Could It Be That They're Both Me?

The HR director had barely sent out the message when the internal group chat exploded.

'Who? Who is this?'

'If the players found out about this, it'd be absolutely insane. Rejected by Sprout, then turning to hate because of love? Not even novels would dare write something like this.'

'This guy's a die-hard fan. I checked his record—it's almost entirely notoriety. I'm crying, he really does love Sprout.'

'Why do you think he insisted on joining Sprout? To play the games early?'

'Probably not. If he could hack his way in, couldn't he play our games whenever he wanted?'

'What else could it be? He probably just felt it wasn't honorable and wanted to play games more openly.'

Did the word "honorable" matter to a hacker?

Everyone shook their heads at once. No, it didn't. A hacker's job was to steal data from computers or devices without permission.

So the idea was dismissed the moment it surfaced.

"Boss, why exactly does this guy want to join our company?" someone asked, tagging Ethan Vale in the group.

Ethan Vale sent the video Cullen had just sent him into the group. "I don't know either, but we really don't have any secrets left."

'Awesome.'

'Holy shit, he actually played it early, and he's made pretty good progress!'

'Officer, can you arrest him? Him doing this makes me feel like I have no privacy.'

'So he made all this stuff just to join Sprout? That's genuinely unimaginable.'

Ethan Vale watched the video. Yeah, he couldn't imagine what a top-tier hacker wanted to join Sprout for either.

Was it really just to play games?

As Ethan Vale pondered that, another email arrived in his inbox.

It was another message from Cullen. When he opened it, he found that the various vulnerabilities in