Chapter 134: First Phase
Aiden laughed. "I’ll see both of you after the meeting." With that, he entered the private executive elevator.
The elevator doors closed. The lobby suddenly became much quieter.
Nobody looked around. "So... What should we do?"
Toma thought for a moment. "I don’t really feel like going home yet. I just want to walk."
Nobody nodded. "Walking sounds good. Besides, free air conditioning is expensive."
"You mean fresh air?"
"I meant what I said." Nobody said.
Toma shook her head. "I can never tell if you’re joking."
"Ahem.. Neither can I." Nobody said.
...
The two slowly walked through the small park beside Nathan Industries. Children were playing on the swings. Office workers were eating lunch. Everything felt peaceful.
Toma stopped beside a flower bed. "It feels strange."
"What does?"
"Knowing that I remembered everything..." She looked at the flowers. "But the world kept moving."
Nobody placed his hands inside his pockets. "That’s usually how life works. It doesn’t stop. It just waits for us to catch up."
Toma looked at him. "You’re surprisingly wise sometimes."
"I know." Nobody said proudly with a smirk.
"It’s terrifying." She laughed. After a long moment since recovering her memories, Toma was genuinely laughing.
Nobody smiled quietly. In his mind he said, " Good.She finally smiled."
Suddenly...
A familiar blue window appeared before Nobody.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Passive Skill Activated]
Sensing Danger ( ˶°ㅁ°) !!
Nearby Hostile Intent Detected.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s relaxed expression disappeared for only a fraction of a second. "Hostile intent?" His eyes casually scanned the park.
Families, children, office workers, nothing unusual.
Another window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Scanning...
Hostile Presence:
Outside Visual Range.
Direction:
North-East.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody didn’t react outwardly. Instead, he scratched his head dramatically. "Hmm... What? I suddenly remembered... I forgot to buy ice cream."
Toma blinked. "...Ice cream?"
"Very important. As your flashback also included it... so have to buy you one.. My survival impression on you depends on it."
She sighed. "Wait! No need to buy one... waait , Nobody!"
"Coming right up"
"You don’t have to....!" Toma said.
Too late. Nobody was already jogging toward the nearby convenience store. As soon as he disappeared around the corner...
His smile vanished. He immediately changed direction. Instead of entering the store. He quietly slipped into a narrow alley.
No one was watching.
"Alright..." He whispered. "Let’s hear what those bastards doing..."
Then...
Footsteps.
Three men stepped out from behind stacked cargo containers. Each wore ordinary business suits. But their eyes were fixed on Nathan Industries.
One of them spoke into a small communication device. "Target building confirmed. The security layout matches the blueprint."
"Proceeding with Phase One."
Nobody remained hidden behind the corner. "Blueprint? Are they planning something?"
The second man opened a briefcase.
Inside...
Instead of documents, here were miniature drones. He released one into the air. The tiny machine silently flew upward toward Nathan Industries.
Nobody frowned. "A surveillance drone? Definitely not ordinary businessmen thing to do."
Another System window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Analysis Complete]
Enemy Classification:
Corporate Infiltration Unit
Threat Level:
C
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody scratched his cheek. "Only C Rank? That’s disappointing."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[...]
You want Higher?
(ㆆࡇㆆ") (ㆆࡇㆆ")
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Ahem... I was just kidding? Don’t need to get so worked up."
The drone continued flying. If it reached the headquarters... It could map the entire building.
Nobody glanced toward the empty alley. "No witnesses. Perfect." A grin slowly spread across his face. He reached into his pocket. A small red keychain shaped like a bunny hung from his fingers.
"Looks like... My lunch break is cancelled." He quietly disappeared deeper into the alley.
...
Several minutes later, the drone reached the rooftop of Nathan Industries.
One of the suited men smiled. "Connection established. Begin scanning...."
CRACK!
A chunk of ice suddenly struck the drone. The machine froze solid in midair before shattering into dozens of glittering pieces.
