Because That's What a Hero Is
"……."
"Go on, lie down and get comfortable. This is your bed, after all. Just settle in the way you always do when you're going to sleep. Make yourself as at ease as you like."
"…Special Agent. The atmosphere feels quite different from a moment ago."
"…Does it?"
After stepping into Baek Eun-hwa's bedroom, I set about calming her down before using hypnosis, the same as I always did. My hypnosis required a frankly pathetic amount of preparation, and it barely took hold at all when the subject was agitated—so this was a necessary first step.
That said, this bedroom was enormous. One entire wall was packed with wardrobes and the like. The rest of the space—a bed, a small sofa, a bookshelf—felt a little sparse. Aside from the bookshelf, there wasn't much here you'd call entertainment. No television, no computer, no laptop. There was a monitor out in the living room, of course, but the room itself made it easy enough to guess that this vast bedroom existed solely for sleep.
"Until just a moment ago you had this playful side, this almost innocent quality—but now you seem rather…"
"Rather…?"
"Like a professional counselor. No—more than a counselor. Something like a massage therapist…?"
"…Excuse me?"
A massage therapist? What?
I was left speechless by Baek Eun-hwa's sudden remark. Was it the atmosphere? The way I'd dimmed the lights and shut out as much brightness as possible to help her settle into a calm, stable state?
"…That's unfair."
"Is it? Between that faintly suggestive smile you were wearing a moment ago and everything else, it really does give off that kind of feeling."
"What part of it was suggestive?"
"…You seem to be the only one who doesn't notice. Never mind."
"…Huh?"
What was she even talking about? I genuinely had no idea.
I stared at her, completely unable to relate to a word she'd said. She, for her part, had already started lying down on her own bed, even pulling the covers up and settling in as if she were perfectly at home. The sudden turn in conversation had thrown me off in more ways than one—but I still had a job to do. I needed to sweep the clutter in her mind clean.
"So. What are you going to do?"
"Just stay comfortable. We'll talk, slowly. Ah—could you close your eyes for me? I think that would work better."
"…All right. It's not as if an Association employee would try anything suspicious."
"Hehe."
At my request, she closed her eyes. I sat neatly beside her and spent a moment wondering where to begin before settling on an opening.
"Eun-hwa, do you prefer the ocean? The mountains? Or would you rather stay indoors?"
"If I had to choose… I like both. The ocean, as long as there aren't too many tourists, lets you take in a view so wide it feels like you can see past the horizon. And the mountains—there's so much to see on the way up."
"Heh. That's true. The ocean lets you take in an enormous landscape all at once. Especially when there aren't any people around, just as you said. An empty beach, stripped of tourists—just sand and little creatures, and the seawater washing in and out along the shore."
I began speaking slowly, gently.
"And if you look farther still, the sea itself comes into view. Some waters are a deep, vivid blue. Some have a bluish cast. Others gleam emerald. The moment that seascape fills your eyes, you feel a kind of openness—maybe because it's a view you could never find in the city."
"……That might be it."
I offered her a description of the ocean as best I could. After that I talked about walking along a beach where a cool breeze carried a faint taste of salt, about the feel of the sand, about the sounds that reached her ears.
"And now you've arrived at that ocean, Eun-hwa. A sea you've never seen before—a place where no one else exists, where you alone can spend your time."
This was her first time experiencing hypnosis, and she was still fully conscious, so I had no choice but to go into more detail than usual. I wanted the words to feel dull—as dull as sitting through a literature lecture from a teacher in his late fifties who had long since stopped caring whether anyone was listening—so that her heartbeat would slowly settle. So that her breathing would grow regular, far more unhurried, each inhale and exhale stretching longer.
"On that beach, you start walking, slowly, all by yourself. You're wearing slippers, so you can hear the sand underfoot, but it doesn't hurt. You walk slowly, slowly… and little by little, you start to feel better. A sense of ease settles over you. Off to one side, the beautiful ocean draws your eyes without you even meaning to look. It's lovely, and at the same time so vast that if you simply stand there and watch, it steals your gaze completely. And so you stand still, and you look at that sea."
Listening to me, Baek Eun-hwa's consciousness began to sink. Fortunately, she seemed to slip into a trance more easily than I'd expected. Once I felt it was enough, I snapped my fingers and used my ability on her.
"Oh……."
And in that same instant, something that had been hidden—something that hadn't shown itself until now—came into view.
Because her consciousness was half gone, because she had fallen fully into a hypnotic state. Or perhaps because of the way she'd been concentrating? I couldn't say for certain. But the moment I snapped my fingers, a pair of snow-white fox ears emerged from the top of Baek Eun-hwa's head, and a tail began to appear.
