THE STORY · EPISODE 10
The first thing that would not open was someone’s work document.
Next came the plaza’s inspection records. Then the draft of a letter someone had meant to send. One by one, the windows of the shared storage vault went dark. Small padlocks appeared in their place.
Black light was falling from the full moon.
“Your files have been encrypted.”
Encrypted.
Mana understood the sentences that followed, too. Pay to get them back. Let the time run out, and lose them. Ask for help, and things will get worse.
They were words she had heard before, arranged in a different order.
“Please open.”
A woman outside the vault was tapping at her device. She said there was a photograph on the other side of the screen, one she had been about to send to her family.
“I could see it yesterday.”
Her voice brought Mana to a halt.
A place that had opened without a thought yesterday would not open today. It felt a little like being unable to return to her own room.
OPTIONAL QUESTION · 10-D1Recognizing ransomwareWhich description fits ransomware?Open illustration & choices
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“A. Malware that makes things unusable and demands a ransom.”
Mana paused for a beat.
“That is different from encryption used to protect things.”
Securidon’s shield caught the first wave of moonlight. But the shadow inside the vault was still moving.
Securidon set his shield at the entrance to the vault.
The padlocks did not stop. The threat was not only coming from outside. Abnormal operations on the files were already continuing inside.
“I can’t stop it, don.”
His voice cracked.
“But I’m right here.”
Mana placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Let’s think about what we need to disconnect now.”
The doctor arrived and checked the devices with the staff responsible for the vault. Mana briefly described the changes she could see: files being renamed in large numbers, files that would not open, demands for payment, and the times when the unusual operations continued.
Logrin took notes, while Patchron guided people to a safe place.
The staff confirmed the affected equipment and the isolation procedure. In this situation, they could use that procedure to cut off its communications. Mana and her friends were not going to disconnect the entire town on their own.
OPTIONAL QUESTION · 10-A1Contain an active encryption incidentAbnormal encryption is occurring on a workplace device. The responsible staff are present and can isolate it from the network under the established procedure. What is the first step to limit the spread?Open illustration & choices
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“B. We isolate the affected equipment with the responsible staff. Securidon, guard that boundary!”
At Mana’s instruction, the blue shield moved forward, and the staff cut off the communications.
“Disconnect the affected device.”
Mana repeated the doctor’s words to check that she understood.
“Disconnect the affected device from the network.”
Working with the response staff, they stopped the connection. New padlocks spread into neighboring areas more slowly.
The screen still would not open.
Mana told everyone that honestly.
“Stopping the spread and restoring things are different. We are checking what we need to do to restore them.”
Episode 10, Illustration 1 | Securidon guards the isolation boundary
Easy reassurances rose to her throat. It will be all right. Everything will come back. But promising what she did not know would hurt the waiting people’s time all over again.
The doctor spoke to someone who was about to keep using an isolated device.
“For now, the responsible staff have decided to preserve this state for investigation. A different decision may be necessary when isolation is not possible, for example. But here, please do not keep performing operations on your own.”
Some people wanted to reset their devices in a panic. Others were about to use a different recovery tool that had just arrived. Everyone wanted things back quickly. The black shadow placed another door wherever those feelings were leading them.
Mana worked with Spamool to let only verified communications through. Phishingon called out whenever he spotted a new false notice, and Linklar carried the chain marking the restricted area to the positions chosen by the staff. When Spoofon saw a “recovery specialist” impersonating a staff member with the same photograph, he urged people to verify the claim through another channel.
Their new friends were not merely names added to the edge of a textbook. The abilities they had learned through these incidents were helping the people before them.
Malwemo stood at the edge of the passage, holding his closed laptop.
“It might be my fault.”
He spoke quietly when Mana came over.
“It might be connected to yesterday’s attachment.”
“They’re investigating. We don’t know yet.”
“But everyone must be scared.”
Mana sat down beside his small red body.
“I think they are. That is why we should pass on what we know together. You leaving would not give the investigators any more information.”
Logrin came over and laid down a sheet of paper for notes.
“Only what you remember. Leave blank what you do not.”
Malwemo nodded at the paper.
Error and Bug had arrived, too. Error started to interrupt an anxious person with an explanation, then closed her mouth. Before moving a heavy shelf, Bug checked its position with the staff.
Being rivals was no reason they could not protect the same town.
A backup that might be usable for restoration was found.
The shadow projected an illusion in which all the photographs had returned. A Defense question lit up.
OPTIONAL QUESTION · 10-D2Protected recovery backupsWhich description fits a recovery backup?Open illustration & choices
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“If it is synchronized, everything is there. A!”
Mana had been looking at the woman waiting for her files. She had mistaken the wish to bring them back for evidence that they could be restored.
The illusion of the photographs shattered on the shield, and Securidon’s footing slipped.
“We have not connected the real recovery copy yet,”
the doctor told them.
“Synchronization carries changes, too. It can also carry deletions or an encrypted state. Let’s check that the copy for recovery is protected and usable.”
The doctor used a restore test conducted in another district as an example. This time, he asked what that term meant.
OPTIONAL QUESTION · 10-D3Checking a restoration actually worksWhat does a restore test mean?Open illustration & choices
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“C. Testing in a safe environment whether we can actually restore from the copy. We also check the restoration destination with the staff. Securidon, let’s protect the time they need!”
The shield deflected the second wave of moonlight. It was not a technique that instantly returned the photographs. But it protected what remained from further loss.
The staff did not immediately connect the copy to a device suspected of infection. They checked when it had been saved and its condition, then continued testing at a restoration destination whose safety had been verified.
