The Price of a Sidekick
“I’m sorry, but... I’m still going to have to refuse.”
“W-what did you say?!”
Chairman Kim Mija had presented me with a gift set of high blood pressure, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and a whole host of metabolic syndromes. Naturally, I had no choice but to decline. The reason was simple: I wanted to live.
I mean, level 50 spicy mala-tang? A deep-fried hamburger patty drenched in even more oil, topped with all sorts of insane, calorie-dense slop that looked like pig feed? If I ate that stuff, just like the men in this insane world, I’d be guaranteed an early grave—not in my thirties, but by my late twenties.
As I firmly rejected her, the Chairman’s eyebrows twitched violently.
“Ugh, to think a gift wouldn’t work... Usually, men lose their minds at the word ‘free’ and come rolling right over, don’t they?”
She was an A-rank elite hero, someone who could reportedly suppress national-level villains with one hand. The “Iron Empress” who had even forced the Government Committee to bow their heads—Chairman Kim Mija was now so flustered that she was stuttering, letting out little groans of frustration.
But that only lasted a moment.
“It’s noisy from the morning. What’s going on?”
“Ah, Master!”
“...Ma, Master?”
A low, drawn-out voice came from behind us. I turned my head at the sound of a yawn, and there was Master Baek Seungha, scratching her head as she walked toward us. Dozens of limousines were lined up entering the facility, and she was only showing up now? She had a yawn hanging off her lips and was scratching her stomach with one hand. She looked less like someone responding to an emergency and more like a person who had gotten lost while out for a stroll.
But then.
“Hyunwoo-kun.”
“Ah, yes. Chairman.”
“...Is that woman, who doesn’t seem to have a single gram of ‘refinement,’ your exclusive hero?”
Master Baek Seungha, with one eye barely open, was now scratching vigorously near her crotch over her pants. She didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed. She was just doing it as naturally as someone scratching a genuine itch. And the expression on the Chairman’s face upon seeing that sight began to twist with fury, as if to say, ‘You’re doing that kind of thing in front of a man?!’
Eventually, she stomped forward, her heels clicking sharply against the floor.
“...I cannot accept this.”
“What?”
Master asked, picking the sleep from her eyes.
“It’s long past lunchtime! Your hair is caked in grease and shining like a mirror, your breath reeks of stale instant coffee, and in the middle of all that, in front of a man... you’re exposing your... your stomach! And scratching it, too!”
She raised a hand high into the air.
“You are! Dis! Qualified!!”
The roar of Chairman Kim Mija, pointing her finger at us, sounded as if she were declaring a national state of emergency. It was an unexpected straight shot. No, it was practically a missile.
“And I heard you aren’t even Korean?!”
“Uh, my nationality is Korean, but... well, I’m a Korean-American. Like a ‘gyopo,’ you know?”
“Someone like that! Claiming to be the ‘Master’ of a South Korean man! This is treason against the nation!!”
Treason, of all things. I mean, even if you’re upset, that’s a stretch. To call becoming a master ‘national treason’ just because of mixed nationality? As I shrugged my shoulders at such an absurd thought, the Chairman suddenly began reciting even more ridiculous legal clauses.
“According to the International Male Treaty, when a foreigner comes into contact with a man of another country, they must submit a ‘preliminary opinion paper’!”
“...Seriously?”
“Oh, right! I forgot about that!”
Master Baek Seungha agreed immediately. Wait, does that kind of law actually exist?
“Hmph. To think you’d try to sign a sidekick contract with a man without knowing that! Which means! Your sidekick contract with Hyunwoo-kun is null and void!”
“W-what?!”
At the shocking truth that followed, I reflexively stepped between the two of them.
“No! Do you know how hard I worked to get here! Master Baek Seungha is my first master and... our master-disciple relationship is the only one I have!”
“Hyunwoo...! Th-that’s right! Even without that paperwork, who would dare deny our Sara... no, our friendship!”
But the Chairman was firm.
“Regardless, the law is the law! It’s an international treaty recognized by the entire world!”
There was a momentum in the Chairman’s tone that went beyond mere conviction. It was a strange kind of confidence, the kind that said, ‘This is already in the palm of my hand.’
“Fufu... Even if you submit the opinion paper now, it’s useless. Why? Because I won’t approve it.”
“...Why would you?”
When Master Baek Seungha, who had been listening quietly, asked back as if it were absurd, the Chairman tilted her chin up with a look that said it was obvious.
“Hmph, since you’re from the States, you might not have a feel for it yet... but here in Korea, you’ll soon find out exactly who I am.”
For a moment, an indescribable pressure crept up the back of my neck. The Chairman wasn’t just an A-rank hero. She was a true ‘power broker,’ someone whose influence alone could bend the law. And in dealing with someone like that, Master Baek Seungha, an American-based hero, was in a terribly disadvantageous position.
So, I couldn’t hold it in anymore and spoke up.
“...That’s underhanded, Chairman.”
“Gah?!”
At that moment, the Chairman dropped to her knees and—truly, not metaphorically, not as a figure of speech—she actually vomited blood. Not just a small amount, but a ‘blech!’ of red, like spilled ink, before she collapsed to the floor.
