As a weirdo, I like being a Kamen Rider

Lin Chen stood at the back, watching this farce, his annoyance reaching its peak.

What kind of time is this? Instead of thinking about uniting the forces that can be united, they're fighting amongst themselves and distrusting each other. It's one thing for the ordinary people below to be blinded by hatred, but these higher-ups have absolutely no sense of the bigger picture. All they do is doubt and fight amongst themselves. In this state, it's even less likely that humanity can defeat the Orphnochs.

He didn't want to stay a second longer and turned to leave.

Stepping outside and being hit by the cold night wind, he felt the tightness in his chest ease a bit. He thought to himself that if it weren't for the fact that this mess was related to him and he wasn't feeling guilty, he wouldn't have bothered with all this nonsense.

Go ahead and argue, argue as much as you want.

......

The next morning, just as dawn was breaking, Lin Chen was awakened by the noise outside.

He sat up, rubbed his temples, and felt a little puzzled.

Logically speaking, given his current physical condition, he shouldn't be tired even if he stayed up for days and nights, let alone all night. But lately, he's been increasingly sleepy. Last night, he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow and lost consciousness, sleeping so soundly that he didn't even notice someone approaching from outside.

He pondered for a long time but couldn't figure out the reason.

As soon as the door of the tin shack was opened, twenty or thirty rebel soldiers stood densely packed outside, each armed with a rifle, all pointed at him with the safety engaged. The atmosphere was tense and ready to erupt at any moment.

The leader was a man with a full beard and a livid face.

"What are you doing?" Lin Chen frowned, his tone turning cold.

His first thought was that his identity as the source of the apocalypse had been exposed? But then he realized it was impossible. Kiba and the other two were tight-lipped and wouldn't betray him, and Smart Brain would never tell humanity about it; it wouldn't benefit them either.

"What?! You still have the nerve to ask?!" The bearded man sneered, his voice booming. "You damned Orphnochs, your good deed has been exposed!"

Lin Chen was baffled: "What did I do? Just say it."

"Stop pretending!" The bearded man took a step forward, pointing his finger at his nose. "Let me tell you! Everyone knows that you murdered Captain Mizuhara and stole the Emperor's Belt last night! The evidence is irrefutable, and you still want to deny it?!"

Upon hearing this, Lin Chen was stunned for a moment, then almost laughed out of anger.

Stealing the Heavenly Emperor's belt? Are you kidding me?

He had originally snatched the Emperor's belt from Leo. If he really wanted it for himself, he wouldn't have handed it over to the rebels. Why wait until midnight to secretly kill someone and steal it? It was pointless.

......

The sky was just beginning to lighten, and the mountain mist had not yet dissipated. The stream gurgled and splashed against the pebbles, creating tiny droplets.

On the shallows in the middle of the stream, a corpse floated. A long sword was stuck diagonally in his back, the blade mostly embedded. He was bobbing up and down with the current. His face was pale from being submerged in water, but he was still recognizable as Mizuhara. The style of the sword on his back clearly told everyone that this matter was inextricably linked to the Kiba trio.

On opposite banks of the stream, two groups of people stood facing each other.

On one side stood Yuji Kiba, Naoya Kaidou, and Yuka Nagata, with a metal briefcase at their feet. On the other side were twenty or thirty armed resistance soldiers.

The bearded squad leader escorted Lin Chen all the way from the camp to the stream, intending to capture his "accomplices" as well, hoping that the sheer number of them would help him maintain order.

As soon as he stood firm, Lin Chen shifted his feet, swayed, and in a flash, he broke away from the group, reappearing beside Mu Chang.

"What exactly happened?" Lin Chen glanced at the corpses floating in the stream, then looked at the tense atmosphere on the other side, and asked Mu Chang in a low voice.

Yuji Kiba looked exhausted and, in a low voice, poured out all the mess that had happened from last night until now.

Last night, the meeting at the command center regarding the ownership of the belts ended in discord. During the meeting, Sonoda Mari came up with a compromise: since humans don't believe in the Orphnochs and their own people can't use the belts, she would keep both belts for safekeeping, keeping them separate from both sides. This was better than arguing back and forth.

Mizuhara immediately objected, saying that the base's unaffiliated doctor had been researching human transformation drugs and would succeed sooner or later, and that the belt must be in the hands of humans themselves to ensure safety.

Mari thought it made sense and agreed to send one of them first. However, Inui refused outright, giving a straightforward reason: he didn't like Mizuhara's face and wouldn't give it to him.

He wasn't one for arguing, and he couldn't be bothered to argue with them. He grabbed Faiz and the Heavenly Emperor's belts, and left with Truth ahead of him.

After escorting Mari back to her residence, he left both of his belts with her, saying he had some things to take care of, and turned to leave. Kiba, worried, followed him and learned the whole story behind Inui Takumi's "resurrection."

