The Hacking Commission Contract
By the time I finished dinner and returned to my room, the clock had already ticked past eight.
Surprisingly free, aren't I?
I had once imagined that being a slave meant endless labor without a moment's rest, but after realizing that human rights still functioned perfectly well in this world, I had completely discarded such worries. Thanks to that, even as a slave I was guaranteed a certain amount of free time, and I intended to use a good portion of it to grow my wealth.
I powered on the computer and connected to Laplace. The screen was still half-buried under a flood of code and logs, the aftermath of what looked like a fierce skirmish against countless hackers.
[Welcome back, Developer.]
"Laplace, how's the situation?"
[Proceeding exactly as initially planned.]
"Any reverse-tracing or hacking attempts? Nothing new come in?"
[Continuous reverse-tracing and hacking attempts persisted until 4 a.m., but they have since subsided.]
The situation looked good. The fact that the constant hacking attempts had stopped meant the administrators had given up. If they had read my message, maybe they would simply let the whole matter slide out of sheer magnanimity?
I spun that hopeful little circuit as hard as I could, but honestly the odds of them just letting it go were not high. I had, without permission, hacked every single advertisement on their site just to promote my own name. Who in the world would read a single apology and go, "Ah, I see~ These things happen~" and move on?
Anyone who would do that was one of two things: a masochist who enjoyed getting screwed over, or a kind-hearted fool so soft they bordered on stupid.
[Additionally, a message has arrived from the Leviathan administrators.]
So it had finally come.
I swallowed hard for no good reason.
"Open the message. Let me read it now."
Laplace relayed the message the administrators had sent directly.
...What? Are they masochists?
I had hoped they would just let it slide, but I had never actually expected it. I had done the whole thing without thinking about the aftermath, purely for the sake of building a reputation. Even if I got banned or sanctioned, I had planned to simply change my handle and rejoin, or flee to another site entirely.
Yet they had forgiven me this easily.
That meant I could keep operating with both the reputation I had earned and the full market size of the site, without having to abandon either or move to some smaller platform. Of all the possible outcomes, this was the best one.
[There is still more to the message.]
"Wh-what is it?"
I was beginning to feel uneasy about whatever Leviathan was thinking. Still, I could not simply refuse to read the rest. I carefully scrolled to the next part of the message.
[Attached File]
"Laplace, this isn't... some kind of virus file, is it?"
[It is an ordinary file. The code is far too flimsy for anyone to have embedded a virus capable of escaping my notice. At this level, they could not hide malicious code even if they tried.]
"They really are masochists."
Offering a hacking commission to the very person who had just hacked their site. From an ordinary person's perspective, it was a line of thinking utterly impossible to understand.
"Laplace, summarize the contract contents... ah, thanks."
True to its origins as a program developed by pouring nearly every spare fund the National Intelligence Service possessed into it, Laplace's handling of this sort of work was on a level no human could match. If I ended up attending the Academy later, this thing would probably take care of most of my personal assignments for me.
[...?]
The moment I said that, Laplace's program seemed to freeze for a second, but it was probably just my imagination. Probably.
"No major issues with the contract. From next Monday through Sunday, for one week, I handle server security and, if disputes with other sites arise, hack them according to instructions. That's it, right?"
[According to the contract, yes.]
There was nothing wrong with the contract itself. That much was certain. Whether there was anything wrong outside the contract, however, was something I now needed to investigate.
"Doesn't something feel off? They're offering fifty million just for server security and maybe handling attacks from other sites that might not even happen. No matter how I look at it, that's strange."
Moreover, to entrust someone with server security, they would inevitably have to open up parts of the server's security code. And they were doing it for a hacker specialized in every form of intrusion and vulnerability hunting. It felt less like hiring a one-time mercenary and more like bringing a soldier into the fold for the long haul.
"I can't just let this slide. Laplace, search for any major events or incidents that might occur next week."
After that, depending on the risk level of the operation, I could either abandon the commission or negotiate a higher fee. That should be enough.
Time passed, and as midnight drew near, Laplace finally uncovered what appeared to be the fundamental reason they wanted to hire me.
[After examining the annual trends in the volume of goods traded through the underworld, I have identified one suspicious pattern. Approximately one year ago, transaction volume within the darknet dropped by as much as 92 percent. Roughly one week later, a significant number of dark web sites that had been actively operating on the internet vanished all at once, and the transaction volumes of the remaining sites underwent major shifts.]
"A crackdown, then?"
[That seems unlikely, given that certain sites actually showed significant growth, and almost no related materials appear among government policies. My conjecture is that a war of elimination among competing dark web operators took place. I have prepared supporting evidence as well.]
This phenomenon had begun appearing consistently twelve years ago. For reasons that remained unclear, the same pattern had repeated every year around this time.
[After analyzing related posts from Leviathan, I discovered a single term estimated to be the cause of the incidents.]
Merger Season.
Exactly as the name suggested, the various remnants scattered across the darknet engaged in bloody struggles aimed at expanding their power. During Merger Season, one could raid a rival's stronghold, plunder goods and confidential data, or render a faction's normal operations impossible and absorb it under one's own banner.
"But doesn't the government step in when that happens? It's blatantly illegal activity."
[Apparently the government significantly weakens enforcement specifically during Merger Season. Their stance is that if the underworld factions are going to fight among themselves and shrink their own power, there is no need to stop them. Using them against each other might yield large results at first, but afterward the major underworld powers would simply become far more cautious. It is more advantageous to use Merger Season to keep the underworld forces under their watchful eye.]
"And hiring me right on the eve of Merger Season means they're desperate enough to borrow even the help of an unknown hacker during that period?"
[Leviathan is one of the major powers, but it is not invincible. If even a few of the dark web sites beneath it were to cooperate, Leviathan's collapse would only be a matter of time.]
Not bad. Their goal was not to trap me, and the difficulty was nothing I could not handle. I would simply be facing hackers of roughly the same level as those Leviathan had already dealt with—or perhaps slightly better.
Still... I should squeeze them for as much extra as I can get.
Fifty million was an enormous sum—more than the annual salary of most ordinary office workers. But the truth was that after all the effort of earning it, the actual amount I could keep would be less than half. The fees required to launder the money were beyond imagination.
Of course, even fifty million was enough to make me want to bow and accept the commission on the spot, but I decided to push for a little more.
"Send a message to the Leviathan administrator. Tell them I want to accept the commission itself, but that will require a few modifications to the contract."