The Savior
Draco was not that far away. At a run, it would take about four minutes to get there.
A lot of time had already passed. In ten minutes, it would be eleven hours since Draco sent his message. Perhaps it was safe to assume she was already too late.
That would have been the case if Swoo had come quietly.
But coming as loudly as she did might have changed things a bit.
According to Angela, the Noise's terror attack had been broadcasting as breaking news since eight hours ago.
The breaking news would have also reported that the Noise's path was heading straight toward Westtown. After all, Swoo had flown in a straight line from the very beginning.
So, the gang that kidnapped Draco must have been agonizing over whether to run or stay.
Whatever they had been doing during the first two hours, they might have fled mid-act once the news broke, unable to ignore the looming threat.
Of course, that was just a hypothesis.
If they were desperate bastards with nothing to lose, or just plain crazy, they might have stayed to harm Draco just to complete their contract.
Still, it was fine.
Even if the worst had happened.
Even if the odds were one in a million.
If Philip and Lewis were indeed the ones behind this, Draco wouldn't be dead yet. Even if his mind was broken, it wouldn't be completely shattered.
The same applied even if those two hadn't commissioned the job.
If Swoo's guess was correct, their goal wasn't to kill Draco or completely destroy his mind.
Therefore, she could save him.
She could save him, but...
Is this a bit too few?
Swoo glanced back at the massive force trailing behind her.
She had blown this whole affair out of proportion based on her assumptions.
She had dragged in Talos, mobilized the forces of the three mega-corporations, and gathered troops from countless other companies.
Yet, it still felt a bit lacking.
If it was the faction Swoo suspected, they would likely slip through with only this many people.
No, they would definitely slip through.
I should have held back on the destruction a bit.
Swoo let out a sigh laden with brief regret.
Scratching her temple, which had begun to itch again, she looked straight ahead.
Sector 8 was visible in the distance.
She raised her head.
The dark shadow in the sky was gone. The Talos transport ship had vanished from sight.
Having fulfilled its role as a transport, its departure was only natural.
A transport ship's job was, quite literally, transport.
Swoo licked her dry lips and looked back.
The Talos units that had descended to the ground were charging toward Swoo, their red optics glowing. Drones and hovercars parted to clear a path for them.
Did people witness a similar sight in the ancient past when Moses parted the Red Sea?
Indeed, it was enough to make an atheist believe.
The march of the Talos was just that grand and imposing.
They even dragged hundreds of corporate troops behind them, creating an overwhelming sense of dread.
It was enough to make even Swoo, who was confident in her ability to escape, feel a twinge of tension.
At this rate, the thugs monitoring the situation from inside would be shitting their pants.
That was enough.
After sending the message to Angela, Swoo turned around. She saw a house enclosed by a blue wall. Draco was on the fourth basement level of that building.
Praying that it wasn't the worst-case scenario, Swoo slowed her pace so her pursuers could keep up.
One kilometer left.
As if realizing where Swoo was heading, the pursuers behind her split to the left and right, disappearing into different alleys.
Immediately, the brutal sounds of combat echoed from the directions they had gone. The screech of crumpling metal, startled screams, shouts of anger and frustration, and the racket of breaking machinery.
Swoo's gaze flicked toward the noise.
She locked eyes with a cyborg peeking out from an alley. The cyborg stared at Swoo for a moment, gave a slight wave, and slipped back into the shadows.
"Oh."
It was only for a split second, but Swoo caught a glimpse of the emblem engraved on the cyborg's chest.
The Lui Chen logo.
Specifically, the double-helix emblem representing the Neural Engineering Research Division.
It was backup sent by Serena.
They must have assigned units to pursue Swoo under Lui Chen's orders, but peeled a few off to block the shortcuts the other pursuers would take.
Had Angela called this in too?
If it was Serena, she probably would have contacted Angela first to ask if there was anything she could do to help.
What a sweet, commendable friend.
Deciding to show her plenty of gratitude once this was over, Swoo looked straight ahead again.
Three hundred meters left.
She had no intention of opening the locked door and searching for a secret passage to the basement.
Swoo leaped into the air.
Eden's sticky air wrapped around her entire body. She took in the sight of Eden, illuminated by neon signs and various fires.
It really was a city she liked.
Even if it was broken a little, and only for a brief moment, Swoo hoped Eden would remain beautiful in the future.
Think of it as a flu shot.
After all, didn't a flu shot involve putting a virus into the body?
What she was doing now was exactly the same.
She raised both arms above her head.
When it came to using magic, such gestures weren't strictly necessary. If Swoo willed it, the magic would manifest. The path of the spell would follow her intent.
However, to increase her accuracy even by a fraction, she needed a sight to aim with.
Her raised arms served as that sight.
She clasped her hands together. She leaned her body back as far as it could go. She trusted her magic to automatically intercept the incoming bullets. Still, she couldn't block a Repulser, so she had to swing before it could reach her.
