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Chapter 889: Avada Kedavra Alohomora
"Below that device, there's nothing there. It's just a maintenance passage that was reserved when building this Arc Reactor," Keipei recalled, saying to Hayato. Unable to see spirits, he hadn't heard the scream of **Ojama Black**, whom Hayato had just thrown down.
"Brother Hayato, are you suspecting something is hidden down there? The Space below is only small enough for a single maintenance engineer to go down and service the device. It's impossible, absolutely impossible."
"I think it's entirely possible." Alister looked at the pitch-black area with interest. "Just now, when that spirit fell, I felt like the falling height was close to over ten meters. It doesn't sound like just a small Space."
"But on the design blueprints, there really isn't much Space there. Because of that, I didn't install any surveillance cameras in the maintenance Passage below," Kaiba said. A hollow structural diagram was projected before his eyes, overlapping with the Arc Reactor in his line of sight. The structural diagram of the maintenance Passage below, which was only one or two meters wide, less than two meters high, and less than ten meters long in total, also manifested, as if he possessed psychic powers like X-ray vision.
"In other words, although you have the design blueprints for that area, they are just blueprints, right? It hasn't been scanned in real-time like the other areas in this building," Hayato said, looking at Kaiba. "Instead of thinking so much, where is the Passage Entrance? Can't we just go and see to get the answer?"
"That's fundamentally just wasted time." Kaiba swiped his hand across the screen in front of him, closing it and removing the device hanging on his ear. "Although that's what I think, I truly can't find any suspicious places using my methods. Let's go take a look there first."
Led by Kaiba, who had already memorized the building's layout, the group quickly found the entrance to the underground maintenance passage. However, beside the sealed metal door with the wording "Confidential Area, No Unauthorized Entry," there was also a combination lock.
This wasn't strange. Although people who could enter the building's Interior through the Hall's automatic door were basically only KaibaCorp employees, after all, the maintenance Passage led to the reactor that powered the entire complex. It was normal for the management to be stricter.
But the abnormal part was that when Kaiba took out the card hanging around his neck, which held almost the highest authority for the entire KaibaCorp and could access any place and access any data, he had clearly swiped it in the card slot, but the combination lock popped up with the wording "No Access Authority."
"Did you swipe the card in the wrong direction? I often hold my card upside down when swiping," Alister said, looking at Kaiba. But Kaiba, frowning, ignored him and swiped again, refusing to believe it. The result was no change; the screen still displayed "No Access Authority." "I've never made a mistake."
"Actually, underperforming is unavoidable. It's normal to feel powerless with age," Alister said, spreading his hands and mocking Kaiba.
"This authority card doesn't rely on barcode recognition; there's no possibility of swiping it in the wrong direction," Keipei explained to Hayato. He also had a similar card on his body. At that time, when The Big Five betrayed Kaiba and defected to Pegasus, planning to sell KaibaCorp to Industrial Illusions, Keipei was even kidnapped by Pegasus because of this authority card.
With both authority cards, everything in KaibaCorp would be open to the owner. Even holding just one card was enough to access all of KaibaCorp's facilities. The current situation where Kaiba swiped the card but got "No Access Authority" means there is only one possibility: this door's combination lock fundamentally didn't use KaibaCorp's unified design and didn't have the existence of the highest authority card written into it.
"In my KaibaCorp, there actually exists a place that even I don't have access authority to. How ridiculous." The corner of Kaiba's mouth curved into a cold laugh. "Originally, I didn't quite believe Hayato Kobayashi's words, but now this method of trying to cover something up just confirms what he said and increases the suspicion that something is hidden behind this."
"But how do we get in now?" Alister asked. "I have quite a bit of confidence in my hacking methods. Why don't we try to break through this combination lock? It's better than guessing the password one by one. The PIN here has eight digits; it might not even be possible to guess it in two and a half days."
Watching Alister reach into his pocket and take out a personal terminal, which even had the Industrial Illusions logo printed on it. This was distributed by Dartz at that time. Dartz, who had no desire for worldly money, gave his Subordinates quite good treatment. This personal terminal had excellent specs, so even though Doma had dispersed, Alister felt it was too wasted to throw away this terminal and kept it for himself.
Normally, besides being used to watch movies and television or surf the network, it could also be used as a hacking device for physical connection and break through.
However, Hayato glanced at the personal terminal in Alister's hand and said with some disdain, "What era is it now? Still using traditional hacking methods? This is how we break through combination locks."
As he spoke, Hayato's hand scribbled randomly in the air, and he extended a finger towards the combination lock, shouting, "Avada Kedavra Alohomora!"
