A few minutes earlier,
"Dylan, what the hell is going on?!"
"I-I don't know! I'm trying to see if something's wrong with Athena's system!"
Inside the VR room of Global Military Academy building 5.
Neatly arranged in rows, numerous high-end VR pods stood with their sleek, semi-transparent metallic frames revealing the cadets inside them.
All of them were still – breathing as if they had been sleeping all this time.
In the front end of the room, a spiky orange-haired guy stood with a panicked expression.
He had his right hand raised to his chest, on which he wore his smart bracelet. From that device, several holographic screens were projected out in front of Dylan.
Click, Click, Click—!
Sounds of his finger tapping against the holographic keyboard echoed in the room, his panic-stricken face growing increasingly with each passing second.
"Dylan?!"
An elven maiden with long ears and a captivating countenance, her hair coiled into a silver bun atop her head, spoke up from behind him, indicating her dwindling patience through the tone of her voice.
"What is going on?" Yelena spoke.
In front of the pair, a large holographic screen was on display. On this screen, the live telecast of the VR world was being played.
What's wrong then, one might ask?
Well, the spectating screen glitched a few seconds ago, and now they can't control what it shows.
A few minutes ago, Yelena was monitoring Quinn. She wanted to know why he decided to go back to the base.
But now, the screen was stuck on Nero's point of view. She can't see anything else aside from what Nero has been seeing.
"Is there a malfunction in Athena's mainframe?" Yelena voiced her thoughts aloud.
"Impossible," Dylan quickly replied. "No way in hell there could be a problem with Athena's system."
"I know," Yelena agreed. "But let me just confirm."
Tapping the screen of her smart bracelet once, Yelena called out to the academy's AI assistant, "Athena."
Almost instantly, a reply came from her smart bracelet.
[Yes, mistress?]
"There's a problem with the spectating screen," Yelena notified the AI assistant from her smart bracelet. "Fix it." she demanded.
[I would like to apologize, mistress, but I can not do that.]
"What?"
"What do you mean you can't do that?"
Yelena and Dylan's facial expressions contorted into frowns upon hearing the reply of the feminine robotic voice.
[I mean exactly that. I can't comply with your command.]
Yelena's confusion only increased with each passing second as she questioned, "Why is that? The VR world and its monitoring system should be directly connected to your mainframe, enabling you to fix any glitches that may arise. Moreover, answer me this– how did this glitch even occur when you–"
Before Yelena could go on any further, Athena replied and cut her off.
[I apologize. It seems like you didn't understand me. I can do it but I won't.]
"...."
"...."
Silence.
Absolute silence.
No one knew how to respond to the statement.
Is it the day? The day when AI finally turns on humans?
For a split second, Yelena thought now they would have to fight Vampires, Kalis, and Super Robots.
But of course, it was a fleeting thought that she quickly shook off. After all, defeating Athena is as simple as breaking its core.
So massaging the bridge of her nose, Yelena spoke up, "And just why would you not comply with my orders? Last I checked, I have the authority to ask you to do just about anything as the Queen of this city."
[Yes, but at the moment, someone is interfering with my mainframe. As a result, I cannot follow your instructions because the individual tampering with my mainframe does not wish me to do so.]
"W-Wait," and finally, Yelena understood what was going on. "Athena, are you saying you've been hacked?"
[In simple words, you can say that. Yes.]
"How did they breach your firewall?!"
[I d-d-d- kn… on't know.]
"Athena, why is your voice glitching?"
[I'm slowl— I'm– I'm… I'm slowly getting my control back, mistress.]
"Yelena, this is…" cold sweat formed on Dylan's forehead as he couldn't find the right words for the situation.
Without trying to complete his sentence, he quickly got back to clicking the keys on his virtual keyboard, now even more panicked than before.
"This is bad. I know," Yelena, on the other hand, tried to keep a calm head. "Athena is connected to everything in the academy– our smart bracelets, our records, our technology, and literally everything else. The person who hacked her had gained full access to everything we have."
"I'm trying to restore her firewalls and–"
Dylan tried to report his actions but Yelena voiced a command before he could finish. "Never mind that. Try to regain access to the spectating screen and show me where Quinn is."
