From his split-screen view, Mercer saw that Lucy and the others had already scavenged the items he wanted from the warehouse.
Individual survival kits, mechanical repair kits, and, according to the annotations Mercer provided through his cybereye, each of them had taken at least one Arasaka JKE-X2 Kenshin tech pistol.
This pistol used electromagnetic propulsion to fire tungsten-tipped rounds, boasting excellent armor-piercing performance. It required a brief charge for two-round bursts, and its bullets could even deliver lethal damage through walls.
Additionally, everyone carried an HJSH-18 Masamune, Arasaka's classic power rifle.
Aside from the annoying inherited three-round-burst mode in its grooves, it was an extremely user-friendly, precise rifle equipped with a holographic sight and chambered for 7.62 mm armor-piercing ammunition, with very straightforward maintenance.
They also each carried various types of grenades, three magazines per weapon, and a dedicated backpack of ammunition for resupply.
Even so, the group of novice netrunners was exhausted. Kyoko was gritting her teeth as she dragged her bag along. Mercer slapped his forehead, only then remembering to have the idle robot lend a hand.
"The aerodyne vehicle is arriving. Hand the items to the robot to bring to the entrance. You won't be involved in any firefights. Also, quickly fetch me a large storage drive. I've acquired quite a bit of data, and ordinary chips can't hold it all."
Mercer appeared out of nowhere, but this time Lucy wasn't startled. She immediately nodded in agreement. "I'll get it. Do you need it connected to your server?"
Mercer replied, "Just find any networked terminal. The entire base is under my control now."
"Understood." Lucy turned and went to retrieve it.
"The rest of you, take this time to rest. Have something to eat and drink. Help me extract that agent's cyberware... No, I'll handle it myself using the robot. Just hand me the cryo-box."
Mercer decided to spare these pale-faced novice netrunners. If they actually had to do it, he was afraid the kids would vomit on the spot.
But he felt nothing about it now; in fact, he felt fantastic.
Kyoko quickly nodded. The blurred patches in her field of view were already nauseating enough; she couldn't imagine what it would feel like to actually perform a dissection herself.
Daichi and Leon also breathed a sigh of relief. Truth be told, they didn't particularly want to see the corpses littering the first floor of the base either. They just swallowed hard, found a spot to sit, and rested.
Then they watched as a robot discarded its weapon, picked up the cryo-box from the ground, and took the scalpel Kyoko had been carrying with her.
She had taken it from the medical bay on his instructions. The robot then located the agent captain who had been twisted like a pretzel.
Mercer controlled the robot to mercilessly slice open the agent along his spine, examining the condition of the experimental Sandevistan. He sighed regretfully:
"The neural link is partially burned out, and some parts are even bent out of shape from his own contortions. Even if repaired, it would likely malfunction easily. Better not to use it on our own people. I'll practice with it on the way and find a buyer for it later.
This isn't a prototype, but lab-grade equipment should still be worth something. It just can't be sold casually. We'll hold onto it and sell it in Dogtown."
He roughly pried open the Sandevistan and yanked it out, tossing it into a cryo-container before shutting the lid and setting the temperature.
Then he turned his attention to the agent's hands, dissecting them without hesitation for another inspection before nodding in approval.
"This one's usable. We can sell it later. Too bad; if I didn't already have monowire, I'd love to try out Mantis Blades."
"Anyone here want them?"
Mercer's avatar stood beside the surgical robot, glancing at the group of children, who immediately shook their heads frantically, afraid he might offer to install the blades on one of them right then and there.
"Alright, we'll keep it to sell. This is rare gear. Bundled together, even on the black market, it should easily fetch over two hundred thousand."
Satisfied, Mercer placed it inside. Earlier, he'd had the kids search for CredChips but only managed to scrape together a little over two thousand eurodollars from scattered chips.
They only had Arasaka Bank accounts for now, which would definitely be frozen soon, so they couldn't access the dead men's CredChips through their neural links. A shame.
Thinking this, Mercer used the remaining security bots in the room to search Auntie's bedroom again. Sure enough, no CredChips, but there was a custom-made Kenshin pistol.
It still featured the classic black-and-red color scheme, but with an added red waistline along the barrel compared to the standard model.
A cherry blossom pattern was engraved on the grip. In a game, this would definitely be an Iconic weapon, probably called something like Kenshin: Falling Cherry Blossom.
Mercer had the room's bots take it away, sending it down via elevator. At least the search wasn't a total waste.
He felt a little embarrassed; he'd just said it was the last time, and here he was again. Oh well.
Next time, he'd finish searching before making promises like that.
Mercer waited quietly as Lucy connected the portable hard drive to the network, then immediately uploaded all the critical data he'd scavenged.
External cameras finally picked up the aerodyne vehicle's approach, so Mercer quickly directed the security bots and drones on the first floor to combat readiness.
He ran a friend-or-foe identification scan, updated their permissions to enable autonomous targeting, and began preparing for the final confrontation.
