37
Ch.37 After Destroying Guryongseong
[The Dark Side of District 9, Cleaning Up Guryongseong—A Signal for W-City’s Anti-Corruption Campaign?]
[Secret Operation Name ‘Garbage Cleanup’—Led by W-City’s Police Chief?]
[Police Chief Oh Hae-young: “As W-City’s first female police chief, I could no longer stand by and watch the exploitation of women in W-City to build power.”]
[Past Remarks from A-City’s Kage Resurface: “All villains are trash.”]
[Some Citizens Voice Discontent, Arguing Guryongseong Was Just an Entertainment Venue and Didn’t Need to Be Targeted Like This.]
[The Traces of Guryongseong’s Complete Destruction and the Monster Alert Just Before—Coincidence?]
[Citizens Who Escaped Guryongseong Testify: “The Black Cat Destroyed It…”]
[Large Amounts of Drugs Detected in the Bodies of Those Who Entered Guryongseong.]
W-City’s online community was buzzing like never before.
The news that Guryongseong, a massive entertainment venue and a known underworld hub in W-City, had been reduced to rubble overnight.
Some said the police chief destroyed it, others claimed Starlight did it, or that a group of heroes stormed in and demolished it—that it was a villain hideout.
Some insisted the Black Cat was the one who destroyed Guryongseong, that Starlight lost to its owner, or that Starlight melted the entire place down.
Amid the flood of conflicting reports, people struggled to find the truth.
[Looking at the destruction, it does seem like Starlight did it. Everything’s melted and shiny—you know what that means.]
[Starlight! Did you use the Eraser again?! That technique is forbidden…!]
[Wasn’t it justified this time? Anyone who knows anything knows Guryongseong was a villain hideout.]
[If you lived honestly, you’d think it was just a casino or entertainment spot. But if you’ve lived even a little recklessly, you know what kind of place it really was.]
Only two truths were confirmed: Guryongseong was a villain's hideout, and Starlight destroyed it.
But what about the rest?
Just as everyone was wondering, a hero appeared in the community, verifying their hero license.
[I’m a B-rank hero, and I’m making a conscience-driven statement: District 9 was practically operating as a lawless zone.]
[The reason the news isn’t reporting properly is because Starlight let Gu Seo-ryong escape. The reporters are too scared to speak up in case villains retaliate.]
[Starlight was the one who took down Guryongseong alone this time.]
[The police Chief did nothing. Oh Hae-young? Garbage cleanup? Yeah, she’s the one who needs to be cleaned out—she should step down immediately.]
[It’s true that Guryongseong was hosting drug-fueled murder festivals. Those people weren’t human. Kage was right—villains are trash.]
[People saying Starlight lost to Gu Seo-ryong? If she lost, how is she still out there fighting monsters? Starlight 2.0?]
[All the talk about the Black Cat showing up is coming from people who were inside Guryongseong. Did anyone see testimony about a fighting pit with stone lions? They were probably high and mistook the stone lions for the Black Cat.]
The citizens eagerly questioned the B-rank hero, but soon after, the hero was caught writing the post and disappeared after leaving a final message: I’m screwed.
Presumably busy writing an incident report, the hero’s online absence left the citizens to speculate further about Guryongseong.
[My younger sister came back from Guryongseong this time… I thought she was a monster victim, but she was trapped there the whole time… I’m in shock. What the hell were the police doing?]
[My older sisters came back too. I’m happy, but I also feel like I’m starting to hate the world.]
[Looking at these posts, I guess having a mom come back from the dead isn’t even worth mentioning.]
[What’s up with that last post? I got scared for a second—turns out it was just chat from a game. You wanna die?]
[I work for the police… When I was working overtime, I heard shouting from the deputy chief’s office. They were begging someone to cover up that Starlight acted alone and the police had nothing to do with it.]
[So the deputy chief was bribed by villains?]
[Maybe it wasn’t just the deputy chief—what if someone higher up was involved? Like A-City’s police Chief?]
[There are rumors W-City’s Chief is involved too. That’s why Starlight went in alone.]
[If that’s true, Chief Oh Hae-young needs to step down.]
Not long after, the Chief and deputy Chief held an emergency press conference and resigned.
The new Chief and deputy promised to lead the fight against villains alongside the heroes, with Starlight standing behind them.
After the press conference, Yoo Anna lay on her sofa, sipping beer as she scrolled through the community.
[Lately, I’ve been smiling thanks to Starlight and the Black Cat, but it’s also made me realize how messed up the world is.]
[Damn, life’s already hard with monsters, and now villains are causing chaos too?]
[Honestly, villains who don’t destroy buildings are better than monsters who do.]
[What kind of villain apologist is this? Are you a villain?]
Today’s community was as noisy as ever, veering in a direction Yoo Anna didn’t like.
The topic of the day: Which is better—villains or monsters?
The problem was, the monsters people were comparing villains to weren’t ordinary monsters.
[Compared to the Black Cat, villains are way better.]
[Are you sane?]
[No, damn it, I misspoke. Compared to villains, the Black Cat is way better.]
[Black Cat’s thumbs-up emoji]
[?? Does that emoji exist? Where do you get it?]
[Make it for me.]
Wait, that exists? Startled, Yoo Anna was about to search for the emoji when the next reply made her frown.
[The Black Cat vs. villains? The Black Cat wins by a landslide. Do villains let you pat their heads? Play with their tails? (Though lately, it doesn’t let people touch it.)]
