Please Don't Make Me a Hero
The coarse gravel biting into my back jolted my head up.
"Noah?"
"Puhaha! Yes!!"
"Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"
"……Mr. Teacher!"
Huh? You're not hurt anywhere, right?
"That was SO~!!! much fun!!!"
……Well, that's all that matters, then.
The sight of the little rascal sitting primly on my starfished body drained every ounce of strength from me.
"Haa…."
……My view flipped upside down, revealing a gloriously clear sky. I lay there blankly, watching the clouds drift along at their own unhurried pace.
No—I wanted to keep lying there.
"We have a survivor coming out!"
"Good afternoon. This is Ahn Soo-in, reporting live from Candy Fiore at Neverland. We have just received news of the first EX-rank dungeon to appear in Korea in nearly a year…."
"Yes, it has truly unbelievably been cleared! Yes, the 'BOND' and 'Mugang' teams have arrived on the scene as well."
"Teacher? Can you hear me? Teacher?"
The surroundings were far too noisy. I shut my eyes.
The scene overlapped with the one from a few days ago, when I'd come out after clearing the underground dungeon beneath BOND.
"Teacher? Teacher? Are you all right?"
I gingerly cracked open the eyes I'd been so reluctant to lift. And met someone's gaze.
That of a woman in a crisp white dress shirt, holding a microphone.
"……Yes, I'm fine."
A quick check confirmed that Moon Chaeyoung's illusion had already worn off. The translucent film that had been covering my body was no longer visible.
"You just came out of the EX-rank dungeon, didn't you? Exactly how was it cleared? From what we've just confirmed, an A-rank hunter was inside with you—did that person lead the clear?"
The world spun in lazy circles.
Behind the woman, I could even see a camera stamped with a major network logo.
'Good grief, that's a terrestrial broadcaster.'
I managed to stagger to my feet and look around. In the meantime, the woman had apparently decided I was in shock and was bombarding me with questions about whether I was okay.
'Hey, what the hell is going on here?'
Crowds of tens of thousands had converged around the dungeon gate, which was slowly fading away.
Neverland visitors, reporters from every broadcast outlet—and from what I could catch of fragments here and there, not just civil servants but people from all sorts of hunter corporations had shown up too.
An ambulance must have just arrived, because the commotion swelled even louder.
"Teacher? Please, we need an answer."
"One moment, please."
I spotted a familiar face through the sea of people and waved reflexively.
"Noah's mom!"
She must have rushed straight over, because her hair was a complete disaster.
"Kim Noah!"
The moment Noah spotted his mother, he sprang up and ducked hiding behind my back.
I smiled awkwardly and spoke as she approached.
"How did you know to come here, ma'am?"
But I definitely couldn't make a phone call, could I?
"Teacher…!"
Only then did Noah's mom notice me, her eyes reddening.
Relief and heartache had clearly welled up inside her all at once.
"No, my sister-in-law who was on shift called saying Noah wasn't anywhere, and I honestly thought I was going to pass out…! I went home and he really wasn't there."
"Ah, I'm so sorry. I found him by chance and was about to call, but then everything turned into… this."
"No! No, it's not your fault…. I found his location quickly enough—his card transactions kept pinging my phone—but then the news suddenly reported that a spontaneous dungeon had appeared at Neverland, where Noah was, and I just ran straight here."
The shoes on Noah's mom's feet, waving her hands as she rushed through her explanation, didn't match.
'Oh dear. She was completely out of her mind with worry, wasn't she.'
"Noah is fine. He's not hurt anywhere."
"He's… he's really okay? Haa…… thank goodness…. That's all I needed to hear. That's all that matters."
"……."
"……."
"……?"
"Um…. You can go to Noah now, ma'am."
She'd been searching frantically enough to run out of the house in mismatched shoes, yet for some reason she didn't move.
At my words, the woman gave an embarrassed smile and clasped her trembling hands together.
"Ah…. It's because I'm sorry."
"……I'm sorry?"
