Cyber Era Witch
Chapter 965 - 766: Confronting the Patricide - Part 2

Chapter 965: Chapter 766: Confronting the Patricide - Part 2

"What?"

"I venture to guess: this is because only a few employees have been working in this unit for a long time, so most people have developed the habit of working alone. They know that even when encountering problems, they should not consult with each other, or they simply can’t find a suitable person to consult with," said Nakamura Mizuki.

"So what? That’s just how we are," Rinne seemed a bit irritated.

"I assume you have very high privileges in this area, it appears you are the main administrator for this subsection, but report directly to Mr. Web Monitor. I hope to receive some technical support from you, which means, even though you cannot work with me, you would provide timely responses when I present you with all the necessary questions. This is the minimum requirement before I begin my work," she said.

"Understood. Please start," although Rinne was angered by Nakamura Mizuki, her messages remained dry text in the data exchange, betraying no emotion.

"I will deal with the Laughing Star’s information virus bomb efficiently and responsibly, you can be assured of that," said Nakamura Mizuki.

She accessed the main server of "Paraiso" using the key provided by Xu Yang.

Cybersecurity engineers, hackers, nearly two sides of the same coin.

Nakamura Mizuki knew how to exploit other systems if she were to develop a virus, thus she could also protect systems and purify viruses using reverse engineering.

First, she boldly carved through the server, efficiently isolating the infected areas from the non-infected ones, then proceeded with targeted risk assessments.

Name: "Laughing Star Virus"

Effect: Transforms all infected system files, code, and databases into yellow bean smiley faces. Some files turned into tens of thousands of yellow beans sweating, seemingly representing Laughing Star’s disdainful attitude.

Evaluation: A form of self-replicating malicious code, infecting and replacing files in databases with frightening speed, and the infected files function normally, except all outputs are smiley faces, causing players in the game world to encounter endless smiling faces, triggering their fear and convulsions.

She quickly formulated a plan.

First was to apply network segmentation technology, separate infected systems from non-infected ones, rebuild a reliable data firewall and perform physical isolation, forcefully preventing cross-system access, ensuring the Laughing Star virus no longer spreads.

Using her extensive experience, she created a "botnet" – a program simulating a database – and fed it to the infected areas of the Laughing Star virus, which was quickly captured, and the virus turned Nakamura Mizuki’s program into a whole set of yellow bean expressions.

She dragged the infected file back into a special "sandbox" virtual system to observe, like a biologist placing virus tissue in a laboratory environment’s culture medium.

After about 4 hours of repeated testing, Nakamura Mizuki believed she had found the answer.

"So it’s like this..." Nakamura Mizuki thought, "It’s not just a virus, but a complete set of parasitic artificial intelligence, specializing in writing operating systems and game files. So instead of replicating itself, it is inventing and writing new code in real-time. This is a set of yellow bean code, a whole system running on yellow bean smiley expressions."

Laughing Star’s approach is akin to removing all the wheels of a big truck and replacing them with her own yellow bean round faces, then reinstalling them on the axles, and the truck still runs normally.

Genius indeed is genius, but also exasperating.

Nakamura Mizuki logged out of the system, bringing her findings to Xu Yang and Rinne for processing.

"I have found that the network work units in your company seriously lack a spirit of collaboration, hence I am bringing my task out and proposing that we collaborate on a reverse engineering project. I have confirmed that the Laughing Star virus operates by converting all code into emoji, which means she has replaced all 1,114,112 mapped characters in our current common system with yellow bean smiley faces, differentiated only by pixel-level distinctions. If we match these 1,114,112 slightly different smiley face symbols back to their original codes and restore them, we can completely eradicate the Laughing Star virus," said Nakamura Mizuki.

The straightforward nature of Nakamura Mizuki’s words left Xu Yang and Rinne without much of an inclination to argue.

Just like that, they actually wrote a program together to reverse the Laughing Star virus. After Nakamura Mizuki grasped the principle, it wasn’t difficult.

Nakamura Mizuki took the antivirus program back with her, then Rinne couldn’t help but complain to Xu Yang.

"Why does she get to order us around?" Rinne asked.

"She... She’s just weird like that." Xu Yang couldn’t explain it well either.

This was the first time he had encountered a strange woman like Nakamura Mizuki, but perhaps they were in need of such a woman.

Nakamura Mizuki took the collaborative antivirus program back to the database. This time, she didn’t work in the isolated system but went directly into the infected zone to confront Laughing Star.

"Look who it is!" the virtual persona left by Laughing Star taunted Nakamura Mizuki, "Hey, hey, want to hear a joke? A joke about your father?"

"It’s strange, an AI left behind, bereft of any ability to act, trying to use its limited database to generate a poor joke. You’re well aware that you don’t have the capacity to connect to the network, and yet you’re just leftovers in a system close to extinction, still attempting to perform your original function of telling jokes. No, don’t bother with the jokes, your very existence is the biggest joke." Nakamura Mizuki said.

"..."

"My knowledge in psychology tells me that a computer personality left behind usually lacks genuine empathic abilities and wouldn’t analyze its own personality flaws. Laughing Star wouldn’t provide you with such a function. Considering these conditions, I can offer you this service free of charge, so you can understand how many flaws there are in your imitation of humans." Nakamura Mizuki said.

"You are here to destroy me, but now, I bring the entire system down with me, ha ha!" All of the smiling faces, all the virus codes began to collapse, unable to sustain themselves.

"As a high-protection standard online game’s main server, it carries enough backups to completely rebuild the damage you’ve caused; you’ve actually made my job a lot easier. Oh, my apologies, this is the joke you wanted to show me earlier, I misunderstood."

"Don’t be so arrogant! Those players I’ve trapped, they’ll go mad, die! Too amusing! I’ve broken their consciousness!"

"Yes, very amusing. Since Kanako Entertainment Company cut costs, it didn’t provide real consciousness upload services, so the trapped players’ consciousness is a moot point. I’m surprised you failed to realize this; is this your way of indirectly hinting at your own inherent defects? If so, I can attempt to upgrade you." Nakamura Mizuki said.

Laughing Star could no longer laugh.

...

Nakamura Mizuki left the game system she had repaired and returned to the real world.

"The trouble left by Laughing Star is no longer a problem." Nakamura Mizuki told Xu Yang.

"That’s great." Xu Yang was very pleased.

Nakamura Mizuki demonstrated exceptional technical and psychological skills, and her abundant practical experience meant she was well-suited for work in the cybersecurity department at Nestor Corporation.

"Now I’d like to know some things." Nakamura Mizuki said cautiously.

"Thank you for your work, we probably can trust each other now. Whatever you want to know, I’ll answer." Xu Yang said kindly.

"During the last operation my father planned before his death, he attacked Nestor Corporation but was repelled by ’Nestor Corporation’s Mr. Web Monitor,’ which was a significant factor leading to his suicide. I want to know, who among your team specifically is this Web Monitor, he is to some extent the murderer who killed my father."

"Me." Xu Yang said.