The Observer

Shawn watched Calvin operate the mouse and keyboard from a short distance, typing "Volva" into a webpage. They clicked through several pages, all of which contained reports related to the "Dagger and Sheath" performance.

Shawn frowned. "Can you check the AHgAs resident database?"

"You mean hack into it?" Calvin squinted.

"...Uh," Shawn blinked, suddenly realizing neither he nor Calvin had data access for that. "Never mind then."

"Anything else you need to check?"

"Try 'Volva Duanming Alley' again?"

As Calvin was about to act, he paused, realizing something. "Is this related to Hesta again?"

"Ah ha, how could it be," Shawn gave a helpless smile. "I'm just curious who this person is."

"Once Fletcher returns your computer, you can check it yourself." Calvin closed the laptop. "I need to get ready for my study session."

Shawn didn't respond. He sat in his original spot as if nothing had happened, absently tugging at his hair and pondering the search results.

This morning, as usual, he'd opened Calvin's computer while Calvin was asleep and skillfully began analyzing the data he'd captured the night before.

Over a year ago, he had planted an extremely well-hidden Trojan horse deep within a folder on Calvin's computer. It was the first virus program he had ever written himself, and Shawn had named it "Assassin."

It was small, consumed minimal system resources, left no trace of its use, and its sole purpose was to connect to and control the computer of Mrs. Lavette, the person in charge of student housing—that was the true puppet machine controlled by Shawn.

Mrs. Lavette had never been very interested in information technology. Although she was diligent and responsible in her work, she had no enthusiasm for understanding the inner workings of computers. After a computer malfunction, Shawn had "kindly" cleaned Mrs. Lavette's work computer for her, and from then on, Shawn had his first, and most hidden, "zombie" computer.

To minimize the chances of his actions being discovered, Shawn would periodically maintain Mrs. Lavette's computer in secret, preventing her from sending it for repairs due to slow performance.

Mrs. Lavette, meanwhile, remained completely unaware of all this.

Through the Lavette node, Shawn had obtained a lot of interesting information. Among it, his favorite thing to browse was everyone's search and browsing data—each person's search and browsing behavior deeply and accurately reflected their recent lives.

For instance, Lavette often searched online for gardening and cooking; her passion for these two things was known to everyone. However, on one occasion, Shawn discovered that late on a Sunday night, she searched for "What to do if an arm is injured by a rusty nail." He initially thought Mrs. Lavette had accidentally gotten hurt, but the next day, he found that Mrs. Lavette was unharmed. Instead, Mr. Weir had not come to work.

When he reappeared, Mr. Weir had a cotton bandage on his forearm. Shawn proactively went to express his concern and learned that Mr. Weir had specifically gone to the base hospital that morning for a tetanus shot.

This made Shawn realize—these two middle-aged people, married for many years, might have spent the previous Sunday night together.

There were many similar details. Shawn silently observed the activities of everyone in the student housing from the shadows, without telling anyone, including Calvin.

He continuously expanded his new strongholds within the base. This didn't require particularly advanced technology—he just needed to target ordinary people like Mrs. Lavette who weren't passionate about technology. Except for half a month ago, when he was quickly discovered by Molly for aggressively using several faculty accounts to obtain information about Hesta, he had almost never made a mistake.

The only two times he had were shortly after discovering the base also had underground structures. At that time, he was astonished by the precision and advancement of the underground buildings, as if they didn't belong to the same era as the world above. Thus, he began to figure out how to forge online identity authentication to gain access authorization.

However, Shawn quickly discovered that not only the buildings themselves, but also the technology used for underground communication was unfamiliar to him. Before he could do anything, just by entering a command to attempt access, he was caught.

That was also the time his credit rating dropped directly from A to C.

Despite this, observing everyone around him brought immense joy to his life. In the digitized world, he saw the hidden sides of many people here that were unknown to others.

The flickering and dense flow of information slowly permeated all humans living in the civilized world. In it, Shawn saw chilling lust, fear, jealousy... or nostalgia.

In this regard, Tanyi City and Hekla Wasteland were no different.

Originally, in the second year of entering the base, students were supposed to start studying computer technology. However, perhaps because most of the combat with Chelated Beings only required knowing how to use tools and not understanding how they worked, many reserve members didn't value this subject much, just getting by the exams and not delving deeper. This gave Shawn a vast space to roam.

But there were some exceptions—like Liz Fletcher. After completing her third year of information security-related courses, she proactively upgraded her network communications with encrypted processing. Soon, the other two girls in 403 did the same. Shawn wasn't sure if Liz had helped them, but it made him quietly retreat from Liz.

This morning, he noticed an additional device in the student housing. Although it had no name, he quickly deduced it must be Hesta, who had recently received a computer.

Shawn glanced at Hesta's search history. The top three entries were: "Hekla Wasteland," "Hekla Brothers," and "Hekla Tragedy."

He was stunned for a moment, then raised an eyebrow.

Heh...

You want to understand me too, Hesta?

If not for the concern of waking the sleeping Calvin, Shawn would have really wanted to burst out laughing. He desperately suppressed his excitement and continued reading line by line. Although Hesta later searched for Askia, Catra City, and Sol Wasteland, it didn't diminish the slightly subtle ripple in his heart.

And this feeling was briefly replaced by curiosity when he saw the last search record.

Volva.

First, this was definitely not someone from the base. Judging by the name, he couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. But since Hesta had searched for this name, it must carry some weight.

Shawn had originally planned to follow this lead further, but a bird's chirp outside the window startled him from his immersion like an alarm clock—daylight had broken, meaning Calvin would wake up soon.

He quickly erased his traces and then sat down at the desk. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Calvin woke up.

"Tidy yourself up and come with me to the library."

Calvin's voice suddenly interrupted Shawn's thoughts.

"Huh?" Shawn raised an eyebrow. "Why do I have to go if you're studying?"

"I can't let you stay alone," Calvin replied. "Change your clothes and follow me."

Shawn could only grumble as he got up to prepare.

On the way to the library, Calvin felt that Shawn's silence was somewhat unusual—he hadn't said a word the entire time, clearly lost in thought.

In fact, Shawn was indeed pondering the matter of "Volva." Hesta's search journey had abruptly stopped after this name, without even clicking on the page details. This indicated that none of the results provided by the search page were the answers she wanted.

Therefore, all content related to "Dagger and Sheath" could be temporarily ruled out.

Thanks for the monthly pass from Xiao Yunyan~!