The Hero of Heroes (2)
“…Mm, it was just a bit of food going down the wrong way. No need to make such a fuss, Rabi.”
“R-really?! I-it really was just a little choking, right?!”
“Of course. I swear it on the name of Hero Smile.”
“W-well, if you’re swearing on that, then it must be true. …Still, so even you choke on things sometimes, Smile. …Honestly, I had no idea. I figured someone like you would just power through something like that with pure spirit.”
…What the hell does this girl think I am?
Sure, I wouldn’t get hurt even if a nuke dropped on my head, but I still sneeze every now and then.
Anyway, having barely escaped that particular crisis, I pushed the dangerous hanwoo (allegedly) beef bulgogi off to the side for the moment. My gaze shifted instead to the octopus-shaped sausages with cute little eyes, nose, and mouth, and the fluffy rolled omelette, and somehow I managed to finish the meal.
“S-so, um. What are you doing tomorrow? Well, I guess it’ll just be the usual hero work like always, but if you happen to have even a little free time, I could practice cooking again and—”
“Ah, tomorrow I’m heading over to Seoul Hero Academy to give a short speech. Just about ten minutes, really. The rest of the time will all go toward protecting the citizens, of course.”
“…Huh? At this time of year, is that the entrance speech? You, Smile? Don’t you turn that down every year? …It’s not like they’re paying you for it or anything, so what sudden wind is blowing that you’d agree to something like that?”
She seemed genuinely shocked by what I’d said. Rabi’s usually narrowed eyes flew wide open like a startled rabbit’s, and she tilted her head while echoing my words back at me.
The fact that someone whose entire daily schedule consisted of nothing but eating, sleeping, and hero work had somehow acquired a different routine left her thoroughly astonished.
…Well, from everyone else’s point of view, I must look like some lunatic completely obsessed with public safety—someone who finishes the hero activity hours designated by the Ability Management Bureau, then clocks right back in again after “work” just as a hobby.
“Well, my old teacher asked me as a favor, and I figured looking in on the juniors coming up wouldn’t hurt just once.”
“Mmm, anyway, it’s a big deal that you’re even going to an event like that. It’s not a graduation speech, either—it’s the entrance speech. Basically they just invite one hotshot hero to do something like a fan meet, almost like a little festival at the start of the term.”
Huh…? Wait, that’s what it is? Not some solemn, important ceremony where they educate the budding young sprouts about a hero’s proper mindset?
…Damn it. So that time definitely isn’t getting deducted from my hero activity quota.
Well, these days weren’t like the old times when heroes were dropping dead left and right every single day. They wouldn’t start dumping something that stuffy and outdated on a bunch of kids who had only just enrolled.
“Mmm, yeah… Even if it’s a lighthearted event, having you there, Smile, will definitely fire everyone up.”
While I was fretting over the sleep I was going to lose tomorrow, Rabi puffed her cheeks out a little like a hamster. With a serious expression that didn’t match those full cheeks at all, she spoke up.
“…By the way, how long are you planning to keep living this tightly wound life? I’m not saying I don’t respect your choices, but if you keep going like this, it’s going to catch up with your health someday. At the very least, shouldn’t you be sleeping somewhere comfortable?”
Then she twisted her hands through her hair and, as if steeling herself for some grave resolve, spoke in a trembling voice.
“…W-well. If you really refuse to budge on that stubbornness of yours, I could always support you myself, you know. Seoul or Incheon, either way it’s just a short hop for you. Staying at my place wouldn’t make much difference.”
“Hm? Hahaha! I appreciate the concern, but I’m not in such a tight spot that I’d have to freeload off a junior five years younger than me.”
“Haaah…?! What is this idiot saying! Do you think I don’t know how hard you’re living?! Tch, fine, if you don’t want to. It’s not like I was all that keen either, but I only offered because you’re the most important hero of all and you absolutely cannot collapse! Hmph!”
Apparently angry that her rare offer had been rejected, Rabi quickly gathered up the lunchbox I’d just finished eating from. Then she stood from her seat with her face scrunched up again in its usual frown.
…Well, of course. If it weren’t for the status window, I’d have jumped at Rabi’s suggestion in a heartbeat and freeloaded to my heart’s content in a big, comfortable house.
Rabi was currently one of the top ten heroes nationwide, so her place had to be enormous and incredible. Unlike me, living in a room with no fan and not even a window, every room of hers would come with its own bathroom and air conditioning for sure.
Living together as a man and a woman might be a little awkward, but… someone as rich as Rabi probably had dozens of rooms in a house so big that it wouldn’t even register.
I’d never been there, so I couldn’t say for certain, but she probably even had a few live-in maids for housework, right?
After all, the income of a popular hero wasn’t just the hefty salary paid by the state. Side income from commercials and appearance fees was even more astronomical.
…Ahh, if I could just cut down the time I spend running the washing machine and boiling ramen every day, I could convert every last minute of that into sleep.
My body might be invincible, but that didn’t mean I never felt fatigue. I still needed to get a proper amount of sleep like everyone else.
