Chapter 43: The Nuclear Brain

"Well, it was certainly worth the 330,000 I spent on it; the quality isn't bad at all." Wakaba inspected her combat suit. Although it was covered in pockmarked bullet holes, the rounds were all embedded in the material without having pierced through to the frame.

She strapped on the suit, entered the main hall, and made her way to the basement electrical room. She blew it up, paralyzing the facility's backup power. As for the substation outside the compound, she had already taken care of it with a timed explosive before she even stepped inside.

After leaving the backup power room, she returned to the first floor and detonated the elevators. She then began to clear the building floor by floor, ascending the stairs and asking every person she encountered for the location of their boss. At this hour, the building was largely empty. The staff had long since clocked out, leaving only a few remnants of the security department behind.

Moreover, Wakaba only killed those who rushed out to attack her; she spared those who chose to hide. In her view, anyone desperate enough to risk their lives to protect the company was clearly a loyalist and could not be left alive. Those who didn't come out were obviously inconsequential employees and could be spared.

Once the remaining security guards were dealt with, the building seemed empty—at least, she didn't run into anyone else. Still, she hadn't managed to extract any information regarding Kenji Yanagiya’s father. Adhering to the principle that she shouldn't leave empty-handed, she continued upward, blowing up any room that looked important, such as database centers.

*Rustle, rustle!*

Even though the building's backup power was destroyed, the fire alarm system had been triggered. Sprinklers in every room on every floor began to pour water. Drenched, Wakaba walked and bombed her way to the top-floor conference room. She tallied the most valuable rooms she had encountered: multi-story supercomputing servers, several floors of cleanrooms, various laboratories, and over a dozen floors of pharmaceutical storage. Without exception, she had blown them all to pieces.

"Why is there no cash? No gold bars..." Standing in the chaotic, massive conference room, Wakaba stared at the safe she had blasted open with a high-explosive grenade, falling into a state of self-doubt. The safe had been embedded in a load-bearing wall, and the high-explosive grenade—designed specifically for structural demolition—had twisted and deformed both the safe and the wall, scattering documents everywhere. These were various contracts, property deeds, and stock certificates—things of immense value—but there wasn't a single banknote to be found.

"So much for the 'killing and arson brings golden belts' promise," Wakaba muttered, speechless. She didn't even look at the documents, as they were useless to her.

*Whoosh!*

She tossed an incendiary grenade, set the room ablaze, and turned to leave. On her way down, she suddenly remembered something and returned to the backup power room in the basement. Sure enough, after some demolition, she discovered a hidden door. Blowing it open revealed a corridor made entirely of metal. The moment she stepped inside, machine guns protruded from the metal walls and opened fire.

Wakaba didn't hesitate; she grabbed several high-explosive charges, hurled them forward, and retreated out of the corridor.

*BOOM!*

Flames erupted from the passage, and the ground shook violently. Once the shockwaves of the explosion faded, Wakaba returned to the corridor to find it scorched black. A massive hole had been torn through the thick metal walls, exposing the concrete behind, with chunks of rubble and metal scattered across the floor. As for the guns, not even a trace remained.

From then on, she bombed as she walked; regardless of whether there was danger, she tossed a grenade first, just in case. After all, she still had plenty of explosives left in her kit.

Ten seconds later, Wakaba stepped over the scorched, shattered remains of the corridor and entered the innermost room. It was vast, like a factory floor, and decorated with exquisite precision—every wall, floor, and ceiling was clad in silver metal plating. As she entered, the entire ceiling turned a deep, ominous red, flashing the word "WARNING!" accompanied by a deafening siren.

Bathed in the red light, Wakaba saw rows upon rows of upright glass tanks. Inside them floated dissected human bodies—men, women, young and old. Some had only half a body left, some lacked limbs, and others lacked even a torso... One tank was particularly gruesome: it didn't even resemble a human anymore, just a mass of floating internal organs. Two eyes drifted up and down, connected only by thin optic nerves and blood vessels. When the eyes saw Wakaba, they actually twitched slightly.

Wakaba realized then that these weren't specimens; they were living people. Ansen Pharmaceutical’s medical technology was so advanced that they could dismantle a human into parts without killing them.

"Human experimentation, huh..." Wakaba found she wasn't even surprised. She pulled out all her incendiary grenades, preparing to level the place.

Just then, a pack of mechanical hounds rushed out from the shadows of the room. They had likely been trying to ambush her, but realizing she intended to blow the whole place up, they were forced to reveal themselves. Wakaba swapped her grenades for EMP charges. These were also part of the luxury 3A-tier combat suit set, though she had very few.

She detonated the EMP charge in her hand. A sharp, electrical whine pierced the air. A dense web of blue arcs spread from her palm, covering a radius of seven or eight meters. The mechanical hounds that lunged at her hit the arcs, convulsed, emitted a burnt stench, and collapsed, motionless. The ones further away that hadn't hit the arcs were still affected; their red electronic eyes flickered and their movements grew stiff, though they quickly recovered. Nearby, the life-support systems of the tanks began to fail, triggering alarms.

"These things are actually quite useful," Wakaba noted, surprised. EMP grenades were god-tier weapons against precision machinery, while for her own flesh-and-blood body, it was nothing more than a few seconds of stinging, electric pain.

The remaining mechanical hounds dared not approach. Wakaba proactively tossed a few more EMP grenades, disabling them all. She didn't plan to stay long; she placed her combat gear on the ground, intending to set a delayed explosion to level the place in one go. Even after all the fighting, she still had half her supply left. It was, after all, a luxury 3A-tier combat suit.

"Wait, don't do it! I'm innocent!" Suddenly, a young woman in a white lab coat ran out from behind a tank. She wore glasses and looked like a scholar, her face filled with terror.

