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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator:Bobt
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Horizontal and vertical lines shining like neon signs in pitch-black space intersected endlessly, extending in all directions of front, back, left, and right. The grid pattern with no end in sight created a ceiling as well as a floor, not just on the ground.
There wasn’t even a horizon, so the neon sign grid filling the sky and ground extended into a space that could only be described as vast, without limit.
Surprisingly, when looking at that distant place, the still gaze began to move towards the direction it was looking. No, it was a bit unclear. Whether his body was moving towards the direction he was looking, or his body was still and only the floor and ceiling were moving on their own.
It felt as if all meaning was melting away in the vastness of the endlessly repeating grid pattern.
At that moment, someone called him.
[Locke.]
In that instant, Locke recognized himself in the infinite space. At the same time, he instinctively summoned his sword, which he had achieved through decades of training.
Between the vastly extending grid pattern ceiling and floor, a gray flash flickered. That flash, shining like a star in the night sky, then moved smoothly and began to draw a long line rather than a dot. The quickly moving line soon bLocked out of the cross-section and drew a three-dimensional surface, and it soon represented a human.
That human became Locke.
[——-!]
As if a baby out of the womb burst into its first cry, Locke also grandly spewed his first words in the net while stretching.
After a while, when the long wail ended and the joy of rebirth subsided, Locke felt a little perplexed. No matter where he looked, front, back, left, or right, the fantasy of the grid pattern extending to infinity was simultaneously giving a strange beauty and anxiety.
However, the cyberspace he had heard from other people and indirectly experienced through other media such as videos or books was not as empty as this.
An ocean of light where so much information was swaying like waves that a single object-oriented intelligence could not possibly handle. A space of chaos where one would instantly lose their way and be shipwrecked in the storm of data without a magician’s spell or proper coordinates.
That was the cyberspace he knew, even if indirectly.
[It’s because it’s too far from the commonly used coordinates.]
[…Liz?]
Locke, who had been looking around his body reconstructed in the net, discovered a small glowing light flickering in his field of vision. It was like looking at a slightly active firefly.
[Hello, Locke. How does it feel to be connected to cyberspace for the first time?]
[A little confusing.]
Locke raised both hands and clenched his fists in front of him.
[The sensation is so different. It’s as if the limits of the familiar sensations have been amplified… As if the size of my body, the space between cells has become several times larger.]
[Is it because it’s Locke? Would others feel the same way on their first dive? It’s an interesting question. But Locke. We have something to do right now. There’s not much time left.]
[Yeah, that’s right.]
At Locke’s Answer, the firefly Liz flew with a ding and landed on his left wrist.
[This is a very, very shallow place, so Liz is also in her right mind, but now, as we trace the remnants left in the broken computer and magician and go down to deep cyberspace, Liz won’t be able to talk to you like this. It’s up to Locke to see and remember what.]
Locke immediately straightened his posture, having no time to even feel perplexed by the ensuing situation. It seemed doubtful what meaning there would be in doing so in a place where there was nowhere to step on and stand, but as he made up his mind, his body really stood up straight as if stepping on solid ground.
[I’ll start.]
[Okay.]
The next moment, the light of the firefly Liz wrapped around Locke’s Wrist in a circle, changing as if it were a bracelet of light. And Locke directly faced his field of vision being sucked into that distant vanishing point as if it were changing.
The scene that appeared at the end of the magnification pulled like that was a world consisting only of the coordinates of objects and graphic images without distinction of front, back, left, or right in three-dimensional space. It was a scenery that looked exactly like that if the real Midland were to expand and develop recklessly, filling all spaces without the limit of gravity.
And that meant it was like amplifying the charm Midland possessed several times.
[This is… amazing.]
Rays of various colors such as red, blue, yellow, green, and white collided and mixed, each drawing a new picture. That light, at some point, at some place, split into a dazzling spectrum as if entering a spectroscope and shone, but soon regained its original appearance. It must have been the process of a company’s data server processing information.