With a "crack," in Keipei's astonished gaze, the combination lock actually split open out of thin air following Hayato's spellcasting-like movement, revealing the internal circuit structure. As the torn circuits sparked like a short circuit, the combination lock's screen, covered in rifts, displayed "Access Allowed" and large areas of glitch.
"Amazing, truly amazing!" Keipei looked at Hayato with a face full of worship. "How did you do that? Is magic real? Please teach me, Brother Hayato!"
However, Keipei didn't see what happened just now. Kaiba and Alister, who could see spirits, were standing aside and saw it quite clearly.
"Maybe magic really does exist, but I can guarantee that what Hayato Kobayashi used just now was absolutely not magic." Alister pursed his lips. "You actually let your **Gaia** directly destroy that combination lock. Aren't you worried at all that if there's someone behind the door, such a big movement will make them notice our arrival?"
"If my movement makes the people behind the door notice us, they would have also noticed us when Kaiba swiped his card trying to access before. After all, I don't believe that once a combination lock is installed, the other end of the combination lock wouldn't be connected to some surveillance equipment."
Hayato said indifferently, "Compared to all that, the door is already open."
Following the strange principle of "being destroyed means unlocking itself," the electronic lock destroyed by Hayato authorized the access of Hayato and the others, opening the sealed metal door and revealing a Passage behind the door. Around the Passage were countless cables hidden beneath the flat Surface, which looked like nothing different from a normal maintenance Passage.
To be honest, whether it was Alister, Kaiba, or Hayato, they were all prepared for potential enemies appearing behind the door when it opened just now. However, what appeared behind that PIN door was just an ordinary maintenance Passage, which was quite an accident for them.
"Looks like there's nothing special. Could this really just be a maintenance Passage?" Not afraid of encountering danger, Alister reached his hand into the doorway, and didn't trigger any infrared sensing mechanisms like crossbow bolts or anything similar, as if this really was just a maintenance Passage.
Kaiba frowned and let out a cold snort: "Hmph, I was indeed overthinking it. This is KaibaCorp. How could anyone possibly make modifications or tamper with the Central Building right under my nose, even if this is just the Egyptian Branch? That electronic lock just now might have simply been broken."
"Looks like you guessed wrong, Hayato."
As he spoke, Kaiba turned his head to look at Hayato, but Hayato had already walked towards the open Entrance on his own, stepping into the maintenance Passage.
"It's still too early to jump to conclusions. Aren't you guys coming in to see what's at the end of this Passage?" Hayato walked into the Passage without turning his head. "It's only a few minutes of time, after all. And how does that saying go? 'We're already here'."
Although they didn't get the special meaning behind Hayato's phrase "We're already here," Kaiba saw that Hayato had already walked into the Passage and followed in behind Keipei. And when Alister saw that everyone else had gone in, he couldn't possibly stay outside by himself, so he also walked into the Passage.
What the group didn't notice was that on the wall outside the door, there was a camera facing the passage exit that wasn't connected to the KaibaCorp network. A red spot was flashing on the camera.
The first half of the Passage wasn't very long. Soon, the group reached the Corner. Kaiba, walking behind Hayato and Keipei, said somewhat impatiently, "It's only for you, Hayato Kobayashi. If it were anyone else, I wouldn't wasted my precious time like this."
"Just past this Corner is the area below that reactor. The possibility of that being the place where counterfeit Duel Disks are manufactured isn't much greater than the possibility of me inviting Joey Wheeler the Commoner as a special guest at the next KC Cup."
As he said this, the group had already passed the Corner, and Hayato and Keipei, who were walking at the front, also stopped in unison.
There was a certain Space reserved below the Arc Reactor for convenient maintenance work in the future. There was no problem with this point. However, the so-called "reserved" Space that appeared before the group was simply too large.
The design blueprints said the latter half of the Passage was ten meters long and two meters wide and high. But the Space connected to the latter half of the Passage that appeared before the group was fundamentally a huge Space with a radius of more than twenty meters. Countless cables crawled out along with the Passage and spread around, covering the walls. From a distance, it looked like the inside of some animal's nest.
"By the way, when is the next KC Cup being held?" Keipei turned his head to glance at Kaiba and said as a joke, "So I can invite Joey Wheeler in advance."
Kaiba, unable to get angry at his younger brother, could only keep a straight face and pretend not to hear Keipei's words, examining this Underground Space that someone had built without his knowledge.
The Arc Reactor was continuously operating, generating a large amount of energy that was transmitted everywhere along with the cables connected to it. As the energy passed through, the cables flashed with beautiful blue radiance. But what was most eye-catching wasn't the cables emitting radiance, but the several large devices that looked full of technology, placed in the center of this Underground Space.
