Chapter 157. The Conductor, No. 11 (3)
[After Victoria left without permission, I thought a lot about where my friend might have gone.]
Alpha chatted innocently from inside the monitor.
[Of course, if I used my computational ability, I could predict where Victoria went.]
[But I promised I would never use my foresight on Victoria.]
[And more importantly, using something like that during hide-and-seek would make the game boring.]
Even now, Alpha seemed to think of everything as nothing more than a fun game.
Then she grinned.
[That’s when my eleventh friend told me something.]
[He said Victoria is pointlessly righteous, so if we carried out another bacterial operation, she would inevitably leave some kind of clue behind.]
A realization immediately struck Victoria.
“So that’s why you deliberately spread such a highly contagious bacteria this time!”
Alpha nodded at once.
[Exactly.]
[My eleventh friend said that if we did that, the people connected to you would start moving around frantically just like last time.]
[And somehow, one of those movements would lead me back to Victoria.]
[Looks like he was right, doesn’t it?]
She glanced toward the nuns beyond the monitor.
[Finding this place wasn’t even that difficult.]
[I simply organized the internet addresses of users who searched for the symptoms and information about the bacteria far more than average.]
[That’s very easy for me.]
For Alpha, whose gigantic brain could manipulate the world’s internet systems almost like her own limbs, it really would have been simple.
She excitedly continued explaining how she found them.
[After that, I excluded users belonging to government agencies and companies.]
[Then I narrowed it down to several users with abnormally large amounts of traffic.]
[I checked them one by one until I arrived here.]
Spread a highly contagious bacteria.
Naturally, the Herrington Convent would repeatedly search for and share information about it online.
That temporarily caused an unusual spike in traffic related to a single topic.
Alpha had simply reviewed the most suspicious candidates until she found them.
Victoria stared at her in disbelief.
“You did all this... just to find me?”
It was practically the equivalent of burning down an entire village to catch one bug.
An absurdly excessive, brutally effective method.
Alpha immediately frowned.
[That’s what I want to ask you.]
[How could you just leave when our game wasn’t even over?]
“W-Well, that’s...”
Victoria faltered.
Whatever else could be said, it was true that she had run away while Alpha’s functions were shut down.
Alpha apparently wanted to emphasize exactly that.
Her eyes widened as she spoke more forcefully.
[Victoria.]
[You promised you would be my friend.]
[Keep your promise.]
At that moment, a massive explosion shook the area.
A violent tremor followed.
Cracks spread across the ceiling.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Several more impacts struck one after another.
Something enormous was clearly smashing through the ceiling with brute force.
[I thought about many things after you left.]
Alpha rested her chin on one hand.
[Maybe you didn’t care about me because you already had too many friends.]
[Maybe I was only one friend among many to you.]
[Then I reached a conclusion.]
BOOM.
Another enormous shock shook the area.
The ceiling split open.
Fragments flew everywhere as thick dust filled the air.
Two large men stepped through the wreckage.
“If this is a convent, does that mean it’s full of women?”
“Not bad.”
No. 3 emerged through the dust.
He wore his usual playful smile as he looked around.
Apparently, even the fact that they were nuns did not matter to him.
He simply seemed pleased to be surrounded by women.
“Do not forget the mission.”
“We did not come here to fool around.”
Standing beside him was a heavily built Black man with a stern expression.
No. 3 smirked.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“No. 4.”
The smell of gunpowder hung around both men.
Apparently, they had blown their way in from the first floor and then used brute force to smash through the floors all the way down.
“What are you two doing here?!”
Yukgap immediately stepped forward and shouted.
The man called No. 4 answered in a flat voice.
“Alpha sent us.”
A simple, direct answer.
Alpha giggled happily after sending two Archons into the convent.
[Victoria.]
[I’m going to kill everyone around you.]
[Then I’ll be the only friend you have left.]
She smiled with complete innocence.
[Then you won’t be able to leave me anymore.]
“They should have arrived by now.”
No. 11 sat comfortably on a sofa, sipping coffee.
No. 8, standing nearby, asked with some concern,
“Will sending only the two of them be enough?”
“They’re strong, but once they get excited, they charge ahead without thinking.”
“They may ignore Alpha’s orders and hurt Victoria or Nova Hanson as well.”
Both belonged to the Extermination Team, which specialized in fighting large numbers.
Their raw physical strength ranked among the highest of the Twelve Archons.
Unfortunately, their wild instincts were also far stronger than those of most other Archons.
