Chapter 161 Fifty-Eight Weeks (9)
Rei Furuya lowered his eyes to observe his own body.
The black collars around their necks, which looked very similar to the ones Rum had put on them in the castle, were removed. Was it because the explosive and tranquilizer darts would affect the machine's operation?
No, perhaps this collar doesn't have an explosive function, since Karasuma Renya wouldn't kill him; it probably only has an anesthesia function? Then does it have other functions to prevent forced disassembly? Like electric shock? Is that why it was removed after he lost consciousness before activating the machine?
His clothes had also been changed; now he wore a pure white, thin, strappy kimono like the one worn by experimental subjects, so he couldn't use the poison applied to his collar to commit suicide.
The watch I was wearing on my wrist is also gone. I don't know where I lost it. If it's not within the range of the signal jammer, Hiro can find it using the locator inside.
Most importantly, his mouth was gagged.
A piece of leather, of unknown material, was wrapped around him softly yet tightly, rendering him completely unable to speak, and even unable to attempt to bite his tongue to commit suicide.
As Rei Furuya lowered his head in contemplation and observation, a black cat slowly walked up to him, squatted outside the machine, looked up at him with its golden eyes, wagged its soft tail, and then let out a long "meow".
Rei Furuya paused for a moment, then looked up and met the gaze of Renya Karasuma, who had turned around.
A terrifying, undisguised madness slowly spread across the wrinkled face of the elderly man with gray hair.
"Zero-kun, you're awake? Let's have a proper talk?"
Rei Furuya had never imagined that his real name would be called out in such an intimate tone by the organization's boss. For a moment, he felt a chill run down his spine and his stomach ache slightly.
Although they were supposed to have a proper talk, Karasuma Renya had no intention of loosening the gag on Furuya Rei. He simply talked to him, making him nod, shake his head, or blink, and observing his facial expressions.
"It's a pity that you seem to have a deeper impression of that reincarnator senior who reincarnated 500 years ago. Most of your dreams are filled with vague guesses about me and that senior, and you even scare yourself into reincarnating for hundreds of years in your dreams."
Karasuma Renya sat in her wheelchair, adjusting its position to better face and converse with the blond youth who was now strapped back to the operating table under the glaring lights.
“But that’s precisely why I can more clearly and intuitively distinguish which parts of your dreams are fantasy and which are reality.” He smiled. “After all, you’re different from others. Your mental world is exceptionally strong, and your ability to express yourself in dreams is also different. This is probably one of the characteristics of a reincarnator. I wonder how long you’ve been reincarnating so far? With this relatively good mental state, it shouldn’t be more than a thousand times, but perhaps a hundred times?”
The blond, dark-skinned young man lay on the operating table, his light blonde hair falling loosely on either side, almost turning pure white under the stark white light. His healthy wheat-colored skin was also somewhat pale, but his exposed eyebrows and eyes remained sharp and clear. He did not succumb to panic or despair despite the sudden predicament and blow he had encountered; in fact, there was even calmness and composure in his eyes.
"This is truly astonishing," Karasuma Renya exclaimed. "You're an even better experimental subject than that previous reincarnator. You certainly won't collapse and die like that guy before I even got serious, right? I really wanted to start my insane research on you right away, what a pity..."
A black crow and a black cat stood on either side of the blond youth's head on the pure white operating table, quietly observing him with their heads tilted. Their red eyes and golden pupils were strikingly bright, giving them an eerie feel that didn't resemble normal animals.
"However, not being able to hurt you doesn't mean I can't harm the people important to you, right?"
The blond youth's sharp purple eyes suddenly turned and stared intently at him.
Karasuma Renya smiled kindly and gently stroked his soft golden hair with his withered, twig-like hand.
“Mr. Zero, you’re an undercover cop, and you even went to police academy. It shouldn’t be difficult for you to find out about your family and friends,” he said gently. “You probably haven’t seen them in a long time, have you? Shall I bring them to see you?”
*
Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters.
After looking around to make sure no one was watching, the man opened the police database, entered "[Rei Furuya]" in the search bar, and clicked search.
No corresponding results found.
The man paused for a moment, then checked again, refusing to believe it. He even tried searching for Furuya and Rei separately, and risked using a higher-level identity to access a more secret database, but still couldn't find the person.
Not only is there no record of a person named Furuya Rei in the police files, but there is no such person in the entire world, at least not in the national treasury.
Or perhaps it was hidden away under a higher level of secrecy?
The man nervously reported this information to the BOSS.
When Karasuma Renya, who stayed in the lab and refused to leave even for a moment, saw the news, he wasn't very surprised.
