by Blitz Kiva
Edogawa’s report only caused Azami’s expression to darken. If she was following his words as Ichiro was, then she was probably starting to consider a potential scenario other than an illegal hack from the outside. Ichiro found it very plausible, and believed that they should keep the possibility in mind, although he also understood why it wouldn’t be something she’d want to consider.
“You mean... someone on our staff is behind the leaks?” Azami whispered in a hushed voice.
“I’m afraid it’s possible,” Edogawa affirmed gravely.
If that was the case, Ichiro thought, then this was probably not an issue he should involve himself in too deeply. If someone in this office was intentionally disclosing his information to the outside, he’d like to file a personal complaint or two, but he knew first of all that this was a delicate problem for the company.
President Azami pressed a hand to her forehead and sank deep into thought. Whether this was cracking, or an intentional leak from within, either way it was in violation of the Unauthorized Computer Access Law. She had a responsibility to report it to the police eventually. How serious things got, though, would depend a great deal on whether the act was perpetrated from within or without.
Even if she was a genius, Azami Nono was still only 19 years old. It would likely take time for her to come to grips with the seriousness of the situation, and while he did pity her, it would be nonsense to try to console her. Running a company wasn’t like running a club with your friends in college. He was hoping she would understood that without him saying it, though.
“President Azami, would you prefer for me to take my leave?” Ichiro asked.
“Yes... if you please.”
“I’ll do so, then.” Ichiro gave a light wave to Edogawa and the others, then turned and left the office.
As long as his account was suspended and no one could log in with it, Ichiro no longer needed to worry about further damage to himself. If he changed the login password for Ichiro Tsuwabuki, even just on the way home, then he could log in at any time once he made it back.
Of course, President Azami did not have the luxury of relaxing. No matter what measures they employed, the truth remained that their account security had been severely compromised. This was a huge blow to a startup like them.
“My, if it isn’t little Ichiro. So we meet again!” A voice tore Ichiro from his thoughts. The way of speaking gave him an immediate idea of who it might be. Ichiro turned towards the person coming down the stairs, and spoke the man’s name:
“Mr. Otogiri.”
Otogiri laughed heartily. “I heard. Your account got stolen! Isn’t that awful? But I guess it’s not really you that’s in trouble, is it? It’s Thistle.”
“That is true,” said Ichiro. “It’s a do-or-die moment to see if they can maintain the people’s trust in them.”
Shinya Otogiri was the CEO of Pony Entertainment, Inc. He’d put the Miraive Gear on the market and managed the Mirai Network, and he had also had a bit of a disagreement with Ichiro’s father a long time ago. Relatively speaking, they had a bit of history together.
“We’re meeting a lot lately, aren’t we?” Ichiro added. “Are you that lacking in things to do?”
“What’s that, a challenge?”
“Nonsense. Merely a question.” Ichiro spoke with a shrug, but Otogiri just grinned.
“Well, that’s a reasonable question. But you have to admire the timing of this. If word about the unauthorized access from outside gets out, as you say, trust in Thistle will plummet. That would be a huge blow to a tiny company like this. I was thinking I could help them out, but I wonder if I should.”
“You should do what you want to,” Ichiro said. “It is not my place to comment.”
Otogiri smiled. “My, isn’t that cold of you.”
Ichiro knew what Otogiri meant by “help.” He had been scheming to get Thistle under his direct control for a long time now, so the timing of this incident was, indeed, very good for him. It would be a trifling matter for a company with the resources of Pony, Inc. to cover up a little scandal in one of their subsidiaries. If they took his protection, Thistle would be able to withstand any mudslinging thrown their way from now on. But Otogiri was on high alert about what Ichiro might do about it.
If Ichiro Tsuwabuki, the young heir to the Tsuwabuki Concern and one of the country’s most independently wealthy men, decided to do so, he could buy up the entirety of Thistle, NaroFan’s developer. With money and connections like his, he could restore trust in the failing Thistle Corporation in an instant. That would leave all of Otogiri’s plans up in smoke. The truth was that Ichiro had bitten him once already by buying up a large-scale entertainment complex he was building in Akihabara.
