Chapter 973: NO.96: Visiting ? sickness, Its Name Is Intercept

NO. 96: Visiting? sickness, Its Name Is Intercept

Aomo had a dream.

In the dream it was the gloomy, rain-soaked Cuckoo Terrace.

The entire city was empty, so he quickly gave up his futile shouting.

As he walked back and forth, passing through every part of the city as if to check every detail, but in the dream he was clearly thinking of nothing at all.

He was just a lost, wandering corpse, walking through a city where only rain could be heard, until he reached a familiar bridge and saw the countless ripples spreading, colliding with each other on the water surface.

Only then did he finally see the monstrous faces reflected in the sky.

So terrifying, so ferocious.

Yet it made him leap into the water without hesitation.

When that icy surface, colder than rain, met his gaze, what he saw was neither a mud‑slicked riverbank nor a dark sky filled with monsters, but a huge robot whose shape defied description, as if countless mechanical parts had been forcibly torn apart and spliced together.

Each shoulder bore a head, his chest was a head, his head was a head, and the weapon he held… still had a head!

And atop the robot's head, a familiar little head poked out, surrounded by a shining halo, greeting him enthusiastically:

"Hey, Xiao She! Look at my ultimate mech!"

"..."

The youth opened his eyes.

He lay on the hospital bed, with a girl shouting and throwing herself onto his chest, while a nurse nearby tried desperately to stop her hysterical outbursts and loud noise.

The heart monitor beside him showed his excessively violent heartbeat from a moment ago, revealing that his emotions were far from calm despite his outward appearance.

That was indeed…

Although he showed no violent physical reaction, he suddenly felt his vision go dark.

But…

Why?

Even if that armor looked as abstract as a mash‑up of Bandai's Godzilla, Kamen Rider, Shin-O, and Unit‑01, it was still none of those four familiar on‑screen images.

For an unfamiliar being, no matter how bizarrely or stupidly it's pieced together, it would merely be dismissed as a weirdly designed robot.

Why do I feel such rejection, such inability to accept it?

Instinctively, he began to analyze his abnormal reaction to the dream, but the weight pressing on his upper body and the incessant sound in his ears still dragged his attention back to the present.

"Xiao She! Xiao She, how do you feel? Does anything hurt?"

"The doctor said you fainted straight away at home, your face covered in blood! What happened then?"

"Miss, you're disturbing the other patients in the ward."

"Xiao She! Can you hear me? Do you recognize me?"

"Miss! You're…"

"Xiao She?"

He raised his hand and gently placed it on the girl's head, then gave the nurse beside her a weak smile: "Sorry, Nurse, I frightened her—I'm causing you trouble. We'll be quiet right away."

His smile also made the nurse feel a bit embarrassed as she stepped back: "Ah, it's fine—I can understand how the young lady feels. I'll leave now; press the button above if you need anything."

"Okay, please take your time."

After seeing the nurse leave the ward, the youth turned back to look at the girl in front of him, who had stayed silent but looked dissatisfied.

"What's wrong?" he asked, gently brushing her forehead and softening his smile.

"She says she understands my feelings! And that woman's face is a little red!!"

"You're not jealous of the nurse, are you?" the youth said, bemused, lifting his hand to press her head gently against his chest. "You should have confidence in your fiancé and in your own charm."

"But Xiao She, you're supposed to like older types, aren't you?" she muttered against his chest.

"This is exactly Miss Qian's charm—it can change my previous stubbornness."

"Ugh… Xiao She, you're just sweet‑talking yourself into this state again!"

After a brief silence came a half‑hearted attempt to cover up, as she lifted her hand to lightly punch him, then sat up and glared at the youth: "I just left not long ago, and I already got the call that you're in the hospital!"

"How did you end up collapsing at home covered in blood?! The doctor said it has nothing to do with delirium!"

"Really nothing to worry about?" As the girl instinctively moved to support him, the youth pushed himself up.

That effortless motion didn't look like that of a patient.

"You're doubting the doctor!"

The girl snapped: "They said this exam showed no lingering effects from central nervous system disorder, and they're even suspecting you were assaulted in a break‑in."

"Is that so?"

"What else then?" the girl said irritably, turning to look at the cup on the bedside table, then added, "By the way, would you like some water? Anything you'd like to eat?"

"I can't think of anything right now," the youth said, sipping the water he'd just taken and pondering, "but before I passed out, I must have seen some kind of hallucination."

"A hallucination?"

"Xiao Qian, do you believe in monsters?" he turned to ask his fiancée, who kept a display cabinet in the room for monster figurines.

Naturally, he earned a look that said, "You're an idiot."

"Are you really going to start believing in Kamen Rider now? No way, Xiao She—the latest Kamen Rider series is an abyss!"

"..."

"Once you get hooked, you'll turn into a terrifying fanatic like those mom‑fanatics, praising a giant baby who can't walk for 'making progress, now walking'—just a useless wreck!"

"Has Kamen Rider Extreme Fox gone that far?"

"Huh? Uh, probably not yet… I'm just exaggerating—I have a premonition, a feeling!"

"Lately Kamen Rider has been all hype and no substance; I feel the next installment won't even have the tiger head, turning into 'it'll get better later'‑style empty promotion!"

"You care that much about the Kamen Rider series?"

No, no, it's Neihai and Peng who keep chatting—Neihai talks about Ultraman, Peng about Kamen Rider, and Yuta keeps bringing up Sentai; they're really enthusiastic!

Is that so……

Yeah, yeah, but getting back to the topic, Xiao She, why did you bring up the existence of monsters?

Because I had a dream… Could you help me find someone to borrow some paper and a pen?

Paper and pen… Wait a moment~!!

The well-behaved, obedient girl turned her head to look around, then quickly ran out of the ward; the other patients in the ward also began to greet the young man from afar, mentioning the earlier incident where the nurse scolded him, and also praising the girl's cuteness.

They were all middle-aged men who had started families, and due to overwork they had also developed some neurological abnormalities.

But they were all friendly, and the young man readily engaged in casual chat with them, achieving a first-name basis with astonishing efficiency in just a few sentences.

The ward's atmosphere quickly became harmonious and cheerful, and at the same time the topic quickly drifted away from the young man.

When the topic had completely ceased to concern him and the girl, he leaned against the headboard, closed his eyes, and recalled what he had seen and felt before.

But he also heard the hurried footsteps outside the ward.

Three seconds later.

Got the paper and pen!

Flinging the door open with her usual lively cheer, the girl burst into the room; to the patients who had just been praising her, she inevitably evoked a reaction like doting parents seeing their cute daughter.

But the girl stood frozen in place, gazing at the empty bed before the door, she turned her head to look left and right outside, then turned back again.

Have you seen the patient of this bed?

Little brother Lindun? He wasn't there…… huh? Where is he?

The middle-aged man scratched his head in puzzlement, and the empty bed with no one in it only deepened his confusion.

Witnessing this scene, Heixi, sitting at the computer chair behind the screen, immediately raised her eyebrows and frowned.

First she dragged open the full-screen view, glanced around to confirm, then opened several other sets of backend monitoring data, and finally clicked again below the screen where Xin Tiao Xi was.

The input box expanded, she typed the text, and sent it.

【There is a set of unfamiliar data, whose underlying identification code differs from Aomo Lindun's by only a single digit.】