The Villain Excels from the Shadows -6-
The orbital elevator held immense symbolic weight for humanity, driven underground. Even if they could no longer call Earth their own, they had survived. And they would not remain content here forever—they would one day return to the surface. From the moment construction began, propaganda carrying that message of resistance spread through every city. That was why the orbital elevator was both a high-risk military facility directly tied to humanity’s survival and, ironically, a popular tourist attraction anyone with money could visit. It felt much like a certain nation’s unification observatory. The war was clearly not over. Armed soldiers under the management of each city’s military corporations stood guard in an ironclad perimeter. At the very least, civilians had to view it from a kilometer away through telescopes. Yet the facility remained open to the public.
“What the hell just happened…?”
“Did the train derail…?”
“There was definitely someone on the tracks…!!”
That day happened to draw an unusually large crowd of tourists. News that Cheongang Special City had finally received its own orbital elevator had lured visitors from other cities. They froze in place, terrified that a monster might appear at any moment. Then one brave citizen approached the shadow at the front of the train—the figure they had been staring at all along.
Golden hair caked in dust and blue eyes glimpsed beneath a bowed head told them exactly who it was. Last.
The bravest citizen reached Last and checked whether he was still breathing.
“He’s alive… He’s breathing!”
“He—he’s alive…!!”
“What are you waiting for? Let’s move him somewhere open!”
One by one, the tourists who had seemed frozen in fear gathered around and carried Last to a wider area.
“An Enhanced Human…?”
“He’s really young…”
“Did he stop the train?”
“What exactly happened…?”
People murmured their guesses while staring at Last lying on the ground. Just then, a sharp hiss of escaping air came from the train whose doors had remained shut. Passengers began stepping out cautiously. When the doors opened, the stench of blood and gunpowder hit them hard. The tourists showed no panic; they were long accustomed to corpses, gunpowder, and the smell of blood.
Two figures emerged from the train—the instigators and victims of the incident alike. Chae Yuha and Nadja.
Nadja broke into a cold sweat as she looked at Last’s unconscious face. When that madman inside the train had tried to stop a speeding locomotive with his own body, she had wondered who on earth it could be. And it turned out to be Samwol.
Nadja shot Chae Yuha a reproachful glare, silently asking if she knew anything about this. Chae Yuha began reciting the false backstory she had prepared in advance.
“…Sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner. I’ve met him before.”
“…Him?”
“He’s suffering from memory loss, just like me. Maybe even worse.”
“Why are you talking so stiffly, Sawol…? Calling him ‘he’ like that…”
“…Sorry, sis.”
Chae Yuha smiled bitterly and turned her head. To Nadja, it felt like she was drawing a line between them.
“I vaguely remembered that he—Jinhyun—was one of the people from the lab. But he didn’t remember me at all. He seemed to recall the lab itself, though…”
Nadja’s pupils shrank in shock. If he couldn’t recognize Chae Yuha, the person closest to him, then he would never recognize the rest of the family either. In a way, that was the same as death. The Samwol she had known was already gone. What remained was only the first-generation Enhanced Human and A-rank hero, Last.
“Hrk…”
Nadja suddenly clutched her chest as if she couldn’t breathe. Neither Sawol nor Samwol remembered her. Perhaps even Ilwol and Owol wouldn’t. Why was she the only one without memory problems, forced to endure this pain alone? The long-buried desire for revenge against the city began to stir again.
Chae Yuha patted Nadja’s back.
“It’s okay, sis. Everything will be fine.”
“Haa…”
“At least you still remember us. You won’t forget.”
“Huu…”
“Then we won’t disappear.”
“Huu…”
“And I’ve never given up. Even if that guy lying over there doesn’t remember me, I still remember him, even if it’s only faintly. I’ll make him remember, even if I have to force it.”
At those words, Nadja drew a deep breath. “Haa…!” She wiped the cold sweat from her chin and looked at Chae Yuha. The girl was always smiling brightly, but Nadja had always suspected she carried her own burdens. How could she not? Ever since they were children, Chae Yuha’s health had been poor. While the other lab children played together, she had been forced to lie alone in a hospital bed. Yet she had kept smiling as if nothing were wrong, begging Samwol to carry her on his back whenever he appeared. It would have been strange if she hadn’t been hurt when Samwol failed to recognize her. So how could she still smile like that?
Then an ominous thought crossed Nadja’s mind. She herself had once burned with vengeance after losing her family. Until the day before reuniting with Chae Yuha, she had been ready to destroy Cheongang. Because of that, the question came naturally.
When Chae Yuha first opened her eyes in that abandoned factory and realized she was what the world called a “first-generation” subject, when she hid, when she learned through her future-sight that her family’s fates were unknown—what had she felt? What thoughts had kept her going until now?
Nadja swallowed dryly. She didn’t believe in unscientific things like intuition, but something told her that digging into this matter now would trigger an irreversible disaster.
“I’m sorry, Sawol… No, Yuha. I’m okay now.”
Nadja forced a bright smile. She couldn’t keep relying on her little sister forever. Right now, they needed to clean up the aftermath.
*
The cleanup proceeded smoothly. Using her status, Nadja brought in personnel from the Cheongang Group and admitted Last to a hospital under her own name. Chae Yuha was momentarily stunned to learn Nadja owned a hospital. The terrorists’ backers remained unidentified. However, the media directly controlled by Cheongang officially announced their motive: an apparent suicide attack meant to crash the accelerated train into the elevator. Of course, destroying the train had only been a distraction—the real goal had been Chae Yuha’s kidnapping—but since that part remained unknown, she said nothing.
Kim Seokho, the thirty-three-year-old unemployed Enhanced Human, safely returned to his sister’s side. Somewhere on the internet, debates raged over whether a former convict like him could truly perform good deeds, but that was something he could overcome by continuing to do more good in the future.
Chae Yuha and Nadja inspected the elevator for any signs of shoddy construction. As expected, there were none. The outcome—elevator collapse—remained fixed, but only the cause had changed. Chae Yuha recalled a certain philosophical musing on fatalism she had once read. Thinking too deeply about it gave her a headache, so she quickly stopped.
Once again, the city’s fate had been altered by someone’s hand. No one yet knew what consequences this would bring, but one thing was certain: Chae Yuha was not the only one standing at the crossroads of destiny.
“Ahem.”
Once everything was settled, Chae Yuha gathered everyone. Nadja, Kim Seokho, and A.G.O. Only Nadja answered the summons.
“Sis, I think I’m really unpopular.”
“Hm?”
Nadja replied while sketching blueprints for some invention Chae Yuha had requested. She looked too busy, so Chae Yuha decided not to bother her further.
Chae Yuha thought to herself. She had managed to put out the immediate fire, but because she kept preemptively suppressing threats before they could even ignite, Last never got the chance to grow. He had stopped the train, sure—but that wasn’t enough. He should have been able to stand afterward without passing out. This couldn’t continue. Was there any way to give Last a power-up event?
That was when she came up with this idea.
Chae Yuha summoned her usual electronic notepad. Written in her own handwriting were the words:
Villain Alliance.
If the original scenario couldn’t help Last grow, then she would simply make him grow herself.