Chapter 82 A World Where Only I Don't Exist
Zero/A world where only I don't exist
The sun gradually sank, and the stars hung high in the sky. Furuya Rei sat alone in his apartment, without any desire to rest.
He was really afraid of opening his eyes again and restarting time to a certain period of time.
It's no wonder he has such thoughts - the ending now is just too perfect.
However, the human body has its limits after all. Furiya Rei has gone two days without closing his eyes, and now is the third day.
His aching brain kept reminding him that it was time to rest, and Furuya Rei managed to sit at the table. He decided to just wait for another day, and as long as there was no change today, he would rest well.
With this thought in mind, Furuya Rei stubbornly sat at the table. As time passed, the body that had already been stretched to its limit regained control of Furuya Rei.
As the clock struck early morning, the blond young man had fallen asleep on the table.
Before his consciousness became completely blurred, a strong wish arose in Rei Furuya's heart...he hoped that nothing would change when he woke up.
In the haze, Fūya Rei seemed to hear a tiny sound like glass cracking.
…
"…Mr. Amuro."
"Mr. Amuro, please wake up."
Who is calling him?
The body felt heavy after not getting enough sleep for a long time. Fūya Ling woke up groggily and saw a snow-white ceiling.
Focusing his vision, Rei Furutani suddenly discovered that there was a transparent barrier between him and the ceiling.
"...Mr. Amuro is awake!" The voice that woke him up, somewhat strange yet familiar, rang out again.
The transparent barrier disappears.
Fūya Rei felt his body was as stiff as a piece of wood. He wanted to sit up, but his limbs would not respond.
Fortunately, the person guarding him noticed his intention. A pair of tender, childish hands reached out and struggled to lift him up from his lying position.
"Mr. Amuro! Are you okay?"
After sitting up, Fūya Rei saw that the person taking care of him was actually a child who looked like an elementary school student.
He was wearing a blue suit, a red bow tie, and a pair of black-framed glasses.
“…”Is it someone you’ve met before?
Fūya Rei's mind was in a mess, and it took him a long time to find a name to match the child in front of him.
"Conan?"
"It's me." Conan nodded and said very maturely, "You recognized me, which means that your consciousness is not affected too much, Mr. Amuro. That's great. I'll go call a doctor now."
"Wait!" Only then did Furuya Rei realize that something was wrong. He had been waiting for dawn in his apartment and had accidentally fallen asleep.
How come I ran to the hospital as soon as I woke up, with a little kid next to me saying something I couldn't understand?
Conan paused, turned around and looked at him for a long moment.
"Mr. Amuro, do you remember what you were doing before you woke up?"
"Waiting for dawn in the apartment."
Furuya answered subconsciously.
After he finished speaking, he couldn't help but frown - his trust in this child was incredible. But he should be someone who didn't know his identity, otherwise he wouldn't call him by his pseudonym.
Conan sighed, "So I was still affected."
Conan found a stool and moved it in front of the bed. He climbed onto the chair, sat down and pushed up his glasses which had slid down.
"Mr. Amuro, you are a Japanese public security officer. A month ago, a holographic game was released worldwide, and tens of millions of game enthusiasts entered the game. But soon after, their family and friends reported to the police, saying that they had never logged off since entering the game. This is very abnormal."
Furiya Rei listened quietly without interrupting.
"Japan is the hardest hit area for such incidents, so Mr. Amuro, as a member of the Japanese Public Security Bureau, went to investigate the cause of the incident. He got a clue that this incident was related to a transnational crime syndicate whose members all wore black and used the name of alcohol as a code name. After that, things got more and more serious, and Mr. Amuro finally decided to take the risk to enter the game and find a way to rescue from the inside."
"Although I don't know what you did in the game, the main computer of the holographic world collapsed due to insufficient computing power. People from various countries took the opportunity to act and hacked into the program to modify the hijacking part. Recently, people who were hijacked by the game have woken up one after another. Mr. Amuro, you succeeded."
As Conan continued to narrate, his memories gradually returned.
Conan could see that Mr. Amuro was gradually remembering everything, but he couldn't understand why Mr. Amuro's expression was so strange?
"It's not because of anything I did. The computing power was insufficient and it collapsed..." Furuya Rei said with a complicated expression: "It's Kamiya Aoi... By the way, is he awake? Where is he now?"
“…”
After not getting an answer for a long time, Rei Furiya looked at Conan's surprised expression and realized something.
