Fated to Die to the Player, I'll Live Freely with My SSS-Class Ship!-Chapter 152: Transfer Complete

Although we did find the encryption key, a new problem surfaced—its sheer size.

It's a colossal file, with a size of 729 Terabytes. That's the equivalent of a text file containing 729 trillion characters' worth of raw data!

"Getting this thing won't be easy," I muttered, exhaling. "So... I guess it's time to deploy my macros!"

I'd prepared custom codes earlier, and this exact scenario was what I anticipated. Without hesitation, I tapped a button, activating two of the many snippets I had written in advance.

In the next instant, the entire framework of the Military Base… froze.

But don't misunderstand—it wasn't because I shut the system down directly.

No, what I actually did was overload the processors, forcing them to endlessly evaluate meaningless high-priority tasks—creating an infinite loop that hijacked nearly all computing resources. In this way, I ensured that no process other than mine could execute.

"And through the gaps…"

Every 100 milliseconds, one processor core would momentarily free up—just long enough to sneak in a tiny fragment of the encryption key.

At this rate, the total transfer would take five full minutes to complete. The only way they could stop me was by hard-resetting the entire mainframe—powering down and restarting the system from scratch.

But of course, any seasoned IT specialist knows one ironclad rule: restarting a system doesn't guarantee it will boot back up the same way. There's always a substantial risk—it might freeze, fail to reinitialize, or even suffer corruption. It's not as simple as flicking a light switch on-off.

So, in most cases, shutting the system down becomes a last-ditch move.

Before they go that far, they'll throw everything they've got at regaining control… and just like I predicted, the digital war had begun.

"Nice!" I grinned, flipping down the powered suit's visor. "Let's get serious. System dive…!"

As soon as the words left my mouth, my vision flared with light. My senses were bombarded by flashes, and then suddenly, the world beyond my visor transformed.

The dark room was gone, replaced by an expansive, pure-white space. Under my feet, a glowing "mark" glowed faintly—the kind seen in printed circuit boards, a golden contact node.

Looking up, I saw data streams flowing through the air—visible, tangible, in three-dimensional form.

Some streams resembled fish, others white orbs, flashes of light, and then there were the dangerous ones. Like a three-meter-tall, purple-armored figure, wielding a massive weapon shaped like a halberd fused with a hammer—both crude and intimidating.

This place was the minigame initiated during high-level hacking.

Yes, you could bypass this and hack with just a keyboard—but in here, operations were far more efficient. And personally, this digital battlefield was where I thrived.

"Let the war begin!"

With a wave of my hand, a small knife appeared, its blade roughly a foot long. It looked unimpressive next to the towering enemy's halberd, but this unassuming weapon was...

*BAM!*

"Woah! You impatient bitch!"

I was forced to dodge, seeing the enemy's strike coming from above. The halberd slammed into the ground, sending out white sparks—causing a minor packet loss. "Damn it! Don't destroy the paths...!"

I couldn't let that monstrosity swing again. As soon as I dodged the first blow, I dashed forward and thrust my blade. It was a basic, no-frills move—I wasn't a melee specialist, after all.

But it got the job done.

The tip of my knife grazed the armored figure's arm, and in the next second—

*STATIC!*

The enemy began to glitch, its form tearing into distorted fragments, then vanishing into scattered particles of light—like digital ashes in the wind. My knife wasn't ordinary—it was loaded with all my pre-written macros.

Here in this space, even the slightest touch from my blade would execute a macro inside the enemy—disrupting and erasing the program from within.

These armored warriors were the military's counter-intrusion programs given form, and each one required careful, calculated handling.

If even one of them slipped past me, the entire operation would be for nothing.

But with a smooth arc of my dagger, I deleted the second one just as swiftly. It didn't even take five seconds to neutralize both threats.

"Weak! Pathetically weak!" I shouted, grinning with smug satisfaction. "Is this the best you've got?!"

But almost like the system took that as a challenge, more data surged forward—streams condensing into forms. One, two, five... ten… twenty...

"…Alright, I take that back. But seriously, this is ridiculous!"

The purple-armored figures kept appearing—soon numbering in the dozens. Before long, I was staring down nearly a hundred of them. At this point, a short weapon would be a tactical disadvantage.

Without delay, I adjusted my knife, transforming it—pulling and stretching the blade until it reached nearly two meters in length. It was now a longsword, massive and elegant.

Though the blade was thinner than before—making it more prone to fragmentation if struck too hard—I had no other choice.

"But as long as I don't clash directly with their weapons, it should hold up just fine...!"

