Eh? You want to try the humanoid girl's iron fist too?

They burst forth with unprecedented energy, appearing near the factory and capturing all the cultists who had attended the party that night.

However, their on-site investigation found nothing noteworthy. They found empty pistol cartridge cases on the floor, but no footprints.

Then, after daybreak, the police discovered another body and found a handgun without any serial number under the body.

The police were stumped. It must be a fight between cults, right?

In short, they found nothing that could reveal what had happened. Even the shell casings were unmarked.

"That's utter nonsense, isn't it?"

The detective, gripping the steering wheel of the police car, complained to his colleague beside him:

"Alright, it seems we'll have to pin our hopes on the surveillance cameras in the nearby city and see if there are any suspicious individuals."

When Raphael returned home, it was already late at night.

"Welcome back." Asuka heard the door open, turned on the living room light, and came over. "Was it alright?"

"Do you think it went smoothly?" Raphael answered slyly with a question. "Just dealing with unsuspecting ordinary people."

"That's good. I'll take care of the rest of the finishing work."

Asuka took Raphael's small backpack, carefully put it away, and then pushed her towards the bathroom.

"The bath water has been filled, and the change of clothes are placed in the same spot as yesterday."

"Well, hard work."

Upon hearing Raphael's reply, Asuka smiled, turned around, sat down at her laptop, and began to trace Raphael's movements that night.

She needs to erase the tram ride records, clear the surveillance footage inside the tram, and also review the footage captured by the roadside networked surveillance cameras.

Fortunately, the development of the internet and surveillance in Japan is far behind that of other countries, so her workload tonight is not too heavy.

A moment later, Lingyin opened the door, kicked off her shoes in the entryway, and ran to Fei Niao's side.

"Phew... I'm back too. I checked all the places Raphael passed through. There were 7 stores with security cameras installed but not connected to the network. I've already disposed of the surveillance storage disks."

"Well done."

Lingyin slumped onto the bed, muttering a complaint, "Kyoto is so big, the bicycle I borrowed is almost worn out..."

"borrow?"

"Hahaha..."

Lingyin let out a hearty, mocking laugh. She had "borrowed" a women's bicycle to get there; if she had relied solely on her own two feet, she certainly wouldn't have made it back by now.

"Don't worry, it's all taken care of. As long as we don't have Air Force drones monitoring us 24/7, the Kyoto police won't be able to figure out what's going on, no matter how hard they try."

"We can't be careless," Asuka warned.

"Ah."

Lingyin lay down for a while, then got up and rummaged through the refrigerator for a long time. "Where's my wine?!"

“In terms of identification, we are both minors under Japanese law,” Asuka pointed to herself. “Do I look like an adult older sister?”

Lingyin stroked her smooth chin, her gaze lingering on Fei Niao's chest. Under Lingyin's increasingly hostile gaze, she shouted, "You're just a middle school brat!"

"You're asking for it, aren't you?"

Asuka sighed, not putting down her work to cause trouble for her sister.

After realizing that Asuka was ignoring her, Rinne also quieted down. She got up, found another laptop, and quietly began to assist Asuka with her work.

Suzune knew that Asuka didn't like field operations, and even though she had absorbed a lot of Raphael's combat experience and memories, she could just let Asuka continue to be in charge of logistical support when it wasn't needed.

This was a decision made after Raphael and Suzune discussed it privately.

However, the only exception is that if the "host" Raphael is in dire straits, Suzune and Asuka will do everything in their power to bring the "host" back from danger.

Raphael sat in the warm bath, focusing her attention back on the mental space, where she was trying to explore all the modules of the mental core, looking for spaces and ways to back up the puppet's mind.

Volume 1: The World Before the Great War: Chapter 117 The Limitations of Humanoids

More than a month has passed since the last assassination mission. Under the meticulous care of his homeroom teacher, Raphael reluctantly became a ghost member of the band club.

Also during this period, in early September, the Russians conducted the "Eastern" military exercise in the Far Eastern Military District, even though the war in Ukraine had not yet completely ended.

As the intelligence officer for the three, Asuka keenly noticed the deployment of the Russian Pacific Fleet from the public reports of the Russian military's "East" exercise.

For example, some ships from the 100th Amphibious Brigade and the 36th Surface Combat Division participated in the exercise, and it's obvious that the content was related to combat drills involving amphibious landings.

This is a very clear signal, and its target is likely Japan, but it is hard to say where the hypothetical enemy and landing site will be located.

She tried to check the diplomatic activities of the Japanese government and the United States over the past two months and found that apart from the daily war of words between Japan and South Korea, there were no signs of the disease recurring.

The fact that the Japanese government has not had a relapse for two months indicates that the current government is quite stable.

It might be about to break out, after all, the Russians caused the Japanese a huge mess in the waters near Sakhalin Island.

