Free Web NovelChapter 108: The Escape
The prison transport vehicle rolled through the dark roads of the city.
Inside, Kuruda sat silently with handcuffs around his wrists. Hours earlier, he had been the powerful chairman of Mirai Corporation. Now he was nothing more than a criminal being transported to prison.
His face remained pale and his mind remained restless. Everything had collapsed far too quickly.
His empire, his influence, his plans, all gone.
Then suddenly....
RING!
One of the police officers received a phone call.
The officer looked at the screen. His expression changed slightly.
Then he looked at Kuruda. "It’s for you."
Kuruda blinked. "For me?"
The officer handed him the phone.
Confused, Kuruda slowly took it. "...Hello?"
A deep voice answered from the other side.
The moment Kuruda heard it, his entire body stiffened. "S-Sir..."
The mysterious man spoke calmly. "You ruined everything."
Kuruda immediately lowered his head. "Please give me another chance, sir."
"You don’t understand. The situation became complicated." The voice remained cold. "You failed."
Kuruda swallowed. "I can still fix this. I swear."
The man gave a chilling laugh. "No. The more investigators dig into this case...The closer they get to me."
Kuruda felt sweat forming.
The voice continued. "I cannot allow that."
Kuruda’s eyes widened. "W-Wait. You aren’t planning to abandon me, are you?"
Then....
"I’ll make arrangements."
The call ended.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Kuruda slowly lowered the phone. His heart pounded. He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or terrified.
Several hours later...
Night fell over the prison. The moon hung high above the dark sky. Most prisoners had already gone quiet.
Only the occasional footsteps of guards echoed through the halls. Kuruda sat inside his cell, waiting, thinking and praying.
Then....
Something strange happened.
The guards assigned to his block suddenly began leaving one after another without explanation.
Kuruda stood up. "What’s happening?"
No answer came.
The hallway gradually became empty.
His instincts immediately sensed something unusual.
Then...
Footsteps.
A single figure appeared at the end of the corridor. Kuruda narrowed his eyes. The figure slowly approached.
Step.
Step.
Step.
As the man entered the light Kuruda’s jaw dropped.
The man looked almost identical to him. Same hairstyle, same build, same facial structure. Even the prison uniform carried the same number.
Kuruda immediately understood. "Oh..." A grin appeared on his face. "So that’s your plan."
The lookalike remained silent. He simply took out a key.
CLICK.
The cell door opened.
Kuruda laughed. His mysterious superior hadn’t abandoned him after all.
The lookalike entered the cell.
Minutes later, they exchanged positions. Kuruda wore the guard’s spare clothing. The double sat inside the cell.
The darkness concealed the details. At a glance, no one would notice the switch.
Kuruda smirked. "Looks like I still have value."
Without wasting time, he left.
The fake prisoner sat quietly behind bars. Waiting to take the blame.
Outside the prison...
A cold wind blew across the empty road. Streetlights flickered, shadows stretched across the pavement.
And near the prison entrance....
A motorcycle stood parked. A crimson motorcycle.
Beside it stood a familiar figure.
It was no other than Nobody also known as the Crimson Bunny Biker. His arms were crossed. His helmet reflected the moonlight.
The system window floated before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Target Kuruda is close.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody gave a small grin. A memory flashed through his mind.
Earlier that evening... He had been drinking tea peacefully.
Then....
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Warning]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody had nearly choked. "System! I am drinking tea."
The system ignored him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Target Kuruda is planning prison escape]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody lowered his cup. "...Seriously?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Affirmative]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed. "I can’t have one normal day." Then he stood up. Placed money on the table and smiled. It was a dangerous smile. "I still have some business with him." His eyes glowed red...
Back in the present...
The prison gate quietly opened. A lone figure emerged.
It was Kuruda, free once again. At least that’s what he believed.
He looked around. There were no guards, no police, no witnesses. Perfect escape environment for him.
A relieved smile appeared.
Then....
FWEEEEET!
A whistle echoed through the darkness.
Kuruda froze. Every muscle in his body locked. He turned his head very slowly
Standing beneath a streetlight was the last person he wanted to see. Which was the crimson helmet guy.
The black biker jacket. The crowbars resting on his shoulders.
Kuruda’s face instantly lost all color. "N-No..."
Nobody casually waved. "Yo."
Kuruda stumbled backward. His breathing accelerated. His heart felt ready to explode. The memories returned immediately.
The warehouse, the phone call, the destruction and the impossible attacks.
Then one particular memory echoed in his mind. The biker’s voice from that call.
"I’ll come and kill you, motherfu***r."
Kuruda began trembling.
Nobody tilted his head. "Damn...You look worse than when I last saw you."
Kuruda took another step back.
Then another.
Then another.
Nobody took a single step forward. That was enough.
Kuruda broke. He turned around and ran. "AAAAAAAHHHHH!!"
Nobody blinked. Then looked at us. "...He’s running."
The system responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Observation confirmed]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Thank you, System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[You are welcome]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kuruda sprinted down the road. Pure panic drove him forward. He didn’t care where he went. He didn’t care what happened next. He just wanted distance.
Distance from that monster.
Because at this point, Kuruda no longer saw Crimson Bunny Biker as human. He saw him as a nightmare. A living disaster.
Meanwhile...
Nobody casually mounted his motorcycle.
VRRRRRRRRMMMMMM!!
The engine roared.
Kuruda heard it. And ran even faster.
Nobody laughed. "Oh, this is gonna be fun."
The motorcycle surged forward. Like a crimson predator beginning its hunt.
Streetlights blurred and the wind howled. The distance between them began shrinking.
Kuruda looked behind him. His soul nearly left his body.
The crimson bike was coming very fast.
"No!" He turned into an alley.
Nobody followed.
Kuruda climbed over a fence.
Nobody jumped over it with the bike.
Kuruda nearly cried. "This isn’t fair!"
Nobody shouted back. "Neither was framing innocent people, and kidnapping a girl."
Kuruda kept running. His lungs burned. His legs screamed. Yet he didn’t stop.
Because every time he looked back, the crimson helmet was still there, following him.
Eventually Kuruda tripped.
CRASH!
He slammed into the pavement. Pain shot through his body. Before he could stand a shadow appeared above him. Kuruda slowly looked up. Crimson Bunny Biker stood there.
Kuruda felt genuine terror. The kind of terror that reached deep into a person’s soul.
"N-No...Please..."
Nobody remained silent.
The red glow beneath his helmet intensified slightly. Then he spoke. "You know..."
Kuruda trembled.
"I spent a lot of time wondering. Should I leave you to the police? Or should I personally make sure you never hurt anyone again?"
Kuruda’s breathing became ragged.
Nobody slowly spun one crowbar in his hand.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
The metallic sound echoed through the alley. Kuruda felt his fear reach its peak.
And the man who had ruined countless lives...
Understood exactly what it felt like..to be hunted.
