บท 19: Chapter 12 Kanako
They walked through narrow streets to reach the entrance of a dilapidated iron shanty.
Xu Yang held a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other, slowly pushing open the iron-sheet door that was just for show, smelling the rancid odor inside.
At the entrance was an L-shaped counter with a checkout terminal and cash register that were turned off.
A simple mini-turret hung in the corner of the wall, ineffective due to the lack of electricity. In unsafe places, people would go to great lengths to buy defense mechanisms to protect themselves, no matter how cheap they were.
Walking past the counter, Xu Yang saw a man dead on the ground.
The man's back was torn open, and blood was still flowing, indicating that he had died not long before.
Had this place been attacked by some creature?
The corpse was dressed in a blue vest and jeans, with a hat fallen beside it. Xu Yang didn't want to look any further while Farosa seemed indifferent.
He turned his head, his gaze moving to the interior of the room.
Several broken sofas lay against the wall, stacked with takeaway boxes; in the middle was an iron table, already rusted beyond recognition. On the other side of the wall were nine metal gaming pods, each two people tall, assembled from second-hand materials and quite cheap; probably only the main computer and neural synchronization device inside were purchased from corporate brands.
It was only now that Xu Yang realized that this place was an internet cafe.
Bang, bang, bang—
The knocking sound was continuous, and Xu Yang saw it was coming from a gaming pod at the end of the room.
All the other gaming pods were not in use, only that one still had the operational lights on; it was probably powered by its internal battery, so it wasn't affected by the massive power outage.
Xu Yang stepped towards the gaming pod. At first, he thought the knocking sound was coming from inside, signaling someone asking for help, but the reality was far from it.
A giant rat poked its head out from the other side of the pod, glared at Xu Yang with its bright yellow eyes, and then continued to turn its head and started banging forcefully.
A rat?
A rat bigger than a human...
Bang! The gaming pod was ultimately broken open.
Xu Yang heard the metallic shattering sound, clattering noisily.
The rat forcefully tore open the shell of the gaming pod, and the pink nutrient solution tank inside burst open, spraying out, splattering over the dirty floor and walls.
Losing her balance, the player inside also fell out of the gaming pod, thudding hard on the ground, screaming—a girl.
Perhaps she had been enjoying the game until the moment of impact, with electrode patches and neural connectors falling off her head.
The rat shrieked excitedly.
"Squeak!"
"Help—help!" the player screamed.
Xu Yang made a snap decision, trying to aim the submachine gun at the rat. But the giant rat was exceptionally fast, opening its mouth to bite at her, instantly severing her throat and greedily consuming the blood.
The rat broke into the house, smashing the gaming pod to eat the person, as if it was opening a can to feed itself.
"What is this—," Farosa frowned.
The horrifying giant rat was deadly, and Xu Yang pulled the trigger at the rat.
Flames burst from the muzzle, several bullets whizzed through the air, puncturing the rat's forearm and hitting the major artery; it rolled backward like being electrocuted, leaning against the wall and screaming.
The sound pierced the darkness, and Xu Yang's heart raced.
Without a doubt, the noise would attract its kind! With such a big creature, Xu Yang didn't believe there was only one.
But since he had already fired, there was no turning back.
Xu Yang continued to shoot.
After a few more gunshots, the rat moved quickly but couldn't avoid them, hit repeatedly and splattering blood, it fell onto the ground and convulsed violently, its body quivering, limbs spasming, and then, blood loss finally claimed its life.
Its four legs stretched out powerlessly, and its tail drooped.
On closer inspection, this was by no means just a big rat, but a fully-formed "Ratman" with human-like hands and feet, wrapped in rudimentary clothes.
Xu Yang rushed to the side of the bitten girl and observed her closely, kneeling on one knee.
"Can your power cover this situation?" Xu Yang asked, frowning in thought.
"The Law of Recovery." Farosa took pride in her abilities, ready to display her extraordinary power.
As she raised her hand, a red light shone, as if the entire world submerged into a pool of blood, starting to breed anew.
Reset—
In an instant, the girl's neck wound healed as if it was never there, the severed parts smooth, and blood began to flow again.
Because only this wound was damaged, after healing, her body started functioning again.
Blood and oxygen began to circulate every part of her body, her nerves which had already sent death signals, were now active again, doing everything to save this "corpse."
The result of all this work was that her lifeless eyes gradually regained their sparkle.
Her body jerked and trembled like a motor.
The girl moaned at length, holding her head for a while before looking up to Xu Yang and Farosa.
Xu Yang examined her appearance; she was a young girl of about sixteen or seventeen, with short hair, no trace of makeup, a small nose and mouth, and a lazy look filled with weariness, not cute at all, as if she had been playing games for days on end, utterly exhausted. Dressed in a simple white tank top and jeans, she looked to Xu Yang like a truant girl addicted to games.
"Hiss—" She saw the rat corpse in the corner of the wall and sprang to her feet, "Was it, it that kept knocking on my gaming pod? I heard it just now, thought it was the BOSS knocking on a bell!"
"Yes, you still have memories? That's great. Now that it's dead, we have to go," Xu Yang said, "Nobody knows how many more of these things there are."
"It must be a Ratman," she said nervously, obviously not yet recovered from the shock.
Ratmen are one of the famous urban legends of modern society.
