The Idol Hero
Eternal Association Headquarters. Someone's office.
On days with no special incidents or missions, most of her time was spent the same way—seated in the plush, high-end chair placed at the center of the room, reviewing documents. A woman with black hair, possessing a beauty that seemed a little airheaded at first glance, yet undeniably cute.
And today, she had… a visitor.
Knock knock-
"Come in."
Click-
The man who came to see her belonged to the Eternal Association's personnel department, and could rightly boast of a career that made him a seasoned veteran.
"Ah, Mr. Woo Yeon-woo."
"Pardon the intrusion, Manager."
The man called Woo Yeon-woo stepped inside with meticulous courtesy.
When the woman called the Manager offered him a seat, he accepted without hesitation, sat down, and went straight to the point.
"I've read the request you sent over."
"Ah… ah! The one requesting a return review for a retired hero, right?! Has a decision been made? Haah… so it finally went through."
To her look of relief, he shook his head.
"Please don't jump to conclusions. I've come because there's something I need to discuss regarding that matter."
At those words, the expression on her face—until now nothing but cute—sharpened in an instant.
"Hmm… All right. I'm listening."
She straightened her posture and adopted an attentive pose. Watching her, the man likewise opened his mouth with a face hardened into nothing but seriousness.
"I would like you to reconsider the return review for Lovebell, the retired A-rank idol hero."
What he had brought was a call to reconsider Lovebell's return.
The beaming smile on her face came to an abrupt halt.
She fell silent for a moment, then soon let out a small sigh and spoke.
"…Why?"
"Briefly, or at length?"
"At length."
"Understood."
He paused, as if deliberating where to begin, then slowly opened his mouth. The subject was Lovebell's current condition.
"Lovebell… can no longer sing for extended periods. I assume you're aware of this."
"Of course. But you also know it's not as if she can't sing at all."
"…That's correct."
Woo Yeon-woo gave a small nod.
"Back then, when a highest-tier Entropy entity descended upon the city without warning, the miracle Lovebell performed… brought her a great deal, and at the same time took a great deal from her."
"…I know. I was there that day, after all."
She knew it too. The miracle Lovebell had wrought.
A long time ago… the city had been struck by a single great catastrophe.
Commonly known as the Catastroi Incident.
The event in which one of the highest-tier Entropies descended upon the city without any warning whatsoever.
Crushed beneath a calamity that had appeared in a place it should never have appeared, with no preliminary symptoms or signs of any kind, the city suffered countless casualties.
That day, most of the Association's heroes and magical girls were deployed for the decisive battle against the Catastroi.
Lovebell was among them.
Even after the fierce battle ended, she did not leave the city.
Because there might still be people alive beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings.
So that her voice could reach every corner of the destroyed city, she sang without rest, day and night.
One day… two days… Blood seeped from her throat from the excessive vocal strain, and exhaustion that might claim her consciousness at any moment pressed in after the brutal battle and the desperate, nonstop rescue broadcast that followed—yet she continued, for three full days, without a single pause.
The loving encouragement carried in her song breathed hope and vitality back into the people who lay dying as they waited for rescue.
It gave them the strength to cling to their fading consciousness, and reminded those on the verge of giving up that they had a reason to survive.
People who would originally have lost their lives before the rescue teams ever arrived were able to hold onto consciousness until the very end, listening to her song.
As a result, far more survivors were safely rescued than originally expected.
…It was a miracle.
And as the price of that miracle, Lovebell was left with a severe, irreversible aftereffect in her throat.
She could no longer sing for extended periods.
…The people did not forget what happened that day.
The song of hope that had resonated through a city in despair, for three days and nights.
For that miracle—the one that poured the strength to live back into dying people—they would later call it this:
Lovebell Origin.
That was the moment the idol hero Lovebell was engraved into people's hearts forever.
"…Because she performed that miracle, she was left with a permanent disability that no ability or science can cure, and her body became one that can no longer sing freely as she once did."
"……"
"After a long series of meetings with Lovebell's agency, we decided to retire her."
"…Why?"
"Because, well… it was for her own good."
Woo Yeon-woo was silent for a moment. As if recalling something.
"Lovebell's condition isn't merely at the level of 'she can no longer sing for long stretches.'"
"…Don't tell me."
"If it had simply been a visible wound or damage to her vocal cords caused by some clear physical factor, there's no way modern medicine and healing abilities couldn't have restored it, is there?"
"……"
"If we hadn't stopped her and had simply let her continue her activities, then within a short time… whether sooner or later, the worst outcome would have come—the one none of us wanted. Not us, not her, not her fans."
"……"
Listening to the man's words, the woman—who had been deep in thought with her chin resting on her hand—threw the question back at him.
"And what about Lovebell's opinion?"
"……"
"Did you ever actually ask Lovebell?"
"……"
"Ha."
Furrowing her lovely brow, she let out a short sigh, clearly displeased.
