Free Web NovelChapter 110: New Villain?
For the first time in what felt like ages, Nobody woke up without pain.
No poison burning through his veins, no giant monsters trying to smash him, no immortal clones chasing him. No cartoon kangaroos turning his face into random objects.
Just peace and peace.
Morning sunlight slipped through the curtains of his room.
Nobody stretched lazily. "Man...I deserve this."
He rolled over in bed. Then rolled again.
Then wrapped himself in the blanket like a burrito. "This is peak human existence."
A few seconds later, a familiar blue screen appeared in front of his face.
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[New Main Story Threat Detected]
[Threat Level: Unknown]
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Nobody stared at it.
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[SYSTEM WINDOW]
( • ̀ω•́ )✧
Is the user charmed by my handsomeness
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The system stared back.
Nobody pulled the blanket over his head. "Nope."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SYSTEM WINDOW]
(ꐦ • ᴗ •)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The system remained there. "I just defeated a corporate villain yesterday. Let me rest."
No response.
Nobody pointed at the screen. "I am on vacation."
Nothing.
"I am mentally unavailable."
Nothing.
"I am physically unavailable."
Nothing.
"I am spiritually unavailable."
The system finally responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Request Denied]
(⇀‸↼‶)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody groaned. "You are the worst roommate imaginable."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User Is Dramatic]
( •̀⤙•́ )
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"You always say that." Nobody sat up and rubbed his eyes. His playful mood faded slightly. The notification bothered him. He was now tensed for the Unknown Threat Level notification.
The system usually categorized enemies. Minor, major, boss-level, story Villain. This time there was nothing. Just "Unknown."
Nobody crossed his arms. "Fine..What happened now? Is it some plot-related villain?"
The system immediately produced several new notifications.
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[Accessing Alternative Timeline Records]
[Analyzing Current Story]
[Hidden Variables Found]
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Nobody frowned. "Hidden variables?"
Another screen appeared.
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[Important Discovery]
[Kuruda Was Not The Mastermind]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody froze. "What?" Sweat ran through his face.
The system continued.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Kuruda Was A Secondary Villain]
[Higher Authority Detected]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody slowly stood from the bed. The memory of that prison phone call immediately returned.
The mysterious voice, the confidence of Kuruda and his so-called higher authority who was making arrangements to save him. The way Kuruda had practically begged for another chance. Also, that mysterious person Nobody saw in alternative timeline files.
Nobody narrowed his eyes. "That phone call..."
The system answered.
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[Confirmed]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed deeply. "So all this time...Kuruda wasn’t the real villain."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Affirmative]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody walked toward the window. Outside, people moved normally through the streets.
Cars passed, shops opened, workers headed toward their jobs.
Nobody stared at the city. Somewhere out there, a person powerful enough to control Kuruda still existed.
And unlike Kuruda that person had remained hidden.
Nobody scratched his head. "You know...I was hoping this story would calm down for at least one week."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Probability: Low]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Of course."
Meanwhile...Far away from Nathan Industries, far away from the streets Nobody usually walked.
Inside one of the most luxurious buildings in the city...A large television displayed breaking news.
The screen showed reporters gathered outside a courthouse. Camera flashes exploded endlessly. Police officers moved through the crowd.
The headline read:
KURUDA FORMALLY CHARGED IN MASSIVE FINANCIAL CRIME CASE
The reporter spoke excitedly. "Authorities have confirmed that additional evidence has been recovered regarding Kuruda’s financial activities. Several investigations are expected to expand over the coming weeks."
The broadcast continued. In front of the screen sat a man.
The room was massive. Elegant furniture filled the space. Rare paintings hung on the walls. Everything screamed wealth, power and influence.
Yet despite the luxury, the atmosphere felt strangely cold. The man silently watched the report.
Only disappointment and anger remained on his face.
The television switched to footage of Kuruda being escorted into a police vehicle.
The man lifted a wine glass. For several moments, he simply watched.
Then...
CRACK.
The glass shattered in his hand. Red wine dripped onto the floor.
The man finally spoke. "Kuruda failed." His voice was dangerously calm.
The television continued broadcasting.
The man stood from his chair slowly. He walked toward a massive window overlooking the city.
Thousands of lights stretched across the skyline. His reflection stared back at him. For several moments he remained silent.
Then he spoke again. "A disappointing result."
A hidden door opened behind him. Several professionally dressed individuals entered the room.
Each carried a tablet. Each looked nervous.
One stepped forward. "Sir."
The man didn’t turn around. "Report."
The employee swallowed nervously. "The investigations have begun expanding beyond Mirai Corporation."
The man remained silent.
Another employee continued. "Authorities recovered documents from multiple locations. Some financial routes are already being traced."
The room became tense. No one dared speak unnecessarily.
The man finally asked one question. "How much damage?"
The employees exchanged glances. One answered carefully. "Current projections remain manageable. Provided immediate action is taken."
The man nodded. "Then we proceed with containment."
Everyone immediately straightened. "Understood, sir."