It is said that Ratmen are degenerate humans, some of whom were abandoned by the era and curled up in the Underground City, and were then squeezed out to even darker places by the Underground City, moving hunchbacked through the sewers without seeing daylight for long periods. Gradually, people turned into Ratmen.
This is the most terrible fate of humans.
After several large-scale rat extermination campaigns by the Corporate Alliance, Ratmen had mostly disappeared from the majority of Underground Cities and no longer posed a threat to the safety of the Ground corporate society.
Xu Yang used to hear terrifying rumors about Ratmen when he was a kid, but as he grew older, he heard no more of them.
To the girl before him, Ratmen were entirely a bizarre tale from the internet.
They had already faded from the memories of everyone in the world, but now they vividly returned.
"It's a Ratman," Xu Yang confirmed.
"Did the Ratmen cause the Great Blackout?" she asked.
That was indeed fitting, "The Great Blackout" was precisely the situation we were facing now.
Xu Yang shone his flashlight outward, still seeing nothing but darkness, street lights out of order, equipment offline, all the technology products that modern humans prided themselves on had withered away.
It seemed that only a massive scale blackout could explain this situation.
Really bizarre, Ratmen capable of affecting the running of society? Could not fathom how they accomplished that. The largest Rat Tide before, had merely caused a serious disturbance to the security of the Underground City.
Right now, without energy, we had lost our most important technological leverage and were also facing an invasion by swarms of rats, so the situation around us was probably very severe.
But with no electricity, no internet, and everything in silence, there was no need to worry about being hunted for the time being.
"Call me Xu Yang, she is Lady Aquilia," Xu Yang said succinctly.
"It's Miss Aquilia," Farosa corrected.
"I'm Kojima Kanako, just call me Kanako," she panted, her gaze locked on Xu Yang, "I clearly remember I 'died'. That Ratman killed me, and not even with a weapon, but its teeth... "
"You were resurrected, that is the grace of God," Farosa declared, "Never forget to praise God at any time; it's your best way to avoid a second disaster."
"God?" Kanako was confused, "What game?"
"Let's go," Xu Yang knew the longer they stayed, the more troublesome it would be, "Tell us everything you know, the more the better."
"Did you just get here?" Kanako tousled her messy hair, not heeding Xu Yang's immediate departure.
She returned to her broken gaming pod and pulled a shoulder bag from under the seat, which seemed to contain a few small boxes, bags, cards, and documents.
Then, she scrambled around the shabby internet café, stuffing some handy tools and miscellaneous items into the bag until it was full.
She paused, hastily took out some of the bulkiest objects and discarded them, opened the bottom of the gaming pod, and took out a stack of game data cards, filling the shoulder bag to the brim.
"Are these things yours?" Xu Yang asked.
"They're all mine, my treasures, my beloved," Kanako said, "I have to play games every day."
"We're not going on a picnic, why bring so many games?" Xu Yang did not understand, "We are fleeing, this place isn't right, it's best to go back to the Ground."
"I'd rather die than be without games," Kanako said.
"I didn't save you for you to come out and continue playing. If we want to survive and leave here, we have to do our part," Xu Yang said impatiently, "How are you going to run with all that stuff?"
"I don't care," Kanako's voice sounded discontent, "The social atmosphere on the Ground is so vile, all about calculation, all about utility, I'm sick of it, otherwise why would I hide in such a place? It's to enjoy the games!"
"Don't talk nonsense; you surely ran out of money and came here to get online. You're just rotting here."
"I'm not rotting, though I really am out of money..."
"You must have just arrived at this kind of place. Spend a few more months, and you'll not bear it, there's also the risk of robbery," Xu Yang retorted.
"I don't care, look at you, counting every penny, definitely a thoroughbred corporate person. A corporate person running to such a poor place, lecturing me!"
Am I really so entrenched in corporate habits? Xu Yang wondered to himself. Well, after working in a giant enterprise for 6 years, anyone would be the same.
"Lecturing?" Farosa said, "It was he who yelled to save you. At that moment, his mind was surely filled only with the simplest thought—to save a life. Or do you also want to deny the fact that you were brought back to life? If I had been the only one there, I certainly would not have helped. I can't stand to see his enthusiasm met with your nitpicking."
Even Xu Yang felt embarrassed by these words, and Kanako's expression changed.
"I'm truly very sorry." Kanako bowed deeply to Xu Yang. She glanced at the Ratman on the ground, "...Um, if I really rotted here for a few months, I probably wouldn't be much different from an Old Ratman."
"You ran away using family money, right?"
"Not at all, most of it was prize money from gaming competitions," Kanako said excitedly, "I was playing a game for someone just now, and after finishing today, I would have had enough money to switch to a better internet café, but then the power went out in the middle of it. I could only use the battery, the frame rate was dropping so much, I thought my eyes would go blind."
"What are all these things anyway?" Farosa found at least three words in each sentence she didn't understand.
Kanako enthusiastically explained to Farosa while Xu Yang sank into thought.
Ratmen, once thought extinct, had now appeared in Katagi District, accompanied by a massive blackout. Lost in the far corners of the Underground City, it was impossible to gather any information from the outside world. Digital Mind had also been damaged, leaving no contact with anyone.
Xu Yang looked out through the shattered window, only to see a vast world of darkness under the earth.
"We need to find a safe place," Xu Yang said, "…with light, food, vending machines, electricity, internet, then you can chat all you want."
Such places used to be everywhere, but now seemed to have vanished into thin air, with nothing but countless rats to accompany the darkness.
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