Chae Garam Got the Server's Deletion Time Before Her Graduation Exhibition Number

Chae Garam got the server's deletion time before her graduation exhibition number.

11:32 AM.

46 minutes left.

The training template server in the printing room of the old campus building was scheduled for a remote reset. The reason was a security measure following the discovery of a suspected forged document. The reset scope included three months of print queue and template download records.

Garam's exhibition registration deadline was noon.

She couldn't get both.

"I can get both."

Jang Mina said this while spreading three laptops across the printing room floor.

"I'll handle data, you handle paper. If either of us fails, it's on the one who failed."

Garam asked. "What about Dojin?"

"He's at the joint responsibility hearing. He said this material counts as an official document, so he has to check for a leak of his own agreement first. Said not to open anything before the audit escort arrives."

"So shouldn't we wait?"

Mina showed her the red button on the Team 7 terminal.

`Data investigation start: Jang Mina.`

`Scope: template hashes, download timestamps, inserted macro identifiers.`

`Excluded: user names, document body text, printed image content.`

`Failure responsibility: initiator.`

It had already been pressed.

"If this were an authority that acted after reporting, the button would be labeled approval request."

Mina drew up a list of independent investigators.

Data start and stop: Jang Mina.

Physical evidence and campus scope: Chae Garam.

Server permission scope: the printing room assistant.

The legal and correction columns were left blank. She didn't put Hyeonju's or Dojin's names in for convenience. They could join under their own authority once they arrived, but she wasn't going to make them retroactively approve decisions made before they got there.

"What if it fails?" Garam asked.

"Restoration failure is my log. Exceeding campus scope is your log. If anything outside the assistant's permitted range shows up, data stops immediately."

"What if I have to leave for my exhibition?"

"Before handover, it's your failure. After handover, it's your choice."

Mina didn't soften her words. Garam didn't ask for the terms to be cut just because she was a fan.

Garam swallowed the fan's urge to contact Dojin directly. Instead she asked the assistant who managed the printing room.

"Can I lock down the printouts in front of the server? I won't look at student names, just the template numbers and print times."

The assistant didn't pass the decision to either the campus security team or the exhibition review committee. He read his own choice screen and selected `permit template numbers and timestamps only`.

Garam pressed the on-site start under her own name.

`Physical evidence preservation: Chae Garam.`

`Failure responsibility: exhibition registration delay, exceeding permitted scope.`

Mina looked up. "Not waiting for permission."

"Do I have the authority to wait if I'm told to wait?"

"No."

"Then I'm starting."

The printing room had twelve large printers lined up. When the reset signal came in, the same message appeared on every screen.

Training template update.

Deleting user records.

43 minutes left.

Mina didn't choose to copy the entire server. The full image mixed together student assignments, faculty contracts, and scholarship applications. A narrow restoration reading only the template list had a 22 percent failure probability.

"Not a sample, a list. Not names, hashes."

She corrected herself out loud and pressed narrow restore.

Garam opened the printer queues one by one. He covered the body preview with black paper and photographed only the print job number at the bottom of the screen. Nine of the twelve printers still had the same template number.

AGR-EDU-17.

The download times varied.

05:41.

05:53.

06:02.

They were close to the scheduled time confirmed from the fragment of the official account, but close wasn't the same as identical.

Garam said. "So this is the official server, right?"

"A close timestamp isn't a source."

"It's the same number as Dojin's document."

"It's a training template number. We still don't know who used it."

Mina cut off Garam's conclusion immediately. Garam wasn't offended, she just looked back over what she'd photographed. Numbers and times. No source.

31 minutes left.

The narrow server restoration stalled at 64 percent.

Insufficient access permission.

Administrator key required.

The assistant had the key. Security had notified him that using it would place the responsibility for preserving the school's entire print record on him personally.

Mina asked. "I won't ask to borrow the key. Just choose, from the current screen, what scope you're willing to permit."

The assistant flipped through the list, his hand shaking.

Entire queue.

Exclude staff documents.

Exclude student documents.

Template execution logs only.

"The last one."

The assistant pressed it himself.

The restoration moved again.

At that moment all twelve printers started spitting out paper at once.

`Withdrawal permitted at any time after confirming role performance.`

Sheets with only that one line poured onto the printing room floor. The print job's originator was blank. The template being deleted was duplicating its own clause like a witness.

Students in the hallway read the sentence.

The first one took a photo.

The second one read it out loud.

The third one said, "Being able to withdraw isn't so bad."

A wristband marker reading `Form Guarantor` appeared on the assistant's wrist.

Guaranteeing the safety of the training template would exempt him from liability for using the administrator key.

But in exchange, the school would compensate for all role damage caused by the form.

The assistant caught his breath. "It says if I press guarantee, the reset stops."

