Cyberpunk: Nirvana of Shoko Toyokawa

Xiangzi didn't plan to wait that long.

"For the next operation, Chuhua, you will go with me and Miaomeng."

The artificial eye glowed, and the light of the brain machine flickered along with it.

Xiangzi sent the task content to Chuhua.

Chuhua’s artificial eye also lit up.

"……receive."

Chu Hua said.

When getting down from the bed, Xiangzi thought of what [Oblivionis] had said in his dream.

The city of music is always changing in places you don't know——

"(ridiculous.)"

The roads are changing, so what?

“(I will change my strategy.)”

she thinks.

A flash of confusion passed by, but Xiangzi once again put it behind him.

“(I don’t need to be confused.)”

She said this to herself, looking at herself in the huge floor-to-ceiling mirror next to the bed.

……

Ave Mujica is about to depart in the Little Kabuki District.

The other side of the city.

The border between Morfonica and Afterglow territories.

Cage area, edge.

Two dark figures were standing under a huge signal transmitting tree at least thirty meters high that was used exclusively for the cage area.

The person on the outside was wearing a brown newsboy cap and a coat of the same color. He was blowing bubble gum and operating a laptop in his hands.

A closer look revealed that the bottom of the signal transmission tree was now disassembled. Several thick data cables extended from the side of the laptop and connected to the disassembled ports.

"Hmph~"

This person is humming a song.

Snapped.

The bubble gum burst.

The man's face is illuminated by the light from the laptop.

This person is none other than the "big shot" whose Afterglow account had just been frozen, Aoba Moka, who is now acting as a middleman.

"It's done~ Mocha-chan, you are indeed a genius~"

She said with a smile.

Snapped.

Another sound.

However, this time it was the sound of typing on keyboards.

"!"

The dark shadow in the depths moved, and then took a step out.

Brown short hair, not particularly memorable eyebrows and eyes. She didn't have her hair highlighted like Afterglow's leader Mizukuri, didn't have any prefabricated parts implanted in her face like Tomoe Uedagawa and Himari Uehara, and didn't have cyberskin implanted in her face like Moka Aoba...

But this shadow is also a member of Afterglow.

The one who came out from the depths was Afterglow's [The Great Ordinary], Tsugumi Hazawa, who had discussed the issue of recruiting band members with Poppin'Party's [Fermented Girl] Saya Yamabuki a few days ago.

"The electronic data chart using the common network has captured everything." Thrush whispered, "Mocha, you are right. The signal transmission trees in the cage area have been recorded for a long time."

"Of course~" Moka said briskly.

However, she quickly asked:

"How's it going, Thrush?"

"..."

Thrush came closer. She stared at the laptop in Moka's hand, checking and comparing the data flow quickly in her eyes.

"At the time when the bandit's server was destroyed, some data stations did experience a drastic reduction in data inflow."

"Whose data station ~ Toyokawa's ~?"

"No... it's not Toyokawa's way..."

Moka narrowed her eyes slightly.

"…It starts with 0010…It's the data station of Poppin'Party."

Thrush said.

"Is that so~"

Moka folded her hands behind her head.

"Poppin' Party is also going to take action~ Well, after all, they are the only ones who know a lot of clues and information about the central area~ They should also be aware of Fengchuan's actions~"

"The live show that Sa-ling mentioned before is not as simple as just luring Toyokawa out and exposing him to the public." Tsugumi said, "This signal model... they are training the virus."

"Poppin'Party is going viral again." Mocha didn't seem surprised. She looked at the floating surface of the cage area and said, "I really miss it. When they first divided the territory, they threw the virus into the common network of the City of Music, and drove all the bands except themselves out of the central area."

"What type is it this time?" Moka asked Thrush.

"It's the same as before. [Intrusion], [Cracking], [Detection], [Anti-system]...all kinds of signals can be detected." Tugumi said, "It's an integrated virus. However, this time it specializes in the direction of the local area network."

"This thing is already very powerful in a public network, not to mention when it's thrown into a local area network!" Moka laughed, "Any local area network it's thrown into will explode! Even the local area network of Toyokawa's family can't withstand this... Are you going to use this to mess with Toyokawa?"

"No..." Tsugumi said, "I talked a lot with Saaya. Poppin'Party just wanted to threaten the Toyokawa family and make sure they don't move... I'm afraid they are using this integrated virus to threaten them."

"That's it~"

Moka rubbed his chin.

She said: "This is really a headache~"

"..."

Thrush looked at her with some concern.

“…We need to let them throw it in~”

Moka suddenly said.

In front of Thrush who was looking at her, Moka said slowly:

"To be honest, I've thought about it a lot, and I think Lan's concerns are reasonable. No one wants to see a nuclear bomb dropped on Le City."

"Ran's request is to go to war with Toyokawa to prevent the situation from getting worse~"

"But going to war with Toyokawa will definitely cause Afterglow to suffer heavy losses~"

"My request is not to give up Afterglow's current power~"

“There is actually a way to take care of both.”

"Thrush, don't you think so~"

Moka looked at Thrush.

“I told Lan to take a look at what other [bands] are doing~” she said with a smile.

"——'Threat' is still not stable enough."

"A mistake, an accident."

"No one thought those things would happen, but they happened."

