Joachim bent down, scooped the thin and small Yae Rin from the ground, and then quickly fled along his planned route.
A few minutes later, a group of police officers, brandishing riot shields, riot forks, and even stun batons, rushed into the alley, their faces red.
Like malformed beasts, they looked as if they wanted to scrape the plaster off the walls to see if the guy who had challenged the authority of the law was hiding inside.
"He got away again!" After pulling out seven rats, over a hundred cockroaches, and a trembling stray cat, the police officers lined up at the alley entrance, forced to accept the fact that they had once again failed in their duty.
What a disgrace! The officer with the least seniority among them had served for at least seven or eight years. Which of them hadn't received commendations? Which of them hadn't handled major cases?
In the past, they had dealt with perverted serial killers, terrorist organizations planning attacks, multinational forces that disregarded human life, and both drug dealers and users.
This was the first time they had worked together because of a "Good Samaritan."
Normally, this kind of person would just be handed over to the local police. It would be nothing more than two days of detention, a verbal warning, and a symbolic fine of five hundred yuan—a fine the police department might even pay on his behalf.
Because what this guy did was actually a good thing. He had taught a lesson to so many deadbeats who exploited legal loopholes. Afterwards, the police could use charges of "provoking trouble" and "mutual combat" to lock these scoundrels up for ten days to half a month and fine them a few thousand to make them feel the sting.
And bringing this guy into the police station would also send a message to the outside world: "This guy's under my protection. His punches don't really hurt, so if you get hit, you should think about what you did wrong."
So, when this guy first appeared, the police had a very good impression of him.
But they still had to catch him. The premise of promoting righteous acts was that they had to be controllable. Besides, they couldn't possibly keep a hired thug like this on the books; it was against the rules.
And that's where the problem arose.
They couldn't catch him.
This guy's movements were incredibly bizarre. Not only could he bypass the dragnet they had laid out, but he also appeared and disappeared like a ghost, leaving behind no traces that could identify him.
It was as if he was the costume, just like the name he proclaimed—"Alahato."
Are you kidding me? How could a superhero straight out of a tokusatsu show really exist... Could it be that Future City actually created something like this?
Up to this point, it had been a tacit understanding of mutual non-interference between the "superhero" and the official police department. The police would handle what they couldn't, and if this guy ever started doing evil, they would suppress him with the full force of the law.
Until some media outlet published the headline: "Police Incompetent, Heroes Emerge."
The police, who had been enjoying watching the bad guys suffer, instantly saw red. They immediately raided over a dozen unscrupulous marketing accounts and clickbait farms, making sure all of them got a taste of prison food.
Then, the police organized this all-star team to engage in a "knightly duel" with this guy, without interrupting his acts of righteous heroism.
The goal was to block his escape!
They failed!!!
This was the third time this guy had escaped, leaving this group of elite police officers scratching their heads in frustration.
The leader was an old police superintendent in his forties or fifties. Unlike the indignant expressions of the other officers, this superintendent stared at the alley, which had somehow been overlooked in their operational plan, with a deep frown.
In their line of work, no matter the opponent, once they encountered them more than twice, they could usually summarize all the commonalities. So, in theory, their third attempt should not have failed.
In fact, before today, they had never failed on a third operation. No matter how cunning the enemy, they would be brought to justice on the third try. There had never been a precedent of escape.
And this time should have been no different. Although they hadn't reached the point of stripping the "tokusatsu hero" down to his underwear, they had already deduced his behavioral logic, preferences, motives, and even his approximate height, weight, age, and appearance.
This failure was unprecedented. Reality had slapped each of these old police officers in the face, telling them that their proud experience still had blind spots, and they could still let criminals roam free due to their own negligence.
Fine. This was no longer a personal grudge. This group of old police officers, who had been filled with anger, immediately discarded their desire to prove themselves and began to review every detail of their thinking.
And after ruling out all possibilities of "carelessness," these old cops immediately began to consider all anomalies.
Including this "subconscious" oversight.
Second-Class Police Superintendent Chen Hai stared at the alley, and an impossible thought, something that shouldn't appear in the Chinese mainland, popped into his head.
[Mosquito's Breath].
They had actually considered this during their profiling. After all, something that could lower one's presence in the eyes of surrounding creatures was a criminal's dream.