Six rings materialized in her wide-open eyes. They spun furiously, pouring out brilliant light. The Noise gradually spread like a thick fog. The wind grew sharp. The flames burning Eden reached out toward Swoo.
And so, she felt the mana flowing through Eden.
Mana in a cyberpunk world.
It was an utterly ridiculous premise. She could almost feel the wrath of cyberpunk purists echoing across the dimensions.
But wasn't that exactly what made it so much fun?
Swallowing her laughter, Swoo swung her arms down with all her might.
"Hiyah!"
She swung so hard that even she thought the grunt that escaped her lips sounded rather cute.
Of course, the result was anything but cute.
CRACK――!
The blue wall evaporated. The house it protected crumbled to pieces. The howling wind violently swept away the shattered debris, revealing a small door leading to the basement.
Despite the sheer force of her magic, the door remained intact. It wasn't because the wall and house had absorbed the impact. The door was simply incredibly sturdy.
She wasn't worried.
She had brought a master key just for this.
Swoo bounced off the air and plummeted downward. Landing lightly on the door, she looked up.
The master key—no, the Talos unit—had already leaped into the sky and was aiming its hand at Swoo.
―GONG! A sound like a tolling bell echoed from its hand. The Repulser was charging.
She knew the timing of the discharge after charging all too well.
Having faced Talos several times, she had measured it precisely.
There was no way she would get it wrong.
The wind blew.
Counting the seconds in her head, Swoo hopped away. CRASH―!! The door that had withstood Swoo's magic was torn to shreds by the Repulser's shockwave.
Swoo could have opened the door herself if she had used more power, but she had held back out of fear that the entire passage might collapse.
Well, did it really matter who opened it?
What mattered was that it was open, quickly and easily.
Shaping the Noise into a thumbs-up, Swoo threw herself down the wide-open passage.
The passage leading underground was a structure not found on the house's blueprints.
It was, for all intents and purposes, an illegal structure. Since it led underground, if Eden's authorities had found out, they would have demolished it immediately, dragged in the homeowner and the contractors, and subjected their brains to severe interrogation.
It was a natural consequence, considering that the underground of Eden housed things vital to the city's maintenance.
Yet, they had completed the construction safely without getting caught. It seemed to have been there for quite some time, judging by the traces of human presence scattered here and there.
A premeditated crime.
This had been planned far in advance.
They had built this passage specifically to kidnap someone.
And it was done by someone with deep ties to either the Eden government or a mega-corporation.
If it's the Eden government, could it be Agner?
It was still just a suspicion, but Serena had believed Agner was connected to the Eden government.
She would have to pay Agner a visit once this was over. Since she also had to get the bag back from Frey, it wouldn't be a waste of a trip.
Whatever the case, this kidnapping was no ordinary abduction of the kind that frequently occurred in Eden.
There was a reason. A clear reason why they had to kidnap a sexroid containing a man's mind and shatter his consciousness.
As Swoo walked down the passage, she retraced the stories she had heard from Draco one by one.
The appearance of the Phantom Protocol.
Zyrec, who had allegedly taken Draco's physical body.
The blank space in his memory during the time he was unconscious.
The reason Draco ended up trapped in a sexroid.
The shard that was executing the implant shutdown and data deletion.
The request submitted to Draco Legia Security Transport.
Swoo questioned every single one of these elements.
Then, she hit a sudden speed bump in her thoughts.
The camouflage skin.
The camouflage skin Draco had shown her.
Considering that, the Lewis and Philip that Angela had seen with her own eyes might not have been the real deal.
The device Draco showed her was in the shape of a small cube, wasn't it? It was more than capable of altering the appearance of a car, or even a person.
If viewed through a camera rather than in person, it would be even harder to tell the difference.
Furthermore, leaving evidence of commissioning a crime right in front of a CCTV camera made no sense unless they wanted it to be seen.
Or maybe they acted so boldly because they anticipated I would overthink it like this.
In any case.
Swoo believed Draco's words.
She made her deductions based on the information he had provided.
However, she did not trust his memories.
While the human brain remained uncharted territory, data stored in a mere sexroid could be manipulated at will.
The shard prompting the data deletion and implant shutdown. Draco's claim that the deleted data returned shortly after, accompanied by the symbol of the Phantom Protocol.
Why did these elements keep reminding her of Bori?
Why did the brain, or the vessel containing memories, keep linking back to what Draco had experienced?
Scratching her temple, Swoo placed her hand on the door ahead. It was locked. From the outside, not the inside.
They had no intention of letting him out from the start. They probably planned to have someone open the door when the time came. However, due to the Noise's terror attack, everyone in Westtown had evacuated. The people inside might still be trapped there.
She took a deep breath.
The smell is leaking all the way out here.
She applied pressure to her hand.
The lock shattered.
And with that, the door swung open.
A sickeningly thick stench of lust and damp heat rushed out all at once.
Swoo tilted her head.
At least thirty thugs greeted Swoo, their guns aimed directly at Draco's head.
"Mmph..."
Draco, held hostage, could not be described as being in good shape, even by the most generous standards.