After being missing for half a month, Taichi explained it as him playing some sort of game. But when he asked Koushiro what he'd been up to, Koushiro paused slightly, then responded:
"For me, I've been tracking an organization online. They've been invading encrypted networks everywhere and causing a lot of trouble."
As soon as he saw this, Taichi flinched and immediately recalled what Rina had mentioned earlier.
Clearly, that so-called hacker group was actually Digimon that had entered cyberspace. Firewalls and various protective measures set up by humans were basically meaningless against them.
The form of Digimon was simply too bizarre—similar yet fundamentally different from human-created programs—making tracking them extremely difficult.
But most tech wizards were proud individuals; the more mysterious and powerful this hacker group appeared, the more it attracted attention and pursuit from the global hacking community.
Unfortunately, the previous attempts to corner this organization had all ended in failure. The mysterious group's members moved like digital ghosts, leaving no traces whatsoever during their invasions.
As a genius programmer and hacker himself, Koushiro naturally took great interest in this. Several of his friends had already joined those failed attempts…
One of them was even a university student from China who served as the commander during the operations (this guy had once hacked the Pentagon during the Diaboromon incident and retrieved the nuclear missile launch data, secretly a huge player).
Yet even with someone of his caliber directing things, the pursuit still failed.
Many top hackers were feeling frustrated, while Koushiro grew even more intrigued…
"I spent these last two weeks helping with tracking, but we still haven't found any reliable clues. Right now, we have no idea who they really are."
"Oh, I see…"
Taichi almost blurted out the truth, but eventually he held himself back.
"…Those hackers probably aren't simple. You might want to avoid getting too deeply involved."
Taichi considered carefully and decided to warn his friend. Seeing this, Koushiro laughed gently.
"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing~"
Afterward, the two chatted casually a bit more. Taichi explained he'd be going out again soon, possibly unable to reply for a while. Koushiro acknowledged this, and their conversation ended there.
Disconnecting, Koushiro rubbed his temples. Seeing Taichi safe and energetic after half a month relieved him greatly.
Just as he was about to check an encrypted forum frequented by his tech friends for any updates on the hacker group, he suddenly received a message from an unknown ID.
"?"
Koushiro had multiple email accounts. This particular one he'd just used was private, strictly reserved for talking with close friends. He'd set it to reject any unknown IDs, even encrypting it with his own custom-built software.
Yet someone had bypassed his encryption and sent this email through anyway.
This intrusion alone, without even reading the email's contents, was practically an open challenge to any skilled hacker.
Koushiro's interest immediately flared. The email contained no attachments or extra code, just a few short lines of text.
The sender's ID read simply: "wizard."
"Wizard?"
His eyes moved downward to read the email's body…
"…I know the 'truth' you seek. However, if you wish to learn it from me, you must first pass my 'test.'"
Following that simple sentence was a seemingly random string of encrypted characters.
Obviously, this was the "challenge" given to Koushiro—to decode the message and discover useful clues.
"Oh? Looks… very interesting indeed."
A direct challenge like this naturally had to be accepted, especially since the sender claimed to offer something Koushiro deeply desired in exchange.
Regardless of whether this mysterious person truly knew any secrets, the fact he could bypass Koushiro's encryption already demonstrated extraordinary skills.
Koushiro immediately tried tracing the email but found absolutely no trail left behind. It was almost as if the email had been written by Koushiro himself in his own mailbox and sent to himself.
Such incredible hacking was extremely similar to the mysterious hacker group's methods. This alone was enough to suggest the sender had ties to that group and likely possessed the answers Koushiro wanted.
Koushiro quickly got to work on decrypting the message below. The encryption used was something entirely new to him. He repeatedly tried various methods but couldn't find the correct key.
Decryption needed a specific "key," but no matter how hard Koushiro pondered, the crucial word eluded him.
Suddenly, inspiration flashed through his mind. It was a purely spontaneous association: the hacker organization had never left any clues about themselves, and no one even knew what to call them.
Currently, people simply referred to them as the "Mysterious Hacker Organization."
Yet, among private conversations, someone had begun calling them the "DM" Organization, though no one could clearly explain why.
"If 'D' stands for Digital, then what about 'M'?"
He randomly thought of several possible words, but the one that inexplicably appeared in his mind was "Monster"…
During his earlier chat with Taichi, Taichi had mentioned his adventures (in a game), involving battles alongside monsters who could digitize. Without realizing it, this implanted the concept "Digital Monsters" in Koushiro's subconscious.
Immediately, Koushiro tried using "Digital Monster" as the key—but still failed.
It seemed the key was too long. Yet simply using "DM" made it too short.
Then he compromised, combining the two words into one shortened keyword…
…Digimon!
Honestly, this was just wild guessing, and Koushiro didn't expect such a random idea to work. Yet when he used "Digimon" as the key, the encryption actually unlocked successfully.
At last, the decrypted message displayed an email address along with one line of text…
…Welcome to "our" world, Koushiro Izumi-san~
Koushiro immediately searched for the provided email address. To his surprise, the familiar ID appeared once again: "wizard!"
He quickly tried sending a message but found the email was encrypted to reject all incoming mail.
"Huh?"
Koushiro laughed bitterly for a moment, then quickly straightened his expression.
"Fine. Consider this my response…"
Koushiro rarely initiated hacks into others' encrypted mailboxes. Although a hacker himself, he rarely violated people's privacy or secrets.
But since this was an openly issued challenge, the rules were different this time.
Unlike the encrypted message earlier, this was familiar ground. He skillfully breached the sender's encryption and fired back a short message:
…I've found you!
Almost instantly after sending it, a reply appeared in his inbox.
"Even faster than anticipated. Your skills are impressive. Very well, if you truly wish to know the truth regarding the DM Organization, please visit the following address at noon tomorrow."
Below was an IP address. Koushiro's interest was now fully piqued. After a moment, he typed back another question:
"Who exactly are you? What's your relationship with the DM Organization?"
This time, however, the message sank like a stone, receiving no immediate response.
Just when Koushiro thought he'd been ignored, another reply suddenly popped up.
"Haven't you already found the answer yourself? Digimon… that is who we are…"
Now Koushiro was genuinely stunned. Before he could follow up again, he realized the email address had already been deleted entirely.
"…"
He tried tracing back using the previous records but found no remnants of the account whatsoever. It was as if it had never existed at all.
"Noon tomorrow? Alright then, I'll be there!"
...
At the same moment, Rina quickly met up in person with Director Suedou, who looked as if he'd overdosed on immortality pills again—deep eye sockets, heavy dark circles, and a hunched posture, seemingly about to ascend into heaven at any moment.
Yet despite this, his spirits seemed unexpectedly high. He looked extremely excited, especially when Zero transferred the program left behind by Datamon onto his laptop. Suedou stared feverishly at the lines of code, as if he were a devout believer witnessing a miracle.
"Ohhh, so these are codes from that world—fascinating… I've never seen this structure before. It looks like it should rely on some special system to run. No, wait… can it actually operate directly within my custom-built system?"
"Well, about that… Digimon programs aren't exactly like human-coded programs. Although they're similarly constructed from code, their very nature is fundamentally different… You could say these programs are 'alive'—the system is their habitat, and data their food. Essentially, they're data lifeforms like Digimon themselves…"
Therefore, compatibility was never an issue; they could run within any system.
The only catch was, successfully running them required massive amounts of data to serve as their "food"…
"No problem at all. Leave it to me—I promise to raise these adorable little ones healthy and strong~"
Suedou closed his notebook, smiling confidently.