19
Ch. 19 Cute
[Is Yoo Anna insane? She caught Mirage?]
[Starlight, who captured a Despair-class monster that even Kage from A-City couldn’t catch, shouldn’t W-City now be called A-City?]
[Star Punch! Star Punch! Star Punch!]
The day after the Despair-class monster that fled from A-City to W-City, Mirage, was eliminated.
Reporters swarmed the Hero Association of W-City, which had announced to the citizens that Mirage had been completely defeated. Yoo Anna, responding to an interview with a local W-City broadcaster, was explaining the damage caused by Mirage alongside other heroes.
“27 severely injured, 89 lightly injured, and zero fatalities. As for property damage, 52 buildings were destroyed…”
[52 buildings? Is that accurate? Did she misspeak and mean 52 kilometers?]
[I live in District 2, and yeah, my house is fine.]
[My house is gone though? My house is gone though? My house is gone though?]
[Breaking: A-City is in an uproar, furious that W-City’s reported damage from Mirage suggests A-City’s heroes should be fired.]
[Is this really a Despair-class? Black Cat caused way more damage with other Despair-class monsters before.]
[Go look up how much damage Mirage left in A-City first.]
[Mirage’s damage in A-City: 3 districts completely obliterated, fatalities uncountable. Mirage’s damage in W-City: 52 buildings destroyed in 2 outer districts. Black Cat’s damage in W-City: 17 orphanage directors, 1 district.]
[Wasn’t the one district destroyed by heroes, not Black Cat?]
The damage W-City suffered from Mirage wasn’t just miraculously low—it was absurdly minimal. Only 52 buildings destroyed, a level that could be fully restored in about a week, and the casualties were also remarkably low. Considering how many heroes usually fall when facing a Despair-class monster, it almost seemed like the government was manipulating information to reassure the public.
“I have a question! The damage in A-City was incomparable to W-City’s, how did this outcome happen?”
“It’s due to the nature of the monster, Mirage. Unless you knew its true form, Mirage was a monster that inevitably caused massive destruction.”
In response to the reporter’s question, an Association employee turned on a TV and played footage.
“The Mirage we eliminated this time was named for its elusive, phantom-like nature, and the name fit perfectly. We’ll now release a portion of the combat footage.”
The Mirage captured on the heroes’ bodycams constantly shifted forms. At first, viewers marveled at the heroes’ coordination, but soon, terror set in as they saw Mirage regenerate instantly from every attack. A monster that kept coming back no matter how much they struck it, how could something like that even be defeated?
The sight of heroes collapsing one after another as Mirage released a smokescreen made it easy to imagine how A-City had suffered so much damage. But immediately after, the footage showed Yoo Anna gripping a giant clam and relentlessly pounding it.
The shift from a grim scene to this bizarrely comical moment left reporters raising their hands in confusion, wondering if the footage had been edited wrong.
“Uh… What’s with that clam all of a sudden…?”
“That’s Mirage’s true form. Everything you saw before was an illusion created by Mirage.”
“Huh?”
According to the government’s announcement, Mirage was a mollusk-type monster that used its shell to generate illusions and its flesh to wield telekinetic powers. This allowed it to launch physical illusionary attacks, and what was believed to be a hypnotic ability was actually just an overpowering illusion.
Additionally, the shell’s durability was such that only an S-rank hero could destroy it—meaning Mirage was a monster that couldn’t be defeated unless its true form was pinpointed within the thick fog and struck with overwhelming force.
In that moment, it became clear why Kage, A-City’s S-rank hero, had failed to capture Mirage. He thought his ability had trapped it, but Mirage had always been outside his grasp, toying with him.
Now, the reporters’ focus shifted entirely away from Mirage.
“How did you find Mirage’s true form?!”
“What are your thoughts on Kage, A-City’s S-rank hero who let Mirage escape to W-City?!”
“Was fighting Mirage easy for you?!”
Comparing another S-rank hero to W-City’s S-rank was always a guaranteed clickbait topic. But Yoo Anna, having no interest in indulging such pointless drama, sighed and ended the press conference.
Once the government announcement concluded, people took to the internet to loudly discuss the incident.
[Mirage seems like an insanely tricky monster to catch—how did Yoo Anna do it?]
[Do your friends not know what happened in District 2? Maybe Yoo Anna just stumbled upon it while erasing everything in her path.]
[Wait, is that Eraser the same move that wrecked District 2’s underground?]
[Yoo Anna said it’s not called Eraser, it’s Meltdown.]
[Homeless-Maker fits better.]
[So she just kept beating the crap out of everything until she stumbled upon the real body and went, ‘Oh, this must be it,’ and punched it?]
[Yoo Anna might’ve wrecked District 2, but she’s really good at taking down monsters, huh.]
[Then why can’t she catch Black Cat?]
[She beat up Mirage, which even Kage couldn’t handle, but can’t catch Black Cat?]
[But even Black Cat drops whatever monster he’s eating and runs the moment Yoo Anna shows up.]
[Maybe the Black Cat’s just scared of Yoo Anna?]
[Black Cat: If I attack people, Yoo Anna will come kill me, nya~ I don’t wanna die, so I’ll just stick to eating monsters, nya~]
[But orphanage directors are people, aren’t they?]
[There were weird rumors about them. If those rumors are true, then the Black Cat didn’t kill people, just beasts.]
[Either way, the important thing is that W-City is safe thanks to Yoo Anna~]
Before anyone realized it, Yoo Anna had transformed in public perception—from a hero who couldn’t catch Despair-class monsters and just chased them around, to a hero so strong that Despair-class monsters didn’t dare attack people and only ran away.