When Wakaba saw her, she froze. "Isn't this Dr. Ai Kijima..." she thought in surprise. Ai Kijima was the doctor from Miyagi Hyakka Academy who had filmed the video of her dancing and sold it. She had heard from the dean that the girl had been taken by the prosecutor's office, and she had assumed she was in prison, not here.

"Who are you? Judging by your look, you're a newcomer," Wakaba said with a gentle smile. But in Ai Kijima's eyes, she was a vicious demon baring its fangs.

"Yes, yes, I'm new. No, no, I'm not one of them! I'm a victim kidnapped and brought here; I have nothing to do with this company..." Ai Kijima stammered. After her actions at the academy were exposed, she had been sent to the prosecutor's office. The trial was a formality; her appeals were ignored, and she was sentenced to fifty years. During transport, she woke up from a sedative to find she had been taken to Ansen Pharmaceutical’s secret lab as a test subject. She would have ended up like the people in the tanks, but her medical expertise had earned her the favor of the company president, and she became a researcher. Of course, being a researcher was only part of it—in her spare time, she was President Yanagiya's mistress.

Back at Miyagi Hyakka Academy, she had been plain, but out here, she was undoubtedly a beauty—a talented woman with degrees and skills. She poured out everything that had happened to her, omitting only the incident at the academy.

Wakaba was stunned and looked at Ai Kijima with a strange expression. *Good grief. A researcher by day, night shift worker, and mistress in her spare time... She’s having a worse time than the students back at the academy,* Wakaba thought.

"Since you..."

"Don't, don't kill me! I know this place well. I know everyone you're looking for, and I even know the password to the Core Brain..." Ai Kijima, fearing she was about to be silenced, racked her brain to offer whatever value she had. She figured this killer, who had gone to such lengths to attack Ansen Pharmaceutical, wasn't doing it for money. It had to be a vendetta. After all, Ansen Pharmaceutical consumed a lot of test subjects every month; it was possible one of them was a friend or relative of this person.

Wakaba had intended to let Ai Kijima go, as she could be considered an old acquaintance, but she hadn't expected such a bonus.

"You know where the company boss is?"

"I do, I do..." Ai Kijima, assuming Wakaba was out for revenge against President Yanagiya, immediately spilled his location.

Wakaba nodded and added, "Come, tell me in detail: what kind of treasure is this 'Core Brain'?"

"Huh? You attacked this place, surely you came to destroy the Core Brain, didn't you?" Ai Kijima asked. But meeting Wakaba's icy gaze, she quickly amended, "The Core Brain is the main control hub of the Ansen Corporation. It holds all research data, results, and every secret of the group. It is, in essence, a primary nuclear-grade quantum computer with basic stress responses, utilizing next-generation ZAA technology..."

"A quantum computer?" Wakaba looked surprised.

"Yes, yes. Only by destroying the Core Brain can you truly ruin the Ansen Group. Otherwise, as long as it exists, they can continue their work within the virtual reality woven by the Core Brain..."

Wakaba was dumbfounded. She hadn't realized that the company in this era existed in such a form. "Wait, you said it has stress responses?"

"Yes, roughly equivalent to a single-celled organism. It can recognize simple threats and perform basic cost-benefit calculations..."

"I attacked this place today, why didn't it react?" Wakaba asked the critical question.

Ai Kijima looked at her with an expression uglier than crying. "It did react! From the moment you reached the front gate, it commanded the security department to counterattack, and the mechanical hounds from earlier..."

Wakaba: "..."

She suddenly recalled the several "sharpshooters" she had encountered. They hadn't even seen her, yet they had predicted her movements and hit her from two hundred meters away. And the attacks from the people in the hall... She had thought it was all coincidence, but it had been the Core Brain's counterattack.

"Take me to the Core Brain," Wakaba commanded.

"Yes, yes, please follow me." Ai Kijima led her deep into the room. They stopped in front of a door, but when she entered the password, it was incorrect. Wakaba guessed the Core Brain had changed it. She told Ai Kijima to step back, pulled out a high-explosive grenade, and blew the metal door open.

Inside was an empty room, with another door at the end. Wakaba was very familiar with this routine; she didn't enter, but simply tossed a grenade in, blowing it up regardless of whether there was danger. With a loud *bang*, the room was deformed, and the weapons hidden in the bulkhead fell out, completely wrecked. She entered, blew open the next door, and repeated the process.

After passing through two such rooms, they finally arrived before the Core Brain. It looked nothing like a computer. Six metal rods protruded from the walls, their ends fitted with bowl-shaped, high-powered magnetic field constraints. These constraints enclosed a spherical void, and floating in the center was a crystalline, pale blue orb. It was the size of a basketball, brilliant and dazzling, like a ball of lightning held in place. Its surface seemed to be made of light, yet it flickered constantly in a chaotic, irregular pattern.

It seemed to know Wakaba was watching, as the fluctuations on its surface grew increasingly intense.

"That's the Core Brain?" Wakaba asked.

"That is it."

"How much can it sell for?" Wakaba asked immediately.

"Huh?" Ai Kijima was stunned, but under Wakaba's gaze, she quickly said, "The Core Brain is, naturally, priceless—often having a market price but no sellers. However, a company's Core Brain has encrypted keys; breaking it is extremely difficult, and there's a risk of exposure..."

"Fine, I get it," Wakaba said, shaking her head in disappointment.

She told Ai Kijima to leave, set the timer on her luxury 3A-tier combat suit for a self-destruct, and turned to run. Ten seconds later, accompanied by a world-shaking explosion, the fleeing Wakaba was thrown off her feet by a powerful shockwave.

Outside the Ansen Group, people drawn by the commotion watched as a massive fireball, sixty or seventy meters tall, erupted from the heart of the compound, rising into the sky.