Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Hanging Street next door, Red Dream Club

At the club entrance, two men in sunglasses coldly stared at the circle of people around, their hands placed on their waists.

As Lady Red Dream’s henchmen, they were used to the rise and fall of the Outer City District, with new gangs emerging, expanding, and declining. Some lucky ones established security companies and left here, while some gangs fell apart due to various unexpected factors. Some gang leaders would sell the entire gang at a good price, move to the Business District, and become part of corporate management.

And those betrayed gangs? They became a large-scale group experiment.

The only ones who could truly stay here were some ancient monsters hidden below the surface, like Lady Red Dream.

So when facing gang threats, they were somewhat indifferent, carrying a lofty demeanor.

However, somewhat unexpectedly, these people weren’t from the Welfare Gang nor its vassal influence, but rather civilians from the Outer City District.

Civilians and gangsters are easy to distinguish. Those with prosthetic eyes implanted with five or six advertisements playing continuously for 30 hours, or those with experimental prosthetic bodies and twisted expressions due to experimental drugs — they’re 100% civilians.

These technological experiments aren’t entirely the result of pervasive corporate advertisement placement and forced trials. A fair portion is from ordinary people’s own choices.

In Nightless City, corporations have to pay taxes, sole proprietors have to pay taxes, and individuals also have to pay taxes.

If you’re a company employee, the company will naturally pay your data tax on your behalf.

If you’re a gang member, you can complete automatic tax payment through hacking — no, testing new weapons.

And if you’re an ordinary person wanting to survive in Nightless City, actively accepting various corporate benefits is actually a good choice.

The painful biological drug experiments can be solved with just a ’pain nerve removal.’

The painful prosthetic body transformation experiments can be settled with a ’virtual machine enhancement.’ If you’re lucky, when testing new network devices, you might even enter Cyber Space, enjoying the spiritual freedom of completely detaching from the flesh, becoming a member of the Cyber Race no longer troubled by worldly affairs.

This type of person is actually the most numerous in Nightless City. They could be Primordial People, Bionic Men, or even low-level AIs.

They don’t appear during the day, nor at night... A virtual machine is enough to spend a lifetime, and after death, their head components can be sold to exchange for a ’holographic projection urn.’

They only swagger onto the streets when they run out of money, examining each company’s new products with a ’God’ perspective, looking at the benefits of using their ’products.’

Even monopolistic enterprises and globally dominant companies offer sufficient superior additional services to these ’Capsule People,’ such as stimulating sensory experience and enhancing virtual machine experience.

It’s typical that if I play poorly enough, even the Emperor can’t daunt me!

And their nicknames, ’Sensory Experiencers,’ ’Capsule People,’ ’Capsule God,’ are all quite impressive.

The reason why they’re called ’Capsule People’ is because their role in Cyber Society is much like the outer shell of a drug, the ’edible capsule.’

What surprised the two men in sunglasses was that the layers and layers, surrounding the entrance of Red Dream Club, were all ’Capsule People.’

This feeling, seeing ghosts in broad daylight!

”Miss Sakura—”

One of the security guards hurriedly pressed his collar and reported upwards using a button communicator.

”Don’t rush to act, see what they want to do.”

In fact, the security guard thought the same. It’s not that they couldn’t handle this group of weaklings, but that each of these Capsule People had at least a dozen corporate drug trials, ad experiments, and prosthetic body trials. Killing them is easy, but offending certain departments of certain companies could even make Lady Red Dream feel troubled.

More importantly, these people drooling and rolling their eyes clearly underwent ’flesh hosting.’ You could cut them down and they wouldn’t know what happened.

It’s worth mentioning that this type of ’rented body’ technology is generally used in certain adult-only locations, like their Red Dream Club, fitting perfectly with any hobby, for white-collars, the unemployed, married or unmarried.

But when this technology is used against their own people, it becomes quite troublesome.

”This group of people is typically fearless of boiling water,” one of the men in sunglasses gritted his teeth.

This group of Capsule People is indeed fearless. I’m indifferent to living, why would I fear you killing me? If you can, go ahead, if you kill me, the enterprises will find trouble with you!

...

And in the Red Dream Club, Miss Sakura was expressionlessly watching the holographic projection, her long mechanical fingernails twitching, a sign only the familiar would know indicated her nervousness.

Next to her, Sister Ji was also nervous, the reason being that Lady Red Dream was not in the club.

Without the presence of this ’big Buddha,’ she felt apprehensive facing this group of ’urban zombies.’

My second death — would it really come at the hands of these ’Capsule People’? It’s said that otakus are very perverse, and these people are practically the ultimate dark version of otakus.

Seeing Sister Ji nervous, Miss Sakura’s nails stopped twitching, calmly saying: ”With the firepower of the club, taking down this thousand-person mob is not an issue.”

