My First Subordinate (2)
I scanned the slums with a light step. ‘I wonder where she is.’
Occasional beggars glared at me from the shadows, but the moment their eyes landed on the gun in my hand, they clicked their tongues and looked away.
If I’d looked like an easy mark, they would’ve tried to rob me on the spot.
This place had no CCTV, and none of the residents carried smartphones. It was a shithole even heroes avoided patrolling—a completely forsaken district, nothing like the abandoned buildings scattered elsewhere.
District F. It served as a central hub connecting the other districts, yet only the discarded lived here.
That was why I was currently dressed in my Maker outfit. With no cameras or phones around, there was zero chance of heroes showing up to arrest me. And if I looked weak, it would only invite unnecessary trouble.
Anyway, if my calculations are correct, it should be around this time. Where could she be? Lee Gayeon.
Five years from now, she would appear in the original story as the villain Polia. Her real name was Lee Gayeon.
Her ability was a little special compared to others.
Multi-ability user.
It wasn’t that multi-ability users didn’t exist at all. Very rarely, people were born with two or three abilities. But beyond that—someone with ten, twenty, or even countless abilities? That was her. The future S-class villain known as Polia.
Of course, being a multi-ability user isn’t necessarily a good thing.
An ability was like a seed planted in the ground. Depending on how fertile the soil was and how well it was watered, it could grow into a mighty tree—or wither away entirely.
If a single-ability user planted one seed, a multi-ability user planted two or more in the same patch of soil. What would happen to those trees?
They would fight each other for the limited nutrients.
People born as multi-ability users can stabilize that conflict.
Because they were born with inherently rich soil, they could divide the nutrients evenly, giving exactly half to each seed. The downside was that they would always lose out to single-ability users of the same type.
But what about artificially created multi-ability users? Someone who wasn’t born that way, but was made into one?
The girl I’m going to meet right now is exactly that rare case.
“Kyaaaak!!”
While I was lost in thought, a thin woman’s scream pierced my ears. I turned my head and walked toward the sound. There, a man was straddling a woman on the ground.
“Hehe… stay still, you bitch!”
“Kyaaaaak!!”
Riiip— Riiiiip—
The man tore at the struggling woman’s clothes.
“N-nooo!!”
“Uhehehe! You like it too, don’t you? Acting all coy when you’re enjoying it!”
“S-someone, please help!!”
“Who the hell helps anyone in this slum? As if! Just shut up and behave…!”
“I’ve heard enough.”
Click.
Bang!
I pulled the trigger without hesitation. A fountain of red exploded from the man’s head.
“A-ah… ah…”
“Are you alright?”
I kicked the corpse—that was now nothing more than a lump of meat—aside and spoke to the trembling woman.
Tsk. Doesn’t look like Lee Gayeon at all.
She was still a middle schooler at this time. The woman in front of me looked young, but she was clearly around twenty. Definitely not her.
“Th-thank you! Thank you so much!”
“It was nothing.”
The woman, who had been frozen in shock, finally came to her senses and bowed to me. I accepted her gratitude casually, though I was a little surprised.
Even in a world where human life has lost its value, she just watched me kill someone right in front of her and she’s fine with it?
“Ptooie! That piece of trash! Good riddance, you son of a bitch! Ptoooie!!”
Yeah. She was completely fine.
In fact, she looked almost pleased as she gathered phlegm in her mouth and spat it out with gusto. Watching her, I was the one starting to feel nauseous.
Is this the average citizen’s mindset in a hero world? This part is surprisingly hard to get used to.
I used my ability to create a thick fur coat and handed it to her.
“It’s cold out. That outfit won’t be enough to handle this weather.”
“Huh? Ah… th-thank you…”
The same woman who had been cackling and spitting just moments ago now blushed shyly as she accepted the coat.
“......”
I should finish my business and get out of here quickly.
“By any chance, have you seen a young child around here?”
Following the woman’s directions, I continued through the slums. Whenever I couldn’t find her, I politely asked others and kept searching.
Before I knew it, several hours had passed.
Where the hell is she…?
Her first appearance in the original story happened five years from now, during winter. There had also been a scene with New Year’s celebrations echoing through the slums, so my timing should be about right.
She should be running out of strength to use her abilities by now. She probably can’t even escape properly anymore.
According to the original work, she had been chased by deranged men trying to assault her as a child. To get away from them, she had used teleportation repeatedly until she nearly ran out of power.
In an extremely vulnerable state—both mentally and physically—someone appears to save her. It was a cliché development, but clichés worked precisely because they were effective.
The problem is that the protagonist of that scene needs to show up…
“Get away…!!”
I think I found her.
Following the voice, I saw a small girl panting heavily while glaring at a middle-aged man. The man stared back at her with lecherous eyes.
Doesn’t seem like the dramatic timing yet.
Should I watch a little longer?
“N-now, now, be a good girl…? M-mister isn’t a bad person!”
“......”
“J-just… um… in a place like this… hah… a k-kid like you… shouldn’t be here, you know?”
“......”