After hearing that command, Dylan was at a loss for words. "So that skull of yours is really full of ice?"
"What?" Yelena looked at her childhood friend absurdly.
"What else am I to make of your command?!" Dylan snapped. "A hacker has gotten into Athena's mainframe and you are still interested in this stupid virtual war when all our data could be being leaked to God knows who!"
"Calm down, Dylan, and think!" pinching the bridge of her nose, Yelena replied. "Our smart bracelets are functioning and Yelena can still reply to us. The instructors haven't issued any alert so they probably don't even know about this."
"So isn't that all the more reason to notify them about this–"
"And what would that do?" Yelena shook her head. "It will just create panic and confusion. We don't need that. Right now, we need to find the culprit."
"...And you think we can find the culprit?"
"Of course. The culprit is someone among these first-years."
By now, Dylan was looking at the elven girl as if he was looking at a crazy person. "Yelena… Do you really, in all your mind, think that someone among the first years is capable of breaking Athena's firewalls and hacking her? Seriously?"
Yelena sighed, realizing that her childhood friend was as dumb as ever. "Of course not. Aside from being first-years, they are currently unconscious. How do you think they will achieve such an impossible task?"
"Exactly my point–"
"That only means one thing: someone is helping them."
Dylan thought it over for a good minute before a frown formed on his face again.
"But then how will watching this war tell us who the culprit behind the situation is?"
"It's simple. As I said, since even instructors don't know what's happening yet, it won't be wrong to say the hacker only interfered with the spectating system to divert our eyes somewhere else away from the culprit."
Dylan couldn't ignore the sound reasoning in Yelena's words. It was an evident deduction that didn't require exceptional intelligence, but rather anyone could arrive at the same conclusion with enough time.
However, right now, Yelena didn't have time. She had to make a call and she had to do it quickly.
So she did just that. She made a call by quickly accessing a theory.
Interestingly, both Dylan and Yelena were unaware that her conclusion wasn't entirely accurate, but neither was it entirely inaccurate.
Suppressing his admiration, Dylan nodded his head.
"Fine, I'll try to regain access to the spectating screen. I'll then switch it to Quinn's pov."
"Good," Yelena nodded back. "Do that."
It took Dylan a few minutes and more than a few hundred clicks on his holographic keyboard to regain access.
"Arghh. If only Josh was here, he could've done it in a blink."
While letting out a few complaints, he pressed one final key on his keyboard.
Click—!
After getting his access back, Dylan searched Quinn's location and started spectating him, playing the live telecast of his battle with a strange red-haired on the monitoring screen.
From the looks of it, the battle was already in its final stage.
"What?"
"...Quinn was pushed back?"
On the screen, both Quinn and the red-haired boy were standing with rubble and debris surrounding them.
In the middle, a spear was struck out from the rubble.
In an instant, both of the warriors made a run for the spear.
However, at that moment, a bright light flashed and obstructed their vision, turning the spectating screen white for a few seconds.
When the telecast resumed, Quinn's throat was slit and the redhead was grabbing his spear.
It was clear that Quinn had lost to whoever this boy was.
However, that didn't remotely shock Yelena as much as what came next.
–"Fuuu."
The red-haired boy let out a deep breath and pulled back his spear, taking a stance.
However, the stance he took wasn't that of a spearman. No, the stance he took belonged to a swordsman.
Tensing his shoulder muscles and slightly bending his knees, the red-haired boy unleashed a power swing with his spear.
THWOOOOSH—!
Everything around the redhead was blown away in an arc and Quinn's body was sliced in half.
That wasn't the scary thing, however.
The scary thing was the redhead didn't use an ounce of mana in his attack.
"Y-Yelena, did you see that?" Dylan, obviously surprised at the display of strength, asked in a trembling voice.
"...ther…ial…rts"
"Hm?"
Dylan couldn't hear properly what his childhood friend said so he turned to face her but he was surprised to see the look of utter rage and horror on her face.
That was a first.
In all his years with her, Dylan had never seen her looking like this. She was angry and shocked at the same time. But more than that, she was scared, as evident from her quivering eyes and lips.
Under Dylan's concerned gaze, Yelena spoke again in a whispering tone.
"That's my father's martial arts."
