Copy and Create
Weeee-woooo-weeee-woooo!
The police sirens refused to stop.
"Pull over! Pull over, license plate 4885! Pull over!"
The blare of the police megaphone cut through the roar of the engine.
A white sedan was speeding down a four-lane Gangnam street.
And right behind it, a fleet of police cars gave chase.
There was no point in hiding it. I was currently being chased by the police.
Everything had gone smoothly from the moment I walked out of Royal Canin and got into the car with the keys I took from Glasses.
But shortly after I hit the road, police cars began to gather one by one. Before I knew it, they were tailing me in a long, single-file line.
"Why the hell are they chasing me like this?!"
Probably because you fired a gun?
"A gun? What about it?"
I read about it somewhere. In pre-war South Korea, the police treated knife fights as typical gang wars, but if a firearm was involved, it triggered a massive emergency response.
"I don't get it. Isn't finding a corpse stabbed to death a much bigger deal?"
Is it?
"A stabbed corpse means the enemy maintained stealth to launch an ambush, and might already be hiding among our ranks. Of course a knife victim is a bigger deal..."
I guess people from the era of peace thought differently.
"Is this what they call a generation gap...?"
No matter how hard I stepped on the accelerator, the number of police cars didn't decrease.
If anything, the traffic jam in Seoul was blocking our way, and the distance between us and the police was rapidly shrinking.
Thud!
One of the police cars finally caught up and lightly bumped into my rear bumper.
"I'm going to get caught at this rate."
The police were the absolute last thing a Player exploring the Internet wanted to run into.
This was emphasized multiple times during the certification exams.
Unlike normal Internet residents, the reporting systems of the police and military are directly linked to the monitoring network of the rogue AI that rules the virtual world—F.
In other words, getting caught by the police meant F would deploy immediately.
F was an entity that even Kang Yeolchan, an A-rank combat Player, couldn't defeat.
Should I drive?
The moment CC's message appeared before my eyes, light began to gather in the passenger seat.
The light gradually took shape, soon transforming into a young, short-haired blonde girl—the avatar that cost twelve million Maetan points.
CC crawled over to my side and said,
"Switch places. Let me drive."
"Can you do it?"
"I'm probably better than you."
I yielded the steering wheel to CC.
Because of her short stature, she couldn't even sit on the seat. Instead, she stood leaning against it, her line of sight barely clearing the dashboard.
As soon as CC got into position, the car accelerated violently.
Vrooooom!
Screeech! Vroooom! Screeech! Vroooom!
CC wove through the gaps between the cars ahead, passing them with mere millimeters to spare. Whenever the road was blocked, she didn't hesitate to drive on the wrong side of the street, finding open paths as if she were looking down at the road conditions from high above.
On top of that, her gear shifts and steering were absolutely flawless.
"I've accessed the car's navigation system. I'm reading the real-time traffic flow of the nearby road network and calculating the optimal escape route."
"I don't know what you're saying, but it sounds impressive."
Yet, despite her godlike driving skills, the number of police cars didn't decrease at all.
Instead, they followed the very path we had cleared, closing the gap.
"Damn it. If only I had a gun."
"Is a gun all you need?"
CC reacted to the thought I had accidentally muttered aloud.
In the next instant, light began to gather in the empty air of the passenger seat.
CC spoke.
"Each of us in the AC Series has a specialized field."
The light gradually solidified, revealing a familiar black metallic texture.
"My specialty, as AC-C, is Copy and Create."
Soon, the completed object dropped onto the passenger seat.
It was a Tokarev TT-33.
The exact same gun I had been using just moments ago.
"As long as processing power and data storage capacity permit, I can copy and create any object made of data."
I picked up the Tokarev.
The heavy weight of the metal and the plastic texture of the grip registered in my palm.
There were seven bullets in the magazine.
Was one bullet missing because that thug had fired a shot before I took it?
I looked up at the rearview mirror.
CC was narrowing her eyes and grinning at me.
It was a smile that seemed to ask, See? Aren't you glad you partnered with me?
"Good job."
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
I emptied the pistol at the police car tailing us directly behind.
Screeech!
Startled by the sudden gunfire, the police car spun out wildly and crashed into another police cruiser.
"Here comes more!"
Thud, thud, thud.
Tokarevs kept dropping onto the seat.
I grabbed whatever my hand could reach and fired relentlessly.
Once empty, the Tokarevs dissolved into light and vanished.
Crash!
Just as another police car was brought to a halt...
Bzzzz!
The phone in my pants pocket vibrated.
The name displayed on the screen was... Yoo Hyeyeon.
"Yes, Guild Leader."
"I'm heading back. I should arrive soon."
"TV? Well, I'm not really in a position to watch TV right now..."
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Screeech!
Another police car slid out of control.
"Ah, was it too loud? My apologies."
"They're chasing me. What else am I supposed to do?"
Crash!
A police car rammed our side, causing me to drop the phone.
I picked up the disconnected phone, shoved it back into my pocket, and spoke to CC.
"Hey, she says shooting at them only makes them chase us harder."
"Really? Then what do we do?"
"She said to hide."
"Where?"
"...Find a nearby underground parking lot."
Alphabets and numbers flashed across the navigation screen before it quickly pointed to a single location.
