After a series of chaotic incidents, Chihiro finally managed to subdue her unruly club members and ordered them to clean up all the party props.
Before getting to the real reason I had come to Veritas, it was only proper to introduce myself to the rest of the students.
"I'm Konuri Maki. My hobby is street graffiti!"
The first to speak was the red haired girl who had waited behind the door to give me a surprise attack, only to hit Chihiro instead and get scolded. The paint splatters on her uniform were clear evidence of her hobby.
From her behavior, Maki seemed straightforward and carefree, the type who acted first and thought later. She was small, cute, and full of energy.
Her crimson hair was tied into two lively buns. Her sky blue eyes gleamed with playful excitement as she looked me up and down.
"Hmmm… so you really are the famous teacher from Schale everyone online keeps talking about. You look pretty stylish. Are you into art?"
It was the first time anyone had ever used that word to describe me, and it caught me off guard.
After all, I always wore the same Schale uniform every day. I had never put thought into fashion, nor did I think I had anything to do with it.
Maybe Schale's uniform happened to look good. Or maybe the plain uniform only looked unique because it happened to be worn by me.
Personally, I leaned toward the latter.
Next was a silver haired, dark olive eyed girl with a gentle gaze.
"I'm so glad to meet you, Sensei. I'm Omagari Hare, Veritas's engineer. Please take care of us."
Hare's tone matched her appearance, warm and soft.
Her slightly wavy hair was pinned back with a black cross shaped clip. Her white uniform had been modified into a long coat, and underneath she wore a simple black hoodie that was also longer than usual.
In stark contrast, her lower half was…
She might have been wearing shorts, but they were so short that they were entirely hidden beneath the hem of her hoodie. Visually, it looked as if her bright white legs emerged directly from the black fabric, a sight that stirred a certain curiosity.
I wanted to lift the hoodie myself and see with my own eyes whether she was actually wearing shorts.
The last was a girl with pale blonde hair and purple eyes with pink pupils, wearing headphones around her neck and radiating harmlessness.
"Millennium Science School, Otose Kotama."
Her tone was curt and her words were few. If I had not seen her blowing the party whistle earlier, I would have thought she was difficult to approach.
Now, I only felt she was quiet, awkward, and not very good at socializing.
I could not help but reflect. These three girls, along with Chihiro, were clearly sweet and endearing. How had they earned such a notorious reputation as eccentrics?
Once we finished introductions, Chihiro finally asked:
"Sensei, I haven't had the chance to ask yet. What brings you to Veritas today?"
At last we reached the main topic. I quickly took out the smartphone infected with the Trojan virus and handed it to Chihiro.
"I'd like to request your help in tracking down the hacker who spread this virus."
Chihiro glanced at the screen and frowned lightly. "Telecom extortion?"
"Yes. This phone belongs to one of my students."
"I see. In that case, Veritas will take this request."
There was almost no hesitation. She agreed immediately, without even mentioning payment. She handed the phone to the members beside her and assigned tasks swiftly.
"Hare, analyze the virus's algorithm. Kotama, prepare to trace its source and try to pinpoint a location. Maki, check the bank account receiving the payment."
The Veritas girls each took their assignments and dove into rapid fire computer operations within moments.
But as the deputy director, Chihiro did not join them right away. She stayed by me and asked:
"Sensei, I have a question."
"Please go ahead."
Chihiro nodded slightly. "Alright. What I want to know is this. The amount the culprit demanded isn't very large. Why would you come all the way to Veritas for something so small? Was it out of anger? Or perhaps…"
Her question surprised me. I was not sure what she was thinking, but there was nothing to hide.
"The owner of this phone isn't well off. She works part time every day to support herself. So I won't forgive anyone who uses dirty tricks to make her cry."
I left out unnecessary details, keeping it simple. Then I added:
"And more importantly, if we don't catch the culprit quickly, more students might fall into the same trap. That's something I absolutely cannot allow."
"I see…"
Chihiro looked at me thoughtfully, then took a slow breath and spoke with quiet conviction.
"In that case, Veritas will not accept any payment for this request."
I blinked. "…What? What do you mean?"
"Well, how should I put it…" A smile appeared on the normally cool girl's face, like the first thaw of winter. "That's something we absolutely cannot allow either. So this time, we'll treat it as volunteer work."
In other words, I was gaining yet another debt of gratitude.
But if the person I owed was a principled, justice minded, genuinely fascinating girl, I had no complaints.
So I accepted without resistance. "Thank you. Truly."
"It's alright. This is something Veritas should be doing."
Chihiro stood up. "Well then, I'll go help too. Please wait just a moment, Sensei. It shouldn't take long. After all, if they're still using bank transfers and don't even know how to use cryptocurrency, their level is pretty low. Even the virus interface looks crude."
The confidence of a senior white hat hacker was infectious.
And just as Chihiro predicted, the members began producing results alarmingly quickly.
"Senpai! I found it. The bank card was issued by a black market bank. It's anonymous, no way to identify the owner."
Maki reported with a hint of regret.
"Oh. That's fine." Chihiro explained to me, "This was within expectations. I just wanted to check whether the culprit was unbelievably stupid."
