Chapter 8: The Legend of 'Black Sun'
As Futaba had said earlier, when Mo Tan logged in around 8:30 PM, he found that it was indeed noon in the game. He spawned in an alley not far from where he had disconnected earlier, only about two minutes' walk from the military camp.
Mo Tan quickly and easily made his way back to the base. Since the guard on duty today was the same Mediterranean dwarf warrior from last night, he was let through without even having to pull out his dog tag.
"Hey~ Hei Fan." The members of Fenrir Squad seemed to be gathered together chatting about something. When Ned saw Mo Tan approaching, he immediately raised a hand and called out, "Over here~"
Futaba was there too, apparently having logged in a bit earlier. She was currently sitting in a corner, staring off into space.
Mo Tan ran over and greeted everyone one by one, then smiled at Ned. "I'm here to report. What are you all talking about?"
"Uh, the current topic is which is more beautiful: an Ogre girl or a Goblin girl." Ned patted Mo Tan on the shoulder and gave a dry laugh. "Klab and Salazar have different opinions on that."
Mo Tan stiffly turned his head to look at the two beside him...
"You lizard will never understand how sexy those fangs are!" roared Klab, the black-skinned Orc warrior, spittle flying.
"Yeah, I'm glad I can't comprehend the world you see." The Lizardman monk crossed his arms and sneered. "But can you really not realize how charming that petite figure and those big ears are?"
Mo Tan: "..."
"Let me make it clear, we didn't participate in this low-level debate~" Yinna walked over, leading Futaba by the hand. She first shot a disdainful glance at the two connoisseurs, then grinned mischievously at Mo Tan. "But maybe you could share your opinion~"
Mo Tan replied almost without thinking, "I think Elf and human girls are prettier. Yeah, that's it."
"Oh~ What a charming guy~" Yinna winked at him.
Futaba, on the other hand, yawned listlessly and said lazily, "Anyway, don't expect me to be particularly happy about that."
After a while, when that bizarre debate finally ended (Salazar had beaten Klab to the ground), Ned gave Mo Tan a more detailed rundown of the squad's discipline, and then everyone started chatting casually again.
Through his identity as a wandering priest, Mo Tan chatted with the group and managed to grasp some basic information about the world's setting. During this process, Futaba, who was also a player, barely spoke, but she secretly sent him a friend request and expressed her admiration for his eloquence in a message.
"Your skill at prying information out of people is pretty impressive~ It's a real waste that you're not in the Underground Party."
That was what Futaba said in the message, and Mo Tan simply took it as the girl complimenting him.
According to Ned, the Territorial Guard they were currently in was essentially the private army of the Marshall Family. Of course, its existence was legal.
Lord Buffey Marshall was the current patriarch of this ancient family, and also the Overlord of the Eastern Border of the Innocent Realm—one of the nine dukes of the Violet Empire. He ruled a territory centered around the family's foundation, Mercury City, encompassing over thirty surrounding cities. The Territorial Guard was the lowest and most motley component of his armed forces. Compared to the elite but small Mercury Guard, the Knights of Buffey's Sword, and the Ice Curtain Mage Corps, the members of the Territorial Guard were almost on par with militia. However, their responsibilities were not light, primarily shouldering the two "heavy duties" of maintaining basic order within the territory and serving as cannon fodder in large-scale battles.
"In short, it's just to scrape by~" Ned shrugged. "At least the pay here is stable, and the risk is much lower than being a mercenary or adventurer."
Mo Tan nodded. He didn't feel uncomfortable being in this "cannon fodder concentration camp." On the contrary, he thought it was a good thing to start at a lower point and progress step by step in the early stages of the game. After all, the official website of Innocent Realm was basically just a half-baked mess, offering even less information than any random NPC on the street could provide.
So, as the saying goes—just go with the flow.
"Alright, chat time is about over." The lizardman monk Salazar glanced at the antique pocket watch hanging around his neck, then turned and walked toward the camp's exit. "We have patrol duty outside the city tomorrow, so let's call it a day early."
Yinna watched his retreating figure and shook her head helplessly. "That guy's always like that. Well, I'm heading back to my room to read~"
With that, she nimbly climbed up a towering, unknown tree nearby and quickly disappeared into the lush yellow leaves.
"She built a wooden hut up there. Says she can't stand sharing a dorm with us stinky males." Ned shrugged at Mo Tan, then said, "Dismissed~ Assemble at seven tomorrow morning, and we'll take a few laps outside the city as usual."
Mo Tan smiled at him. "Got it, Captain~"
Then Ned and Klab, who had just gotten up from the ground, strolled off, leaving only Mo Tan and Futaba on the warm, open ground by the camp.
