I Found a Hole in my Yard. It Might Be a Dungeon, but That’s Now my Garbage Dump - Chapter 47: The Balance the Female Operative Carries

Chapter 47: The Balance the Female Operative Carries

(Strange.)

Louise was unable to hide her frustration as she made her way through the dimly red-lit corridors with their emergency lights on.

The reason why the normal lights were off and the emergency lights were turned on was probably because a cyber attack had succeeded in turning off the normal power supply.

This is probably done by the foreign countries to support their agents, but it’s convenient for Louise to go along with them.

The passageway she was in was apparently called Aisle 34. If she continues on for 35 meters and turns right, there should be a door for maintenance personnel, and the door should open with the fake ID in her paper bag.

Everything is going according to plan.

The information she received in advance is accurate, and there have been no accidents or unforeseen circumstances that are inherent to on-field operations.

(Strange.)

Yet, Louise’s intuition is making her feel uneasy.

Something must be wrong, but she can’t figure out what, and this sense of urgency and itchiness won’t go away.

Ignoring the walls and such in between, the target facility is less than 500 meters in a straight line from where she is.

The pathway descends gently along the slope of the crater, and like a mountain climber who reaches the summit by continuing to climb, if she keeps on descending, she’ll naturally reach the facility where the dream machine in the center is installed in a few minutes.

”

”

(Strange.)

There’s nothing unusual about the corridor illuminated in blood-red colors.

Perhaps because the suit’s electronic disguise is working, no sensors or alarms are sounding.

Perhaps, because the diversionary tactics were working, but she doesn’t see anyone in the corridor……

Everything should be fine.

Just about everything should be going well.

She stopped and tried to listen carefully to everything around her, but all she could hear was the low hum of pumps running, the sound of running water and various other liquids, and the clatter of solid waste running down the conveyor from the pipes, large and small, running along the walls.

Thanks to the noise of the facility, the sound of her footsteps in her high heels with rubber soles don’t echo.

However, becoming aware of the noise around her, Louise stopped.

“Why am I hearing the facility still operating?”

If the cyber attack had been successful, it wouldn’t be strange if not only the lights of the facility, but even the facility itself had been shut down.

The facility is designed so that all the solid and liquid waste would gravitate to the dream machine, which is positioned in the lowest, central point of the crater, so if the power goes out and the facility stops working, the solid and liquid waste would have overflowed.

In fact, she remembered reading in a report that such an accident had occurred several years ago.

“Is it running on an independent backup power system? No, there’s no power system that would be able to handle this much processing with a few power generation facilities and batteries.”

The drawings, which had probably been obtained in advance through an inside source, detailed not only the normal corridors, but also employee corridors, maintenance corridors, cargo corridors, various maintenance hatches, and even a power generation facility and battery compartment in case of power outages.

“Don’t tell me…… There’s a power supply system not shown in the drawings?”

If that’s the case……

“……Were those detailed drawings intentionally leaked by MCTBH?”

—–which means……

“Have the cyber attacks even succeeded? Did they perhaps make it look like a success?”

In other words, MCTBH was fully prepared for the attack and aggression by the European joint inspection team, including the agents’ invasion?

How was such a thing possible for a mere company from the Orient to go up against the great powers of Europe.

Louise now finds herself standing at a critical juncture.

On one hand, she currently does have a way out.

If she felt that she was about to take a risk, since she had already done the work worth the 100,000 Euros she was paid upfront, she could withdraw immediately. The loss of credibility would make it more difficult for the European intelligence community to outsource work to her, but with her skills and the assets she had acquired, she would be able to survive anywhere.

On the other hand, she can continue her mission.

Sudden situations like this are a common occurrence in espionage missions. The ability to solve such problems in the field in a flexible manner is what makes veteran operatives so valuable.

So far, the backup is doing a good job of providing tools and information support. Even if she fails, it’s internationally known that Japanese intelligence agencies and corporations aren’t very responsive.

As a matter of fact, her mission is divided into three levels.

The 1st level is to take pictures or videos of the dream machine that exists in the center of MCTBH’s waste disposal facility. The engineers in each country were apparently saying that as long as they have the images, they can deduce the path of how they arrived at such a technology. If accomplished, 200,000 Euros are promised to be given.

The 2nd level is to sabotage MCTBH’s radioactive waste disposal plans. To be more specific, the 2nd level is to have them plant explosives in the machinery of the radioactive waste disposal line. As long as the fact that an explosion had occurred, regardless of the actual damage it causes, they could have MCTBH held politically responsible and force a halt or delay of the project. The reward for achieving this is said to be 300,000 Euros.

The 3rd level is the assassination or kidnapping of key personnel in MCTBH. The assassination of Hiroki, the Owner/President of MCTBH, or Ishida, who is considered to be the one actually managing MCTBH, or kidnapping of personnel from MCTBH’s research department. The price of achieving this was more than 500,000 Euros.

All of these were too big of a reward to give up.

Unfortunately, Louise had never seen Hiroki in person.

As is often the case with young, beautiful Western women, she tended to slightly view Asian men as somewhat sexually unattractive, and she extended such an image to this company.

(Well, I’ll figure something out. No, I will figure it out.)

And so, Louise chose the latter path.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Louise continued to proceed cautiously.

With the small pistol held in her right hand, she carefully held the fake ID in her left over the maintenance hatch, and then heard the door unlock with a light electronic sound.

(See, nothing to worry about.)

Louise, her confidence growing, boldly and carefully slid her body into the hatch.

The maintenance corridor is even noisier and darker than the employee corridor, making it difficult for even her trained eyes to see.

[Oya, are you lost?]

As she somehow got her bearings and began to walk, a voice called out to her in Japanese from the end of the pitch-black corridor.

“Who is it!? ……Ara?”

It was a small-built, old man wearing a work jumpsuit, who seemed to be a nice person with a natural smile that was unnatural in such a place. Louise, relieved, quickly hid her gun behind her back and smiled.