The Strange Adventures of Hearn the Believer

Not to mention that an hour earlier, the police system in an entire block of Chiyoda Ward suddenly went down, forcing all officers on duty to be absent from work.

The temporary tasks assigned to him from above were already giving him a huge headache.

Shiratori Tonjuro, 28 years old, single, works as a detective in Tokyo with the rank of Assistant Inspector, specializing in frontline crime investigations.

As a child, I dreamed of becoming a champion of justice, and as an adult, I have fulfilled that childhood promise and resolutely embarked on this path. I can be described as an idealist who always keeps his word.

However, there are times when one feels powerless on the path to realizing one's ideals, like right now.

"Foolish politicians!" Officer Shiratori thought with immense resentment.

The culprit who prevented him from having dinner with his sweetheart on Christmas Eve to further their relationship was a member of parliament from Chiba Prefecture. The parliamentarian's daughter had run away from home more than 24 hours ago and had not yet returned. During these 24 hours, the parliamentarian and his wife, anxious for their daughter, had been using their network of connections to put pressure on the police system, hoping that the frontline officers could make progress as soon as possible and "bring the runaway daughter to justice."

Logically speaking, as a member of a wealthy family himself, Officer Shiratori/Young Master Shiratori could understand the young lady's behavior of running away from home to resist the strict paternal/maternal authority of her family. After all, he had similar thoughts when he was young and impetuous.

Regardless, the young lady's reckless actions have caused panic and worry among her family, and are also extremely irresponsible towards her own safety. As a righteous adult, even if Officer Shiratori deeply despises the politician who exerts pressure from afar, he will do his duty to search for the young lady's whereabouts.

But today's high school students are really something else! Does this mean that I, an old man who graduated from university six or seven years ago, have been completely eliminated?

The white bird stood at the crossroads, feeling inexplicably moved.

A person cannot simply vanish into thin air. After being stuck at Narita Airport all day, the colleagues quickly changed their thinking and shifted their speculation about the target's possible escape route to the direction of Tokyo.

According to Inspector Shiratori's personal deduction, the chaotic areas of Minato Ward, namely the ports of all sizes, are the only way for smugglers to cross the border discreetly from the Tokyo area.

The above reasoning is actually the result of my own thinking. The reason is simple: this was one of the escape routes that Shiratori himself failed to implement back then.

It gives one a sense of accomplishment, like seeing the achievements of those who came before.

However, when Shiratori reported the clues to his superiors and began preparing for follow-up work, a document put his work in a difficult situation.

Tokyo Port, or more specifically, the commercial port of Japan's capital, is located on the northwest shore of Tokyo Bay in southern Honshu and is a major transportation hub in Japan. It is adjacent to Chiba and Kawasaki ports by sea, 10 nautical miles from Yokohama, 212 nautical miles from Nagoya, and 364 nautical miles from Kobe, with sea and air routes connecting all five continents. The port area is situated between the Arakawa and Tama rivers in the southeast of the city and is divided into inner and outer harbors. The inner harbor is close to the city, running from north to south, and includes the Takeshiba and Hinode passenger/cargo terminals on the west side of the access channel, the Shibaura domestic trade terminal, and the Shinagawa general cargo and container terminal. All of these terminals are connected to railway lines.

In 2097, near the end of the century, cargo terminals and agricultural and livestock product production bases, which involve actual production capacity and circulation, may be among the few institutions and facilities that have not been replaced in reality by the electronic sea.

This has resulted in the situation where Tokyo Port remains bustling with activity in reality, but the electronic world is deserted.

What truly hampered Shiratori's search was not the current situation as described above, nor the increased difficulty of the search due to the vast area and complex environment of Tokyo Port.

But

The white bird looked up again at the leaden sky, the winter rain before Christmas Eve chilling to the bone in the form of electronic signals.

From that direction, bells rang out.

The familiar school bell briefly pulled 28-year-old Mr. Shiratori back to his passionate youth, and he couldn't help but yearn for it.

He stood on the street opposite the gate of Keio Girls' High School, holding a completely transparent umbrella bought from a convenience store and wearing a well-fitting black suit. The young ladies in their winter uniforms filed out and secretly pointed at the handsome man, guessing which beauty he was waiting for.

