Divine Punishment
“Waaaaah!! It’s Smile―!! Smile came to save us!!”
“Huuuk!! We’re alive! We’re definitely alive now! Who the hell spread that stupid rumor that Smile was hurt!!”
In that moment of utter desperation, the hero who always appeared with an easy smile for the citizens—who always saved every last one of them—arrived.
The eyes of the people who had been screaming in panic only moments before gradually steadied, one by one, returning to calm.
And in this instant when his presence brought confusion to some, sorrow to others, and pure joy to still more—
“What…! From what Ravi told me, you had clearly collapsed―”
“Hahaha, what nonsense is that, Frost sunbae? With a dangerous villain like this showing up in Seoul, there’s no way I’d be lying around collapsed, is there?”
Drowned out by the citizens’ thunderous cheers, Frost asked a question only the two of them could hear. He watched as Smile flashed a broad grin—
“As long as even a single person I must protect remains on this land, I will never fall.”
Gazing at that dazzlingly radiant smile, Frost could only stand there once again and quietly watch the other man’s back.
…I roughly brushed off the question from the S-class Rank 2 hero who had clearly heard something from Ravi and was about to press me on it.
‘Frost of Freezing.’ First I checked whether he—who had nearly had a spike driven through his skull—was seriously hurt anywhere.
From the shared call I had been listening to, the situation looked pretty bad…. Frightened by the news that Justice had gone down, I had brushed aside the Management Bureau minister’s insistence that we first craft a perfect strategy before deploying and rushed straight here.
Fortunately, even flying as carefully as I could so I wouldn’t smash the surrounding buildings, I hadn’t arrived too late.
Well, good—he doesn’t seem badly injured. There’s a bit of blood from his mouth, but nothing life-threatening, and nobody around here looks critically hurt yet.
…By the way, the official hero name registered on the Management Bureau’s roster is “Frost of Freezing.”
In Korean that basically comes out to “Frost of Freezing,” which feels like pure tautology to me and just sounds weird. I have no idea why they slapped such a half-assed official title on a top-tier hero who’s ridiculously famous even overseas.
“Flame Witch Ravi” or “Invincible Hero Smile” I can accept as the usual cringy hero-name style and move on… but that one feels like “Fire of Flame” or “Water of Water.” Doesn’t it?
…Well, how would I know? I don’t even get why they almost always stick Korean in front and English in back like some kind of rule. Probably just the local taste.
Ah, for the record, this sunbae was another hero-side character from the original game, just like Ravi. In the game his performance was so middling that you only used him until mid-game and then benched him, yet not long after I started operating in this world I was shocked to find he had risen to the hero ranked right below me.
On top of that, among all the currently active second- and third-generation heroes, he is the one who—even to my eyes—comes closest to that damn status window’s endlessly repeated “ideal hero.”
…Hmm. Separate from raw skill or impressive records, and unlike me, who is forcibly barred from making money by that cursed square window, he seems to live frugally by genuine choice and donates most of what he earns.
Well, the man is a full ten years older than I am anyway…. No matter how ideal a hero he might be, the odds of him becoming my successor are basically zero percent.
“Kyhahaha! At last, at last you show your face, Smile! Kuhuhu! Judgment—I shall pass judgment upon you! Die while revealing before everyone’s eyes that you too were nothing but a disgusting hypocrite!”
Due to the Invincible Hero trait, the enemy’s special attack is nullified.
…Anyway, Frost sunbae is one thing, but wasn’t this guy a villain who appeared in the game just like Eternox? When the Management Bureau shared the call contents I figured he was just some small-time thug with a pathetic backstory, yet looking at his face now, he feels strangely familiar.
Due to the Invincible Hero trait, the enemy’s special attack is nullified.
Hmm, everything was SD models so it’s hard to recognize anyone, and it’s been so long my memory is fuzzy… but I’m pretty sure there was a scrawny-looking villain unit like that….
“Wh-what…! Why isn’t my ‘Judgment’…? N-no! Th-that’s impossible! My power is absolute!”
…Ah! Right, I remember now.
This guy wasn’t a stage-boss unit, but one of those elite-monster-style surprise villains that randomly popped up in the middle of stages every now and then. He would temporarily halt the advance of the surrounding villain units into the city, then raise his own stats by the number of villains present and charge only at heroes who had heavily invested in stats—completely ignoring their defense and dealing fixed damage. A real pain in the ass.
But as you can see right now, that attack was completely nullified by the Invincible trait… so once I pulled this broken, overpowered character, he simply stopped showing up and I forgot all about him.
Hmm, aside from the defense-ignore gimmick he didn’t have much going for him, so he should be way weaker than Eternox… Should I go easy on him…?
Of course, the U.S. government’s official stance that had just been relayed was “Dead or Alive.” Legally I could kill him and bring the body back without any problem. Still, unlike the Eternox situation, this wasn’t an order for mandatory execution. For someone who must always present the image of the perfect hero, that meant I had to capture him alive.
After all, even counting the entire chaotic era when people died like flies, the number of villains I had killed rather than arrested was still small enough to count on one hand.
…Anyway, if I do manage to take him alive, Korea doesn’t have a prison that can hold him, so they’ll drug him senseless and ship him off to that special Atlantic prison the old American Number One had built in the middle of the ocean under his orders, right?