Since he's an undercover agent, he must have encrypted the file long ago. The undercover agents the organization planted in the police force have all run into trouble to some extent. Now he probably knows that it was Furuya Rei, who came back from the future, who was behind this. So investigating his identity from this angle will definitely not yield any results.
He placed his hopes primarily on the organization's intelligence personnel and hackers.
Of course, this excludes everyone connected to Bourbon; even the head of the intelligence group, Scotland, was unaware of it.
However, when news of others' failures came one after another, Karasuma Renya's temper became somewhat uncontrollable.
[Reporting to the boss, no information about Rei Furuya was found at the police academy...]
[Reporting to the boss, I can't find any information on Amuro Tooru from before...]
[Reporting to the boss, all the photos of blond, dark-skinned men from that area are here, but not Bourbon's. Bourbon is very good at avoiding the camera...]
Karasuma Renya couldn't help but smash his phone on the ground.
But an elderly man of over 140 years old wasn't very strong; the phone only developed a crack and flew a distance across the smooth floor before crashing into the wall.
"Useless! Useless! You're all a bunch of useless trash!!!" He coughed angrily, startling the crows perched on his shoulder into flight.
Rei Furuya, lying next to him, closed his eyes and slightly curled the corners of his mouth.
He is now incredibly grateful that everyone had destroyed all the photos beforehand.
Even if the system is causing trouble, the plot hasn't reached the point where his identity is exposed and he dies yet. The world won't allow that to happen, and the organization's actions will be very difficult.
Since the system is so eager to cause trouble now, it means that the world program is ultimately more powerful than the system. As long as this matter is resolved, they may usher in the most relaxed and safe phase after the game officially begins.
However, Karasuma Renya now knows even his real name and undercover identity, yet he is still alive and well. Is it because he did not directly cause this outcome?
This wasn't a cheating answer he actively and directly gave; rather, the system secretly manipulated things so that the organization's boss would discover in a dream that he could reload save files. Since the save-loading loop wasn't within the scope of the world program's vigilance and maintenance, it wouldn't attract the world program's attention.
As for how a program that should have been working fine suddenly veered off course to such an extreme, the world program probably doesn't yet understand what happened or the logic behind it. It is currently investigating the problem and slowly bringing the world together.
Just like what Furuya Rei did before, as long as it's not too obvious cheating, there's a time lag before the world program fully reacts. This time lag depends on the situation; it might only be three or four days, or it might be as long as a month.
The worst-case scenario is that the world program won't completely abandon the Furuya Rei issue and restart the world until the game's storyline officially begins next year.
What Furuya Rei was most worried about was that, over the course of nearly a year, the organization's boss would go on a rampage, harming those around him in order to threaten him into revealing the secret of reincarnation.
However, Rei Furuya himself wasn't entirely clear on the matter. If Renya Karasuma failed to achieve his goal, he would definitely vent his anger and resentment on others.
He wouldn't dare harm Rei Furuya, but he would absolutely not show mercy to those around Rei Furuya.
Jiang Gu Zero took a deep breath.
Whether it's interrogation, brainwashing, or even death, it's all possible, but Rei Furuya cannot accept any of them.
He was the one who went through so much trouble to save her, and everyone already had a bright future ahead of them...
Absolutely not. We must find a way to resolve this matter. We absolutely cannot involve everyone before the timelines converge.
*
Vermouth was putting on makeup to transform herself into a silver-haired serial killer when her cell phone, which was on the table, suddenly lit up and began to vibrate.
She glanced at it, her expression immediately changed, she put down the brush, picked up her phone, took a deep breath, and then clicked to answer.
Before either party on the phone could speak, a sweet, cloying meow rang out.
Vermouth's expression, which she had just composed, twisted for a moment, but she quickly regained her composure and asked in a soft voice with a smile, "Boss, what's wrong? Did something happen?"
"Vermouth, do you know how to raise a disobedient yet delicate kitten that could die at any moment?" Karasuma Renya's slow, leisurely voice came from the other end of the phone, tinged with laughter, as if she were in a very good mood.
Vermouth thought for a moment about the strange, lively black cat and said, "You have another cat? Is it white with blue eyes? Or perhaps a Scottish Fold or a short-legged cat?"
"Hmm..." Karasuma Renya seemed to turn around and glance back. After the sound of fabric rustling, she laughed and said, "I guess so. It's a very dazzling and beautiful coat color. From certain angles, the eyes do look very blue. It's very cute."
