Seeing this, the guards who were still crawling and groaning on the ground scrambled away in terror.
After Raven consumed the energy of the Elephant Orphnoch, he detransformed and turned to walk away. The human man immediately rushed up to him, thanking him profusely.
"Thank you for saving me! My name is Murano. You must be Masato Kusaka, the one who uses the Kaixa belt! You're completely different from the rumors," the man named Murano excitedly told Raven.
"I'm sorry, but you have the wrong person." Raven walked over to the side of the road and got on his Junglaider.
"Wrong person? But you clearly used the Kaixa belt…" Murano was confused. Among the few thousand human survivors, Faiz and Kaixa were household names—heroes who protected them.
"By the way, do you know where the human camp is?" Raven suddenly asked for directions.
"O-of course I do! I just came from there. It's just that food is scarce now, so I decided to risk stealing some food…" Murano quickly explained.
"Perfect, then come with me. You can show me the way." Without overthinking it, Raven brought the man along, mounted his motorcycle, and sped out of the city before more pursuers could arrive.
Meanwhile, Yuji Kiba, Yuka, and Kaido received a message from the Smart Brain Group. Kyouji Murakami wanted to meet with them face-to-face and promised to guarantee their safety. Despite finding it suspicious, Kiba and the others went.
There, they witnessed the legendary Emperor's Belt and its user appear, who easily defeated several disobedient Orphnochs with overwhelming power. This deeply shocked Kiba and the others. Yuka, in particular, felt uneasy, thinking this dream world was too terrifying; she just wanted to wake up quickly and see Raven.
After a discussion with Murakami, Kiba firmly stood on the side of humanity, leaving the Smart Brain headquarters with Kaido and Yuka. Murakami, now just a disembodied head, was in no hurry, seemingly confident that Kiba would eventually have a change of heart, having already internally nominated him as the user for the other Emperor's Belt.
Shortly after Kiba and his group left the Smart Brain building, they encountered a crowd of civilians fleeing in panic on the road.
"A Kamen Rider appeared! Run!" These were the same citizens Raven had terrified earlier.
"What's going on? Did that bastard Kusaka show up?" Kaido speculated, confused.
In this world, Takumi Inui—Kamen Rider Faiz—had been missing and presumed dead for a long time, and the Delta Gear had been taken by Smart Brain. Therefore, the only Rider they could think of was Masato Kusaka.
"Forget about that! We need to hurry back and warn everyone about the Emperor's Belts." Kiba shook his head.
On the other side, Raven was riding his motorcycle through the long, grass-covered roads in the suburbs. But he gradually realized something was wrong. He'd been riding for ages without any sign of a camp.
"You don't actually know where the camp is, do you?" Raven stopped the bike. His keen senses caught the scent of the ocean, telling him that if he rode any further, he'd hit the coast.
"I-I'm sorry, I really did come from the camp, but I got lost, and I can't remember exactly where it is," Murano pleaded, afraid Raven would abandon him. In a world overrun by Orphnochs, being alone outside the camp was a death sentence.
"I'll give you one more chance. Think carefully," Raven said calmly, taking a deep breath.
"I… I'm thinking…" Murano desperately tried to recall the area around the camp. Under Raven's pressure, he finally remembered something.
"That's it! I think it was to the west!"
He pointed in a direction this time.
"If you're wrong again, I'm leaving you on the side of the road," Raven stated bluntly.
"I won't be wrong this time!"
Raven turned the Junglaider around and headed toward the area, which was so overgrown with weeds that the road surface was barely visible. Such was the wonder of nature. With little human interference, it only took a few years for the concrete jungle to revert to wilderness. It was no wonder Murano had gotten lost.
However, Kiba and the others had already returned to the camp ahead of Raven.
"So, it seems the Emperor's Belts are real." A man wearing a white headband spoke with a grim expression.
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