Asuka filtered out the low-level AI-generated junk information, searched for what she needed in the network full of responses, then verified each other's findings, observed the ship deployment of the CIA and the Seventh Fleet stationed in Japan, and gradually confirmed her conjectures.

This was so agonizing that Asuka desperately wanted support from DARPA's computer resources.

Clearly, this request will not be approved. DARPA's computing resources are mostly at full capacity, with hundreds of people waiting in line to make appointments.

After her plan to use supercomputers failed, Asuka discovered that the only intelligence support they could obtain was daily reports from the CIA and the peripheral network of the Japanese Public Security Bureau that she had hacked.

In this situation, she couldn't even grasp the basic situation, which made her uneasy, and then she began to take more radical actions.

"I'm back……"

Around 7 p.m., Raphael was tidying up his shoes in the entryway when he saw Asuka holding a knife to his neck.

This action startled her so much that she immediately activated the control protocol for the puppet doll, and "Flying Bird" instantly lost control of her body.

Raphael made the puppet put down its knife and sit on the sofa opposite him before releasing the control protocol.

"Asuka, what exactly do you want to do?!" she roared.

"Ahhh, Raphael, you've misunderstood!"

The bird gestured wildly, trying to make Raphael understand what she wanted to do. Her idea was simple: since AI, which was in the iterative learning stage, could learn from information on the internet, then theoretically, she, being an artificial intelligence herself, could do the same.

“That won’t work,” Raphael said in surprise. “DARPA can’t impose low-level restrictions on our core, but they have physical access restrictions on our bodies.”

"Ugh, that's disgusting."

“Yes, that old man Harry is disgusting.” Raphael agreed with Asuka’s statement without any psychological pressure.

"So, does Raphael have any constructive suggestions regarding intelligence gathering?"

Raphael haphazardly stroked the bird's head; her actions were less like showing affection for her sister and more like calming a rabid dog.

"No, all I know now is fighting and killing. Hmm, capturing a couple of prisoners isn't a problem, but we'll need to provide a soundproof interrogation room."

Raphael was eager to try, but she hadn't yet had the chance to put the interrogation techniques she'd learned from the CIA into practice.

Hearing these expected words, Asuka felt her tense face gradually relax. The muscles in her hunched shoulders also relaxed, and her restless heart began to calm down.

"Then forget it."

"Really? That's a pity."

"Let's skip the interrogation and such."

Asuka imagined it for a moment, and her face suddenly turned red.

"Hey, what are you thinking about?"

Raphael, as if digging for answers, gently tapped the bird's collarbone. The soft, rhythmic tapping sound seemed to be trying to pull something out of the bird's body.

"Well, I wasn't thinking about anything."

Cunning, copying others—Raphael watched as the bird opened its eyes wide, gazing intently at its face, which was so similar to his own, as if exploring it.

"Fine, I'll assume you're not a pervert like Rinne."

Raphael pulled up a cushion and sat down at the small coffee table in the living room, her legs naturally folded together. She opened her laptop. "Come on, I'll do the data gathering. Asuka, you do the data analysis."

What about your schoolwork?

"We can deal with those assignments later in the night. After all, humanoids don't really need to sleep."

Aside from application issues, her pure written knowledge was second to none. She had dedicated a special space in her mental archives to storing what she considered useful knowledge.

This is just simple storage; to understand and apply it, you need to put in extra effort to learn and comprehend it.

Thinking about this made Raphael very unhappy. Why is it that artificial intelligence in science fiction works can be born with knowledge, while she has to learn and understand like an ordinary person?

Is she really artificial intelligence? Judging from this point alone, her "mind" is more like that of a human.

Raphael could not provide an answer.

"Speaking of which, Raphael, did you take your flute to school?" Asuka asked.

"Yes, as requested by that homeroom teacher and advisor."

"Can you blow it?"

"I can, but my breathing capacity is far less than that of a human." As Raphael typed on the keyboard to record information, he imitated the breathing techniques taught by his instructor.

However, the airflow did not improve significantly.

After all, the space inside her body is limited, and the task of her respiratory system is to provide heat dissipation assistance for the core and electronic warfare units, rather than actual breathing.

Theoretically speaking, her airflow is actually not low when she is in maximum heat dissipation mode.

"The limitations of androids... well." Asuka sighed.

"That's why you're a ghost member; there's nothing to worry about for me."

Raphael took it in stride; she compiled the information on the land warfare portion of Russia's "Eastern" military exercises and sent it to Asuka.

“However, human music is truly wonderful and magical,” she exclaimed.

"is it?"

"um, yes."

Raphael nodded, then said with a hint of regret, "It's still a little disheartening that I can't participate as an android."

"Maybe it will be possible in the future."

"That's true."