“Ah, well,” Otogiri said. “I know you value your position as a player, so I’m sure it’s a needless fear.”
“That’s true,” said Ichiro. “The possibility you’re afraid of is unlikely to occur.”
“Good, good. Now, let me just tell you one thing, in case you’re wondering: I was not behind this act, so don’t even bother suspecting me. I’m just loving the timing of it, that’s all.” With that, Otogiri gave a light wave, then left.
If he said he wasn’t involved, it was probably true. He wasn’t the kind of man who would go out of his way to lie. Ichiro wasn’t a fan of the man’s ambitions, but he also knew that he wasn’t a blithering idiot, and he could respect his competence as a manager.
Just then, the office door opened, and the male employee from before peeked in. “Excuse me, Mr. Tsuwabuki. We’d like to do the password reset and remove the account suspension... and recompense your items and such.”
“Mm, very well. Let’s handle that.”
Ichiro assumed that once this was done, things would be resolved for the time being. If he lingered here for long, he would probably just get in their way, he thought as he entered the office.
However, the incident was by no means at its end.
The girl stood out greatly, heaving for breath as she walked along the shinkansen platform at Tokyo Station.
It was Asuha Tsuwabuki, and she had a lot to carry.
She was dragging a suitcase in her right hand and holding a travel bag in her left. That by itself wouldn’t seem so unusual, but she was also carrying on her back one Sera Kiryu, who was still wearing the Miraive Gear headset.
“Mm...”
When she felt the burden on her back shift in wakefulness, Asuha quickly flung her friend away. “Get off!”
“Wah!” Sera shouted upon hitting the ground, then removed the Miraive Gear and looked up at Asuha. “Oh? Tsuwabuki...”
“Don’t ‘oh, Tsuwabuki’ me! We arrived in Tokyo, darn it!”
“I told you to wake me.”
“I tried, but you wouldn’t get up! Darn it! Freaking... darn it!” Asuha yelled, heedless of the gazes of those around them.
Sera had logged in on the shinkansen after learning about Ichiro’s account being hacked, but Asuha’s most fervent attempts to awaken her friend hadn’t provoked the slightest reaction. A hard reset from outside could cause loss of data due to improper shutdown, so she couldn’t do that, either. Sera had explained to Asuha that it was because “quantum information is more compressed than electronic information and therefore more fragile,” but she had no idea what that meant.
But in any case...
“So, what happened?” Asuha demanded.
“With what?” Sera asked.
“With Itchy’s account.”
“Ooh...” Sera stored the Miraive Gear back in its box, then returned it to the travel bag. “It’s been suspended.”
“Suspended?”
“The account’s frozen,” said Sera. “It means that no one can access the game using that player’s information. The hacker can’t log in using the old man’s account anymore.”
Asuha was about to nod in understanding, but then she tilted her head in confusion. “Does that mean Itchy can’t log in, either?”
“He’ll be able to after he changes his password. Normally it would take time to go through the process of verifying account information, but the old man has connections with Thistle, so he’ll probably be back in no time.”
“I see. I see.” Asuha nodded. It did sound like things were getting resolved. It had sounded pretty outrageous, but if it was all over now, then that was all that mattered. Now they could wholeheartedly enjoy the sleepover.
“Okay, let’s go to Itchy’s house!” she proclaimed.
“Where is it again?” Sera asked.
“Sangenjaya! Um, first we have to go to Otemachi by the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line...”
Together, they made their way off of the shinkansen platform and headed for the subway.
By the time Domon Edogawa left Thistle Corporation headquarters, it was 2:00 P.M. Things had died down for the moment, so he’d been permitted a lunch break.
He’d been in Tokyo for work for a few days now. Living life out of a business hotel really was hard, and he missed the tea plantations of his home.
