Chapter 129
Halt.
The Ninja’s relentless footsteps momentarily faltered. It seemed he hadn’t expected me to succeed in the Security Unlock at such unbelievable timing.
The problem was I had absolutely no idea this would happen either.
I stood there for a moment with my mouth hanging open in dumbfoundment, and only after realizing what was going on did I quickly reach out and pull the Memory Drive plugged into the terminal.
Why a randomly drawn pattern was approved as a code, and what I was supposed to do with this now - my head was filled with all sorts of questions, but now was not the time to weigh my options.
It was time to act first rather than think.
Download complete. Thank you for using the Chiba Data Account Bank.
“…!”
It was truly a Hair’s Breadth difference.
The Ninja moved much faster than me, and I almost had the data stolen from me while spacing out, but fortunately, I was much closer, and thanks to that, I was able to snatch the memory in time.
It was a bit of a horror story that I almost missed despite the distance difference, though.
He flickered like a ghost and closed in at a speed I couldn’t possibly follow; his Reflexes and physical speed were completely incomparable to mine.
I felt it in my bones that the fight in the alley was just his completely toying with me. If that Ninja had genuinely tried to kill me, I would have lost my life without even putting up a proper resistance.
Cold sweat flowed.
The crisis wasn’t over yet.
Rather, it was just beginning.
When I made the first move, the cyborg Ninja stopped in his tracks, but that was because I took a threatening Stance as if I would smash the Memory Drive at any moment, not out of some benevolent intention to spare me for admirably succeeding in the mission he gave me.
[Hand it over.]
As the Ninja opened his mouth, a low, Distorted Voice rang out threateningly.
Wow, he actually knew how to speak.
In that case, I couldn’t help but try to communicate.
“Will you let me live if I give it to you?”
[No.]
How very honest.
Right. There was no way he would let me live. Even if I were in his Position, I would act the same way.
“Then why should I hand over this data?”
[That way, you die less painfully.]
Spitting out such horrific content in an emotionless, robotic voice couldn’t be any more ominous.
Was I supposed to be thankful that he’d kill me less painfully?
“Is there even a one in ten thousand chance we could reach an agreement and end this on good terms?”
I didn’t ask sincerely; it was a probing question to buy time and somehow come up with a Way to Survive.
And the Answer was Cold.
[You should know. This is the best option.]
An assertive tone implying I had no other path felt quite unpleasant, but it was the truth.
There was no way to live.
I was somehow prolonging my life by holding the data drive as a hostage, but in the end, it was nothing more than a Temporary Measure.
Time was not on my side.
While that side was a cyborg, I was a pure (mostly) human, and the longer this Standoff dragged on, the more of a toll it would inevitably take on my Physical Strength.
If my Concentration dulled and I looked away for even a moment, allowing the Ninja to swoop in and snatch the Memory Device - that moment would be the final instant to Leave my last words.
The only way To prevent that was to escape this place or widen the distance from the Ninja…
“Let’s not do this here; let’s go Outside and talk first.”
“Stay back. If you don’t Step back right now, I’ll break this. I mean it.”
I tried to Threaten him in my own way, but it didn’t work at all.
Unless the cyborg Ninja was an idiot, he was coming on strong because he knew I couldn’t Recklessly destroy the Memory Drive that was practically my lifeline.
I wondered if I should try half-breaking it, thinking maybe he would then listen - but the risk was simply too great.
If it ended up completely broken, I’d be totally screwed.
Also, the Ninja might think I was actually going to destroy it and suddenly snap, rushing in to kill me without a second thought.
It was a dilemma in which I couldn’t do this or that.
I had no options. There was nothing I could do.
“…”
No, maybe there was just one.
A Crazy Idea suddenly came to mind.
Even by my own assessment, it was a thought bordering on Crazy megalomania.
The Major incidents I had experienced in the city so far surfaced in my mind one after another.
The Biological Experiment at the Militia Secret Research Institute, the Microchip embedded in my head, the institute’s Explosion, and my escape occurred.
A few months after that, the Deadcell gang’s Attack on another Militia Secret Research Institute resulted in data theft.
The countless Ronin and gangs flocked to East Monica as a result.
The DCPD Patrol Officer and Ned Ludd, the Shaolin Monk and Red Mountain, and Man Hunter were among them.
I thought the cunning contract killer, Man Hunter, had also caught the scent and come to the vicinity. That made much more sense, too.
But now that the contents inside Man Hunter’s prosthetic arm had become such a problem, I needed to think about it in reverse.
Why were they going this far to get this data?
What if Man Hunter didn’t appear because of the incident, but was part of the incident from the very beginning?
Whether he cooperated with Dead Cell, luckily caught a Dead Cell minion, or stabbed them in the back - if for whatever reason Man Hunter got his hands on the key to that problematic data, and hid it inside his prosthetic arm, it then became the spoils of some incredibly unlucky bar Manager.