"Toyokawa's LAN was attacked by an integrated virus. Bang! Poppin'Party didn't seem to be doing it on purpose. Will the Toyokawa family start a war like this? If they start a war, Afterglow won't have any disadvantages or burdens, and can even observe the situation quietly in the early stages. If they don't start a war, Toyokawa will be exhausted from dealing with those viruses for a long time in the future, and will have to give up all their 'little ideas'——"

"——Do you think this development is better than [Nuclear Bomb] and [Afterglow Disbandment]?"

Moka asked Thrush with a smile.

Chapter 2: Too Many Serious People (1k monthly tickets plus extra)

[Mission content: Infiltrate an abandoned site - place objects (explosives) - blow up designated building targets]

【Task attachment】:

Do you know? If you say how good the shantytown is, the people here can find a hundred bad points for you. But if you say it is not good, they will tell you some "good" things. The sentence they often say is: "Do you know how much GDP we contribute to the city of music every year?"

They were right. The shantytown was the place with the most construction in the entire city of Lezhicheng. When [Reclamation New Land] - now it should be called [Reclamation New Land Phase 1] - was first built, there was a lot of construction here. Later, due to random construction and illegal occupation of public land, there was another batch of demolition.

Build and demolish, demolish and build. Dig up the road surface, pull out the firecrackers, detonators and worms that the young people stuffed into the sewers, and then give a new quotation and fill it back. These are common things here.

Today's client's company does just that! They came here when [Phase 1 of Reclamation New Land] was just built. Before that, they had been working in the Afterglow park for years. They are good at construction, and even better at demolition. Usually, they bring cotton wool explosives, bury them in the wall, hide far away, detonate them - boom, mission accomplished. One hand pays, the other hand delivers, simple and fast.

But this time, they ran into a little trouble.

A building in the shantytown is to be demolished. There is nothing wrong with the building itself. It needs to be demolished only because Morfonica and a group of illegal drug dealers had a fierce gunfight here. Someone used an anti-tank gun to blow down half of the load-bearing wall on the first floor. I tend to think that it was done by Toruko Kiritani, who is known as "I am the only one in the world", because I can't think of anyone else who would use an anti-tank gun in a building except her.

Morfonica seemed to prefer to keep the building because it was an important strategic connection point. They promised to pay for the re-fabrication of the load-bearing structure, but the owner of the building disagreed. I can understand him to some extent. After all, no one would be happy to be told that their property is an "important strategic connection point".

The client's company noticed this and found the owner of the building, promising to quietly blow up the building and disguise the explosion as an accident caused by another demolition operation across the street that went to the wrong address.

This venture required only three times the usual amount of money, less collodion than usual, and more spirit of adventure than usual.

It doesn’t matter, you don’t need to be too adventurous because this is Morfonica’s territory.

They have too many things to worry about: kidney-strippers, drug dealers, illegal retailers, bandits, free mercenaries - because of the lack of a standardized management system in the early days, all the bastards in the city of joy are piled up here. Just demolishing a building that they prefer to leave behind will not attract their attention. Rather, they have at least more than 500 tasks to deal with, and even if such small tasks are put into the to-do file, they will continue to be squeezed into the corner of their brains by street explosions, vicious kidnappings and more troublesome things.

Okay, now we are finally going to talk about this "little trouble"!

Do you remember the cyberpsychopath in the City of Music Morning News who "escaped from under the noses of the BCPD last week, with the blood of fifteen people on his mechanical prosthesis"?

While I was chatting with the client, this cyberpsycho seemed to have accidentally run into the building.

Considering that this is Morfonica's territory, this kind of thing is not uncommon.

The client's company didn't want to be attacked by a cyberpsychopath when placing explosives, so they decided to give the task of "blowing up the building" to a team of mercenaries.

You can choose to find an opportunity to lure the cyber psychopath away, place the cotton wool explosives, blow them up, and leave, just like in an old western movie in the 1900s. In this way, you can get some travel expenses and reimbursement for bullets and consumables.

...If you don't mind the low pay, I'll be happy. From the building owner, to the demolition company, to me, to you, this is a "four-hand" task. So, there's nothing left to give you - let me make it clear that I didn't take much this time.

However, you can also choose to confront the cyberpsychopath head-on.

That guy ran out of the nearby underground "organ store". So, the fact that he injured 15 people is not as serious as it sounds. Before he ran out, he seemed to know that he was going to go crazy, so he inserted a lot of [Calm] chips into his brain - unfortunately, he couldn't use them, so he still went crazy. However, even if he could use them, he would still go crazy, because no one told this poor guy that the attribute points of [Calm] have no effect on curbing the onset of cyberpsychosis.

If you choose this option, you may encounter a little trouble...but you can get what you want by yourself.

That's fascinating, isn't it?

I know you guys must be interested because you definitely want to know what's inside that cyberpsycho brain machine.

……

"This is the second time I've read Ms. Aoba's task attachment. However, I still want to say that she wrote it longer than I expected, and it's not the kind of format that drags out the end of the sentence~ For example~"

Miao Meng raised his eyebrows and looked at the [Task Attachment] on his retina.

She was wearing sunglasses. So the background was black and all the words were very clear.

Miao Meng really likes this feeling. She once promoted it in the team, but everyone else refused to wear sunglasses... Really, why? This thing is convenient and cool——

"..."

There was no voice around to respond.

Miao Meng took off his sunglasses.

In front.