Clashing with enemy weapons was the only way my own could break. Besides, if I took a direct hit, it'd be game over anyway. So in truth, nothing about my approach had really changed.

The only remaining problem is their numbers.

They were swarming everywhere, charging ahead in tight, coordinated formation.

"Fuck numbers...!"

I charged forward, clashing with them midway, and swung my blade in a wide arc. I aimed carefully, ensuring the path of my strike wouldn't intersect any of their weapons—and managed to delete five of them in one clean sweep.

But the next wave rushed forward instantly, filling the gap with relentless precision.

I swung my code blade repeatedly—left, right, diagonal—cutting down more as they came. I weaved through the chaos, dodging the hostile attacks aimed my way and hunting down any that slipped past me.

There wasn't even a second to catch my breath!

Gradually, I was being pushed back by the sheer force of their assault. But despite that, their numbers were falling fast. Two minutes ticked by—that's 40% of the transfer done—and I now stood halfway along the "path" leading toward our target location.

"Shit...!" I cursed under my breath. "No more playing nice guy! Time to pull out the dirtier tricks...!"

Until now, I had been restraining myself. I worried that if I pushed too hard, the enemy might panic and force a system reboot—killing our entire effort. But now? With a counter-breach becoming a real threat... fuck it.

I slid my left hand to the base of my blade—feeling for the small switch embedded there—and gave it a tap.

Immediately, the armored enemies slowed down drastically. Their movements turned choppy, robotic—like players in an online game suffering from 999+ ping.

"...!"

Of course, I didn't let the opportunity slip by.

I dove between them, hacking and slashing without pause. My blade danced wildly, cutting them down with ease. Within moments, dozens collapsed, fragmenting into disintegrating particles—leaving just half of them standing.

Roughly six seconds later, I barrel-rolled out of the cluster and took a deep breath, resetting my stance.

Right then, their movements returned to normal—although for a few seconds, they only performed simple, delayed actions.

Yes. As you've probably guessed by now, I used a lag switch against them!

It's a straightforward program that delays incoming input from the enemy, without affecting mine—creating a one-sided battlefield where my actions connect and theirs don't. The result? A total slaughter like what just happened.

But naturally, there's a downside. Activating the lag switch restricts data flow, slowing down transfer speeds significantly. That means I can't just spam it as I please.

Used in moderation though? It's lethal—and wildly frustrating for the other side.

Now that their numbers were halved, I could manage the fight more efficiently. Over the next two minutes, I carefully dismantled the remaining armored warriors, erasing them without taking unnecessary risks.

With that, the enemy's aggression wavered—and ultimately faded.

The data transfer resumed smoothly at full rate, now with only 20% left to go.

But then, I noticed the virtual world around me start to flicker—like a dying lightbulb, pulsing erratically.

"Oh no..." I muttered, my stomach sinking. "They're restarting the military mainframe to cut us off!"

I tapped my visor, forcing it open—and instantly returning me to the real world.

The monitor and keyboard reappeared before my eyes, the same setup as before. Without missing a beat, I slammed my fingers on the keys, typing with precision.

I wrote a queue command—set to activate the moment a sliver of free resources became available. Then, I manually halted a single active thread, just enough to sneak my new code into the system.

This program had one purpose: to interrupt the shutdown procedure. It would fail the system's self-checks on purpose, delaying the deactivation of essential processes—long enough to protect the ones we needed most.

At first, it worked perfectly. But the longer it ran, the more dangerous it became. The enemy wouldn't just sit there—they were pushing back with everything they had, desperate to regain control.

It became a duel of desperation. On one side: them, fighting with whatever scraps of processing power they could muster. On the other: me, with access to their mainframe's full system.

Thirty seconds passed. The data transfer reached 90%. Just a little more...!

"Please don't pull the plug manually..." I muttered in a low voice. "Just don't kill the power completely...!"

Because if they did that, we'd be screwed. We wouldn't have enough time to reacquire the rest of the encryption key. And you can bet they'd harden their system like hell afterward to prevent a repeat intrusion.

The seconds dragged on. 93%... 96%... 98%...

Two percent left... Five seconds to go... Four... Three... Two...!

And then—bam. The window disappeared. Black. The mainframe was successfully shut down, the techs on the other end finally overcoming my disruption protocol.

I leaned back in my seat, eyes locked on the dark screen, unable to move for a moment.

"That was so fucking close…"

But then—my eyes caught it.

The reason they managed to pull it off was because new system resources had just been freed up at the very last moment, allowing their shutdown to finally finish.

I glanced down again—then broke into a relieved grin as I saw the number flashing on the bottom of the black screen.

100%!

"Transfer complete!"