“If it’s a white cat with blue eyes, then you definitely need to be careful,” Vermouth said. “Especially since the unique blue eyes of white long-haired cats are related to deafness, a disability that science still cannot cure. If it has heterochromia (different colored eyes), then you need to worry about vision problems…”
“This is really troublesome, and this cat is very mischievous. It likes to run and jump in dangerous places, and it could die if we’re not careful… Oh well, I’ll just have to keep a closer eye on it.” Karasuma Renya sighed, then added, “By the way, I’ve sent Bourbon on an important mission that needs to be kept secret. You’ll have to go and hunt down Akai Shuichi alone. If anyone asks you, just say that Bourbon is with you and busy with something.”
Now we've finally gotten to the point.
Vermouth nodded: "I understand."
Vermouth made no connection between the delicate white cat, who was so fragile that it could die at any moment, and Bourbon, after all, Bourbon was so powerful and so dark.
*
April 2nd.
Morofushi Kagemitsu hung up the phone, his face grim, his eyes coldly fixed on Vermouth's name on the screen.
After a few seconds, he took a deep breath to calm himself down and began typing in the group chat with a blank expression.
[Hiro: Vermouth still won't say. I feel like she probably knows where Zero is, but she's been lying.]
After sending that message, the black-haired man with stubble couldn't help but slam his fist on the table, his icy blue eyes filled with murderous intent.
Since yesterday, Zero has lost all contact, its location has disappeared, and all its whereabouts have vanished completely.
However, the organization's boss said that Bourbon went to America to help Vermouth hunt down Shuichi Akai, and Vermouth said the same thing.
April 1st is indeed April Fool's Day, but Furuya Rei would never play such a cruel game with them, especially since it's already April 2nd.
[Hagi-chan: Zero couldn't just disappear without any warning or notification; something must have happened.]
[Squad Leader: It must have been done by the organization, but why were our identities exposed? Where did things go wrong?]
[Hiroki: It's probably because their identities were exposed. Noah said someone searched for the name Furuya Rei in the police system last night. Although the search record was quickly deleted, Noah, who has been keeping an eye on the police system, still discovered it. Furthermore, hackers are investigating Amuro Tooru and Bourbon's information online, asking for a photo of a blond, dark-skinned man, and even members of an organization have tracked down the police academy.]
[Mazda: We've definitely been exposed, but I don't understand exactly how we were exposed, and if we really were exposed, why are we unharmed?]
[Mazda: I was initially wondering if it was because of us, but so far we're all fine. Hiro is still safely in the organization; no one has arrested him or been monitoring him. So how were we exposed? And to what extent? If we figure this out, it might help us find out what happened more quickly and locate Zero faster.]
The problem now is that they don't know.
Noah's Ark searched everywhere, but still found nothing.
[Hiro: So you think so too, which makes it quite likely and can't be completely ruled out. I'm wondering if I should take the initiative and go over to them to test the waters.]
Why are you in such a hurry to delete those photos?
Of course, the worst-case scenario is the current situation. If everything isn't destroyed directly, even with Noah's Ark's protection, it's not certain that any potential points of discovery will be missed.
They didn't want to see any potential danger.
They were all thinking that perhaps Furuya Rei hadn't been exposed before because everyone connected to him was dead, so no one would investigate a few dead people, nor would they discover anything amiss because of the dead.
But they are still alive, and perhaps those who survived will become the biggest red butterfly in the Furuya Zero Death Incident.
This is the most unacceptable possibility, but they cannot ignore it.
Especially now that Rei Furuya has gone missing, we must consider all possibilities.
Morifushi Kagemitsu propped his forehead up and lowered his head, his black, tousled hair falling down to obscure his eyebrows and eyes, making it impossible to see his expression.
"Zero, where are you...?"
*
An elderly man with a full head of white hair sat motionless in a wheelchair in the corner, wearing a black helmet.
Instead, a black-haired robot was manipulated to move its body slightly before walking towards the blond youth on the operating table.
"Actually, both the reagents and the Dream Chair are unfinished products, which is why I haven't started using them before. But don't worry, the ones I'm using now are the mildest; the others are still under experimentation." The robot slowly injected the reagents into his body. "But to minimize the harm to you, I'll just have to do it once a day."
"What I want to know this time is about the protagonist, Kudo. Kudo, Kudo, Kudo... what's Kudo? Why is Kudo the protagonist of this world? What is the truth of this world? Good boy, you'll tell me, right?"
The robot picked up the blond youth who had fallen into a deep sleep and gently placed him into the dream chair.
"Then, let's begin the second experiment, my dear Bourbon."
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