Ability Control Training
In this world, controlling an ability was never a simple matter of practice.
A weak power, wielded with precision, could become a razor-sharp blade — while the mightiest ability, left unchecked, would sooner or later turn into a disaster.
The game had featured plenty of incidents built around exactly that theme. Rampaging abilities, espers consumed by their own powers, and the like.
Which meant that learning to regulate one's ability was an essential step for anyone with superhuman gifts.
With that in mind, the person I'd gone looking for was Selene.
If I wanted Kang Yurim to learn how to handle her power, then at least in the early stages, we needed someone capable of absorbing whatever she threw out.
And among the people around me, exactly one person fit that bill.
The one currently sprawled on the sofa, rattling a bag of snacks.
"Mmm... so you're asking me to help this little one get her ability under control?"
Selene lay where she was, holding the snack bag up, turning my words over in her mouth.
"I'd appreciate it. You're the sturdiest one here, after all."
"If you put it that way, what does that make me... some kind of immortal?"
She muttered it while shaking out the last crumbs from the bag. Still, she showed no real signs of refusing.
After all, she hadn't done what she usually did when something annoyed her — crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head.
"In exchange... I'd like to ask for something too."
She slowly pushed herself upright.
"What's it called... give and take. Between executives, if something goes, something has to cooome back...."
Yeah, figures. Of course the girl who carried her laziness around like luggage wouldn't lift a finger for free.
"What is it?"
"Grant me one favor, someday... I don't know when yet... but that's all I want."
"What kind of favor?"
"Well... if I told you now, there'd be no fun in it...."
"It's not something weird, is it?"
"Oh, come on. Nothing like that."
She said it with an airy little "ehehe" and an easy, careless smile.
Smiling like that only makes me more nervous...
But I didn't exactly have other options right now. And Selene wasn't the type to make genuinely disturbing requests anyway.
In the end, I gave a quiet nod.
"...Fine."
"Hehe, great~ I'll help you out, then."
Selene rose from the sofa and stretched until her joints popped.
"I heard roughly what kind of ability this little one has. She makes the abilities around her go haywire, right?"
"Amplification, to be precise. She just can't control it yet."
"Same thing, really. Well...."
With that, she turned her gaze to Kang Yurim beside me.
"Hmm... shall we start with a quick test, then?"
"Is... is that really okay?"
Kang Yurim asked, visibly worried.
"Oh, it's fine. My ability isn't anything impressive anyway. To begin with, I've always been the type to solve things with my body rather than my power."
"What is your ability...?"
"Levitation. Though my maximum is thirty centimeters."
"....."
That really is a useless ability, isn't it.
Then again, I suppose that's why she ended up with those monstrous physical specs. Some kind of zero-sum trade-off, maybe.
When I stared at her in silence, Selene's cheeks puffed out in a slight pout.
"What! Why are you looking at me like that! It's still useful, I'll have you know!"
"For example...?"
"For example, dodging an anti-tank mine, or...."
What on earth has this woman's life been, that those kinds of stories just roll off her tongue?
"Anyway, I'll put my ability out, so give it a try. Getting familiar with it matters more than anything else."
"Okay..."
Kang Yurim cautiously extended her arms and closed her eyes.
From around her shoulders, warped light spread outward like heat haze.
So this was... a genuinely strange ability.
I'd felt it when she first manifested, but it was even clearer now. Like insects drawn to a torch, her power lured in and stimulated the abilities around it.
A peculiar wrongness, as if some instinct deep in you was reacting to it.
Which meant... the Association had been keeping an esper like this all along?
Then why on earth would the Association hand her over to the Black Society...
A mistake? A deliberate leak? Or was there something more tangled going on?
The thoughts flickered through my head, and I set them aside for now. There'd be plenty of time to build theories after she'd gotten used to her power.
"It really is... an unusual ability."
When I glanced over, Selene was rising into the air.
Thirty centimeters, she'd said — and yet she was already climbing toward the ceiling of the room, her head nearly brushing it.
And then her head thumped against the ceiling, and Kang Yurim stared up at her from below with a stricken face.
"A-are you okay up there...?!"
"I'm fine, I just bumped the ceiling a little. But this is a good sign, actually. If you can manifest your ability this cleanly on command, control won't be far behind."
She added it while slowly rotating her body in midair, swimming through the air as if it were water.
"Now then, could you let me down? On my end, the amplification seems to have locked my release — I can't turn it off. Oh, don't worry about it, though. Just drop me. I won't get hurt from a fall."
At those words, Kang Yurim flinched, small and stiff.
"Um... h-how exactly do I turn it off...?"
"Sorry?"
"I... I can't turn it off..."
"....."
The road ahead suddenly felt very, very long.
"You came, Seonbae?"
Inside the Hero Association's café, Seo Eunha gave a casual wave to the person waiting for her.
The junior from the intelligence division — the one who had secretly handed her that CCTV footage.