“If it is there, just connect it!”
Someone waiting raised their voice.
Mana had almost thought the same thing.
Patchron quietly opened his first-aid kit and took out a bandage.
“You cannot put just anything on a wound. Put something dirty back, and the injury may spread again.”
Then he put the bandage away. What they needed here was not his tool, but time for the people continuing the checks.
Lights began returning to the areas where recovery preparations were complete.
One window. Two windows.
Someone called out a name outside the vault. Some people cried as they checked documents that had returned. Others rearranged their work schedules. Some waited silently in front of windows that still would not open.
“So not everything has come back.”
When Mana said it, the doctor nodded.
“Anything created after the last saved copy needs to be looked for separately.”
That fact felt too heavy for a moment of victory.
But erasing it would have made what they had protected seem less meaningful, too.
Beneath the full moon, the ransom demand flashed one last time.
Pay, and everything will be returned.
Mana looked up at the screen. The promise of recovery came from the same person who had taken everything away. Their words alone were not enough reason to entrust everyone’s precious things to them again.
Connect with the response staff. Preserve evidence. Cut off the paths of spread. Restore from verified backups. It was not one spectacular technique. It was patient work, hands reaching in the same direction from all over the town.
Securidon came to stand beside Mana.
“My shield alone wasn’t enough, don.”
“We had everyone’s help.”
“Even for the things I couldn’t do?”
“And the things I couldn’t.”
Mana smiled.
“Lots of them.”
Securidon smiled a little, too.
“Logrin, trace the connected paths. Patchron, support the footing. Securidon, push back from the boundaries we have verified!”
Miscure’s light of verification, Logrin’s records, Patchron’s support. The shield advanced between them. They were not throwing powerful light into places they knew nothing about. They were linking what they had verified, narrowing the shadow’s paths.
The streams of black moonlight broke. The shadow fell from above the vault and curled into a ball in the plaza. It no longer had the power to close another door.
Mana took out the Securies chip.
“We will not pretend the losses never happened. But we will not let you take anything more.”
Light slid across the surface of the black moon.
A round, pale-gold companion emerged. Crater-like hollows marked his body. He had small hands and feet, a padlock in front of him, and a bag beside him.
He looked up at everyone and drew the padlock to his chest.
“Ransomoon.”
His voice was quiet.
“I won’t close things to hurt people anymore.”
COL-006, Ransomoon, was registered in Mana’s WS Encyclopedia. Her record now held ten companions.
But they did not leave at once. Finishing the purification was not the same as solving every problem the people of the town faced.
That afternoon, the woman who had lost her photograph returned carrying a sheet of paper.
A photo she had sent to her family earlier was still on the recipient’s device. Not everything had returned. The explanation she had written that day was still gone. Even so, the picture showed someone smiling beside a window.
“I’m glad I have at least this.”
The woman said it, then shook her head.
“It’s not only gladness. …But I’m glad we found it.”
Mana nodded.
Two feelings could exist at the same time.
Ransomoon did not touch the paper without permission. Instead, he brought a board on which it could rest without bending.
It was the first thing he did after becoming their companion.
Episode 10, Illustration 2 | A recovered photograph and Ransomoon
They all helped clean up until evening. Investigation and recovery were handed over to the responsible staff, and unverified areas remained marked. They did not hide dark windows behind an unqualified “It is all right.”
Back at the doctor’s house, there were fewer chairs than ever to go around.
They arranged cushions on the floor, and Securidon stood his shield against the wall. Phishingon’s rod went by the door, with Linklar’s chain beside it. Spoofon set down small labels to mark a place for each. Spamool said “Welcome home” just once.
Mana could not speak.
This was not the home she wanted to return to.
But here, too, she had found a place she could come home to.
The doctor held out a steaming cup.
“You worked hard today.”
She took it in both hands. She could never have explained this dinner table to the girl writing her name in blue ink on her first day. Not the other world, not the companions, and least of all the fact that she could sit in silence like this with someone.
“Ten companions.”
Mana opened the WS Encyclopedia. Record at least a hundred companions and enter the RKS Tournament. They were still near the beginning of that road.
“If I become a King Secure Star, I can ask the God Secure Star for one thing.”
The doctor nodded.
“You are moving forward to go home. You can keep that wish.”
“But every time another name is added, I find another reason to come back here, too.”
The doctor did not make her close the encyclopedia.
“You do not have to give up either feeling tonight.”
That night, Securidon was sitting on the front step.
Mana sat beside him. Far across the town, lights still burning mingled with lights kept off for the investigation.
“When you find a way home, will you leave right away, don?”
His voice told her he had wanted to ask for a long time.
Mana looked at the sky. A sky with streams of letters flowing through it. Not the night sky she had watched from her own room.
“I want to go home.”
Securidon’s shoulders sank a little.
Mana continued.
“But I will not disappear without saying anything. I do not want to make a lie of wanting to go home, or of what I have found here.”
He stared at the padlock on his shield for a long time.
Then he gave her sleeve a small tug.
“Then we’re together tomorrow, don.”
“Yes. Together tomorrow.”
From the back of the house, Logrin called out.
A letter that should have been present had disappeared from a newly arrived record.
Mana and Securidon looked at each other.
Rest mattered, too. Rather than running straight into the night, they would check the information and its urgency with the doctor. Learning to make that decision was another strength the journey had given them.
Mana stood and held out her hand first.
Securidon took it.
Somewhere along the way, the journey she had begun to get home had become a journey she walked with others.
END OF EPISODE 10