Locke, who faced real cyberspace for the first time in his life, blankly looked at that scenery for a moment.
He could also understand the reason why people sometimes get lost in the vast world of the net, forgetting reality, despite the unfathomable dangers of cyberspace.
Even in his thought, if one lived in a sewer full of rotten smell under gloomy clouds of rain and faced such a fantasy, it would be hard to want to go back. Perhaps that was also the reason why magicians liked to be holed up in their workshops.
At that moment, a thin light stretched out from his left wrist, pointing in a direction. Locke realized that it was a compass Liz had made for him.
[Liz?]
She didn’t answer.
Locke took his eyes off from there and looked around the vast graphic fantasy of the net once more, then turned his body towards the direction of the compass without hesitation. Cyberspace was definitely beautiful, but it wasn’t his world.
Moving in the electronic space wasn’t difficult. If he made up his mind to move in the direction the compass of Liz was pointing, the entire world changed as if approaching him. Locke noticed that the discrepancy in that sensation was due to the physical body in reality.
Perhaps it was a subtle difference in sensation that only an Auror Master Could feel. Anyway, even if the consciousness was here, in the end, the real body was in reality.
Afterwards, while walking through cyberspace, Locke felt as if he was moving through the night streets of Midland, which was made up of three dimensions without distinction of front, back, left, or right. He sauntered through the alleys between huge corporate data servers and sometimes looked from afar at the explosions of information that those servers burst like fireworks, following the guidance of the compass.
After some time had passed, when he thought it might have been well over the 10 minutes Liz had said other detectives would come, Locke realized that the compass on his wrist had stopped pointing. A huge silver data server made of rectangles was visible in front of him.
[Is this the place? What am I supposed to do here?]
As he was blankly looking at the server, wondering what to do, he suddenly saw something wriggling in the distance.
[What is that…]
It looked like a toy half-made by mixing a spider and a scorpion. Although there were many empty parts all over its body and it shouldn’t be able to move properly, that spider-scorpion was naturally running on top of the server. And looking closely, it was a monster with a size about five or six times larger than Locke.
Locke, who had been diligently searching through his secondhand experience in his mind, was soon able to realize the identity of that spider-scorpion.
[Beast-type firewall…]
Locke was momentarily perplexed. This was cyberspace, and he was a swordsman who couldn’t chant a single line of spells. In front of that living corporate firewall, all he had to counter with was his body reconstructed in the virtual world.
[Body?]
Come to think of it, it wasn’t something to ponder about. From the moment he recognized himself in this virtual world, he already had a very powerful weapon. The gray blade that was originally his, his alter ego and shackles.
Locke closed his eyes and brought both hands together in front of his chest as if grasping an invisible handle. While he was doing that, the spider-scorpion firewall had already approached and raised its huge tail stinger. Although other parts were full of voids, that stinger was intact. An intense cyber toxin that would immediately burn the brain the moment it was injected sparkled at the tip of the monster’s stinger.
The spider-scorpion didn’t make any sound simply because it didn’t have such a function, and it drove its stinger down towards Locke’s Crown.
At that moment, a long gray sword rose from Locke’s Hands clasped in front of his chest. At the same time, Rok, who opened his eyes wide, swung the sword of light in his hands towards the descending stinger. The cyber toxin-smeared stinger and Locke’s Aurora Blade met. And the blade of light did not betray Locke’s Expectations even in this world.
[—!]
The spider-scorpion staggered back. Its stinger and a part of its huge tail had disappeared as if erased with an eraser. Locke felt as if he could hear a silent scream from the monster’s retreating movement.
[Do you feel pain too?]
Having lost its most powerful weapon, the spider-scorpion couldn’t attack again and hesitated. After looking at the monster’s hesitation for a moment, Locke leaped high as he would in reality. However, the sensation still felt as if cyberspace was approaching him, so it was a very strange feeling.
