T/N: Please do let me know a good name for our dear bangboo as he still don’t have a name, anyway here is chapter 6!
enjoy~
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Louis sat on the fitness bench, gripping an iron dumbbell in his right hand and pumping his arm up and down.
Sweat quickly covered his body, but it still wasn’t enough.
As a Kamen Rider, he needed to be strong enough to take on monsters with his bare hands.
If he couldn’t kick a few small monsters to death in his normal form, he wouldn’t have the face to call himself one.
“That being said, I’m afraid two of me still couldn’t beat one Zhu Yuan right now.”
Louis said to the Bangboo beside him while he exercised.
Even though he had been training hard, there were still limits between people.
In this world, something called Ether adaptability existed.
The better one’s physique, the higher their score.
A score above 50 points let a person enter a Hollow without being eroded by its power and turning into an Ethereal.
If the score was below 50, there was no point waiting for rescue once inside a Hollow.
The Hollow would kindly give them time to write a will before they became an Ethereal.
People who could join the Security Bureau mostly needed an Ether adaptability above 50 points.
Louis had it, but it was just average, nothing special.
Zhu Yuan, who became the best Security Officer at such a young age, probably had at least 80 points or higher.
She was already on a completely different level from what Louis thought a normal human could achieve.
Calling her a New Human would fit perfectly.
“Ora!”
The Bangboo expressed its agreement with a punch.
In a sense, Louis wasn’t exactly human either.
Didn’t he have the Rider Belt as backup?
“That’s right.
The Rider System is top-tier equipment from its world.
It can easily resist Ether erosion.
Even with low adaptability, one could walk around freely inside a Hollow.
Too bad I haven’t entered one yet.”
Louis nodded.
He had been in this world for some time now, but he had never once gone into a Hollow.
Even with the Rider Belt as backup, he wasn’t about to court death.
The space inside a Hollow was completely chaotic.
You couldn’t taunt the Ethereals inside with ‘come hit me.’
Once inside a Hollow, you might suddenly appear a hundred meters in the air and start falling.
Or you could walk in standing up straight only to find yourself lying flat on the ground.
It was that kind of bizarre place.
The entrances were all deceptive.
Once you were inside, unless you could find an exit from the chaotic space, you would be trapped until you died.
Even with a Rider Belt, Louis wouldn’t take that kind of risk.
The technology for safely entering and exiting Hollows was controlled by official agencies like the Security Bureau.
At this point, the value of joining them went up even more.
Using them as navigators wouldn’t be a loss at all.
After finishing his daily workout, Louis took a shower.
He had planned to rest until work tomorrow, but his Kabuto Zecter had other ideas.
It flew over to the back of his head and bumped him with its horn, reminding him it was time to go out for a stroll.
“Are you a dog…?”
Louis grumbled, but he still grabbed his car keys and headed out.
The Bangboo followed right behind him, then leaped onto his back, clinging tightly with all four limbs like a living cartoon backpack.
The Kabuto Zecter was one of the more unique transformation devices.
Almost all the transformation devices from the Kabuto world had their own consciousness.
The ones from the Bat Monster series were even more lively and could chat with their owners.
Louis considered himself quite lucky that he had never drawn the Bat Monster set.
He had avoided being bitten and infected with anything weird.
After leaving home, Louis got on his motorcycle.
He first stopped by Master Tin’s coffee shop for a cup of coffee to freshen up, then rode out of Sixth Street toward the chaotic and disorderly Old City.
The predecessor of New Eridu, the Allied Capital, had been destroyed with the arrival of the Hollows.
But it wasn’t completely wiped out.
The Hollows had swallowed most of the urban area, yet parts of the old city were still inhabited.
That area was known as the Slums.
It was a lawless zone full of crime, villains, and gangs.
If you threw a brick there, it would definitely hit a bad guy.
Once he reached an area no longer under surveillance, Louis twisted the throttle to the maximum.
As he called out to his Rider Belt, a silver belt quickly materialized around his waist, locking firmly in place.
The Kabuto Zecter shot forward and combined with the slider, clicking securely into the bottom slot.
“Henshin!”
Henshin!
It felt like a childhood dream had finally come true.
Hexagonal armor plates spread across his body as the Rider System completed its output.
The person on the motorcycle had now become the silver and red Kamen Rider Kabuto.
After Louis completed his transformation, the motorcycle beneath him also changed.
Its black exterior turned crimson.
A small red horn appeared at the front, and a small black horn characteristic of a rhinoceros beetle protruded from the windshield.
It had become Kabuto’s exclusive Rider Machine.
Louis’s abilities went beyond the original Rider System.
For example, when he transformed while riding, the motorcycle would transform along with him thanks to the Rider System.
This helped reduce the chance of his true identity being exposed and even provided some combat enhancements.
It was similar to the Auto Vajin used by Kamen Rider Faiz.
A Kamen Rider without a motorcycle just felt incomplete.
And after separating from the vehicle, they could even pull off a righteous two-on-one attack.
The monsters would probably complain that it wasn’t fair.
Once the motorcycle accelerated to two hundred kilometers per hour, the Kabuto Zecter seemed satisfied.
Louis circled around the Old City area once before heading back.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go deeper into the Old City.
There simply wasn’t much point.
Whether Kamen Riders should get involved with human affairs had always been a controversial topic.
Some humans definitely deserved to die.
Their hearts were fouler than those of monsters.
But that wasn’t part of a Kamen Rider’s duty.
It was better to leave those villains to the police or let them face the consequences on their own.
Louis had always used his strong willpower to resist the temptation of power.
If he started seeing himself as a partner of justice and punished every villain he encountered, he would slowly lose himself in that immense power.
His standards for judging good and evil would become twisted.
Eventually, anyone who opposed him might be labeled a villain.
He would lose himself completely in the vortex of power until he self-destructed.
That was why Kamen Riders generally did not interfere in human internal affairs.
A Kamen Rider eliminating monsters was justice.
In the same way, in this world, only Ethereals were the targets Louis needed to eliminate.
Taking down Ethereals was absolutely the right thing to do.
Maintaining this original intention would keep him from being corrupted by power.
However, Louis wasn’t so rigid that he couldn’t adapt.
He already had a plan in mind for how to properly use the power of a Kamen Rider.