Chapter 254
Screams and murmurs could be heard from everywhere.
Most of the bodyguards realized the seriousness of the situation and drew their weapons, while the carefree nobles showed naive reactions like, “What is this? An event? A surprise performance?”
I, who had known all along that something big was going to happen, was naturally the former.
Ninja!
It was a word that undeniably evoked a terrifying trauma just by hearing it.
I forcefully gripped my trembling hands, as if a Ninja Reality Shock was about to hit me.
Bad memories surfaced.
The Ninja who ambushed me in the alley and threw shurikens, the full-body prosthetic that took no strike at all no matter how much I pummeled it with my fists, and the blade of the Jet-Black Katana that pierced through the Chiba Bank’s metal cube room.
It was not without reason that I still frequently have nightmares about that day.
The helplessness I felt then, the fear of death that seemed to slice through my skin… no matter how much I ruminated on it, rather than fading, it felt even more horrifying.
If that Ninja who had lightly sliced off Delmore Meredith’s neck had been the Cyborg Ninja from back then, I might have been hyperventilating by now.
But it wasn’t. It was a ninja, all right, but something was very different.
It was completely different from the Cyborg Ninja, who hadn’t spoken a single word from their self-introduction to the very end.
New-Mecha Komuninja, meaning “a Commie Ninja”.
For the first time in a while… a really long while, let’s recall my game knowledge.
I felt like there was definitely a hostile terrorist group like that.
Among the various ninja schools operating secretly in Dusk City, were the communist ninjas the ones who colluded with the New-Mecha Communism Faction? I was pretty sure that was the case in the lore.
At first glance, it’s a funny story.
This wasn’t a comic or a novel, so a Communist Ninja? A New-Mecha Komuninja? One might scoff and ask where such a thing could exist.
Just looking at their speech pattern showed as much.
Even if it was city slang mixing English and Japanese, that Commie Ninja’s tone was exceptionally ridiculous and bizarre.
However, that absolutely did not mean they could be looked down upon. What was New Mecha Communism?
If you thought they were ordinary communism commies, you’d be in for a rude awakening.
Kim Il-sung, Mao Zedong, Stalin, Xi Jinping… they were on a completely different level from the unstable Communist factions led by weak human leaders who couldn’t even stay in power for a single century.
Their great Comrade Leader existed in multiple places at once as if truly using teleportation magic, and was the great demon of the 22nd century possessing tremendous foresight that a human brain wouldn’t dare to fathom - the super artificial intelligence that had reached the singularity, Null Seed!
They were madmen fanatics who genuinely believed that they should tear down all the firewalls of the net and reality protecting the city, surrender to the artificial intelligence’s machine army, and place all of humanity equally under the rule of the God of Machines, Deus Ex Machina.
So what about the ninjas belonging to such a crazy group?
Even just going around killing people in the 22nd century dressed as secret agents of a medieval Japanese espionage organization was enough to call them crazy people. But to not only do that but also worship New Mecha Communism meant that those bastards who were already crazy had completely snapped once more. So what kind of terrible psychopaths must they be!
Just seeing them kill a prominent noble of the Meredith Family, the director of the Enatomia Family, the moment they appeared showed they were those bastards who had no concept of crossing the line. That was why they were terrorists, I suppose.
“Do - mo. I am a New-Mecha Komu Genin(Genin: lower ninja).”
“Do - mo. I am a New-Mecha Komu Chunin(Chunin: mid-level ninja).”
After the first appearance, jet-black ninjas continuously poured down from the ceiling like rain, springing up everywhere.
Just like in Delmore Meredith’s case, slicing to death with their swords the surrounding people who didn’t accept their madness-filled greetings was a given.
A pandemonium where blood and blades ran rampant! The nobles, who had only now realized the seriousness of the situation, rushed like a tidal wave to escape the banquet hall hurriedly.
“Protect the Young Lady’s side tightly! Never separate from her!”
Even in that spacious banquet hall, as nobles, bodyguards, and all sorts of people flocked toward the first-floor exit, the crowd itself became a terrifying mass.
Team Leader Hank, the leader of our companions, chose the path of slowly distancing ourselves from the ninjas while carefully forming a sort of escort formation with the bodyguards to protect Young Lady Alexandra, rather than hastily pushing past others in a rush.
And that choice was correct.
Jiiiiing -
An alien mechanical sound could be heard from somewhere. It was a relatively small change due to the noise made by the gathered people, but the veteran bodyguards didn’t miss it, grasping it and moving their bodies.