His Auror Blade seemed to feel the same way. The gray blade, which had originally become several times larger than in reality, stabbed into the spider-scorpion’s back. When he put strength into it, the struggling spider-scorpion was easily split into two. Afterwards, the trembling remains of the firewall were drawn by a strange gravity and fell beyond cyberspace.
[…Now what am I supposed to do?]
Locke looked at the remnants of the firewall moving away to the side as if falling, and realized that he was now standing on top of a certain corporation’s data server. But he, who had never dived before, let alone spells, had no means to hack the server.
If it were reality, he would have plugged a suitable terminal into the socket and waited for the program inside to finish the job on its own. Of course, if he had done that, the terminal would have been broken without breaking through the firewall, but at least he could have tried.
At that moment, Locke saw something. Something was flickering on one side of the server he was standing on.
When he approached there, he saw a hole similar to a terminal socket in reality, and a yellow aura was flickering around it. Now that he looked at it, the golden bracelet that the firefly Liz had turned into was intensely rotating on Locke’s Left wrist.
Locke reached out his left hand towards the yellow aura. Then the aura became clear and began to recall the memories left there.
Three people had been here. Two of them were not difficult to recognize. The magician who had been dead on the apartment bed and the tattooed orc whose mask had been shattered by Locke’s Bullet.
However, the last third person had a blurry face, probably because the dead magician’s memory was not complete. But it was certain that the hair was long and looked warm brown.
On top of the corporate data server, the three people seemed to be arguing about something. Mainly the dead magician was loudly claiming, and the brown hair was in a listening position. Sometimes when the tattooed orc intervened, the magician faltered and shrank back.
When Locke concentrated, it seemed like he could hear voices.
[…too dangerous… how many more have to die… can help now…]
[We already agreed… can’t just get out like that…]
[Now… I’m going to quit… too many have died already…]
[…it won’t change… like this…]
At that moment, the brown hair, who had been quietly listening until now, suddenly thrust his hand into the magician’s chest. The following scene was very unstable, not even a memory. Human-like lumps distorted like a broken seismograph wave and then suddenly disappeared with a thud.
[Hmm…]
As the memory faded, Locke turned his eyes to the socket of the corporate server they had been facing. There was also a faint aura there. His left hand with the golden bracelet met the light.
Then the information that the magician had corrected and distorted came to Locke’s Mind. It wasn’t that much information. It was just the name of a corporation, the location of the factories they owned, and slightly twisting the security system there.
Locke, who had roughly grasped those characters, muttered,
[They’re going to carry out another terror attack right away tonight… They’re very confident.]
Locke raised his head and looked into the distance. Although the face was not visible, he could easily guess the owner of the long, fluttering brown hair. That hair color that looked warm even in the virtual world was not common. The only problem was that the distance between a part-time restaurant employee and a radical terrorist member was too far.
What was certain was that he would find out tonight.
[Alright. Let’s see if you can run away this time too.]
Having sorted out his thoughts, he stood tall on the corporate data server and raised his left hand. As he raised his left hand high as if pointing to the sky, the golden bracelet that had been wrapping around and rotating on his wrist began to shine strongly.
Locke looked at that light and said,
[Your work is done. Now it’s my turn.]
The next moment, a yellow beam rose from the golden bracelet on his wrist and stretched out long to somewhere. And like an anchor caught somewhere, it pulled Locke’s Body. Locke’s field of vision containing cyberspace swirled round. The subsequent scenery and sensation were familiar.
⤒ ⤒ ⤒
Liz, who had been wearing the net gear and putting her finger on Locke’s Forehead, collapsed with a thud. However, Locke, who had already regained consciousness, was able to lightly embrace her body before it rolled over.
As the net gear she had been wearing fell off, the face of the unconscious Liz was fully revealed. Locke looked at the face of the girl with closed eyes with deeply sunken eyes. The kid was already snoring away.
At that moment, the front door of the apartment opened and Detective Daniel’s face slipped in.
“Uh, ronin? We should get moving now…”
Locke stood up with Liz in his arms. Daniel made a blank expression at the sight of him approaching with long strides.