Mr. Shiratori Ninzaburo remained unmoved, at least on the surface.

It's unclear how long this somewhat awkward situation lasted.

Lost in his daydreams, reminiscing about his youth to the point of arrogance, Officer Shiratori vaguely sensed a blurry black shadow hovering before him. He pulled his wandering thoughts back to the present and realized that there was a high school girl who used black to the extreme, bowing slightly to him.

"Hello, if the information I received beforehand is correct, I assume you must be Mr. Shiratori Ninzaburo." The high school girl looked up and gave a polite smile.

“That’s me. But no need for formalities. I don’t think I’m old enough to be a generation below you young people.” Officer Shiratori scratched his head with a slightly troubled expression. Out of professional instinct, he gave the high school girl in front of him a police salute. “I am Shiratori Jinjuro, working in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. My rank is Assistant Inspector. Nice to meet you.”

"Please forgive my rudeness," the black-clad high school girl carrying a tennis racket bag bowed again and extended her hand to introduce herself, "Isayama Yomi, a second-year student at Keio Girls' High School, and also working at the [Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Electronics Research Promotion Bureau, Anomaly Rewriting Countermeasures Office]."

"What do you mean by 'abnormal event rewriting'?" Despite being impolite, Shiratori, who had a thousand complaints in her mind, finally spoke up.

“For example, Mr. Shiratori, after a busy day, you return to your home in the Sea of ​​Electronics and find that your cozy home has been transformed into a corner of the Tsukiji Fish Market, which has just opened for the morning,” Ms. Isayama explained gently.

"Leaving aside why my expensively renovated home in reality turned into a fish market in the electronic world, I roughly understand the nature of your department. It's a coder's office that specializes in fixing bugs, right?" Shiratori felt a surge of blood rushing up his esophagus. "Is my boss out of his mind, or am I still half asleep?"

"What do you mean?" Miss Isayama asked, feigning confusion.

"I was handling a case involving a missing underage high school girl who had run away from home. Just when things were making progress, my boss rejected my proposal. Then, an official document assigned me to meet with you, Ms. Isayama. According to the document, I need to cooperate with your... uh, the Abnormal Events Overwriting Countermeasures Office to conduct further search work in the coming days."

"Yes, I understand. If I may ask, did Mr. Shiratori's proposal include any specific speculation about the whereabouts of the missing high school girl? I mean, the location within the [Electronic Sea]."

"I believe Tokyo Port, both in reality and in the digital world, deserves a thorough investigation," Shiratori asserted.

“Understood. Tokyo Port, or more precisely, the capital's commercial port, I think I understand why Mr. Shiratori’s superiors ordered you to come and cooperate with our department in continuing the search.” Ms. Isayama nodded and said, “Time is of the essence. Please come with me to the countermeasures office to discuss the matter with your superiors.”

"Is that so? So how do you plan to begin?" Shiratori followed Isayama step by step out of the entrance of the girls' high school and headed towards the nearby subway station.

"There is no major problem in reality for the time being. Fortunately, Japan is the only country in the world that needs to be monitored around the clock in reality for Hive."

"Excuse me, what does 'Hive' mean? A honeycomb? I don't think so. You programmers' jargon is really incomprehensible to laymen."

"【Hive】is just a code name. Other countries and similar organizations have different names for it. Mr. Shiratori can think of it as a 【gate】, 【nest】, 【world】, 【abyss】 or something like that."

"That's why I can't understand your programmers' jargon at all," Shiratori said, exasperated.

“In short,” Ms. Isayama, who was walking ahead, stopped and turned around to look Shiratori Ninzaburo in the eyes, her tone solemn and serious, “if the girl who ran away from home disappeared in the real Tokyo port, then Mr. Shiratori, your police system would only be dealing with a very ordinary kidnapping case.”

"If she disappeared in Tokyo Port in the Sea of ​​Electronics, then unfortunately, no matter where her physical body is now—even if you find it, it won't do any good, because it will most likely be a soulless walking corpse."

"So what the hell is 【Hive】!?"

"That is the sin that humanity inevitably released after opening Pandora's box half a century ago."

"???"