The three men froze. "What?! Who attacked it?"
A cheerful voice echoed from above. "Looking for this?"
The men looked up.
Standing on the rooftop edge. A figure wearing a pink bunny helmet looked down at them. A crimson jacket fluttered in the wind. The familiar black crowbar rested across one shoulder.
It was the Crimson Bunny Biker.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System Window]
User has been granted
Limited time access to his powers
Hurry up ദ്ദി ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ )
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
One thug’s face turned pale. "Huuuuh?! Who the fuc* are you?"
The Bunny helmeted Crimson Bunny Biker tilted his head. "You know... I really hate people who spy on other people’s workplaces."
The leader clenched his fists. "Take him down!"
All three rushed forward.
Crimson Bunny sighed dramatically. "Three against one? At least bring enough people to make cardio worth it."
The first attacker threw a punch.
The Bunny casually stepped aside. The punch hit nothing but air. The second swung a metal baton. The Bunny spun once. The crowbar lightly tapped the baton.
CRACK!
The weapon instantly became covered in frost before breaking into pieces.
The attackers stared in disbelief.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skill Active]
Attack Frequency Increasing.
Enemy Defensive Capability:
Rapidly Decreasing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Bunny grinned beneath the helmet. "Now...My turn." He vanished.
The three men widened their eyes. "So fast...."
Bonk!
Bonk!
Bonk!
Three clean strikes landed almost simultaneously.
The attackers spun through the air before crashing harmlessly onto the rooftop, completely unconscious. No excessive injuries. Just three instant knockouts.
The Bunny rested the crowbar on his shoulder. "...Too easy." He looked toward the skyline.
Far away... On another rooftop...
A lone figure wearing a black coat lowered a pair of binoculars. "So...The Crimson Bunny has appeared." He smiled faintly. "Interesting." He pressed a button on his earpiece. "The surveillance team failed. But we’ve confirmed one thing. The mysterious vigilante protecting Nathan Industries is real."
A calm voice answered from the other side. "Then don’t engage him yet. Our objective isn’t him now. Let’s just focus on the plot problems right now. The chairman’s revenge has only just begun in the plot.
The transmission ended. The man disappeared into the shadows.
Meanwhile...
The Crimson Bunny looked toward the distant rooftop. "..." He couldn’t see anyone. But somehow... He felt as if someone had been watching him.
......
The cold evening breeze swept across the rooftop of Nathan Industries. The three unconscious infiltrators lay scattered across the concrete floor. Their surveillance drone had already been reduced to frozen fragments.
The Crimson Bunny Biker rested his crowbar on one shoulder. "...Well. That was disappointing." He looked down at the unconscious men. "C Rank really isn’t enough exercise."
A familiar blue window suddenly floated before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Battle Complete]
Enemies Defeated:
3
Damage Taken:
0%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody nodded proudly. "Flawless."
Another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Mission Complete]
Nathan Industries
Information Leak:
Prevented
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"Now that’s what I like to hear." He looked toward the broken drone pieces. "They definitely weren’t ordinary office workers." He crouched beside one of the unconscious men. The man carried no company ID. No wallet.
Only a strange black metallic card engraved with a silver crescent moon.
Nobody picked it up. "Hmm... I’ve never seen this logo before."
Another System window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Analyzing...
Unknown Organization Symbol Detected.
Searching Database...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Several seconds passed.
Then...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
No Match Found.
Recommended Action:
Collect More Information.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed. "So basically...You know nothing."
The System answered immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
(◞‸◟;)
Correct...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"...At least you’re honest." He slipped the metal card into his pocket. "Maybe it’ll be useful later."
Suddenly, one thug groaned. "...Ugh..."
Nobody immediately looked down. "Oh... You’re awake already?"
The man’s eyes slowly opened. The first thing he saw...was a pink bunny helmet staring directly at him.
His face instantly turned pale.
"I-It...NOT THIS MANIAC AGAIN!!..."
