Rocket Delivery
Fortunately, Swoo did not set fire to the Eastheim Logistics Hub, smash it to pieces, flip it upside down, make a mess of it, or strike it with lightning.
She didn't even use noise to hide her appearance. After asking Angela to hack the security cameras, she simply slipped past people's eyes and quietly took only what she needed.
"...Why?"
In a different sense, her expectations had been betrayed.
Angela looked at Swoo with genuine curiosity.
"Swoo, why are you being so well-behaved today?"
"Do you like it when things are loud, Angela?"
"No, no, no, no. I like it just like this. Quiet is the best. You're so good, Swoo. Well done."
"Then why do you look disappointed?"
"Disappointed? I'm not disappointed. Just... well, I was just curious."
Sitting on the roof of the hub and eating a hamburger, Swoo wagged her tail from side to side.
"I have a package scheduled for delivery tomorrow."
"...Then wouldn't it be faster to just take it yourself? Is it because you already paid for shipping?"
"Yep, I just like waiting. If a package is coming on the thirteenth, I start feeling happy from the eleventh."
"...You must have been really moved by The Little Prince."
"Do you know The Little Prince too, Angela?"
"It's hard not to. A movie based on The Little Prince came out two years ago."
"I see."
Should she be happy that a fairy tale from her old world was famous here too, or should she feel regretful that she couldn't share that time from two years ago?
She decided not to fret over such things.
To Swoo, the fact that the hamburger she was eating right now tasted good was much more important.
'If only the bacon were a bit crispier, it would be perfect.'
She preferred crispy things over soggy ones.
She had become that way ever since coming to this world.
In the past, she used to let her cereal soak, but now she barely dipped it in milk before eating.
She also grew to prefer crispy pizza crusts, and fried chicken over seasoned chicken.
It was the same with snacks.
She would crunch on snacks that felt like they might break her teeth, and she even chewed up the unpopped kernels at the bottom of the popcorn bag.
If she didn't eat hard, crunchy things like that, her gums would itch, making her grind her teeth.
'Are my fangs growing?'
Swoo's tongue brushed against her fangs.
Had they gotten sharper? She touched them every day, so she couldn't tell. Enoch, who used to pry her mouth open and brush her teeth while she slept, would probably know. Swoo made a mental note to show him when he returned.
"So, Swoo."
"Yep."
"What's the other one?"
Angela knew one of them was meant for Serena.
But even Angela couldn't guess what the other one was.
Judging by the small size of the box, it was likely a shard case. Whose package was she stealing... no, delivering on their behalf?
"It belongs to someone who's about to need it."
"Someone who's about to need it..."
Angela tilted her head slightly.
After a moment, as if realizing something, she searched her memory.
During one of their three days off at the office, Swoo had asked Angela to look up the identity of someone active in a specific online community.
Although Angela usually avoided digging into other people's private information, she had carefully looked into it because of Swoo's earnest request.
So, that man's name was...
Angela pulled up the information she had saved in a corner of her nanocomputer and spoke.
"Are you talking about Mr. Jon Bruce?"
"Yep, the reporter mister."
He didn't really belong to any organization to be called a reporter.
He was just a man who barely scraped by day to day, drawing attention with cheap internet gossip.
Still, he wasn't a bad person.
Rare for Eden, he had no criminal record.
To put it nicely, he was a model citizen; to put it bluntly, he was just a coward.
Yet Swoo referred to this Jon Bruce as a reporter.
Whether she intended to make him a reporter, or if she had been fooled by his fake news into thinking he was one, Angela didn't know.
For now, Angela wanted to believe it was the former.
But she couldn't ignore the possibility of the latter.
Swoo was incredibly capable of handling things on her own, but she could also be surprisingly ignorant of the world.
"...So you're stealing—ahem, delivering the shard meant for him on his behalf?"
"Correct."
"An acquaintance?"
"Yep, a friend."
"...Internet friends aren't real friends, Swoo."
"There are people inside the internet too."
Letting out a soft sigh, Angela gently stroked Swoo's hair.
"I can come with you, right?"
"Yep, I really want you to come with me."
It was very rare for Swoo to speak like this.
Normally, she would just nod lightly, but this time she was actively asking her to join.
Angela couldn't help but wonder why.
When she tilted her head, Swoo, who had been staring blankly at Angela, gave a bright smile.
"Because you're competent, Angela."
Despite saying that, Swoo's gaze flickered slightly downward.
Swoo probably thought she had redirected her eyes quickly enough, but from Angela's perspective, it was clear as day.
Swoo had looked at her chest.
At that, Angela smiled playfully and crossed her arms, pushing her breasts together.
"That's right. And I have a big chest, too."
Angela felt there was no need to be modest about her looks.
For someone like Angela, modesty was a poison.
Besides, it served as a good weapon when dealing with ordinary people. If you were exceptionally attractive, it lent credibility to your words.
Of course, that only applied to 'ordinary people.'
Swoo... was out of the question, and even for someone like Serena, Angela's looks wouldn't work as a weapon.
But for someone like Jon Bruce...
As she reached that thought, Swoo averted her eyes and hugged her tail.
"...No, I was looking because you dropped sauce on your chest, Angela."
Blinking rapidly, Angela looked down.
Just as Swoo said, hamburger sauce had dripped onto her chest.
"...I didn't notice because my clothes are a bit thick. Um... I'm sorry I misunderstood."