Although it didn't affect video recordings and surveillance, the people watching the footage were still human. They would still enter a state of "subconscious neglect" when processing the recorded information.
Chen Hai looked up at the two surveillance cameras in the alley, which offered a clear view of everything that happened.
"Go back and pull the surveillance footage from here. Hand the footage from this period to the AI for processing. Blur the clarity a bit before outputting it."
The young police officer beside Chen Hai was stunned. "Superintendent Chen, are you saying... this person used [Mosquito's Breath]?"
They didn't have access to Mosquito's Breath, but every police officer in the Chinese mainland was required to know of its existence. The mainland didn't expect its officers to be able to directly arrest a user of Mosquito's Breath, because that was nearly impossible.
But knowing what a user of Mosquito's Breath had done after the fact was a required course. How to use this information to lay a dragnet and capture the user was the final thesis for an excellent police officer.
Although they had never had practical experience, and were all still in the "armchair general" stage, and would even rule out this possibility at first, they had never forgotten the existence of such a thing.
"Not necessarily. It's also possible our profiling was wrong from the start. Maybe this guy isn't some chuunibyou in his twenties, but a sociopath disguised as a superhero. It's not impossible."
After all, this situation was just... too unlikely. The probability of [Mosquito's Breath] appearing here was greater than the probability of Future City suddenly exploding... After all, if Future City didn't explode, how could this thing possibly leak to the outside world?
Could it be that some young master from a prominent family in Future City was out for some training? Good heavens, did those guys who had abandoned their original bodies actually have children?
Most importantly... don't think he hadn't seen Alahato! The origin of Alahato was Future City, and it was even created by a major figure there, supposedly to supplement the petty cash of his personal lab...
In short, the true lineage of Alahato was in Future City. What was he doing in Sapphire City? Promotion?
Or was it because the Zeroth Sequence had made Future City too peaceful, and he was out looking for excitement?
Then what are you doing in Sapphire City?!
Go to Northern Su if you've got the guts! Go to Siberia like the Snow Wolf squad did a few years ago and blow the whole place up!
You're coming to Sapphire City to bully us good people? Do good people deserve to have a "Star of Eden" pointed at them?
Hiss... wait a minute. Calculating this guy's route, it seems he really is heading north? Even their squad had been chasing him from ARC City...
Damn it, we've become the starter village!
"But we still have to consider Mosquito's Breath as a possibility..." Superintendent Chen's gaze sharpened.
"Xiao Zhang, go and request permission from the Deputy Chief Superintendent. I want to raise this case to the highest level. We don't need high-spec equipment, but I want double the personnel, and tranquilizer darts, Tasers.
"And you brats, all of you, dig out your graduation theses. And those few guys who went to Future City for advanced training. We're going to study how to deal with this Future City connection."
As he spoke, a smile actually appeared on Superintendent Chen's face. "Speaking of which, I've been a police officer for over twenty years, and I've never had any practical experience with this."
More than twenty years? Ever since Mosquito's Breath was developed, people outside Future City had only heard of it. There were no practical records, only the precious data brought back by police officers who had gone to Future City for advanced training.
However, the reality was that there were no successful cases, because Future City only provided a five-person configuration.
So, almost every police officer's graduation thesis had this premise: a cordon formed by more than five squads.
Thermal imaging was useless. Using old-fashioned cameras with blurred bitrates as glasses was also useless. They could only rely on physically blocking him, truly creating a blockade that not even a mosquito could escape, to catch this guy.
Not using lethal weapons was a show of respect for Future City. This was the first direct connection from Future City to come out for training alone. Before, it was always groups of monsters, at least two traveling together.
They started with Siberia, the City of Sighs, and most importantly, there were no signs of failure.
And using double the personnel of the highest specification was to give this guy a little taste of reality, to let him know that although the Chinese mainland was peaceful, it was by no means a starter village.
You had the good Ural River to follow, but you decide to pass through the Chinese mainland for some casual training? Then even if you're Joyce, you'll have to eat a couple of dark cuisine meals before you go to Northern Su.
Heh, that guy actually did time in a Chinese mainland prison.
Let us thank the outstanding foreign friend of the Chinese mainland, the 29th head of the Kaslana family, Francis Kaslana, for his report, which allowed the Chinese police to catch a leader of Future City who was trying to sell foreign products for a ticket because he had no wallet.