—--
"Captain, comms confirm the plan remains unchanged, enter through Cargo Entrance 2."
"Copy that, preparing to land."
A black aerodyne vehicle emblazoned with Arasaka's white logo descended slowly. As the massive metal gate rose, the pilot drove habitually into the entrance inspection zone.
He glanced over instinctively and noticed that, unlike usual, two robots were manning the typically strict checkpoint, instantly putting him on edge.
The pilot asked via comms, "Where are the security personnel stationed here?"
"By order of Director Tano, all security, agents, and relevant staff must undergo secondary security screening today.
Security systems are temporarily monitored by automated units. Please proceed to the unloading zone after inspection and await further instructions from receiving personnel to complete the handover."
As the robot's cold voice concluded, the red scanner beam finally shut off. "Identity verification failed. Please power down the vehicle immediately and exit with all passengers for identity inspection."
"Damn, is this right? Captain, maybe you should call the Director with a voice message?"
The driver muttered uncertainly.
The transport team captain had already been frowning while sending a message but received only one reply.
[Director Tano: In a meeting. Organizing secondary inspections for all base personnel today. Leave a voice message if urgent.]
It seemed to match up... surely Director Tano's comms couldn't have been hacked, right?
Thinking this, the transport captain simply nodded and ordered the driver to power down, then stepped out fully armed.
But before he could process what was happening, two robots had already aimed their weapons at his head.
Even faster than the robots raising their guns, however, were the bullets from an automated turret that had risen behind him.
To his horror, he discovered all his cyberware had been locked by an authorization override; Director Tano's authorization had locked his cyberware!?
The powerful heavy machine-gun rounds tore through his head in an instant.
The other two agents and the driver were likewise gunned down without any chance to resist, by security robots and aerodyne drones.
—--
"Mercer! What now?"
The prepared novice netrunners hurried out, while several hidden robots and drones helped carry their gear.
Mercer's avatar appeared:
"Get into the driver's seat, connect the personal link cable. I'll hack in through your Relic. Then get in the aerodyne vehicle, organize the cargo, and check my cyberware."
"Got it!"
Lucy climbed into the cockpit and plugged in the data cable.
The others immediately began moving items. Kyoko, lacking strength, went ahead to inspect the delivered cyberware.
There were five high-grade bulletproof insulated containers the size of storage boxes on the transport. Before Kyoko could ask, Mercer sent her the codes, extracted from the Director's emails.
After opening and checking them, Kyoko confirmed, "Everything's here, nothing missing."
"Good. Why is the packaging so bulky for all this?" Mercer glanced exasperatedly at the now-crammed aerodyne vehicle cabin.
The transport aerodyne vehicle was Arasaka's most common model: besides a separate driver's seat, it had only four passenger seats and a small trunk.
It would have been spacious enough for two people and five insulated containers, but now they had four people plus a pile of gear.
Fortunately, the trunk was empty. They tossed in the durable luggage and stacked the cyberware refrigerator between the seats. Being all kids, they squeezed in together.
Mercer quickly hacked the aerodyne vehicle's systems using the cable Lucy had plugged in, then commanded:
"Everyone get in the back seats. I'll have a bot bring someone over, toss her in and bring her along.
Keep her unconscious at all times. She must not wake up, but don't let her die either. Just keep her sedated. I'll be there soon."
"Copy that," Lucy and the others replied, they had long noticed the still-unconscious Secretary Inoue being carried by the robot.
Mercer immediately began uploading an automated program to the server to ensure it would continuously cut off everyone's network access, buying as much time as possible before detection.
Next, he swiftly proceeded to lock all employee doors.
The reason he hadn't done this earlier was that locking the doors would create noticeable activity. If anyone was still connected to a subnet or had a special channel to raise an alarm, he might not be able to monitor it all in time.
After all, there were no cameras directly linked inside the employee bedrooms; Arasaka wasn't perverted enough to monitor every employee while they slept. Once the doors closed, Mercer would lose awareness of what happened inside.
But now, it didn't matter. Even if someone triggered an alarm, by the time Arasaka personnel arrived to investigate, he would be long gone.
Finally, he set a self-destruct protocol for the server.
He pondered the timing for a moment and ultimately decided to make it trigger-based.
That is, as soon as any locked employee door was opened or any other network signal appeared, the server would automatically initiate a suicidal overload, burning itself out completely.
After that, Mercer performed a selective format, wiping all valuable data, documents, and logs.
But as he was deleting the files, his gaze lingered for a moment on the employee records.
Although Lucy's data flashed by quickly, some unusual entries stood out compared to those of other novice netrunners, catching his attention.
So, Mercer opened Lucy's file to take a look. The information he found made him frown slightly.
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Bonus chapter @ 300 power stones and when the story gets 10 reviews.
If you're a fan of Hunter × Hunter, you might enjoy my other translation. HxH: Dying Makes Me Stronger. It's a hidden gem fr.