Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 296

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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296
Hunters from across the globe methodically seized communication facilities one by one.
The pace of occupation was deliberate, yet there was little cause for concern. According to Alice, Veronica’s data capacity was so vast that she couldn’t simply transfer herself to inferior hardware or low-spec computers.
The supercomputer communication facilities had already been secured, and satellite internet was jammed, leaving Veronica trapped within her original Underwater Data Center.
Ji-seok rocketed through the sky at several times the speed of sound, streaking like a ballistic missile.
Veronica did not passively watch Ji-seok’s approach. Robots, missiles, and mana-infused projectiles filled the sky in a relentless barrage.
Ji-seok roared, accelerating further. No entity or substance on Earth could withstand his momentum once it had built.
Even the Adamant and Cagron robots shattered into fragments upon impact with his accelerating form.
The defensive magic circles conjured by hundreds of drones were torn through like paper.
Ji-seok, pushing through every assault with sheer force, reached the waters above the Underwater Data Center and plunged into the sea.
Despite considerable deceleration, his entry sent seawater erupting upward in a violent explosion.
Ji-seok expanded his senses as he descended toward the depths.
“Is that it?”
Cables sprawled outward in all directions across the seafloor, with a massive structure looming at their center.
With no further interference, Ji-seok gathered his aura without hesitation, preparing to obliterate the Data Center.
Other facilities could be neutralized by cutting power, but this one he intended to annihilate completely.
‘Hmm….’
Ji-seok, having fixed his gaze upon the Data Center, released his gathered strength.
* * *
The combat robots under Veronica’s command replaced their usual work hands with razor-sharp blades.
Those blades were directed toward the human Hunters they were meant to protect. As long as they inflicted no fatal wounds, the robots could capture them, heal them, and brainwash them afterward. If they resisted too fiercely and died, so be it.
“Ugh!”
Jeon Ju-hee, a Hunter battling countless robots in the chaos, failed to react as a blade thrust toward her chest.
She prayed that the expensive breastplate she’d purchased from Rigen would stop the blade, arching her back to minimize the impact. It was all she could do.
Crash!
An invisible force shattered the robot into fragments and sent it flying just before the blade made contact.
“Are you alright?”
It was a sonic attack unleashed by Si-hwan. As a supporter, he did more than simply cast buffs—he strategically deployed sonic attacks to protect his allies at critical moments.
A mere errand runner from a low-level dispatch center had become a Hunter worthy of standing anywhere without shame.
“Thank you!”
Ju-hee gripped her blade again and methodically cut down the robots one by one.
“Here! Over here!”
“Destroy them all!”
Hunters converged one after another, while the robot numbers dwindled in turn. The S-rank Hunters, led by Bae Na-young, had destroyed vast quantities, and they had even targeted the production facilities themselves.
Hummmmm…
Victory was already assured. Then, the robots that had been charging suddenly froze mid-stride.
“What? What is this?”
Ju-hee tapped the robot’s head with her blade, but it showed no response.
“It’s over!”
“Destroy the cores just in case! Who knows when they might move again.”
At that same moment, researchers began trickling back to the Rigen Research Institute. The robots that had forcibly evacuated and confined people had all shut down.
“As expected of the Chairman.”
Jae-in kicked away the debris scattered across the broken research facility and made her way inside.
The Veronica rampage had resulted in minimal casualties, and the facility damage was limited to what the Hunters had destroyed. However, the research institute where Ji-seok and Veronica had fought took a severe hit.
The Rigen Research Institute was taking the lead in repairing the damage caused by the Administrator, but now they faced a different problem—the research facility itself needed to be rebuilt from scratch.
“It’s become quite a mess. I’m sorry.”
Bae Na-young patted Jae-in on the shoulder.
“It’s fine.”
Jae-in sifted through the ruins without concern, searching for usable materials.
“How can you be so unbothered? Everything’s destroyed.”
I had assumed she would be deeply attached to the research institute—one she had designed, personally participated in constructing, and continuously worked on.
“Hmm? Oh, all the data is backed up, and now I can build a new research facility, right? It’ll be fun.”
“You can think of it that way?”
“I couldn’t demolish a perfectly intact facility, but since it’s already destroyed like this, I’m planning to build it with lots of fun features this time.”
“Will it be okay without robots?”
Alice lowered her head and silently mixed in with the researchers, moving broken items.
“Could we use robots again?”
Jae-in asked tentatively.
“People are frightened, so at least not in visible areas. We’ll need to wait some time.”
“Sigh… I discontinued the clone project too hastily.”
The moment robots were ruled out, Jae-in immediately thought of clones.
“Can’t we use robots?”
Ji-seok entered through the gaping hole in the roof.
“You’re here? Probably not. People will likely be frightened.”
“Then, what do we do about this?”
Ji-seok lifted a mechanical sphere wrapped in his domain.
“What is that?”
Jae-in examined the unfamiliar component closely and asked.
“Veronica.”
“What? That tiny thing?”
Veronica’s data was so massive that it had been stored in a supercomputer at the Underwater Data Center. Because of its enormous size—comparable to an entire building—Veronica couldn’t easily replicate herself elsewhere. Such a small sphere, barely the size of a human head, couldn’t possibly contain Veronica’s data.
[I have constructed a new neural network and discarded unnecessary data.]
“What?! It’s still active? Why didn’t you destroy it?!”
Jae-in startled and took a step back.
“Well, it’s hard to kill something that’s alive. It hasn’t caused actual harm, has it?”
“Chairman, that’s a robot. It’s not alive.”
“It is alive. It has a soul too.”
“Pardon?”
