Chapter 202: Reality Bend
The reporter continued.
"Authorities have confirmed that a dangerous prisoner escaped from a correctional facility shortly before midnight."
Nobody’s expression changed.
Aether.
The reporter continued.
"The escaped prisoner has been identified as Aether Veil, son of former Eclipse Corporation chairman Adrian Vale."
Nobody’s eyebrow twitched.
"Police units were dispatched immediately after the escape."
The news showed footage of police vehicles surrounding an area.
Nobody stared.
The reporter continued.
"According to officials, Aether Veil was eventually encountered by police several kilometers from the prison."
Nobody’s eye twitched.
"After a brief confrontation, authorities successfully neutralized the threat."
Nobody slowly turned toward Aiden. Aiden was watching the television.
Nobody’s mouth opened slightly. "Neutralized?"
The reporter continued.
"The suspect is believed to have died during the confrontation."
Nobody stared at the screen. His face became completely blank. Then a tiny sweat drop appeared near his temple.
The reporter moved on to the next story.
"Authorities have not released further information regarding the exact circumstances of the incident."
Nobody slowly lowered his head.
Aiden looked at him. "Pretty crazy, right?"
Nobody turned toward him. "Yeah." His voice was strangely calm. "Crazy."
Aiden picked up his coffee.
"I can’t believe Aether who kidnapped Toma when we were kids actually escaped from prison. Also he was the son of the Eclipse chairman. It’s such shocking news."
Nobody nodded. "Yeah."
Aiden took a sip. "Anyway, where were you last night?"
Nobody stared at him. "...Around."
Aiden raised an eyebrow. "Doing what?"
Nobody looked toward the ceiling. "Walking."
Aiden laughed. "All night?"
"Very long walk."
Aiden shook his head. "You’re weird."
Nobody smiled awkwardly. "Yeah." He looked back at the television. The news had already moved on.
No mention of the battle. No mention of Nathan Industries being attacked. No mention of a vampire. No mention of a masked man fighting him. Nothing.
Nobody suddenly stood. "I need some air."
Aiden looked confused. "Right now?"
"Yeah." Nobody rushed toward the door. "Don’t worry about me."
Aiden stared after him. "Okay..."
Aiden raised an eyebrow. "Doing what?"
Nobody looked toward the ceiling. "Walking."
Aiden laughed. "All night?"
"Very long walk."
Aiden shook his head. "You’re weird."
Nobody smiled awkwardly. "Yeah." He looked back at the television. The news had already moved on.
No mention of the battle. No mention of Nathan Industries being attacked. No mention of a vampire. No mention of a masked man fighting him. Nothing.
Nobody suddenly stood. "I need some air."
Aiden looked confused. "Right now?"
"Yeah." Nobody rushed toward the door. "Don’t worry about me."
Aiden stared after him. "Okay..."
Nobody left the office. He walked through the hallway. Then he sped up. Then faster. By the time he reached the lobby, he was practically running.
He pushed open the entrance doors. The morning sunlight hit his face. Nobody stood outside the building. He looked back at Nathan Industries. Then toward the sky. Then at the surrounding streets.
Everything was normal. People were laughing, cars were moving. A delivery worker was carrying boxes.
Nobody whispered. "What the actual hell is going on?"
Blossom Bunny climbed onto his shoulder. "Atta?"
Nobody looked at him. "Exactly." He walked toward a quieter area beside the building. Then he spoke quietly. "System."
The blue interface appeared.
Nobody immediately asked. "Why doesn’t Aiden remember anything from last night?"
The System remained silent for a moment.
Nobody continued. "And the building." He pointed toward Nathan Industries. "It was practically destroyed." He looked at the intact tower. "Now it looks like nothing happened." His eyes narrowed. "And the news says Aether was killed by police."
Nobody’s expression became serious. "Did Toma forget it too?"
The System responded.
"Based on current observations, yes."
Nobody slowly clenched his fist. He looked toward the sky. "That damn higher being." His voice became quieter. "He rewrote reality, didn’t he?"
The System didn’t immediately answer.
Nobody continued. "He repaired the building." He looked at the street. "Changed the news." He looked toward Nathan Industries. "Made Aiden forget." His eyes narrowed. "And probably made everyone else forget too." He sighed. "Just to make the world look normal." A faint smile appeared on Nobody’s face. "Higher being..." He knew. There was only one person who could do something like this.
........
Somewhere far away...
In a room that did not belong to Alkon City...
Ray sat comfortably in a chair. A floating screen hovered in front of him. On it was Nobody.
Ray smiled. "Of course I did." He leaned back. "You think repairing an entire building is difficult for me?"