In that great battle, Inui Takumi didn't die at all. When he was critically injured and on the verge of death, he was rescued by a wandering elderly Orphnoch. The old man was nearing the end of his life, about to decay, and had a human daughter who hadn't yet been transformed and needed care.

So he asked a familiar underground doctor to perform a memory implantation surgery on Qian Qiao, sealing away Qian Qiao's original memories and replacing them with the life of an ordinary young man named "Long," so that he could protect his daughter.

After that, Qian Qiao died.

Until last night's masquerade ball, whether by fate or not, Takumi and Mari met again. Familiar faces and voices, like keys, unlocked sealed memories. Layer by layer, the false memories shattered, and the battles, the comrades, the grudges—all returned.

Qian Qiao found the old man's daughter and told her everything. The girl had actually sensed something was wrong, and calmly said goodbye. She knew Qian Qiao had his own path to follow and couldn't stop him.

Kiba was so shocked by the sudden revelation of the truth that he was discovered by Inui.

So the two of them walked back while catching up. When they pushed open the door to Mari's place, they were stunned – Mari was lying in a pool of blood, a dagger stuck in her abdomen, and the two belts she had been keeping were nowhere to be found.

Kiba summoned Yuka and the other two, and relying on the Orphnoch's five senses, the trio followed the scent all the way, finally cornering Mizuhara by the stream.

At this point, Mizuhara stopped pretending and confessed everything. He coveted the power of the belt and took advantage of Mari's unpreparedness to strike.

The reason he was so confident was that he had obtained a prototype transformation potion from the unlicensed doctor. He could transform after drinking it, and with the belt in hand, he was not afraid of them at all.

When the medicine was administered, there was absolutely no reaction; it was a completely defective product.

Seeing that he couldn't win, Mizuhara pulled out a grenade specifically designed for Orphnochs and threw it over, then turned to run. The shockwave from the explosion made Kiba's arm go numb, and his longsword slipped from his hand, flying out and piercing Mizuhara's back. The guy didn't even utter a sound before falling into the creek.

Kiba retrieved the suitcase, opened it, and found only a Faiz belt inside; the Emperor's belt was nowhere to be found.

Just as they were about to check where they had gone, a group of rebel soldiers rushed out from all around them, ran into the three of them standing next to the corpses, and immediately surrounded them.

After listening, Lin Chen asked in confusion, "Didn't you tell those humans over there?"

Kiba shook his head: "I told them, but they wouldn't listen."

He gave a bitter laugh, his voice full of helplessness, "In their eyes, as long as we are Orphnoch, whatever we say is a lie."

Lin Chen raised an eyebrow, but before he could speak, the man in the lead took a step forward and shouted, "Stop whispering! We have all the evidence! Captain Mizuhara's body, your Mogiba's sword—we've caught you red-handed! As expected, you Orphinos are all unreliable; you're born with wolves in sheep's clothing!"

He waved his hand and said, "Right here today, we will avenge Captain Mizuhara and wipe out you monsters!"

The soldiers behind him cocked their guns, the clicking sounds filling the air, and it looked like they were about to fire.

"Wait! Stop!"

Suddenly, urgent shouts came from afar, tinged with panting. Everyone turned to look and saw Sonoda Mari clutching her abdomen, the wound wrapped in thick bandages, her face pale, limping towards them with Inui Takumi's help. She had clearly only recently woken up and had forced herself to come.

The two walked to the center of the field. Mari, struggling to stand upright, said urgently to the other side, "You've got it wrong! It was Mizuhara who attacked me first! He also stole my belt! This has nothing to do with Mr. Kiba and the others. You can't wrong an innocent person!"

"A good guy?" The squad leader sneered, his eyes turning sinister. "The fact is, he killed someone! You've been protecting the Orphnochs at every turn. I think you've been bewitched by the monsters and betrayed humanity, haven't you?" His eyes flashed, and he shouted sharply, "Since you're so eager to stay with them, then fine, today we'll take care of you, you traitor, too!"

Before Zhenli could say anything more, Lin Chen stepped forward and interrupted her.

Suddenly, he spoke up: "You have the Heavenly Emperor's belt in your hands, don't you?"

The squad leader was about to nod instinctively, but swallowed his words back abruptly: "What nonsense are you spouting! You're making false accusations!"

The strong reaction only confirmed the suspicions.

Lin Chen sneered inwardly.

So all this talk of revenge and justice is just bullshit. These people don't care who killed Mizuhara; they only care about the belt.

"Since you won't admit it, then forget it."

Lin Chen was too lazy to waste words with him, so he reached out and pulled out the Orga belt from his dimensional space.

