Chapter 159: Escaping
Nobody stood in front of the reinforced security door. The corridor behind him was finally quiet.
Armoured Bobby remained several meters away, its massive body resting against the frozen floor. The creature was still conscious, but it no longer showed any intention of attacking.
Nobody looked at the door. Then he heard it again.
"...Some.. body...?" Moonlissa’s voice was faint.
Nobody smiled beneath his helmet. "Yep. Still me. Nobody"
There was a short silence. Then came a nervous question. "...Are you really here to help me?"
Nobody placed one hand against the door. "That’s literally why I came."
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Target Confirmed]
Name: Moonlissa
Status: Frightened
Physical Condition:
Stable
Current Location:
Security Room
Rescue Priority:
Critical
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the notification. "Stable?"
The System answered.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Compared to the other possibilities,
yes.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s expression became serious. "Then we’re getting her out." He looked at the locking mechanism.
Several thick metal bolts were keeping the door closed.
Nobody tapped the mechanism with his crowbar. "...This thing looks unnecessarily complicated."
The System responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Security Door]
Reinforced Industrial Grade
Opening Method:
Authorized Access Required
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared. "Authorized access?"
He looked around. "Do I look like I have an employee ID?"
The System remained silent.
Nobody sighed. "Fine." He raised the frost crowbar. "Plan B."
Moonlissa suddenly spoke from behind the door. "W-Wait!"
Nobody stopped. "What?"
"There’s a control panel beside the door."
Nobody looked to his right. A small electronic panel was mounted into the wall. He walked toward it. "Why didn’t you mention that earlier?"
"I...I thought you were going to break the door."
Nobody paused. "...I was."
Moonlissa became quiet.
Nobody looked at the panel. "Okay. What do I do?"
"I don’t know."
Nobody stared at the panel. "...Excellent."
The System appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Electronic Lock Detected]
Security Clearance Required
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody scratched his helmet. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"What?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Can you open it?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Negative.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He looked at us and said,"Also for blind people, I am talking about doors. Nothing else."
Nobody’s shoulders dropped. "You can teleport me across buildings,freeze ships and calculate enemy weaknesses."
"Yet you can’t open a door."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System specializes in user development.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"...You’re really committed to that excuse." Nobody examined the panel.
There were several buttons. One was marked with a green symbol. Another had a red warning icon. A third displayed a tiny lock.
Nobody pointed. "Moonlissa."
"Yes?"
"Which button?"
"The green one."
Nobody pressed it. Nothing happened.
He waited. Still nothing.
"...Are you sure?"
Moonlissa sounded nervous. "I think so."
Nobody pressed it again. A small beep came from the panel. The red light changed to yellow.
Nobody smiled. "Progress."
The System displayed a notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Security System]
Partial Access Granted
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s eyes widened. "Wait. That actually worked?"
Moonlissa gave a tiny laugh. "I guess."
Nobody smiled. "See? Teamwork."
The lock suddenly began releasing. One bolt moved. Then another.
Nobody stepped backward.
The final mechanism released with a deep metallic click. The door slowly opened. Cold air entered the room.
Nobody looked inside. The security room was dim. A single ceiling light flickered above. Several monitors covered one wall. A desk stood near the corner.
And sitting beside it...Was Moonlissa. She looked exhausted. Her clothes were dusty from being held inside the facility. Her wrists were marked from the restraints she had been forced to wear earlier,but there was no severe injury.
She stared at Nobody.
For several seconds...Neither spoke.
Nobody finally raised one hand. "Hey."
Moonlissa’s eyes widened. "Somebody really came."
Nobody nodded. "Ahem... Nobody."
She slowly stood. Her legs shook.
Nobody immediately stepped forward. "Easy."
Moonlissa tried taking a step. She nearly lost her balance.
Nobody caught her before she fell. "Whoa." He carefully steadied her.
"I’m fine."
"Sure you are."
Nobody looked toward the System.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Target Condition]
Mobility:
Reduced
Immediate Medical Danger:
Low
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody nodded. "You’re going to be okay."
Moonlissa looked at him. "...Who are you?"
Nobody froze. The question was simple. But he had heard it many times. He looked down at his crimson bunny helmet. "The Crimson Bunny Biker."
Moonlissa blinked. "Bunny Biker?"
"Yep."
"That’s your actual name?"
Nobody sighed. "Long story."
Despite everything,she smiled faintly. "You’re strange."
"I hear that a lot."
Suddenly...A loud metallic sound echoed from the corridor.
Nobody’s expression changed.
Moonlissa looked frightened. "What was that?"
Nobody turned around. The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Warning]
Multiple Hostile Units Detected
Estimated Arrival:
34 Seconds
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the notification. "...Thirty-four seconds."
Moonlissa’s face became pale. "They’re coming back."