She walked over quietly and took the seat across from him, swept her gaze once around the surrounding tables, then spoke in a lowered voice.
"Thanks for the video."
Her junior smiled faintly and lifted his coffee cup.
"Oh, that was nothing... You asked, didn't you? And nobody caught on in the end, so all's well that ends well."
"I suppose so...."
Seo Eunha smiled a little at that, but her eyes quickly fell.
After Closer had walked away that day, she'd been left with exactly two choices. Wait in the ruined wreckage and face the Association's heroes — or simply withdraw and pretend she knew nothing.
She had chosen the latter.
It was she who had violated the Association's rules of engagement, and with the tag of "disciplinary reflection" already hanging around her neck, she knew that stepping forward again could easily end in something far worse than a simple reprimand.
Above all, there was the fact that she'd made contact with a villain of unknown identity — and worse, that during the chaos, force had been used against a girl who might well have qualified for protected-status classification.
If word of that ever reached the lunatics lingering in the Association's upper ranks, what came next was plain as day. Interfere any further, and things would only get uglier.
"Oh, right, Seonbae. That masked villain."
"You mean Closer?"
The junior gave a small nod.
"Ah, yes. His Standard Threat Rating was updated, apparently."
Standard Threat Rating.
Just as with heroes, a villain's rating was a comprehensive index built from their danger level, identifiability, capture difficulty, and even public perception. The criteria were wildly complicated, but it all boiled down to one question.
How much of a headache is this person?
"So... what rating is he?"
"He was bumped up from B to A. He'd never really taken the initiative to do anything before, you see."
The junior pulled a small terminal from his pocket, tapped at it, and turned the screen toward her. There, beside a silhouette wearing a familiar mask, a short column of information was displayed.
"It's official, but... don't put too much stock in it. The ability itself is still under analysis, and aside from the name, practically nothing's known about the organization he's tied to or who he actually is."
Seo Eunha nodded. It wasn't a surprise.
Psychokinesis was powerful in and of itself — and powerful meant dangerous. Handled delicately, it could perform a precision surgery; held with malice, it could crush a living human being like so much paper.
But what she wanted to know right now wasn't something as trivial as a rating.
"Hey, Seungmin."
"Yes?"
"Can you look up a person for me?"
The image still hadn't left Seo Eunha's mind. That day, in a scene soaked in blood — the girl frozen in terror, clutching Closer's hand for dear life.
Who on earth is she...?
"You mean you want access to the Ability Database?"
"That's right."
The Ability Database — an unofficial file maintained by the Association's intelligence division, cataloging the identities and traits of espers across the country.
Normally, a person's ability was identified and recorded in childhood, when control was still poor, and espers with similar powers were grouped into lineages and classified so their information could be gathered and tracked.
"Come to think of it, couldn't you find Closer through this thing too?"
"I already tried, obviously...."
"No luck, then."
At his words, Seo Eunha gave a silent nod.
The problem was that the database focused on innate awakeners. Espers whose powers manifested later in life often had incomplete records — or no entry at all.
"Hmm... but if I want to touch something like this, I'd need clearance from the higher-ups, so, uh..."
"Ugh. What do you need?"
Seungmin scratched his head, sheepish.
"My performance review's been a little shaky lately... Not that I'm anything like you, Seonbae, being on formal reflection and all."
Seo Eunha's eyebrow rose a fraction.
"Are you mocking me?"
"No, no! Absolutely not what I meant!"
Seungmin flapped both hands hastily, laughing in flustered panic.
"It's just... I got flagged recently for poor work conduct, so if I file an official request it'll get rejected, like, one hundred percent of the time. And there's a long queue ahead of me, too."
"So?"
"But... through unofficial channels, I might be able to work something out. Say, for example... negotiating a deal where someone buys one of the new coffee machines that just came out?"
"....."
Calling this guy my junior. Honestly....
Sighing inwardly, Seo Eunha pulled out her phone.
Tap-tap—
The sound of her fingers drumming the screen echoed in the quiet.
"You're actually buying it?"
"You're the one who pushed for it."
"No, I mean — I didn't think you'd actually go through with it... I was just giving an example..."
"Quiet."
At the flatly delivered word, Seungmin clamped his mouth shut, reading the room.
A moment later, a payment-confirmation notice lit up on her screen.
"There. Now do it."
"Yes, ma'am! Right away!! And the name of the person we're looking for is..."
The name was definitely... Kang Yurim.
"...Kang Yurim."
"Kang Yurim... let's see now."
Humming a little tune, Seungmin's practiced fingers danced across the keyboard. Information began popping up on the monitor, and his eyes snagged on one point.
And the next instant, his hands froze mid-keystroke.
"Uh... Seonbae-nim. Are you sure that's the right name?"
"It is. Is it not showing up?"
"No, that's not it, it's just..."
He turned the monitor toward her and went on.
"It says she died two years ago?"