Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!-Chapter 316: Clues—To the Villain

Her laptop pinged.

"Ugh, what now?" she muttered, dragging herself over like she hadn't just seen a cursed-ass shadow demon eat her brother on cam. She opened the lid, expecting spam, a virus, or maybe one of Cedric's old "tickin' time Ced Bombs"—those scheduled video links he loved to send just to ruin her day. Dude had made it an art form. She braced for a cringey clip of him showing off a new hacking trick or maybe him deep-faking their principal singing Despacito in opera voice again.

But when she clicked the link, it wasn't cringe. It wasn't funny.

It was—

Boom.

The screen lit up with chaos.

Two teenagers. Straight up duking it out in the middle of what looked like an abandoned parking lot lit by that moody streetlight aesthetic. But this wasn't fists and shoves. No, this was anime boss battle levels of insane. One of them had wild glowing tattoos across his arms, throwing hands like Zeus had loaned him a lightning subscription. The other was taller, sharper, wearing black like he was born in a Hot Topic sale bin—but this dude moved different. Calculated. Cold. Like he was fighting math itself.

Karen blinked. "What the fuck am I watching—?"

Then the video shifted. New angle.

Another camera?

This one showed his face.

Clear as day.

Parker.

Dark-haired. Calm eyes. Drenched in blood and smoke like he ordered chaos with extra sauce. And there—lying crumpled behind him—was the other dude. Dead. Like, "bro just got deleted from the server" dead. Parker stood over the body, breathing slow, gaze fixed not at the camera but… off to the side. Staring at something—someone—like he could see past the lens. Karen swore her skin goosebumped.

Then he walked away. No panic. No wipe-the-prints move. Just—vibes.

Her jaw? On the floor.

She leaned back, eyes wide, nearly falling out her damn chair. "Nope. Nope nope nope. That's not normal. That's not TikTok beef. That's serial killer energy."

But still… something clicked.

Cedric had filmed this.

He'd hidden the camera. Sent a dead-drop file. Timed it after his death.

This Parker guy? Either the last person Ced saw… or the reason Ced was gone.

And that car—Karen scrubbed back, paused the frame—there. License plate halfway visible. Out-of-state. But there were details. Hood ornament. Decal. Bumper sticker that said "My Other Ride Is Anxiety."

"Found you, motherfucker," she whispered, eyes lighting up like she'd just unlocked a cheat code.

She didn't know what Parker was. God? Demon? Murderous varsity chess champ? No clue.

But Ced left her a trail.

And she wasn't the type to sit still.

"Watch out, ya cryptid pretty boy. If you killed Ced…" She cracked her knuckles, hoodie half-falling off her shoulder like some angsty Netflix main character. "Then I'm gonna end you with a Chromebook and a fuckin' vengeance playlist."

And just like that, she started digging.

First lead: That car.

Second lead: That face.

Third lead: The weird-ass glow she saw just before the screen cut out.

And somewhere between her grief and that demon whisper from earlier, Karen decided—

If the heavens were hiding shit?

Then she was gonna go full Greek tragedy on it's ass— metaphorically speaking.

With eyeliner, caffeine, and spite.

****

Morning spilled into the tiny room like a drunk dude crashing a party he wasn't even invited to. Light slid across the floor, hit the empty bed first — a bed that honestly looked like it hadn't seen a real nap in year.

Not good, not bad either. Just... there. Kinda sad, actually. The blanket was all crumpled at the foot, a couple of pillows looking half-hearted like they'd given up on life. The rest of the room wasn't doing much better — old wallpapers curling off the walls, a crooked stack of tech magazines on the floor, one sad plant on the windowsill that was basically a green stick at this point.

The place felt like someone used to love it, but now it was just trying not to fall apart.

And then —

BAM.

Karen jerked awake, head snapping up from the laptop where she'd passed out. She tried to stand without thinking. Bad fucking idea. Her knees slammed into the underside of the desk with a painful thud, and the sudden impact bounced her back down into her chair with a squeal that sounded way too dramatic for the situation.

"Motherf—!" she cursed under her breath, rubbing her knee and shooting the desk a murderous look like it owed her money.

The sourc𝗲 of this content is freēwēbηovel.c૦m.

For a few seconds, she just sat there, dazed, blinking at nothing. Then, like a goddamn freight train, reality crashed into her.

Her brother. His death. The police. The empty, shitty apologies.

The way the world kept turning like he hadn't even mattered.

And then — her last frantic hours. Fingers flying across her keyboard, digging deep into places normal people weren't even supposed to know existed.

She'd hacked until her brain gave up and her body crashed, right here, head buried in old chips and sticky notes, like some desperate little night witch trying to bargain with the universe.

And fuck, her heart knew.

It knew she was close. Too close to quit now.

Her eyes snapped open, wild and sharp.

Her last lead. The car. That goddamn car. She remembered it now — how she'd finally tracked it down after hours of clawing through dead ends and fake IDs and data locked tighter than a nun's bedroom door.

The name attached to it hadn't been much — boring as hell, suspiciously ordinary. But the car? Nah. That was the jackpot. A Jesko Absolut wasn't some random dude's toy. Not in L.A. Not customized the way this one was. That kind of beast had a paper trail.

Hard to find? Yeah.

Impossible? Bitch, please. This was Karen.

There was a reason she'd topped every damn year at MIT — not just topped, wrecked — and why she had a freaking reserved spot at HelixCore, the hottest, scariest, most don't-fuck-with-them IT company in the world.

Yeah. That HelixCore. The one the government "definitely didn't hire" to do shady shit, the tech company basically running half of Silicon Valley right now. Hacking into Wilder's internal records was just another Tuesday night for her.

She knew the second she saw it, she was well informed thanks to the years monitoring the big dogs at her boss's request— only Wilders could sell a Jesko like that, especially one customized enough to make even rich assholes drool. They were her first clue. The first real string to pull in a knot that had taken her brother away.

Karen slammed her laptop shut and dragged in a breath so deep it hurt.

Today was gonna be messy. Dangerous. Maybe even fatal.

But hell if she was backing down now.

She pushed up from the chair, cringing when her back cracked like an old man's. Then the cursing started all over again as she scrambled around the room, throwing on clothes like a tornado dressed people now.

"Fuck this room, fuck this tiny-ass closet pretending to be a bedroom," she muttered, yanking a hoodie over her head. Her jeans got stuck halfway up one leg and she almost faceplanted again. The place smelled like old carpet and a little bit of desperation, and honestly? She was so over it.

This used to be her safe place in her cousin's house, the one her mom insisted she crash at so she could be "around family" while she processed the grief.

Big whoop.

She didn't want family. She wanted answers. She wanted justice. And she wanted out of this dump yesterday. She could afford an expensive apartment in uptown if she sneezed, but here she was, slumming it out of guilt and parental pressure.

Karen yanked on her sneakers, jammed her laptop into a ratty old backpack, and bolted out the door, flipping off the sad little room one last time on her way out.

It was time.

Time to roll into Beverly Hills.

Time to crack this mystery wide open.

And hell, if she was lucky? Maybe break a few things on the way.