Nobody looked at her. "Then we leave before they arrive." He turned toward the corridor.
Then stopped.
Armoured Bobby was still lying nearby. Nobody looked at the giant guardian.
Moonlissa stared too. "What is that?"
"My new friend."
"...Your friend?"
"Long story."
Bobby slowly raised its head.
Nobody pointed at it. "Stay."
The creature looked at him. Then lowered its head again.
Moonlissa stared in disbelief. "You can control it?"
"No." Nobody paused. "...I just asked nicely."
Another metallic crash echoed from farther away.
Nobody’s expression hardened. "No more talking." He turned toward Moonlissa. "Can you walk?"
She nodded. "I think so."
"Good." Nobody offered his hand.
Moonlissa hesitated. Then took it. They stepped into the corridor.
The emergency lights continued flashing. The air smelled of smoke and cold metal.
Nobody looked toward the opposite end. Several shadows were moving in the distance. "They’re here."
Moonlissa tightened her grip on his hand. "What do we do?"
Nobody smiled. "We run."
They started moving. Moonlissa struggled to keep pace.
Nobody slowed down. He didn’t rush her. He kept himself between her and the approaching figures.
The System displayed another notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Rescue Formation]
Escort Target:
Moonlissa
Recommended Strategy:
Protective Movement
Secondary Objective:
Locate Safe Exit
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Nobody nodded. "Got it."
A group of guards appeared around the corner.
One shouted. "There!"
Nobody stopped.
The guards raised their weapons. Moonlissa immediately stepped behind him.
Nobody slowly raised both crowbars. "Guys."
The guards hesitated.
Nobody tilted his head. "I’d recommend going home." Nobody moved forward.
The first guard rushed toward him. Nobody sidestepped the attack and struck the man’s weapon aside. The guard stumbled. Nobody caught him by the shoulder and pushed him away from Moonlissa.
Another rushed from the side.
Nobody blocked the attack with one crowbar. The metal weapon struck against the frozen bar. Instead of retaliating with excessive force,Nobody swept the man’s legs out from beneath him.
The guard landed hard but remained conscious.
Nobody looked at Moonlissa. "Keep moving."
She nodded.
They continued down the corridor. Behind them,the remaining guards began recovering.
Nobody heard footsteps. More were coming. He glanced toward a side passage. "There."
Moonlissa followed.
They turned into a narrower hallway. Nobody immediately noticed something strange. The walls here were cleaner. There were fewer damaged sections. The emergency lights weren’t flashing.
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Possible Exit Route]
Distance:
143 meters
Warning:
Route passes through Restricted Area
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody smiled. "Restricted area."
Moonlissa looked confused. "What?"
Nobody started walking. "Nothing."
They continued. After several meters, Moonlissa suddenly stopped.
Nobody looked back. "What happened?"
She was staring at a door. There was a small number printed on it. "That number..."
Nobody looked at the door. "What about it?"
"I’ve seen it before." Moonlissa’s voice became quieter. "In my memories."
Nobody’s expression changed.
The System immediately reacted.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Memory Resonance Detected]
Target may possess relevant
memories related to this location.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked at Moonlissa. "Do you want to remember?"
Moonlissa stared at the door. Her hands trembled. "I don’t know."
Nobody nodded. "Then don’t force it." He stepped between her and the door. "We can leave."
Moonlissa looked at him. "...Thank you."
Nobody smiled. "You’re welcome."
They continued walking. But neither of them noticed... A small camera above the hallway had been watching them. Somewhere deeper inside the facility, a monitor displayed their image.
A man sat in front of the screen. His face remained hidden in the darkness. He watched Nobody escort Moonlissa away.
Then slowly leaned closer. "So...That’s the Crimson Bunny."
Another figure stood behind him. "Should we stop them?"
The man shook his head. "No." He continued watching. "Let them leave."
The other figure looked confused. "Why?"
The man smiled. "Because now we know exactly what happens when someone interferes with our operations." He looked at Nobody’s image. "And I want to know how far that rabbit is willing to go."
Back inside the corridor...
Nobody suddenly stopped.
Moonlissa looked at him. "What is it?"
Nobody stared at the ceiling. "...Someone is watching us."
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Warning]
External Surveillance Detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody slowly smiled. "So..."
He tightened his grip on the crowbars. "They know I’m here."
Moonlissa looked frightened again.
Nobody turned toward her. "Don’t worry." He pointed toward the exit ahead. "We’re still leaving." Then he looked directly at the camera. "And whoever is watching..." His grin widened beneath the helmet. "You should probably start running."
The screen suddenly went black.
Nobody continued escorting Moonlissa toward the exit.
But somewhere inside the facility...Someone had just decided that the Crimson Bunny was no longer merely an intruder.
He had become a problem that needed to be dealt with.