The Raid
There are countless things one can do with hundreds of thousands of zombie PCs.
Ordinary hackers might siphon personal data slumbering inside them, or even launch a DDoS attack potent enough to shake a major website. But Laplace—who accounted for a full eighty to ninety percent of my hacking power—could wield abilities bordering on the demonic, scaled to the sheer number of zombie machines and their combined processing throughput. Analyzing the flood of data streaming in from every infected computer, for instance, and performing feats that felt indistinguishable from genuine future sight.
Why am I bringing this up?
Last night, when the hour had grown too late to remain in the hacking war any longer, I dumped every remaining task onto Laplace and drifted off to dreamland. After a thoroughly ordinary day, I returned to the conference room—and found Gunggi’s website not merely breached, but dissected down to the last byte under Laplace’s meticulous scrutiny.
“Hey! Somebody stop that guy from going berserk!”
“Lucifer? Lucifer, can you hear me? If you’re there, say something…!”
Gunggi’s original plan had been straightforward: cut off the dark web, then have the hired assault teams infiltrate the headquarters they had already reconnoitered, seize critical documents and data, and physically seize control of the systems. Laplace, however, had gone far beyond simply taking the systems offline. She was toying with the entire site remotely.
Her processing speed—so overwhelming that the pre-prepared hacking tools became unnecessary—and the vast reservoirs of accumulated data behind it were enough to make every hacker present wonder whether what they were witnessing could possibly be the work of a human being.
“No way… is that even possible? Is that really a person? Firewalls don’t just fall like that!”
“I already knew something was off when he turned their own DDoS against them and blew every zombie PC sky-high, but how has information on a monster this skilled never leaked even once?”
“If you’re going to chat, mute your mics. I can hear everything.”
“Ah—sorry!”
Leaving their pale, monster-struck faces behind me, I settled comfortably into my seat and checked the display. With the processing power of hundreds of thousands of machines now at her disposal, Laplace had already pulled a complete set of blueprints for Gunggi’s headquarters from the infected computers and laid them out across the screen.
“I’ll share the blueprints first. When does the combat team’s assault begin?”
“Any moment. Blueprints? Where the hell did you get those?”
Ever since I had flawlessly neutralized the DDoS attack, Yekaterina’s gaze toward me had turned distinctly favorable. Where before she had regarded me like a hand of cards whose outcome was still uncertain, now she looked at me as though a royal flush had just been laid on the table.
“It’s a little early to be impressed. Once the raid starts, I’ll show you a rather entertaining magic trick.”
Yekaterina tilted her head, curiosity flickering across her features.
In truth, the “magic trick” was nothing extraordinary. Any hacker who appeared in games possessed the ability as a matter of course; in reality, however, almost no one had the raw capability to pull it off, rendering the technique effectively impossible.
“Assault preparations complete. Combat teams have been split into groups of twenty and staged near the operational zones. They can commence the moment the order is given.”
One of the staff officers responsible for Leviathan’s combat forces reported that everything was ready. Of the hundreds of hired mercenaries, the majority had already slipped illegally into China and taken up positions around Gunggi’s headquarters, quietly controlling the surrounding civilians. Even if the government unofficially sanctioned these annual “events,” injuring civilians would invite unpredictable pressure from above; only after every civilian had been cleared could the real fighting begin.
“This is Yekaterina, supreme commander of Leviathan. If you’re ready, all units enter the back alleys.”
Exchanging live feeds through the cameras mounted on the mercenaries, we pushed the advance. Fortunately, no booby traps had been laid. I had heard that particularly stubborn targets sometimes rigged explosives, but the assault had been so sudden that they clearly never had the chance.
We reached the headquarters without incident—only to find the entrance sealed by a steel door easily tens of centimeters thick.
“Our explosives won’t cut it against that thickness.”
“Anyone got a useful unique ability? Villain-nim, you packing anything?”
A man in a fedora stepped forward at their words.
“Let’s see. Allow me.”