"I'm so sorry to Noah that I can't bring myself to go near him, Teacher."
That was the last thing I'd expected.
'What am I supposed to say at a time like this?'
Then Noah suddenly poked his head out from between my legs and barked.
"Why?! Why would you be sorry?!"
"Uh, uh?"
"I came here without telling you, and I took the potions without asking—so why are YOU sorry, Mom?"
"No, honey, Mom promised to take you to the amusement park for your birthday and couldn't, so you…."
"That can happen!"
"……No! It can't!"
"You're busy sometimes! It happens!"
"No! If busy means I don't get to be your mom, then it's not okay!"
What are you two doing?
I squeezed ambiguously between the two of them and shot a sideways glance at the broadcast camera pointed this way.
"Mom…. I'm sorry. It was my fault. You told me to eat with Auntie and wait for you to come home, and I didn't…."
"No, it was more Mom's fault. My son matters more than work, and I'd forgotten that."
Noah, who had been creeping slowly forward, tucked himself into his mother's arms.
And then…. the tears he'd been holding back burst out.
"WAAAAAAH!"
"WAAAAAAH! I'm sorry, baby!"
……They really are alike. So alike.
The cameras that had been thrust toward me just now edged closer and closer to the tearful mother-and-son reunion.
For the sake of those cameras hoping to capture the moment, I quietly stepped back.
This was better all around. If it caused problems later, they could file a removal request.
'Maybe I'll go find a bench somewhere and rest for a bit.'
But….
But seriously. Why does it feel like they're all coming toward me?
The broadcast camera with its outstretched microphone, dozens of other cameras and sets of eyes suddenly swiveling my way.
Am I just being self-conscious?
"Oh? It's that young man! That young man was so sweet, giving out some kind of jelly? Jelly or something, cheering us on…."
"At first it was scary and awful, but at the end there was that older brother with the pale face, right? And he turned into a grandmother, and—oh! Yes! It's him! That's the brother!"
"……I'm sorry, what?"
In an instant, I felt the mood of the crowd shift, all because of a few stray words.
Ah, hold on. Wait a second.
"Excuse me, Teacher? May we have a word?"
There were over thirty cameras visible to the naked eye alone….
What—somebody save me, please.
***
I stared, wild-eyed, at the reporters firing question after question at me.
"It seems you gave the civilians a great deal of help inside the dungeon. Could you tell us what happened in there?"
No, wait. 'Reporters' would be the accurate term here.
"I'm Hwang Eun-myeong with BBM News. A student just mentioned in an interview that you played an active role inside the dungeon…."
"He says you handed out jelly that made his nose grow long. Is that true?"
"What on earth is this story about suddenly turning into a grandmother?!"
"You personally took on the danger in place of the elderly woman who nearly became a sacrifice…."
Dizzying. The gazes pouring down on me were so fervent they drowned out even the relief of having survived.
Can I handle this? I asked myself.
The conclusion was no.
Then…. time to bolt.
I quietly shuffled my feet backward. By now even the spectators who'd been fixated on the gate were turning to look at me one by one.
"Teacher? Please answer the question."
A black microphone was thrust right up under my chin.
I rolled my eyes around in a full circle and finally opened my mouth.
"I'm…. not that kind of person."
Please, for the love of God, don't treat me like some hero.
I had simply done the best I could in the situation. That was all.
"Are you, by any chance, an Awakener?"
After my deflating answer, an unexpected question popped out. And the problem was that, seeing me flustered by it, the reporters apparently decided they'd caught me off guard and started firing similar questions from every direction.
"Tell us your rank and ability!"
"Was it you, not Hunter Moon Chaeyoung of BOND, who used your ability to lead the clear?"
"Teacher, are you an A-rank or higher Awakener?"
"Please, just tell us your name!"
At this point they seemed to be treating me like some rookie hunter who'd burst onto the scene like a comet.
Given the circumstances—no proper investigation had been possible yet—it was a simple misunderstanding.