Her ears turning bright red, Angela wiped her chest.
Swoo, rolling her eyes, spoke with sincere intent to comfort Angela.
"No, you do have a big chest, Angela."
"Oh, uh... right. Thanks."
Of course, Swoo had no way of knowing that this only made Angela feel more embarrassed...
"Ahem, hm... So, are we just going to wait for Mr. Jon Bruce here?"
It was certain that Jon was coming nearby.
When she had dug into his background, she confirmed that he was registered as a daily laborer at a construction site near the Eastheim Hub.
So while it was certain he worked nearby, whether he would actually come to the hub was unknown.
"Yep, he'll be here soon."
"He's coming? How do you know that, Swoo...?"
"Because I'm going to call him."
Call? Who?
Jon Bruce? Here? How?
'A man who draws attention across all kinds of communities and the internet with gossip and fake news...'
A shiver ran down Angela's spine.
She slowly turned her head to look at Swoo.
Or rather, she tried to.
"...Where did you go in that split second?"
Angela wiped her face as she stared at the empty spot where Swoo had been sitting just a moment ago.
Immediately after, a series of small explosions went off in Sector 3 on the west side of the Eastheim Hub.
"I'm sorry."
As soon as she returned, Swoo apologized first.
First of all, the consecutive explosions were not Swoo's intention. The booming sounds that continued to echo even now were proof of that.
Swoo had merely peeked inside a box that smelled peculiar. But then the box suddenly exploded, alarms blared, another box next to it blew up, drones and guards rushed in...
In any case, Swoo felt wronged.
Still, wasn't someone who knew how to apologize an adult? With that thought, Swoo blurted out an apology and offered her tail to Angela.
"...So you're saying you didn't mean for this to happen?"
"Yep. I saved the recipient's life."
"Rather than a terror attack targeting a recipient, it seems more like they wanted to paralyze this hub..."
Actually, Swoo thought so too.
The area Swoo had headed to was where unsorted packages were piled up.
So if those packages had exploded after being distributed to their respective districts, the entire hub might have been paralyzed.
But explaining all that in detail would make her look pathetic. So Swoo just waited for Angela to figure it out.
"Exactly."
Swoo's eyes sparkled.
"Someone tried to paralyze the hub."
The Eastheim Logistics Hub, often called the other heart of Eden.
What kind of problems would arise if this place were paralyzed?
There was no need to think deeply. One only had to imagine the issues caused by delayed deliveries.
The most sensitive cargo was, of course, pharmaceuticals.
Among them, it would be the immunosuppressants, which could be considered the most important medicine in Eden.
People with cybernetic implants had to take immunosuppressants regularly. If they couldn't get them, they would suffer from high fevers, seizures, and pass out.
Of course, some suppressants were delivered directly by pharmaceutical companies. Mega-corporations like Lui Chen were prime examples. However, most businesses relied on delivery services to distribute them throughout Eden.
If such delivery services were paralyzed, a shortage of suppressants would occur, and people would flock to this hub, causing countless accidents.
And that wasn't all.
If the delivery AI control system hidden somewhere in the Eastheim Hub were to be paralyzed, hundreds of thousands of delivery drones flying in the sky would lose their way.
Drones wandering the skies would run out of battery and crash to the ground, inevitably striking and killing pedestrians or destroying buildings.
Therefore.
Packages entering the hub had to be inspected extremely thoroughly. There were many ways to inspect them without opening the boxes. In fact, the bomb detection process was said to consist of up to five stages.
Yet dozens of bombs had entered such a hub.
It was certain there was an insider among the hub employees. That insider would have to be someone with enough power to interfere with the inspection process and release packages directly if needed.
Why did such a problem erupt now, when everything had been fine before? And what were they aiming for?
Paralyzing the hub. Theft. A terror attack by a pharmaceutical company trying to boost performance and go public by exploiting the suppressant shortage. Price gouging in the black market dealing in various medicines and preserved foods. A scheme to plant a virus in the delivery AI cloud amid the chaos.
Or if not that, causing all of the above to plunge Eden into massive chaos.
Which faction would benefit the most from such chaos?
Naturally, it would be a mega-corporation, and among them, Lui Chen Biotech would stand to gain the most.
Since most of it tied back to medicine and food, they would surely rejoice the most if problems arose in those sectors.
However, they wouldn't have set up this board directly. Lui Chen was a mega-corporation capable of creating such an environment at any time. Yet, the fact that they hadn't done so meant there was a reason.
Therefore, she had to consider which faction could profit alongside Lui Chen while avoiding public scrutiny.
The reason they had no choice but to act at this specific time.
If there was any overlapping event, it was Serena's promotion.
In other words, a terror attack timed perfectly with the transfer of the Westtown managing director to Eastheim.
Then, the one who orchestrated this incident was...
'Hugo Arcardo.'
The rebel faction of Zyrec Tech hiding in Eastheim and building up their strength.
'He must be cornered.'
Seeing him play such a strong hand, he seemed to be reaching his limit.
Hugo and Zyrec.
Swoo, weighing the two names, smiled brightly.
"Angela."
"Should we go straight to Ms. Serena?"
Perhaps having reached the same conclusion as Swoo, Angela immediately brought up Serena's name.
But Swoo shook her head.
A method that seemed much more fun and entertaining than just going to Serena had crossed her mind.
"Can you turn on a VPN for the reporter mister?"