Illegal Game center

Naturally, the game center is an illegal facility.

Under Dusk City's Law on the Management of Electronic Drugs, autonomous electronic gaming activities by individuals or small groups of fewer than 20 people are not separately sanctioned, in the spirit of respecting individual freedom.

However, when it comes to a group electronic gaming activity in a facility or group accommodating 20 or more people, the story changes.

In principle, if the City Police find a large number of people enjoying VR electronic drugs simultaneously in the same space, regardless of the reason, they must immediately shut down the location upon discovery, arrest everyone inside without a warrant, and detain them in the detention center of a nearby DCPD branch.

Simple users of such large-scale electronic gaming facilities are merely detained, put through an interrogation process, and then released on bail after paying a deposit. However, employees who illegally manage and distribute electronic drugs and gaming facilities can face imprisonment after arrest or even immediate execution on the spot, at the discretion of the City Police.

It is a truly brutal law.

The reason I know this so well is that before obtaining a game center pass, I did a lot of research because I thought, ‘I heard it's illegal; could this put me in danger….’

And the conclusion I reached through my research was that it is safe, as you can tell from my current presence as a member of the game center.

The reason is that the law is not properly enforced.

The intent of the sanctions bill regarding game centers is to prevent gaming facilities from exploiting addicts en masse to mine virtual currency, and from forcibly dragging in perfectly fine workers and turning them into derelicts, thereby negatively impacting the soundness and development potential of society.

It was a very grandiose reason, but in reality, it was the result of other megacorps and Large Corporation Corporate Groups lobbying the DCPD and the Dusk City Administration to tie the hands of the electronic drug-based emerging corporation led by Isiho and the New Alibaba Group.

Since regulating VR games themselves would likely cause severe backlash, they shifted their aim to large-scale entertainment facilities like game centers instead.

And despite taking a direct hit from the law, the game centers remained strong.

Not only did the City Police not actively engage in investigations due to the defensive lobbying directed at the DCPD by the emerging corporations….

It was also because the addictiveness and spread of electronic drugs were beyond imagination.

The dark underbelly of Dusk City had suddenly been taken over by electronic drugs, and everyone from underground clubs and gangs to even corporate upper-class/high-ranking officials became deeply engrossed in VR entertainment.

It had gone much too far to be uprooted. The game center had already become an infrastructural facility inseparable from society.

Thousands of game centers exist in Dusk City alone, and each and every one of those game centers accommodates hundreds of gamer zombies.

To completely eliminate all game centers would mean having to deal with addicts on the scale of hundreds of thousands, which is beyond the capabilities of even the DCPD.

Furthermore, a significant number of DCPD officers themselves lack the financial means to purchase expensive VR devices and end up enjoying electronic drugs at game centers, so there is no way investigations and arrests could be carried out properly.

Therefore, as long as the electronic drugs were not exposed on the surface—like here at the Kabuki Game Center, where the first-floor facility is plastered with dusty, old-fashioned arcade game machines while proper VR facilities are set up underground—it wasn't a problem.

But, that should definitely be the case….

DCPD, open up!!!

Why am I hearing the sound of the City Police attacking the game center?

The crashing sounds echoing from the upper floor, people's screams, the noise of people getting beaten… and then silence.

It was the scene of a typical suppression.

Why? Did they receive a massive number of reports and tips?

No, even if they did, there's no way they would suppress it this aggressively.

Normally, their routine is to just stroll half-heartedly through the first-floor arcade game room at most, say ‘Nothing unusual,’ and leave. So why are they acting like this today?

As if they're carrying out some sort of gang suppression operation….

Is it really because of a gang?

The ones running this Kabuki Center should be a yakuza branch. Did they commit some major incident over there?

Is that why the city police broke the unwritten rule and attacked?

Putting all that aside, at this point, I feel like I must be cursed.

How does an incident break out like this every single time? And always in a dangerous way?

“…Damn it.”

It was a problem that wouldn't yield an answer no matter how much I pondered it.

Rather than agonizing over the cause of the situation, figuring out how I should act in this scenario is far more productive.

One thing is certain for now,

‘Do not resist the police.’

I'd rather fight Ned Ludd again.

Getting on the bad side of the DCPD, Dusk City's most powerful and dangerous state-owned enforcement group, is an act of madness.

Because the DCPD never tolerates actions that rub it the wrong way.

Unless I want to become a wanted criminal with a bounty on my head, chased for the rest of my life or caught and forced to serve prison time, I absolutely have to lay low.

Even in a situation where I might be caught or chased for unfair reasons, I would still have to cater to the City Police as much as possible,

So it goes without saying that I am undeniably enjoying entertainment in an illegal facility right now.

Of course, I was playing an old-fashioned online game rather than using VR electronic drugs, but strictly speaking, just being in an illegal game center in the first place is a violation of the law.

…I figured it would be best to step out of the room for now.

I need to go out, assess the situation, and blend in among the other people.

And if possible, escaping the game center would be the best option, but there's no way that will go as I wish.

There must be a secret passageway built for emergencies, but the center's management would have used it to slip away and immediately sealed it shut.

Therefore, the chances of it being open in the first place aren't high, and the risk factor if I attempted it is substantial.

This is because if the City Police have surrounded the entire vicinity, I'd be instantly fucked. I could end up handcuffed and dragged away the moment I escape.

Sometimes in a crisis situation, rather than hastily attempting something, just staying still is more helpful.

Rather than going out of my way to invite danger, it's better to act docile and not stand out.

There's nothing good about drawing the attention of the City Police, so I'll just wedge myself among the hundreds of VR addicts and pretend to be an ordinary game derelict.

This, in reality, is true anyway.

