Inside Erald Bakeries, the atmosphere had beco noticeably heavier.
Toma’s warning continued echoing inside Nobody’s head. Mr.Kuruda, the kidnapping, the secret plans. Sothing bad was coming. Nobody could feel it. He suddenly stood up from his chair.
Toma blinked. "Huh?"
Nobody grabbed his jacket. "Toma!"
"What?"
"I have so urgent work."
Toma looked confused. "Right now?"
"Yeah. Like...right now right now."
She tilted her head. "All of a sudden?"
Nobody nodded quickly. "It’s kinda urgent. I’ll call you as soon as possible."
Toma still looked puzzled.cBut she could tell he was serious. So she simply sighed. "Alright." Then she pointed at him. "Don’t forget to call."
Nobody imdiately saluted. "Yes ma’am."
"Don’t yes ma’am ."
"Too late."
Toma rolled her eyes.
Nobody laughed. Then quickly turned around and left.
DING.
The bakery door closed behind him.
The mont he stepped outside his expression changed. The playful attitude disappeared. His mind imdiately focused. "Toma got kidnapped. Kuruda wanted her to be silenced. That ans whatever he’s planning is dangerous."
Nobody walked quickly through the streets. People passed by him. Cars moved along the roads. Yet his attention remained elsewhere. Eventually he stopped near a quiet road intersection.
Nobody folded his arms.
Then spoke quietly. "System."
The familiar window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[YES?]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"I need information."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[EXPECTED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Show alternative tiline files related to Nathan Corruptions."
The system beca silent.
For a mont.
Then several windows appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[REQUEST ACCEPTED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
𝙻𝙾𝙰𝙳𝙸𝙽𝙶...
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░░░ 55%
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 100%
[Loading Alternative Tiline...]
Blue screens floated around him. Countless data streams appeared. Like thousands of possibilities were being searched simultaneously.
Nobody watched carefully. Several filenas flashed by.
Rejected.
Rejected.
Rejected.
Then one file remained.
Red, highlighted.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Alternative Tiline Located
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Title:
Money Laundering Chaos
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Nobody imdiately frowned. "...Money laundering?"
The title alone already sounded suspicious. He didn’t even need further explanation.
His mind instantly connected the dots. "Kuruda...Nathan..."
The system opened the file.
The file was a video file which looked like a movie. Like a mory that hadn’t happened yet.
The first thing he saw was a crowd.
Reporters, police vehicles, flashing lights. People were shouting. Chaos everywhere.
Nobody imdiately focused. Then saw the center of the scene.
His eyes widened. "Aiden."
Aiden stood there. Handcuffs on his wrists. Several police officers surrounded him. The young man looked completely shocked, confused and terrified. Aiden struggled. "What are you doing?! I didn’t do anything!"
The police ignored him.
One officer held a thick file. Another carried evidence boxes.
The officer spoke. "Aiden Sulliven, you are under arrest for involvent in large-scale money laundering operations."
Aiden froze. "What?!" The original version of him looked genuinely horrified. "I’ve never done anything like that!"
Nobody watched silently. The vision continued.
Aiden tried explaining. Tried arguing and defending himself.
Nobody could tell imdiately that Aiden was completely innocent.
But no one listened to Aiden. The evidence seed overwhelming. Docunts, bank transfers, financial records. Everything pointed toward Aiden. Even if the truth was different.
Then another familiar figure appeared.
"Toma." Nobody said as soon as he saw her in the clip.
She pushed through the crowd. Tears filled her eyes. "Stop!"
The police looked toward her. Toma stood directly in front of Aiden. Trying to block the officers. "Let go of Aidi! He’s innocent! He hasn’t done anything!"
The officers remained calm.
One older policeman spoke. "We understand your concerns. But we have evidence."
Toma shook her head violently. "No! Soone frad him! You’re making a mistake!"
The officer sighed. "We will see that in court."
The words hit hard. Because Nobody imdiately understood the problem. Once Aiden reached court the damage would already be done.
His reputation, his future, everything will be destroyed. Even if he eventually proved his innocence.
The vision shifted.
More scenes appeared.
News channels, television reports, social dia, headlines.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"NATHAN COMPANY HEIR ARRESTED"
"CORRUPTION SCANDAL EXPANDS"
"MONEY LAUNDERING INVESTIGATION"
"CRIMINAL CONNECTIONS REVEALED"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody clenched his fists.
The dia was tearing Aiden apart. None cared whether he was innocent. None cared whether he was frad. The public already decided.
The next scene appeared.
Nathan Corporation stock prices collapsing.
Employees panicking, investors abandoning the company.
Chaos everywhere.
Then another scene....It was an office chamber.
Nobody narrowed his eyes.
Soone sat behind a desk. The face wasn’t visible. Only a silhouette. The person slowly laughed.
Across the desk sat Kuruda.
Mr.Kuruda looked far more nervous for so reason.
Nobody imdiately noticed. "...Wait."
Kuruda wasn’t acting like a leader. He was acting like a subordinate.
The shadowy figure spoke. "You’ve done well."
Kuruda nodded. "Thank you."
The figure continued. "Soon the Nathan family will fall."
Nobody’s eyes narrowed.
The video suddenly glitched. Static filled the screen. The image distorted. Then vanished. The future file ended.
Nobody stood frozen processing everything.
The system appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Alternative Tiline Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody slowly exhaled. "...Dang."
The system remained silent.
Nobody looked toward the sky. Then spoke. "So that’s the plan."
The pieces finally connected. Kuruda wasn’t trying to kill Aiden directly. He was trying to destroy him.
Destroy his reputation. Destroy his future. Destroy everything connected to him.
And sohow Nathan Corporation was involved. Money laundering, fake evidence, framing. A carefully planned trap.
Nobody rubbed his forehead. "This is bad."
The system responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[CORRECT]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Very bad."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ALSO CORRECT]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody started walking again. His thoughts raced.
If this future happened Aiden would lose everything.
Toma would suffer.
Kuruda would win. And so unknown mastermind would remain hidden.
Nobody stopped. Then looked toward the system. "Can this future be changed?"
A brief pause followed.
Then....
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[YES]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody smiled. "Good."
That was all he needed. Because after surviving tutorial hell there was no way he was going to sit around and watch a person get destroyed by so corrupt businessman.
His grip tightened. The determination returned. The sa determination that defeated monsters endlessly.
Nobody looked ahead.
Aiden had no idea what was coming. Toma only knew part of the truth. And Kuruda probably believed no one could stop his plan.
A grin slowly appeared on Nobody’s face.
"Alright. If that’s how you want to play."
The system appeared beside him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[USER APPEARS MOTIVATED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody laughed. Then started walking toward the city center.
"Let’s go ruin soone’s evil plan."
Sowhere in the city....
Mr. Kuruda continued moving his pieces.
Unaware that a freshly graduated tutorial survivor had just declared war on his future.
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