The city felt strangely peaceful. Nobody walked along the streets with both hands inside his pockets. Cars moved through the roads. People chatted with one another.

Shops were open. Everything looked normal.

After surviving giant centipedes, demonesses, immortal clones, and a boxing kangaroo that could turn faces into random objects normal felt weird.

Nobody sighed. "Man...I actually missed this."

The system immediately appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[USER IS EXPERIENCING NORMAL HUMAN LIFE]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody pointed at it. "Please don’t ruin the mood."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[UNDERSTOOD]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The system vanished.

Nobody continued walking. A small smile remained on his face. Even now it still felt unreal.

Every few minutes he found himself touching his cheek. Just to confirm it wasn’t some dream. A nearby store window reflected his appearance.

Nobody stopped. Then stared. "...Dang." Still a real smile with full face. The smile widened.

Then suddenly, another thought appeared. "Toma." He immediately pulled out his phone. Without hesitation, he called her.

The phone rang.

Ton...

Tonnn...

Tone....

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then....

Click.

A familiar voice answered. "WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Nobody blinked. "...Hello to you too."

Toma sounded genuinely upset. "You know I was kidnapped last night?!"

Nobody froze. Even though he already knew. He had literally been the one who saved her. Well sort of. Technically it was Nobody but in his secret form. But she didn’t know that.

Nobody scratched his cheek. "What?!"

Toma groaned. "Sorry...I should’ve listened to you."

Nobody walked slower. "Then what happened?"

Toma immediately began explaining. "The kidnappers took me. There were several of them. They were seriously dangerous."

Nobody nodded. "Sounds bad."

"It WAS bad!" She paused. Then continued. "But somehow...A crazy guy appeared out of nowhere."

Nobody nearly laughed. "A crazy guy?"

"YES!"

"A completely crazy guy!"

Nobody looked toward the sky. This was going to be good.

Toma continued excitedly. "He fought all of them by himself. He was jumping everywhere. Using weird crowbars. Talking nonsense half the time."

Nobody coughed. "Ahem."

Toma ignored him. "And somehow he won."

Nobody nodded seriously. "Dang! Sounds like he was really something."

"RIGHT?!" Toma sounded amazed. "Honestly I still don’t know who he was. He didn’t even have a proper face to show because his helmet was covering it."

Nobody almost laughed. The irony hurt.

Toma continued. "He was weird. Really weird. But..." She hesitated. "...I think he was kind. I don’t know why but he gave the same vibe as you even though both of you are different like sky and ground."

"Ahem.." Nobody smiled. The words felt nice. But also thought in mind,"How in the actual hell does she everytime know how my vibe is and where I am...?!" Even if she didn’t know she was talking about him she always did stuff like that.

Then Toma suddenly changed topics. "Anyway." "Where are you?"

Nobody looked around. Several street signs were nearby. He saw a familiar district. "Oh. I’m close to Hajon Streets."

Toma immediately answered. "Good. Meet me at Emerald Bakeries."

Nobody nodded. "Okay. I’m coming right there."

"Don’t take forever."

"I’ll try."

"No. Seriously. Come quickly."

Nobody laughed. "Alright."

The call ended.

Click.

Nobody stared at the phone for a moment. Then smiled. It felt strange. During the tutorial, he thought about returning home constantly.

Thought about Toma, about normal life. About simple conversations.

And now it was finally happening. The thought felt almost unreal.

He started walking again. The streets became busier. People passed by him. Several girls glanced his way.

Then looked again.

Nobody immediately noticed. "...Huh."

The system appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[NOTICE]

User has become handsome.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody pointed. "I know."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[JUST MAKING SURE]

ꉂ(˵˃ ᗜ ˂˵)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Go away."

The system vanished.

A few minutes later....a familiar shop appeared. Emerald Bakeries.

The smell reached him immediately. Fresh bread, pastries and coffee. The place looked crowded.

Nobody stopped outside. For a brief moment he felt nervous.

Which was ridiculous. He fought a demoness. Yet meeting Toma made him nervous.

Maybe because she was about to see him as a tall dude with an innocent face. A real face.

Not just the fill out face of Nobody she remembered with that mental filter. He slowly pushed open the door.

DING!

A small bell rang.

Warm air greeted him. The bakery was lively.

Customers talked. Workers moved between tables. Fresh pastries filled display cases.

Nobody scanned the room. Then froze.

Near the window, sat Toma. She looked tired. Probably from everything that happened. Yet she still seemed relieved to be safe.

Nobody smiled. Then started walking toward her.

At the same moment, Toma looked up. Her eyes landed on him.

She blinked.

Once.

Twice.

Then a third time.

Confusion immediately appeared on her face. Because she recognized the voice from the call. But not the person walking toward her.

Nobody stopped beside the table. "Hey."

"..." Toma stared. "...Who are you?"

Nobody pointed at his own chest. "Who am I?"

Toma tilted her head. "Huh..." She stared harder. "You look familiar."

Nobody crossed his arms and waited. A few seconds passed.

Then suddenly her eyes widened. "Wait...Nob...." She pointed at him. "Nobody?!"

Nobody grinned. "Bingo."

Toma looked completely shocked. She stood up from her chair and walked around him once. Then twice. As if inspecting a suspicious object. "You look taller. A little different too."

Nobody scratched the back of his head. "I guess it’s just the haircut." Inside his mind, however,"Of course for her it’s not much of a change. Fk you, mental filter! You ruined my entire glow-up arc."

The system immediately appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[MENTAL FILTER]

PREVENTS STORY BREAKAGE

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Again in mind he said,"Story breakage my as*."

The system disappeared.

Toma sat down again. She continued looking at him. Then smiled. "You do look good."

Nobody froze for a moment. Then answered in a softer voice than usual. "...Thanks. Glad you liked it."

Toma blinked.

The response sounded strangely sincere. Even Nobody himself seemed surprised by it. To prevent further embarrassment, he quickly grabbed a piece of bread from the table.

Toma chuckled. Then her expression became serious. "Nobody."

He immediately noticed the change. "What is it?"

"I have to tell you something."

Nobody leaned forward.

Toma lowered her voice. "I think Mr. Kuruda is going to harm Aiden very soon."

The atmosphere instantly became heavier.

Nobody’s smile disappeared. Inside his mind, thoughts began racing. "I need to ask the system. Maybe there are alternative timeline files. Maybe I can check future possibilities. There has to be something useful."

Toma clenched her hands. "Kuruda is dangerous. Very dangerous." She looked down. "He even had me kidnapped because I overheard their plan against Aiden."

Nobody’s eyes narrowed. That part wasn’t new information to him. But hearing it directly from Toma made it feel more real. He slowly nodded. "...For now, you should remain cautious."

Toma looked at him.

Nobody continued. "Who knows what Kuruda is plotting next."

The memory of the tutorial monsters flashed through his mind. Compared to them, Kuruda wasn’t physically terrifying. But humans could be dangerous in entirely different ways.

Toma nodded. "You’re right."

For a brief moment, silence settled between them.

Outside the bakery window, people continued walking through the streets, completely unaware of the danger quietly approaching.

And somewhere in the city....

Mr.Kuruda was already making his next move.