Chapter 167: Gonna Hunt in Day?
BEEP.
BEEP.
BEEP.
The annoying sound of an alarm clock filled the quiet bedroom. Nobody’s hand slowly moved across the mattress.
SMACK.
The alarm stopped. Silence returned.
Nobody remained still for several seconds. His eyes were barely open. "...Morning already?"
He slowly sat up. His hair was messy,his clothes were still scattered across the room,and his crimson bunny helmet sat on the table beside his bed.
The tiny alarm clock, designed like a miniature Crimson Bunny Biker figure, stood proudly on the nightstand.
Nobody stared at it. "...You know,you’re actually kind of cute."
The little bunny-shaped clock did nothing.
Nobody nodded. "Good talk." He rubbed his face. Then his expression slowly changed.
Yesterday came rushing back into his mind.
Rian, the warehouse, the armored man and the strange reality distortion. And finally...The police station.
Nobody’s expression softened. "...Rian." He leaned back against the wall. His memories of the previous night became clearer.
........
Yesterday night,
The police cars had arrived several minutes after Nobody contacted them. Blue and red lights illuminated the street.
Rian stood beside Nobody. The boy looked nervous.
Nobody crouched down. "Don’t worry."
Rian looked at him. "Are you coming with me?"
Nobody paused. Then he shook his head. "I can’t."
Rian’s expression dropped. "Why?"
Nobody smiled beneath his helmet. "I’ve got other work to do."
Rian looked toward the approaching police officers. "But..."
Nobody placed a hand on his shoulder. "Your parents are coming."
Rian froze. "My parents?"
"Yeah." Nobody nodded. "They’ve been looking for you."
Rian’s eyes immediately became watery. "But what if they’re angry?"
Nobody shook his head. "They’re not."
"How do you know?"
"Because people don’t spend hours searching for someone they’re angry with."
Rian lowered his head.
Nobody gently tapped his helmet. "Go."
Rian took a few hesitant steps toward the officers. Then he stopped. He turned around. "Bunny uncle."
Nobody looked at him. "Yeah?"
"Thank you."
Nobody smiled. "You’re welcome."
Rian ran toward the officers.
A few moments later, the sound of a vehicle approaching made him stop. A man and woman rushed out. There were Rian’s parents. The moment they saw him, their expressions broke.
His mother immediately ran toward him. "Rian!" She dropped to her knees and pulled him into her arms.
Rian’s face disappeared against her shoulder. "Mom..."
Her hands trembled as she held him. "I thought..." Her voice broke. "I thought we’d lost you."
Rian’s father stood beside them. His eyes were red. For several seconds, he couldn’t say anything. Then he crouched beside his son and wrapped both of them in his arms. "We found you."
Rian began crying.
Nobody stood several meters away. He quietly watched the family reunite.
The father repeatedly touched Rian’s head as if making sure he was really there. His mother kept wiping tears from her face.
Nobody looked away for a moment. He wasn’t used to scenes like this. Most of his nights were filled with fighting, running, chasing criminals, dodging attacks and saving people before something terrible happened.
But moments like this...They reminded him why he kept doing it.
The police officer approached Rian’s parents. "We’ll need to ask you some questions."
Rian’s father nodded. "Of course."
Then the man looked toward Nobody. He seemed confused. "Who is he?"
Nobody immediately stepped backward. The officer turned. But Nobody had already moved into the darkness.
Rian noticed. "Bunny uncle!"
Nobody stopped.
Rian’s parents looked toward the alley.
Nobody raised one hand. A small wave. "Take care, kiddo."
Then he disappeared.
......
Nobody slowly opened his eyes. He was back in his bedroom. Morning sunlight entered through the window. He stared at the ceiling. "...His parents were crying."
Nobody sat quietly. For some reason, the memory stayed with him. He had seen countless frightened people. But watching Rian’s mother hold him...That was different.
Nobody sighed. "At least he’s home."
A System window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Previous Mission]
Target:
Rian
Status:
Rescued
External Influence:
Purified
Family Reunification:
Successful
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody smiled. "Good."
Another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Mission Evaluation]
Rescue Success:
100%
Civilian Survival:
100%
External Influence Removed:
Yes
Reward:
Experience Granted
Bonus:
CC Eyes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked at the final line. "CC Eyes..." He remembered how useful the skill had been. He had only used it briefly, but already understood its potential.
Surveillance cameras were scattered throughout the city. Normally, he would have to physically travel around looking for clues. Now...He could search from a distance.
Nobody’s expression became serious. "That could save a lot of time."
The System appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Current Rescue Network]
Remaining Locations:
85
Priority Analysis:
Available
Surveillance Analysis:
Available
Recommended:
Begin reconnaissance
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the number. "Eighty-five..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "That’s still a ridiculous number."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Correct]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked annoyed. "You could at least pretend to encourage me."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User has survived significantly worse situations]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody thought about the Flame Yeti, Centipede monsters, dinospiders and the previous rescue missions. "...Fair."
He stood up. His body immediately protested. Nobody froze. "...Ow." He slowly stretched his arms. "My entire body feels like I got hit by a truck."