“Uh… did you find something out?”
“To Northstreet.”
“To Northstreet?”
Locke looked straight at Daniel, who was dumbly asking back.
“Drive.”
“Ah, drive. Then I should drive, drive.”
Daniel came to his senses and took out the car key, leaving the apartment. Locke also followed behind him, holding Liz in his arms.
Daniel, who was walking ahead, suddenly said,
“But you did find some clue, right? That’s why you’re telling me to drive, right? Hey, even though I’m a detective and your employer, let me know what’s going on… Of course, I’ll drive… It’s not that I won’t drive…”
Through the slanted glass wall, the gloomy sky of Midland was reflected. It was a color that made one feel depressed just by looking at it. However, it didn’t matter to the person inside that glass. He was not a man poor enough to be depressed by the color of the sky. Both materially and magically.
At that moment, someone entered that space. The click-clack of high heels echoed hollowly in the soccer field-sized space.
The owner of the high heels approached the ruler of this room, who was half-lying towards the glass wall. As she got closer, the chair the ruler had been lying on gently found its place.
“Chairman?”
The man sitting in the chair slowly opened his eyes. His pupils were silver. If there were silver craters, they would definitely look like his pupils, with that shape of silver pupils.
The man, who had opened his eyes, said while staring into the void,
“Did you hear it?”
“Pardon? Hear what?”
“The cry that shook the entire cyberspace. Didn’t you hear it?”
The high-heeled woman shook her head with a puzzled expression.
“No, I didn’t hear anything like that.”
“Strange. It was a sound that resonated even to the very depths of the net. Like the first cry of a newborn giant…”
The woman quietly closed her mouth for a moment to let the man sort out his thoughts. He was the chairman of the headquarters and, although not well known, the top magician within the company. It wasn’t strange for him to sometimes perceive things that no one else could hear or see.
The word excellent magician also meant that he had become closer to an information life form by diving into deep cyberspace.
“…Alright, what’s the matter?”
At the question he asked after finishing his thoughts, the woman’s pupils sparkled. She had sent important data to the man.
“Ghost’s movement has been detected.”
“Her movement has always been there, hasn’t it? Always, like a ghost as the name suggests… for the past hundred years, always the same…”
“But this time, we were able to specify her location.”
The eyes of the man called the chairman glowed white. The woman who had confidently brought up the topic felt goosebumps all over her body the moment she faced that gaze. The chairman seemed to have confirmed the data the woman had sent him in that short time, as he slowly nodded his head.
“I see, if it’s according to this data…”
“…Yes. She is somewhere in Midland right now.”
The chairman looked at the woman with eerie silver eyes and tilted his head. It was an action that gave an alien and creepy feeling because there was no change in expression.
“A being that has literally been wandering around like a ghost for the past hundred years, now? Why on earth?”
“Ah… that, we still can’t know yet… but if we use the company’s resources from now on…”
The chairman’s gaze swiftly turned towards the window.
“I understand. Proceed slowly. Don’t stir up the city and cause a commotion.”
“…Yes, chairman. I will do so.”
The woman lightly bowed her head in greeting and turned her body. Her body was trembling slightly as she moved away from the chairman.
The chairman didn’t mind. There were many who feared him. So the chairman sometimes even enjoyed the fear directed at him.
Of course, he didn’t have the leisure for that now. He was staring intently at the window outside, where raindrops began to spread, lost in deep thought.
No one could know what thoughts were being formed in his brain, which consisted of astronomically priced computational assistant implants and ancient spells of unknown origin, except for himself.
The raindrops that began to tap on that glass wall gradually grew thicker. Because the place with the glass wall was the highest point in Midland, it was also the place where the raindrops that wet the city of Midland first touched.
The raindrops soon began to wash down the huge emblem attached below that glass wall. A black triangle inside a black circle. And below that emblem, a large signboard with ‘ESMI’ written on it was looking down on Midland.
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