I suddenly got goosebumps.
What were the odds that the unlucky bar Manager who smashed Man Hunter’s Hand was actually the sole surviving test subject from another Secret Research Institute?
And what were the odds that the Three-Dimensional Pattern code that the test subject randomly scribbled down would happen to fit perfectly and unlock the security of the supposedly impenetrable Chiba Bank?
If my deduction was correct, there was no possibility of it being a coincidence.
Someone, or something - must have been continuously intervening with intent from somewhere, so that the unidentified research data would fall into my hands.
Just what exactly were the contents inside it?
From here on out - though honestly, it had been plenty like this so far - it was the realm of leaps in logic.
It was the work of irrational intuition rather than logical deduction.
The result of the experiment, the Microchip, was a Prototype. It was also an unfinished work whose abilities the user couldn’t control.
But even so, its Performance was terrifyingly outstanding.
Even Setting aside its Superhuman functions of amplifying nerves and expanding perception, making a Bare-Body Cyberdive possible and seeing through the Internal Structure of the Black Obsidian blade with the naked eye crossed the line.
I could say with certainty that not even the Player character of the Original Game could do this. It wasn’t at a level that could be simply explained by the word Over-Technology.
How the Militia created such a thing, how much they knew about this Crazy Performance that made the impossible possible… I didn’t really know.
There was one thing I knew for sure.
If I were Militia and had developed such a Crazy, transcendent Technology but it had the problem of being uncontrollable,
I would definitely find a way to control it no matter what, even if it meant grinding up countless manpower and capital, even if it meant committing biological experiments.
In other words, they would definitely find a way to improve the Prototype.
To put it very simply, people called that an update.
So my intuition was telling me, the true Identity of this data was the Update File they had developed.
Or at least something similar to it.
It was an extremely Crazy Idea, even when I thought about it again.
Even if I conceded a hundred times and assumed this was a real Update File, there was no guarantee it would apply properly to my Microchip.
Compatibility was an issue, and it wasn’t like Militia was some flimsy small-to-medium enterprise; there was no way it would make a secretive new Technology blindly applicable without any procedures.
And if by chance there was a Tracking Code planted inside that triggered upon Activation, wouldn’t that mean walking straight into the belly of the beast of the 2nd-ranked Megacorp I had been avoiding so well all this time?
But it couldn’t be helped.
I had to survive first. If I couldn’t overcome the massive obstacle in front of me known as the cyborg Ninja, worrying about the aftermath would be completely useless.
There was no guarantee I’d live even if it worked…, but it would be better than just standing still.
“Don’t be like that. How about you think about it one more time. If you let me live, I’ll never say a word anywhere. I’ll live with my mouth shut tight.”
Since it was my final gamble as well, I tried To Negotiate again, but the Ninja was firm.
[Denied.]
It couldn’t be helped.
Even a cornered mouse will bite a cat, and I sighed as if resigned before suddenly moving the Memory Drive and plugging it into the Cyberwatch on my wrist.
[…!]
The events that happened next played out in choppy fragments like scenes from a movie.
The cyborg Ninja charged in the moment he saw me move the data, Aiming his katana to sever my hand wearing the Cyberwatch.
He was so fast that even though I fully expected this, I almost failed to dodge.
If I hadn’t thrown my body and rolled on the floor at the exact same time I plugged in the memory, I would have ended up just like Man Hunter.
By a Hair’s Breadth, the blade chillingly grazed my forearm and struck my leg, preventing me from escaping. I vividly felt my muscles paralyzed from the impact.
Now I was truly a rat in a trap. If my Trump Card didn’t work, I had no choice but to die.
And it worked.
――――――――――――――.
A fervent vibration was felt in my brain.
It was the Microchip. It was forcefully reading the data inside the Cyberwatch. I had never intensely Recognized the existence of this Implant in my head as much as I did this time.
The update was applied, and the form of my consciousness was forcefully changed. Remodeled. It was finely chopped, disassembled, and scattered.
To East Monica, to Sprawlfield, to Neo-Detroit, to the Wasteland and Outside, to other districts, and to the entire city. Perhaps even Outside the City.
Thus, I became able to count the entirety of the World.
For that moment at least, all of creation was beneath my feet.
All sorts of secretive truths and histories, the self-Interests and strategies of the megacorps… even the Territory of the Four Superintelligences hidden from humanity’s eyes, were also there.
And then I returned to being human.
I knew everything, and then forgot it the next moment.
My brain automatically blocked off and dropped the torrent of information it couldn’t handle.
Emptiness and exhaustion remained where the connection was severed, and something small gently burrowed into that empty space.
A single voice rang in my head.
[Welcome, test subject. I am the “Extrasensory Perception and Environmental control Ability training Artificial Intelligence System Assistant for Super-Human Experiment Resources” created to assist with the experiment. Please call me ESTHHER for short. Is there anything I can help you with?]