“I-I was just… w-worried about you! That’s all!”
One step.
As the man took a grinning step forward, the girl watched him with trembling eyes and backed away. She stretched out her arm, but nothing emerged from her hand.
“W-why? Why are you r-running? Huh? What did mister do…?”
“Don’t come near me…!”
The middle-aged man stomped his feet wildly at her words.
“W-why? Why?! What did I do?! I didn’t do anything! Nothing at all!! You fucking bitch! You slut! You’re the same! You’re just like them! Calling me a retard! A fucking retard!!!!”
Thud! Thud! Thud!
He slammed his foot against the ground repeatedly, grinding his teeth.
“I wanted to touch you too! I wanted to! Me too! Me toooo!!”
With that, the man charged at the girl and knocked her down. She struggled desperately to push him off, but she was too weak.
She hit him with her small fists, bit his arm—anything to get him off her. The girl thrashed with everything she had.
“I’m gonna touch you too! I’m gonnaaa!!”
Tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t stop resisting.
The moment the man raised his hand to tear off her yellowish clothes—
Click.
“What kind of sick bastard tries something like this on a child who hasn’t even finished growing?”
With a tone that suggested I was quite angry, I aimed the gun at the middle-aged man’s head.
Bang!!
Once again, I pulled the trigger without hesitation.
“......”
Control your expression. Control it.
I was furious right now. Why? Because I had just witnessed trash trying to assault a little girl right in front of me.
But the girl mustn’t sense that rage. She had just gone through a terrifying ordeal—I couldn’t scare her again.
“…Are you okay?”
I forced an awkward smile, knelt down to match her eye level, and spoke as gently as possible.
“......”
The girl looked up at me with tearful eyes.
“There, there. If this is alright with you, please use it.”
“…Hic.”
When I created a handkerchief and offered it to her, the tears she had been holding back finally spilled over quietly.
Just as planned.
I pulled the crying girl into my arms and smiled.
I brought her back to the cafe.
“Would you like something to eat?”
“......”
Maybe she was embarrassed about crying earlier, or perhaps she had started to suspect me. Either way, she stayed completely silent and just stared at me.
What’s wrong? We already introduced ourselves on the way here.
“Is there nothing you want to eat, Gayeon?”
“......”
“I can make something really delicious, you know.”
I had even attended cooking classes before. Simple dishes were well within my ability.
“…Yeah.”
“Sorry? I didn’t catch that. Could you say it again?”
“Nothing… I want to eat.”
She turned her head away with a blunt tone.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“…Not hungry.”
Grrrrrr.
“......”
“......”
The moment she claimed she wasn’t hungry, her stomach protested loudly. Lee Gayeon’s face turned as red as a ripe persimmon.
“You definitely look hungry.”
“…I’m not hungry…!”
Lee Gayeon hurriedly pressed both hands against her stomach and shouted.
“Is it because you don’t trust me?”
She froze for a moment at my words and looked at me. I simply smiled as if it didn’t bother me at all.
“That’s fine. It’s understandable.”
“......”
“Still, I can’t just let you go without feeding you. What should I do?”
“…I said I’m not hungry…”
Grrrrrrrrr.
Her stomach betrayed her again. Frustrated, Lee Gayeon lightly smacked her own belly.
“Alright then. Hmm… how about this?”
I brought over a chair and placed it beside the kitchen. I tapped it lightly and looked at her.
“Why don’t you sit here and watch me cook? That way you can make sure I’m not doing anything bad.”
“......”
Lee Gayeon thought for a moment before slowly approaching and sitting down on the chair.
Time to begin.
I turned on the stove and started cooking. Lee Gayeon watched my every move with piercing eyes.
“It’s done.”
What I made was pasta. Since making a proper full meal would take too long, I chose something simple using ingredients I had on hand.
…Gulp.
She swallowed hard at the sight of the steaming dish and its delicious aroma.
“Here, try it.”
When I handed her the plate and fork, she glanced around cautiously before finally digging in.
“Eat slowly. You’ll choke.”
I watched her devour the pasta for a moment, chuckled softly, and brought her some water. She paused while drinking, then looked back at the pasta.
“......”
She had stopped with the fork in hand as if deep in thought, but soon resumed eating—this time at a much slower pace.
I found her behavior strange.
“…Does the pasta not suit your taste?”
…She shook her head.
Well, if it tasted bad, she wouldn’t have eaten it like that earlier.
Then was she trying to savor it?
“If you want more, I’ll make it for you. You don’t have to eat so slowly.”
At my words, Lee Gayeon looked up at me.
“…No.”
She expressed her refusal in the same stubborn tone she had used when insisting she wasn’t hungry.
“…If I finish eating… I’ll have to leave.”
So that’s what it was.
After saying what she needed to say, Lee Gayeon lowered her head and poked at the pasta. What a needless worry.
I had no intention of letting you leave.
If I did, there would have been no point in bringing her here.
Still, from her perspective, it was a perfectly reasonable concern, so I quietly accepted it.
Then I carefully chose the next words I would say to her.