Chapter 395: Death of the Idols

Adam strode over to the unconscious duo, then crouched down to inspect their bodies.

Both of them had very short hair, and they seemed to have been bald not long ago.

Adam rummaged through their hair to find that both of them had some small scars on the tops of their heads, which seemed to have been left behind by some small needles that had been pierced into their heads as part of some type of brain experiment.

"I see, so these used to be a pair of men, one of which was very fat, while the other one was an arsonist, and they've only changed bodies." Adam picked up the two girls before handing them to a nearby Mechguard unit as he instructed, "Take them to the police station, and make sure they don't die. I want to interrogate them myself."

As soon as Adam's voice trailed off, an explosion suddenly rang out several kilometers away. Adam could see aerial Mechguard units in that direction, but they were unable to prevent the explosion.

Damn it! We missed a spot after all.

Adam's first reaction was to rush to the scene, but he was afraid that this was a diversion tactic from the enemy, so he could only remain where he was and get an idea of the situation through his communicator and the images being transmitted to him by the Mechguard units on the scene.

Thankfully, Patriot replied very quickly this time.

"One of the databases just exploded. We presume it was the handiwork of the group of people that Diana was pursuing."

That must be Raven's group. They brought a total of three teams this time, and his team was the only one that succeeded. Not only did they obtain all of the keys and passwords, they managed to access the database and successfully plant a time bomb inside. To add insult to injury, the entire team managed to make an escape. This is very much in line with his style.

Just the mere thought of Raven was giving Adam a headache. Raven was a very strange guy with outstanding foresight and intelligence. He appeared to be quite gentle on the outside, but on the inside, he was cold-blooded and heartless, and willing to do anything to achieve his objectives.

Adam even had a feeling that those other two teams were always meant to be sacrificial distractions

Looking at the two incapacitated killers, they didn't appear to be part of members of Raven's inner circle anyway. Raven's true inner circle consisted only of the psychic mutants that had managed to escape from Carlin Asylum and were still at large.

In contrast, his relationship with the two incapacitated killers seemed to be more like one that required them to work together, but also to compete against one another.

Is he not worried that the director will punish him for selling out his allies?

After some careful consideration, Adam was finally able to make sense of the situation.

At this point, a large number of Mechguard units had already arrived on the scene, and given Raven's style, this was most likely the conclusion of the incident.

As for how the news was going to report on this incident the next day, that was not something for Adam to worry about.

This was the most severe crime committed by the killer organization thus far. Not only had they detonated a bomb in a very well-frequented area, this was also the most number of killers that had been deployed at once.

Most importantly, some databases had been destroyed, so there was no way to keep this incident a secret.

Perhaps the general public would be oblivious to the death of a politician or a wealthy tycoon, but the death of a large number of virtual idols was sure to have massive repercussions.

……

Sure enough, as Adam returned to the police station on the same day of the incident, the story had already blown up on the internet.

The first ones to realize that something was wrong were the fans watching the live streams of the deceased virtual idols.

All of a sudden, their idols had vanished into thin air, and a disappearance of this nature had never taken place before.

Furthermore, this hadn't taken place in just a single live stream. Instead, some of the virtual idols who were taking part in interview programs also vanished in unison, and the virtual gaming idols who provided interactive play services also suddenly disappeared while playing games on teams with human players.

The disappearance of so many virtual idols of all levels of popularity and all types of categories immediately sparked a panic among everyone.

Everyone knew that something had gone wrong, and discussions about the subject were rampant on internet forums and Metaverse chat rooms.

In the beginning, the matter wasn't taken very seriously, but a piece of footage was soon leaked that sparked mass panic among the fans of the deceased virtual idols.

The footage depicted an explosion with Mechguard units on the scene, while fearful bystanders fled in all directions.

This was already quite a disturbing piece of footage, and once the fans of the virtual idols noticed the location where the explosion had taken place, they were plunged into complete despair.

"Those buildings belong to the Fujiwara Corporation!"

"Screw the buildings! Look at where the explosion took place! It happened right under the buildings, where the databases are!"

"Oh god, please don't tell me the databases have been destroyed!"

"We can only pray..."

……

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

A post about the incident quickly turned viral, and in a short span of time, it received hundreds of thousands of responses from people discussing the incident and praying for the safety of their virtual idols, and this number was only rapidly increasing.

Sandrise City had a population in excess of 300 million, and close to 100 virtual idols had been wiped out in the wake of this incident.

There were mainly two types of virtual idols stored within the databases of the Fujiwara Corporation, the first of which were performative idols who specialized in singing and dancing, while the second type were interactive gameplay idols.

Only several dozen idols had been destroyed, but those idols could set up hundreds of thousands of live streams and participate in millions of games. The "clones" of these idols would then collate all of the data that they had collected to remember every single one of the fans that they had interacted with.

The next time they encountered those fans, the idols would be able to recall their gaming styles and preferences so that they could best complement those players.

Hence, in this painful high-tech world, virtual idols were like a ray of light or a safe haven for many.

Some people referred to this form of entertainment as "tittytainment", [1] but without these forms of entertainment, society as a whole was at risk of collapsing.

"If my idols die, then I don't want to live anymore, either."

"How could my beloved Nine Stripe Girl have just disappeared like this? I refuse to believe this! I haven't even beaten the 108-level tower of the underground city yet! We agreed to keep playing together tomorrow!"

"Don't be so pessimistic. Maybe it's just a malfunction that can be fixed."

"Perhaps there are still backup copies of the data."

"Will a backup idol still be the same idol? Will they still remember all the days and nights that they spent with us?"

The forums and Metaverse chat rooms were filled with despair.

Before morning had even arrived, rabble-rousers had already begun to appear on the streets.

In places that were blind spots for the surveillance cameras and Mechguard units, there were people setting cars alight and kicking over trash cans to vent their frustration.

Meanwhile, in the sewage system, Raven was watching footage of the scenes unfolding outside with a smile on his face.

"We should've earned enough points from this mission to not have to do anything for a long time, right?" Big Genius asked as he wiped the snot from his nose.

"That's true, but why should we rest and do nothing? That would be way too boring, and you wouldn't be able to test out those new weapons of yours, isn't that right?"

"You're right! I created a new electromagnetic pulse weapon that can disable the electricity system of an entire block! On top of that, there's also a jammer that can completely disrupt those Mechguard units. During our next mission, I'll make sure those robots can do anything to us!"

"You really are a genius!" Raven praised as he pulled out a handkerchief to help Big Genius wipe the snot from his nose. "I'll be counting on you."

1. Tittytainment is a derogatory term, and according to Wiktionary, it's defined as: "A blend of titty +? entertainment, in reference to the pacifying effect of watching TV, similar to that of a child sucking on its mother's breast." 👈