I Became a Sub Heroine in a Cyberpunk Game

Creak… creak…

Following the command, the HA level, cleared of all personnel, echoes only with the maddening sound of grinding metal.

The soles of combat boots scrape against the floor, inching their wearer forward.

Of course, the agent responsible is the collection team.

But despite being inside their own facility, the team isn’t exactly performing an operation smoothly. They can’t even pinpoint the exact location of the intruders.

“…Is the system access still failing?”

– We’re doing our best, but… given that this network was isolated to begin with, and now that the employees have even disabled the access during evacuation, we’re encountering difficulties. Request system restoration from the doctor once we locate him.

“Damn it!!”

Now! We need to identify the location of the intruders, but here’s the command-engineer, acting as if it’s business as usual. The mic was turned off to unleash a torrent of abuse.

Due to the overly clever internal design, all the soldiers can do is feel occasional faint tremors, unable to ascertain the size or the armament status of the enemy. This situation was far from pleasant to a soldier deployed on the front lines.

If only we could have tapped into the security cameras… Instead, they have experts who boast endlessly but do absolutely nothing right.

“…Hey, isn’t worrying too much useless? If you keep being like this, the atmosphere will get worse.”

“If only that were the case…”

The man trailing off is known for his instincts within the squad.

Whether during gambling or while carrying out tasks, he always possessed an uncanny ability to detect the exact moment to pull out and recognized absurd missions from the get-go.

This intuition was now screaming at him—this underground level was an absolute death trap.

The image of Grihya’s crazed eyes flitted through his mind. Even though it was under orders from his superior, he had long suspected that he’d been dragged into an absurd situation. From the moment they got out of the elevator, an extremely, horribly bad feeling hadn’t left him.

It was as if… someone was constantly watching them.

Even though there was no environmental contamination, every step felt as though they were stepping through something sticky, a sensation that made it hard to move forward and was deeply unpleasant.

The only comforting fact was that because most of the forces stationed at the gateway were deployed, it was unlikely they would encounter mysterious enemies right off the bat…

– This is the squad in charge of the No. 4 elevator. The tremors are getting closer. We will report contact with the target immediately. Over.

– Wait, we detected movement inside the operating room. High-density thermal energy was identified… *&*^&(*…?! ……!!

This could be… signal interference?

The unknown terrorists seemed to be well-prepared.

– It’s difficult to hear^&%^… repeat#^%…….

– Shit^*…….

The irritating noise grew louder, eventually overtaking the entire communication channel.

With communication cut off between the ground forces and the command structure underground, an involuntary chill ran down their spines. However… another possible angle was that this was a shallow trick from the desperate opponent struggling against Paradise’s forces.

It seemed the opponent was trying to isolate them individually… but if it was easy, the Mega Cop would have gone bankrupt long ago.

Clink!! Click…!

Without a single mistake, the entire collection team entered a perimeter defense stance.

Their helmets and implanted sensors set to maximum, they raised their loaded guns, targeting anything suspicious down the corridor.

“The tremors are still coming from far away… are there still any employees left in the operation room? If so, it’s fortunate; we may be able to use the cameras.”

…Footsteps? Or perhaps bio-signs?

A team member, sensing something, carefully approached the room marked as No. 7 Operating Room. Naturally, the door slid aside, welcoming the visitor without any frictional sound.

And yet… wasn’t this door supposed to be manual?

The thought crossed the mind of a team member who had previously worked in the harvesting zone, just as the light above clicked back on.

BOOM!

There was no time to think about anything.

The door shut violently, grinding into the body of the team member who entered first.

The sight of a limb squeezed cruelly between the wall and the door twitching caught everyone’s eyes.

Everyone instinctively tried to counterattack, but… the target was unclear. Should they fire at the door? Against a mechanical barrier? Even that wouldn’t bring the fallen soldier back to life.

No, could this be considered an attack at all? It seemed more like a system error, so the team struggled to react appropriately.

BOOM!

Once again, the door, now open wide, finished off another incapacitated soldier.

Now the remaining team realized there was another entity besides the police intruders.

Through the briefly opened gap, they caught a glimpse of the blood-red eyes of a machine.

But just like talking to pebbles littered on the road, it was useless to expect a response. A person doesn’t establish eye contact with a lifeless chunk of metal even when they’re looking directly at it.

Nevertheless, even as the soldier mentally dismissed it as a foolish notion, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he saw something lurking within the surgical machine.