"Fire! Fire now!" The squad leader panicked at the sight and quickly waved his hand to give the order.

A dense hail of bullets whistled through the air, raining down like a storm.

Almost simultaneously, gray patterns flashed around Kiba, Kaidou, and Yuka, their bones crackling as they instantly transformed into Orphnoch.

"Transform!"

Lin Chen fastened his belt. Dark golden photon blood rapidly spread throughout his body along his veins.

Before the enemy could fire a second shot, he pushed off the ground with his feet, his figure transforming into a golden streak of light as he plunged directly into the crowd.

In just a moment, everyone was knocked to the ground.

The squad leader was so frightened his legs went weak, and he turned to run. He had only taken one step when a flash of golden light appeared before his eyes, and Lin Chen was already blocking his way. The cold blade of the Earth Emperor Sword was pressed directly against his neck; the slightest movement would draw blood.

"Now tell me everything? I don't believe it's all a coincidence!" Lin Chen's icy voice rang out.

"No, don't kill me! I'll talk! I'll tell you everything!"

Chapter 259 Disappointment

With a sword held to his neck, the man trembled violently, confessing everything in a shaky voice.

Not long after the meeting ended last night, he received an encrypted communication from Smart Brain. The other party made a condition: as long as they returned the Emperor's Belt and captured the dark gold knight who had repelled them yesterday, they promised to perfectly transform them all into Orphnochs.

“We…we fought to the death because we were afraid of failing the transformation and dying…” The man’s voice trembled. “They said they had a 100% successful technology, and they even sent us an experimental video that perfectly showed the complete process of a human becoming an Orphnoch…No one could refuse this.”

He secretly told Mizuhara the news. Mizuhara hesitated at first, but later took the initiative to contact the other party and added an extra condition: after the transformation was completed, one of the belts must be his. Smart Brain agreed immediately.

The two men quickly reached an agreement and sneaked into Mari's residence that very night, injuring her and stealing two belts. Mizuhara had already tried it; the Emperor's Belt didn't work at all, so he couldn't use it. After some discussion, they decided to give the Emperor's Belt to their contact as a gesture of goodwill, while keeping the Faiz Belt for themselves.

"The belt was sent away overnight... but they said the deal doesn't count until they catch you." The man swallowed hard. "They said... they said that as long as they catch you and kill those three traitors, Kiba Yuji, they'll immediately perform the conversion surgery on us."

Since Mizuhara died here, we thought... we could conveniently pin the blame on Orphnoch, which would give us a legitimate reason to take action and also win over the hearts of the people..."

After he finished speaking, the only sound in the room was the sound of the stream.

Truth's lips trembled; he couldn't believe that the camp's higher-ups would collude with the enemy and betray their comrades. Inui Takumi frowned, clearly disgusted by this turn of events as well.

The three men remained silent, their faces showing no anger, only utter disappointment. All that they had said and done, in their eyes, were either pawns to be sold or monsters to be framed.

Lin Chen found it all laughable.

They're incredibly stupid. Don't they even know their own limitations? They think they can capture them? They should know that they stole the Heavenly Belt themselves. How dare a few ordinary humans have such unrealistic dreams?

Thinking of this, a cold glint flashed in his eyes, and he slightly raised the Earth Emperor Sword in his hand. The dark golden blade reflected the shimmering light of the stream, exuding a chilling and murderous aura. Since these people no longer intended to be human, keeping them alive would only cause future trouble; it was better to eliminate them all with a single sword strike.

"Wait! Mr. Lin Chen, please stop!"

Sonoda Mari, pale-faced and clutching her wounded abdomen, staggered forward a couple of steps. Her voice trembled with weakness, yet remained unusually resolute: "No matter what... they are still human. They are among the few remaining kin in this world. If we kill them here, how are we any different from those indiscriminate Orphnochs?"

As soon as she finished speaking, Yuji Kiba, Naoya Kaidou, and Yuka Nagata all turned to look at Lin Chen, their eyes filled with complex emotions.

Kiba opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he just lowered his eyes in silence.

Lin Chen turned his head, his scarlet compound eyes sweeping over Sonoda Mari's stubborn face, then glancing at Kiba and the other two, and pursing his lips.

"Do as you please."

With a flick of his wrist, the Earth Emperor Sword vanished into the air as a dark golden stream of light. He raised his hand and pressed it against his waist, causing the Orga armor to dissipate into countless specks of light, revealing his cold and impatient face.

"Anyway, even if there are any problems in the end, you will have to bear the consequences yourselves."

After saying that, he turned and left, not even bothering to glance at the group of rebels slumped on the ground again. Seeing this, Kiba and the other two also deactivated their Orphnoch forms and silently followed. Inui, supporting Mari, turned back one last time and coldly swept his gaze over the squad leader, his eyes filled with disgust.