From the long rant he had just delivered, this guy was a criminal who had gone over to America and gotten involved in drug trafficking like his brother…. Now he would be pumped full of drugs that sealed his ability and locked away for life in the very prison built on the orders of the hero he himself had killed.
Looking at it that way, it felt like the perfect ending for him.
Due to the Invincible Hero trait, the enemy’s special attack is nullified.
“No, no. This can’t be…. Why isn’t my ‘Judgment’ working…? My power works even on toddlers who can’t even talk yet…?”
All right. There are plenty of people watching, so I should say something suitably heroic and haul him off.
Even with a body that seemed capable of moving only my mouth, I looked out at the citizens roaring their cheers for me. I quickly recalled the villain’s past that I had heard over the speaker earlier, briefly considered the kind of lines a “hero” ought to deliver in this situation, and rapidly organized the words I was about to speak—
Then I took one step, then another, slowly approaching him.
…This was impossible.
After devouring every last gift his brother had given him, his power had effectively broken free of the “restriction” that sharply reduced its effectiveness against good people. Through several experiments he had confirmed that this “Judgment” could now completely paralyze even the body of a baby just beginning to babble.
Even an infant who could not possibly understand such emotions still possessed the tiny selfishness and evil that every human inevitably carried. No—even non-humans. Any sentient being inevitably harbored at least a little selfishness.
And thanks to Eternox’s help, his ability had fully “blossomed.” Now it treated the faint selfishness of a child who wanted more affection than a younger sibling and threw a tiny tantrum, or a baby who was not even hungry yet cried fake tears just to be held by its parents, no differently from the evil of a serial killer who murdered for fun—and could freeze that body forever.
Therefore even the great saints whose names filled the history books could never escape this absolute “Judgment.”
Step. Step.
…Yet, yet what the hell is that man…. Why does my power have absolutely no effect…?
But the madman slowly walking toward him right now….
…How could he completely ignore the ability and keep moving as if nothing were wrong?
“Wh-what the hell are you…! How can you resist my Judgment! Every human being! Every single one of them has an evil heart…! Hero or villain, once you peel back the skin they’re all the same!!”
After obtaining this invincible “Judgment,” he had believed he would never feel fear again. Now, terrified, he stumbled backward and flung the question.
The hero before him answered with a smiling face that still somehow revealed enormous fury, advancing with slow steps that nonetheless felt utterly inescapable—as though he had come to deliver Judgment itself.
“Hahaha! …What ridiculous nonsense. Consideration for the weak, gratitude toward a hero, and the courage of a child who, even in the depths of despair, remembers a small kindness received amid the flames long ago… and who therefore becomes a hero himself someday so he can reach out a hand to someone else in trouble.”
Step. Step.
“You know nothing of kindness, of forgiveness, of consideration, of trust, of hope, of courage. You know nothing of humanity’s goodness and its brilliant potential. You are a childish villain who mistakes a half-world filled only with greed, resentment, cynicism, and mockery for the whole of humanity—who never once made the slightest effort to listen to the emotions that could have been gathered with just a little trouble—”
Rather, it was he who seemed to have fallen under the power of Judgment. Frozen by terror, he could not even think of drawing out his other ability; he could only clutch his unmoving body.
“—and yet you dare crawl out of the sewer where you gnaw on the rotten flesh of humans and presume to lecture on their good and their evil.”
Thud—
“If there exists a villain like you whose chest holds nothing but filth, then the opposite also exists. That is an obvious truth. What is wrong with you—who destroyed so many lives with twisted obsession and selfishness—is that you refuse to accept it….”
Looking down at him as he collapsed to the floor, the hero wore a smile that felt to him exactly like a death sentence.
“…and even for a troublesome villain like you who possesses such a bothersome power, I have not abandoned the hope that you might one day repent your sins. Instead of execution, I will give you the chance of rehabilitation.”
As though he intended to deliver heaven’s divine punishment right here, he gazed down at the man who had slumped to the ground.
“In the prison that Justice prepared long ago in the most remote corner of the Atlantic, spend the rest of your life understanding that.”
.
.
.
“…Kyhaha, ahahahaha! What the hell are you even. …My power can now freeze even Justice—who spent his entire life for peace—for eternity.”
At the same time as that overwhelming terror, the sheer absurdity of the situation finally let him regain a fragment of his mind.
“…But, but what the hell are you? Are you some kind of god…? Did you just drop out of the sky to save mankind…?”
While he hurriedly prepared Justice’s ability and made ready to flee, the power that transformed the body for a brief time into something akin to light—allowing Justice to respond instantly even to crimes occurring on the opposite side of the continent—began to activate.
“Hahaha! A god? What an amusing thing to say. I am merely the hero of this city who came here to arrest you.”
Flash—!
True, he was still unused to it; he could manage it only about twice a day. Unlike Justice he could not fire it outward as an attack or travel truly vast distances, and after using it he would collapse and vomit for a full thirty minutes from the pain—
Grab!
…Yet it was still a speed that could rightly be called “teleportation,” nearly light-speed. Before he could move even a single span, the nape of his neck was seized by the monster who had seen that golden trajectory with his own eyes and reacted.
That’s a lie, right…? What the hell is this…?
…Kyhaha, kyahahahaha! What the hell is this guy. This isn’t even human anymore, is it…? Is this bastard actually a god…?
Completely broken in will, he heard the monster’s final words as he sank into a sleep from which he felt he would never wake.
“And I never let a villain who tries to destroy this city get away.”