"Manager."
"By your account, it was a decision made for her sake."
"……"
"And yet something's strange here."
"And what would that be?"
"Why is it that everyone except the person herself always makes decisions 'for that person's own good'?"
Bitterness—the emotion—surfaced on the face of a man who rarely showed any change in expression.
"Because if it were her—if it were Lovebell—she surely… would never have stopped until the very end, even knowing how it would turn out."
"Then that was a decision she should have made herself. Taking away someone's right to choose under the pretext of doing it for them is something that should never happen."
"But Manager, if we had given her the choice, what do you imagine would have changed? Even if you'd asked her, Lovebell would have sung all the same. So are you saying we should have… just sat on our hands and watched the worst ending unfold right before our eyes?"
"'She would have sung all the same'? How can you presume that without ever asking the person herself? And this 'obvious ending' of yours is, in the end, nothing but your own subjective judgment. No matter how right that judgment may look, you don't have the right to make it on her behalf."
"Even so, we—!!"
Woo Yeon-woo's voice rose.
He had gotten worked up without even realizing it himself.
Perhaps aware of it, he stopped speaking for a moment and closed his eyes as if to settle his emotions.
When he opened them again, the agitation that had filled them mere moments before had all but vanished.
The emotional control befitting a veteran of the personnel department.
"…I still don't believe our choice was wrong."
He did not believe the decision made that day was a mistake.
"The opinions of those gathered at that meeting were truly varied and divided… but in the end, they all converged on a single conclusion."
Let's protect Lovebell, it said.
"So, cruel as it is… we exploited her kind nature, dressed it up with a plausible pretext, and made her retire."
Even if that method was a decision that killed the hero called Lovebell.
It was unquestionably one that would save the woman called U Haru.
"……"
Tap- tap- tap- tap-
Having heard the story through to the end, the Manager tapped her own shoulder repeatedly with her crossed fingers, as if extremely—extremely—displeased.
She could understand the decision, but in the end, it had been a unilateral one that cleanly excluded the wishes of the person most concerned.
Tap-
Then her fingers went still.
"Tomorrow, I'm going to see Lovebell."
"…Manager."
"I'm sorry, but I'm the meddlesome type. I'll simply have to interfere, one way or another. Hmph."
Whether this, too, was just another act of unilateralism, or a righteous interference—she didn't know yet herself.
But at the very least, her intuition was telling her that things could not be allowed to end like this.
Seeing her rise from her seat and walk toward the window as if to dismiss him, Woo Yeon-woo heaved a deep, resigned sigh and got to his feet as well.
…Please, let everything turn out well.
So he wished, and left.
Beep-
'…You had this installed in a single day?'
I pass through an automatic steel door that looks inexplicably sturdy—no telling what it's made of—and head underground.
Beneath lights that cast a faint glow over a spotless corridor without a single speck of dust, I reach the door at the end. I open it and step inside…
"Oh."
A spacious room that could easily swallow several dozen square meters.
Filling it to the brim were…
lewd apparatuses and tools whose purpose anyone could guess at a glance, and then some.
"Hoo…"
I suddenly start to worry. Just how many people got ground down to build a place this size in a single day?
Hmm… probably not my concern, actually.
It's not like it was extracted through illegal means. Probably.
Then my gaze came to a stop in one spot.
Among the countless devices scattered about—
a custom-made restraint rig for binding and fixing a person in place.
And on top of it, a woman bound and asleep without a single thread on her body.
U Haru.
Uh…
I don't think I ordered her clothes removed, though.
Why is she stripped down to nothing, underwear and all…?
Some kind of service from my secretary, maybe.
Carrying that question with me, I approached her… approached U Haru.
"……"
As expected… it's devastating.
One particular spot endlessly fans the flames of a man's desire, setting the loins ablaze without pause.
Her absurdly oversized breasts, which could never be held in a single hand, seem to declare her vow that her master will absolutely never be allowed to starve to death.
Ah, would even two hands be enough?
Anyway.
Smiling faintly, I let my gaze drift a little lower.
A little lower still…
and look upon what lies plainly exposed between her legs.
'…It's clean.'
Whether she maintains it or not, a smooth, hairless mound.
And beneath it, all the way down to the puckered anus, tightly sealed in a neat cluster of pale pink.
I observe her pretty pussy—which looks like it would give a shhhlop- and suck my finger right in if I poked it—when…
"Mmm…?"
I hear the sound of her coming to.
I take a step back and examine U Haru's face.
Her closed eyes seem to tremble faintly, little by little, and then the bright eyes hidden behind them turn toward me.
My eyes meet U Haru's.
Through a haze of half-sleep, she wears the look of someone wondering why, of all things, the first sight to greet her waking eyes is my face.
Launching into a long, boring, pedantic explanation would only ruin the mood, so—
keeping it extremely simple:
"Hello there, Miss U Haru."
With a beaming smile, I offered my greeting.