A Kid Who Looks Like a Protagonist (2)
"Cough, cough…! Eun-ha! This guy's got to be an A-class villain! We need to report this first…!"
"Huh?! An A-class villain…!? Got it! I'll call the police first—wait! The ability I just used melted my phone…!"
Ju Eun-ha had been so startled by the sight of her best friend being choked by a stranger that she only now stared at her phone, blackened and ruined by the flames wrapped around her fist, and belatedly regretted her stupid mistake.
"Aah! I just bought this phone! Mom's going to be so mad when she finds out…!"
"Kwahaha! For a second I thought a hero had shown up. Turns out it was just another empty-headed brat. Your only way out of here just went up in flames, and you're fretting over a phone?"
Thud. Thud.
"…Keheheh. I don't need two hostages. You're gonna have it a little rougher than your friend, shiny little brat."
"Huh? Um, mister, I think you've got the wrong idea…? Reporting is just the first thing any citizen who sees a villain is supposed to do, so I was going to do that first…"
She grinned.
"…The moment I got here, you were already as good as arrested, you know?"
Floaters—myodesopsia. That odd little phenomenon where something like a bug or a speck of dust drifts across your vision. Common enough, and mildly annoying, but almost never a real threat to your eyesight or your life. Unless the case is severe, even hospitals tend to shrug and tell you to live with it: a mild symptom that barely qualifies as an illness.
So when she first started seeing them, her mother and the ophthalmologist both treated it as nothing serious. No matter how ordinary superpowers had become in the world, a diagnosis of floaters—something even kids got these days—was far more natural than assuming she was one of the vanishingly rare spiritual-type ability users who could see what others could not.
Which was why her mother only took her not to the neighborhood eye clinic, but to the ability-assessment center at a major hospital with state-of-the-art facilities, when those little things that looked half like water droplets and half like tiny fairies started talking to her one by one, sometime around the upper grades of elementary school.
"Efreet, Aerial. Support me in sync with my attacks."
Whoosh—!
"Ghk…! Wh-what is this wind?! You—don't tell me you're a multi-ability user—"
And even though her power was technically a single ability, she commanded four spirits in all, each with a wildly different temperament, and the opposing attributes clashed so hard that controlling them was far more difficult than most multi-ability users ever had to deal with. That was why, when she first enrolled, she had barely scraped into Seoul Hero Academy at fiftieth in her year.
"Undine, protect Seol-a from the flames."
Splash—!
"Th-that's impossible…! There's only one ability user in all of Korea with three or more powers even now…!"
Through sheer, bloody effort—the very definition of a late bloomer—she overtook Seol-a, the original top of the entrance rankings, to claim first in her year by the second semester of first year. By second year she had surpassed every upperclassman as well, taking the overall practical rank of first.
And now, just as her third year was beginning—
"Gaia. Bury him."
BOOM—!!
"Gaaah! M-my body…!!"
Even the instructors at Seoul Hero Academy—almost all of them once A-class upper-tier professional heroes—had grown hesitant about one-on-one sparring with her when she used her full ability, for fear of preparing for real villain combat.
She was already a confirmed monster.
Drip—.
"Eun-ha…! Are you okay?!"
"Hehe, I'm fine. Just a little nosebleed from overdoing it. No big deal."
She wiped.
"…Besides, the earth spirit still doesn't listen very well on concrete floors like this."
Eun-ha glanced at Seol-a, who was fretting over her, and casually wiped away the nosebleed that had come from summoning too many spirits at once. Then she smiled brightly down at the villain buried deep in the ground, only his head and handcuffed arms still twitching free.
Her head was still a little fuzzy, but she had completely subdued the dangerous villain Seol-a had guessed was A-class—and mercifully, Seol-a herself was unhurt. Aside from the fact that her phone had burned and her mother was going to give her an earful, everything had gone perfectly.
But then—
Crunch. Crack!!
"Wah! Wh-what…! Gaia! Hold him tighter!"
Crack! Crrrrack—!!
