Free Web NovelChapter 124: New Skill!
Every swing of Nobody left another layer of frost.
The giant tried swinging blindly. It hit nothing. "...STOP!!"
FLASH!!
CLANG!!
Another crowbar struck its arm.
A crack echoed through the limb, and the impact caused a minor injury as frost rapidly spread over the area.
The Flame Yeti cried out. "...ARGHHHH!!"
FLASH!!
Another strike landed against its back.
FLASH!!
Its other shoulder.
FLASH!!
Its chest.
FLASH!!
Its legs.
The monster couldn’t even see its opponent anymore. Only countless icy afterimages danced around it.
The System calmly narrated.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skill Active]
Attack Frequency Increasing.
Enemy Defensive Capability:
Rapidly Decreasing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s voice echoed from every direction. "Too slow."
CLANG!!
"Too predictable."
CLANG!!
"You leave too many openings."
CLANG!!
The Flame Yeti roared in frustration. Fire burst wildly around its body. But each burst was immediately suppressed by another wave of freezing strikes.
Steam filled the battlefield.
Fire...
Ice...
Fire...
Ice...
Until eventually...Only frost remained. The monster’s movements slowed. Its knees trembled. Its flames became smaller. "...NO...I.....CAN’T..."
Nobody finally appeared directly in front of it. He spun both crowbars one final time. Cold mist completely surrounded him.
The ocean wind fell silent.
Nobody looked up at the towering monster. "You fought well."
The Flame Yeti glared at him. "...I...WON’T...LOSE..."
Nobody nodded. "I know that’s why..." He crossed both icy crowbars. "...I’ll make this quick."
The giant gathered every remaining flame into one desperate punch.
Nobody stepped forward.
FLASH!!
CLANG!!
The first crowbar deflected the attack.
FLASH!!
CLANG!!
The second struck the monster squarely in the chest.
A wave of frost erupted outward. The ice rapidly spread across the giant’s body. Its flames struggled. They flickered. Flickered again. Then...Went out.
The towering monster froze completely in place. It remained standing like a massive frozen statue beneath the moonlight.
Nobody slowly lowered both crowbars. "...Game over."
CRACK...
A small crack appeared across the statue.
Then another. Then dozens. The frozen body began breaking apart into countless shimmering ice fragments that scattered across the deck before dissolving into glowing particles.
Within moments...Nothing remained except drifting frost and silence.
Far above...
Ray watched quietly. "...So that yeti lost...well...today’s show was fun." He smiled faintly. "...Interesting."
The System immediately displayed a brilliant blue notification before Nobody.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Mission Complete]
Unique-Class Enemy Defeated.
Target:
Flame Yeti
Status:
Eliminated.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Bonus Rewards Earned.]
Unique Enemy First Clear Bonus.
Large Experience Granted.
Bonus Points Awarded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A final window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Congratulations]
The User Has Successfully Defeated
____Flame Yeti___
꧁⎝ 𓆩༺✧༻𓆪 ⎠꧂
Threat Level:
Neutralized.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked at the notifications and rested both crowbars across his shoulders. "Heh...Not bad." He looked toward the horizon where the first faint light of dawn was beginning to appear. "...Now. Let’s wrap everything up. We’ve got a very important story waiting for us tomorrow."
With that, the Crimson Bunny stood alone atop the frozen cargo ship, the battle finally over, while the quiet sea reflected the fading moonlight and the promise of a new day.
....
The battlefield had finally fallen silent. The roaring flames were gone. The crashing waves had calmed.
Only the cold night breeze remained, carrying scattered snowflakes across the frozen cargo ship. Broken crates lay scattered across the deck.
Gold bars reflected the pale moonlight. The smugglers had long since surrendered, too terrified to even think about escaping.
In the center of the deck...Nobody stood where the Flame Yeti had vanished.
The last traces of frost still lingered in the air.
Nobody quietly looked at the empty spot for several moments. His usual grin disappeared. He removed his crimson bunny helmet and tucked it under one arm. The ocean breeze ruffled his black hair.
Nobody smiled faintly. "...Rest in peace." His voice was calm. Not mocking nor joking. Just sincere. "I know you weren’t born like that." He looked toward the sky. "Ray turned you into a monster. So...I’ll hope whoever you originally were...finally gets some peace."
For several seconds...
Nobody simply stood there. Even the System remained silent.
The wind gently carried away the remaining frost.
Then...
Nobody suddenly scratched the back of his head. "...Anyway." He looked around. "So..." He folded both arms. "Hey, System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes?]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Where’s my reward?"
The System remained silent.
Nobody blinked. "...Hello? You literally said..." He began counting with his fingers. "’Bonus rewards earned. Unique first clear bonus. Additional rewards granted.’" He looked around dramatically. "...And then....Nothing."
The ocean remained quiet.
Nobody slowly narrowed his eyes. "...Audience..." He looked directly toward us. "...I think our System might be a scammer."
The System instantly responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Nuh uh]
(ᗒᗣᗕ)՞
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody immediately pointed at the floating window. "That’s exactly what a scammer would say."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[False]
Noononono
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"You even answered with ’Nuh uh.’"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Accurate.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"...That didn’t help your case."
