Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Nerima Ward Branch — Surveillance Center.
The previously quiet surveillance center was now packed with officers, both young and old, all currently on shift. At the forefront stood the middle-aged chief, freshly dragged out of bed and clearly furious.
"What the hell is going on?!"
Glancing sharply at the security officer still busy at the computer, the chief barely contained his anger as he turned toward Tanaka, who stood sweating nervously beside him.
"I... I don't know…"
Tanaka wasn't exactly a trained security specialist, but since he'd been transferred here, he had at least a basic understanding of computers. The moment the server malfunctioned, he immediately alerted the other officers on duty, even waking up the sleeping network security officer.
It was only after the security officer's arrival that Tanaka realized things might be far more serious than he'd imagined.
The police surveillance database had been hacked—by more than one intruder, no less.
Worse yet, despite having sat here the entire time, Tanaka hadn't even noticed. He only became aware of the severity when the intruders began openly battling each other within the server itself.
"Can you figure out their real identities?"
Realizing Tanaka had no useful answers, the chief strode toward the security officer with a dark expression, speaking harshly.
"I'm doing my best."
The officer knew the chief only cared about results, so he offered a cautious reply without unnecessary details.
"These three intruders are clever. They aren't using any known IP address, so it'll take some time for me to decode their actual structure."
What he didn't explain was that even ordinary hackers, who relied on proxies, were already difficult enough to track.
As long as hackers didn't directly use their real IP, theoretically, they couldn't be caught—at least, not by standard police methods. Only powerful national-level agencies could physically locate these proxy points and restore deleted logs to pinpoint the hackers' true addresses.
But these three intruders were different.
They hadn't even bothered to hide their IP addresses. The security officer had immediately identified their locations, but this information was utterly meaningless—because their IPs kept changing constantly, as though they were simultaneously using countless proxies at once.
Though it seemed absurd, the security officer firmly trusted his instincts. The only mystery left now was how they'd solved the latency issue.
This wasn't the technologically advanced 21st century—just managing one or two proxies without crippling lag was already impressive enough. He'd never even heard of anyone carrying out a real-time intrusion through multiple proxies like this, as if network latency simply didn't apply.
"Wait—what is this one doing?"
Just as the security officer tried once again to pinpoint the intruders, he noticed one of the smaller, weaker data entities suddenly leave the digital battlefield, instead heading directly toward the server's internal database.
"So this was your objective from the start…"
He muttered under his breath, clearly seeing that the intruder was attempting to infiltrate and search the surveillance database, obviously looking for something specific.
"I won't let you succeed!"
Instantly abandoning the effort to decode their IP addresses, the officer moved to intercept this weaker data entity.
Compared to the other two intruders clashing openly within the server, the hacker actively trying to steal data was the true threat.
Being unable to pinpoint the hackers' exact location merely meant they couldn't be arrested—an annoyance, perhaps, but ultimately not critical. Yet if this particular hacker managed to successfully retrieve surveillance data from the police server, it would definitely cost him his job.
...
"So, he's already spotted me, huh?"
Chen Ze immediately felt the pressure from the security officer's intervention.
Unlike the convenience store's server earlier, the police department's main server had computing power comparable to a Digital Core. Worse, this wasn't home turf. Endless streams of powerful antivirus programs kept trying to eliminate him like a genuine virus.
To evade their relentless scans, Chen Ze had no choice but to continuously modify his own data signature.
The only consolation was that he was now a Digimon—an existence not tethered to any fixed IP address—allowing him to unleash the full extent of his hacking skills.
After all, they couldn't possibly track down his real-world location. His true form now existed solely within the server: an intelligent, elusive program capable of constantly hiding and shifting its signature.
In a sense, this digital battle wasn't fundamentally different from traditional hacking.
It all came down to infecting another machine, gaining illegal access, and stealing the data he wanted.
Perhaps the only real difference was that "Agumon.sms" wasn't a pre-programmed virus. Rather, it was an intelligent one—capable of continuously rewriting itself to adapt and evade antivirus measures.
"When it comes to hacking, this is my true specialty."
After a brief moment's thought, Chen Ze quickly adjusted his code, perfectly evading every antivirus scan.
Now he simply had to maintain this stealth mode, gradually seizing administrator privileges to erase the surveillance records entirely.
To prevent any chance of the police recovering data through physical means later, Chen Ze decided that after deleting the files, he'd overload the server, completely frying the hard drives.
"Good thing I've written this kind of 'forced no-shutdown' script before…"
"All that's left is forcing the server to overload by repeatedly injecting garbage data onto the hard drive's magnetic sectors."
Rapidly reconstructing the virus script purely from memory—a nearly impossible feat for a human mind—was effortlessly accomplished with the computing power of his Digital Core, essentially turning Chen Ze himself into a sophisticated, living virus.
As the virus fully embedded itself, Agumon's yellowish data-form began to flicker, its once-clear outline breaking into blurred, pixelated patterns.