If I end up getting arrested and dragged away as a group, that would be its own misfortune… but even if I am dragged away, there's no way they would conduct a detailed examination and an interrogation on every single person in this massive crowd.

Aside from a truly suspicious few, the vast majority will likely just pay bail and be released.

As long as I don't get caught up as one of those ‘truly suspicious few,’ it will ultimately just end with me paying a fine.

That fine won't be light by any means, so it will sting a bit, but it would absolutely be better than doing something strange, getting treated as a suspect, and having my fake ID exposed through a detailed examination.

Slide—

I stepped out of the niche game room and somehow squeezed my way through the gap between the game derelicts—who were throwing tantrums as if they were going to smash the machines at any moment—and the employees trying to calm them down, wedging myself into a spot where the crowd was slightly less dense.

Right now it's a mess with their failing to grasp the situation like that, but the tide will completely change soon.

Until then, about 3, 2, 1….

Now.

CRASH—!

There was a massive impact and noise.

The corridor of endlessly lined up VR devices was instantly submerged in silence.

The iron door flew off, crumpled, and smoke billowed up. A tall, black figure walked out, emitting lasers from its eyes.

Thud, thud.

The helmet lens moved with a whirring sound, and the enhanced exoskeleton clanked with every step and radiated a heavy sense of pressure.

The DCPD patrol officer shouted in a voice thick with mechanical tones while holding a suppression rail rifle. Behind him, patrol officers appeared in succession, aiming their muzzles.

[This is the DCPD. Drop all weapons and get on your knees!]

Those whose brains worked a bit like mine, or those whose brains were less ruined by electronic drugs and still capable of normal thought, all freaked out and did as they were told.

They placed all the weapons they had on the floor, put both hands on top of their heads, and got down on their knees.

Casting their eyes firmly downward so as not to accidentally make eye contact and draw the patrol officer's suspicion was a given.

Those who tucked their tails like that made up about half of the total. Conversely, that meant the other half were still holding their heads up straight.

It was unclear whether they had lost their fear because of their sheer numbers, or whether they were in a state where they couldn't grasp reality coldly because their brains couldn't regulate hormone secretion.

A person with a much larger build than the others around him stepped in front of the patrol officer, his neon tattoos wriggling.

With a menacing face, he spat on the floor and shouted.

“Hey. Do you know how many people are here right—”

CRACK…!

And the patrol officer did not wait for him to finish his sentence.

Without even needing to fire his gun, he reached out one hand and tightly grabbed the thug's face with his exoskeleton gauntlet.

As he applied force just like that, flesh was crushed along with a scream, and blood splattered.

Whoosh—!

When he swung his arm as if something dirty had gotten on it, the man who had bravely stepped forward was sent flying.

The sight of him sinking down while smashing consecutively into VR devices, sparking with electric currents, was truly fitting for a derelict.

He wouldn't have died if he had received treatment in time, but it was definitely a severe injury. It was questionable whether he even had the means to receive proper treatment in the first place.

“…….”

Faced with raw violence and extreme suppression, the other game derelicts around seemed to falter for a moment… but then they began to murmur noisily again and advance toward the patrol officer.

Because their brains were pickled in electronic drugs, the emotion of fear and the ability to perceive danger had been castrated.

Even though they had just seen a fellow human being get beaten to a pulp and put into a near-death state right next to them, they didn't seem capable of even conceiving the thought that they could end up in the exact same situation.

Perhaps those severe addicts were thinking that even what just happened was a VR event scene, and that an NPC was merely defeated by a hostile boss monster just now.

They were probably having unrealistic fantasies that they themselves could easily defeat that boss.

reset syndrome is unique to electronic drug addicts who fail to perceive the boundary and difference between reality and games.

Inside the heads of those zombies charging forward with bloodshot eyes and emaciated bodies, there would be nothing but an increased violent tendency as a counter-reaction to the cut-off amplification of neurotransmitters.

Unlike their normal immersion in VR, the lack of pleasure made them unable to endure ordinary reality, causing them to feel the urge to smash and destroy anything.

Not only were they unable to accurately perceive their own condition, but their heads were also filled with violent rage, which was why they could charge at the DCPD patrol officer so fearlessly.

[What a pain. This is why I didn't want to touch game centers.]

Even with a crowd of over a hundred people charging in as if to crush him in the narrow space, the patrol officer seemed more displeased than he felt any sense of crisis.

It was pure annoyance stemming from the fact that the job had become complicated and cumbersome. Nothing more, nothing less.

And rightfully so, because only the process had become cumbersome; the result would not change.

If it were impossible to instill fear through extreme suppression, he could simply beat them down one by one and manually render them incapable of resisting.

A patrol officer equipped with DCPD-certified Level 6 body modification, a Militia-made exoskeleton power suit, and high-tech suppression weapons had more than enough capability to do so.

CRUNCH—CRACK, SMASH, BANG, SNAP, BOOM….

From then on, it was simply a time of blood and slaughter.

As screams and shouts erupted from all directions, the patrol officer consecutively separated the flesh and bones of the cluelessly charging game derelicts, killing them or leaving them in near-death states.

addicts were charging toward the patrol officer, the injured getting beaten and sent flying as lumps of meat.

There were those who belatedly came to their senses and tried to flee but couldn't escape due to the pushing from behind and were dragged along, and those who continuously backed away, trembling in fear of getting caught up in the crossfire.

In the midst of that pandemonium, as I knelt quietly in a corner and observed my surroundings….

I noticed something strange.

A man was moving cautiously while keeping his stance low.

He was circling around, stealthily approaching the regular patrols under the patrol officer's command. From within his shabby clothes, a crimson flash—one that looked undeniably suspicious and dangerous to anyone—sparked.

I furrowed my brows.

‘Could it be?’