They traveled through time at the same time, but the villainous scientist

Chapter 540 Welcome to the Digital World
"There's still time..."

With that thought in mind, Koushiro opened the somewhat bulky laptop in front of him.

The screen lit up, emitting a faint buzz that sounded particularly clear in the quiet bedroom.

The machine's performance was naturally not very good, but under the limited conditions, it was his only tool.

His fingers moved across the keyboard, and the knowledge from [Kayaba Akihiko] flowed through his mind.

He needs to find a sufficiently large target, a company with substantial financial resources, whose cybersecurity is not impenetrable.

Soon, the database of a large general trading company came into his view.

For a genius programmer from the future, the firewalls of this era are naturally practically useless.

But he didn't do anything extra; he simply compiled the relevant code snippets, vulnerability principles, and remediation suggestions into a concise and clear document.

Then, he found the publicly available work email address of the head of the company's cybersecurity department, attached the document, and sent it to them.

The email body contained only one sentence.

"A well-intentioned reminder, in the hope of receiving a reasonable reward."

After finishing all this, Koushiro closed his laptop and lay back down on his bed.

He knew that all he needed to do now was wait.

The reply came faster than he expected.

He received the email from the other party the following afternoon.

The email was very polite, starting with a thank you and then subtly probing, asking if he would be willing to discuss a few other technical issues.

Koushiro understood that this was a test from the other party.

Over the next two days, a silent confrontation unfolded across the internet via encrypted emails.

The questions posed by the other party were increasingly tricky, ranging from low-level assembly instructions to cutting-edge network attack and defense concepts, covering almost every aspect of computer science at the time.

However, for a Photon who has integrated decades of knowledge about the technological development of the future network, these are merely desserts.

silence.

After Koushiro sent his last email, the other party fell into a long silence.

On the third night, a phone call came to his adoptive parents' landline.

On the other end of the phone was a polite male voice.

He claimed to be a senior executive of a certain trading company and hoped to hire [Izumi Kojiro] as their company's cybersecurity consultant, and was willing to pay a considerable fee for it.

This phone call plunged Koushiro's adoptive parents into immense confusion and unease.

A senior executive of a large company is willing to spend a lot of money to hire a child who is still in elementary school as a consultant.

This sounds like a new type of phone scam.

They approached Guangzilang with great concern, repeatedly questioning him about whether he had been scammed by bad people online.

Faced with his adoptive parents' anxious eyes, Koushiro could only patiently explain that he only had some talent in computers and had helped the company solve some minor problems.

Finally, after the other party's sincere and repeated requests, the adoptive parents, half-believing and half-doubting, took Koushiro and agreed to meet the other party at a coffee shop.

The meeting was quite dramatic. When the well-dressed, capable-looking middle-aged manager saw that the "cybersecurity expert" they had brought was actually a child carrying a schoolbag and barely reaching his waist, his professional smile instantly froze.

It was a complex expression of shock, absurdity, and disbelief; his hand holding the coffee cup even paused in mid-air for a moment.

"You are... Izumi... Mitsuko-sama?"

After a long silence, the company executive finally spoke with difficulty, his gaze shifting back and forth between Koushiro and his adoptive parents, as if trying to confirm whether he had come to the wrong place.

Koushiro nodded calmly.

This meeting dispelled all the adoptive parents' doubts, but it brought an even greater shock to the supervisor.

He ultimately kept his promise, only changing "hiring a consultant" to "a one-time technical reward," a sum of money that would be a huge amount for an ordinary family, which was then transferred to his guardian's bank account.

After signing the documents, Koushiro shook his head as he watched the other person's still somewhat dazed figure leave.

If time weren't so tight, he wouldn't want to make money this way.

But what can you do when he's still just a child?
With this initial funding, everything became much simpler. Guangzilang immediately replaced his old laptop with the highest-spec portable workstation available on the market at the time.

Then, he contacted the cybersecurity manager who was amazed by him and, with the help of the manager's resources and channels, set up a small private server for future data storage and analysis.

Of course, limited by the technological barriers of 1999, the overall performance of this device may not be as good as a smartphone twenty years later.

But this is the limit that Izzy can currently achieve.

After all this was done, the summer camp began as scheduled.

The bus was filled with the cheerful laughter of children.

Summer sunlight streamed through the car window, cutting bright spots of light into the swaying air.

All this excitement has nothing to do with Koushiro.

After all, he's not Conan, who can pretend to be a child so convincingly.

He was an adult at heart, and the aura he exuded that was inconsistent with his age made other children subconsciously keep their distance from him.

If it weren't for his desire to enter the digital world, he might have already applied to skip a grade and spent his childhood in the university library.

However, with no one to bother him, he was naturally happy to have some peace and quiet.

Upon arriving at the campsite, amidst the chaotic sounds of people setting up camp, Koushiro keenly spotted a spot with a power outlet in a corner of the common rest area.

He plugged in the power, turned on the computer, and started surfing the internet.

Time slipped away with the tapping of fingertips.

Suddenly, the surrounding noise subsided, replaced by exclamations of surprise.

Koushiro looked up and saw that the sky had darkened at some point.

The once clear sky was now shrouded in thick, leaden-gray clouds.

Then, one, two... pure white snowflakes drifted down from the gloomy sky.

In the sweltering August heat, a sudden blizzard descended upon the Odaiba campsite.

The children ran back to their tents in a panic, while the teachers frantically tried to contact the outside world.

Koushiro stood there, feeling the cold snowflakes fall on his cheeks and melt quickly.

Just then, an aurora descended from the sky, piercing through the thick clouds.

The light was not dazzling, but it carried a sacred and solemn aura.

Immediately afterwards, one after another, palm-sized, faintly glowing strange devices, as if given life, fell from the aurora and flew precisely towards the children, including him.

A small machine emitting a soft glow hovered in front of Koushiro.

Phew~ It's finally here~
Seeing this, Koushiro breathed a sigh of relief. He had been worried that because of his time travel, the other side might not send him the Divine Plan.

It seems he was overthinking it...

Next, it's time to go to the Digital World...

With that thought in mind, Koushiro reached out and grasped the Divine Plan.

Even with his temperament, a complex expression of excitement, nostalgia, and anticipation couldn't help but appear on his face.

After all, what kid from his generation hasn't dreamed of going on an adventure to the Digital World?
A cool yet warm sensation came from my palm.

The next second, an irresistible dizziness suddenly seized his consciousness.

The ground beneath his feet seemed to have turned into a giant vortex, pulling him downwards violently.

Everything around us, from the scenery to the sounds, was rapidly distorted and stretched, eventually transforming into a chaotic torrent of data.

When Koushiro regained consciousness, he found himself lying on a soft grassy field.

The surrounding area was no longer the familiar campsite, but a primeval forest I had never seen before.

The towering trees have unique shapes, and the huge ferns stretch out their strange leaves. In the distance, the sky presents a magnificent yet unreal gradient of colors.

This is the digital world...

(End of this chapter)