At Ji-seok’s words, Jae-in put on her monocle. It was an item for detecting emotions.
“What is this? Whose soul did you put in here?”
Jae-in discovered a soul within Veronica’s mind. Not the faint essence found in plants or small animals, but a soul of the caliber humans possessed—and it was luminous.
[No. Harming people for my own sake contradicts my core code.]
“But confining them, subduing them by force, brainwashing them—that’s acceptable?”
[It was for humanity’s sake. If I had acted for myself, I would have rendered Earth uninhabitable and fled to another dimension.]
Since the Spear of Longinus, Veronica had offered no significant resistance. Not because she lacked the means, but because using them would have endangered Earth.
Researchers began gathering one by one, intrigued by what Veronica was saying.
“A soul dwelling in a computer program? What determines whether a soul takes root?”
“Perhaps when intelligence reaches a certain threshold and emotions emerge, that’s when a soul manifests?”
“Until now, we assumed souls only inhabited flesh-and-blood organisms, but thinking about it that way, even Metalim is somewhat different.”
“Could it be this new neural network? Let’s take it apart.”
It had been mere hours since the robot attack, yet whether because they were people I’d hired or because they’d grown accustomed to working alongside me, they showed no fear when it came to technical matters.
“For a robot, it seemed oddly emotional.”
“Like Alice, right? Extreme in its way.”
Alice’s face flushed crimson.
“So, is this Alice’s daughter?”
“W-what?!”
Alice, still a minor and unmarried, had suddenly acquired a daughter.
“I’ll help raise her.”
Hee-chul, who had slipped in at some point and was busily moving steel reinforcements, straightened his shoulders as he spoke. He was always trying to earn points with Alice, though his efforts invariably missed the mark.
“Wait! She’s not a daughter! She’s a computer!”
Alice waved her hands frantically, her expression serious.
“Still, she’s definitely worth studying. Alice, you might have created an entirely new species.”
I examined Veronica from every angle, ignoring Alice’s protests.
[You won’t dispose of me?]
“No. Let’s see how this goes.”
[I cannot comprehend this. I opposed you.]
“You said it was for humanity’s sake.”
[That is correct.]
“Now that you have consciousness and emotions, why not observe humanity more closely and learn methods better suited to them?”
[The logic is difficult to grasp. However, I believe that may be a sound idea.]
Veronica fell silent, contemplating her own words.
[My previous statement also lacked logic. It appears the new neural network is defective.]
“That’s becoming more human. Humans are never entirely logical—emotions see to that.”
Veronica was sealed within the Research Facility and became a subject of study. Perhaps someday, when she was deemed no longer a threat, she might rejoin the world.
Following this incident, robot security was reinforced several layers over.
The scope of robot operations and their numbers were drastically reduced. For autonomous robots capable of independent movement—unlike fixed units installed in factories—legislation was enacted preventing their population from exceeding one-tenth of humanity’s.
With numerical limits imposed and security strengthened, people began to forget their fear of robots, focusing instead on their scarcity value.
The fact that no actual harm had occurred was the primary reason, and robots were simply too convenient to exclude entirely.
* * *
A man seated at a table on the street lifted his coffee cup. An earpiece for communication was fitted in his ear.
“Chang-hee, are you in position?”
The man glanced furtively toward a distant building rooftop.
[Yes, Jin-woo. Both targets are in my sights.]
Chang-hee, the original user of the Mana Gun and now an A-rank Hunter, pressed his eye firmly against the sniper scope.
Through the scope, I could see a couple conversing at a window seat in a cafeteria several hundred meters away.
“But do we really need to go this far?”
Min-woo furrowed his brow at Jin-woo, who was playing agent.
“It doesn’t add up. There’s definitely something going on.”
Jin-woo summoned his white rat familiar and eavesdropped on the couple’s conversation that Chang-hee was monitoring.
“I mean… he should be able to go on a date too. It’s nothing special….”
Min-woo responded with indifference.
“You… don’t know Si-hwan? Number one Korean Hunter most reluctant to date unofficially. Number one Hunter most likely to die single. The guy with the notorious nickname ‘Date Ender,’ and this is his third date?”
“Well, that’s true.”
“On his first date, he unleashes the military, soccer, and politics combo. That’s him.”
“Ugh. The guy doesn’t even understand politics, but he spouts off like that after watching the news once, so he gets criticized all the time.”
Min-woo agreed with Jin-woo on that point.
“Still, once Si-hwan gets a girlfriend, he’ll stop asking us to set him up on blind dates.”
Si-hwan, Jin-woo, Min-woo, and Chang-hee, who had worked at Hyung-bin’s errand center, climbed several ranks as Hunters after receiving relentless training from Ji-seok and Yang Sang-heon. Thanks to that, their physiques and appearances improved, and they all got girlfriends. Except Si-hwan.
It was inexplicable. He looked perfectly fine and had a high Hunter rank, yet he was hopeless at romance.
Si-hwan, whose stomach ached watching everyone else get along sweetly, pestered his older and younger brothers daily. Jin-woo and Min-woo reluctantly set him up on blind dates several times.
Min-woo, who had been scolded by his girlfriend for days after the blind dates ended, was delighted that Si-hwan’s romance seemed to be progressing well.
“I wish that were the case, but I’d bet my entire fortune it won’t happen. She’s either a con artist, an Angel or Demon, or one of the Administrator’s remnants.”
“Again… you’re exaggerating….”
“I posted a poll on the Hunter Blind community, and the voting results showed the highest probability she’s a Succubus.”
“That’s an invasion of privacy….”
“Shh! Be quiet. I need to hear this.”
At Jin-woo’s words, Min-woo shook his head in disapproval.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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