They had initially thought there would be many more sudden enemies like the mechanical wolves, but as the group ventured deeper, they didn't encounter any others after that first pack.
However, the closer they got to the reservoir, the more a chaotic cacophony of sounds began to drift from deeper within…
Gunfire and roars echoed from the darkness ahead. People were constantly shouting, mixed with other strange noises that sounded like digital products…
"Looks like we've reached the hackers' location. If I'm not mistaken, those sounds like digital products should be the sounds of the hackers here fighting?" Wende guessed, recalling the few hackers he had met before.
"Maybe the hackers here are just more retro?" Stelle said, glancing lightly at the camera hanging from March's waist.
"Huh? What's retro about this camera! This is the latest model!"
Sensing Stelle's teasing gaze, March held the camera up to Stelle's face and said with utmost seriousness.
"If you don't believe me, look! The pixel quality is amazing!"
Click!
A white flash went off.
A photo of a dumbfounded Stelle was quickly printed out, along with a stranger who had appeared behind her at some unknown point…
"?"
The stranger, who had appeared beside the group at some point, still seemed a bit lost. Wasn't he just fighting those mechanical wolves? How did he get here? And who were these people?
"Who are you—Bzzzt!"
Before the question could even leave his lips, a flash of electricity shot out, and the unfamiliar hacker convulsed before collapsing to the ground.
Stare…
The group fell silent, looking at Wende, who had just electrocuted and knocked out the hacker.
"I think it's better to strike first," Wende said, clapping his hands with a straight face.
"Hiss… which one of you infected the other?"
March took a sharp breath, looking at the growing resemblance between Stelle and Wende.
Has Wende always been this shameless?
"Huh? What are you talking about, March? What infection?"
Stelle turned her head to the side, pretending she didn't understand what March was saying.
"I suppose this is what you call mutual influence," Dan Heng said, shaking his head while clutching Cloud-Piercer.
"Alright, alright, stop teasing me. Wasn't this for everyone's safety? At worst, I'll be the one to carry him."
Wende looked at the hacker "sleeping soundly" on the ground and sighed helplessly.
"Let's do that, then. If we leave him here and he gets eaten by wolves, it would be our fault," Himeko said, wearing the same helpless expression as Wende. But upon careful consideration, Wende's actions actually made a certain kind of sense…
---o---
"Boomm!"
A series of punk-style game bombs bounced across the ground. Any enemy they touched was hit by the data explosion, eventually being assimilated and dissipating as data.
"Who the hell was it! Why is the gate to Sector B open! If I find out who was in charge of that gate, I'm going to turn them into a digital pet!!"
A bald hacker dressed in a nightclub-style outfit roared, his beard trembling with rage. He had been blowing things up here for three whole hours! His hands were so sore from coding they felt like they were borrowed from Spongebob!
"What the hell is going on! Where the hell is everyone?! If no one shows up, the main gate's going to turn into a permanent monster spawn point! Forget virtual training, it's all going to be real f*cking combat from now on!"
The bald hacker's roars echoed throughout the underground base.
However, no matter how loud he shouted, even after hacking the base's broadcast system and cursing out every single hacker in the facility, not a single one appeared from the gate behind him to help…
"This guy is pretty interesting. Let me see where he ripped off these skills from… Holy cow, it's from the Corporation's hottest IP game! No wonder these guys only dare to operate underground. If the Corporation caught them, they'd be working for them for a lifetime to pay it off, wouldn't they?"
Inside the underground reservoir's hacker headquarters, Silver Wolf watched the bald hacker still struggling to defend the gate and sighed dramatically.
Have these guys run out of ideas? Is their creativity completely bankrupt? Hilarious. Earlier, someone was even using code from Aetherium Wars to fight. Do they really think this is some world where the summoner is invincible?
Before the alarms even went off, she had already banned the logout system for the virtual reality pods of all those otaku hackers. If she was in a good mood, she might let them out. If she wasn't, then they could just drown in their virtual world!
"So pathetic. They use his name, and they're all just a bunch of otaku shut-ins? Lol."
Silver Wolf continued to mock the hackers here. How could people who spent all day in their imaginary dungeons possibly be a challenge?
"They did make this place quite complex, though. They turned a perfectly good reservoir into a place with five gates, and each gate has some little function to make intruders lose their way."
Kafka propped her feet up on a nearby table, flipping through a "Guide to the Underground Tunnels" in her hand and clicking her tongue in amusement.
"Do they have something to hide? Why make it so complicated? Who would be constantly thinking about an abandoned reservoir?"
"Of course they do. And they aren't just guarding against ordinary people. Besides politicians, the ones hackers need to watch out for are their peers. As the saying goes, 'those in the same trade are rivals.' And when your rivals are on what they consider 'sacred ground,' if you don't guard it carefully, they'll probably steal the underwear right off you."
Connecting Prometheus to the terminal in front of her, Silver Wolf casually copied all the data within the facility.
"It's useless to me, but it might be fun to play with later."
Licking the corner of her lips, Silver Wolf looked thoroughly intrigued.
"That's not what you were saying a moment ago," Kafka said with a light laugh, shaking her head.
"Can't I be interested again now?"
"Alright, alright, have it your way. But remember to clear the path for them. After all, this is the last thing we'll do for them here."
Looking at the slightly rebellious Silver Wolf, Kafka shook her head helplessly. It seemed having too many accounts had given her confidence. When she had the time, maybe she should manually adjust the number of her accounts again…
"It's already cleared. They just need to go straight to get on the path to the tower. What a shame. I really wanted to test my skills against those old fossils myself…"
Thinking of those famous great seniors, how had she never realized that the "dungeon" of Punklorde had such a large DLC? And it even had bosses from the classic server!
"Let's leave these troubles for them to worry about. No, let's leave them for him to worry about…"
Kafka's gaze was scorching as she looked at Stelle and Wende on the monitor.
"In this brand-new script, I hope you can enjoy your roles… especially you, my… [Protagonist]"