The Legend of the 'Black Sun'

Much like Shuangye had said, Mo Tan logged in around 8:30 PM and found that it was indeed midday in the game. He was refreshed in an alley not far from where he had disconnected, only about a two-minute walk from the military camp.

Mo Tan quickly returned to the garrison, familiar with the way. Since the guard on duty was the same dwarven warrior from last night, he wasn't even asked for his military ID and was let through directly.

"Hey~ Hei Fan." The Fenrir Squad members seemed to be gathered together chatting. Ned saw Mo Tan and immediately waved, "Over here~"

Shuangye was there too, having logged in a bit earlier, and was currently sitting in a corner, spacing out.

Mo Tan went over and greeted everyone, then smiled at Ned, "Reporting for duty. 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's shoulder and chuckled dryly, "Crab and Salazar have different opinions on this."

Mo Tan stiffly turned his head to look at the two...

"You lizard will never understand how sexy those fangs are!" Crab, the dark-skinned orc warrior, roared, spraying saliva.

"Yeah, I'm so glad I can't understand your world," the lizardman monk said sarcastically, arms crossed. "But can't you realize how captivating that petite size and those big ears are?"

Mo Tan: "..."

"Just so you know, we didn't participate in this low-level debate~" Yinna walked over with Shuangye, first giving the two connoisseurs a disgusted look, then smiling mischievously at Mo Tan, "But maybe you can share your opinion~"

Mo Tan answered almost without thinking, "I think elves and human girls are better looking, yeah, that's right."

"Oh~ A crowd-pleaser~" Yinna winked at him.

Shuangye yawned listlessly and said slowly, "Anyway, don't expect me to be too happy."

After a while, when the absurd debate finally ended (Salazar beat Crab into submission), Ned gave Mo Tan a more detailed explanation of the squad's rules, and then everyone started chatting again.

Mo Tan, through his identity as a wandering priest, chatted with the others and gained some basic understanding of the world. During this process, Shuangye, also a player, hardly spoke, but secretly sent him a friend request and expressed her admiration for his eloquence in an email.

"You're quite good at extracting information~ It's a waste of talent not to be a secret agent."

That's what Shuangye said in the message, and Mo Tan just took it as the girl complimenting him.

According to Ned, the autonomous army they were currently in was essentially the private army of the Marshall Family, though its existence was legal.

Buffy Marshall is the current head of this long-standing family, as well as the overlord of the Eastern Territory of Innocent World – one of the nine dukes of the Violet Empire, ruling over the territory centered on the family's base, Mercury City, and a total of more than thirty surrounding cities. The autonomous army is the lowest and most mixed part of his armed forces. Unlike the Mercury Guard, Buffy's Blade Knights, and Ice Curtain Mages, which have the smallest number of people but extremely strong combat power, the members of the autonomous army are almost like militiamen, but their responsibilities are not few, mainly maintaining basic security within the territory and acting as cannon fodder in large-scale battles – these two 'important tasks'.

"Basically, it's just scraping by~" Ned shrugged. "At least the salary is more stable here, 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 camp'. On the contrary, he thought it was a good thing to be able to start gradually from a low starting point in the early stages of the game. After all, the official information of Innocent World was basically for fooling people, and the information was not as good as what any random NPC could provide here.

So, as the saying goes~ It's good to be adaptable.

"Alright, the chat time is almost over." The lizardman monk Salazar glanced at the antique pocket watch on his neck and turned to walk towards the exit of the camp. "We're going to be on duty outside the city tomorrow, so let's call it a day early."

Yinna shook her head helplessly as she watched his back. "That guy is always like that. I'm going back to my room to read~"

With that, she nimbly climbed a tall, unknown giant tree next to her and quickly disappeared into the lush yellow leaves.

"She built a wooden house in the tree, saying she couldn't stand our stinky male dorms." Ned spread his hands to Mo Tan, then said, "You can all disband~ Meet at seven tomorrow morning, and then we'll all go for a routine stroll outside the city."

Mo Tan smiled at him. "Okay, Captain~"

Then Ned and Crab, who had just climbed up from the ground, also strolled away, leaving only Mo Tan and Shuangye in the warm, sunny clearing next to the garrison.

