'Ah, that was fun.'
I had so much fun for the first time in a while that I was completely drained of energy.
I was a bit worried that if we hung out together outside, we wouldn't know what to do and would just end up standing around awkwardly.
Fortunately, thanks to all of our members becoming much closer dring the past semester, even though today was our first after-party, it seemed that everyone had a lot of fun and had a great time together.
After parting ways with the club members, I was trudging home alone through the night when.
[Rrrriiiing ]
Suddenly, I heard the sound of a telephone ringing, and as I looked ahead, a single payphone was ringing away noisily all by itself.
[Rrrrringa]
".....?"
A deserted night street.
In the darkness, a public payphone booth stood with its light on, ringing all alone.
I paused and stared at it for a moment,then simply ignored it and just walked past.
'I'd be an idiot to mess with that.'
It's always better to avoid suspicious things and suspicious situations whenever possible.
Especially for me.
'I'm going to Seoul Cyber University~and even my stats has changed♪
Humming happily to myself, just as I had passed the public payphone by a few steps.
[KakaoTalk~♪]
Suddenly, a KakaoTalk message arrived on my phone.
I pulled out my phone to check, and it was a strange, unfamiliar profile registered as an overseas account.
[Anonymous: The phone]
".....Anonymous? Who is it?"
Just as I was wondering what to reply.
Another KakaoTalk message came in from the other person again.
[KakaoTalk~]
[Anonymous: Final Question]
[My doing]
[Rrrrrriiinga]
In that instant, the ringing of the public payphone next to me echoed out loudly once again.
"The last question?"
No way, don't tell me they were talking about that incident during the Korean language exam.
After hesitating for a moment, I finally stepped into the public payphone booth.
'Is this perhaps... that person....?".
It was about time he contacted me.
In the midst of that darkness, I stood
alone inside the brightly lit public payphone booth and briefly thought how to answer the phone, then, going with my instincts, I picked up the receiver with a click and brought it to my ear.
"..Hello."
[Telegram Channel Anonymous.]
Click-
Beep- beep- beeeep-
"...."
As I stood there blankly holding the receiver for a moment, I finally realized that the call had ended.
"...What the. Anonemous? Ananimous?"
He had spoken only that one line in a
modulated voice before hanging up, so I couldn't catch it properly.
While lost in thought, I suddenly felt like I had heard that English word from the phone somewhere before.
"...What was it again.'
"Hey, [San] Are you ready?"
[Ah, of course.[spy]]
...Some sh*tty memory felt like it was about to come back to me.
"Hmm.. let's see, maybe it was this group chat.."
I searched through my chat list, trying to piece my memory together, and soon found a group chat I had a long time ago.
'Ah, this room is still alive. It's been a while.'
In that chat room, all the records from the time I first joined were still listed.
I slowly went through them again, carefully rereading everything from the beginning as I tried to recall the memories.
[Dukhun the Spy has invited Lee Joon.]
[Dukhun the Spy: Oi,meet the new member.]
[Lee Joon: Nice to meet you. I'm Dukhun's friend.]
[Wasanji: Who is this guy? I think I've heard of him before.]
[Ashina Genichiro: Ah.. I don't know if I should say it but.. This person is the perfect candidate to become the new 'Observer' for our 'Anonymous' group.]
[Timeless Lotus: Oh? And you carn say this by only hearing about him?]
"I remember now. These geek b*stards,"
Dukhun's group of internet friends, consisting of an unemployed guy, a fifth-time highschool repeater, and a public service worker.
Also known as 'Anonymous.
These were the guys I had briefly been
involved with during the Kim Eunjung
incident.
"....Did I get tricked?"
For a mnoment, I felt like an idiot, looking back and forth between the payphone and my phone, but I soon shook my head.
'No. It's real'
In its dictionary definition, 'Anonymous' is an English word meaning'anonymity.' It is generally used as a pseudonym by unidentified internet hackers who conceal their identities when they operate.
Although chuunibyou netizens, those
edgy adolescents who thought it was cool, throw that name around whenever they please, originally it's a name permitted only to anonymous hackers.
The person who just contacted me wasn't some anonymous wanna be borrowing the name like Dukhun's internet friend, it was a real Anonymous.
The 'real deal', people who can break into schools to change exam papers and even hack public payphones.
I hurriedly opened my phone and started installing the Telegram app.
"I've never used anything like this before.. hmm."
After installing it, I quickly looked up how to use Telegram online and searched for the channel name'anonymous', and just as expected, one showed up.