Sister Ji breathed a sigh of relief, then immediately got eager. If she could wipe out this thousand small mobs, just imagine how much experience she’d gain.

Go on! Attack! I’ll personally take the machine gun and clear them!

Miss Sakura glanced at her partner, seeing through her thoughts, and said, ”Our real enemy is not them, but the people behind them.”

```

”Who?”

”Hardcoded God.”

Thanks to the Red Dream Club’s rumor-filled environment, Sister Ji actually knew who this Cyber Deity was.

His essence was actually a Cyber Hacker, and moreover, a fallen one.

Being in a chaos camp profession, being labeled as ’fallen’ basically had nothing to do with criminal law.

Simply put, this hacker gave up, becoming part of the ever-growing ’Capsule Man’ group.

Although this ’Tech Otaku’ switched to ’Dark Otaku’ for unknown reasons, his technical skills were obviously not lost. In his state of giving up, he developed a series of brain hacking software that can largely benefit from enterprises’ welfare while isolating the companies’ experimental losses. Many benefits can even be freeloaded.

As for how to obtain this kind of ’hacking software’, call upon his name, praise his name, proclaim his deeds.

Thus, the ’Hardcoded God’ was born!

As for the hacker’s ultimate fate, whether he indulged in the colorful virtual pleasures, became a Cyber Deity, or simply got recruited by a company, turning from a Dark Otaku back to a striver, no one knows.

But the compressed file package of this series of ’brain hacking software’ became the legendary ’Capsule Bible.’

And this street sect of ’Hardcoded God’, due to this ’Dark Otaku Bible’, has rapidly risen in the street cults. It’s becoming a standout in the second tier, its number approaching the first tier’s Turing Sect.

In the holographic projections, under the manipulations of anonymous Controllers, those laid-back Capsule Men begin to perform various worship actions. Some were doing the standard kowtow, some started dancing otaku dances, some were crying and shouting the nickname of some virtual idol, and some pulled out their multifunctional glow sticks.

The next moment, the Red Dream Club shone brightly with red light.

The local area network projection fell in front of the two women—an identical virtual Red Dream Club. Raindrop-like data streams began to hit the surface of the ’Red Dream Club,’ and in places like gates, pipelines, and underground tunnels, many virtual people began to drill in, even forcing Capsule Men through the walls amidst thick mosaics.

”Lady is not here, and no one is controlling the local area network, we need to go in and protect it from being damaged!”

Miss Sakura pressed a hidden mechanism, and the next moment, the bar began to flip open, revealing numerous ports, and a large number of bionic girls started walking like zombies, with their back necks, wrists, and temples opening, and plugs coming out.

The local area network’s data transmission function activated, and Sister Ji suddenly felt a lightness in her head. When she came to, she was astonished to find that on the player panel, the gray skill ’Network Implantation’ was lit up.

”Damn, getting me online for a flame war, that’s my forte!”

The next moment, Sister Ji’s tentacles split into ten plugs, inserting into the ports one by one.

’This move suddenly feels so dominant.’

Sensory signals turned into countless numbers, rushing through the digital space, and Sister Ji felt herself being tightly held and then released by one tough guy after another.

A thrilling and dissatisfying sensation

This was particularly unbearable for Sister Ji, the master of the eroge district, and she wanted to blurt out, ”All of you come at me together, I’m in a hurry.”

The local area network was ultimately not like the Cyber Space, unable to immerse you in a sea of sensory signals instantly.

After a series of intermittent ’digital dials,’ Sister Ji finally gathered enough sensory signals, and her vision went dark. When it brightened again, she logged into the ’Red Dream Club’ once more.

However, this ’Red Dream Club’ was now a local area network.

”Huh, it’s not much different from reality.”

In reality, Sister Ji was near the bar, while in the local area network, she was on the second basement floor, the famous check-in area, filled with various pink workout rooms with all sorts of professional exercise equipment inside.

”Is this hinting something to me?”

The next moment, one figure after another appeared on the ground, the Capsule Men from reality.

”Open the mobs, open the mobs!”

In the local area network, Sister Ji felt endlessly energetic, with unlimited ultimate moves.

The next moment, like Zhenzi casting an ultimate, countless implant threads poured out; soon, battle records flared up one after another.

[You’ve killed the ’Capsule Man’ Shinji’s Illusion Clone, gaining 30 experience]

[You’ve killed the ’Capsule Man’ Hinagawa Umaru’s Illusion Clone, gaining 30 experience]

[You’ve killed the ’Capsule Man’ Allen’s Illusion Clone, gaining 30 experience]

…

”Illusion Clones?”

Illusion Clones: In the flashy virtual world, every touch, every addiction, every neural signal resonance of a Capsule Man creates an Illusion Clone

Note: The gap between reality and virtual is the difference between darkness and light; the real world is forever eternal!