'This is a problem.'
And with good reason: setting aside the matter of my face being splashed across the entire nation, I was seriously worried about the story that would come after this.
Answering here…. there were simply too many things I couldn't explain when the follow-up questions came.
I was in no position to answer even the question of how I'd gotten the nose-growing jelly.
Explaining that would require explaining the prototype products I'd received from Manager Lee Wonwoo—and who knew how that would get edited for broadcast.
'Done badly, they could frame it as a corporate product leak.'
But of course, the real reason I balked was that walking through the context might inadvertently drag out the existence of 'Nabi'—something the public could never hope to understand.
'Absolutely not.'
How long ago had I resolved to carry that secret with me to the grave?
"I'm afraid that's a little difficult for me to answer…."
I fudged the answer and glanced behind me, but there was nowhere decent to run.
In front, a solid wall of people; behind, a bustle of civil servants and hunter corporation personnel dispatched to investigate the fading gate.
'Do I just charge through?'
The moment I was gauging angles, thinking I'd have to run for it if things got any worse—
A young man's voice, not yet past the crack of adolescence, cut sharply through the crowd.
Gripping the microphone that had been shoved practically up my nose with one hand, the boy in a school uniform planted himself in front of me, shielding me from view, and said:
"Uh, um? Excuse me…. Don't harass someone who's tired."
"……!"
That kid? The one from the confessional!
I stood there blankly for a moment, staring at the back of the school-uniform dress shirt blocking my path.
'What's the situation now, exactly?'
My bewilderment at the boy's appearance barely had time to register before, here and there, people I'd never expect began stepping forward and lining up in front of me.
"Shouldn't he get to rest a bit before doing interviews?"
This was the woman I'd been fussing over, shoving jelly into her hand and telling her not to be scared.
"Honestly, shoving a camera in someone's face like that—of course they'd be startled. This man just went through something enormous."
This was the woman who'd refused to eat the lemon jelly, convinced I was some kind of lunatic, and whom I'd had to persuade with an entire one-man show.
"Hey, whatever you have to say, it's basic courtesy to say it later. Everyone here nearly died just moments ago. Isn't checking whether they're okay the least you could do first?"
……Huh? Weren't you the one who thanked me from inside the glass jar?
One by one, I could see more people looking this way and hurrying over, even from far off.
Little by little, my view was obscured by all manner of broad shoulders—people doing their absolute best to shield me. Watching them, I felt…. something strange stir in my chest.
Granted, I'd done the whole thing half-thinking that escaping together would be nice and all.
'It's not like I acted out of any lofty ideals, honestly.'
Unable to bear the unbearable awkwardness, I stood scratching the back of my head for no reason—when someone beside me spoke up.
"Thank you."
The woman who'd been standing in front of me moments ago, blocking the cameras.
More precisely—the one who'd shouted her thanks to me from inside a glass jar, right after the dungeon cleared.
"……I didn't really do anything."
"That's excessive modesty. I was locked in that jar from the very beginning, so I saw everything you did."
"……?"
So. What on earth did you see, exactly?
"I can't speak for down below, but from the stage you could see everything. Handing jelly to the people being dragged away, cheering them on, reassuring them, checking on our side every few minutes…. And in the end, you stepped out in the grandmother's place."
You watched that entire mortifying performance? Everyone in the jars did?
"Honestly, there's still so much none of us understand—the jelly that makes your nose grow, you suddenly turning into a grandmother—but we all agreed not to ask."
"Wh-why?"
"Because you looked troubled. Whatever the truth is, you gave us strength in that hell of a place, and in the end, you got us out."
"……Wasn't that something we all did together, though?"
"Results matter, but so does the process. Without you, that process would have been brutally hard—or maybe making this outcome possible at all would have been impossible."
"……."
I was left speechless. Her unwavering eyes declared, calmly and clearly:
"All of us know at least that much. So don't worry. If it comes to it, I'll mobilize every connection I have to keep you off the broadcasts."