Looking at Night City, which looked like a cage, Lucy spoke slowly.
The building with the Arasaka Corporation logo appeared in her memory. The cold steel building brought her a suffocating sense of oppression, almost preventing her from breathing.
It turned out that, as a child, she was a cyberhacker who was held and transformed by Arasaka Corporation branches in other countries.
There were 12 other cyberhackers like Lucy, and only 13 passed the Arasaka test.
In the manga's flashback scene, young Lucy was among the 13 children, with a stubborn and determined look.
At that time, Arasaka Corporation instilled in them the idea that "someday they would become the best cyberhackers and serve the most powerful company in the world."
In this way, to fulfill this illusory dream, Lucy and her companions have been undergoing various difficult trainings and tests.
However, after such difficult training and tests, they were not assigned to any department of Arasaka Corporation.
Instead, they were taken to a dark underground facility and forced to deep dive.
The purpose of the deep infiltration is...
"They sent us to the old net," Lucy said softly.
"The old net is...", David asked. "Is it the old net domain that collapsed about half a century ago?"
"Yes," Lucy replied. "It was defeated in one fell swoop by the most powerful netrunner in history, the founder of the puppet, the ancestor and legend of hackers: Laki Batmos."
"The legendary wanted criminal who hacked 78% of the world's networks," David also said with emotion.
Kenji Tanaka saw this paragraph, and his eyes lit up.
Suddenly, he became curious about what kind of legendary character Lucy was referring to, the most powerful netrunner in history, the ancestor and legend of hackers: Laki Batmos.
After all, this title is probably equivalent to Zhang Zhenren and Bodhidharma in Jin Yong's works in the cyberpunk world.
What a legendary and curious strong man.
And it was precisely because this hacker ancestor defeated the old net domain that the networks of each region became isolated into regional networks.
Thus, at that time, those collapsed old domains became forbidden zones with huge hidden dangers.
A large amount of illegal malware and extremely aggressive artificial intelligence still persist in the old domain.
Hackers can use their consciousness to explore this dangerous area, but if they want to obtain data, they will be attacked by this software and AI.
However,
there is a huge hidden danger, which often means it could contain extremely valuable treasures.
What if valuable technologies left by powerful national institutions and laboratories were found in this extremely dangerous old domain?
With this idea in mind, Arasaka specially trained Lucy and others to explore the old domain.
However, the result is that
Lucy and her companions will face danger at any time: they will get lost in this collapsed old domain or be ambushed and attacked by malware and AI.
Long-term deep infiltration into the old domain led to the death of many of Lucy's companions.
But the people at Arasaka didn't care. After all, the purpose of training Lucy and the others was to explore the old domain.
As for dying while exploring it, they didn't care at all.
In essence, Lucy is a consumable for them. After this generation dies, they can train another.
"Bastards!" Kenji Tanaka exclaimed upon seeing this conspiracy. "These capitalist companies are doomed, and this world is truly rotten!"
The cyberpunk world is, without a doubt, a desperate world.
In fact, it may not be the most desperate. In some worlds, even humans are slaves, slaughtered at will like livestock.
At least humans in the cyberpunk world can still "live".
But the cyberpunk world very much resembles the real world, and it is very likely to become "reality."
It's like your friend telling you they'll give you 100 million yen, and you'll probably laugh and treat them like a fool.
Because you know they can't give you 100 million yen.
But if your friend says they're treating you to dinner, you feel very happy before they invite you.
Because it's probably true.
False emotions and real emotions have completely different values.
That's why, when a world like Cyberpunk gets closer to reality, some people actually find it a little terrifying.
Lucy and David are in such a desperate world.
As a child, Lucy and her remaining companions finally decided to resist after learning that Arasaka Corporation's guarantee was a blank check.
They used the knowledge taught by Arasaka Corporation to directly kill the people guarding them.
Then Lucy and her remaining companions continued to flee while being pursued.
In the end, it seemed that only Lucy escaped Arasaka Corporation and continued to wander until she arrived in Night City and settled in this city.
After hearing all this, Kenji Tanaka was also sad about Lucy's past.
But all that was the past. Lucy met David now.
She and David will definitely live happily together from now on.
However, at that moment...
David, who was talking to Lucy, suddenly trembled with his left prosthetic...
"That hand..."
Lucy noticed something unusual.
However, David grabbed his trembling left hand with his right prosthetic and said indifferently: "It's nothing, it'll be fine in a while."
Manga fans who saw the scene were stunned.
David...
Is it true?
"You haven't changed at all...", Lucy said worriedly. "You've always lived for others' dreams."
David's memories returned to him, and images of Maine's life flashed one after another.
This caused memories of death to assault manga fans again.
Lucy snuggled next to David. She stroked his trembling prosthetic body and said: "Now I'm no longer afraid of myself, but now I'm afraid that one day... you..."
David looked at Lucy's concern and hugged her.
However, at that moment, Lucy's prosthetic eye flashed with electricity.
The image suddenly transformed into an informational scene, and a voice seemed to be speaking to someone important.
"Yes... I can retrieve most of the data, but an experimenter's data seems to be severely damaged..."
"For now, it seems the data was intentionally destroyed..."
"But there are no records left in ICE. The hacker capable of doing this is not that simple."
"I don't think Tanaka deleted this data on his own initiative. It should have been destroyed when he was kidnapped..."
"Yes... I will do my best to recover the data and then make a backup..."
A thin hacker appeared on the screen, and after finishing speaking with the big shot, he was suddenly attacked in reality.
It can be seen that this hacker is undoubtedly very powerful.
However, when facing the attacker, he was helpless, and the system was paralyzed in a direct encounter.
And the one who appeared on the screen was... Lucy! But at that moment, her eyes emitted a red light, and she coldly and ruthlessly looked at the hacker who directly destroyed the system in front of her.
Like a witch!
- - - -
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