated them in his mind.

Worm-synth patty rice bowl, Japanese-style tea foam drink, locust pizza, and diluted ultra-sour lemon juice.

“What about you, sir?”

As the waiter turned to Carl, he had already decided on his order.

“A glass of real water, mac and cheese, and…”

Carl hesitated for a moment. Under Jack and Oliver’s surprised gazes, he added a serving of fried meatballs.

“Understood. Please wait a moment, your order will be ready soon.”

After the waiter noted down their orders and left, Oliver was the first to break the silence, unable to hold back his surprise.

“Did you just order that for us, Carl?”

“If it’s for us, we could’ve ordered it ourselves.”

Jack, also looking astonished, added his comment, but Carl’s response was firm:

“I’m going to try again.”

“Mano, you sure about this?”

Jack double-checked and, out of concern, said, “You don’t have to force yourself to get used to this food. Isn’t real pork about to be shipped in soon? Just wait and eat actual meat then.”

“I’m not trying to adapt to synth food—I just don’t have a choice for the mission.”

Carl pointed at his face. “I can’t stomach synth food, but a kid who grew up on the streets, spent his childhood digging through dumpsters, suddenly gagging at synthetic meals? That’d be a dead giveaway at Arasaka Academy.”

“You really don’t have to put yourself through this, Carl. If it blows your cover, we can just find another way to do the job. You don’t have to suffer for it.”

Oliver also tried to dissuade him. For both of them, seeing Carl try to force himself to eat synth food was even harder to believe than him accepting cyberware. The latter was just a normal part of life for street kids, but the former… based on Carl’s past reactions, that was a whole different level of horrifying. The way his face turned pale from just one bite before—it was so bad that now they were the ones trying to talk him out of it.

Between close friends, there was no such thing as forcing someone to eat something they absolutely hated.

“No need to say more. Trust me.”

Since Carl had made up his mind, he wasn’t going to change it.

Four minutes later, their food arrived.

Oliver and Jack had lost all interest in their own meals. They simply watched Carl with great concern as he hesitated, but then slowly picked up a soft, mushy meatball with his fork and put it in his mouth.

The way he looked—tense, focused, almost like he was disarming a bomb that could go off at any second.

The meatball entered his mouth. His upper and lower teeth moved, pulling it off the fork before he chewed a few times.

“Ugh…”

Carl felt his stomach churning, and his throat convulsed slightly as his body instinctively rejected the food. But he forced himself to keep chewing.

The meatball was soft and sticky. The texture felt like worms wriggling around inside his mouth. Controlling his facial muscles to avoid showing any discomfort, Carl continued chewing.

The sensation on his molars… felt like stepping on a dried cockroach, its last twitching movements scraping against his teeth.

Gulp.

In the end, Carl felt like he was swallowing a slug that refused to go down his throat, sliding down painfully slow.

One meatball in, and he was already drenched in sweat.

“I… don’t think I can do this.”

Carl gave up.

PS: Don’t think I’m exaggerating—this is based on my own experience. For some reason, I have a visceral reaction to raw tomatoes. I can eat ketchup, cooked tomatoes, no problem, but biting into a raw one makes me gag and throw up instantly. Been like that my whole life.

By the way, remembering your friends’ food preferences isn’t overkill—it’s just being considerate. I actually keep a note on my phone listing all my close friends’ dietary preferences, so when I cook or treat them to a meal, I make sure they don’t have to eat something they hate. For example, one of my best friends is just like David—he can’t drink carbonated beverages at all. Others have issues with digesting cheese, or gag at brown sugar water. Everyone’s different, so if you’re hosting, it’s always good to be mindful. Some food intolerances aren’t just about taste—they can land people in the hospital.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep