Free Web NovelChapter 119: Flame Yeti!?
Nobody landed lightly on the deck of the second cargo ship.
THUD!
The entire crew instinctively took several steps backward.
Nobody slowly looked around. "...Hmm." He scratched the side of his crimson bunny helmet. "I think something is missing." Nobody looked left and then right. He nodded to himself. "Yep....Definitely missing something."
The crew looked at one another. "...What’s missing?"
Nobody suddenly snapped his fingers. "Oh! I haven’t inspected your delivery yet."
The captain immediately shouted, "Don’t let him touch the cargo!"
Nobody pointed at him. "Aww...You ruined the surprise."
The System calmly appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Mission Reminder]
Inspect Remaining Illegal Shipment.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody gave a thumbs-up. "Roger that." He casually walked toward the nearest stack of wooden crates.
Crunch...
Crunch...
His footsteps echoed across the frozen deck. The smugglers watched nervously. Nobody raised one crowbar.
CLANG!!
The first crate burst apart. Hundreds of small white packets scattered everywhere.
Nobody looked down. "...Nope....Still not sugar."
Another crate.
CLANG!!
More packets flew into the air.
Another.
CLANG!!
Another shower of illegal packages of drugs covered the deck.
Nobody slowly folded his arms. "You guys seriously need a better hobby."
One frightened smuggler shouted, "Those are expensive!"
Nobody looked at him.
"Oh....My condolences...they gonna get RIP real soon ...so don’t worry.."
The System displayed another notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Illegal Cargo Confirmed]
Estimated Quantity:
Extremely High.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody nodded. "I figured." He kicked one packet aside. "You know...I’ve delivered justice....But I’ve never delivered disappointment this efficiently."
Several smugglers slowly backed away.
Nobody suddenly stopped. "Hmm?"
One enormous steel container stood near the center of the ship. Unlike every other container...It had no shipping company logo.
No destination. No registration number. Only a strange silver emblem.
Nobody slowly walked toward it.
Tap...
Tap...
Tap...
He knocked on the metal wall. "...Heavy."
The System immediately began scanning.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Unknown Container Detected]
Scanning...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
10%
28%
51%
74%
100%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Scan Complete]
Material:
Unknown Alloy.
Container Cannot Be Opened By Standard Force.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody blinked. "...Standard force?" He looked at both crowbars. "I don’t think I’ve ever used standard force."
The System became silent. "..."
Nobody smiled. "So...Permission to use crimson bunny force?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Permission Granted]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Heh...My favorite kind....permission" He raised both crowbars. Cold mist slowly gathered around them.
The smugglers immediately panicked. "W-Wait!! Don’t hit that container!"
Nobody froze. "...Oh?" He slowly turned toward the speaker.
The frightened smuggler instantly realized his mistake.
Nobody grinned beneath the crimson bunny helmet. "So...That’s the important one."
"N-No! I didn’t mean..." The smuggler said with hesitation.
"You totally meant it." Nobody said.
The System appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Achievement Unlocked]
Accidental Informant.
Reward:
100 Points.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody burst into laughter. "Seriously? I got rewarded because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Affirmative]
Psychological Pressure Successful.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"I love this game."
Far above...Ray watched everything through countless floating screens. He slowly rubbed both temples. "...What? I at least thought he is a sane type of hero figure...his completely maniac hero..." He watched Nobody smiling at the frozen smuggler. "...He interrogates people without asking questions." Ray sighed. "I honestly don’t know whether to laugh or applaud."
Back aboard the cargo ship...
Nobody slowly circled around the mysterious container. His boots echoed against the frozen steel.
Tap...
Tap...
Tap...
Mr.Nobody narrowed his eyes. "No hinges..No lock..No opening....Fancy." He leaned closer. His eyes stopped on the silver emblem. An eye...Surrounded by countless interlocking gears.
Nobody frowned slightly. "...I’ve never seen this logo."
The System searched immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Searching Database...]
...
...
No Match Found.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Huh...Even you don’t know?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Correct]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Interesting..."
For the first time that night...Nobody’s playful smile faded.
Whatever was inside this container...Even the System couldn’t identify it. The cold sea breeze swept across the deck. The smugglers remained completely silent.
Nobody slowly rested both crowbars on his shoulders. "...Now you’ve got my attention."
Far beneath the mysterious container...
A faint...Almost inaudible...
THUMP.
Nobody’s ears twitched beneath the crimson bunny helmet. "..."
He slowly looked down.
"System...Did the cargo...Just made a sound?"
The System remained silent for nearly three seconds.
Then...
A crimson warning window suddenly appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING]
Unknown Lifeform Detected.
Threat Assessment:
Unable To Calculate.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s grin slowly returned. "Heh...Now...Things are finally getting interesting."
The icy wind continued sweeping across the deck.
Nobody slowly lowered both crowbars. His eyes never left the strange steel container. "...You know..I’ve opened lots of suspicious boxes just now..." He pointed one crowbar toward it. "But this one...is giving me trust issues."
The System answered.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Observation]
Unknown Energy Signature Detected.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody tilted his head. "So...Either there’s something valuable inside....or somebody forgot to feed their pet."
Silence.
The frozen smugglers exchanged nervous glances.
Nobody noticed. "...That reaction tells me I guessed one of them." He slowly walked around the container.
Tap...
Tap...
Tap...
Every knock echoed differently. "...Solid."