Normally he’d stay at work late into the night dealing with security program settings and responses to client requests, but today, they had told him to go home early. The relief of getting to take a real break for once was in conflict with his professionalism, as he’d wanted to complete the new security immediately. At the moment, the firewall was up, and most of the account information should be secured, but he was still nervous.
If it turned out someone among the dev team was leaking information to the outside, that was going to be a serious problem. As a player as well as a contractor, he couldn’t hide his anxiety, even though he knew stewing over it wouldn’t help.
Edogawa sighed.
Tokyo was hot in summer. Shizuoka was hot, too, of course, but the heat island phenomenon made things here feel even worse.
He eventually decided to set his worries aside. All he could do was pray that Thistle Corporation would come up with a plan to deal with things as soon as possible. If pressed, he would admit that the president’s youth concerned him, but on the other hand, she seemed to be smarter than he was.
To lunch, then.
As he walked alone down the streets of Jinbocho, lined with used bookstores, he wondered where he should eat. Azami Nono had said her hobby was sampling curry restaurants. He wished he’d asked her for a recommendation.
Suddenly, a stunning blue supercar pulled out of a parking lot and blocked his path. The doors on either side twisted in a distinctive way, and a man peeked out from the driver’s seat on the left.
“Hey, wanna ride?”
What was this, a come-on? Edogawa’s expression drew taut.
Yes, unnecessary to say, this was everyone’s favorite young heir, Ichiro Tsuwabuki. His face, identical to his visage in the game, was wearing a cool smile, and he seemed to have been waiting for Edogawa.
Edogawa couldn’t be absolutely sure, but there was little room to doubt that this man was the player behind the same Ichiro Tsuwabuki who led the Iris Brand guild. The bourgeois young man in front of him was the one who had suffered the account hack today.
How can I get out of this?
Edogawa wished for a way out from the bottom of his heart, but Ichiro gave a cool smile and said:
“I think it’s destiny that we met here. And it’s nice to have off-line meet-ups. Don’t you agree, Ed?”
Edogawa’s expression grew even stiffer. “So, you knew...”
“Well, you seemed to recognize me, and I recognized your walk. So, how about it?”
Feeling that refusing the man’s invitation now would be a moral loss, Edogawa moved around to the car’s right side and prepared to climb into the car of the man he hated so much.
Left-sided steering wheel... a foreign car? He’d never seen the make before, but it seemed like it must be a very expensive vehicle.
“I’m coming in now,” he murmured.
“Mm, certainly.”
Domon Edogawa played the Machina Blacksmith, Edward, in Narrow Fantasy Online. It’s likely unnecessary at this point to describe the discord that existed between the two men, but it was the reason why Edogawa’s expression had frozen up.
After Edogawa got into the passenger seat, the supercar’s doors twisted closed. There was something futuristic about the gauges on the driver’s side that Edogawa, as a lover of robot anime and fighter planes, couldn’t help but find a little exciting.
Ichiro drove his car down the street. “On break?” he asked.
“Yes... They gave me a one-hour break for lunch.”
“I see. Then let’s go somewhere we can enjoy a light tea.”
“Light,” he said. But will it really be light? Edogawa wondered. Not physically, of course, but financially.
Edogawa looked at Ichiro once again. He’d thought that the Dragonet was using unfamiliar facial parts, and indeed, Ichiro must have created his own graphics wholesale to make sure his avatar looked just like him. Was it narcissism? Even his clothing had the same high-class atmosphere as that of his avatar.
Ichiro had always projected that vaguely unpleasant atmosphere particular to rich people, but Edogawa would never have guessed he was the heir to the Tsuwabuki Concern. Why was a man like him playing a VRMMO? Why wasn’t he helping with his father’s work? There was so much he couldn’t understand.
With no idea where they were headed, Edogawa fell into silence.
But just as the stuffy air in the car was beginning to become unbearable, surprisingly, it was Ichiro who ended up breaking the silence. “So, the name Ed comes from your real name? I’d thought it was from an anime. Cowboy Bebop?”