"Come sit over here." The female mage with waist-length orange hair lazily beckoned.

"My pleasure." Mo Tan happily agreed. He thought the other party must have a lot of information to share with him.

But he didn't expect that his gains would be far beyond expectations in a while.

"This world has its own set of operating rules." Shuangye turned her head and whispered to Mo Tan, "The twelve hours you can log in each day (7 PM to 7 AM) are doubled here, which is twenty-four hours. And when you can't log in during the day, this world will pause, until 7 PM in real time, which is when players can log in."

Mo Tan was shocked. He had never heard of such a thing, not even from the Innocent Company's official website, and no one had ever published such a view in the forums. If this theory was true, then this information was extremely valuable. The most obvious benefit was the interaction with NPCs. At least Mo Tan knew when he should report to the military camp tomorrow.

"How did you..." Mo Tan looked at Shuangye curiously, but she interrupted him with a slight wave of her hand.

"I'm just returning a favor. I also got a lot of useful information when you were extracting information from those guys, so it's a reciprocal gesture." Shuangye grinned. "And even if I didn't tell you, someone would find out about this soon enough. As for how I knew in the first place~"

Shuangye blinked and said playfully, "Because I'm a tech-savvy otaku, and I occasionally do hacking, which is why I'm playing this game."

"Planning to steal some data or trying to find a way to break into the game company's system?" Mo Tan glanced at her with some surprise and said casually, "Isn't it said that Innocent Company's firewall is ridiculously strong? Even that legend' failed." Some say Black Sun is an organization, some say Black Sun is a pair of partners, some say Black Sun is an alien, some say Black Sun is actually a special agency of a certain country's government, and some say Black Sun is Korean...

In short, this name can be said to be the godfather-level existence that all contemporary hackers aspire to. His/her style and hacking methods are still a mystery, and the targets chosen are also completely irregular. Maybe Black Sun will simultaneously hack into hundreds of private ATMs around the world and make them spit out cash like crazy, maybe Black Sun will suddenly hack into a family business and frantically spread nude photos of its core figures in the local area network, or Black Sun may sneak into a famous movie star's personal computer and dig up some interesting videos or images and post them on major forums and enthusiastically repost them. He/she may also suddenly invade a school and announce the answers to all subjects' test papers on the school's homepage before the exam, and these answers may still be wrong...

Like a genius psychopath with a bad taste.

As a result, Shuangye suddenly scratched her head with an embarrassed smile, then spread her hands and said, "Yeah, I came to play this game in person because I failed~ But I accidentally got a little obsessed."

"What!?" Mo Tan's pupils suddenly shrank, and he looked at Shuangye sharply. "You're Black Sun!"

"Yeah~" Shuangye replied indifferently, then looked up at the sun hanging in the sky. "It's so hot..."

Pop~

A small ice ball appeared on her raised index finger, emitting a hint of coolness.

Shuangye nodded in satisfaction. "That's much better now."

"Skills can be used like this?" Mo Tan looked at the ice ball on her fingertip and asked curiously, "Or is it because you're Black Sun that you can do this?"

He stared intently at Shuangye's bright brown eyes as he asked, as if trying to see through her.

"Don't be so nervous..." Shuangye shook her head helplessly. "If your Intelligence stat is more than twice the minimum requirement for a spell, you can do some degree of transformation. But this also proves that the data model of this [Innocent World] is ridiculously elastic. I've been messing around for days and haven't made any progress except for making a cheap simulation pod that's compatible with this game. I was about to give up."

Mo Tan didn't see any trace of lying in the girl's eyes, but instead found a lingering sense of frustration, and couldn't help but ask, "If you're really Black Sun, then why..."

"Why should I tell you?" Shuangye glanced at him, pouting indignantly. "It doesn't matter anyway! Even I can't hack a single byte of this thing's server, let alone with this appearance that even my own mother wouldn't recognize. Do you really think you can use this 'Shuangye' character to figure out my real identity? Even if you spread it on forums or something, no one would believe you, so whatever... Ugh... What a piece of junk... Does it think it's the intelligence agency or something? Even they don't do this... Aah, just die already! Innocent World can go to hell, and I can go to hell too~~~"

Sounds like she's given up...