“The indescribable things of another world use the sea of ​​electronics as a springboard to erode the bridgehead of reality.”

"Okay, please speak like a human. Assuming I fully understand what [Hive] is, please try to tell me, a Muggle, in simple terms what's beneath Tokyo Port in the electronic sea?" Shiratori took a deep breath to calm himself down.

"A [Hive] that has been identified for nearly twenty years and is at a depth of VI—codenamed [Ryugu]," Ms. Isayama replied succinctly.

P.S. 1: Don't go away, there will be at least one more update today.

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Chapter 21 Under the Utopia (Part 2)

Electronic Sea, Minato Ward, Tokyo, after midnight.

Mr. Hearn, dressed in a white suit and tie, rode a cute, cream-colored electric scooter slowly down the road with a look of utter disillusionment. The scooter buzzed and bumped along the way, never exceeding a speed of more than 60 km/h, demonstrating its extremely safe performance. Yukinoshita, wearing a helmet, sat silently on the back.

As the red light turned on, the little lamb stopped at the deserted intersection.

"Mr. Hearn, may I ask you a question?"

"please."

"Why is it that you, who have a girlfriend who drives a Maserati, can only ride a scooter?"

"Well... there are very, very long historical reasons behind this. Also, let me state upfront that she is not my girlfriend, at least not now."

Time goes back half an hour.

With the deal settled, Mr. Hearn released his hand from Yukino's, stood up, looked around, and announced loudly.

"Ladies, I need a car to take me to the port area. So, who will be so lucky?"

Wherever his gaze fell, chaos ensued. The group playing mahjong and the group lying paralyzed on the sofa instantly fainted on the spot. His movements were fluid and extremely skilled. Soon, only Jill behind the bar, Charlotte on the sofa, Mr. Hearn, and Ms. Yukinoshita remained standing in the entire bar.

“Jill?” Mr. Hearn approached the bar with a bright smile.

The female bartender turned her face away and refused to look at him anymore.

“Mr. Hearn, please wait a moment,” Little Red Riding Hood suggested, waving from the sofa behind her. “I’ll contact the clan in Tokyo right away and have them send a car over.”

“Let’s forget it, Miss Charlotte.” Jill turned around with a cold expression. “The cost is too high!”

"It seems like you don't really trust me?" Sensing the increasingly tense atmosphere, the believer looked around uneasily, only to be met with several gazes from all directions that seemed to want to skin him alive.

Jill pulled a bunch of keys from under the bar and tossed them in front of him. "There's a car in the back of the bar. Go get it yourself."

"Thank you, Jill, you're such an angel." The believer picked up the car keys, beckoned Yukino to follow, and the two quickly disappeared from the hall.

Just as they stepped out of the bar's back door, Hua Shan, who had been pretending to be dead in the lobby, suddenly jumped up and started shouting, "The betting is open! Everyone, bet on whether he can bring Jill's car back intact this time. Odds: 1:1000."

The atmosphere grew increasingly lively. After observing from behind the bar for a while, Jill stepped out and placed her bet with Huashan, saying, "I bet he can't win."

“The odds are so low, even if you win, you won’t make much. Why not try betting on ‘can’? Give it a shot and you might just turn your luck around,” Huashan enthusiastically suggested to Jill.

"No, I gave up hope on his driving skills a long time ago. Besides, that car was actually pawned by a drunkard who couldn't afford his drinks at the bar half a month ago. It's fine if it's broken, I don't care." Jill waved her hand to indicate that it was alright.

"That's a huge sum of money, aren't you worried about the cost?" Hua Shan was still somewhat unwilling to give up.

"How much is a used scooter worth?" Jill rolled her eyes and asked coldly.

The memory ends.

"In short, I must have been cursed by transportation from the moment I was born. Riding is fine, but whenever I drive, whether in the real world or the electronic world, I usually don't have a good ending. My old friends all know this, so they all give me a cold shoulder."

The green light came on, and the woman stomped her foot on the ground, and the scooter continued to move slowly forward with the roar of the accelerator.

"These old-fashioned vehicles are actually not bad."

"What a bizarre curse," Yukinoshita thought, beginning to consider her personal safety and tensing her body, ready to jump off the train at any moment.

