第16章

One night, the whispers were so loud and clear, for the first time I could discern a full sentence, though the language was still incomprehensible. After the voices subsided, a chilling realization dawned on me. The pitch and rhythm of the sound… it was like data being transmitted, modulated… like a corrupted audio file.

My computer science background, which I had taken for granted, was now becoming my greatest weapon, or perhaps, my curse. I started to view the world through a different lens, looking for patterns, for logic, for clues in the chaos.

And then, I made a breakthrough. One of the symbols, or sequences of symbols, that had been appearing frequently, started to look vaguely familiar. It took me a long time, but comparing it with my notes and memories, I finally recognized a part of it. It was a distorted version of a network protocol header, from one of the obscure protocols used in the very online game where my troubles began!

The game! The “backend ghost”! All of this was connected to that game!