"Hooo…! My arms only just healed from being broken. I didn't want to push them…"
Clang—!!!
The villain buried underground suddenly shattered the special restraints that even a high-pressure water jet couldn't easily cut, then hauled himself free with his liberated arms, swelling every muscle in his body as he advanced on Eun-ha.
"Well, things have gone this far, so I suppose it can't be helped. Kuku… For a brat, you fought impressively well. Your only real misfortune was that your opponent was me."
"Khh! Aerial! Back me up!"
Whoosh—BOOM!
"Keheheh. Your attacks are too shallow, brat. That barely even counts as a massage."
"Th-that's impossible! What kind of body…!"
Even with the wind spirit's support, Eun-ha's kick only pressed faintly into the villain's cheek. His jaw didn't so much as turn.
He snatched her thin leg and slammed her into the ground.
"Hhk! Eun-ha…!"
"Ghk…! Wait—that face…! Don't tell me you're—"
"…Ah. My mask came off with that last attack. Kuku… Killing kids like you in Seoul still leaves a bad taste, but well. You've seen my face, so it can't be helped."
"Nngh…! You—! Smile arrested you just a few days ago…!"
And then—
"Ah, right. I was being so careful, and then that monster showed up and I got caught. Kuku… Lucky for me, I woke from the anesthesia while they were transferring me to the eastern Seoul prison and managed a clean escape."
He revealed the face that had been all over the national news a few days earlier—the Incheon bank robber—and slowly delivered their death sentence.
"Keheheh. I'm the reinforced human, Strong. If you call yourselves hero hopefuls, consider it an honor to die by my hand."
The reinforced human, Strong.
A rising A-class villain who had only recently appeared on the registry. His criminal record was still short, and he preferred to vanish the moment a high-rank hero arrived rather than fight, so the body count attributed to him remained low enough that he was still listed as A-class. In raw threat, though, his ability alone was enough to annihilate a full battalion of soldiers in advanced gear—more than enough to place him among S-class villains without anyone batting an eye.
Barely a week earlier, the Ability Management Bureau had even floated assembling a dedicated task force of roughly ten veteran A-class heroes, including the S-class Flame Witch Rabby. He was the kind of danger who could be reclassified as S-class at any moment. He simply happened to get caught by Smile first, and so he was still stuck at A-class.
"Nngh…!! S-spare—"
"Seol-a! Khh, Efre—ghk!"
"Kuku… Those idiots. If they were going to use anesthetic on me, they should've pumped in about a thousand times an elephant's dose."
And that monster beyond common sense now held both of their heads aloft, smiling with pure murder in his eyes.
Earlier he had held back his physical reinforcement ability for fear of straining his body. Now he had pulled it to its absolute limit. The slightest squeeze of his fingers would crush their skulls like soft tofu.
"A little advice before you die, brat. In the face of truly overwhelming power, a bunch of parlor tricks like yours don't mean a thing."
"Nngh…!! Gaia! Just once more—help Seol-a get away at least—aaagh!!"
Crunch—!
"So in the next life, try to pick your battles a little more carefully. …Assuming there even is a next life. Kwahahaha!"
The instant Strong was about to crush both their heads—
Tap—.
"…Kuk. Who dares put a hand on my shoulder? Honestly, why do the people in this neighborhood insist on sticking their noses into something this terrifying…"
Tap. Tap.
"Hooo…! Thanks to you, it looks like I'll be getting a lot more blood on my hands today than I planned—"
"Hmm. In my patrol zone of Seoul, a grown adult assaulting minors. I didn't realize there were still thugs this bold left around."
A low mutter.
"…Tsk. Does a small-timer like this even count toward the quota? Hmm, a little ambiguous."
And then the true monster beyond all common sense appeared—someone who reduced even Strong's formidable ability to the level of a mayfly withering before a vast sun.
"…Huh? Wait a second. This guy's that bank robber from a few days ago. So he's not just some street thug—he's a dangerous escapee?"