There Must Be Something Wrong With This Game!

「8:12 PM on the fourth day.」

The heavy cannon was aimed at Metropolis, thousands of miles away. Its computers ran a final calibration, ensuring the shell would land squarely on the city’s municipal government building.

Though it was called Metropolis, it was the most prosperous place in the entire world.

Even if, in essence, it was a prison.

As the heart of the Sinful Corporation, it housed the most heinous prisoners, the most terrifying Church Sect Leaders, the most brutal deviants, and the most shameless smugglers.

Their crimes were innumerable. Every one of them deserved to be shot a hundred times over. They had enemies all over the world; if any of them dared to step outside, their heads would be riddled with hundreds of holes before they were captured and tortured.

Though their crimes varied, they all had one thing in common: they were rich.

As a corporation, Sinful Corporation’s core business was the prison itself, and prisons were for holding inmates.

But corporations are inherently profit-driven. To squeeze every last cent from its inmates, the Sinful Corporation championed human rights and humanitarianism, using moral principles to have the death penalty completely abolished in favor of life imprisonment.

Under the guise of human rights, they rolled out all sorts of services within the prison, such as gourmet food, gambling, Mewtwo, and massive orgies.

On top of that, they provided the most foolproof security on the planet, promising that as long as the criminals never left, their safety was absolutely guaranteed.

Of course, the moment an inmate ran out of money, their sentence would be reduced, and they’d be thrown out to fend for themselves.

It sounded absurd, but in a cyberpunk world, anything was possible in the name of morality.

Security and pleasure were the Sinful Corporation’s two aces. As long as those aces remained unbeatable, the corporation’s reign would be long and stable.

But today, someone was challenging one of Sinful Corporation’s aces: its security.

A declaration of corporate war required only an hour’s notice, but even before the request was submitted, mercenaries from Wing City were already on the move toward Metropolis.

The President, deployed in his spherical combat form, clutched his gut. He felt a knot forming in his stomach.

Without even realizing it, he’d become more and more deeply entangled with Duan Fei—so deep that he could no longer break free.

He was like a gambler who’d been slowly drawn into a massive, high-stakes game.

By the time he’d snapped out of it, he had already pushed all his chips in. All that was left was for the dealer to call "no more bets." Life or death, it all came down to this one hand.

"How could I have been so stupid? To actually believe that swindler?" the President said with a sigh of resignation.

"People only believe what they want to believe. But I think one thing he said struck a chord with me, and with you too," the captain of the Puppet Legion replied.

"And what was that?"

"Mr. President, you don’t want to be Sinful Corporation’s side piece forever, do you?"

"...Like hell that moved me!"

"I thought it was pretty touching!"

"You son of a bitch!"

With an hour of travel time remaining, the President submitted the declaration of corporate war. The target: Sinful Corporation.

He slyly buried the declaration within a 30,000-word essay, only adding one cryptic sentence at the very end: "Let’s go to war—a small-scale one."

The President was banking on the enemy overlooking the declaration, allowing him to catch them completely off guard.

Half an hour from the destination, the accompanying journalists began to build hype.

The rice cooker journalist—another poor soul roped into this scheme—fired up its livestream program, began editing footage of its surroundings, and sent it to the microwave.

The microwave, refrigerator, and robot vacuum cleaner then edited the clips together. They prepared the video materials through a freshly incorporated company, waiting for the war to officially begin.

Countless headlines were already written. Paired with a majestic soundtrack, the content was guaranteed to bring a tear to anyone’s eye.

The refrigerator, meanwhile, was splicing footage from the earlier Glazed Tower incident with today’s assault on Metropolis.

If Metropolis fell, Luminous Heavy Industry’s stock would skyrocket, and at that point, nothing could stop them.

With fifteen minutes to go, the heavy cannon fired.

The Lone Ranger had already dissolved into shadow, curled up inside the artillery shell. His companions were huddled within his shadowy form, including Anna—worth five hundred million—and the Bartender, all ready to unveil their new weapons to the world.

The artillery shell was never designed to carry passengers. The g-forces would pulverize even the most durable cybernetic body, but the Lone Ranger was the one exception.

Billowing black smoke churned within the shell. The Lone Ranger resignedly endured the sensation of being torn apart and re-forming, swearing he would never, ever team up with Duan Fei again.

’That guy is just too good at exploiting people. He’d find a way to fleece a passing dog.’

The terrifying acceleration nearly turned the gas-like Lone Ranger into a liquid. He could only remain plastered motionlessly against the shell’s inner wall, taking a long moment to recover.

Seven minutes to go.

Receiving the signal, the microwave immediately went to work, causing a brief overload in the entire electrical circuit.

Though the power grid had been prepped with extra capacity this time, the microwave wasn’t working alone. There was also a refrigerator.

The two of them unleashed a storm of ice and fire. Their exceptional technique brought on wave after wave of surging climaxes, until the grid instantly overloaded, plunging Metropolis into silence.

But Metropolis had its own infrastructure and its own power generators.

But in the precise moment it took to switch from the grid to the generators, the mercenaries and the artillery shell breached the city’s shields and charged into Metropolis.

By the time the shield diagnostics registered a return to normal, the artillery shell had already slammed into the city center. The terrifying velocity had flattened the heavy projectile into a metal pancake, from which black smoke began to steadily leak.

Simultaneously, the declaration of corporate war was approved. The rice cooker’s livestream, broadcast through their new company, began its comprehensive coverage of the event.

The defenders of Metropolis were still reeling from the pleasant surprise of an artillery shell dropping from the sky when they heard the war declaration broadcast. Dazed, they looked up to see mercenaries bearing down on them.

Metropolis, situated in the desert, was facing its first siege in decades.

The first wave of attacks landed. The relentless assault sent a series of ripples across Metropolis’s torsion force field.

While it caused virtually no damage, the insult was like a resounding slap across the face of the Sinful Corporation.

Metropolis’s counterattack came swiftly. The call to arms echoed through the corporation, urging them to summon mercenaries from all quarters. A vast force began to converge on the attackers led by the Puppet Legion.

They only had fifteen minutes.

But the Puppet Legion was merely a feint. The true main force was in the city center.

A security cordon had already been established around the shell. The leaking black mist had drawn the attention of security, but after one guard’s cybernetic body was corroded on contact, they wisely decided to keep their distance.

The wisps of black mist dissipated, flowing up through an air vent. They finally reconsolidated inside a break room, coalescing into the form of the Lone Ranger.

Reverting from his Shadow form, the Lone Ranger released his companions. They changed into local uniforms and strode out of the room.

The corporate war had officially begun.

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