Below, Alkon City continued moving as usual. Cars passed through the streets. People walked along the sidewalks. Businesses opened their doors.
No one knew what had just happened inside Nathan Industries. The chairman looked toward the distant Nathan Industries tower. "Aiden was cautious." His expression became almost amused. "Very cautious."
The executive nodded. "But he still signed."
"Of course he did." The chairman smiled. "That’s the beauty of a perfect contract." He turned away from the window. "You don’t force your opponent to accept it. You make them believe they discovered the opportunity themselves."
...
Meanwhile...
At Riverside Park, Nobody sat on a bench with a cup of coffee in his hand. Toma had already left for the university. The afternoon crowd had begun to thin. Nobody stared across the river.
Then...
Ding!
A blue System window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Story Event Update
Eclipse Corporation
Current Status:
Partnership Agreement Initiated
Threat Level: Unknown
Hidden Conditions: Detected
Analysis Incomplete
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s eyes widened slightly. "Hidden conditions?" He immediately sat upright.
The System displayed another message.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Warning
The current information is insufficient to determine the complete threat.
Further investigation required.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody frowned. "So even you don’t know everything?"
The window remained silent.
Nobody looked toward the distant city skyline. "Eclipse..." He slowly clenched his coffee cup. "Looks like you’re hiding something."
The System suddenly displayed one final notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Main Story Progression
Nathan Industries has entered a new contract.
Unknown consequences will begin unfolding.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The window disappeared. Nobody remained silent.
For once...
Even the System didn’t have the answer. And somewhere inside Eclipse Corporation, the chairman was already preparing the next stage of his plan.
The contract had been signed. The trap had closed, but no one knew it yet.
........
The river flowed quietly beneath the morning sunlight.
A gentle breeze moved across the surface of the water, creating small waves that reflected the pale blue sky.
Nobody stood alone beside the riverside. His hands were resting inside his pockets. His expression was calm.
He looked at the water for several seconds. "...Huh." He tilted his head. "Why am I here?"
Nobody looked around. There were trees behind him. A paved walkway stretched along the riverside. People were jogging in the distance. A few cyclists passed by. Everything looked peaceful. Almost like an ordinary morning.
Nobody scratched his head. "Wait."
Something felt wrong. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. The screen turned on.
Nobody looked at the date. His expression immediately froze. "..." He checked it again. Then he opened the calendar. His eyes widened. "FAAAAAAAAAH!!"
A few people nearby turned toward him.
Nobody immediately lowered his voice. "...Sorry." He stared at the phone again. "Seven days?!" He rapidly scrolled through the calendar.
Monday.
Tuesday.
Wednesday.
Thursday.
Friday.
Saturday.
Sunday.
His expression became increasingly confused. "How did I skip an entire week?"
A familiar System window suddenly appeared in front of him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System Window]
A gentle reminder
~(￣▽￣)~
[Reminder]
User’s scene has shifted.
(∩^o^)⊃━☆
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the notification. "...Scene shifted?"
The System remained silent.
Nobody pointed at it. "Don’t tell me." He looked around at the unfamiliar riverside again. "You’re saying the story just skipped seven days?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Correct.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s mouth opened slightly. "...And you didn’t think to tell me?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User was not present during the skipped scenes.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the System. "That’s not comforting!"
The System disappeared.
Nobody sighed. He looked back toward the river. "So..." He slowly put his phone away. "I’m seven days ahead."
Nobody looked at his clothes. He wasn’t wearing the Crimson Bunny suit. He wasn’t even wearing his usual battle equipment. Instead, he was dressed normally.
A casual shirt, dark pants. Regular shoes.
He looked like an ordinary person enjoying a morning beside the river.
Nobody scratched his head. "...I guess the daytime restriction is still active."
The System appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Daytime Ability Restriction]
Enhanced combat abilities remain limited.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed. "Right." He looked toward the river. "Well, at least I didn’t wake up inside another dungeon." He paused. "...Although waking up seven days later beside a river isn’t exactly normal either."
A notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Story Timeline]
Current Time:
Seven Days After Previous Event
Current Location:
Riverside District
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at it. "Riverside District?" He looked around. "Why does that sound like one of those places where the main plot suddenly starts?"
The System remained silent.
Nobody narrowed his eyes. "...Don’t tell me something is about to happen."
Nothing happened.
A bird flew across the sky. A cyclist passed behind him. A man was feeding fish near the railing.
Nobody waited. Still nothing happened. He slowly smiled. "Maybe I’m overthinking it." He leaned against the railing. The river looked surprisingly peaceful.
For once, there was no monster. No criminal, no emergency. No System mission screaming for his attention.
Nobody took a deep breath. "...This is actually nice." He closed his eyes for a moment.