The System responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User’s physical condition remains below optimal.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked at the System. "You could’ve mentioned that before I stood up."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User did not ask.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"...You know what?"
Nobody walked toward the bathroom. "Sometimes I think you enjoy watching me suffer."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Incorrect.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A pause.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System enjoys watching user complain.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stopped. "...That’s somehow worse." He walked into the bathroom. A few minutes later, he returned wearing his usual clothes.
He picked up the miniature Crimson Bunny alarm clock.
Nobody stared at it. "You know..." He placed it carefully back on the table. "...Yesterday wasn’t completely terrible."
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User rescued a child.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Exactly."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User also fought an enhanced human.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Unfortunately."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User obtained a new ability.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Definitely a good thing."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User nearly exhausted himself.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed. "There’s always a catch." He walked toward the window.
The city was already awake. Cars moved through the streets. People walked along sidewalks. Shops were opening. Everything looked normal.
Nobody knew that beneath that ordinary morning, the city contained dozens of hidden places where people were still waiting for help. His expression slowly became serious.
The System appeared beside him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Next Operation]
Objective:
Locate Remaining Rescue Targets
Available Tool:
CC Eyes
Status:
Ready
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked at the notification. Then he smiled. "Alright." He reached for his crimson helmet. "Yesterday, we saved Rian." He placed the helmet under his arm. "Today,we find the next one."
The System responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Confirmed.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody opened the window. A cool morning breeze entered the room. He looked toward the bright sky. For a moment, he remembered Rian’s mother crying while holding her son.
Nobody smiled beneath his helmet. "That’s worth waking up for."
He put the helmet on.
Click.
The visor lowered. The familiar Crimson Bunny appeared once again. "Damn it! I wish I could be Crimson Bunny like this full day and night."
Nobody looked toward the city. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes?]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Activate CC Eyes."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[CC Eyes]
Activating...
Searching available surveillance networks...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The world inside Nobody’s mind suddenly began filling with countless viewpoints.
Traffic cameras, store cameras, building entrances, parking lots, public streets. The city had become a massive web of invisible eyes.
Nobody stood silently in the middle of his room. Then one particular camera feed caught his attention. He narrowed his eyes. "...Wait."
The image showed a dark vehicle moving through an industrial district.
Nobody watched it disappear behind a building. His expression became serious. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Save that location."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Location Saved]
Investigating...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody smiled. "Looks like breakfast can wait. Someone out there might not have the luxury of waiting."
He walked toward the door. Blossom Bunny suddenly hopped onto his shoulder. "Atta ta!"
Nobody looked at her. "Ready?"
The little bunny nodded. "Atta!"
Nobody opened the door. Morning sunlight spilled into the hallway. He stepped outside. Yesterday ended with three families getting their child back.
Today...
There were still eighty-five places waiting for him.
Nobody looked toward the distant city. "Let’s get started."
The elevator doors opened with a soft chime. Nobody stepped inside. The moment the doors closed behind him,his Crimson Bunny suit suddenly began dissolving into faint particles.
Nobody froze. "...Huh?"
The crimson armor vanished completely. His gloves disappeared. His boots changed back into ordinary shoes. Even the helmet on his head turned into blue particles and returned to the System.
Within seconds, Nobody was standing inside the elevator wearing his normal office clothes. He stared at himself. "...What just happened?"
The System window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Daytime Restriction]
User’s enhanced abilities have limited daytime usage.
Crimson Bunny Mode:
Unavailable
Special Combat Equipment:
Restricted
Reason:
Daily Ability Limit
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the notification. "...Oh man!" He rubbed his forehead. "Come on!"
The System remained silent.
Nobody sighed. "I completely forgot about that."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User frequently forgets important information.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Don’t remind me." The elevator continued descending. Nobody leaned against the wall. "Well...I guess that’s fine." He looked at his reflection in the elevator doors. "It’s daytime anyway."
He thought about the previous night. Rian being reunited with his parents. Then he remembered Toma. Nobody straightened. "...Actually, I should check on Toma."
The elevator reached the ground floor.
Ding!
The doors opened.
Nobody stepped outside. He looked at the bright morning streets. "Last night felt like it lasted three days." He sighed. "I think I’ve earned some normal plot development."
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Recommended activity:]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody raised an eyebrow. "What?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Participate in normal daily events.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody smiled. "Exactly." He adjusted his office shirt. "No fighting, no monsters and no kidnappings. No mysterious reality-bending nonsense." He walked toward the street. "Just some peaceful, slice-of-life plot stuff."
The System remained silent.
Nobody stopped. "...Why are you silent?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System predicts this plan will fail.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody frowned. "Have some faith in me." He continued walking. "Today, we’re doing normal things." He paused. "...Maybe I’ll check on Toma, grab some breakfast and see what everyone else is doing."
Nobody smiled. "For once, I just want a boring day."
The System displayed one final message.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Good luck.]
( ¬‿¬ ) Ahemm
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at it.
"...Why does that sound ominous?"