And, a green-haired youth sitting in front of a device, operating something, who seems like he noticed the group's arrival and moved his line of sight away from the screen in front of him.
Looking at Hayato and the others standing at the passage exit in the high place, the green-haired youth opened his arms and said, "Congratulations on finding this place, Kaiba Seto, Hayato Kobayashi, and two insignificant guys."
Keipei, Alister: "Hey! You guy!"
"So it was you, you guy! You actually manufactured counterfeit Duel Disks without my permission and even created a place like this below my KaibaCorp?" Kaiba's gaze towards the green-haired youth was cold. "Now, even if you beg me for mercy, it's useless. Don't think I'll let you off easily!"
Paused, Kaiba looked at the green-haired youth for a few moments, then frowned again: "I still feel like I've seen you somewhere before?"
"That guy is Tenma Yexing. I had you look for him before," Hayato said, looking at Tenma Yexing below. "I also have many scores to settle with this guy. Don't try to steal him from me, Seto."
"Hmph, are you trying to defy me, the owner of **Blue-Eyes White Dragon**?"
Although he said that, Kaiba didn't block the way, watching Hayato go first along with the Stairs, walking towards Tenma Yexing below.
"Approaching me voluntarily? Hmph hmph, I thought you would escape, Hayato Kobayashi." The green-haired youth, Tenma Yexing, watched Hayato walk down the Stairs and revealed a cold laugh. "I even prepared methods to prevent you from escaping. But just in case, I'll use them now."
Saying this, Tenma Yexing reached out and pressed the Enter key on the keyboard beside him. Behind Alister and Keipei in the high place, a loud sound came with Tenma Yexing's movement, startling the two of them into quickly turning their heads.
Only to see several metal doors suddenly fall within the Passage, completely blocking the Passage they had just come through, leaving no retreat.
However, although he saw the retreat disappear, Hayato was unmoved and still walked down the Stairs step by step at his own pace.
"Tenma Yexing, are you perhaps thinking that doing that blocked my path and forced me to be trapped here?" Raising his Duel Disk and performing a field setup, Hayato looked down at Tenma Yexing below the Stairs and said, "You seems like you've misunderstood something. It's not me who is forced to be trapped with you, but you who is forced to be trapped with me."
"Duel me, Tenma Yexing, and then meet your defeat in humiliation and despair!"
"Below that device, there's nothing there. It's just a maintenance passage that was reserved when building this Arc Reactor," Keipei recalled, saying to Hayato. Unable to see spirits, he hadn't heard the scream of **Ojama Black**, whom Hayato had just thrown down.
"Brother Hayato, are you suspecting something is hidden down there? The Space below is only small enough for a single maintenance engineer to go down and service the device. It's impossible, absolutely impossible."
"I think it's entirely possible." Alister looked at the pitch-black area with interest. "Just now, when that spirit fell, I felt like the falling height was close to over ten meters. It doesn't sound like just a small Space."
"But on the design blueprints, there really isn't much Space there. Because of that, I didn't install any surveillance cameras in the maintenance Passage below," Kaiba said. A hollow structural diagram was projected before his eyes, overlapping with the Arc Reactor in his line of sight. The structural diagram of the maintenance Passage below, which was only one or two meters wide, less than two meters high, and less than ten meters long in total, also manifested, as if he possessed psychic powers like X-ray vision.
"In other words, although you have the design blueprints for that area, they are just blueprints, right? It hasn't been scanned in real-time like the other areas in this building," Hayato said, looking at Kaiba. "Instead of thinking so much, where is the Passage Entrance? Can't we just go and see to get the answer?"
"That's fundamentally just wasted time." Kaiba swiped his hand across the screen in front of him, closing it and removing the device hanging on his ear. "Although that's what I think, I truly can't find any suspicious places using my methods. Let's go take a look there first."
Led by Kaiba, who had already memorized the building's layout, the group quickly found the entrance to the underground maintenance passage. However, beside the sealed metal door with the wording "Confidential Area, No Unauthorized Entry," there was also a combination lock.
This wasn't strange. Although people who could enter the building's Interior through the Hall's automatic door were basically only KaibaCorp employees, after all, the maintenance Passage led to the reactor that powered the entire complex. It was normal for the management to be stricter.
But the abnormal part was that when Kaiba took out the card hanging around his neck, which held almost the highest authority for the entire KaibaCorp and could access any place and access any data, he had clearly swiped it in the card slot, but the combination lock popped up with the wording "No Access Authority."
"Did you swipe the card in the wrong direction? I often hold my card upside down when swiping," Alister said, looking at Kaiba. But Kaiba, frowning, ignored him and swiped again, refusing to believe it. The result was no change; the screen still displayed "No Access Authority." "I've never made a mistake."