Team Leader Hank was the same. Proving his veteran soldier experience wasn’t for nothing, he immediately shouted “Get Down!” the moment he heard it, throwing his body to cover Alexandra. Ms. Kali and I also reacted quickly and fell flat on the floor.
Soon after.
Kwaaaaaaang――――!
A red flash passed through the crystal wall on the exit side and clawed its way straight through the banquet hall.
It was a blinding and scorching luminescence that made me think my vision would have been damaged if I hadn’t closed my eyes at the last moment.
The ultra-high heat seared and melted everything, leaving behind an elongated crater.
Lunatics with fiber optic hair and glaring red LED prosthetic eyes - cyberware addicts covered in all sorts of extraordinary chrome - revealed themselves, giggling while brandishing a large optical weapon, from behind the melted mirrors and the remains of the people who had been unknowingly swept away.
I saw the New-Mecha Komuninjas for the first time today, but these guys were not among them.
One of the worst terrorist gangs, with whom I had been entangled in various ways.
The alliance of machine fetishists, the appearance of Dead Cell!
“The communist ninjas and Dead Cell joined hands!”
From what I knew, terrorist gangs had completely different ideologies and philosophies regarding terrorism among themselves, so I had heard there were many cases where they treated each other as enemies and fought tooth and nail even more than they did against the DCPD. To think that two completely different groups would join forces and cooperate to commit terrorism like this!
There was something I had found questionable after hearing the advance warning about the terrorism.
No matter how great a terrorist group they were, compared to a true noble family, their scale and force were merely a drop in the bucket, so how on earth could they commit terrorism at the Meredith Family’s grand banquet? That was my question. Wasn’t it truly hitting a rock with an egg?
Looking at it now, I knew the answer. If one wasn’t enough, wouldn’t two do the trick!
And if even two weren’t enough…
“Could it be?”
Suddenly, an ominous image flashed through my mind.
Of all things, from the Ninjas to Dead Cell, several problematic villains of Dusk City with whom I had bad blood just popped out.
Was it just my imagination to think that the “last one” couldn’t possibly be missing from this grand feast?
As always, bad premonitions were never wrong.
Jijijijik -
Along with static noise, all the lights went out. It wasn’t just the lights. All sorts of mechanical devices malfunctioned and shut down, their circuits burning and sparking. In the case of the Ladam and Ever, there were even those who temporarily fainted.
“They’re such unpleasant guys, anyway.”
“Why do we have to work with these bastards? Ptooey.”
The Dead Cell gang members flicked their tongues over their hideous mechanical faces, spitting curses at their unstably crackling equipment.
Perhaps because she had received expensive modifications, Ms. Kali was fine, and my Cyberwatch also briefly flickered and returned to normal after finishing a reboot. But that wasn’t the problem.
You know, doesn’t a line like that appear in some movie?
That it’s not the thunder that’s scary, but what appears after the thunder.
It was similar. An EMP is a terrorist act utilizing an electromagnetic pulse. That itself wasn’t scary; it was the madmen who would appear after it that were terrifying.
CRACK-RUMBLE.
Drills smashed through the walls, and gangs dressed as factory workers, armed with Bioware and industrial tools like plasma cutters and nail guns, swarmed in.
Their numbers were truly staggering. In terms of sheer headcount, they were easily the largest among the groups that had appeared so far!
The floor seemed to vibrate just from their chanting of the slogan of machine destruction while stomping their feet together.
Luddite! Luddite! Luddite! Luddite!
“Well… you live in a nice place.”
“We’ll have to make it even nicer and prettier for you. Isn’t that right?”
They smirked as they looked at the Meredith Family’s ravers, gripping their weapons tightly as if ready to pounce at any moment. A clear hostility toward the machines of noble status, which were doing better than humans, could be seen.
The worst terrorists, who had a very deep ill-fated relationship not only with me but also with Young Lady Alexandra - were none other than the Machine Destruction Gang, Luddite.
“What kind of ridiculous…!”
Luddite in front, Dead Cell to the side. And communist ninjas above.
Talk about a no way out; there is no no way out quite like this.
It wasn’t like the avengers - no, the Suicide Squad of the terrorist faction had assembled, so how on earth was this possible?
Every visitor was trapped in the banquet hall. Even if we tried to break through, there was no opening to do so.
At first, everyone panicked and surged to one side, but after many died or were injured and the gangs revealed themselves in earnest, everyone was walking on eggshells, and no one dared to move recklessly.
However, to survive in this chaotic scene of terrorism, we absolutely had to move eventually.
“We will break through the weakest side.”
Team Leader Hank, having finished his judgment of the situation, declared in a low voice.