Prologue - Codename: Professor



"Find him! He's still gotta be around here somewhere!"
"Damn it! Whoever it is, I'm not letting this slide!"
Worst Field — a military shooter VR game riding the wave of global popularity on the strength of its "official matches" content.
There, users formed factions centered around their own regions, locked in an endless struggle for dominance within the game.
That held true even now, for the ones desperately searching — the Overlords, a faction built around the old Chinese region.
Just as they'd gathered to enter an official match, three high-level users had been sniped down and wiped from existence in an instant.
Never expecting an open sniper attack in broad daylight, right in the middle of the Overlords' own territory, they scrambled up onto the rooftops to hunt for the shooter.
"Where is he!? Find him!"
"Doesn't seem to be here!"
Below the rooftop where they were frantically looking around, at a window seat in a café on the second floor of a shopping building —
sat a strange figure, device out, music blasting, a straw stuck through the hole of an odd-looking helmet into a teacup, sipping tea with quiet contentment.
Codename: Professor.
A mercenary shrouded in mystery, active in conflict zones.
What people commonly called a PVP specialist.
In a game where large-scale PVP thrived through official matches, he was a rare breed — one who operated almost entirely through solo PVP out in the field.
Having had his fill of tea, he calmly and expertly field-stripped the sniper rifle resting on his thigh beneath the table, without so much as glancing at it.
He slid the disassembled parts — barrel, receiver, stock — neatly into a briefcase he'd already laid open on the seat beside him, snapped it shut, and went right back to sipping his tea.
Just as he was finishing off the last of it, a holographic screen rose from his device.
Alongside a "Voice Only" icon, his client's voice-modulated tone came through.
[Is it done?]
"You'll find out soon enough. Someone's impatient."
[Ha ha. The higher-ups are always anxious types...]
"It's handled. Though they'll respawn, of course."
[I know. Three kills, one round each — that was the job.]
"That's right."
[Then I'll see to the payment right away. Look forward to working with you again.]
The client cut the call without another word, and the Professor quietly tapped his device to bring up a live view of his in-game account balance.
About five minutes later, the number ticked upward, reflected off his helmet — and behind it, his eyes flashed.
Time passed, and the Overlords' users were eventually forced to grit their teeth and head off to their official match, while the rest of the rooftop search party — having combed the city top to bottom with no sign of the assassin — half gave up.
He pushed his empty teacup to one side of the table and rose unhurriedly to his feet.
Now he could walk the streets freely without drawing much suspicion or attention.
He picked up the bag holding his rifle from the seat beside him and made his way to the register.
The Third World War.
Fortunately, there had been no nuclear exchange — but even without nukes, a war fought on a global scale between armies wielding massive conventional firepower left devastating scars behind.
In the chaos that followed, as the functions of individual nations crumbled, it was the "Crimson Shield Council" — three hundred elite conglomerate families — who seized the vacuum.
Wielding their enormous wealth and managerial power, they promised the world reconstruction and peace, and in exchange, people handed them authority.
The Council used that power without restraint to crush anyone who opposed them — yet the citizens tolerated it.
Because the stability and prosperity the Council delivered was simply too sweet to give up.
That was why, six years ago, when a revolutionary group calling itself "Blue Spear" rose up in rebellion, the public gave them no support.
They simply shut their doors and windows tight, and looked away.
The man in the helmet, feeling a sudden ache, rubbed at his right arm as he hurried along.
There was one more job he had to take care of today.
A rather secretive and dangerous one, at that.
From the Overlords' city, he took a bus through two more cities before arriving —
at the city belonging to the Druid Union, a faction centered on users from the Canadian region.
"Hmm..."
Out of habit, he scanned the rooftops of the surrounding buildings before finally, decisively, moving on.
He could feel the occasional sidelong glance at his helmet, but it didn't concern him.
Few people would actually recognize who he was.
The users who knew him personally were, for the most part, mid-tier or higher within their respective factions.
Anyone below that rank typically had no idea what he did or where.
Thirty minutes later.