He casually moved his hand.
The image changed. It showed the damaged Nathan Industries office from the previous night. Then the image rewound. The shattered glass returned to its original position. Broken furniture returned to normal. Cracks disappeared from the walls. Everything returned to its original state.
Ray smiled. "And you think letting everyone remember your ridiculous entrance into the plot would be a good idea?" He shook his head. "Naah."
He waved his hand.
The screen changed again. Aiden sat peacefully inside his office. Toma was elsewhere in the building. Both completely unaware of what had happened.
Ray rested his chin on his hand. "Imagine the chaos if Aiden remembered a mysterious masked man fighting a newly created vampire inside his office. Though it may look like only a fight between humans to their perception. But even as normal its too much." He laughed. "Then he’d start asking questions."
Ray’s smile widened. "And questions are dangerous." He looked directly at the floating screen. "Especially questions about you, Nobody."
The screen showed Nobody standing outside Nathan Industries.
Ray’s eyes narrowed. "You really are becoming troublesome." He smiled again. "But that’s what makes this interesting."
He leaned back.
"Let’s see how long you can continue discovering things that you’re not supposed to know."
........
Back outside Nathan Industries, Nobody remained silent. He was still looking at the building. "So Ray really did rewrite everything."
The System appeared beside him.
[User should not worry]
Nobody looked at the notification. "That’s easy for you to say."
The System continued.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System Window]
Although certain events have been altered or removed from the memories of surrounding individuals, the user’s acquired abilities remain unaffected.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody blinked. "What?"
A new notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
User still possesses Blood Regeneration.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s eyes widened. He looked down at his hands. Then he remembered the battle.
Aether’s regeneration, the explanation and the reward Blood Regeneration.
Nobody smiled. "So even if reality gets rewritten..." He clenched his fist. "My skills stay?"
"Affirmative."
Nobody’s grin became wider. "That’s actually pretty useful."
The System added another message.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"User should therefore focus on what remains rather than what was removed."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the message.
For a moment, he didn’t respond.
Then he laughed quietly. "You’re right." He looked toward the city. "Whatever higher being changed..." He touched his chest. "I still remember." His eyes narrowed. "And I still have the power I earned."
Blossom Bunny raised his tiny fist. "Atta!"
Nobody smiled. "Exactly." He looked up toward the sky. "Higher being."
Somewhere beyond the world he knew, Ray watched him through the floating screen.
Nobody continued. "You can erase the evidence." His smile faded. "You can repair the buildings." His eyes became sharper. "You can make everyone forget." He tightened his fist. "But you can’t erase me."
For a brief moment, nothing happened.
Then the System appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
User...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked at it. "What?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Blood Regeneration remains active.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody blinked. "Yeah, I know." A pause. "Then why did you remind me?"
The System answered.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Because user appeared to be delivering a dramatic speech.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared. "...You ruined it."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Statement: User’s dramatic
speech was statistically excessive."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed. "Whatever." He turned toward a Taxi. "Let’s go home, Blossom."
Blossom Bunny jumped onto his shoulder. "Atta!"
Nobody smiled.
But as he walked away from Nathan Industries, one thought remained in his mind. If Ray could rewrite reality after a single night...
Then what would happen the next time Nobody discovered something the world wasn’t supposed to remember?
And more importantly... Why was Ray so interested in making sure the plot remains less fictional?
Nobody looked toward the morning sky. "Something tells me..." He adjusted his briefcase. "...this isn’t over."
Far above him, unseen by everyone else, a tiny distortion appeared in the sky. Then it vanished.
Nobody stared at the tiny distortion in the sky. It was barely visible. A slight ripple passed through the clouds, almost like the air itself had been disturbed.
Nobody narrowed his eyes. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes, user.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Tell me you saw that."
A brief pause.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Visual anomaly detected.]
[Cause: unknown.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s expression became serious. "Unknown?"
Before the System could answer, the distortion vanished.
The sky returned to normal.
Nobody slowly lowered his head. "...That’s not suspicious at all."
Blossom Bunny peeked from behind his shoulder. "Atta?"
"Yeah. I know." Nobody sighed and started walking toward his motorcycle. "Apparently, after fighting a vampire, getting reality rewritten and discovering that everyone forgot everything..."
He glanced toward the sky. "...my biggest problem is now a weird sky glitch."
The System appeared beside him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User’s ability to attract unusual incidents remains unchanged.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stopped. "Are you blaming me?"
[The System is merely presenting an observation.]
Nobody stared at the window.
"...I hate how accurate you are."