Kryptonians: Man of Steel

Chapter 1499 An Incurable Fool

With a hoarse roar, the motorcycle shot off like an arrow, frantically tearing through the heavy night, speeding desperately toward the next delivery point, toward the false yet alluring lights of the city center.

What was that just now? Was it a collective hallucination caused by excessive fatigue and nervous tension?
Or perhaps... some invisible "predator" dwelling in the folds of the city's vast shadow has temporarily lost interest in devouring him, this insignificant "shrimp" who has accidentally wandered into the edge of its territory?

The so-called "safety" in Tokyo has already revealed its fragility in this food delivery resume.

It is nothing more than a dead end that humanity, relying on a glimmer of hope, has chosen from countless crossroads leading to hell, a dead end that rots a little slower.

The barrier, painstakingly maintained by the sorcerer, was less an indestructible shield and more like a lone lamp abandoned in an endless, dark wilderness.

Its light was faint and flickering, barely illuminating the small area beneath one's feet and casting a brief, illusory halo.

Beyond the aperture, an even denser and deeper darkness was silently, slowly, and resolutely closing in from all directions, carrying a cold, sticky breath.

"Help me—!"

A woman's shrill, distorted scream, like a poisoned ice pick, suddenly pierced through the noise of the engine and the howling wind, and stabbed hard into Hachiman's eardrums!

The sound came from the entrance of a narrow, dark alleyway ahead, filled with pure, dying despair.

Hachiman's body stiffened abruptly, and almost instinctively, he slammed on the brakes!
The tires screeched as they rubbed against the wet road, and the car came to a sudden stop.

The inertia caused his body to lurch forward violently, his chest slamming heavily against the handlebars, bringing a dull pain. He jerked his head, his deadpan eyes fixed on the entrance to the alleyway, which resembled the gaping maw of a giant beast.

The alley was pitch black, with only a broken street lamp near the alley entrance, mostly broken and with only the filament emitting a faint red light, barely outlining a few blurry shadows.

After that scream, there was no further sound; the silence was terrifying, as if the cry for help was just a hallucination caused by extreme tension.

A cold, numbing sensation instantly spread from the soles of my feet throughout my entire body.

go?

That thought sprouted like a venomous snake, only to be smashed by the hammer of reason!

no! Absolutely not!
He bit his lower lip hard, almost tasting the blood.

What is the first ironclad rule for saving your life?
Don't meddle in other people's business!
It's about extinguishing all unnecessary curiosity!

In this place, at this time, to hear such screams... that is definitely not an ordinary robbery or harassment!
The thing lurking in the darkness, the invisible gaze in the stairwell, the blank space cut out from the old woman's family photo... these fragments spun wildly in his mind, piecing together an extremely dangerous signal!

He was just a food delivery worker struggling to make ends meet.

A nobody riding a beat-up electric scooter, weaving through the city's cracks at night for a meager hourly wage.

A tiny being who cannot even guarantee its own safety and could be swallowed up by the city's enormous shadow at any moment.

What qualifications does he have? What laughable ability does he possess to play the role of a hero?
That would be nothing but foolish overestimation of one's abilities, and the quickest route to the morgue or missing persons files!
“Others…others must have heard it too!” He screamed frantically, almost hysterically, in his mind, trying to build a dam with these weak and feeble reasons to block the surging guilt and a deeper, more nauseating feeling of hypocrisy—the feeling of standing idly by.

“Yes! There must be other people nearby! Maybe a patrolling policeman just turned the corner? Or maybe a late-night commuter is hiding behind a window? At the very least, someone might be passing by at the other end of the alley... There will always be someone! There will always be someone more suitable and capable than me to take care of this... There definitely will be…”

His hands, gripping the handlebars, trembled violently from excessive force, and his knuckles turned a ghastly bluish-white once again.

However, at the core of Hachiman Hikigaya lies a fundamental and irreconcilable contradiction.

He utterly detested trouble, practiced "energy conservation," and took "no expectations, no disappointments" as his guiding principle.

However, beneath his hard shell of cynicism and negativity lies a distorted, almost self-destructive "altruistic" instinct that makes him unable to truly ignore others (especially victims in absolute weakness).

His extreme aversion to "hypocrisy" stems precisely from his almost obsessive and fastidious pursuit of "genuine good deeds."

When faced with such a blatant, imminent distress signal that threatened his life, his carefully constructed philosophical fortress of life proved utterly vulnerable in the face of his body's instinctive reactions.

Twist the accelerator! Get out of here! Reason is screaming.

His fingers twitched nervously as they rested on the cold throttle.

With just a slight twist, this dilapidated vehicle would carry him away from this ominous vortex, heading towards the relatively "safe" next order point.

This is the most energy-efficient choice, and the choice that best aligns with his philosophy of life as a "great teacher".

The most rational choice that best aligns with the probability of survival.

However, his body remained rooted to the spot.

Those dead fish eyes were fixed on the entrance to the dark alley, as if trying to see through the thick, inky darkness.

That abruptly stopped cry of "Help!" was no longer just a sound.

It turned into a red-hot steel needle, piercing easily through the seemingly solid defensive shell he had built with negativity, self-deprecation, and cynicism, with searing pain.

The needle struck with unparalleled precision the deepest, most unacknowledged, yet most stubborn spot in his soul—he was unable to truly turn away from the clear, unmistakable, life-or-death plea for help that was unfolding before his very eyes.

Even if his rational mind clearly depicts the abyss ahead as one that could swallow everything; even if he is acutely aware of his own insignificance and powerlessness, like a mantis trying to stop a chariot; even if he fully understands that rushing in now is utterly foolish and meaningless, with the greatest possibility of losing himself as well, becoming a cold statistic in tomorrow morning's news or a vague "other case"...

but.

The blank figure cruelly cut off by scissors in the family photo; the unfathomable, almost tangible fear in the old woman's cloudy eyes; at this moment, these images seem to have come alive, carrying a heavy weight, overlapping with the desperate cry for help that disappeared into the darkness of the alley.

(End of this chapter)