T/N: one of my favorite chapters, here is chapter 5!
enjoy~
===
Was I ever this bold?
Louis wove through traffic on his motorcycle, muttering to himself.
Back when he was an office worker on Earth, he had zero confidence with women.
Exchanging contact information was already his limit.
Asking someone out for coffee felt completely unimaginable.
But the conversation just now had flowed so smoothly.
Not a single bit of awkwardness.
Where did this confidence even come from?
Louis thought about it carefully.
It had to be the Build Driver.
The current him had completely changed.
He was no longer an ordinary person.
He now possessed the power of a Kamen Rider.
No matter what happened, he felt he could face it calmly.
That power washed away all his old hesitation and avoidance.
His entire being felt confident from head to toe.
Returning to his storefront home on Sixth Street, Louis felt a lot of emotions.
New Eridu was the most prosperous city in this world.
Every inch of land here was incredibly valuable.
Thankfully, because he had been at home when he crossed over, he also received a residence in this world.
At least he didn’t have to worry about housing or utilities.
Otherwise, even a Kamen Rider would be stumped by money problems.
“Tin Master, I’m back.”
Louis greeted the barista robot through the shop window.
The metal-headed barista responded kindly.
“Louis, you’re back.
Would you like some coffee?”
“I’ll have some tonight.”
After that, Louis rode around the shop to the parking area in the back.
He parked his motorcycle under the awning, then climbed the external stairs attached to the wall.
He reached the second floor, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.
The entire second floor of the coffee shop served as his home.
Although he didn’t know who actually owned the property, he had been living here ever since he arrived in this world.
The only costs were utilities.
At first he thought it belonged to Tin Master.
After talking with him, he learned the house had been vacant for a long time.
No one knew who the previous owner was.
Since Louis had moved in, Tin Master never interfered.
People on Sixth Street generally preferred to avoid unnecessary trouble.
Inside, the spacious living room was filled with all kinds of fitness equipment.
Pull-up bars, push-up handles, grip trainers, and more.
Living alone, Louis had turned the space into a personal gym.
Whenever he had free time, he trained his body to better handle the strength granted by the Build Driver.
It really showed how much a goal could change a person.
Back on Earth as an office worker, even taking out the trash felt exhausting.
He would rather lie down than sit.
Going to the gym?
What a joke.
But now, he was scarily disciplined.
Skipping a single day of training made him feel restless.
After all, he was a Kamen Rider now.
He couldn’t afford to end up like those guys who got a potbelly before even putting on the suit.
That would be unacceptable.
The house wasn’t silent.
As soon as Louis entered, he heard the rhythmic sound of a punching bag being hit.
He looked down.
A small doll that looked somewhat like a penguin was furiously punching away.
Every hit on the tiny punching bag produced a surprisingly powerful thud.
It stood about as tall as Louis’s knees and wore a black hat.
Under the hat were two big, round eyes.
This was a Bangboo, a unique device from this world.
“I’m back, Bangboo.”
Louis greeted it.
The Bangboo raised one arm and struck a strong pose in reply.
Ora!
His substitute Bangboo let out a loud cry.
That was exactly why Louis called it Bangboo.
These high-tech products known as Bangboo were auxiliary artificial intelligence devices.
In simple terms, they were super smart AIs that helped humans with all kinds of tasks through their incredible learning ability.
They operated in a huge range of fields and could be found everywhere.
Every street and alley had jobs perfectly suited for them.
Thanks to their learning ability and efficiency, Bangboo could already replace humans in many roles.
They even developed their own thoughts and awareness.
Self-aware robots were common in this world, and Bangboo belonged to that category.
However, unlike machines that were granted human rights, Bangboo didn’t receive such treatment.
They were tools created by humans.
If they weren’t needed, they could be used however one wanted or simply discarded, even if they had consciousness.
The Bangboo beside Louis had been picked up from a recycling bin one day.
At the time, he wanted to study this interesting new device, so he took it in and tried to repair it himself.
The result was a total failure.
Its performance became even worse than before.
During that period when he had nothing much to do, Louis asked Tin Master to get him some books on Bangboo repair and studied them on his own.
The results were…
not great.
He understood every individual word in the books, but when they were put together, it was like reading a foreign language.
It was as if basic things could be faked through effort, but advanced knowledge couldn’t.
If you didn’t understand it, you simply didn’t understand it.
The Bangboo repair project was shelved.
Until one day at four in the morning.
That was when Louis suddenly obtained the Build Driver along with the Genius Full Bottle.
In that instant, a surge of inspiration hit him.
Louis struck his transformation pose
Great!
All yeah!
And inserted the Genius Full Bottle into the Build Driver.
GENIUS!
Then started to crank the Build Driver.
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Are you ready?
“Henshin!”
The Completely Flawless Bottle Guy!
Build Genius!
Wow!
Amazing!
He transformed into Genius Form, his body covered in sixty Full Bottles.
Those bottles didn’t just affect the suit.
They also boosted the wearer’s intelligence.
Louis could only marvel at it.
The Genius Form truly lived up to its name.
Things he couldn’t understand before became crystal clear with just a glance.
He immediately began modifying the half-abandoned Bangboo into its current form, adding all the functions he needed.
With the clever use of Kamen Rider power, solving problems really was this easy.
Louis named this reborn Bangboo “Bangboo” because it could mimic his appearance to a certain extent.
For example, when it played dead on the ground, it looked exactly like him.
Without instruments, it would be impossible to tell the difference.
As a proper Kamen Rider, he couldn’t just disappear every time a fight broke out.
If he vanished and a Kamen Rider suddenly appeared, even an idiot would figure out his identity.
That’s why a substitute was essential.
And the Bangboo helped with that perfectly.
As for exactly how the Bangboo achieved such realistic mimicry, that was thanks to Ether.
The specific details could be explained by the Genius Form, but it wasn’t around today.
That explanation would have to wait for another time.