They revealed themselves slowly, as if by some kind of magic or sleight of hand. It wasn't the sort of thing that burst suddenly from the body. It was more as though something that had been concealed all along—hidden behind a veil—was simply being unveiled, and the sight of it felt genuinely mysterious.
"……."
Still, what mattered was getting a detailed look at her psychology. I did my best to ignore the ears and tail I suddenly, desperately wanted to touch and stroke, and I asked her a question.
"What's been hard for you lately?"
"…I'm tired."
"What part of it is hard? Is working as a hero what's wearing you down? Or is it something else?"
"I just… want to quit everything and rest…"
"What were you doing that brought you to this point?"
I kept my voice as gentle as I possibly could, my tone soft. Speaking slowly and quietly, in a way that conveyed I had not a single bad intention, was a tremendous help on its own. If I got passionate or excited, she might start matching my energy, and the hypnosis could break—or at least become much harder to maintain. But talking like this, in this atmosphere, was excellent for persuading someone and drawing out answers.
"There's just… so much work……. Dispatch after dispatch… Sometimes I have to go all the way to the next city, and there are times I even have to go as far as A City…"
"So it's not just the hero work. You're too busy in general."
"Yeees…"
"That must have been exhausting. Normally, when things get that hard, people take time off. Why do you keep working so hard, Eun-hwa?"
I'd already heard the earlier part of this story. I'd listened enough. What mattered was this. Why on earth did she work herself like a doormat—why did an A-Class hero push herself to the point of overwork?
As someone who was nothing more than an ordinary office worker, I found her behavior almost impossible to understand. I was just a rank-and-file employee who followed whatever the higher-ups told me to do, but even office workers weren't complete pushovers. When a job got truly fucking awful, people pushed back. There was always the risk of getting fired, sure—but past a certain point, plenty of people threw their resignation letters on the desk and blew up. Some even manufactured legendary workplace disasters, or took to the internet to trash their companies.
But the A-Class hero lying in front of me hadn't done any of that. Someone who could have done far more than anything I'd just imagined—someone who had the ability, the authority, and the social standing to be defended if she did—why?
"……?"
And that was the short answer she gave. I found it even harder to relate to.
"A hero is like a symbol. Something that gives people peace of mind, that brings them peace… a symbol that lets them believe they can get help when they're in danger…"
"…And that's why you never take time off? Other A-Class heroes, B-Class heroes—there are cases where they deliberately don't respond to a dispatch."
"That's exactly why I have to set the right example. For people's sake, I have to…"
"How did you come to think that way?"
I was surprised by how firmly she held that mindset. I genuinely hadn't expected this. In the course of meeting heroes so far, I'd encountered all kinds of people, plenty of them selfish, and I'd assumed Baek Eun-hwa would have some of that in her too. Instead, she sincerely held these heroic convictions. I almost felt like I was the one in the wrong for having doubted her even a little.
"When I was little… I was kidnapped once…"
"……."
"I was so scared for days. The feeling of a blade grazing my skin, the kidnapper screaming at me… I was terrified."
This was… a heavier kind of story than I'd anticipated. I hadn't seen this coming. But I couldn't cut her off now that she'd started talking.
"I was locked up for days, going without food, barely surviving on nothing but water… and then a hero came and saved me."
"……What kind of hero?"
"I don't… really remember. There was no sunlight coming in from outside the door at all, but then the outside became incredibly bright, as if the sun itself had risen… and then the door suddenly opened, and someone rescued me. That's all I remember. I lost consciousness after that. Later I tried asking around and looking up information myself, but I never found anything."
"I see…"
Admiration…. Was that it?
I'd been kidnapped too, and Saran had helped me, but it hadn't been enough to make me want to become a hero. Of course, there were differences—the length of time I'd been held, and any number of other things. That much was only natural.
Still, overcoming an experience like that and becoming a hero in the end was impressive enough. Reaching A-Class on top of it was even more so.
"…I see."
I could have asked more, but I decided it would be better in several respects to stop the hypnosis session around here.
The root of Baek Eun-hwa's problem was… how to put it. Thorny.
Someone who wanted to live up to the image of an idol born from a past experience. And yet, in the course of doing so, a foolish person who failed entirely to take care of the one thing she truly needed to protect. Someone who looked ahead and to either side as she pressed forward, never once glancing back—and so never noticed the blood running from her own body.
That was how I could assess her.
"……."
Similar to Saran, but different. Different from Batori, and yet in some ways, just a little—just a very little—they might have something in common.
As for how to help her… I was going to need quite a lot of thought going forward.