Chapter 136: Let’s Hunt You, Jonathan!
The Old Riverside District lay under a blanket of silence.
Unlike the vibrant heart of Alkon City, this part of the city had long been forgotten. Cracked roads stretched between abandoned warehouses, rusted shipping containers sat untouched for years and flickering streetlights barely managed to push back the darkness.
Only the distant sound of water flowing through the old river broke the stillness.
VROOOOOOOM!!
A crimson motorcycle raced across the empty streets before skidding to a stop atop a warehouse rooftop.
Nobody switched off the engine. The city instantly became quiet again. He stood from the motorcycle and looked across the district. "So this is the place..."
A transparent blue window appeared before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Mission Area Entered]
Location: Old Riverside District
Threat Assessment: High
Potential Civilian Casualties: Unknown
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody slowly scanned the streets below. There wasn’t a single person in sight. "...Too quiet."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System Reply]
Environmental analysis agrees.
Human activity is significantly below normal levels.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody crouched at the edge of the rooftop. "This district has dozens of blind spots. No wonder someone could disappear so easily."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System Scan Active]
Searching...
Searching...
No confirmed visual of Jonathan Milow.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody frowned. "Then let’s think." He closed his eyes for a moment. "If I were a serial killer who carefully planned every murder...I wouldn’t attack randomly. I’d choose somewhere isolated. Limited witnesses, few cameras and easy escape routes." He opened his eyes. "...This district fits perfectly."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System Reply]
Reasoning accepted.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He leapt from the rooftop.
THUD!
Landing silently on the pavement below, he began walking through the empty streets.
Every step echoed. His senses were fully alert. Every alley, every broken window and every parked vehicle. Nothing escaped his attention.
A cold breeze drifted through the abandoned buildings.
Then....
A faint sound. "...Help..."
Nobody stopped walking. His head turned toward a narrow alley. "...Did you hear that?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Audio Detection]
Female voice detected.
Confidence: 73%.
Direction: Northeast.
Distance: Approximately 180 meters.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Without another word....He disappeared.
WHOOSH!
Only a gust of wind remained.
Several streets away...
A young woman hurried down a poorly lit road while clutching her phone. She looked over her shoulder again. No one was there. "...I’m just imagining things." She forced herself to smile. "I really should’ve taken a taxi."
Her apartment was only another ten minutes away. Still...She couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. She looked behind her once more.
Nothing. Only empty streets.
She let out a relieved sigh. Then continued walking.
Unknown to her...On the rooftop above, man stood perfectly still. It was Jonathan Milow.
His ordinary face showed no emotion. His dark coat blended into the night. He watched her with patient eyes. No excitement. No anger.
Only calculation. He checked his watch. Then quietly climbed down the fire escape.
Every movement was controlled. Like a predator that had hunted many times before.
On another rooftop....
Nobody sprinted across the buildings.
THUMP!
THUMP!
THUMP!
He landed on another rooftop before stopping suddenly. "...System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Reply]
Listening.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"I heard someone. Can you lock onto that voice?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Processing...
Multiple echoes interfering.
Attempting refinement...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A few seconds later.....
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Voice source estimated]
Distance updated.
132 meters.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Good." Nobody immediately changed direction. His black blazer fluttered behind him as he accelerated.
.....
Meanwhile...
The young woman frowned. "...Why do I still feel uneasy?" She looked around again. The road was empty. Even the streetlights seemed dimmer now.
Suddenly....
Her phone lost signal. "No network?" She frowned. "Seriously?" She tried again.
Behind her...
Jonathan calmly slipped into another alley. He wasn’t chasing her directly.
Instead...
He was moving ahead using the maze-like side streets. He already knew exactly where she would walk.
Nobody landed atop an old apartment building.
His eyes scanned every road. "Come on... Where are you, serial killing motherf**ker."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Thermal Scan Activated]
Searching...
Searching...
Thirty-seven heat signatures detected.
Filtering...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The map appeared before him. Most of the heat signatures belonged to apartment residents. A few stray dogs. Several parked vehicles with warm engines.
Then....
One marker flashed, moving. Keeping distance behind another heat signature.
Nobody narrowed his eyes. "...That’s suspicious."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Probability of surveillance behavior:
91%.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Show me."
The map zoomed in. Two moving dots. One female and the other was a male.
The male repeatedly disappeared behind buildings before reappearing, never getting too close.
Nobody’s expression turned serious. "Found you."
........
Jonathan walked calmly through another alley. He already knew the woman’s routine. She always left work around the same time. Always took this shortcut. Always looked over her shoulder exactly three or four times.
Fear made people predictable.
He adjusted his gloves. The road ahead narrowed into a section where several streetlights had stopped working weeks ago. It was a perfect chance for him. He stepped into the darkness.
And waited.
The young woman turned the corner. "...Almost home." She smiled slightly.
Then....
The lights ahead were completely out.
"...Great." She hesitated.