Among the hired villains, he held the highest danger rating after Yekaterina herself—the one they called the Gambler. The others parted with renewed confidence. He drew a die from his coat, flicked it into the air, and let it tumble once through empty space before it settled on the floor.
The number showing was four—neither particularly high nor low. The moment it appeared, the massive steel door began to twist and warp.
Kwa-jijik— kwa-jik—!
It contorted like paper being wrung out, then abruptly stopped and snapped back into its original shape.
“Wh-what?”
“Why did it suddenly…?”
“The die didn’t work…? Hang on, then maybe cards—”
He shuffled a deck once, drew five cards from the top, and laid them out on the ground. The hand that appeared was…
“No pairs.”
“Tch… looks like luck isn’t with me today. Regrettably, there’s nothing more I can do.”
The man stepped back with genuine disappointment.
“At this rate we’ll be finished before we even start…”
If gunfire erupted inside the building, they would have no choice but to withdraw. Yekaterina sank into deep thought, wondering whether she would have to take the field herself.
Even then, I was already thinking: this was precisely the moment a hacker was needed.
The door structure of Gunggi’s headquarters isn’t a closed-circuit system. It’s open-architecture. That means remote hacking is possible.
—Laplace, can you seize facility control?
Malicious virus has been implanted in the facility main controller. Upon your command, facility control can be seized immediately.
Yes. This was exactly why, even in my previous life, people had whispered that Laplace might be a demon. She calculated the future from the information given to her, then designed the optimal path that favored her master. That was the true source of her power—and my irreplaceable masterpiece.
“Yekaterina. I told you earlier I’d show you an entertaining magic trick.”
“You did. Got a method?”
She asked, though she clearly wasn’t expecting much. This raid belonged to the field teams—fighting, destroying, seizing. It was the sort of battle that had almost nothing to do with hackers. The operation had been planned from the start under the assumption that the hacking unit could exert no meaningful influence, effectively excluding them. The hackers themselves understood this perfectly; most were either eating or catching up on lost sleep.
I, however, was confident I could create that “meaningful influence.”
“Strictly speaking, it’s less magic and more highly advanced technology… but no one else will be able to imitate it.”
“…?!”
Kuuuuuung—
Yekaterina started to voice her doubt, but her eyes flooded with shock before the words could form.
“Huh?”
“The door… the door’s opening?”
As the sealed gate suddenly began to open, the combat teams suspected a trap. The hackers watching the conference-room feeds, however, knew better. The shared virtual display now showed the building’s control system—proof that the entire facility’s management rights had fallen into someone’s hands. And since the person sharing that screen was obvious, the identity of the someone required no guesswork.
“I seized administrative rights to the building control system via malware. Every connected door is now open. All electrically powered systems—internal traps included—have been disabled. Oh, and can night-vision goggles be issued to every mercenary?”
“They already each have a pair, but… how the hell…?”
“Then I’ll kill every light inside as well. Once the building goes dark, no one without night vision or a flashlight will be able to see a thing. Let’s teach them just how helpless humans become in the dark.”
A battle inside a pitch-black building between those with night-vision goggles and those without. The outcome was already decided; it would be a one-sided slaughter.
Two hours after the combat teams entered the headquarters building—
“Aaaagh! Open the door! Open it!”
“Why is the emergency exit locked?!”
“Cover the CCTV! They’ve taken facility control! Don’t let the enemy see our positions!”
“It’s already too la—!”
Listening to the Chinese screams pouring through the hijacked CCTV and the mercenaries’ body cams, I leaned back comfortably in my chair. The moment the combat teams had entered, I had used the control rights to lock every exit leading outside. The building whose systems had been stolen became a gigantic trap from which no survivor could escape.
Until the incident concluded and Leviathan secured every last piece of data it wanted, no one was getting out.
For all practical purposes, Gunggi had already been completely absorbed by Leviathan.
And thanks to that, I was credited with the single most overwhelming contribution among every mercenary hired for the operation.