Garam didn't press the button for him.

Mina hit broadcast stop. The printing room camera and the school's promotional channel went dark. But the memories of the three students who had already seen it in the hallway couldn't be erased.

"Where does it go if we delete it?" Garam asked.

"If we erase the clause now, the remaining role could flow back onto the students."

"Then the printing."

"Stopping it physically is your call."

Garam looked at the power breaker. Cutting all the printers would also kill the server restoration equipment. The core logs Mina was securing could disappear with it.

He pulled out six manual rollers he'd borrowed for hauling his graduation piece. He stood empty paper boxes in front of the printer outlets and pushed the paper in with the rollers. The paper kept coming, but instead of spreading into the hallway it folded inside the boxes.

"You're not stopping the printing." the assistant said.

"I'm not adding more witnesses to the sentence."

"If the paper jams, the printer will break."

"I set it up. I'll swap the box before it jams."

Garam moved back and forth between two rows of six. Paper started feeding at an angle in the third printer on the right. He didn't put his hand in, he pulled the emergency release lever. One box tipped over and hundreds of sheets spread across the floor.

A student in the hallway tried to open the door.

Garam didn't block it with his body. "If you come in, you'll see more of the sentence. Do you still want to come in?"

The student stopped in the doorway. "I won't."

"Can I close the door?"

"Yes."

The door closed.

18 minutes left.

28 minutes until Garam's exhibition registration deadline.

Mina's restoration stalled again at 91 percent.

This time two files were colliding.

The AGR-EDU-17 original.

The WITHDRAW-QUICK inserted macro.

The original was a training agreement template. The subject, relationship role, sacrifice obligation, voluntariness, and anniversary fields were laid out in the same order, complete with a "without delay" typo and a training watermark.

But the sentence `withdrawal permitted at any time after confirming role performance` wasn't in the original.

That sentence had been inserted by a separate macro.

Mina compared the hashes.

"This isn't one official document that got leaked as is."

Garam asked while swapping a box. "So Dojin's document has nothing to do with this?"

"That's not confirmed either. The base template is the same. The withdrawal clause came in from a different layer."

"Who put it in?"

"That's what we have to catch."

The macro execution log had sales receipt numbers instead of user names. Twenty-one of them. The same as the minimum number of buyers confirmed across the call center, refrigerated delivery, and facility management incidents.

But opening the receipt numbers would also restore the buyer accounts and the victims' document text along with them.

Mina's hand stopped.

"The core evidence is right here. But opening it drags names along with it."

Garam didn't answer for her. "The assistant's permitted scope only went up to execution logs, right?"

The assistant nodded. "The receipt numbers are fine. Accounts and body text aren't."

Mina sealed only the twenty one numbers and the macro hash. She didn't open the buyer names or the victims' text.

Restoration successful.

9 minutes left.

The reset went ahead as scheduled. Garam sealed the twelve output boxes, writing on each one: 0 viewers, 0 sheets leaked externally, 1 jam incident.

19 minutes until the exhibition registration deadline.

Garam started to run, then stopped. The `Form Guarantor` marker was still on the assistant's wrist.

"Can I go now?"

The assistant asked instead. "Aren't you registering for the exhibition?"

"The physical preservation handover I started has to finish first."

Garam repeated the box numbers back until campus security arrived. The handover signature came two minutes before noon.

The exhibition registration office was on the seventh floor of a different building.

By the time he arrived, the clock at the window read three minutes past noon.

The review staffer stamped his registration form with `late`.

"If you submit a written reason, we might accept it at the next meeting."

Garam didn't write down a lucky accident or a team dispatch.

`Physical evidence preservation and handover responsibility begun at the campus printing room.`

He wrote it as his own choice.

Mina came up to the seventh floor and showed him the sealed receipt.

One original template hash.

One inserted macro hash.

Twenty one sales receipt numbers.

Zero personal data restored.

Mina opened a report window to Dojin. Garam said.

"Reporting now, huh."

"Yeah. After moving."

Dojin's reply was short.

`I thought it was a leak of my own agreement's original.`

Mina wrote back right away.

`Same base training template. Withdrawal clause came from a separate macro. Direct responsibility still unconfirmed.`

Dojin asked again.

`Why didn't you wait for the audit escort?`

Mina didn't send back the success hash as her answer.

`Reset in 46 minutes. Used pre-approved data start authority. Secured only permitted logs instead of a full restoration. If it had failed, it would have been recorded as my decision to start.`

A moment later Hyeonju joined the channel too.

`I'm not granting after the fact approval. I'll verify the permitted scope, the stop time, and the excluded items first.`

Mina just pressed `confirmed`. She didn't ask for praise or exemption.

Garam laid his registration form and the evidence seal sheet side by side.

The exhibition was late.

The evidence arrived first.