All Evil Begins with One Step
Hic.
The world spun round and round. I have no idea why this house’s fridge contains more alcohol than water. Was the original owner of this body a soft-hearted person like me? No way.
The cityscape was more ordinary than I’d expected. Everyone walked around projecting insanely high-tech electronic terminals into the air, yet it didn’t look all that different from modern people strolling with their eyes glued to their smartphones. Since I’d grown used to the terminal dangling near my collarbone and had started doing the same, I wondered if this city actually suited me better than I thought.
Looks like even here the unusually pissed-off people are dominating the feeds.
No matter where you go, places where humans live are all the same. Feeling inexplicably irritated, I downed another swig of liquor and tapped at the terminal. I’d been searching for information on Last since a while ago, but almost nothing came up. If Last had begun any kind of activity, the internet could never stay this quiet.
At that moment, one hypothesis flashed through my mind. The prologue. The phase before any narrative truly begins—the stage where they warn you, “We’re about to show this kind of story, so leave now if it’s not your thing.”
That was it! No main storyline had started yet, which was why the internet remained so still. Which meant Last had not yet officially become a hero.
The moment I realized that, dopamine surged through me. If I played my cards right, I could become the hero Last’s very first villain.
I immediately tried to recall what had happened in the prologue. Naturally, I remembered jack shit. The only result of forcing my unused brain to work was puking up a meal made entirely of alcohol and gastric acid in the middle of the city.
“Aigoo, a young lady drinking since dawn…” A passing homeless man muttered, subtly giving me a wide berth.
Pathetic. In my previous life I was a blockhead who barely scraped five hundred on the TOEIC. I hadn’t expected my memory to suddenly improve now.
I really didn’t want to resort to this method…
I switched off the terminal, stared into empty space, and quietly called inside my head.
S-System window.
[Recalling memories]
Last, who had been hiding the fact that he was an Enhanced Human and operating as a vigilante.
One day, caught in a department store kidnapping, he used the power of an Enhanced Human to rescue his colleague Han Yujin, who was in danger.
Afterward, Last—taken in for investigation on the grounds that he was an unregistered Enhanced Human—has his identity as a 1st Generation Enhanced Human exposed…
Sigh… this is my fate…
Anyway, thank you, mysterious status window. After fiddling with it for about an hour, I learned that whenever I couldn’t recall knowledge from the original story, this thing would roughly fill in the blanks. Of course, it never spoiled anything I wasn’t supposed to know; it cut off information with surgical precision. I genuinely wanted to see the face of whoever designed it.
What mattered was that we were still before the main story began. That was fortunate. If the plot had already progressed, things would have become far more troublesome.
There was a reason the Enhanced Human Last hid his identity. In Minos, Enhanced Humans were objects of both fear and discrimination. I couldn’t say I didn’t understand the fear. Even I would struggle to view someone who could crush concrete like tofu with bare hands as truly human.
That was why nano-machines that broadcast jamming waves to prevent them from harming normal humans were implanted in every Enhanced Human’s brain. However, Last was the very first 1st Generation Enhanced Human ever created. Naturally, no such nano-machines existed in his head, and no one knew that fact.
But according to the original work, soon everyone would learn that Last was an Enhanced Human. A dangerously powerful 1st Generation one, at that.
“Welcome! This is Unit #24!”
The automatic doors slid open and a somewhat forced, cheerful AI greeting rang out. Even the convenience stores in this city were unmanned. How cold.
I scanned the products on the shelves, wondering what to steal. Daily necessities, obviously. It felt pathetic to have no ramen at home. Bottled water, toilet paper… oh, and snacks! I had to grab some snacks!
……
A wave of clarity hit. The fact that I was getting excited over stealing snacks suddenly made me look pathetic even to myself. Besides, could I even steal anything? With this level of high-tech, surely the anti-theft measures were equally advanced?
In the end I still have to use this…
I glanced up at the mysterious window floating in the air.
You are an Enhanced Human (Anti-Origin), the same as your nemesis Last. It is impossible to determine exactly where you received the enhancement procedure, but like Last you are one of the unregistered 1st Generation Enhanced Humans, and you do not have Safety Nano-machines implanted in your brain.
Your current threat level is unknown.
You can freely use psychokinesis and lift objects weighing 100 kilograms or less within a 100-meter radius without touching them. You can also emit light electrical signals to temporarily control electronic devices within a 30-meter radius.
When you expend a large amount of stamina, you can manipulate electrical signals with greater precision to interfere with another person’s synapses. At that time the target may notice something is wrong with their thoughts.
Crackle!
I experimentally shut down every electronic device inside the convenience store, then grabbed a pack of ramen and other daily necessities. At that exact moment—
“Excuse me… what exactly are you doing, customer?”
The cheerful AI female clerk’s voice—the same one that had greeted me upon entry—froze me in place. I turned toward the sound like a mouse caught in a trap, body rigid.
There stood a robot that looked identical to a human from head to toe, staring at me from behind the counter as if measuring me up.
A Vitaloid…?
Vitaloid was the term for high-performance androids equipped with specially manufactured AI from the Wunhwa Group.
So it wasn’t an unmanned store after all?
More importantly—why wasn’t it collapsing? It was an electronic device!
“I asked what you are doing…?”
When I remained silent, the Vitaloid stepped over the counter and began walking toward me, as if trying to get a better look. This was bad. Extremely bad. I hadn’t even caught a glimpse of Last’s face yet—was I about to get the prison ending already?
……
Strangely, although my mind was in chaos, my body didn’t tremble at all. It was as if this kind of situation wasn’t new to me. Right. When I thought about it, I possessed the ability to overcome this crisis.
The moment that realization hit, the current situation suddenly felt unbearably fun.
“Why are you smiling…?” the Vitaloid asked.
Instead of answering I simply smiled faintly and raised the output of my power.
“Customer…?”
I wonder what I look like in her eyes right now?
“No reason.”
“A smile doesn’t need a reason, does it?”
Please, whatever you do, don’t let it look like the smile of a villain.