Then, Future City and the Chinese mainland joined forces to successfully implement digital payments across the board in 1970, so efficiently that Joyce's theoretical sentence wasn't even over.
And as the leader of this joint operation, Mr. Joyce delivered his speech: "Economic transactions are so backward. You don't even have a central control system."
The news that the "suspect" was suspected of wearing Mosquito's Breath quickly spread among the police officers who were obsessing over the details. Excited gasps echoed through the alley.
A person from Future City = no major malicious incidents would occur. They could even use this to play the victim, get new equipment, and watch the official diplomats use the opportunity to squeeze some more civilian technology out of Future City.
And with no malicious incidents, the thesis that had plagued their entire internship and even their student careers could finally be put into practice!
You mean we just have to play house with this costumed superhero to overcome our inner demons? And we even get benefits?
And we're in the right, so we can bully this costumed superhero as much as we want?
Holy—
Seeing all the police officers getting excited, a smile involuntarily appeared on Chen Hai's face. He was naturally a cheerful person, only putting on a stern face when handling cases, never flying into a rage.
"BANG—"
Suddenly, the sound of a heavy collision came from outside the alley, followed by a series of car horns, mixed with curses in the distinctive Sapphire City dialect.
The movements of all the police officers froze. In perfect unison, they slowly turned their heads, their gazes deadly.
"Heh... A rear-end collision in the city? Let me see if it's fatigue driving or speeding..." Chen Hai's smile was a bit terrifying. In fact, the entire special task force's smiles were a bit terrifying.
A certain citizen of Sapphire City, who had caused a rear-end collision because he was distracted by his phone, looked at the dozen or so police officers pouring out of the alley and felt like the sky was falling.
Wait... the traffic cop at the intersection hasn't even arrived yet, how did you guys get here?
And a superintendent, my god, and a Second-Class Police Superintendent... Did my rival company set me up? Did I violate the laws of heaven by stepping out with my left foot today?
—
Carrying Yae Rin, Joachim returned to his den... his base. After some counter-surveillance measures, he closed the door, placed Rin on the bed, and then left the room.
The moment the door closed, Yae Rin opened her eyes. Her light-colored pupils darted around, curiously and timidly taking in the unfamiliar surroundings.
She had actually woken up on the way, jolted awake by Joachim's movements and the hard shell of his armor.
But she didn't dare to make a sound. After all, this dark-armored monster looked like a great demon king, a major villain.
The aesthetic of a ten-year-old girl was still pink, cute, and splendid magical girls. This chuunibyou style, with its strong "dark and gritty" elements, was, in her aesthetic judgment, undoubtedly—
A bad guy!
What kind of good person would just casually carry away a delicate, pitiful, and helpless little girl? If Joachim hadn't used a gentle princess carry, Yae Rin would have already burst into tears.
But the Yae Rin who could make the decision to leave her sister felt she was still very strong. Even though she couldn't even twist open a medicine bottle cap, crying now would be pointless.
Her sister had told her that bad guys wouldn't give her candy just because she cried.
The room was small and cluttered. It was a typical single-room rental apartment, but it was filled with strange items. Unassembled mechanical parts were scattered on the desk, circuits and wires hung from a pegboard on the wall, and several books with difficult-looking titles like Introduction to Quantum Mechanics and Advanced Materials Science were piled in a corner.
It didn't look like the lair of a bad guy... It looked more like a mad scientist's secret lab.
Rin carefully slid off the bed. The bed was very soft, much more comfortable than the stiff hospital bed. There was even a faint scent of sunshine on the quilt.
Bad guys didn't use quilts that smelled like sunshine, did they?
Just as Rin's courage was starting to bubble up, the door to the room clicked open. Rin's heart leaped into her throat, and she scurried back to the bed, pulling the quilt over herself and pretending to be asleep, peeking out through a tiny slit.
The person who walked in was no longer wearing that scary black armor.
It was a man who looked to be in his twenties. He had messy brown hair with a single white streak that stood out, and he wore a simple grayish-brown jacket. He looked a bit tired, with dark circles under his eyes, but his gaze was gentle.
He was holding a steaming cup and a small plate with a few sakura mochi on it.
He walked over to the bed and, seeing the lump under the quilt, couldn't help but chuckle softly.
"I know you're awake. Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you."
His voice was much gentler without the helmet's voice modulator. It was warm and magnetic.
