Chapter 166: CC Eyes?
The warehouse behind them had finally gone quiet. Nobody walked out through the damaged entrance with Rian beside him. The cool night air immediately felt different from the heavy atmosphere inside.
Rian looked back at the warehouse. "Are we really leaving that huge guy there?"
Nobody adjusted his crimson bunny helmet. "He’ll be found soon."
Rian looked confused. "How do you know?"
Nobody paused. "...Let’s just say I have my ways."
Rian stared at him. "Bunny uncle, you say weird things."
Nobody looked offended. "Why does everyone keep calling me that?"
Rian shrugged. "Because you’re wearing a bunny helmet."
Nobody sighed. "Fair enough."
Blossom Bunny hopped out of the warehouse behind them. "Atta ta!" The tiny white bunny jumped onto Nobody’s shoulder.
Nobody glanced at her. "You’re coming on my shoulder?"
Blossom nodded enthusiastically. "Atta!"
"Alright." Nobody continued walking.
For several seconds, everything remained peaceful.
Then the System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Additional Analysis]
Target:
Rian
External Reality Influence:
Detected
Status:
Active
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stopped walking. "...Wait."
Rian looked up. "What?"
Nobody looked at the System. "You’re telling me Rian is affected by the higher being, not by some science experiment?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Correct.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody frowned. He looked at the boy. "So that’s why he could do that strange camera thingy."
Rian blinked. "Are you talking about my camera power?"
Nobody remembered what had happened earlier.
Rian had somehow known where surveillance cameras were positioned. He could sense them. He could even tell when someone was watching through them.
Nobody scratched the side of his helmet. "Yeah, you got that CCTV-like power." He paused. "What was the name again?"
The System displayed another notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Known Influence]
Ability:
Awareness of Surveillance Systems
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody snapped his fingers. "That’s it!" He pointed toward Rian. "Awareness of Surveillance Systems."
Rian stared at him. "...Is that supposed to be good?"
Nobody shrugged. "I mean, it’s pretty useful."
Rian looked around. "I don’t even understand why I can do it."
Nobody’s expression became serious. "Neither do I."
The System appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Purification Option Available]
External reality influence can be removed.
Method:
Direct contact with target’s head.
Risk:
Minimal
Estimated Success Rate:
98.7%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody blinked. "Direct contact?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Correct.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked at Rian. Then at his own hand. Then back at Rian. "...That’s surprisingly simple."
Rian looked suspicious. "What are you going to do?"
Nobody crouched slightly. "Something is on your head."
Rian immediately touched his hair. "What?"
Nobody nodded seriously. "Yeah."
Rian looked increasingly confused. "What is it?"
Nobody raised his hand. "Don’t worry."
Rian stared. "That doesn’t make me feel better."
Nobody gently placed his palm on the top of Rian’s head.
The System immediately activated.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Purification Sequence Starting]
Target:
Rian
External Influence:
Detected
Beginning purification...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody felt a strange sensation travel through his palm. Tiny sparks began jumping between his fingers.
ZZZT.
ZZZT.
Small arcs of electricity-like energy moved across his glove.
Rian’s eyes widened. "Bunny uncle!"
Nobody looked down. "Relax."
"Your hand is making lightning!"
Nobody looked at his hand. "...Oh."
Another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Purification]:
27%
[Extraction]:
19%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared. "Extraction?"
The electrical static became stronger. Small sparks moved around Rian’s head without hurting him.
Rian closed his eyes. "It feels weird."
"Hold still." Nobody kept his palm in place.
The System continued.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Purifying...
Removing external distortion...
Separating foreign influence...
Extracting abnormal ability imprint...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s eyes widened. "Wait. Extracting?"
The System didn’t answer.
The static around his hand became brighter.
ZZZT.
ZZZT.
ZZZT.
Rian’s hair moved slightly from the energy.
Nobody looked concerned. "You’re sure this doesn’t hurt him?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Confirmed.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Good."
The percentage continued increasing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Purification]:
61%
[Extraction]:
54%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody watched carefully.
The strange energy slowly began leaving Rian’s body. A faint dark shimmer emerged from around his head.
Nobody could barely see it. It looked like a thin layer of distortion being pulled away. Nobody stared. "...So that’s what was affecting him."
The distortion gathered around his palm.
The System absorbed it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Purification]:
89%
[Extraction:
83%]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rian suddenly opened his eyes. "Bunny uncle."
"Yeah?"
"I feel..." He paused. "...lighter."
Nobody smiled. "Almost done."
The System continued.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Purification]:
100%
[Extraction]:
100%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The static immediately disappeared. Silence returned. Nobody slowly removed his hand from Rian’s head.
The System displayed its final message.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Extraction and Purification Complete]
External Reality Influence:
Removed
Target:
Rian
Status:
Stable
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the notification. "Extraction?"
The System responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s eyes widened. "So I extracted something from him?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Correct] (¬ᴗ ´¬ )
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody suddenly became excited. "Then what did I get?"
The System immediately responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Don’t jump in happiness]
(⇀‸↼‶)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the System. "...Why are you saying that like you already know I’m about to celebrate?"