Public opinion really could flip in an instant. After so much torment, why did it change so fast?
Lying on her couch and enjoying a rare moment of relaxation, Yoo Anna browsed a community discussing her and left an anonymous comment,
[So where did all those people who said Starlight was weak go?]
She knew the answer—she just wanted to see the reactions she was hoping for. And soon, the replies flooded in.
[The ones who called her Firefly instead of Starlight, did they all die to Mirage? Why’s it so quiet now?]
[Are the people who talked trash about Yoo Anna all Mirage? Did they disappear?]
[W-City’s Mirage casualties: 0]
[W-City’s level, lol. Time for everyone to welcome Yoo Anna and say, We always believed in you!]
[Star Punch! Star Punch!]
“Pfft…”
An image of a muscular man (a photoshopped version of Yoo Anna) punching the air repeatedly was posted in the replies, seemingly made by a fan. In a good mood for the first time in a while, Yoo Anna hummed to herself and opened the fridge.
Maybe she’d cook something nice today. Monster-related damage has been low lately, after all.
It was a little funny, but lately, Yoo Anna had been feeling more at ease.
As the only S-rank hero in W-City, she’d always had to rush around whenever a strong monster appeared. But ever since the Black Cat started hunting monsters, it felt like W-City had two S-rank heroes.
Whenever Yoo Anna was about to head out, the Black Cat had already taken care of it—or she’d arrive just as the Black Cat was chewing on the monster. Sure, it’d turn into a chase, but since the Black Cat didn’t unnecessarily destroy property or cause casualties, the mental fatigue was much lower.
Well… Sometimes, he’d claw up some inexplicably expensive item for no reason. Online, countless posts complained about the Black Cat’s antics.
[The Black Cat cut the comm cables again.]
[The Black Cat left steel beams stuck in my building. How do I remove these?]
[Why is my car impaled there…?]
[Damn cat bitch, Yoo Anna, please just kill it already.]
[Star Punch! Star Punch!]
Under those posts, photoshopped images of Yoo Anna punching kittens were often shared like a meme.
Do I look like an animal abuser to you? Yoo Anna frowned, thinking of the Black Cat.
The Black Cat, a monster unlike any other.
She was supposed to be wary of it, an enemy to eventually eliminate… Yet, inexplicably, Yoo Anna was starting to trust it.
Even when chasing the Black Cat, if she spotted someone slow to escape, she didn’t have to worry about the monster attacking them. The Black Cat would dodge on its own, and if the wind from its movement threatened to knock someone over, it’d even change direction—even if it meant taking a hit from Yoo Anna.
In those moments, Yoo Anna would hold back her punches, thinking, fine, I’ll let it slide just this once.
“What the hell is going through its head…?”
Why didn’t the Black Cat attack people?
Yoo Anna was starting to believe it wasn’t some kind of trick. She didn’t voice this thought, worried people might assume other monsters were like the Black Cat—but the Black Cat genuinely didn’t seem to have any intention of harming humans.
In fact, it even protected them from itself, as if it saw Yoo Anna as the monster who killed her own allies to hunt monsters.
Yoo Anna searched a phrase that auto-filled in the SNS search bar.
Typing #WCityBlackCat♡, it was flooded with images and videos of Black Cat saving people and being rewarded with meat.
What kind of monster even is this? If throwing a few hams meant monsters got dealt with, Yoo Anna would gladly delegate the job.
Among the posts were videos of the Black Cat disappearing after defeating monsters, and many clips of girls squealing in delight while petting it's fur.
[KYAAAA! So soft!]
[Look how shiny! Wow! What do I do?!]
Petting a monster? Objectively dangerous, but lately, Yoo Anna was too tired to scold them.
In fact, these days, whenever she saw the Black Cat, she finds herself wondering, how does that fur feel? Maybe I should pet it just once.
Scrolling further, she found something even more baffling.
“What the hell… This is ridiculous…”
In the video, the Black Cat was carrying an entire slaughtered cow in its mouth.
Was this footage of it stealing? How was this happening without any monster alarms going off? Last time she checked, the Black Cat seemed to have developed an ability to hide from detection systems.
If other monsters had this ability, it’d be terrifying—but the Black Cat’s behavior was just absurd.
The video, titled “I promised the Black Cat a whole cow, and it came to our house!”, was part of a three-part series.
[I gave you what I promised~ If you don’t leave soon, my dad’s gonna get mad!]
A girl’s voice echoed from inside a dark fridge. The Black Cat, urged to hurry, picked up the cow meat in its mouth—then put it back down, as if hesitating. It dragged it out of the fridge, clearly intending to take it.
A moment later, the Black Cat returned from outside with something strange in it mouth.
[What’s this? A gas stove…?]
A portable gas stove. The Black Cat nudged it forward with it paw—clearly asking them to cook the meat.
Has someone cooked for it before? Even animals, once they’ve tasted cooked meat, tend to avoid raw flesh.
The girl hesitated, then sliced off a piece of meat and grilled it. The Black Cat made a weird Waongong~ sound as it happily ate.
“It makes cute noises when eating meat…”
In the last video, the girl’s parents seemed to have discovered the situation, but seeing the monster calmly waiting to be fed, they ended up slicing and grilling the meat for it in amazement.
The video ended with the family saying they’d do it again if asked, thanking the Black Cat for saving them.
After watching the whole thing, Yoo Anna immediately contacted the authorities to have the video taken down. If this spreads, people might start approaching monsters recklessly.
Then, after a moment’s thought, she saved a copy before it was deleted.