Seeing the girl with round-framed glasses muttering to herself, Mo Tan couldn't help but find it a little funny, and then...

[You have been forcibly disconnected. Would you like to reconnect?]

"No."

[Execute the awakening program?]

"Yes~ That's exactly what I need~"

[Received. The current time is January 1st, 2049, 00:40. You will awaken in two minutes.]

Two minutes later, Mo Tan sat up from the game pod, and after adjusting to the grogginess of just waking up, a playful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

He stood up, walked to his computer, turned it on, and quickly terminated the program before it could load the system. He then swiftly switched to a completely black interface, while also kicking his computer desk slightly askew, pulling a black cable from a hidden compartment and connecting it to the computer.

"Heh~ How delightful~" Mo Tan narrowed his eyes and murmured, "After searching for so long and you managed to hide from me, I never thought I'd find your trail in that place. You were just too careless in the end, Sun~"

By now, you've probably realized something...

That's right, Black Sun isn't an organization, nor are they Korean. It's a duo comprised of two people with almost no moral constraints, and Mo Tan is one-half of it.

And the other person's true identity is beginning to surface...

"Open the Hunting Angel system," Mo Tan said softly to the microphone in front of him. "Based on the existing parameters, exclude all males and change the sub-classification conditions to: Asian, height between 1.55 meters and 1.75 meters; add the following fuzzy conditions: wears glasses, between 18 and 25 years old, from C country, has not purchased any Innocent World peripherals, and has a living mother... Oh, and one more thing, did not appear outdoors on December 31st, 2048, or tonight. Begin."

After a brief flicker of static, a progress bar appeared on the computer screen. A mechanical voice came from the headphones Mo Tan had just put on: "Searching. Estimated time remaining: 99+ hours. Hide search panel?"

"Duh~" Mo Tan rolled his eyes, tossed the headphones aside, looked at the computer desktop that had quickly switched back to the normal system, and smiled slightly. "If I can expose you with conclusive evidence, and then pull off a few more stunts in the name of Black Sun after you're arrested, that would be very interesting, wouldn't it~ Haha~ Hahahaha~~~"

He laughed flamboyantly for a long time, then turned his gaze back to the game pod and said softly, "Suddenly, I've thought of another great idea..."

...So, for fun, Mo Tan deliberately triggered the agency's firewall and used the automatic alarm system to call the police even faster, while also destroying 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 address and disguised it as their own, trying to pull a switcheroo.

Then the battle of hacking skills between the two began. Although neither of them was caught by each other or the police with any useful information afterward, the police who experienced this were almost driven mad. They constantly deployed troops and generals within France, mobilized countless resources to deal with this 'extremely bad' incident, checked water meters in one house after another, sent warmth to one community after another, and ended up almost arresting their own boss after a night of busy work...

It was simply a responsible, commendable, and tearful history of blood and tears!

It's worth commemorating that although they never caught the two culprits in the end, they indirectly caused Mo Tan, who was in high spirits, and another hacker with the codename 'Sun' to develop a hint of goodwill and a subtle sense of recognition for each other while teasing these public servants.

A week later, they gathered in the database of a certain bank and jointly completed their first highly ornamental and practical task. That was to make every ATM under this global, black-hearted, private bank simultaneously spew out a large amount of banknotes, and they were kind enough to delete their serial numbers...

An hour after the incident broke out, an entity calling itself 'Black Sun' claimed responsibility for the incident and posted a nude photo of a black-hearted president on a gay social networking site, and also exposed the five-star hotel that had installed pinhole cameras in the rooms...

And from then on, the two people who were accomplices had never given up on their first game, which was to find each other and dump all the accumulated crap on the other's head.

"This is simply the greatest joy~"

Mo Tan, who had returned to the game pod, chuckled softly into the air before closing his eyes. "Don't disappoint me~~"

[Your mental connection has been detected. Synchronizing personal information...]

[Connection complete. Loading character information.]

[Welcome back, Tan Mo of Chaotic Neutral. Loading Innocent World. Good night.]

Chapter 8: The End

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