The next notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[New Skill Obtained]
Skill:
CC Eyes
Type:
Special Information Skill
Description:
User can view CCTV footage from his mind.
Additional Function:
Access available surveillance feeds within the user’s effective range.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody froze. His eyes widened. "...No way." He stared at the skill description. Then his excitement exploded. "AWESOMEEEE!"
Rian jumped. "Bunny uncle?"
Blossom Bunny jumped too. "ATTAAAA!"
Nobody immediately cleared his throat. "Ahem." He looked away. "It’s nothing, kiddo."
Rian stared at him. "You just screamed."
Nobody nodded seriously. "Advanced voice testing."
Rian looked even more confused. "...What?"
Nobody ignored him. He looked back toward the System. "CC Eyes..." He opened the skill menu again. "Show me what this thing can do."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[CC Eyes]
Activation:
Available
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody focused.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then his vision changed. The street remained in front of him. But another image suddenly appeared inside his mind.
A camera feed. A small security camera mounted outside a convenience store.
Nobody blinked. "...Whoa."
The image disappeared.
Another appeared. A traffic camera. Then another which showed a parking lot. Then another street.
Nobody stood completely still.
Rian watched him. "Bunny uncle?"
Nobody didn’t answer. His mind was processing everything. He wasn’t physically looking at those places. He was seeing them through surveillance systems. It felt almost like having dozens of invisible windows inside his head.
Nobody slowly smiled. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"This is ridiculously useful."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Correct.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked toward Rian. "Especially for rescue missions."
The System responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Correct]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody laughed. "Finally, you admit something without arguing."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[The user is becoming excessively confident]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody frowned. "What’s wrong with confidence?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Previous user behavior suggests confidence frequently precedes unnecessary complications]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared. "...You really keep records of everything, don’t you?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Correct] Even when user go to
washroo...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed. "Ahem...Forget it. Let’s not dig past."
Rian looked toward the road. "So...what can you see?"
Nobody smiled. "Cameras."
Rian blinked.
"Lots of cameras."
Rian asked,"Can you see me?"
Nobody looked directly at him. "Yep."
Rian waved to a CC camera near them.
Nobody watched the wave through his normal vision. Then he focused on the CC Eyes ability. Another perspective appeared. He could see himself and Rian from a nearby security camera.
Nobody froze. "...That’s creepy."
Rian laughed. "You can see yourself?"
Nobody replied,"Apparently." Nobody experimented. He switched between several feeds. A street corner, a shop entrance, a parking area, traffic intersection and everything appeared within his mind without requiring a physical screen.
Nobody slowly realized the potential. "If someone is hiding..." He focused. "...I can search cameras. If someone is moving..." Another feed appeared. "...I can track them. If someone is planning something..." He smiled. "...I can watch their movements."
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[CC Eyes]
Potential Applications:
Surveillance analysis
Target tracking
Route reconstruction
Missing-person investigation
Security monitoring
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody nodded. "Exactly."
Rian looked up at him. "Can you use it to find people?"
Nobody’s smile faded slightly. He knew exactly what Rian meant. The rescue mission and the remaining targets. The eighty-five locations. Nobody looked toward the distant city lights. "Yes."
Rian’s expression brightened. "Then maybe you can find other people who are missing."
Nobody nodded. "That’s the plan."
Nobody opened the System map. Several locations appeared. But this time, Nobody had something he didn’t have before. A way to observe the city without physically being there. His CC Eyes.
Nobody smiled beneath the crimson helmet. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Let’s test my new skill."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Proceed.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s eyes narrowed. "Show me the nearest available surveillance network."
The System responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Searching...]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Several camera feeds began appearing inside Nobody’s mind. He watched the city from dozens of different angles.
A busy intersection, a quiet alley, a convenience store, a parking lot and an empty warehouse entrance.
Nobody carefully examined each feed.
Some showed ordinary people going about their night. Others showed completely empty streets. Then one feed caught his attention.
Nobody stopped. "...Wait."
Rian looked up. "What happened?"
Nobody didn’t answer immediately. His focus remained locked onto the surveillance image inside his mind.
The camera showed a dark road several kilometers away. A vehicle had just passed through the frame.
Nobody narrowed his eyes. Something about it felt familiar. He switched to another nearby camera. The same vehicle appeared again.
Then another. And another.
Nobody’s expression slowly became serious. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Track that vehicle."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[CC Eyes]
Target Tracking:
Active
Route Reconstruction:
Beginning...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A glowing line appeared across the mental map.
Nobody stared. "...Looks like our new skill is already useful."
Rian looked confused. "Did you find someone?"
Nobody looked toward the distant city. "I might have."
Blossom Bunny’s ears stood upright. "Atta?"
Nobody smiled. "Yeah." He adjusted his helmet. "Looks like we’re going somewhere. I mean next night."
The System displayed one final notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[New Objective Detected]
Investigate Suspicious Vehicle
Priority:
High
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked at Rian. "Stay close."
Rian nodded. "Okay."
Nobody looked toward Blossom. "Ready?"
Blossom Bunny said,"Atta ta!"
Nobody smiled. "Then let’s move." He stepped forward into the night.
This time, he didn’t need a map to guide him.
He had the eyes of the city itself.