"I'm sorry, I was too impatient. You probably don't know Shen Youkui..."
"No, Mr. Amuro." Conan interrupted Furuya Rei's self-deception.
"...Mr. Amuro, this game really does create a world that feels like the real thing, right?"
It feels real.
Rather than reality.
…
“Ding ding ding——”
The rapid ringing of a bell pierced his ears, and he suddenly opened his eyes, only to see a snow-white ceiling.
Although he had just woken up, Furutani Rei was not dazed like an ordinary person. Instead, he picked up the ringing alarm clock and stopped it.
The blond young man who was lying on the bed a second ago stood up and left the not-so-soft bed. He seemed to do it deliberately without even glancing at his phone screen.
The stars are still hanging high outside the window, but the day of Furuya Rei has already begun.
First I deal with the pile of documents in my mailbox, then I wash up, change into sports clothes and go for a long run along the road.
Until sunrise, I returned to my solitary apartment to wash up and prepare breakfast.
When the clock struck 7:30 in the morning, the sounds of pedestrians outside the window became more and more obvious.
Whenever Furiya Ling glanced outside, he could see the endless stream of cars and pedestrians. Everyone was in a hurry, busy with new things in a new day.
“…”
Not long after, Furuya Rei, who had changed into a gray suit and carefully pinned a cherry blossom badge on his collar, also blended into the crowd.
After the mind-bending case that shocked the world came to an end, the public security officer's duty is far from over.
While still on the road, Reito Furiya received a call asking him to arrest a robber who was currently on the run.
According to the information and tracking information sent by Yuya Kazami, Furuya Rei didn't have to spend much effort to block the opponent on a route that the opponent must take to escape.
The young man was stunned for a moment when he saw Furuya Rei. Before he could say "get out of the way", he heard the breathing light on the latter's phone flash a few times, and an emotionless mechanical voice sounded:
"The target location has been detected. The pursuit navigation ends here."
"... Public Security!" The young man's face was distorted and he turned and ran in panic. He was caught by Yuya Kazami who pinned him to the ground and arrested.
"Mr. Furuya." Yuya Kazami adjusted his glasses and took out his mobile phone from his pocket. The same mechanical sound rang again, and the content of the report was no different from that of Furuya Rei.
After the mind-hijacking case that shocked the world was closed, the AI used to construct the holographic world was publicly shared and used by countries around the world.
After discussion, Japan referred to the opinions of Rei Furuya who had personally entered the game, and named Japan's AI "AOI". Its main purpose is to analyze criminal behavior and prevent and stop criminal behavior in a timely manner.
Other countries also refer to this usage.
"At first, everyone was not used to AOI, but now that they are used to it, they can't live without it anymore." Yuya Kazami said in a complicated tone, "It's good to have tools, but if hackers break into the program and hijack it..."
"will not."
Furiya Rei interrupted him and unconsciously stroked the outer casing of his phone with his fingers.
"No hacker can hijack this system. If they could, countries wouldn't have to send so many people into the game to find a solution."
"..." Feng Jianyuye thought about it and found that it was indeed the case.
"But, speaking of which... why is this 'Crime Interdiction System' called 'AOI'?"
Yuya Kazami looked puzzled. In his imagination, a "crime interruption system" that could locate the criminal's position through signals, retrieve the criminal's information in real time, analyze the criminal's behavior logic and simulate the movement trajectory should have a cooler name.
"…because no matter how hidden the crime is, it will be wiped out by the law and justice that are like the sun."
Furuya Rei looked at Kazami Yuya, "We, the Public Security Bureau...are people who pursue the law and justice, just like sunflowers always look at the sun."
"Isn't this name appropriate?"
Yuya Kazami was completely stunned after hearing this, and he sighed in his heart that it was worthy of Mr. Fūya. This kind of realization really amazed him!
However, as the day's work draws to a close, important evidence is obtained through less-than-legal means, and a criminal who illegally embezzled money is sent in.
Yuya Kazami, who was taking a short break at his workstation, inadvertently thought of these words again, but felt that something was wrong.
He remembered that he was asking for the nickname of this system, but Mr. Furuya answered "this name"...
Slip of the tongue?
A name that can become a synonym for this system must be a public security or judicial person who has made great contributions, right?
However, no matter how hard Yuya Kazami tried, he couldn't remember anyone named "Aoi".
-END-
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