"There's a shopping center nearby. It has the largest parking lot in this area."
"Let's go there."
"Got it."
CC drove the car straight into the underground parking lot. Once inside, we abandoned the vehicle and ran into the shopping center.
"Wait a moment," CC said.
She stopped occasionally to touch the parked cars we passed.
As she did, unmanned vehicles began to move on their own, blocking the pathways to prevent the police cars from entering.
As I watched in surprise, CC spoke as if it were no big deal.
"They have autonomous driving features. I can move any car I can hack."
Well, she had hacked a Machine Species multi-legged tank before. A simple car was child's play.
We walked across the shopping mall and headed confidently toward the main entrance.
Along the way, we bought hoodies and hats at a clothing store to disguise ourselves, and bought a few cheap snacks to carry in a bag to blend in as normal shoppers.
"Do you think the police have my face?"
"I doubt they've checked the CCTV yet."
Police officers were already stationed at the main entrance.
I checked the Tokarev hidden inside my coat and walked out as naturally as possible.
I could feel the gaze of an officer scanning the crowd stop on me.
...Did he spot me?
The officer approached, resting his hand on his holster.
"Excuse me. Just a moment for a routine check..."
Just as I was about to reach my left hand inside my coat for the Tokarev...
"Waaaah! Buy me the Jenny doll!"
CC clung to my left arm, crying at the top of her lungs like a spoiled child.
"Buy it for me! Waaaah! You promised!"
While both the officer and I were caught off guard by CC's sudden outburst, a message popped up in front of my eyes.
What are you doing? Play along, quick!
"Uh, I'll buy it for you next time, okay?"
"No! I want it now!"
Say this: 'Daddy's a bit... sorry right now.' Make it sound as pitiful as possible!
What on earth was this AI making me do?
"D- Daddy's a bit... sigh... sorry right now. I'll definitely buy it for you next time..."
"Waaaah! Daddy's a liar!"
My acting was terrible even by my own standards, but thanks to CC's Oscar-worthy performance, the approaching officer took a step back.
We managed to walk out of the shopping center without any further trouble.
From there, we headed straight to the subway and made our way to Chungmuro.
"And that's how we slipped into the underground parking lot and made our escape. Oh, and this is a present."
I placed a USB drive and a bag of snacks on the table.
Across the table, Yoo Hyeyeon and Kang Yeolchan stared at me with dumbfounded expressions.
We were in the Sprout Guild office located in Chungmuro.
Having successfully escaped, I had taken the subway back to the office.
Along the way, CC had vanished back into my arm, and the Tokarev I was carrying had disappeared with her.
Yoo Hyeyeon spoke.
"Well... first of all, the mission was a success. But did you really defeat the Chinese Player?"
"Yes."
"They must have been incredibly strong."
"They were. But I still won."
"...I've never seen anyone succeed after causing such a massive scene."
"Is that so?"
"Unless a Player is extremely confident in their combat abilities, they usually lose to the Chinese Players. That's why most try other methods... and even if they succeed, the moment the police get involved, the mission usually fails. In those cases, we'd normally go rescue them... but Juhyuk-ssi, you just brute-forced your way through and escaped on your own."
After leaving the shopping center, I had checked my phone and found several missed calls from Yoo Hyeyeon and Kang Yeolchan.
They said they had tried to tell me to hide so they could rescue me, but I had been too busy running to answer.
"Anyway, congratulations. You've completed your first mission. You're officially a Player now."
"Thank you."
Yoo Hyeyeon and Kang Yeolchan gave me a small round of applause.
I gave a light nod from where I sat.
"Shall we open the spoils, then?"
Yoo Hyeyeon plugged the USB into her laptop and continued.
"We call the kind of mission you just did an 'Event Zone'."
"An Event Zone?"
"Yes. The Internet is basically a real-time virtual world, but there are specific areas where time is frozen, and the exact same event repeats. We call those Event Zones."
Kang Yeolchan added to her explanation.
"If you just go to Royal Canin normally, the event won't trigger. You have to take a specific route to access the area to lock the time and trigger the event. Hyeong-nim, remember how we gave you detailed instructions on which station to transfer at and which car to get off? That was to lock the random seed to access the Event Zone. If you go to Royal Canin without following that route, there's no military secret transaction—just a normal bar."
"That's why we use Event Zones for a Player's first mission. It lets us evaluate their strategy, adaptability, and combat capabilities."
"How did I do?"
Yoo Hyeyeon smiled awkwardly.
"Well... I'd like to say you failed the moment you alerted the police, but since you shook them off on your own... I guess you're an outlier?"
Yoo Hyeyeon typed on the keyboard.
"Anyway, even though the same event always happens in an Event Zone, there's one thing that changes: the contents of the USB. Most of the time, it's just military data that isn't very useful to Maetan..."
"But sometimes, we hit the jackpot!"
Kang Yeolchan said, his face full of anticipation.
"Haha, don't get your hopes up too high. Statistically, the chances of getting a real jackpot are about one in three hundred..."
Clack, clack, press!
"Oh my."
Along with the sound of Yoo Hyeyeon pressing the enter key, a look of utter surprise washed over her face.
She turned the laptop screen toward me.
"We hit the jackpot."