The little lamb made a "drrrrrrrrrrrr" sound as it sped off down the rainy night streets toward Tokyo Port, the neon lights illuminating the entire street.

“Wait, Mr. Hearn, nowadays, apart from drivers who still use manual driving to pursue a realistic experience, most ordinary families have already adopted AI on their personal terminals to achieve driverless driving, right? If you have deficiencies in driving skills, why not consider using AI to complete the driving?” Yukinoshita turned her head to look at the neon lights in the rainy night, watching the images flashing on the holographic billboard. When the advertisement rotated to the AI ​​advertisement featuring a popular purple-haired female passerby, Yukinoshita suddenly realized her blind spot.

"Ah, you mean that?" Through her peripheral vision and the advertising slogans that reached her ears, the believer Hearn realized why the passenger in the back seat had said such a thing.

Sometimes, practice is more effective than language in explaining things.

He freed one hand and tapped the air a few times in the air beside him, and a loading bar appeared in Xuexia's field of vision along with the panel.

"[Data loaded 100%]"

Loading personal terminal-assisted AI

AI personality module is being implemented.

OK! B.Bchannel~ Welcome back to the electronic sea! [Previous...wua!!]

In the snow-covered view, as the AI's loading bar reached 100%, the lively, purple-haired, big-breasted, devilish junior peeked out from a corner of the page, only to be suddenly propelled to the other side of the window by an inexplicable force, letting out a strange cry and disappearing without a trace.

After she disappeared, the entire AI loading interface quickly turned into a jumble of blurry static, with an unstable signal. After several distortions, the image finally went completely black.

""

"...What's going on?"

"I don't know, but it's an undeniable fact that I've been unable to download any AI-related programs to my personal terminal since the first time I was born. So, regarding intelligent driving, I can only say that I have the will but not the ability," Xin Nu said with a wry smile.

"Haven't you thought about replacing the hardware?" Yukinoshita thought for a moment and then asked in return.

"It was replaced, but clearly, it didn't work."

Mr. Hearn continued driving his scooter at breakneck speed through the rainy night, his spirit fading into the distance.

Now that things have come to this, Ms. Yukinoshita knows she shouldn't dwell on this topic any longer.

Perhaps this kind of thing really comes down to luck; it's something that can't be explained.

Yukino's gaze lingered absently on her left front, on the black screen that Mr. Hern had just demonstrated for her. It was a window he had forgotten to close, and now it had fallen silent as the AI ​​program failed to install again.

However, at the very moment that she had such thoughts...

"!"

On the pitch-black electronic screen, a blood-red emblem flashed by. The complex, irregular geometric patterns were distributed in a ring. From the inside out, there were twelve rings, and an unknown script, like a curse, spread and was engraved along the rings.

From its appearance to its disappearance, it took Yukinoshita only a blink of an eye. But just letting that blasphemous emblem be reflected on her retina reminded Yukinoshita of the excruciating headache and distorted vision she had experienced when she encountered the alien in the alley. This time, it was thousands of times more intense than before. It was a bone-chilling cold, a shiver from the depths of her soul, and a hysterical madness!

Fortunately, the suffocating sense of oppression vanished in an instant as the emblem disappeared.

"Your body suddenly twitched, what happened?" The woman asked the person in the back seat while carefully watching the road ahead and driving the scooter.

"It's nothing, I must have misread it." Yukino Yukinoshita rubbed her eyes and replied after confirming that the still-open virtual image page was still completely black.

"Oh."

The little scooter continued its drrrrrrrrrrrr, carrying the two of them into the distance.

Speechless all the way.

Second update! Please vote with monthly tickets, recommend, favorite, and promote!

Chapter 22 Dragon Palace

"Want some coffee?" A high school girl dressed in black asked as she passed by.

"I mean... thank you," Shiratori said, sounding somewhat uneasy.

This is a lounge located in an unremarkable Grade A office building in Inner Minato Ward, Tokyo. Different floors house companies of all sizes, and on a day like Christmas Eve, it is unusual for the building not to be brightly lit.

This is also one of the offices of the so-called "Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Electronics Research Promotion Bureau, Anomalous Event Overwriting Countermeasures Office".