LRAB Chapter 38 What do you mean by "you bought GOC"?
Chapter 38 What do you mean by "you bought GOC"?
Setagaya Ward, Tokyo.
Above ground, the Sato Shooting Club continues its usual bustling activity.
To outsiders, it's just an ordinary club with slightly upscale facilities and a slightly eccentric owner.
However, on the unknown third underground level, the abandoned storage room that was originally not open to the public and used to store miscellaneous items has now been completely transformed.
"Sizzle—"
With a dull thud as the heavy, airtight hydraulic door opened, a visible wisp of cold white air escaped through the door crack.
A wave of air, filtered through an industrial-grade constant temperature and humidity system, rushed in, instantly dispelling the smell of smoke from the ground.
The concrete wall, which was originally mottled, moldy, and even leaking water, has now been completely smoothed out and covered with thick, silver-gray sound-absorbing metal panels.
The old, tangled wires on the ceiling have long since disappeared, replaced by neatly arranged embedded LED cold light sources.
This is a temporary tactical command center for the Japanese branch of GOC (Global Occult Coalition).
In the center of the room, instead of a traditional conference table, there was a huge holographic tactical sand table.
Although limited by the technological level of this era, it cannot yet achieve true holographic projection, but the desktop, which is made up of several high-resolution LCD screens, is displaying a high-precision 3D vector map of Tokyo in real time.
Countless red dots, representing abnormal heat sources, police reports, and suspected parasitic activity, flash and move within the blue city model, like viruses flowing in the blood vessels of the human body.
The walls around the room are covered with dozens of large surveillance screens.
The base's nerve center consisted of illegally accessed Metropolitan Police Department road surveillance footage and even intercepted records of the Self-Defense Forces' encrypted communication channels.
In a corner, to solve the computing power problem, Pei Qi even obtained several retired military supercomputing nodes through illegal channels.
These black server racks were emitting a low, buzzing sound, like a swarm of bees, as the cooling fans were running at full speed.
They tirelessly scour the vast ocean of the internet, using keyword crawlers to capture even the slightest clues about "man-eating monsters," "dismemberment cases," and "wild dog attacks." They then filter out and compile events truly related to the parasites.
Pei Qi sat in a specially made ergonomic chair, twirling a pen between his fingers as he observed everything before him.
If you didn't know, who would have thought that just half a month ago, this was an abandoned basement with rats running around, water everywhere, and even homeless people didn't want to live here?
"That's the allure of combining money, technology, and authority."
Pei Qi remarked with emotion, then casually signed his name on a document bearing the United Nations emblem.
As for how Pei Qi transformed himself from an "illegal tourist of unknown origin" into the highest-ranking official of the GOC Japan branch, who wielded privileges and could even mobilize armed forces, in just half a month?
This story begins in the first few days after he came into this world.
Although Pei Qi possessed formidable martial prowess, he was well aware that in this modern society with its well-established government, military, and legal system, relying on individual combat to eradicate the thousands upon thousands of well-disguised parasitic creatures scattered throughout Japan would be absurdly inefficient.
He's not Superman; he can't listen in 24/7.
He needed eyes and ears, intelligence, a legitimate identity, and an organization that could mobilize the state apparatus or at least cover up his actions.
Among them, the [Information Display Module] played a terrifying role, comparable to a dimensional reduction attack.
The initial module that accompanied him through time was a million times more terrifying than the game's auxiliary plugin that could only identify "what kind of block this is".
In this information-rich world, it has undergone further continuous improvement.
It can analyze not only the structure of firearms and biological states, but also "data logic" and "social relationships".
When Pei Qi was looking at the webpage on the computer screen, or even the fiber optic cable interface on the wall, the module would automatically filter out the surface UI and directly present the underlying data logic to him:
[Target: Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department - Internal Personnel Network]
[Encryption Level: Medium (AES-128)]
[Vulnerability Detection: High Risk (Unpatched overflow backdoor exists on firewall port 3389)]
[Suggested action: Inject SQL commands...]
In this "perspective," the online world holds no secrets for Pei Qi.
He doesn't need to understand complex hacking code because the module will directly insert the "key" into the lock, and he only needs to turn it gently.
The effect was even more chilling when he turned his gaze to living people.
At that crucial social dinner, Pei Qi didn't even need to speak. He simply held his wine glass, quietly scanning the room. To him, the well-dressed politicians and officials became nothing more than lines of naked data.
Pei Qi doesn't need sophisticated social skills, nor does he need lengthy investigations. He only needs to glance at a person to know their weaknesses, their fears, and their desires.
Within this invisible web, Pei Qi is like a GM (game administrator) with a full-view perspective.
He used high-purity gold, which he brought from the Minecraft world and which was of extremely high purity in that world, as his start-up capital, along with those precise and chilling "handles for blackmail" and "transfer of benefits".