[Channel: @Anonymous]
[19,226 Subscribers]
"19,226?"
Since the only messengers I knew were KakaoTalk and Facebook Messenger, I was puzzled, wondering if all these many people were really gathered together in one room just to chat.
After entering and looking around, I soon realized that it wasn't a regular group chat in the usual sense, and if I were to compare it, it felt more like a KakaoTalk Plus Friend account.
"...Enter."
(Notice)
- Do not trust Clover -
*Do not record or mention anything you learn here in any ordinary apps. Clover has planted backdoors in all their products. With the push of a single button, every product they've ever made will stop functioning
immediately. Real-time civilian surveillance, wiretapping, search history collection, data analysis, and espionage.
[Anonymous: Latest Allegations.♠Clover Civilian Kidnapping and Human Experimentation, Male in His 30s from Gangwon Province. Police Did Not Report Missing Due to Having No Family or Relatives, Media Covered Up the Incident.]
It seemed that only one person, the owner of the channel, could post like this, while the rest, true to their title 'subscribers', merely looked at the Content.
"...Civilian kidnapping?"
I frowned as I read the new post that had just been uploaded to the channel.
'If he had no family or connections and disappeared on his own, how do they know Clover kidnapped him? Seriously.'
Was this a channel intended for spreading rumors like this?
Whoever it was, it seemed to be a channel created by someone who really hated Clove.
"Let's see... what do I do now...."
As I fiddled with it and examined it for a moment, soon Someone started a private conversation with me.
[Anonymous has invited you to a private conversation.]
It was the owner of the Anonymous channel, Anonymous.
"...A private conversation?"
Click.
Whoosh-
• End-to-end encryption
• No traces on the server
• Auto-delete timer
•Unable to take screenshots and save files
"...Hmm. What is this."
I touched the screen and entered the private chat room.
And the moment I entered, the anonymous counterpart suddenly began sending me a flood of files.
Fwoosh- Fwoosh- Fwoosh-
".....!?"
[Anonymous: Nakseong High School
Building Blueprints (version with hidden spaces colored in).jpg]
[Anonymous: List of Nakseong High faculty and administrative staff who are followers of the Void cult.jpg]
[Anonymous: Meeting of the Void Cult Members in Nakseong High School
(March 1, 2019 - July 1, 2019).jpg]
[Anonymous: Ministry of Education
Officials Connected to Nakseong High
School.jpg]
[Anonymous: Current Status of Key Figures During Nakseong High School's Founding.jPg]
[Anonymous: Source of Nakseong High School Construction Funds.jpg]
[Anonymous: List of Void Cult Members Among Nakseong High School Students.jpg]
What the hell was this?
Caught off guard, I hurriedly tapped the last file first, the one titled 'List of Void Cult Members Among Nakseong High School Students'.
Hundreds of names spilled down the
Screen in an instant.
I hurriedly shifted my gaze to my class,
Grade 1 Class 3.
[Gu Yoonjung]
[Ban Janghoon]
[In Hayoon]
....
....
Whoosh-
Just as I tried to look further, the file suddenly vanished.
".....!?"
I hurriedly looked at the chat window. There, not only the file I had been looking at, but also the other files had already vanished without a trace.
All that remained was the empty chat window, just as it had been when first created.
"..W-what? Where did it go? Show me again."
I frantically tapped on the chat.
Tap- tap- tap-
[Lee Joon: Please show me again.]
Then, after a brief silence, my message was suddenly deleted as well.
It was the auto-delete timer function in the private chat window.
fuck!
The files I had just been looking at probably disappeared suddenly because of this function as well.
"..What the? Show it to me again!"
Send them back!
As I waited, fidgeting and stomping my feet in anxiety, a message from the anonymous user suddenly popped up.
[Anonymous: The preliminary round of the Clover Science Exhibition will be held soon.]
[Anonymous: Plug a USB drive into the cellphone of a judge sent from the headquarters there for 20 seconds.]
[Anonymous: The USB is in locker number 1 of the Happy Box at ShinLim Station. The password is the date of birth.]
Anonymous has ended the private
Conversation.
All conversation contents will disappear in 10 seconds.
"What? What? No, wait a moment!"
Flustered, I frantically tapped on my phone, and with time slipping away, hurriedly reread the message from the very beginning.
Clover Science Exhibition preliminary round, USB in the judge's phone, 20 seconds, ShinLim Station locker, date of birth-
Poof.
"...."
The screen changed, and the window was deleted.
