The infamous SAO Incident had suddenly reached a dramatic turning point.
Although it was a turn for the better, attention immediately focused on one key figure. That person might not have been one of the original players.
He might have been a third-party intruder. The fact that he had managed to break into the SAO servers, which the government had been helpless against for more than a year, proved that his technical capabilities were extremely powerful.
So a small team from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' Virtual Division immediately began taking action to identify this person.
And to find him, they needed to start with one player.
According to the other players who had awakened, that player's name was Asuna.
Since that was purely an online ID, there was no way to immediately determine her real-world identity.
However, Asuna had been extremely popular in SAO. She was a stunningly beautiful girl and quite famous, so Kikuoka Seijirou soon narrowed down the target.
She was very likely Yuuki Asuna, the daughter of Yuuki Shouzou, CEO of the integrated electronics manufacturer RECT.
They immediately made a tentative inquiry with the hospital where she was staying and learned that she had not awakened yet. That made it extremely likely she was the same Asuna who had gained permission to log out but had not yet chosen to do so.
In the end, when they confirmed the exact time she woke up, the SAO servers also underwent a massive change. That further proved that Yuuki Asuna and Asuna were one and the same.
However, the Virtual Division did not immediately arrange for personnel to question her. That might alert the target. Instead, they chose to observe from the shadows.
Since the other party had chosen Asuna, it probably had not been random.
Once Asuna woke up, he might very well contact her offline.
Not far from the hospital, inside a vehicle that looked like a radio van—
"Chief, we've detected three unidentified people."
"Oh?"
Kikuoka Seijirou, who had been leisurely sipping coffee, immediately set it down and stepped forward. On the footage, he saw one man and two women.
"Where did they come from?"
"That's the strange part. We found no trace of them arriving at the hospital. It's as if they had already been hiding nearby."
"Run a database comparison. Find them."
Kikuoka Seijirou had been about to order them to match the three faces against the national database and pull up their identities, but he stopped midway because of something one of them did.
Among the three, the blonde girl smiled toward them, as if she had noticed she was being filmed.
No. It could be confirmed.
She knew they were being watched.
"Ch-Chief, we got a match, but… this…"
The team member's shaken voice brought Kikuoka Seijirou back to his senses. He looked at the member's laptop. It had indeed pulled up personal files for all three of them, but the information was so fake it left him stunned.
The young man's name was Lance Plain.
That much seemed fine, but his background was a problem. According to the file, he was the emperor of Japan.
The two women beside him were listed as Keiko Plain, the blonde, and Yui Plain, the silver-haired one. Their registered identities marked them as his wives.
The data was absurdly fake.
"Was this pulled from the national database? Or was our computer invaded and the other party stuffed false information into the system from outside the server?"
Kikuoka Seijirou asked in a slightly grave voice.
The difference between the two was enormous.
If it was the former—if the information truly came from the national database—then things were disastrously bad. It meant the data they had retrieved was "real."
It meant the other party had the ability to alter someone's official identity, making it impossible for that person to function in today's information-based society—or even erasing them entirely, turning them into an unregistered person.
"It… it looks like it came from the national database."
The team member's disbelieving voice made Kikuoka Seijirou fall silent.
After a brief pause, he immediately took out his phone and made a call.
"Higa Takeru, I need you to check the origins of these people for me. Confirm where this data came from."
Higa Takeru was a member of his team with extremely powerful network skills. Since he was currently responsible for an important task, he had not come out with them.
Three minutes later, Higa Takeru called back.
"Boss Kiku, you shouldn't have asked me to investigate this. Now we've got trouble here too. Thankfully, I physically isolated the system immediately, but you know we can't keep it physically cut off forever. What the hell did you provoke? This technology shouldn't exist in this era. Unless—!"
The headache-laced words from the other side made Kikuoka Seijirou's expression change.
It seemed asking Higa Takeru to investigate had been a mistake. The other party had followed Higa's trail and immediately invaded his location. They had come within a hair's breadth of breaking straight through the defensive system at Higa's worksite.
Unless what?
There was no continuation, but Kikuoka Seijirou realized what Higa Takeru had been about to say, and his expression shifted again and again.
At present, Higa Takeru was working on a secret project—Project Alicization. Under normal circumstances, it should not have been possible to launch it for at least another five years.
However, due to special circumstances, the plan that should have begun several years later had been moved up.
That meant the intruder's technology was very likely not from this era either.
Now, there was no way to continue speaking with Higa Takeru. The call had effectively been a message.
His side had already been completely physically isolated. If Kikuoka wanted to speak with Higa, he would have to return there in person, pass through layer after layer of signal shielding, and enter the physically cut-off area.
...
"Chief, what was that?"
"Hm? What?"
"It's gone. Something above the hospital was glowing just now."
"Glowing? What about the surveillance footage?"
They pulled up the surveillance feed, only to find nothing there.
There were two possibilities. Either the team member had imagined it, or the surveillance system had also been invaded and the footage processed.
Kikuoka Seijirou leaned toward the latter.
One minute later, he received a notice from national defense, and it filled him with deep unease.
Because there was trouble at the offshore base connected to Higa Takeru and Project Alicization, national defense would naturally learn about it immediately. They had already begun dispatching special operations forces.
And if the other party's technology was that terrifying, then the foolish communication behavior from the Self-Defense Forces had probably been intercepted as well.
What kind of reaction would there be?
Immediate evacuation?
Kikuoka Seijirou hoped that was the case. It would mean the other party still feared the power of the state.
But if not, things would become truly dangerous.
Another minute later, he received information from their source inside the hospital. Sugou Nobuyuki, who had gone to visit Yuuki Asuna, had met with an incident.
The man seemed to have been killed inside the hospital.
The other party's blatant action, carried out despite knowing he had already been exposed, made the gloom on Kikuoka Seijirou's face deepen.
After doing something like that, they still showed no intention of leaving.
That meant they had enough confidence to deal with any pressure brought against them.
(End of Chapter)
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