Chapter 437: You’ll Learn the Hard Way

With Zero’s help, Walden gradually uncovered pieces of Olivia’s past. When he saw that she had grown up in a village called “Blumera,” a pang of sympathy hit him so hard it almost hurt to breathe. A village so obscure it didn’t even show up on search engines—how hard must her life have been there?

Zero glanced at Walden’s distressed expression. When he first took this job, he had been curious about who was willing to pay so much. It wasn’t until he arrived that he realized it was the Kenneth family. Still—one hundred forty grand just to pull up a girl’s records? This wasn’t the kind of payday he came across often. He figured he’d wrap things up quickly, cash in, and head straight back to sleep.

But just as he thought he was in the clear, a red light flickered across his screen. The once-readable files suddenly turned to static. Walden, fully engrossed in what he was reading, stiffened at the sudden change. “What’s going on?”

Zero froze. His computer was under attack? Without missing a beat, he adjusted his code and launched a counter-defense. But what happened next was beyond anything he had ever seen. No matter how much attack code he sent out, it was like throwing pebbles into a black hole—nothing worked. Meanwhile, the intruder’s attacks kept coming, stronger and faster. The file on his screen was already a scrambled mess, and the entire display flickered nonstop.

Zero had never been in a situation like this before. His attacks? Useless. His defenses? Completely ineffective. Every single time he made a move, his opponent was already one step ahead, cutting off every path forward and every way out. Olivia’s file turned into nothing but a pixelated blur, and then a tiny but aggressive growl erupted from his speakers.

The next second, a chibi Wendigo burst out from the middle of his screen. “Awooo!” Little Wendigo plopped onto the desktop, opened its mouth—and with a single howl, devoured the entire page. Zero just sat there, stunned. He scrambled to take back control of his system, but it was a lost cause. And since he was on a wireless connection, he couldn’t even rip out a cable to stop it.

What kind of monster was he up against?

Just as Zero sat there, completely lost, Little Wendigo suddenly stood up and let a banner drop from its paws. “Who’s the little cutie bold enough to peek at my files?” Zero froze the second he saw the message. The banner rolled back up and unfurled again, this time with new text: “Guess I’ll have to teach you the hard way!”

At first, the words didn’t make sense. But then—that ridiculous-looking Little Wendigo started prancing across his desktop. It even shot him a glance. And in the next moment, Zero finally understood what true despair felt like. Right in front of him, Little Wendigo opened its mouth and devoured his files.

Zero was on the verge of a breakdown. What kind of nonsense was this? Was this some kind of twisted joke? The data on my computer is worth tens of millions! Stop! Stop right now! But in just a few minutes, he could do nothing but watch as the little creature rampaged through his system, wiping out everything in its path. He tried shutting it down. He tried fighting for control. Nothing worked.

In less than ten minutes, his entire system was spotless—completely empty, as if it had just been taken out of the box. Now bloated and satisfied, Little Wendigo flopped onto the screen, patting its round belly. The smugness was unbearable.