“You know it?”
“Sir Kirschwasser had the DVD, so I watched all the episodes. It’s a good anime.”
Ichiro was an unlikable man, but Edogawa couldn’t help but feel a thrill at hearing someone compliment an anime he liked. There were plenty of otaku in Edogawa’s office, but not many with whom he could discuss anime from the late ‘80s through the ‘90s. He quickly shook it off and chastised himself for the sentiment.
“My real name is part of it, but Radical Edward is the main inspiration.”
“Is that why you became a systems engineer?” Ichiro asked.
“I originally wanted to be a hacker, but yes.”
There was little more embarrassing than admitting you’d wanted to become a hacker because of an anime character. In the end, he had studied programming and just ended up becoming a programmer instead. Then, due to personnel shortages at his company, he had been made a systems engineer. It’d been hard, and he’d had to take a crash course in a lot of things he hadn’t understood, but eventually he’d more or less gotten used to it.
“Bossman mentioned you’d been busy lately, but I never would have thought you were doing security work for NaroFan,” commented Ichiro.
“We only got the contract a few months ago. We’ve been preparing for the big update in August.”
Edogawa/Edward was already a devoted player of NaroFan, so he’d been quite surprised when he’d heard the CEO announce the project. Of course, he’d never dreamed that he’d be put in charge of it. It had made his job feel far more fulfilling than usual, and he’d worked hard at it.
Yet after all that... no, he had to stop thinking about it. His mind would just end up going in circles.
“What do you think the Thistle Corporation will do after this?” he muttered, but Ichiro continued staring forward, his gaze cool.
“Hm, I’m not sure. Whether it’s a hack or a scandal, they’ll just have to deal with what’s happened, head-on, as a company. If it’s an internal matter, that’s quite bad, but such things are not unprecedented among developers. I don’t think it’s enough to bring down a company, particularly one so closely tied to the future of VR technology.”
It was then that he added, “But...”
“But?” Edogawa asked.
“Thistle is small, and President Azami is young. It’s possible t
hat they could be weakened through attacks from the media, or from calls to take responsibility. And it’s possible that a larger corporation could swoop in and take advantage of that. NaroFan is a cash cow, after all.”
“Aren’t you the one providing much of their cash, Mr. Tsuwabuki?” Edogawa asked.
“Well, I am contributing, but that isn’t the way I meant it.”
Edogawa was too much of a layman for talk about how the newly-born VRMMO business model was going to change the economy in the years to come, but Ichiro still continued.
“President Azami seemed to want to use me as a player to make her case to the economic world, but that in turn shows how weak Thistle is as a business,” the heir said. “Having played the game for a little while, though, I think the potential economic gains of building fictional realities online is far greater than she realizes. I don’t think NaroFan is making full use of it, but any large corporation that becomes aware of this would want to make use of Thistle’s know-how.”
“Would the Tsuwabuki Concern be one such corporation?”
“I don’t know. I don’t help my father with his work. I earn my own money, and I play NaroFan because I enjoy it.”
So he said, but given the way he talked, Edogawa felt sure that Ichiro Tsuwabuki was a man who lived in that same economic world.
For a business of Thistle Corporation’s size, the slightest outside pressure could prove a mortal wound. In an environment of scandal, a large company could buy out all of Thistle’s stock, which would effectively bring them into that company’s holdings. This, Ichiro explained, was his concern.
“I think that President Azami must take serious measures to prevent them from showing this vulnerability,” Ichiro said.
It was a rather dicey situation. From a player’s point of view, moving Narrow Fantasy Online’s developer to a large corporation would be a good thing, if that meant a strengthening of security and a tweaking of the broken game balance for the better. NaroFan was popular due to cutting-edge virtual reality technology bringing the detailed worldsetting to life, but it still had a lot of room for fine-tuning as a game. A user might want to see someone come in and help with that.