The sound of the water was calming. He could barely remember the last time he had stood somewhere without expecting an attack.
Then his phone vibrated.
BZZT.
Nobody opened one eye. "...Of course." He took the phone out.
A message appeared.
Toma:
Where are you?
Nobody stared at the message. "...There it is."
Another message arrived.
Toma:
You haven’t answered since yesterday.
Nobody blinked. "Yesterday?" He looked at the calendar again. "...Right."
The story had skipped seven days. But apparently, the characters had continued living normally during those seven days.
Nobody slowly typed a reply.
Nobody:
I’m at the riverside.
The response came almost immediately.
Toma:
Why?
Nobody thought about it. Then he smiled.
Nobody:
Honestly?
He typed again.
Nobody:
I have no idea.
Three dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.
Finally, a message arrived.
Toma:
You’re weird.
Nobody smiled.
Nobody:
Ahemm, fair.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket. For a moment, he simply stood there.
Nobody looked across the river. "Maybe this isn’t so bad."
Then the System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Plot Relevance Detected]
Upcoming Event:
Eclipse Corporation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s smile disappeared. "...You ruined it."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[What did System do?]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"You just had to mention Eclipse."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System only reported the plot.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed. "Right."
He remembered the previous Eclipse meeting. The Chairman, the contract. The suspicious clauses Aiden had discovered. The Chairman’s explanation that the document had accidentally been an older draft.
Nobody’s expression slowly became serious. "So probably something had happened during those seven days."
The System displayed another notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Main Plot Event Approaching]
Eclipse Corporation Contract
Status:
Pending
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked toward the city. "...Guess my peaceful morning is over." He pushed himself away from the railing. Then he looked back at the river. "Still..." He smiled. "I got at least a few minutes."
Nobody started walking along the riverside. His phone vibrated again.
This time, the message was from Aiden.
Aiden:
We need to talk about Eclipse.
Nobody stopped walking. He stared at the message. Then slowly smiled. "...Yep." He put the phone away. "Here comes the plot."
...
Nobody continued walking along the riverside.
The morning sun reflected softly on the water. A few birds flew above the river. People passed by without paying attention to him.
Everything felt...strangely normal.
Nobody looked at the peaceful scene. "...You know,System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes?]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"This feels weird."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Please specify.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Usually by this point, some giant monster appears."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Negative.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Or a mysterious villain starts talking dramatically."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Negative.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Or somebody gets kidnapped."
The System remained silent.
Nobody immediately raised a finger. "No."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[No?]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"No missions."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Current emergency missions: None.]
Nobody looked relieved. "Good." He continued walking.
The sound of water gently flowed beside him. For the first time in a long while, Nobody had time to think. Seven entire days had passed. The story had moved forward without him actively noticing.
That thought felt strange.
Nobody stopped near a railing and looked at the river. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes?]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"What happened during those seven days?"
There was a brief pause.
Then a window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Timeline Summary]
Day 1:
Ordinary daily activities.
Day 2:
No major incidents.
Day 3:
Eclipse Corporation continued negotiations.
Day 4:
Aiden investigated contract clauses.
Day 5:
Toma attended several classes.
Day 6:
No emergency missions detected.
Day 7:
Current scene.
[Also 85 kidnapped victims are still unharmed.
Because that timeline is not skipped like the story.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody blinked. "...That’s it? No detailed big summary?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Summary mode was enabled.]
That summary has less detail than instant noodles.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The System ignored him.
Nobody crossed his arms. "So while I was apparently living normally, the Eclipse plot continued." He remembered Aiden’s message about the Eclipse. It probably is urgent.
Unlike before, Aiden had noticed something wrong. The contract had hidden clauses. Strange terms. Complicated conditions.
The Chairman had quickly explained it away. A draft version. An old document. A mistake.
Nobody looked toward the flowing river. "...But Aiden didn’t believe it, last time."
A cool breeze passed by. For some reason, the peaceful scenery made him think more clearly.
Seven days had disappeared. But the people inside the story had continued living. Aiden had continued investigating if his choice was right. Toma had continued trying to forget the pain she remembered.
The Chairman had continued planning something. And somewhere... Ray’s strange influence was still moving behind the scenes.
Nobody sighed. "So many things are happening." His phone vibrated again.
BZZT.
A message from Aiden.
Aiden:
Can you come to Nathan Industries?
We need to discuss Eclipse.
Nobody looked at the message.
Then another message arrived.
Aiden:
The new contract arrived a week ago.
Nobody’s eyes narrowed slightly. "New contract?"
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Main Plot Alert]
Important Item:
Second Eclipse Contract
Potential Risk:
Unknown
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked at the notification. "...See?" He pointed at the System.
"This is exactly what I mean."
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