083. Bunny Girl (1)
083. Bunny Girl (1)
Two weeks had passed since training resumed.
The results so far were decent.
= Training Result Summary =
[Biodroid 'Alicia's' ability scores have increased.]
- Strength: C → A+
- Agility: B → A+
- Endurance: C+ → B+
- Sniping: A → S
.......
.......
- Spatial Perception: B- → A
== ==
As seen, Alicia had recovered a significant portion of her lost stats.
If this trend continued, the stat re-enactment work would likely be finished around the time the Telescope tuning was completed.
So, this part could be summed up as a 'let's just keep going like this.'
The problem was the body parts.
As you know, body parts influenced not only stats but also a biodroid's physique, disposition, and sensory systems.
There could still be subtle differences in how they felt in actual combat.
For an accurate re-enactment experiment, not just the stats but the body parts also needed to be replicated exactly.
I'd probably explained that about three times by now.
Even so, I hadn't worried much about recreating the body because most of the parts we needed were cheap, simple mass-produced components.
I'd assumed Sumire would find the blueprints in the database and manufacture the parts at the Manufactory within a few days.
Even if she couldn't, I figured she'd find a listing somewhere.
I'd believed that without a doubt—
== Krädel Group Chat ==
[Me: @Sumire, still no luck today?]
[Sumire: I'm truly sorry.]
[Sumire: I've been constantly monitoring everything from Parts.com to Secondhand Heaven, but not a single one has come up.]
......So that was the situation.
[Rinne: ?]
[Rinne: What are you looking for?]
[Laika: Rinne, read the chat a little]
[Rinne: Too much work. Senior Laika, summarize it for me.]
[Laika: Commander needs a sensor unit called 'Tsukiyo' made by Kaguya Heavy Industries]
[Laika: Seems like Commander's in a bind without it~]
That was right.
Just as Laika said, we were in a bind because we didn't have Kaguya Heavy Industries' sensor unit, Tsukiyo.
All other parts had been successfully manufactured in less than a day—— but that Tsukiyo was a no-go, apparently.
[Rinne: Kaguya Heavy Industries is a mega-corp manufacturer. A product from a company like that doesn't even have blueprints?]
[Laika: The blueprints exist, but the Kaleidostone production site fell to the Legion, so they can't make any new ones.]
[Laika: The remaining Kaleidostone is re~ally pretty, so it apparently sells for a re~ally high price]
[Laika: Ah, and the finished sensor units have a short lifespan and were discontinued quickly, so there are no usable listings]
[Laika: @Han Si-hu Laika did a good job explaining, right? Praise me]
I sent her a heart.
...I did, but.
I still had no idea what to do next.
Just as Laika said, manufacturing was impossible because of the raw material, and there were no listings for the finished product.
I'd wondered whether we could simply find some raw material for sale and had been looking into that, but Kaleidostone production was limited.
And in the meantime, it had been used as a popular core material in its day, so that supply had also dried up.
[Rinne: But why do only the same people always talk here? What are the rest doing?]
[Laika: Alicia's just been reading since forever, you know?]
[Sumire: .]
[Rinne: I meant, where's Eve?]
[Rinne: She's the expert in scouring the internet]
[Rinne: (Absolutely not saying this because I want to dump annoying hacking work)]
She definitely wanted to dump it.
Well, it was true that Eve was more specialized in that area than even Rinne.
As a now-discontinued full-brain biodroid, she was capable of 'directly' connecting into web servers (even though she had undergone slight modifications to board a body these days).
If that's hard to understand, just recall the time I infiltrated the interior of Eve's server. It meant that kind of activity was possible at all times.
Thanks to that, information warfare at a normally impossible level was feasible if conditions allowed.
So my plan was to leave information warfare entirely to Eve and keep developing Rinne as a field agent—a buffer.
......Mixing a martial arts junkie who speaks like a murim old master into cyberpunk information warfare was a bit of a strange aesthetic, but anyway.
Seriously, why was this Eve so quiet, when she talked so much in the office?
Puzzled, I checked the chat again.
< 'Krädel Group Chat' Participants: Han Si-hu, Laika, Rinne, Sumire, Alicia >
......Ah.
[Me: I forgot to invite her]
[Me: Wait a sec]
< 'Han Si-hu' has invited 'Eve'. >
[Eve: ?]
[Eve: What is this place?]
[Me: hi, it's the Krädel group chat]
[Laika: Hi hi]
[Sumire: NicetomeetyouIamSumire.IbelievethisisthefirsttimeIamgreetingEvelikethis.IaminchargeofpartsmanufacturingandmanufactorymanagementatKrädel.IhopetogetalongwellwithEveinthefuture.IfyoueverneedanyhelppleasedonothesitatetocometotheManufactoryandletmeknowandIwilldoeverythingIcantobekindlyattentive.OnceagainIlookforwardtoworkingwithyou.]
