Victor stood with one hand on the vibrating stone of the Core Room, his eyes fixed on the interface that only he could see.
[ALERT]
System Integrity: 62%
Packet Loss Detected.
Unauthorized Admin Protocol: [REWRITE]
Source: External Signal (High Frequency)
To his right, Nova was screaming. It wasn't a vocal scream—the Core was a crystal, after all—but a psychic shriek of violation. The blue light that usually pulsed with a calm, rhythmic heartbeat was spastic now, flashing a violent violet that threw harsh shadows across the room.
"Boss!" Sniv was on the floor, hands over his ears. "The voices! They are shouting numbers!"
Asterion leaned against his greataxe, panting. "The air... it feels thick. Like breathing water."
Victor ignored them. Not out of cruelty, but out of necessity. He was looking at the code.
The enemy—Groll, or whoever he had hired—wasn’t attacking the dungeon’s physical walls. They were attacking its operating system. The "Mana Spikes" outside weren't just disrupting magic; they were essentially a Denial of Service attack, flooding the Core's processing unit with junk data to force a reboot. And in that reboot window, they intended to inject new admin privileges.
It was crude. It was messy. It was effective.
"Victor!" Mira grabbed his shoulder. "Should we destroy the Core? If they take control..."
"No," Victor said, his voice cold. "That’s what they want. Asset liquidation."
He looked at the flashing violet light.
"They're treating this like a siege," he murmured. "They think they're battering down a gate."
He tapped the interface.
[SKILL: HOSTILE TAKEOVER]
Target: Incoming Signal Stream
Connection: Establishing...
"They forgot one thing," Victor bared his teeth. "I've been restructuring failing companies since before they learned to count gold."
The world shifted.
Victor didn't physically move, but his consciousness was pulled into the [Asset Management] interface. The physical room—Mira, Sniv, the vibrating walls—faded into a grey background noise.
In front of him was the signal.
It looked like a torrent of purple sludge, pouring through a breach in his firewall. It was chaotic, raw magic forced into a structure it didn't want to hold.
Victor analyzed it. To a mage, this would look like overwhelming power. To Victor, it looked like bad code.
[ANALYSIS]
Signal Composition: 80% Raw Mana, 20% Command Syntax.
Encryption: None.
Protocol: Brute Force.
"Amateur," Victor scoffed.
He could see the source now. The signal was a two-way street. If they could send data in, he could send data back.
He walked into the purple torrent. It burned—a psychic heat that tried to shred his ego—but his will was hardened by twenty years of boardroom politics. Mana burns were nothing compared to a hostile board meeting where your career was on the line.
He reached out and grabbed a strand of the incoming magic.
[CONTRACT BINDING]
Clause 1: Identification.
The signal resisted, thrashing like a wild animal. But Victor clamped down with the authority of a Level 2 Restructurer.
Who are you?
An image flashed in his mind. Not Groll.
It was a circle of mages. Six of them, standing around a large, multifaceted crystal in a room that smelled of incense and sulfur. They were sweating, their hands glowing as they poured mana into the device. They looked exhausted.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
And behind them...
Victor narrowed his eyes. Behind the mages stood a man Victor recognized from the dinner. Not Groll. The quiet one. The "consultant" with the silver spectacles.
So, Groll had outsourced. Smart.
"You're pushing raw mana into my system," Victor thought, his mental voice projecting through the connection. "Let me show you why we have regulation."
He accessed his own mana reserve. It was low—he’d spent heavily on defenses—but he didn't need power. He needed complexity.
He didn't send a fireball. He didn't send a lightning bolt.
He sent a Compliance Audit.
[SKILL: BUREAUCRATIC OVERLOAD]
Payload: 4,000,000 requests for "Mana Usage Verification".
Loop: Infinite.
Priority: Critical.
He shoved the packet into the incoming stream.
In the Alchemist Guild's hidden basement, the lead mage frowned.
"Sir? The resistance... it stopped."
The consultant adjusting his spectacles paused. "It surrendered?"
"I... I think so. The connection is open. Wait." The mage squinted at the pulsing crystal. "We're receiving a transmission."
"Data?"
"It's... dense. Very dense." The mage’s frown deepened. "Is this... a ledger?"
The crystal hummed. Then it whined.
The purple light turned a blinding, sterile white.
"Sir! The mana flow reversed! It's asking for verification!"
"Verification of what?"
"Of... of everything! Each particle! It’s demanding a receipt for every spell cast in the last ten years!"
The crystal began to vibrate. Cracks formed on its surface.