Next, Kotama spoke up.
"Chihiro-senpai, I can't find the server."
Chihiro frowned again. "Even you can't trace it? That's strange. Normally, the culprit's concealment shouldn't be this strong."
"No. Rather than saying it's hidden too well…" Kotama paused, confusion creeping into her voice. "It feels like the server is disconnected. No, more like… there's no trace it ever existed. Could it be that it never existed at all?"
Chihiro's expression stiffened. "…Huh? Then where did the device get the public key? And where was it supposed to send any data?"
Even someone like me with almost no knowledge of cybersecurity could tell things were no longer following Chihiro's expectations.
"Um, I have an issue on my side too."
Hare raised her left hand hesitantly.
"Um… this doesn't seem to be ransomware at all."
Chihiro fell silent for a moment before asking in an equally hesitant tone, "…What?"
"I checked it. None of the files were encrypted. They're simply gone. Judging from how clean it is, and how it only forces a black screen with specific text, could it be that the phone was formatted and had a fresh system installed?"
I suddenly remembered what Sora had said. At the very beginning, the phone had inexplicably gone dark and refused to turn on no matter what she tried.
Chihiro sank into complete silence. Her expression tightened, as if she were assembling a puzzle in her mind.
Only after a long pause did she speak again, her voice stiff.
"So this isn't extortion, but pure scam. Ugh… did I underestimate the culprit, or overestimate them?"
The Veritas girls exchanged looks. On their faces were emotions both enlightened and bewildered.
I alone still had no grasp of the situation. I had been completely left behind.
I opened my mouth, closed it, then opened it again. In the end, I could not hold back and asked carefully, "Um… so what exactly is going on now?"
"Ah, sorry, Sensei. I'll explain."
As Veritas's deputy director, Chihiro stepped forward without hesitation and broke it down in terms even an outsider could understand.
"Simply put, the threat to expose information if you don't pay is a lie, and the promise to restore the phone if you pay is also a lie. The virus the culprit used deletes all the data on the device, then replaces the interface with this single message demanding payment. And the original data cannot be recovered."
So that was it.
I understood the general picture and fell silent.
Thinking it over, wasn't this even worse? They deleted everything someone had saved, preyed on fear to trick them into paying, and even if they paid, nothing would change.
This was taking pleasure in trampling another person's feelings.
Chihiro lowered her head with a sigh. Her glasses flashed coldly as her voice turned frigid.
"The culprit doesn't even qualify as a hacker. They're just garbage."
I felt that this insulted garbage everywhere. Not that I felt personally implicated. I simply pitied the few individuals whose intentions were good, who only sought to give happiness to many and were forced by circumstance to juggle too much. That kind of garbage deserved defending.
"The worst part," Chihiro muttered anxiously, "Is that this makes them very hard to track."
The worst case scenario was unfolding.
I did not know whether to call the culprit foolish or cunning. By choosing the crudest method possible, they had blocked off normal avenues of pursuit.
Even Veritas, with all its power, could not sift through the ocean of data online and identify who had spread the virus.
Were we really going to let the culprit walk free?
The air in the clubroom grew heavy.
"By the way," Hare asked, "Sensei, do you know where the phone got infected?"
"I think… according to the owner, the screen went black while she was browsing a forum…"
"…Huh? A forum?"
Chihiro seemed to seize on something and quickly asked, "You're sure she was only browsing the forum and didn't download something strange?"
"Uh… I'm not entirely sure…"
I replied awkwardly. I had completely forgotten to ask Sora that.
"Hmmm… when you think about it, it is odd." Maki frowned and pointed out, "If a malicious virus like this could be downloaded by accident from a normal site, it should have spread all over the internet by now. There's no way none of us would have heard of it."
Kotama added, "Even before that, would a virus of this level really bypass the phone's built in firewall? It should be flagged right away. Even if she accidentally tapped a download, there would be warnings asking for confirmation. No one would mis-tap that many times."
As they discussed, more inconsistencies appeared, and the truth became murkier.
A faint doubt crept into my mind. Had Sora been hiding something? Had she secretly downloaded something she couldn't tell me?
No… she's too young… although it's not impossible…
But I still chose to believe Sora had told me the truth without reservation.
"So the most important question now," Chihiro summarized, "Is how the virus was implanted into this phone."
She turned to me again, polite and measured.
"Sensei, this is what I think. You might need to ask the owner again whether she recently downloaded any high risk software from small, obscure websites. If something like that happened, we'll have a new lead."
"She… I don't think she would hide anything from me…"
Seeing my troubled expression, Chihiro thought for a moment before asking, "Or did she perhaps lend the phone to someone suspicious?"
"That should also be…"
After all, the phone had only reached Sora yesterday. With how much she cherished it, the only situation where she would lend it out was if someone truly needed help…
Wait.
A spark went off in my mind.
Before this smartphone reached Sora, it had been somewhere else for quite a while.
"Everyone," I said gravely, "this phone is secondhand."
Chihiro's eyebrow rose. Maki let out an impressed sound. Kotama's eyes lit up. Hare took a sip of her energy drink.
"In that case, Sensei, what are we waiting for?" Chihiro smiled. "Please contact the seller immediately."