The legendary hero who, during the war against crime, had walked from Seoul to Busan instead of taking the train just to beat up a villain alliance all by herself, had been taken down by a single word: “underhanded.”
However.
“Ugh... even so, I cannot back down from this!!”
Chairman Kim Mija, who had scrambled back to her feet, shouted with eyes flashing like a soldier in the middle of a war.
“And Hyunwoo-kun, it’ll be fine. The sidekick contract may be void, but the hero qualification you’ve already been issued won’t be revoked.”
“Does that mean...?”
“Yes. Once I separate you from this woman, only your relationship ends. Legally, there’s no problem with a new hero registering as your handler.”
And the Chairman, with her hand on her chest, bowed her head slightly and said:
“Therefore... from now on, I intend to become your ‘handler hero.’ With my own hands, I will raise Hyunwoo-kun into my exclusive dea... into a magnificent hero!”
...For a second, I thought I’d misheard.
A-rank hero Kim Mija.
The top hero in Korea had offered me her own sidekick position?
She was someone whose fame, skill, and social influence were all on a completely different level. From a third-party perspective, it was an opportunity I should have taken without hesitation.
But I didn’t want to.
Because the only person who had called me a ‘disciple’ when I had nothing—even if she seemed a bit clumsy—was Master Baek Seungha.
“I refuse.”
“...!”
When I said that, the Chairman’s brow furrowed sharply.
“Hyunwoo-kun...!”
“I want to remain Master Baek Seungha’s sidekick. If this incident means Master can no longer stay in Korea, then I’ll just follow her to America.”
America, the home of heroes. The place where the headquarters of the World Hero Association was located, and at the same time, a forbidden stage teeming with countless lawless villains. A place where a single city could become a battlefield in an instant, and where people checked hero combat logs before the news.
Honestly, with my current skills, I wasn’t even sure if I could survive there. But rather than living a suffocating life in Chairman Kim Mija’s grip, I would rather roll in the dirt by Master Baek Seungha’s side, even if it meant dying. That was, at the very least, what my heart wanted.
“Hy, Hyunwoo-kun?! You’re joking, right? A sidekick in a country where bullets rain down like a storm! And a man, at that!”
“I’m serious.”
“American villains are on a different level than Korea! They don’t go easy on you just because you’re a man!”
The Chairman approached me like a cheetah and thrust her finger into the air.
“Just the other day, there was a villain in California who was sentenced to death. Her name was ‘Angelina.’ She was Code Black.”
Code Black.
Yellow was for common criminals, Orange for serious crimes, Red for city-threatening levels. And above that existed the Final Catastrophe grade. It was the absolute pinnacle of villain ranks, a level where you only made the list if you blew up a city or shook an entire nation. How could a woman who had been stuck at the Red grade despite drug trafficking, illegal arms exports, and inciting nuclear terrorism suddenly become a Black grade with a single action?
Chairman Kim Mija quietly told me that ‘uncomfortable truth.’
“She was a human who was only Red despite committing drugs, firearms, and national terrorism. But then...”
Gulp!
“She stole a sip of cola that a man was drinking at a hamburger shop without asking...!”
“...And?”
“And? Because of such a massive, heinous crime, she was promoted to Black! And she was arrested immediately. How about that? You’re so scared now that you don’t want to go to America anymore, right?”
Is she... trying to tease me?
I looked around with suspicious eyes.
Then.
“How terrible...!”
Master Baek Seungha kicked the dirt with her foot and clicked her tongue, as if she were a person who had witnessed all the tragedies in the world.
“Oh, my god... it’s too cruel!”
Conversely, Sister Hayeon was clutching the crucifix necklace she wore between her breasts, praying with tears welling in her eyes.
A little further back, Ms. Shin Yura, surrounded by children, was covering the kids’ ears one by one, her face twisted into a deep frown.
“Anyway, you’re going to take Hyunwoo-kun to an America like that?”
The Chairman’s gaze locked onto Master.
“Ugh... certainly, it does seem a bit too early for Hyunwoo to go to America...!”
“Master, I told you I’m fine!”
“No! What if you’re out eating a hamburger and a heinous villain appears, steals only the patty from your burger, and runs away?!”
...Then I’ll just order another one, won’t I?
“What if a villain who used to sell human organs stops by the Korean-town tripe restaurant you finally found... and suddenly sprinkles cheese over your tripe and runs away?!”
...It might actually be delicious?
“Hyunwoo, America is definitely too early for you. If the gangs there see you...!”
“If they see me?”
“They might just stick to you like shadows to protect you and escort you all the way home!”
“I see... Kekekeke... We shall escort him during our working hours so he isn’t exposed to danger and can’t increase his sidekick workload.”
“Kekekekekekekeke...!”
...Isn’t that actually a good thing?
That was when it happened.
“In that case, how about we settle this with a contest, American Hero?”
“A contest?”
“Yes. One round! The winner becomes Hyunwoo-kun’s handler hero. Cleanly, without any lingering grudges.”
Chairman Kim Mija looked back and forth between us with a confident expression, as if she had just come up with a brilliant strategy.