"Actually, underperforming is unavoidable. It's normal to feel powerless with age," Alister said, spreading his hands and mocking Kaiba.
"This authority card doesn't rely on barcode recognition; there's no possibility of swiping it in the wrong direction," Keipei explained to Hayato. He also had a similar card on his body. At that time, when The Big Five betrayed Kaiba and defected to Pegasus, planning to sell KaibaCorp to Industrial Illusions, Keipei was even kidnapped by Pegasus because of this authority card.
With both authority cards, everything in KaibaCorp would be open to the owner. Even holding just one card was enough to access all of KaibaCorp's facilities. The current situation where Kaiba swiped the card but got "No Access Authority" means there is only one possibility: this door's combination lock fundamentally didn't use KaibaCorp's unified design and didn't have the existence of the highest authority card written into it.
"In my KaibaCorp, there actually exists a place that even I don't have access authority to. How ridiculous." The corner of Kaiba's mouth curved into a cold laugh. "Originally, I didn't quite believe Hayato Kobayashi's words, but now this method of trying to cover something up just confirms what he said and increases the suspicion that something is hidden behind this."
"But how do we get in now?" Alister asked. "I have quite a bit of confidence in my hacking methods. Why don't we try to break through this combination lock? It's better than guessing the password one by one. The PIN here has eight digits; it might not even be possible to guess it in two and a half days."
Watching Alister reach into his pocket and take out a personal terminal, which even had the Industrial Illusions logo printed on it. This was distributed by Dartz at that time. Dartz, who had no desire for worldly money, gave his Subordinates quite good treatment. This personal terminal had excellent specs, so even though Doma had dispersed, Alister felt it was too wasted to throw away this terminal and kept it for himself.
Normally, besides being used to watch movies and television or surf the network, it could also be used as a hacking device for physical connection and break through.
However, Hayato glanced at the personal terminal in Alister's hand and said with some disdain, "What era is it now? Still using traditional hacking methods? This is how we break through combination locks."
As he spoke, Hayato's hand scribbled randomly in the air, and he extended a finger towards the combination lock, shouting, "Avada Kedavra Alohomora!"
With a "crack," in Keipei's astonished gaze, the combination lock actually split open out of thin air following Hayato's spellcasting-like movement, revealing the internal circuit structure. As the torn circuits sparked like a short circuit, the combination lock's screen, covered in rifts, displayed "Access Allowed" and large areas of glitch.
"Amazing, truly amazing!" Keipei looked at Hayato with a face full of worship. "How did you do that? Is magic real? Please teach me, Brother Hayato!"
However, Keipei didn't see what happened just now. Kaiba and Alister, who could see spirits, were standing aside and saw it quite clearly.
"Maybe magic really does exist, but I can guarantee that what Hayato Kobayashi used just now was absolutely not magic." Alister pursed his lips. "You actually let your **Gaia** directly destroy that combination lock. Aren't you worried at all that if there's someone behind the door, such a big movement will make them notice our arrival?"
"If my movement makes the people behind the door notice us, they would have also noticed us when Kaiba swiped his card trying to access before. After all, I don't believe that once a combination lock is installed, the other end of the combination lock wouldn't be connected to some surveillance equipment."
Hayato said indifferently, "Compared to all that, the door is already open."
Following the strange principle of "being destroyed means unlocking itself," the electronic lock destroyed by Hayato authorized the access of Hayato and the others, opening the sealed metal door and revealing a Passage behind the door. Around the Passage were countless cables hidden beneath the flat Surface, which looked like nothing different from a normal maintenance Passage.
To be honest, whether it was Alister, Kaiba, or Hayato, they were all prepared for potential enemies appearing behind the door when it opened just now. However, what appeared behind that PIN door was just an ordinary maintenance Passage, which was quite an accident for them.
"Looks like there's nothing special. Could this really just be a maintenance Passage?" Not afraid of encountering danger, Alister reached his hand into the doorway, and didn't trigger any infrared sensing mechanisms like crossbow bolts or anything similar, as if this really was just a maintenance Passage.
Kaiba frowned and let out a cold snort: "Hmph, I was indeed overthinking it. This is KaibaCorp. How could anyone possibly make modifications or tamper with the Central Building right under my nose, even if this is just the Egyptian Branch? That electronic lock just now might have simply been broken."
"Looks like you guessed wrong, Hayato."
As he spoke, Kaiba turned his head to look at Hayato, but Hayato had already walked towards the open Entrance on his own, stepping into the maintenance Passage.
