21
Ch.21 Weird.
[But what if the Black Cat gets angry because of this and starts attacking people from now on? Isn’t W-City going to be destroyed?]
Yoo Anna, who had been browsing the community, let out a sigh as she read a post that echoed her own worries.
Recently, Yoo Anna had acknowledged the fact that the Black Cat avoided attacking people, and this was what worried her the most.
Yoo Anna had been missing the Black Cat every time so far.
What on earth should she do if the Black Cat really starts rampaging?
If the Black Cat stops its unusual behavior and starts truly running wild, completely hostile toward humans, W-City is done for.
Today, while chasing the Black Cat as it destroyed numerous buildings, she felt that fact even more acutely.
“Ugh… Seriously, those idiots have no idea what they’re doing…”
If the Black Cat fought Yoo Anna head-on, if they clashed with the intent to kill each other, Yoo Anna would win.
Or, if Yoo Anna fought without holding back her superpower human abilities, destroying the entire city in the process—if she pursued the Black Cat by obliterating entire areas regardless of where it hid—then she was confident she could catch it.
If she gave up on W-City entirely, she could kill the Black Cat.
But at this point, that was nothing more than a last resort, a choice to be made only if the Black Cat truly started rampaging.
The current Black Cat could almost be called a provisional hero, an anomalous monster that is beneficial to heroes and W-City as a whole.
That was why this situation was at a stalemate—so why were third parties provoking the Black Cat like this?
If they couldn’t even catch it, they should at least send an S-rank hero if they were serious about taking it down.
Well, not that that would ever happen.
S-rank heroes were the ultimate weapons assigned to each city.
To use an analogy from the pre-monster era, they were like mobile nuclear bombs possessed by a single city.
In this era, no city would recklessly leak its means of protecting itself from monsters to outsiders.
Unless a truly powerful monster—an Annihilation-class—appeared… On very rare occasions, if a powerful Despair-class needed to be eliminated before it became an Annihilation-class, an S-rank might be dispatched for support. But the Black Cat was a peculiar entity that rarely attacked humans.
In some major cities where there were two or three S-rank heroes, sending one might still leave some leeway… But the Black Cat’s threat level was extremely low for a Despair-class. Sending an S-rank to hunt it down would be idiotic.
For the time being, this lull would continue as long as troublemakers from other cities didn’t provoke the Black Cat.
Thinking this, Yoo Anna browsed the community’s reactions until she came across an idiotic post and frowned.
[S-rank hero Kage from A-City announces he will come to W-City to hunt the Black Cat.]
“…Huh?”
What kind of nonsensical joke was this? Were community users writing another delusional fantasy post?
But soon, posts with the same content began flooding in.
Shortly after, the news reported the same story.
Along with an interview from the S-rank hero Kage himself.
[To the citizens of W-City trembling in fear of monster attacks, please rest assured. The monster threatening your safety, the Black Cat, has been marked for elimination by me, Kage.]
Yoo Anna’s expression soured as she listened to the interview of Kage, a handsome blond man smiling on TV.
It seemed like W-City was about to face even more trouble.
***
A few days after Kage, the S-rank hero from A-City, announced his intent to hunt the Black Cat…
Kage arrived in W-City as promised, bringing his subordinate heroes with him.
The moment he stepped off the train, countless camera flashes and crowds welcoming him erupted. People were ecstatic to see the rarely glimpsed S-rank hero from A-City in person.
“Wow! The Iron Fortress! The Iron Fortress!”
“Kage! Look over here, please!”
With a mannerly wave, Kage shook hands with Starlight, who had come to greet him in W-City, before boarding a limousine under the cameras’ gaze.
Inside the car, Yoo Anna plopped down into a seat and crossed her legs, sitting across from Kage and his two aides.
Seeing her like this, Kage wiped the smile from his face and spoke in a cold voice, starkly different from the one he used in front of the cameras.
“The citizens of W-City must all be stupid little pigs. Oink, oink, oink… So much noisier than A-City, utterly lacking in dignity.”
“Tch.”
Well, of course. Some things never change. Clicking her tongue, Yoo Anna made no effort to hide her displeasure.
Contrary to public perception, this was the kind of person Kage was.
An extreme superpower human supremacist, a man wrapped in arrogance as thick as his overwhelming superpower.
“Long time no see, Yoo Anna. Or should I say, Starlight?”
“Yeah, long time no see, Jung Ho-young.”
Kage—Jung Ho-young—scanned Yoo Anna up and down before flicking his finger at the woman beside him.
She took out a cigarette and placed it between his lips, while the woman on the other side lit it for him.
Smoking wasn’t allowed in the car, but knowing Kage wouldn’t care, Yoo Anna scowled and rolled down the window.
“I heard you took down Mirage. Thought you might’ve gotten stronger, but I guess not… So you just finished off a Despair-class monster that was exhausted from fighting another, huh? How cowardly.”
“What’s it to you?”
Yoo Anna genuinely didn’t understand why making two Despair-class monsters fight and then finishing off the survivor was cowardly.