......Hmm.
[Me: That's not what's important right now]
[Me: Eve, I need your help]
[Me: I'm looking for a sensor unit called 'Tsukiyo' from Kaguya Heavy Industries, but I absolutely can't find a listing]
[Me: Even if you just find a way to get the core material 'Kaleidostone', that's fine]
[Me: Is there any way?]
Was it because of Sumire's out-of-context wall of text?
A moment later, Eve started typing a reply.
[Eve: Oh-ho.]
[Eve: That should not be difficult.]
[Me: ? Really?]
[Eve: Indeed.]
[Eve: In truth, there is someone among this woman's acquaintances who possesses Kaleidostone.]
[Eve: Through that person, it should be possible to receive Kaleidostone free of charge.]
Huh.
[Eve: Ah, there is no need for thanks.]
[Eve: I highly value the thoughtfulness of creating such a place for this woman, you see.]
[Laika: ? Created? What do you mean?]
[Eve: It has been nearly 3 weeks since this woman settled in Krädel and took over operator duties.]
[Eve: If such a place had already existed, this woman would have been invited much earlier.]
[Eve: The fact that the invitation came only now means that this group chat did not exist until this very moment.]
[Eve: @Han Si-hu What do you think? This woman's reasoning.]
[Rinne: (Reply to Eve)The fact that the invitation came only now means that this group chat did not exist until this very moment.
┗ Nah, we just forgot you existed, so we never invited you lol]
[Eve: ?]
[Me: Ignore Rinne. Yeah, we totally just made it.]
[Me: Your reasoning is incredible. As expected of Eve. Respect.]
[Me: Anyway, who is it? The person who has Kaleidostone?]
A moment later, Eve replied.
[Eve: It is Cheonwolhyang.]
Huh?
Cheonwolhyang?
Who was that, a person with a name like a high-end citrus fruit variety?
I was about to ask what that meant.
But Sumire, who had been silently watching the chat, answered first.
[Sumire: Oh.......]
[Sumire: Cheonwolhyang.......]
[Me: You know them?]
[Sumire: Yes.]
[Sumire: Ah, I don't know them personally.]
[Sumire: I have heard a lot about her through rumors, though.]
[Sumire: Cheonwolhyang was active around the black market several years ago... basically, she was a major underworld figure.]
So that was the case.
The item we needed was supposedly being sold somewhere online.
At least, that was how I'd understood it, but...
[Sumire: That said.]
[Sumire: As I mentioned, the time Cheonwolhyang was active was several years ago.]
[Sumire: Then, around two years ago, the military launched a major underworld crackdown. Cheonwolhyang's organization took a severe blow and collapsed.]
Huh.
[Me: Then what about Cheonwolhyang? In prison now?]
[Sumire: No]
[Sumire: The organization collapsed, but she did not go to prison. She simply disappeared.]
[Me: ......Did the military take bribes?]
[Sumire: No. I don't think that's the case.]
[Sumire: As I said, the organization was completely dismantled. She probably no longer had enough money to make a serious crime disappear.]
[Sumire: However, the military also had no way to arrest her.]
[Sumire: Cheonwolhyang had always only operated through the internet, you see.]
Huh?
[Me: What do you mean? Only operated through the internet?]
[Sumire: Well.]
[Sumire: Cheonwolhyang apparently always recruited members online and conducted business only through those recruits.]
[Sumire: Cheonwolhyang herself never appeared in person at all.]
[Me: Never?]
[Sumire: Yes.]
[Sumire: At least, as far as I know, not once.]
[Sumire: Until two years ago, she controlled even the black market around Krädel, and almost every shop functioned as part of her distribution network... yet nobody had ever met the real Cheonwolhyang.]
[Sumire: Some people even speculate that she was a fictitious merchant boss created by the military to map the black-market distribution structure...]
[Sumire: The truth is out there...]
I see.
In other words, she had been the boss of a contactless criminal organization.
As long as she sold us the item we needed, I didn't particularly care whether we dealt face-to-face or remotely.
It did feel a little uncomfortable for a Commander to deal with an underworld big shot, but I could always send someone else for that part.
So how were we supposed to find someone like that?
More importantly, what made Eve think the item we needed was in the hands of a criminal who had disappeared from the market a year ago?
......No, in the first place, what was the relationship between Eve and this person called Cheonwolhyang?
I compressed all of that into one question.
[Me: @Eve What's going on?]
A moment later, Eve answered with a single sentence that compressed everything, just as I had.
[Eve: This woman is that Cheonwolhyang.]