145 Never Fails

After sighing over the current situation, Akechi's gaze swept across the dim temporary base before finally landing on the hacker girl curled up in the corner. She sat hugging her knees amid a mess of equipment, the blue glow of holographic screens casting uneven shadows across her dust-smudged face.

"How are things outside?" Akechi walked over to her, deliberately lowering his voice. "Can you find a line we can tap into to listen to their conversations?"

Hearing Akechi's voice, the girl, who had been agonizing over something, abruptly looked up. A flicker of panic crossed her dirty face.

She bit her lower lip, her fingers unconsciously pressing against the computer in her hands. "I-I really wanted to show Lord Akechi what I can do, but I... I can't lie to you."

Her voice grew softer and softer, nearly drowned out by the sound of rubble falling in the distance. The face that had once been arrogant and proud because of her exceptional skills now held nothing but shame.

She slightly turned the computer she had been holding between her knees and body. Dozens of failed connection logs flashed across the holographic screen, every red warning icon seeming to mock her incompetence.

"The Barghest must have hired outside help." The girl's voice trembled as she suppressed her emotions, as though she were ashamed of displaying such incompetence before Akechi—the same kind of incompetence she had previously called useless. "The network is completely different from before. In these nine minutes, I tried forty-three connections and port scans..."

She suddenly choked up, seemingly too ashamed to continue this report of failure. "Not only was I completely unable to obtain any intelligence, I was almost traced in reverse. Encryption and countermeasures at this level... no ordinary hacker could pull them off."

The hacker girl