In just one week.
He fabricated a flawless identity as an "international security consultant," which not only secured him legal residency but also made him a "crisis management expert" specially hired by the Metropolitan Police Department.
While rummaging through the dusty organizational files of the Japanese government, Pei Qi discovered the name of a department that had been forgotten in a corner—GOC.
Upon hearing the name "Global Occult Alliance," Pei Qi's first reaction was an instinctive tactical lean back.
After all, the GOC's name is legendary. It's a super-violent organization with "human supremacy" as its core principle, possessing various black technologies, including but not limited to "reality anchors," "concept erasure," and "magical strikes."
If there really were genuine GOCs here, Pei Qi wouldn't dare to act so recklessly even with his 32k artifact.
However, after a thorough investigation (which involved scanning the department's financial statements, personnel files, and office locations over the past decade using a module), Pei Qi realized he had been overthinking things.
The GOC in this world is indeed an organization under the United Nations, and its origins were indeed to deal with possible supernatural threats during the Cold War.
This is similar to the historical "Stargate Project" of the United States or the "MKUltra Project" of the CIA.
In the mid-20th century, the US-Soviet rivalry reached its climax. In their quest to overwhelm each other in every dimension, both sides fell into a collective hysteria known as "supernatural warfare."
They have invested a huge amount of money in researching supernatural phenomena such as psychic abilities, telekinesis, remote viewing, and extraterrestrial contact.
GOC was a product of that crazy era, responsible for coordinating, recording, and attempting to cover up these research findings.
However, reality is cruel and boring.
99.9% of the so-called "supernatural phenomena" in this world are human misunderstandings, optical illusions, delusions of mentally ill patients, or natural laws that have not yet been discovered.
There is no magic, no containment objects, no reality warpers, and no Cthulhu.
This has made the GOC an extremely awkward entity.
Huge investment yielded zero returns. Over the decades, all that was gained was a pile of useless reports about the Loch Ness Monster being "rotten wood" and the Slit-Mouthed Woman being a makeup effect.
With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the finances of various countries have gradually tightened.
This once mysterious and secretive department with unlimited budget has instantly become a hot potato in the eyes of governments around the world.
Apart from a few major powers such as China, the United States, and Russia, which still retain core research laboratories (mainly used for research on cutting-edge weapons and biochemical technologies), peripheral institutions like the Japanese branch have long been reduced to the ultimate retirement department that "only has staffing, no real power, and insufficient funding."
Its office space was moved from an office building in the city center to an old basement in Shinjuku.
The only employees are a few elderly men nearing retirement. Their daily work consists of drinking tea, reading newspapers, categorizing reports of "UFO sightings" as "gas explosions" or "hysteria," and then waiting to collect their pensions.
"Nobody wants to take over this mess; the annual maintenance costs are a huge deficit."
These are the exact words of the official in charge of the handover at the time.
"Since Mr. Pei Qi is willing to take over the management in the form of 'capital injection and restructuring' as a 'UN Special Observer' and 'International Private Defense Contractor,' and has promised that no additional funding from the Japanese treasury is required..."
The official's hands trembled as he quickly stamped the document with his red seal, fearing Pei Qi might change his mind.
"That's wonderful! Here are your credentials, the keys, and the department seal! From today onwards, the GOC Japan branch is yours! Do whatever you want with it!"
As a result, there was almost no resistance.
Pei Qi used a sum of money that was an astronomical figure for Sato, but for him it was just like mining a few mines underground in MC, to buy this perfect shell that, although empty, possessed "UN endorsement", "the right to legally carry guns throughout the territory", "special operations immunity" and "the right to access intelligence across departments".
Of course, the mess he made after taking over left Pei Qi speechless for a time.
Half of the personnel list consists of ghosts receiving salaries without working, while the other half consists of people with connections who can't even hold a gun properly.
Compared to the official GOC in the neighboring studio that constantly summons orbital bombardments and possesses a star fleet, this is like the difference between a Pinduoduo buyer's show and an official promotional video seller's show.
"However, what I want is not your people and guns."
Pei Qi stood in the command center, looking at the brand-new base before him, a smile playing on his lips.
He immediately dismissed all the old employees, and then, through Sato's connections and the "reliable and greedy" mercenary recruitment channels selected by the module, he recruited a new batch of truly elite soldiers—retired special forces soldiers and unemployed intelligence personnel.
He gave them the best equipment (various modified and enchanted guns crafted in Minecraft), the highest salary (paid in gold), and a legitimate reason to kill.
"As long as the outer shell is real, what's inside is entirely up to me. However, there have been some unexpected gains..."
Pei Qi put down his pen and turned his gaze to the heavy, soundproof door of the office.
Just then.
"Tap, tap, tap."
There was a knock on the office door.