Of course, it wasn’t remotely comparable to ordinary people—I could wander around perfectly fine for about a week without sleeping—but when that piled up year after year for one year, ten years, turning into chronic sleep deprivation, you ended up in a constant state of exhaustion like I was now.
…So please, just one day a year would be enough. I wished I could have a day off where I could stretch out and sleep as long as I wanted under a warm blanket.
Ahh, if I could just sleep peacefully for a single day, all the fatigue that had built up would melt right away.
Well, after fifteen straight years of sleep deprivation, I could barely even remember what it felt like to wake up feeling refreshed anymore.
“…Hmph. You’re still human. Keep being that stubborn and you’re bound to break down someday. Why don’t someone like you just collapse from overwork already and rest up in the hospital for a few months? Then I’ll catch up to you in no time!”
With those words that could have been either a curse or a blessing, Rabi left with her usual prim expression.
…Well, it was all just her way of worrying about me in the end. Either way, it wasn’t anything that could actually hurt me.
One way or another, I’ve known since we were kids that Rabi is a good person. She might snap at me all the time with her words, but it’s all coming from a place of caring.
Whoosh—!
No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than Rabi, who had been grumbling as she walked away alone, seemed to feel a little guilty about what she’d just said. She suddenly spun around, dashed back over to me, added one more line, and then vanished again in a whirl.
“…H-hey! That part about hoping you collapse from overwork—cancel that. Ugh, a lot of people would be in trouble if you weren’t around. …S-sorry. I think I went a little too far with my words.”
See? She really is a good kid.
One day after feeling the threat of death from Rabi’s hanwoo lunchbox.
I spent yet another day so packed I could barely catch my breath, then around lunchtime I carved out a short window and headed for the place I’d promised my old teacher three days earlier.
Seoul Hero Academy—.
Located in Yongsan District, this was currently one of the most representative hero training institutions, and unlike the other regional hero academies, it was the only educational institution where graduates were recognized as state-certified professional heroes immediately upon graduation, without needing to take the professional exam.
…If you considered that other hero hopefuls who failed to get into this place—and then kept failing the pro exam—usually gave up on becoming heroes and aimed for civil service jobs in the fire department or police instead, it could look like an unfair privilege at first glance—
But it wasn’t so much a privilege as the fact that this school carefully selected only the absolute highest level of ability users from across the entire country, admitting a mere fifty students each year. Completing its curriculum over five years rendered the pro exam essentially meaningless for those “graduates.”
Exempting them from the professional exam wasn’t some petty perk granted only to students of a prestigious school. Rather, it was a kind of consideration for the other hopefuls—an attempt to set aside monsters so overwhelmingly different that their mere presence in the exam hall would only snatch away others’ fair chance at competition and plant feelings of deprivation.
Even I, who spent all my time on hero work and didn’t know much about how the world turned these days—despite this being my alma mater—knew that much about the place. For everyone else, it must have held an even more impressive reputation as an elite educational institution.
That was why what they taught was a little different as well. Even though they accepted students starting from age fifteen—what would normally be the second year of middle school—they taught none of the usual three core subjects of “Korean, English, and Math” that regular schools required.
…It wasn’t some ignorant reasoning like “heroes don’t need to study.” From the very moment of admission, applicants already had to take and pass tests covering the entire high school curriculum.
Of course, heroes weren’t expected to throw themselves into the college entrance exam war; studying only needed to be at a general-education level, so the difficulty itself was only about as hard as the GED and not particularly challenging.
Still, kids who had just entered the second year of middle school had to sit for high-school-level exams, so anyone who didn’t prepare diligently would naturally fail—and after that, they wouldn’t even get the chance to take the second-round test that evaluated their sense of justice and abilities.
If someone lacked the persistence to prepare even that much, it meant they would never be able to keep up with this school’s curriculum in the first place.
…Well, back in my day it hadn’t been that kind of prestigious school yet. The situation in Korea had been such a complete mess that they took anyone who was just and had a moderately useful ability, without any tests or anything else.
Besides, back then, any weak heroes who didn’t meet the standard… the villains that swarmed like cockroaches all over Seoul took care of filtering them out on their own.
Well, the ability test was one thing, but… the first-round exam at about GED level was all stuff I’d already learned back when I was still attending a normal school, before I got dropped into this damn world. Even if I’d had to take the same exams as the current incoming students, it wouldn’t have mattered much to me.
…Anyway, so right now it’s an insanely competitive school for producing heroes, right? Heh heh, then of course there’ll be tons of kids who could become my successors!
And so, arriving at the school I hadn’t seen in a long time since the terror incident seven years ago, I went looking for the first-generation hero who was now my senior by a wide margin—and who, with his swift and decisive retirement, had become the object of my envy—apparently serving as principal these days, leisurely listening to classical music and sipping black tea in the spacious principal’s office.
“It’s been a long time, Teacher Blade. Or rather, since you’ve been retired for quite a while now… would it be better to call you Principal Jeong Hak-hyeon? I didn’t know you’d become principal since you never mentioned it, but congratulations, even if it’s belated.”