"Cut the link!" the consultant snapped.
"I can't! It’s a binding contract! It requires a signature!" The mage screamed as blue lightning arced from the crystal, latching onto his hands. "It wants to audit the mana source!"
"Disconnect!"
The consultant drew a dagger and slammed the pommel into the crystal.
It didn't shatter. It bloomed.
Top-tier mana crystals are designed to hold energy, not process logic. Victor hadn't attacked the crystal's capacity; he had attacked its processing speed. He had forced a magical supercomputer to try and calculate the final digit of Pi while juggling flaming swords.
The explosion wasn't fiery. It was a pressure wave of pure, rejected data.
The six mages were thrown back against the walls, unconscious before they hit the stone. The crystal dissolved into fine blue dust.
The consultant stood amidst the ruin, his spectacles askew, a small trickle of blood running from his nose.
"Interesting," he whispered, wiping the blood away. "Very interesting."
Back in the Core Room, the silence was deafening.
The violet light vanished instantly, replaced by the soft, comforting blue of Nova's normal state. The vibration stopped.
Sniv slowly took his hands off his ears. "Voices... gone?"
Victor staggered, catching himself on the central pedestal. His head felt like it had been split open with an axe. His mana was at 0.
[ARMI]
Threat Neutralized.
System Restore: Complete.
Counter-Attack Scored: Critical Hit.
MP: 0/140.
"Victor!" Mira was at his side, holding him up. "What did you do?"
"I sent them..." Victor gasped, forcing a grim smile. "I sent them the paperwork."
He looked at Nova. The Core chimed—a happy, musical sound like a wind chime. A notification popped up.
[Review]
Nova has rated your IT Support: 5 Stars.
Loyalty Increased.
[ARMI - COMBAT VICTORY]
Threat Neutralized: Hostile Takeover Attempt
EXP Awarded: +500 (Counter-Hack Mastery)
Total EXP: 5,785/5,750
STATUS: LEVEL UP (5 → 6)
Stat Points Allocated: +5 (INT+2, CHA+2, WIS+1)
"Everyone," Victor said, straightening his tie. "Status report."
Asterion grunted, checking his axe. "The headache is gone. My strength returns."
"Kael?"
The warrior was already at the corridor entrance. "The hum from the spikes outside stopped. I think they burned out."
"Good." Victor dusted off his suit. "Sniv."
"Yes, Boss!" The goblin bounced up, relieved the 'bad voices' were gone.
"Draft a memo," Victor said, though he knew Sniv couldn't write. "Subject: Unscheduled Penetration Testing. Result: Failed. Recommendation: Upgrade firewall."
"Fire-wall," Sniv repeated, eyes wide. "Sniv get torches?"
"Metaphorically, Sniv."
Victor walked to the wall where the vibration had been strongest. The stone was cool now.
He had won. But the victory felt hollow.
During the connection, in that split second before he crashed their system, he had seen the room. He had seen the Consultant.
Groll was a thug. A smart thug, but a thug. Groll broke things. He didn't hire magical hackers with military-grade encryption crystals.
"Boss?" Sniv tugged on his pant leg. "We win?"
"We survived the hack," Victor said. "But the hardware is still outside."
Kael came back down the corridor, his face grim.
"Victor through the scrying mirror... the mercenaries are gone. But there are others."
"Others?"
"Scouts. Wearing Guild colors. But not the Alchemists."
Victor brought up the external camera feed on his ARMI interface.
Standing at the edge of the forest, staring at the cave entrance, were three figures in dark green cloaks. They weren't attacking. They were taking notes.
Victor zoomed in on the insignia on their chests. A golden scale balancing a sword and a quill.
The Merchant Guild.
Elena Cross's people.
And behind them, watching from the shadows of the trees... the Silver Lance.
"It seems," Victor muttered, "our little noise complaint attracted the HOA."
He turned to his team. They looked battered. Tired. But alive.
"Rest period is over," Victor announced. "Sniv, retrieve the burnout spikes. We can melt them down for scrap. Asterion, inspect the gate. Mira, I need you to charge the Core."
"And you?" Mira asked.
Victor looked at the screen, at the gathering vultures outside.
"Me?"
He smiled, but there was no humor in it. It was the smile of a CEO who just realized the hostile takeover wasn't over. It was just moving to the next phase.
"I have a meeting to schedule."
[ARMI]
Transaction Complete.
Balance: 0 MP | 550 GP
New Quest Generated: [Public Relations Crisis]
END OF CHAPTER 45