Nobody looked toward the frozen smugglers. "Who packed this thing?" Then he answered. "...Right.....You’re frozen." He looked toward us and said," Well..Guys had to freeze them...can’t let the fun stuff go to waste, right?" He laughed awkwardly. "My bad."
The System displayed another notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Suggestion]
Container Opening Recommended.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody smiled. "I was waiting for permission." He stretched both shoulders.
Crack...
Crack...
He spun both crowbars. Cold mist surrounded the weapon heads.
The entire deck became quieter.
Nobody took a deep breath. "Okay...Let’s see today’s mystery box." He swung.
CLAAAAANG!!
Both crowbars smashed into the side of the container. The entire ship shook violently. Metal bent inward. A loud alarm echoed across the deck.
WEEEEEEOOO!!
Nobody blinked. "...Well....seceurity sensor definitely noticed." He swung again.
CLAAANG!!
The steel wall cracked. A long fracture spread across its surface.
The frozen smugglers widened their eyes.
Their ice spoke for themselves..."N-No! Stop! Don’t open it!"
Nobody looked toward them. "Don’t give me that look....You people are really bad at convincing someone." He hit it again.
BOOOOOM!!
The cracked wall finally burst inward. Pieces of metal scattered across the frozen deck. A cloud of dust rolled out.
Nobody waved one hand. "Cough...A little ventilation never hurt."
The dust slowly settled. Moonlight reached inside the enormous container.
Nobody peeked inside. "...Huh?" His eyes widened."...Gold?"
The entire container...Was filled from floor to ceiling with neatly stacked gold bars. Thousands of gold bars. Their polished surfaces reflected the moonlight like mirrors. The entire cargo hold glowed with a brilliant golden light.
Nobody slowly walked inside. "...Holy moly...I think I accidentally found somebody’s retirement fund." He picked up one gold bar. It was surprisingly heavy. He tossed it lightly in one hand. "...Yep...Definitely not chocolate with gold wrappers."
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Scan Complete]
Pure Gold.
Estimated Quantity:
Extremely High.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody whistled. "You guys skipped the bank and started collecting the whole economy."
He looked around again. Stack after stack. Pile after pile. Even the walls were lined with gold. "...Dang...For drug exporting thugs...You sure have expensive taste."
Then...He stopped walking. At the very back of the container...
Something enormous sat completely motionless. It looked like a giant man. He was over three meters tall. His muscular body looked carved from stone. Massive arms rested across his knees. Countless scars covered his bare torso. Heavy iron chains wrapped around both wrists. His head remained lowered. Long black hair covered his face.
Nobody blinked. ".....Well..There goes my peaceful inspection."
The giant remained completely still. Almost like a statue.
Nobody slowly waved. "Hello?..You sleeping?"
Nobody carefully walked closer. "...Excuse me?" He scratched his helmet. "I don’t think sleeping on top of gold is comfortable."
Far above...
Ray quietly watched through countless floating screens. A slow smile appeared across his face. "...Finally. Something entertaining." He leaned forward. "This NPC...can fight." Ray slowly raised one finger. "Let’s make him...the most unique enemy."
A crimson ripple spread across reality itself. The gigantic man’s fingers suddenly twitched.
Nobody immediately stopped walking. "...Hmm?"
The giant’s muscles violently expanded.
THUMP!
THUMP!
THUMP!
His heartbeat echoed throughout the entire cargo hold. The frozen smugglers outside looked horrified. In their mind they said... "N-No...He is waking him up..."
Ray smiled wider. "Perfect."
The transformation began.
CRACK!!
Bones shifted. Muscles grew even larger. Dark fur rapidly spread across the giant’s shoulders. Then...Across his chest, his arms, his legs.
Within seconds...His entire body became covered in thick crimson fur.
Nobody slowly stepped backward. "...Okay...That’s new."
The giant suddenly inhaled.
WHOOOOOOSH!!
Flames erupted from every inch of his body. The fur burned without turning to ash.
Instead...It became living fire. His eyes opened. Two blazing orange pupils stared into the darkness. A pair of enormous curved horns slowly pushed out from both sides of his head. His claws extended. Each one looked capable of tearing steel apart.
The temperature inside the container skyrocketed. The surrounding gold reflected dancing flames.
Ray watched with satisfaction. "Heh...A Unique Class..I wonder...can you entertain me now?"
The gigantic creature slowly stood. Its head nearly touched the ceiling. The cargo hold trembled beneath its weight.
Nobody looked up. "...Dang....You’re a big boy."
The monster slowly turned toward him. Its fiery breath escaped through enormous fangs.
Then...It roared.
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!
The roar exploded across the ocean. The cargo ship violently shook. Huge waves formed around the vessel. Even the frozen sea cracked in several places.
Far outside...Seagulls scattered into the night sky. The crew of the distant ships covered their ears.
Nobody instinctively took several steps backward. He actually looked startled. "Ahem!"
"..."
Then he said,"...That...was loud." He swallowed. "...Why am I...actually scared?" His grip around both crowbars tightened.
The monster roared once more.
ROOOOOOOOOOAAARRRR!!
The steel walls vibrated. Pieces of metal began falling from the ceiling.
Nobody closed one eye. "...Come on...What am I scared for?" He took a deep breath. "I’ve fought crazier things." He remembered the tutorial monsters. Countless impossible battles. Nobody nodded. "Exactly." He smiled again. "Things can’t possibly get any worse."
The moment those words left his mouth...
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
The entire front wall of the container exploded outward.