If the agents conducting modern warfare are corporations, and their essence lies in drones, augmented humans, and super-luxurious equipment…

The nightmare of modern warfare was nothing else. These demons from another world were almost impossible to counter without corresponding asymmetric forces.

“Four hackers! Unspecified location!! What the hell are these morons doing, letting the facility be overtaken without a response?!”

“Damn mother, destroy everything!! If you don’t want to die, just demolish whatever you see!!”

For the fallen, there was no special scream or last words—just luxury wasted on those still living.

A brilliant light streak cut through, collapsing the soldier into a heap, leaving a new ring-shaped mark on his shattered helmet.

“Throw grenades!! Take cover, you bastards…!”

The puppet show was just beginning.

The compartment lights flickered wildly, disrupting visibility, and every machine capable of movement stirred into action, as if they were all waking up from a deep sleep.

Even the cleaning robots, which weren’t even drones, were moving haphazardly. The scene resembled the gossip-driven “mechanical rebellion” discussed at drunken parties.

“…This is ridiculous.”

Just how many hackers had been mobilized to assault the gateway to this extent? For those without expertise in virtual worlds, it was impossible to guess. Their only hope now was for the engineers at the command structure to be less incompetent.

★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★

“Ugh… Ah…!! You ruthless bastards!!”

I think brute force tactics are truly dirty, despicable, and fundamentalist—while also being completely cost-effective.

…Isn’t that my line? Don’t make me laugh. If I weren’t here in this consciousness body, I’d already be sprawled on the ground, nose bleeding profusely by now.

For all I know, maybe my body’s capillaries have already burst from overwork in the real world.

This darkness, which should be my home turf, keeps sprouting weeds that I have to ruthlessly cut down.

On the other hand, if any of the objects I’ve created have slightly changed, I demolish them without mercy and recreate them.

Like a combination of a “Find the Ten Differences” game and a reaction speed test, pure hell.

If all of this is nothing more than a constant, relentless attempt to seize control, you can roughly understand my predicament.

Even so, my brain, which approaches an inhuman level, might handle running two games simultaneously.

But what happens when you add a live real-time strategy simulation to the mix?

“Damn…! Didn’t see that grenade, huh?!”

While suppressing the tricks the command guys are sending our way, I don’t forget to jam communications.

Orders for the attack are given during the simultaneous onset of battle, designating each firing angle since medical equipment doesn’t have targeting systems.

In urgent situations, I overcharge the batteries of transport robots still recharging and then send them rushing into the enemy’s midst like suicide bombers.

BOOM! Momentary relief upon hearing the explosion is short-lived as I immediately shut down the power and seal all doors and walls in the compartment after confirming the destruction of the main weapon—a surgical device—due to the high-explosive round.

Come on, smash it all and try to escape if you want…

BOOM!!

…Oh, well. Looking now, there seems to be some defensive gaming elements added.

If you don’t allocate necessary resources to appropriate locations to block in time, you’ll be broken through instantly.

Look, the recovery squad I just trapped has broken through the wall with concentrated firepower and escaped again. Although it has turned into a war of attrition where the numbers of both sides keep dwindling as my forces are destroyed, the situation is precarious.

“Just a bit… a little more…!!”

Swiftly. A little faster. More efficiently. Push the calculations to the limit.

It’s insufficient to just sit at the top and issue orders. I fragment my own consciousness to the point where it’s almost unrecognizable and force it into the machines.

It feels like whispering commands for tasks to be done by clusters of cells that form my physical being.

An individual yet a collective, a group yet a complete entity—the feeling is like being the protagonist of some enigmatic riddle.

Ziiing—!!

Creak!!

The refined artillery and soldiers pushed back the weakened collection team, and the abyss that had wavered under external aggression regains its firmness.

Even despite achieving this, the uneasy feeling doesn’t subside. It’s partly due to worrying about my body, which has collapsed helplessly against the wall, but… the main concern is Helena.

The moment she ran into a group of enemies while dealing with Ann, who had approached in a way that would’ve made a clash with the prepared killing machines premature.

An, with the power of reinforced gloves, had the means to suppress superhumans, combined with the offensive threat of the collection team, would surely create an unsettling scenario.

Take, for example… if a strike launched at a hard-to-evade trajectory stops briefly to block an attack and gets shot in the process…!

“…These bastards who deserve to die.”

Helena sneered, sensing what would come next.

Her body, exposed to merciless gunfire, flew through the air.

…

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