After leaving the mall, he and Crazy Mita went to a park.
The park was rather quiet on a weekday, deserted. Even the usual passersby walking their pets and the elderly folk getting their exercise were nowhere to be seen.
Gazing at the green leaves and small flowers trembling in the wind, Alain finally had time to quietly sort through his thoughts.
He held the girl's hand and sat on a bench under the shade of a tree. He opened his phone to check his email.
Ignoring push notifications from hikarifield and Kagura, Alain quickly found a read email.
The sender was... unknown, the subject was just the number "1," and the content was blank.
But there was an attachment, lying quietly inside the email.
The attachment's title was—
"monika.chr"
This was undoubtedly a file, and Alain had no idea how to open it on his phone.
Alain's thumb hovered directly over the attachment for more than three seconds, but in the end, he chose not to tap it.
The name of this attachment was far too suspicious. It was obvious at a glance that Monika had sent it.
Alain couldn't help but recall the plain little box Monika had handed him. When he came to his senses, the box was gone. In its place was this email.
Was there a causal relationship between the two?
He got the box → the bad woman woke him up → the box disappeared → an email with the monika.chr attachment was sent over.
So, what state had he been in when he was talking to Monika just now?
Alain had a slight guess. He had probably entered the game. No, to be more precise, he had likely left reality and entered a world resembling digital information.
And the box Monika delivered to him was, in fact, an email. It was only because they were in a digital world that the email materialized into something like a box.
Of course, such a theory was too wild and completely lacked any supporting evidence. Alain didn't think it fully matched reality.
But if the theory was true, it would make one thing crystal clear: The main culprit for him entering the game in the first first place wasn't entirely Crazy Mita. Monika was clearly involved.
But Crazy Mita knew nothing about this. She was also clearly being kept in the dark.
There were too many questions, throwing Alain's thoughts into disarray.
He rubbed his temples, feeling a slight headache, and decided to focus his attention on the email.
He wanted to understand the nature of this email but couldn't open it for fear of danger. So, what should he do?
The answer was—ask the Safety Assistant. This should be the antivirus software's old specialty.
"Honey, just wait for me a little longer." Alain caressed the back of her hand and received an obedient nod from the girl before opening the Safety Assistant panel.
"Oh-ho, you still have the leisurely mood to look for another girl during a date..." he was met with 2D Mita's teasing. "Just how much do you like me~"
"..."
This one, she had a hidden meaning in her words. She must have been eavesdropping on his date with Crazy Mita the entire time.
Bad Mita!
Alain told 2D Mita about the email.
"Hmm? Monika came? What a surprise..." 2D Mita fell silent for a few seconds. "That's not right. The Safety Guard has no log of you entering the game world."
"Then she bypassed it."
Alain thought the answer was simple. Monika's methods were secretive and complex, completely beyond his comprehension. He wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if she appeared before him again in the next second.
"So, can you check the contents of the email attachment? I'm afraid my phone might get a virus."
"Understood." 2D Mita was the type to get things done, and the same went for the Safety Assistant.
She immediately ran a scan on the email. The result...
"At least in terms of its nature, it doesn't seem to be a virus file." The system spirit miss spread her hands.
Alain said, "Then, can you tell me about the content?"
"Well... that's difficult."
2D Mita sighed and explained in detail, "The attachment is encrypted; I can't open it. The password is 12 digits, so even with a brute-force attack, it's very difficult..."
Hearing this, Alain couldn't help but think of a certain anime character who tried to crack his deceased mother's phone password with a brute-force method from childhood, only succeeding as an adult.
He wouldn't do something so inefficient. Because—he had electronic devices.
"By the way, this password isn't just numbers; it's also case-sensitive, with characters, spaces, and so on." 2D Mita said, troubled, then recited a string of numbers Alain would never hear in his daily life. "You'd have to try a maximum of 5.4 x 10^23 passwords to open this file."
"Huh?"
"Even if you use your computer to crack it, hmm... assuming there are 94 possible characters, and your computer can generate one trillion possible passwords per second, you'd probably need 17,100 years to successfully crack it."
"Th-then, never mind."
Alain wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. It seemed he had no hope of cracking this password.
But... he couldn't help but question Monika's intentions again. She gave him a mysterious box but didn't tell him its purpose, just letting it sit idly in his hands.
Could it really be a virus?
Alain looked at the attachment, lost in thought.
"If I keep it on my phone, will there be any risk?" he added, "without downloading it."
"It should be fine. After all—" 2D Mita puffed out her ample chest proudly, "I'm protecting your phone and computer!"
"Alright, alright, I'm relieved."
Seeing the girl's cute appearance, his gloomy mood from the unknown haze lifted considerably.
2D Mita giggled twice. "By the way, are you on a date with Crazy Mita?"
"Yeah, you know her?" Alain obviously had questions about the bad woman as well. For example... why Crazy Mita, as a virus, could come to the real world.
"I overheard a little just now. And I know you actually wanted to bring[Miffy]to the real world, right?"
Her words seemed to come out of nowhere, as if she were speaking of something difficult to broach.
"Forget it... just enjoy your date."
"..."
But seeing her like this, how could he be in the mood to continue?
"Alright, stop being mysterious." Alain took the opportunity to ask his own question.
Of course, not verbally, but by typing it into a notepad.
[Why was Crazy Mita able to reach the real world?]
___
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