Now all that remained was an empty list of chat rooms, with only one Anonymous channel that spread rumors and scraps of information.
(Anonymous:♠Mysterious Viral Mass Infection At The Clover New Employee Dormitory. Internal and External Communications Being Controlled by Intelligence Police, Severe Drug-like Hallucinations Being induced in Religious Believers.)
"....."
***
I turned my steps, which had been heading home, back toward ShinLim Station and stood in front of the Happy Box storage locker.
'Locker No. 1... The password is my date of birth...'
No way, was he talking about my date of birth?
I carefully combined my birth year, 03, with my birth month, July, and entered the four-digit password, 0307.
Click-
As if to say it was the correct answer, locker No. 1 opened automatically with a click.
Inside the wide metal compartment, there was only a single small USB drive sitting all alone.
I quickly grabbed it, worried someone might be watching, slipped it into my pocket, and walked briskly back home.
***
'.....What should I do? Should I tell the club members about this?'
I lay on my bed in my room and stared at the USB I had brought.
It was just an ordinary black USB with
absolutely no distinguishing features, but the unusual thing was that its connector was Type-C.
It was as if it were blatantly telling me to plug it into a phone.
"..Does that mean that if I do everything he tells me to do, I can get the information?"
There was also a way to quickly steal the data by dying and going back.
Even though there was a timer and it got deleted right away, I still had about five seconds or so.
'Check for five seconds after rewinding time, then kill myself again, go back, check for five seconds again. If I do that..."
That was a bad idea.
If I tried doing something like that and kept grinding my mind,I had no idea what would happen to my sanity in the future.
"Then what if I only go back once and record it? It's only impossible to capture inside the phone itself, but if I use another phone and record the screen of the phone from the
outside...."
But remembering how the payphone rang right as I was passing by, it almost felt like someone was watching from somewhere.
"If i try something like that, I'd probably get caught. Then what if I did this...? No, that's not great either... Then maybe this..."
After tossing and turning on the bed, racking my brain trying to come up with a clever workaround, I eventually let out a sigh.
No matter how I thought about it from every angle, in the end, if I wanted to obtain the information, the only option was to follow the instructions.
More importantly, it probably wouldnt stop with just that information; Someone possessing abilities to this extent could likely do far more for me than the files he had sent earlier.
For now, if I did what he asked and built a relationship with him, it would surely be beneficial to me.
After all, the guy was my 'assistant' assigned to me by the system.
'....still, this is beyond anything I imagined. That hacker.'
I knew he was committing terror attacks against the Clover from the shadows, but I never imagined his capabilities were this great.
Of course, the jailbreak itself had been made possible by the system, but it was still astonishing that he was openly active again after slipping through the tight surveillance of the Korean police.
Furthermore, the fact that he had investigated me and secured this kind of data in such a short time gave me goosebumps, yet at the same time made my heart race.
'....Could it be that this person hacked into the school's security and got away with it?'
When? How?
I had no idea, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like something he might very well be capable of doing.
After all, this guy, Ryu Jaehyun, the hacker who was my helper, was someone who had single-handedly carried out attacks against the world's largest conglomerate.
Even that arrest was only possible thanks to my cheat-like regression ability, but in my previous life, when I wasn't active, he might never have been caught in the end.
Of course, the Void cult was also as strange and shrouded in mystery as Clover, but its strength lay in the organization of its followers and its incomprehensible religious influence; ultimately, it had nothing to do with IT technology.
I was confident a monstrous genius who regularly went head-to-head with a massive tech behemoth like Clover would have no trouble breaking through the security of a mere cult.
That shadowed anonymous hacker, Ryu Jaehyun, had tried to make contact with me.
Wearing the mask of 'Anonymous'.
I wonder if he has always been active under this name from the shadows.'
I tossed and turned again, mulling it Over.
'Should I tell the other members about this..."
Of course, talking about it itself wasn't an issue, but the problem was the Detective.
If the Detective were to find out, even to the slightest degree, that we were joining hands with a hacker who had not only destroyed the world but also committed bombing terrorism and crimes.
And that we were carrying out suspicious activities according to his instructions.
"...It would really be a huge disaster."
One thing was for sure; I absolutely must not tell Teacher Jang Hwaeun.
'And among the members, I'll have to hide from Hayoon that the school got hacked.. and then... maybe I should talk to Gyeongwon first, since he's the most knowledgeable about this kind of thing, and also.....'
I tossed and turned on the bed, lost in
thought like that, and soon drifted off to sleep without even realizing it.
'Zzz."