Rin knew her cover was blown. She hesitated for a moment before slowly poking her head out from under the quilt, her big, pale blue eyes warily fixed on the man.
"Who... Who are you?"
"Me?" The man was slightly taken aback, then seemed to remember his "persona" and struck a pose. "I am Alahato, the emissary of justice who walks in the night!"
"..."
Yae Rin stared at him blankly, her expression unchanging.
The man held the pose for a few seconds, but seeing no reaction from the little girl, he coughed awkwardly and relaxed.
"...You can call me Joachim."
"Mr. Bad Guy." Rin replied softly.
Joachim was speechless. "Why am I a bad guy?"
"You kidnapped me." Rin stated the fact, her voice carrying a hint of accusation.
"That's... a rescue!" Joachim tried to defend himself. "You fainted on the street. It was cold outside. I couldn't just leave you there."
He placed the cup and the plate on the small bedside table. "I saw you ran out of the hospital. You must be hungry. Have some."
The sweet fragrance of the sakura mochi wafted over. Rin's stomach, which hadn't had anything for a long time, let out a small growl. Her little face immediately flushed red.
She was indeed hungry. After escaping, she hadn't eaten anything. The sakura mochi looked soft and delicious, just like the ones her sister used to buy for her.
"I... I'm not eating anything from a bad guy." Although she said this, her eyes were glued to the sakura mochi.
Joachim found this stubborn little girl rather amusing. He didn't press her. Instead, his expression grew serious.
"I saw the medicine you brought with you." He said softly, "That kind of medicine... you can't take it anymore. It's not a proper prescription drug. Taking it might make your condition worse."
Rin's eyes widened slightly. "But... Sister said it would make me feel better."
"Your sister was lied to." Joachim's voice was firm. "Trust me, I know a thing or two about medicine. I can help you get proper treatment. From Future City."
"Future City?" Rin's heart skipped a beat. That was the place her sister dreamed of going.
"You know Future City?"
"Of course." A proud look appeared on Joachim's face. "The 'Underground Miracle Workers' your sister mentioned are my colleagues. I can arrange for them to treat you. They can definitely cure your illness."
He wasn't bragging. As a former top researcher at Future City, although he was now a "renegade," his connections were still there. Getting a special treatment team for a patient with a rare disease like Rin's was not difficult.
Rin looked at him, her gaze filled with a mixture of doubt and a sliver of hope.
"Really?"
"Really." Joachim nodded seriously. "But before that, you need to eat something to get your strength back. This sakura mochi is from a very famous shop. It's definitely not poisoned."
Seeing the sincerity in his eyes and hearing the magic words "Future City," the wall in Rin's heart finally began to crumble. She hesitated for a moment, then reached out a small hand and picked up a sakura mochi.
She took a small bite. The soft, sticky skin and the sweet red bean paste filled her mouth. It was delicious.
Seeing her start to eat, Joachim breathed a sigh of relief. He sat on the chair by the bed, watching her eat quietly, a gentle smile on his face. This little girl's plight had struck a chord with him. That's why he had intervened as "Alahato" in the first place—to fight against the injustices hidden in the city's dark corners.
After finishing the sakura mochi and drinking the warm water, a bit of color returned to Rin's pale face. The drowsiness she had suppressed earlier began to creep back.
"You should rest. You can sleep here tonight." Joachim said softly, "I'll sleep over there."
He pointed to the pile of junk in the corner.
Rin looked at the comfortable, soft bed, then at the messy pile of junk. She bit her lip. "Aren't you... going to sleep on the bed?"
"A knight doesn't compete with a lady for a bed." Joachim winked. "Besides, I'm used to it."
With that, he walked over to the corner, cleared a small space, and lay down, using his jacket as a pillow.
Rin watched him from the bed, her feelings a complicated mess. This "bad guy" didn't seem so bad after all. He was strange, a bit of a dork, but... he was kind.
Her eyelids grew heavy. She was really too tired. Clutching the warm quilt, Yae Rin finally closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
For the first time in a long time, she slept soundly, without the interruption of nightmares or the clamor of racketeers.
And in the corner, Joachim, exhausted from a night of "heroics," also quickly fell into a deep slumber. He had no idea that in just a few hours, a completely unreasonable white-haired woman would appear out of nowhere and greet him with a fist to the jaw.