"It's still too early to jump to conclusions. Aren't you guys coming in to see what's at the end of this Passage?" Hayato walked into the Passage without turning his head. "It's only a few minutes of time, after all. And how does that saying go? 'We're already here'."
Although they didn't get the special meaning behind Hayato's phrase "We're already here," Kaiba saw that Hayato had already walked into the Passage and followed in behind Keipei. And when Alister saw that everyone else had gone in, he couldn't possibly stay outside by himself, so he also walked into the Passage.
What the group didn't notice was that on the wall outside the door, there was a camera facing the passage exit that wasn't connected to the KaibaCorp network. A red spot was flashing on the camera.
The first half of the Passage wasn't very long. Soon, the group reached the Corner. Kaiba, walking behind Hayato and Keipei, said somewhat impatiently, "It's only for you, Hayato Kobayashi. If it were anyone else, I wouldn't wasted my precious time like this."
"Just past this Corner is the area below that reactor. The possibility of that being the place where counterfeit Duel Disks are manufactured isn't much greater than the possibility of me inviting Joey Wheeler the Commoner as a special guest at the next KC Cup."
As he said this, the group had already passed the Corner, and Hayato and Keipei, who were walking at the front, also stopped in unison.
There was a certain Space reserved below the Arc Reactor for convenient maintenance work in the future. There was no problem with this point. However, the so-called "reserved" Space that appeared before the group was simply too large.
The design blueprints said the latter half of the Passage was ten meters long and two meters wide and high. But the Space connected to the latter half of the Passage that appeared before the group was fundamentally a huge Space with a radius of more than twenty meters. Countless cables crawled out along with the Passage and spread around, covering the walls. From a distance, it looked like the inside of some animal's nest.
"By the way, when is the next KC Cup being held?" Keipei turned his head to glance at Kaiba and said as a joke, "So I can invite Joey Wheeler in advance."
Kaiba, unable to get angry at his younger brother, could only keep a straight face and pretend not to hear Keipei's words, examining this Underground Space that someone had built without his knowledge.
The Arc Reactor was continuously operating, generating a large amount of energy that was transmitted everywhere along with the cables connected to it. As the energy passed through, the cables flashed with beautiful blue radiance. But what was most eye-catching wasn't the cables emitting radiance, but the several large devices that looked full of technology, placed in the center of this Underground Space.
And, a green-haired youth sitting in front of a device, operating something, who seems like he noticed the group's arrival and moved his line of sight away from the screen in front of him.
Looking at Hayato and the others standing at the passage exit in the high place, the green-haired youth opened his arms and said, "Congratulations on finding this place, Kaiba Seto, Hayato Kobayashi, and two insignificant guys."
Keipei, Alister: "Hey! You guy!"
"So it was you, you guy! You actually manufactured counterfeit Duel Disks without my permission and even created a place like this below my KaibaCorp?" Kaiba's gaze towards the green-haired youth was cold. "Now, even if you beg me for mercy, it's useless. Don't think I'll let you off easily!"
Paused, Kaiba looked at the green-haired youth for a few moments, then frowned again: "I still feel like I've seen you somewhere before?"
"That guy is Tenma Yexing. I had you look for him before," Hayato said, looking at Tenma Yexing below. "I also have many scores to settle with this guy. Don't try to steal him from me, Seto."
"Hmph, are you trying to defy me, the owner of **Blue-Eyes White Dragon**?"
Although he said that, Kaiba didn't block the way, watching Hayato go first along with the Stairs, walking towards Tenma Yexing below.
"Approaching me voluntarily? Hmph hmph, I thought you would escape, Hayato Kobayashi." The green-haired youth, Tenma Yexing, watched Hayato walk down the Stairs and revealed a cold laugh. "I even prepared methods to prevent you from escaping. But just in case, I'll use them now."
Saying this, Tenma Yexing reached out and pressed the Enter key on the keyboard beside him. Behind Alister and Keipei in the high place, a loud sound came with Tenma Yexing's movement, startling the two of them into quickly turning their heads.
Only to see several metal doors suddenly fall within the Passage, completely blocking the Passage they had just come through, leaving no retreat.
However, although he saw the retreat disappear, Hayato was unmoved and still walked down the Stairs step by step at his own pace.
"Tenma Yexing, are you perhaps thinking that doing that blocked my path and forced me to be trapped here?" Raising his Duel Disk and performing a field setup, Hayato looked down at Tenma Yexing below the Stairs and said, "You seems like you've misunderstood something. It's not me who is forced to be trapped with you, but you who is forced to be trapped with me."
"Duel me, Tenma Yexing, and then meet your defeat in humiliation and despair!"