"Come sit over here." The orange-haired female mage beckoned lazily.
"My pleasure." Mo Tan readily agreed, feeling that she must have plenty of information to share with him.
But he never expected that what he would gain shortly would far exceed his expectations.
"This world has its own set of operating rules." Futaba leaned over and whispered to Mo Tan. "The twelve hours (7 PM to 7 AM) you can log in each day are doubled here, making it twenty-four hours. And during the daytime, when you can't log into the game, this world pauses. It doesn't resume until 7 PM in real time, when players can log in again."
Mo Tan was taken aback. He had never heard of such a thing before—not from the official Innocent Company announcements, nor from any discussions on the forums. If this theory held true, then this piece of information was incredibly valuable. The most obvious benefit would be in interactions with NPCs; at the very least, Mo Tan now knew when to report to the military camp tomorrow.
"How did you..." Mo Tan looked at Futaba with curiosity, but she raised her hand slightly to cut him off.
"I'm just repaying a favor. When you were probing those guys earlier, I also picked up a lot of useful information. Consider it a fair exchange." Futaba chuckled. "Besides, even if I didn't tell you, someone else would figure it out soon. As for how I knew it first~"
Futaba winked playfully and said, "Because I'm a 2D otaku, you know. I dabble in hacking every now and then—that's also why I play this game."
"Planning to steal some data or find a way to break into the game company's system?" Mo Tan glanced at her with slight surprise and said casually, "Isn't Innocent Company's firewall supposed to be ridiculously strong? Even the legendary 'Black Sun' failed."
Black Sun was a legend, a living legend. This figure, hailed as the king of hackers, had supposedly infiltrated the servers of virtually every well-known private institution worldwide. According to vague statistics, the direct and indirect losses caused by him/her had reached astronomical figures, and to this day, he/she remained at large.
Some said Black Sun was an organization, others said it was a pair of partners, some claimed Black Sun was an alien, others insisted Black Sun was a special agency of some government, and there were even those who said Black Sun was Korean...
In short, this name was the godfather-level existence that all modern hackers aspired to. His/her operational style and hacking methods remained a mystery to this day, and the targets chosen were utterly unpredictable. Perhaps Black Sun would simultaneously hack into hundreds of private ATMs worldwide, making them spew out cash wildly; or maybe Black Sun would suddenly breach a family business and spread nude photos of its key figures across the local network; or Black Sun might worm into a famous celebrity's personal computer, dig up some interesting videos or image files, and dump them onto major forums with enthusiastic reposts. He/she might also suddenly invade a school and, before exams, post the answers to all subject tests on the campus network homepage—answers that might even be wrong...
Like a genius psychopath with a twisted sense of humor.
Then, Futaba suddenly scratched her hair with an embarrassed grin and spread her hands. "Yeah, that's right. It's because I failed that I decided to play this game myself~ And then I accidentally got a bit hooked."
"What!?" Mo Tan's pupils sharply contracted as he stared at Futaba. "Are you saying you're Black Sun!"
"That's right~" Futaba replied nonchalantly, then looked up at the sun hanging in the sky. "It's so hot..."
*Thump~*
A small ice sphere appeared on her raised index finger, emitting a faint chill.
Futaba nodded with satisfaction. "Much better now."
"Can skills be used like this?" Mo Tan stared at the ice sphere on her fingertip, curious. "Or is it because you're Black Sun that you can pull this off?"
As he asked, he fixed his gaze on Futaba's bright brown eyes, as if trying to see through her.
"Don't be so tense..." Futaba shook her head helplessly. "When your Intelligence attribute exceeds a spell's minimum requirement by double, you can achieve some degree of variation. But this just proves how ridiculously flexible the data model in this *Innocent Realm* is. I've been messing around for days, and aside from making a cheap simulation pod compatible with this game, I've accomplished nothing. I was about to give up."
Mo Tan didn't detect a trace of lying in the girl's eyes; instead, he noticed a lingering sense of frustration. He couldn't help but ask, "If you really are Black Sun, then why would you..."
"Why would I tell you?" Futaba shot him a glance, pouting indignantly. "It doesn't matter anyway! I can't even hack a single byte of this thing's server. Besides, I've customized this appearance so much that even my own mother wouldn't recognize me. Could you possibly track down my real identity just from this character named Futaba? If you went to a forum or something to spread the word, no one would believe you, so it's no big deal... Ugh... What a piece of junk... Does it think it's the CIA or something? Even the CIA wouldn't be this bad... Ah~ just die already~ Innocent Company, go die, and I'll go die too~~~"
A feeling of throwing caution to the wind...
