Estimated reading time: 9–12 minutes
Chapter 9: A Story From the One Being Jerked Around (Side Story)
A room in a certain building. A man was in a room that was intentionally sparse so that nothing could be manipulated.
「Yes, just like last time, the Primordial Strain is invading. The players’ equipment still isn’t ready. After all, this is only the third day.」
「I suppose so. Anyway, how do you think this incident will turn out?」
A young woman’s voice could be heard over the phone. Although the man was dressed sharply in a suit befitting someone over 40, his attitude didn’t match. But he had to act that way because she had the power. As the head of Public Security Division 6, she was in charge of overseeing 『HAO』.
The man hesitated briefly, gathered his thoughts, then put them into words.
「I think it’s impossible. It’s a saving grace that the login restrictions were temporarily lifted, but there aren’t any other plus factors. We already confirmed through our own challenges that it can’t be done without the Fusions, even though the 46 aren’t fully converted yet.」
「I guess so. That’s why we allowed civilian participation.」
「It was awful what happened to RE Corp, who achieved the most cooperation with us, taking damage from content intended to take them down.」
「Orange. It was beyond expectations that what took us six tries over two years could be done in a single day.」
The woman on the phone also sighed alluringly. The man knew she was absorbed in playing around as a prostitute in 『HAO』under the pretense of work, and in fact she had successfully brought about change that way once, so he had no complaints. But struggling to shake those kinds of thoughts from his mind was an unexpected headache.
Open the data file. The forces that have traced the true name of Orange, aka Mishima Kanji, over the past few days – Russia, America, China, and Kōmitsu Solutions. None of these forces had been keeping direct watch on Mishima Kanji specifically. Rather, the ones they were focused on were Shiroinu Reina and her mother. They had been monitoring data on them, and the uncovered parts of Orange’s mask matched, which is how it was discovered.
「Has anyone approached him directly yet?」
「I believe they’re still just observing. From what I hear of their movements, he seems to just be a lucky player. But there are a few other candidates.」
「A potential Esper…」
An unconfirmed Esper. Espers who do not exhibit the reactions characteristic of Espers. Over the past two years, the existence of such people has come to light and become an issue. After all, they can’t be identified and slip through government control. If the existence of actual Espers spread online, it could cause tremendous turmoil.
Oddly, these unconfirmed Espers’ abilities seem to match – “consciousness stays the same while only time rewinds to an earlier point”. Among the wide variety of ability types like telekinesis and pyrokinesis, it is clearly an abnormal situation for multiple people’s abilities to overlap. Of course Mishima Kanji isn’t an unconfirmed Esper or anything, but he has no way of knowing that.
And recently, the ones gathering these unconfirmed Espers have been Hereafter Corporation – the operators of 『HAO』.
The man loosened his necktie and swung his legs as he talked.
「If those unconfirmed Espers fall under Hereafter Corporation’s jurisdiction, the potential damage when they make a move would be tremendous. Our project could face the risk of having the mastermind nation eliminated entirely.」
「He’s surrounded by those two beastkin, and now even the daughter of Kōmitsu Solutions’s president is getting close to him. It’s abnormal for a normal person to be surrounded by such an extravagant crowd, don’t you think? The possibility that there’s something more seems strong.」
「I concur.」
Another possibility is that he’s propaganda for another country – making Japan’s top player reliant on their own country, monopolizing and leaking the information obtained on the Japanese server. There’s also the chance he could be a cyborg under Kōmitsu Solutions’s command, prepared for their company’s publicity.
Their thoughts become trapped by the fictional image of Mishima Kanji that they themselves created. The matter is so large in scale that it doesn’t occur to them that the person in question himself could be operating under a misunderstanding.
