Prologue — Old Habits
"Mm... shall we pick up where we left off?"
Inside a room-style bar, a man in a black suit and a silver mask drummed his fingers on the table.
"Remind me—who did you say you were again?"
The masked man looked down at his subdued captive with a light laugh.
"......"
"Sulking in silence won't do you any good. I've already dug through your entire file."
Tap.
Flipping through the documents with his fingertip, the man spoke slowly.
"Kim Doyun, Hero. B-Rank, Rank 23. A Branch, Team 3. Ten unexcused absences since the second half of last year. Twenty hostages shot dead—twenty—and an attempted assault on a civilian on top of that. And yet not a single disciplinary action on record?"
Amusement spread beneath the mask.
"If you pulled that in our organization, you'd be fired on the spot. Don't you think that's a little unfair?"
"....."
Kim Doyun lay face-down on the floor, his expression frozen in fear.
"Don't take it too personally. When I first fell into this place, all I wanted was to do some civil-servant-type job."
The masked man picked up the glass sitting on the table and drained it in one go.
"But it didn't exactly work out. Even I didn't know this world was like this."
The silver mask tilted slightly.
Then he looked back down at Kim Doyun, sprawled and restrained on the floor, and continued.
"Every single thing I tried to do, the Association just had to pick a fight first. I graduate from an ESP training institute, and they're on my case about why I haven't joined the Hero Association. As if I'd chosen any of it—I just woke up one morning and found out I was a student at a training institute."
The man set the glass back down on the table with a sharp clack.
"All I wanted was to live quietly, comfortably, and they butted in over every little thing. Tried to start a business—they blocked the loan. Tried to get a job—they slapped some 'high-risk' label on me... I should have figured it out then. That they had no intention of ever letting me go."
The man paused to steady his breathing, then wiped a ring of moisture from the tabletop with his finger.
"So what do you think I did?"
"....."
"Hmm... answer well, and I might just let you live."
"Y-yes, sir! So you became... a villain?"
Ah. So he can open his mouth after all.
Turns out all it takes is a rope around his neck.
"A villain..."
The masked man murmured the word quietly, almost to himself.
"That's right. That's what everyone calls me. I just chose whichever side seemed right at the time... but apparently the Association found that very distasteful."
Instead of a glass, he picked up a small slip of tissue and squeezed it in his fist. The soft crinkle of paper crumpling echoed faintly through the room.
"So I thought: if the whole thing is a cesspool anyway, then the winner is whoever lives most comfortably inside it. You'd agree, wouldn't you?"
"Y-yes! Absolutely! A hundred percent!"
"Right? You get it too. It's the Association that's the problem. The problem..."
"I'm s-sorry—!"
"No, no. Listen."
The man cut him off and quietly raised a palm.
"What do you think? Do you actually believe you were doing your job properly? On paper, you're one of ours, you know."
Kim Doyun hesitated for a moment, then nodded his head three times in rapid succession.
"Yes! I... I believe I was!"
"....."
The masked man said nothing.
The silence stretched—not long, not short, just enough.
Then the door opened behind them, and another figure stepped inside. Upon entering, he bowed his head to the masked man.
"Are you finished, sir?"
"All done. Enough small talk—time we got moving."
The man draped his coat over the back of the chair and rose slowly to his feet.
"W-wait...! Thank you! Thank you so much! I swear I'll repent, I'll—!!"
The moment his mood brightened and he lifted his head to look up—
Click.
A pistol leveled at his forehead.
"W-wait a second!! You said you'd spare me if I answered well!!"
"Talk of old promises reminds me of the original story."
"What the hell are you talking about?! You've been spouting nothing but insane nonsense since—!!!"
"Come to think of it, among the hostages caught up in your case, the protagonist's family was one of them. He figures it out eventually... and that gets to be a real headache for people."
"You lunatic...! What are you saying?! What does that even mean?!"
Kim Doyun tried to push himself up off the floor, only to collapse sideways, then started screaming all over again.
"Protagonist? What is this, some kind of drama?! Why the hell would I care about any of that!!"
"Fair point."
The masked man gave a small nod.
"I'd prefer it if this were a drama, too. If it were, I'd just be some poor office worker whose manager recommended a video game to him."
A quiet sigh slipped from behind the mask.
"Clock in, eat a convenience-store lunch because takeout was too expensive, drag myself to bed too tired to even turn the game on... and that would have been the end of it. I really started playing without thinking much of anything. Just figured it would kill some time."
The masked man pulled back the slide and chambered a round.
"Should've just beaten the game and shut it off. Should've hit quit that time, instead of pressing New Game+."
"You son of a—!! Do you have any idea who I am?! Lay a finger on me and the Association won't—!!"
BANG—!!
A gunshot tore through the room.
A report loud enough to deaden the ears. Only after the sound, ricocheting through the cramped space, had bounced off the walls and ceiling a few times did silence finally return.
"Shall we clean this up?"
"Yes. Erase the records, and take care of any fingerprints or traces while you're at it."
He adjusted the collar of his coat and looked at the glass still sitting on the table.
Half of it remained.
The masked man stared at it for a moment—then, in the end, never reached for it.
"Reminiscing kills the taste of liquor."
Muttering that, he drew a communicator from his pocket. He pressed the numbers firmly, and after a short ring, the line connected.
"Closer, reporting in."
[Have you finished the job?]
"Yes. It's done."
[And the evidence?]
"Erasing the traces now. I don't think I'll be able to deal with the body itself, though."
[No matter. It'll be forgotten in a few days anyway.]
"I suppose you're right."
[Incidentally—good work out there. That was your first time handling a Hero, wasn't it?]
"Not at all difficult. I've disliked that one for a long time."
[A personal grudge, was it?]
A brief silence.
The man tilted his head slightly.
"Well... I hated him a great deal, once. Genuinely, a lot."
A breath escaped him—something like a short laugh.
"But now... I don't really feel anything at all, one way or the other."
[Is that so? Regardless, return to base. It seems the Hero side has received their orders.]
"Understood. I'll see you there."
The line cut dead.
Saying nothing more, the man removed his mask and walked out into the night.