More importantly, pitting monsters against each other was a strategy Kage himself had pioneered.
The man who had trapped two monsters in his Iron Fortress and slain the survivor was saying this? What was he thinking?
“It matters because you didn’t reveal that fact to the public. You made it seem like you took it down all by yourself.”
At Kage’s explanation, Yoo Anna’s expression soured even further.
“Thanks to that, people in A-City have been spouting annoying nonsense. Saying maybe I, Kage, am weaker than Starlight.”
“Don’t tell me you came to W-City for something that childish?”
“I never liked the fact that you were rated as mid-to-high S-rank like me from the beginning. Someone like you, who couldn’t even move against me during the exam.”
“Wow, I’ve got nothing to say to that.”
As Kage said, Yoo Anna had a history of being utterly crushed by him during the hero exam.
Kage’s abilities specialized in defense, while Yoo Anna’s specialized in offense and pursuit.
A battle style that involved trapping the opponent in a confined space and whittling them down was the worst match for Yoo Anna. Even if she attacked, breaking through Kage’s defenses was impossible.
But when it came to fighting monsters, Kage and Yoo Anna’s performance was equal.
Of course it was—human vs. human and monster vs. human battles were completely different.
That was why they were rated the same rank. And he had a problem with that?
“I heard the rumors. That you still haven’t caught W-City’s Despair-class monster… If I take it down, everyone will know for sure which of us is superior.”
“Hunting monsters isn’t about showing off who’s better.”
“Of course I know that. It’s about making the environment more comfortable for the maladapted, right?”
“Could you not, with the hate speech?”
“Oh, is maladapted the wrong term? The unfit? The unchosen losers? The pitiful sheep who need to be led by superpower humans?”
“Ugh.”
Yoo Anna recoiled at the severe superpower supremacist’s words.
In this era where monsters had appeared and superpowers existed, many heroes shared Kage’s views.
Some even became villains, believing it was absurd for heroes to take orders from ordinary humans and choosing to live for their own desires.
However, Kage’s mindset, though closer to a villain’s, was paradoxically what kept him a hero—his overwhelming sense of superiority.
A stoic belief that the superior must guide the inferior, an ironic pride that demanded he always present himself as an object of admiration.
Thus, Yoo Anna couldn’t outright criticize Kage, who perfectly played the role of a hero.
Despite his words, he was a hero who genuinely strove to minimize harm to people.
If a non-awakened insulted him, he would dismiss it as the ramblings of an inferior being. But being compared to another hero seemed to be something he couldn’t tolerate.
“I’ve already read all the information on this Black Cat. With abilities like that, it won’t escape my Iron Fortress.”
Kage smirked confidently, clenching his fist.
When he opened his hand again, a cube-shaped object floated above his palm.
“This is a good opportunity. A chance to prove that I’m superior to you.”
“Yeah, sure… Whatever you say…”
Yoo Anna couldn’t care less, so she waved him off and looked out the window.
Now that he was here, Kage fighting the Black Cat was a foregone conclusion.
Could Kage actually catch the Black Cat?
One thing was certain,
Black Cat wouldn’t be able to escape Kage.
Even if they fought, Kage’s abilities would minimize collateral damage.
The Black Cat was a monster—an enemy of humanity that heroes had to eliminate.
“Sigh…”
Yoo Anna let out a sigh, thinking she’d be busy again after the Black Cat was hunted down.
It was a thought unbecoming of a hero, but she felt a little regret.
That the Black Cat would be caught.
***
As I lifted a vending machine to pick up a coin that had fallen into the gap, I paused at the sound of a distant noise.
A monster alert, blaring loudly from far away.
The threat level this time was probably around Terror-class… Well, some hero would show up and take care of it.
With two S-rank heroes in W-City right now, I didn’t need to bother.
Lately, stressed by heroes constantly trying to capture me, I’d been ignoring monster alerts as much as possible.
On top of that, according to the news, an S-rank hero named Kage from A-City had come to W-City to hunt me down.
With two S-rank heroes here, they’d handle everything themselves. And if both came at me, I probably wouldn’t even be able to escape. Why take the risk?
So I ignored it. The heroes could deal with the monsters.
But the more I ignored the alerts, the more frequent they became.
Or rather, the alerts lasted unusually long. Even after enough time had passed for the monsters to be dealt with, the sirens kept blaring.
It didn’t seem like Yoo Anna was showing up. Were the heroes busy?
I wasn’t hunting monsters either, and Yoo Anna seemed to be waiting with the other S-rank hero, maybe planning something.
Then, as more time passed, the sound of alerts began ringing out all over W-City.
This time, the low-frequency vibrations of monsters were strong enough to be felt—powerful monsters must have appeared.
The presence of monsters could be sensed everywhere, at least three Disaster-class ones.
It was rare for three Disaster-class monsters to appear simultaneously, but since I’d been hunting other monsters and then disappeared, they might’ve sensed this place as unclaimed territory.
At this point, an S-rank hero would show up… But the monsters’ presence didn’t fade.
“…What are they doing?” .