「So what about other forces then?」
「Yes, one FBI agent from America has been spotted on the Japan server. However, he’s logged into 『HAO』 with his face totally unchanged – one of the ‘visible’ personnel in our database.」
「Something we don’t need to hide from. Besides, if they wanted to do something they could just use their own country’s server.」
「No one else has shown their tail yet. After all, you can change your face during character creation, so identification is difficult.」
「That is a sticking point, isn’t it. We can try to investigate foreign access but it’s indistinguishable from regular people. There’s definitely at least one person they’ve sent for intel gathering regarding Orange, but who knows where it’ll go from here. If something else happens the Japan server will become a mess again.」
Imagining Espers, Cyborgs, Beastkin and simply powerful Powered Armor Humans from various countries and organizations gathering on the Japan server sent a chill through the man. He wants them to hurry up and go home so he has less work, but he knows that wish will be crushed in just a few days.
There’s a streamer named Hiniru.
「This guy’s totally scum! You can’t just abandon and brag about disconnections in online games, look I searched the pics he uploaded on SNS… Yeah, it’s Kanagawa, I’ll dox him and expose his real name, it’s the iron hammer of justice!」
「Whoa he’s freaking out and apologizing. A middle schooler? I dunno bout that, everyone call his school and send stuff to his house!」
「You sent him shit!? Lol!」
「Says over 100 pranks came to his house, serves you right eat that iron hammer of justice!」
Hiniru is a streamer of the FPS『BCD』, infamous in a bad way. He started out as a normal streamer sincerely playing games, but at some point he changed.
『Bringing down the iron hammer of justice on abandoning players!』
With that title, he would find the SNS of players violating the game rules by abandoning matches in-game, identify their addresses from photos they had posted, and send threatening messages to intimidate them into apologizing.
This video got view counts reaching 1000 times his usual, marking Hiniru’s true beginning. He continued uploading videos condemning malicious players he discovered in-game. However, the view count on the game streams he actually wanted people to watch remained stagnantly below 3000.
To keep his audience from getting bored of the condemnations, or perhaps just using that as an excuse, Hiniru’s actions became more and more extreme until he was instigating his viewers to directly harass people alongside him.
「Good job dude, you sent 10 prank deliveries. You’re the MVP today, have some praise.」
An upscale apartment suite – that was Hiniru’s kingdom. As a result of only exposing people he thought he could handle and continually harassing them, he now had this place. The interior design was calm and the room wasn’t dirty. A housekeeper came once a week to clean it. The desk and bed were made of plain wood while only the PC and monitors were high-end brands. The expansive closet contained only normal clothes from Uniqlo.
His view count grew steadily. He no longer streamed games properly, living off the “condemnation videos” instead.
But.
「Tsk… only this many views today?」
He tilted his chair back in irritation, plucking hairs from his beard.
The lifespan of online games varies. Some don’t last a year, some keep going for over 10 years. But 『BCD』 had a lot of competing games and lost popularity to other FPS titles. On top of that, many viewers left after seeing Hiniru become more extreme, and now his view count had plunged to one tenth what it had been at its peak.
He had moved into this upscale apartment during his peak. As such, it was premised on that period’s income, and if his view count kept falling Hiniru ran the risk of being unable to pay rent – something his pride wouldn’t allow.
「There’s gotta be someone, someone I can bash and get away with it. Someone it’s fine for everyone to harass… !?」
Glaring down at the cityscape from his bright room, Hiniru scowled as he continued his search. And then finally, he found it. The worst incident that had just happened today – although not in BCD itself, a player had caused massive damages to RE Corp through confidential information leaks.
It was nothing but convenient for Hiniru. Firstly, the famous incident meant he could rack up views. Next, condemning the villain responsible for the information leak took an easy, understandable form. And above all, it was a great opportunity to move his base outside of BCD.
「Yes! With this, it’s Hiniru’s comeback!」
He looked up, a broad grin on his face as he started typing into his computer, contacting his audience to get them to help humiliate this player, Orange, in front of the whole world and force him to dogeza. So of course, he had no way of knowing the truth – that Orange wasn’t responsible for the information leak, the reality of 『HAO』, and most of all, who Mishima Kanji was as a person.
Hiniru
A streamer who doesn’t just gossip but takes justice into his own hands. He claims it’s justice, but in reality… His cunning side shows in how he properly restricts his targets to women and children, but in his impatience this time he chose the worst possible guy. Orange’s victim(?) #2.
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