On the rooftop of a three-story building, he set down his bag and spoke.
"Ascension Protocol 6-6-6-6, Delta, Escort, Alpha, Delta... System activate."
A red-tinted display rose into his field of view, and he authorized the activation with a silent nod.
[Please designate the ignition key.]
Following the guidance of a system voice only he could hear, he ejected the magazine from his rifle and pulled out the topmost round.
"Ignition key. Designated."
The bullet's tip began flashing red; he slotted it back at the top of the magazine and immediately set about reassembling the rifle.
He even carefully attached the suppressor tucked in a corner of the bag, slid the magazine back in, and racked the charging handle to chamber the marked round.
"Beginning target search."
He perched on the building's railing, scanning the street below.
The user he was after would show up before long, coming to collect the bike parked along one side of the avenue.
"Time for another fun little patrol, shall we!"
Utterly unaware that he was being watched, the user emerged from a nearby shop.
He was heading to fetch the bike he kept parked for his daily habit of patrolling — and enjoying a drive — around the city outskirts.
Unlike relatively cheap personal gear, bikes and other mechanized equipment were pricey items generally only fielded by mid-tier factions or higher — but the Druid Union in particular had no shortage of users fond of them.
"Target acquired."
The Professor's eyes flashed behind his helmet as his rifle swung to bear on him.
Completely unaware, the man stood in front of his bike, fiddling with the parking lock through his device — and in that instant —
"Huh...?!"
A stifled gasp, and his body crumpled. The Professor immediately drew back his rifle and began breaking it down.
On the display before his eyes, loading screens for various hacking programs flickered in and out.
"Good. Withdrawing immediately."
As he packed the rifle back into the bag and left the scene, a meaningful line of text scrolled across one side of his helmet display.
[Project Ascension: Phase 1 in progress.]
The next day dawned.
The man woke naturally at 6 a.m. and stretched as he stepped out of the pod he'd been sleeping in.
"Damn it. Guess catching sleep in a pod is never good for your back."
As he stretched, his right arm — a sleek mechanical prosthetic — whirred faintly at the joints, and he made his way to the kitchen, both his mechanical legs moving in sync.
A snap of his mechanical fingers brought a screen mounted on a kitchen shelf to life, playing the morning news.
[...and now, an accident report. Early this morning, another brain-death incident occurred in the wildly popular official-match-driven shooter VR game, "Worst Field."]
He let out a short laugh and reached out with his mechanical arm to grab two eggs.
"How many's that make now, I wonder."
Glancing down at his own hand as he reached for the frying pan, his right eye was revealed to be a prosthetic, covered by a metal plate.
He glared out the kitchen window at the distant skyline as he gripped the pan firmly.
"Not that I plan on stopping, though..."
[The cause of the accident is still under investigation, but according to witnesses within the game, it appears the victim was sniped by a round fired from a rooftop...]
Just as he set a plate with an egg-and-bacon sandwich down on the small table, the broadcast on the kitchen screen cut out, replaced by a voice-call icon.
[Professor. You free to talk right now?]
"Since when did you ever check before calling. So, what is it?"
[Ha ha. Sorry about that. Normally we'd make contact properly in-game, but something urgent came up.]
The voice belonged to a man he dealt with often — after a short laugh, his tone dropped low.
[I'll make it worth your while, so I'm counting on you... So, when do you think you'll log back in?]
"Breakfast in real life is non-negotiable for me. After that, once I've got a few things sorted, around 10 a.m."
[Got it. Just in case, we'll go over the details in-game.]
The moment the call ended, the man shook his head and shoved the rest of the sandwich into his mouth.
"Guess it's official match season — things are getting stupidly busy."
Chewing on his sandwich, he looked out the window again.
As if, somewhere among the distant skyscrapers, he could actually see the building where the people he despised more than anything were hiding.
"Just wait. Bit by bit... I'm closing in, little by little. Slowly enough that you won't even notice..."
"Turning a broken spear into a bullet, that's all..."
+ End of Prologue +