Nobody crouched beside him. "Congratulations! You’ve identified today’s mascot."
The man instinctively tried to crawl backward. Unfortunately, his entire body had already been frozen stiff by the lingering frost. He couldn’t move.
Nobody casually spun the crowbar once. "So...Mind telling me why three businessmen brought military-grade surveillance drones to Nathan Industries?"
The thug remained silent.
Nobody nodded. "Ah.. One of those strong silent types." He tapped the crowbar against his shoulder. "I respect that."
The thug continued glaring at him.
Nobody sighed dramatically. "I even prepared a whole interrogation speech. You guys never cooperate."
The thug suddenly smiled. "You...won’t stop us."
Nobody raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Our Chairman already expected someone would interfere."
Nobody’s smile slowly faded. "Chairman?"
The thug laughed weakly. "You’ve already lost."
"The first move...was never us."
Nobody’s eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
The thug only laughed louder. "You’ll find out soon enough..."
Before Nobody could ask another question...
The thug lost consciousness again.
"..."
Nobody stared at him. "You couldn’t wait five more seconds?" He poked the man’s forehead. But nothing happened. "Great. The dramatic villain passed out."
A familiar blue window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Suggestion]
Perhaps Next Time...
Hit Them Less.
(｡•́︿•̀｡)
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Nobody looked offended. "I barely tapped him!"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User’s Definition
Of ’Barely’
Requires Review]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"...Ahem." He stood up. His gaze drifted toward the city skyline. The thug’s final words echoed inside his head.
The first move was never us.
Nobody in his mind said, "What exactly are you planning...?"
...
At the same time, nearly five kilometres away...
Inside the top floor of Eclipse Holdings. The gray-haired chairman calmly stood before an enormous digital display. Several executives sat around a conference table. No one dared speak first.
Finally...
One woman stepped forward. "The reconnaissance team has failed."
She lowered her head. "The Crimson Bunny Biker intercepted them before they completed the scan."
The chairman wasn’t surprised.
Instead, he quietly asked, "Casualties?"
"No fatalities. They’ve been apprehended."
He nodded once. "Acceptable."
The executives exchanged confused glances. One of them cautiously asked, "...Sir? We’ve failed. Shouldn’t we begin a second operation immediately?"
The chairman slowly turned toward him. "No."
The room became silent. "The objective of Phase One was never to map Nathan Industries."
Everyone froze. The executive blinked. "Then...what was its purpose?"
The chairman calmly pressed a button. A large screen appeared. It displayed several blurry photographs. Each one showed the Crimson Bunny Biker.
Jumping, fighting with crowbars. Moving faster than the human eye.
The chairman looked at every image carefully. "Our true objective was confirming whether this individual truly existed." He folded his hands behind his back. "And now... We have our answer."
One executive frowned. "So, the surveillance team was bait...?"
The chairman nodded. "They fulfilled their purpose. No sacrifice is meaningless if information is gained."
The room fell completely silent. Several executives felt chills run down their spines.
This man...Didn’t value failure or success. Only results.
He looked once more at the Bunny’s blurred image. "So...The unknown variable protecting Nathan Industries....has finally stepped onto the board." He smiled faintly. "A masked vigilante. Interesting." He looked toward another executive. "Begin compiling everything." "Appearance, combat style, behaviour, every reported incident. I want a complete profile. Leave nothing out."
The executive immediately bowed. "Understood, Chairman."
The chairman walked toward the enormous window overlooking Alkon City.
The lights of Nathan Industries glowed in the distance.
For several moments...He simply watched. Then quietly spoke. "Every person has a weakness. Even heroes."
...
Meanwhile...
On another rooftop, the Crimson Bunny looked toward the moon. He suddenly sneezed. "...Achoo." He rubbed his nose. "Why do I suddenly feel like someone just added me to their homework assignment?"
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[Passive Skill]
Danger Sense
Still Active.
( •̀ᴗ•́ )و
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed.
"Yeah...I’ve got that feeling too."