Several smugglers sitting nearby watched the strange conversation.
One whispered, "...Who’s he talking to?"
Another shrugged. "I’ve stopped asking questions."
Nobody folded both arms. "So...Either give me my reward...or I’m leaving a one-star review."
The System paused for exactly three seconds.
Then....
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User Feedback Detected]
Processing Reward Distribution.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody smiled proudly. "There we go. I knew customer service worked."
Golden particles suddenly gathered before him.
A large blue window slowly appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Special Reward Unlocked]
Skill Acquired:
Mind Reader
Rarity:
Rare
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody blinked. "...Mind Reader?"
The System continued.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Description:
The User Can Hear The Thoughts Of Nearby Individuals As Though Listening To Their Internal Monologue.
Range Depends On User Level.
(Passive Skill)
May Be Enabled Or Disabled At Will.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s eyes widened. "...Dang. I actually needed this." He looked genuinely impressed. "It kinda suits me."
The System replied.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Compatibility Analysis]
Current Compatibility:
98%.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody proudly placed both hands on his hips. "See? I knew I had protagonist potential."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Correction]
Current World: Shining Blossom
Protagonist: Aiden Sulliven Nathan
The user is not the Protagonist.
(≖⩊≖)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"...Rude."
The skill window continued expanding.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mind Reader
Additional Functions:
Hear conscious thoughts. Hear immediate emotional reactions. Automatically ignores distant minds. Can be toggled On or Off.
Warning:
Large crowds may produce excessive mental noise.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody slowly nodded. "Actually...That last warning sounds terrifying."
The System answered.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Recommended]
Avoid Shopping Malls During Holidays.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"...Noted." Nobody rubbed his chin. "So basically...If someone lies to me...I’ll hear what they’re actually thinking?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Affirmative]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Oh. That’s broken." He suddenly paused. "...Wait." He looked slightly concerned. "I don’t really want to hear people’s weird thoughts about me."
The System stayed silent for a moment.
Then...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[That Is A Possibility]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed dramatically. "Oh no. What if somebody sees me and thinks..." He put on a funny voice. "’Wow. That bunny guy has funny ears.’"
The System replied.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Possible]
The user is probably
talking about Toma, isn’t he?
(¬ᴗ ´¬ )
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"’His jacket looks weird.’"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Possible]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"’I wonder what shampoo he uses.’"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Possible]
User now being overthinker
"( – ⌓ – )
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody covered his helmet with both hands. "I don’t need that information. I absolutely don’t need that information."
The System displayed another notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Reminder]
The Skill May Be Disabled.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Oh. Perfect. I’ll keep it off until I actually need it."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Recommended]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody suddenly became curious. "You know what... Let’s test it." He pressed the glowing activation button.
CLICK.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mind Reader
Status:
ON.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nothing happened. "...Huh."
Then....
A voice suddenly echoed inside his mind. "...I hope he doesn’t notice I hid two gold bars behind those crates..."
Nobody blinked. "...Wait."
Another voice followed immediately. "...If I survive this, I’m quitting crime forever..."
Then another. "...Does that bunny actually wash that helmet every day?"
Nobody froze. "...Seriously?"
More voices flooded into his mind.
"...Please don’t hit me..."
"...He’s smiling again... That’s somehow scarier...Maybe pretending to faint will work...I really should’ve become a fisherman instead..."
Nobody slowly covered both ears despite knowing the voices weren’t coming from outside. "...Whoa. So this is what anime characters deal with."
The System calmly replied.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Affirmative]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Another thought suddenly reached him. "...I wonder if rabbits eat fish..."
Nobody immediately pointed toward the smuggler who had thought it. "...No."
The man nearly jumped. "H-How did you know I was thinking that?!"
Nobody grinned. "Lucky guess."
The smuggler turned pale. "...He’s reading souls..."
Another criminal whispered, "...I told you he wasn’t human."
Within seconds, every smuggler stopped thinking about escape and instead became preoccupied with the terrifying possibility that the Crimson Bunny could hear every secret in their heads.
Nobody quickly switched the skill off.
CLICK.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mind Reader
Status:
OFF.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Silence returned.
Nobody let out a long breath. "...Okay. I officially love this skill. ..And fear it."
The System replied.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Balanced Response]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody laughed. "You’re getting funnier."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Negative]
User Humor Recognition Has Improved.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Same difference." He looked once more toward the place where the Flame Yeti had disappeared. His smile softened. Then he placed the crimson bunny helmet back onto his head. The bunny helmet visor caught the first faint glow of moonlit.
Nobody stretched both arms. "Alright. Unique monster defeated. Gold recovered. Drug shipment stopped. New skill unlocked."
He gave the quiet ocean one last look. "...Now. Time to go home. Tomorrow..." He smiled beneath the crimson bunny helmet. "...The story finally returns to Toma."
Far above the clouds, Ray watched the rabbit sail away on the frozen sea. His smile slowly widened. "...Enjoy your new toy, Crimson Bunny...You’re going to need it."
Because somewhere beyond tomorrow’s answers...
An even greater game had already begun.
