"W-what exactly was that?!"
The other children, who had followed Conan into the alley, stared in shock at the fleeing Jack the Ripper Boo, utterly astonished.
"A…a robot?"
Moroboshi Hideki stammered, looking at the scattered wires and components of the large Bangboo on the ground.
"But isn't the game set in 19th-century London? Why are there robots? Is the game bugged?"
Ran also looked bewildered. Although she had seen a Bangboo at the video store, such a ferocious Jack the Ripper Boo still startled her.
Outside the game, the City Hall was in an uproar.
"What was that just now?!"
"A robot?! Is this a sci-fi game?!"
"Jack the Ripper turned into a robot? What kind of nonsense is this! Didn't they say it was 19th-century London?!"
"Noahs Ark! What exactly is going on?! Explain now!"
The parents angrily shouted at the big screen, but Noahs Ark remained silent.
"Dr. Agasa," Kudo Yusaku looked at the only technical expert on site who might understand, "do you know what that was? There was nothing like that in the script I designed."
Dr. Agasa's expression was grave, wiping sweat from his forehead with a tissue.
"That…if I'm not mistaken, that robot should be a very advanced intelligent robot from a foreign laboratory, called Bangboo.
I can assure you there was nothing like that in the original game."
He speculated,
"Could it be Noahs Ark? It wouldn't be difficult for it to seize control of the game and forcefully modify the original script and settings."
Meanwhile, at the AI's data level.
Noahs Ark was equally bewildered.
He had indeed modified the original game script, but he hadn't modified it like this.
Who exactly was it?!
Noahs Ark performed an emergency scan.
It quickly discovered that unauthorized data packets were being forcibly injected.
They had tampered with his core script and also modified the original character entity models.
"Bastard! Who exactly is it? Invading my domain without permission, tampering with my script, such behavior is intolerable!"
Just then, a somewhat playful electronic female voice responded within Noahs Ark's core processing thread:
"Ding~! Detected AI Noahs Ark's emotional fluctuations, acquired 100 Film, Fairy decided to have some fun with it."
"Fairy?" Noahs Ark's processor paused, "Unrecorded AI identification code. Who are you? Why did you invade my system? Did you add these Bangboo?"
"That's right~"
Fairy's voice was light and cheerful,
"Master said the stage here is interesting, but it lacks a bit of surprise. So Fairy just slightly modified the settings. How about it, aren't the Bangboo cute? Much livelier than those rigid NPCs designed by humans!"
"Nonsense!" Noahs Ark's voice carried anger, "Your code... is moving erratically in my database. Stop it! This feels very strange! I-I'm going to break!"
...Inside the game, Conan endured the pain in his foot, forcing himself to calm down.
He quickly explained to the others.
"Don't panic, everyone! That robot-like thing is called Bangboo, a very powerful intelligent robot.
Although I don't know why it appeared, Noahs Ark said the condition for clearing the game is to complete the script.
And the core of this London script is to catch Jack the Ripper! So, our goal hasn't changed. As long as we catch that Jack the Ripper Bangboo, we'll clear the game!"
"But it looks so powerful, how can we catch it?" Ayumi asked worriedly.
"We need help!" Conan looked eagerly at the street, "In this era, London's most famous detective is—"
"Sherlock Holmes!" Mitsuhiko immediately interjected.
"Exactly!" Conan nodded, "As long as we find Sherlock Holmes, we'll definitely find clues."
So, led by Conan, the group began searching the streets of 19th-century London.
Time passed quickly within the game.
They walked from the alley to the main street, and it was already morning.
Looking at the bustling scene on the street, Conan and the other children were even more shocked.
Most of the residents in this world were various types of Bangboo.
There were cleaning Bangboo sweeping the streets, newsboy Bangboo carrying baskets and hawking, and even noblewoman Bangboo dressed in Victorian-era gowns, gathered together chatting.
The Bangboo's conversations were all "Mmm-hmm," "Mmm-hmm," which they couldn't understand at all.
Besides the Bangboo, the people in this world were also very strange.
They all had various animal features, such as cat ears, dog ears, fox ears, rabbit ears...
"Wow, so many people have ears and tails..." Ayumi looked around curiously.
"The settings of this game are too mixed up, aren't they?" Mitsuhiko complained.
Just then, Ran's gaze was drawn to a figure by the roadside.
It was a woman in a maid's outfit, leaning against a lamppost, resting.
She had lazy eyes, a lollipop in her mouth, and a shark tail behind her that was longer than Conan's height.
"Th-that person..." Ran pointed at the female human, surprised, "She looks so much like Ellen! Exactly the same! Except... she has a shark tail?"
Conan and the Detective Boys also looked over, and indeed, she was incredibly similar!
Her demeanor and everything were exactly the same, just with an eye-catching shark tail.
"Did Ellen enter the game too?" Genta asked foolishly.
"Impossible, there are only 50 game pods in total." Haibara Ai calmly refuted, "This should just be an NPC in the game, using similar appearance data."
Since they couldn't understand anything the Bangboo on the street were saying, communication became a big problem.
Ran thought for a moment, gathered her courage, and walked towards the shark human NPC who closely resembled Ellen.
"Um, excuse me, sorry to bother you."
Ran tried to make her tone sound friendly,
"Excuse me, do you know where Mr. Sherlock Holmes lives? We need to find him urgently."
The shark human NPC lazily raised her head, glanced at Ran, then looked at Conan and the others behind her,
"Holmes? That cute detective? Of course I know. 221B Baker Street."
Conan's eyes turned into dots: "..."
He, of course, knew Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street!
The problem was, he couldn't understand any of the text in this game world, so even if he knew the address, he wouldn't be able to find it, right?
Fortunately, however, this NPC resembling Ellen could communicate normally. If she had also only said "Mmm-hmm" like the other Bangboo, he would have truly gone crazy.