[Why would you pat a villain’s head…]
[I kinda want to pat Gu Seo-ryong’s head though.]
[The Black Cat fights monsters and barely causes any property damage.]
[Our Blackie’s a good monster, that’s why.]
Good monster? That’s… Well, it is good… Wait, no, monsters shouldn’t be good.
As the debate comparing the Black Cat to villains continued, Yoo Anna felt uneasy but couldn’t find a way to refute it.
[Saying the Black Cat is 5,000 times cuter than villains is like comparing my toenail clippings to the city’s top beauty.]
[I’d want a Black Cat keychain, but I wouldn’t take a villain one even if it was free. It’d be like carrying around a mafia gang symbol.]
[There’s a Black Cat keychain?? Where do you get it?]
[Make it for me.]
Again! Just as Yoo Anna was about to search for where to buy it, she realized she’d been fooled twice by the same user.
This guy deserves a ban. She was about to report him to the moderators but hesitated, remembering she was an S-rank hero and shouldn’t bother with this.
[Black Cat photo book = must-have. Villain photo book = well, there are some villains I’d want pictures of…]
[Make it for me?]
[Yes.]
Okay, you’re done. Yoo Anna immediately contacted the moderators and got the poster banned for three days.
As the comparisons between villains and the Black Cat continued, Yoo Anna sighed, wondering if she should just let it go.
It was good that people were becoming more wary of villains, developing a sense of hostility toward them.
It would help eliminate young superpower humans’ admiration for villains and raise public safety awareness.
But she still wanted to stop the comparisons with the Black Cat.
Why couldn’t they just compare villains to other monsters? Why did it have to be the Black Cat?
Well, at this point, the Black Cat had become something like the icon of a good monster in W-City. But the term good monster was as contradictory as a hot iced Americano.
A good monster—that made no sense.
As Yoo Anna thought this, memories of everything that had happened so far flashed through her mind.
The Black Cat protecting a child, protecting other heroes, devouring bad people, and even showing up openly to protect her.
What the hell? You’re a monster—you shouldn’t be appearing to save me when I’m in danger instead of going after other rampaging monsters!
And then showing up at just the right moment, roaring like it was some grand display—what, did you think that was cool?
And that time it got flustered just because its clothes slipped a little—are you sure you’re a monster?
“What the hell are you…?”
Now, even Yoo Anna couldn’t see the Black Cat as just another ordinary monster.
But could she really go around telling people, the Black Cat is dangerous?
It’d be nice if people could just see the Black Cat as separate from other monsters…
The problem was, many still didn’t.
The hashtag #MonstersAreFriends, which spread alongside the Black Cat’s rise, was proof enough. The posts under it were full of people doing unthinkable things.
[I want to domesticate a monster.]
[I want to raise a monster.]
[I heard rich people in B-City raise monsters.]
[Guryongseong was also drugging monsters to keep them docile and using them in fighting pits.]
[If some monsters can be tamed, couldn’t they help humans? Why don’t we raise them?]
Many of these posters ended up in the emergency room or arrested—ignoring monster alerts and trying to catch small monsters with butterfly nets instead of evacuating.
Just reading it made her sigh. The monster research division has already tried that. They gave up because it didn’t work.
Taming monsters? A ridiculous fantasy that would only endanger people.
[Delivery!]
“Coming~!”
Just then, Yoo Anna heard the delivery she’d been waiting for and hurried to the door.
After carrying the new refrigerator and freezer into her room with superpower strength, she unpacked a box of beef and filled both appliances halfway.
She’d bought them because sneaking into supermarkets every time the Black Cat showed up risked getting caught on CCTV.
From now on, I’ll feed Black Cat with this. She even double-checked the special meat bag she’d bought—made from the same material as her hero suit, custom-ordered to be flameproof.
“Ugh, this isn’t the time to be excited…”
As she cheerfully organized the meat, Yoo Anna suddenly sighed, realizing she shouldn’t be feeling this way.
Why was she smiling when she hadn’t even caught her target?
Right… The one she had to catch—the villain, Gu Seo-ryong.
“Sigh…”
Yoo Anna recalled the night she destroyed Guryongseong.
When she returned, the villains were already waiting, as if anticipating her comeback.
It took only one second to defeat them—using the Eraser (she couldn’t even remember its real name anymore), she swept through them in an instant, leaving them all incapacitated.
As the villains lay there, limbs melted and burned, Yoo Anna realized Gu Seo-ryong wasn’t among them.
She interrogated them, but Gu Seo-ryong had already vanished.
The villains, even limbless, crawled toward her with vacant eyes, risking their lives just at the mention of Gu Seo-ryong’s name.
It was bizarre behavior for villains, who usually prioritized self-interest. Tests revealed they were under the influence of an unknown drug—likely the venom from Gu Seo-ryong’s ability, the same poison that had been injected into Yoo Anna.
Because of this, even though she’d captured all of Guryongseong’s villains except Gu Seo-ryong, Yoo Anna couldn’t feel happy.
Right now, Gu Seo-ryong was a greater threat to her than the Black Cat.
An ability that slowly forces obedience? If she didn’t catch her soon, she’d just rebuild her power.
A villain who could cause more damage than a Despair-class monster?
Was this a case of a strange monster or a strange villain?
“Ugh…”
Her headache was only getting worse.
As Yoo Anna pressed a cold piece of meat against her forehead, her phone rang.
Was it the call she’d been waiting for? She set the meat down and immediately answered.
“Hello? Hyena? Is everything okay? Are you safe?”