The man slowly turned around. His expression remained unreadable. "Erase every connection between Mirai Corporation and our organization."
The employees immediately began typing notes. "Move all assets." More notes. "Destroy sensitive records. Relocate all warehouse operations."
Even more notes.
The man paused. Then spoke again. "And find out who leaked the information."
One employee carefully raised a concern. "Sir...Do you believe someone intentionally exposed Kuruda?"
The man walked toward the television. He stared at Kuruda’s image. Then calmly replied. "Luck doesn’t create this level of damage. Someone interfered. If it was one time it had been reasonable. He even got caught after he was frred by us in such a planned way."
Another employee asked: "Should we begin a retaliation operation?"
The man immediately shook his head. "No."
The employees looked surprised. "I beg your pardon, sir?"
The man continued. "Emotions create mistakes. Kuruda’s biggest mistake was believing he was untouchable." His gaze remained fixed on the television. "I have no intention of repeating it."
The employees nodded. That answer made sense. Unlike Kuruda, this man wasn’t driven by pride. He was practical, calculated, patient and dangerous.
Kuruda had been useful. But he had only been one piece of a much larger structure. Now that piece was gone.
The larger structure would simply adapt.
The man switched off the television. Darkness filled the room. He slowly returned to his chair.
One employee spoke carefully. "Should we activate the Eclipse contingency?"
The room instantly became even quieter. Several employees looked surprised. The man rested his fingers against the armrest.
Thinking, analyzing and calculating.
Finally, he nodded. "Begin preparations."
Every employee straightened. "Understood, sir."
The hidden door opened again. One by one, they left the room.
Soon only the man remained alone. The sun light reflected through the window. His eyes remained fixed on the skyline.
The game had changed. Kuruda had fallen. Authorities were investigating. New risks were emerging.
Yet none of that truly worried him. Because unlike Kuruda he always planned several moves ahead.
Eventually he closed his eyes. Then quietly spoke. "Even if one pawn falls..." His voice echoed through the empty office. "We simply continue the game."
Meanwhile...
Nobody was eating instant noodles.
The system remained floating beside him.
Nobody slurped the noodles. Then pointed his chopsticks toward the screen.
"So. You gonna show me who this mastermind is?"
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[Insufficient Data]
¯\_ (ᵕ—ᴗ—)_/¯
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Nobody blinked. "Seriously?"
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[Identity Hidden]
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"Can you at least show me a face?"
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[Negative]
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Nobody sighed.
The system was being annoying again.
Then another notification appeared.
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[Alternative Timeline Event Detected]
[Project Eclipse]
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Nobody almost dropped his noodles. "That sounds important."
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[Affirmative]
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"That sounds like final-boss-level important."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Possibly]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody slowly placed the noodles down. His appetite immediately vanished. "Great. Fantastic. I defeat one villain and the story spawns another one."
The system remained silent. Which somehow felt worse.
Nobody looked out the window. The city appeared peaceful.
But now he knew better.
Somewhere beyond those buildings..someone smarter than Kuruda, someone more careful than Kuruda, someone far more dangerous than Kuruda had started making moves.
And Nobody had absolutely no idea who that person was. Thinking about this topic, Nobody was too much tensed. The uncertainty bothered him a lot.
The system’s final notification appeared before disappearing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Main Story Updated]
[Operation Eclipse Detected]
[Threat Level: Unknown]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the message. Then sighed. "...I knew my vacation wasn’t going to last."
As the notification disappeared, Nobody remained standing by the window.
The city below continued moving as if nothing had happened. People walked to work, cars filled the roads, shopkeepers opened their stores.
Everything looked ordinary. Yet Nobody knew something had changed.
Somewhere behind all of that normality, a hidden player had finally entered the game.
Nobody rubbed the back of his neck. "Man...Why can’t villains just be normal criminals?"
The system immediately responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User Has Defeated Multiple Non-Normal Criminals]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"That is not my point." He sighed and grabbed another snack from the table.
After a single bite, he froze.
A thought suddenly crossed his mind. "Wait...If this mastermind was above Kuruda...Then doesn’t that mean he probably has more people working for him?"
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[High Probability]
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Nobody slowly lowered the snack. "Great."
"So even if Kuruda is gone, there might be more rats hiding around."
The system didn’t deny it. That alone was enough of an answer.
Nobody looked toward the ceiling. His peaceful day was officially ruined. "Sorry, future me. You were supposed to have a vacation arc."
The system produced one final notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Vacation Arc Rejected]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody pointed at the screen. "One day I’m going to punch whoever programmed you."
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[Request Logged] (⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝)
[Request Ignored]
( • 𐃷 • ) he he he
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared.
The system vanished. "...I hate this thing."
Yet despite his complaints, his eyes slowly became serious. A hidden mastermind and a mysterious project called Eclipse.
And a future threat large enough for the system to classify as Unknown. Whatever was coming next...It was already moving in the shadows.
And sooner or later....
Nobody knew he would have to step into those shadows and find the truth himself.