Seeing this girl in round-rimmed glasses muttering endlessly, Mo Tan couldn't help but find it a bit amusing, and then...
[You have been forcibly disconnected. Please choose whether to reconnect.]
"No."
[Proceed with the wake-up procedure?]
"Yes~ That's exactly what I need~"
[Received. It is now January 1, 2049, 00:40. You will awaken in two minutes.]
...
Two minutes later, Mo Tan sat up from the game pod, adjusted slightly to the groggy feeling of just waking up, and a hint of a mocking smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
He stood up, walked over to his computer, and turned it on. With lightning-fast hand speed, he terminated the program just before the system loaded, quickly switching to a pitch-black interface. At the same time, he kicked the computer desk slightly askew, pulled a black network cable from a hidden compartment, and plugged it into the computer.
"Heh~ What a pleasant surprise~" Mo Tan narrowed his eyes and murmured, "After searching for so long and having you slip away every time, I finally found your trail in that place. You were too careless after all, Sun~"
By now, readers have likely noticed something...
That's right, Black Sun is not an organization, nor is it Korean. It's a duo of two individuals barely bound by morality, and Mo Tan is one half of them, codename: Black.
As for the true identity of the other person, it has gradually begun to surface...
"Activate the Hunting Angel System," Mo Tan said softly to the voice receiver in front of him. "Based on the existing criteria, exclude all males and change the subcategory conditions to Yellow race, height between 155 centimeters and 175 centimeters; add these five items to the fuzzy conditions: glasses, age between 18 and 25, Chinese national, never purchased any Innocent Company peripheral products, and mother still alive... Oh, and one more: not outdoors on December 31, 2048, or tonight. Begin."
After a brief flicker of static, a progress bar suddenly appeared on the computer screen, and a mechanical voice came through the headphones Mo Tan had just put on: "Searching, estimated time remaining over 99 hours. Hide search panel?"
"No duh~" Mo Tan rolled his eyes, tossed the headphones aside, and glanced at the computer desktop, which had quickly switched back to the formal system. He smiled faintly. "If I can expose you with solid evidence, and then, after you're arrested, pull off a few more stunts under the name of Black Sun, it should get pretty interesting~ Haha~ Hahaha~~~"
He laughed arrogantly for a long time, then turned his gaze back to the Game Pod and murmured, "Suddenly thought of another great idea..."
...
The two hackers, Black and Sun, met by accident. At the time, Mo Tan was searching through the neurology department data of a French hospital when he discovered another set of data that was coincidentally also hacking into the same place—basically, two thieves reaching into the same pocket.
So, for fun, Mo Tan deliberately triggered the institution's firewall, called the police faster than the automatic alarm system, destroyed a large amount of valuable research data, and then went into hiding.
But the other party was no pushover either. When Mo Tan deliberately triggered the firewall, the other thief immediately intercepted Mo Tan's virtual IP, disguised it as his own, and tried to pull off a switcheroo.
Then began a battle of hacking skills between the two. Although neither of them managed to catch any useful information about each other or the police afterward, the cops involved in this incident nearly went crazy. They constantly deployed troops and resources across France to deal with this "extremely damaging" incident, checking one water meter after another, delivering warmth to one community after another, and after a whole night of hard work, they almost arrested their own boss...
It was truly a tear-jerking, heroic saga of dedication!
Worth noting, although they never caught the two culprits in the end, they indirectly made Mo Tan, who was in a playful mood, and the other hacker with the alias 'Sun' develop a spark of curiosity and a subtle sense of mutual recognition while toying with those civil servants.
A week later, they met again in a bank's database and together pulled off their first highly entertaining and practical feat: making every ATM of that shady private bank, which had branches worldwide, spew out massive amounts of cash simultaneously, and they even kindly deleted the serial numbers...
An hour after the incident broke out, an entity claiming to be the 'Black Sun' took responsibility for it, posting a nude photo of a corrupt bank manager on a same-sex social networking site, and also exposing the five-star hotel that had installed pinhole cameras in its rooms...
From then on, the two people, now mutual accomplices, never gave up on their first game: to find each other and dump the accumulated shit of all these years squarely on the other's head.
"This is the ultimate pleasure~"
Mo Tan, lying back in the game pod, chuckled softly into the air just before closing his eyes: "Don't you dare disappoint me~~"
[Your mental connection has been detected, synchronizing personal information...]
[Connection complete, loading character information]
[Welcome back, Tan Mo of Chaotic Neutral alignment. About to load into Innocent Realm. Good night.]
...
Chapter 8: The End