She thought,"Should I just turn back? No, that would only add another twenty minutes." She took a deep breath. "It’ll be fine, I guess."
She stepped forward.
On the rooftop above....
Nobody watched the map. "...He’s stopped moving."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System Window]
Correct.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"An ambush."
He immediately sprinted.
The distance shrank.
100 meters.
80.
81.
82.
Jonathan heard footsteps approaching. Right on schedule. He remained hidden beside the alley entrance. One hand inside his coat.
The woman entered the dark section of the road. She couldn’t see him.
Jonathan slowly reached for the concealed object beneath his coat. His breathing remained perfectly steady.
One step closer.
Another.
Another.
Thirty meters away.....
Nobody leapt across the final rooftop. His eyes locked onto the alley below. He saw the frightened woman.
Then....
A shadow emerged from the darkness behind her. It was Jonathan.
Nobody’s eyes widened. "There!" He kicked off the rooftop.
BOOM!
Concrete cracked beneath his feet. Like a crimson meteor....He descended toward the street.
Jonathan sensed movement. His instincts screamed. He looked upward. "...!"
A crimson figure was falling directly toward him. Much too fast.
CRAAASH!!
Nobody landed between Jonathan and the woman, sending dust and broken concrete across the road.
The impact echoed through the empty district.
The young woman screamed and stumbled backward.
Jonathan immediately retreated several steps. His calm eyes finally showed surprise.
Standing before him...Was the infamous vigilante the entire city had begun talking about.
The Crimson Bunny Biker. Nobody slowly straightened his back. The rabbit ears on his helmet swayed gently in the night breeze. He dusted off one shoulder casually. "So..." He spoke in a calm voice. "I’ve been looking all over the city for you."
Jonathan remained silent. His expression returned to normal within seconds. He studied the crimson-clad vigilante carefully. No panic nor fear. Only observation.
Nobody tilted his head slightly. "Jonathan Milow. For someone who likes hunting people..." He slowly clenched his gloved fists. "...How does it feel to become the one being hunted?"
For the first time...
Jonathan smiled. It wasn’t a wide smile. Nor was it mocking. It was a small, unsettling smile that carried no warmth. A smile that made the empty street feel even colder.
Neither man moved.
The frightened woman stood frozen several meters behind Nobody, clutching her bag with trembling hands.
The wind whistled through the abandoned buildings as two hunters faced one another beneath the moonlight.
One hunted innocent lives from the shadows. The other had come to end the hunt.
Dust drifted through the air after Nobody’s dramatic landing.
The cracked pavement settled into silence. The frightened young woman stood behind Nobody, breathing heavily as she struggled to understand what had just happened.
Jonathan Milow calmly brushed a few specks of dust from his coat. His eyes examined the crimson biker from head to toe.
Then...A smile slowly spread across his face. "...Who are you?"
Nobody remained silent.
Jonathan glanced past him at the terrified woman. Then he chuckled. "Oh..." His smile widened. "Are you her boyfriend?"
Nobody tilted his helmet. "...Huh?"
Jonathan laughed louder. "So that’s it. This bitch’s boyfriend came wearing a bunny helmet." He pointed at Nobody’s rabbit ears. "What is this? A possessive boyfriend cosplay? Are you a fluffy?"
The woman immediately shook her head. "W-What? I don’t even know him!"
Nobody let out an exasperated sigh. "...Boyfriend?" He pointed at himself. "Me?" He then pointed at the woman. "Her?" He shook his head repeatedly. "Dumbass. Have you been watching too many urban romance dramas? I literally met her about thirty seconds ago. I am NOT her boyfriend."
Jonathan shrugged. "Who cares?" His smile disappeared. With one smooth motion...
SHING!
A long hunting knife slid out from beneath his coat. The polished blade reflected the streetlight.
"I guess..." He slowly raised the knife. "...you’ll simply die before she does."
The young woman gasped.
Nobody looked at the blade before letting out a small laugh. "You know...Killing Nobody?" He cracked his knuckles. "...Keep that inside your psychopathic dreams."
Jonathan’s eyes narrowed. Without another word, he exploded forward.
WHOOSH!!
His speed was surprisingly fast for an ordinary human. The knife flashed through the darkness, straight toward Nobody’s throat.
At that exact moment....
Far beyond the boundaries of the story...
Ray leaned back in his chair while seeing the scene through his floating screen. He frowned. "...Dang! This scene is looking kind of boring." He scratched his head. "It’s turning into an urban crime thriller." He grinned with an evil smile and said, "Hmm...What if we spice things up a little?" A grin spread across his face even more, "Let’s add some abilities to that serial killer."
He snapped his fingers.
Inside the world....
Everything changed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING!!]
Unknown narrative alteration detected.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s eyes widened.
"...What?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Target is undergoing forced attribute modification.
External interference confirmed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"What does that even mean?!"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Power acquisition in progress...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"...Again?!"