Apprentice Hero: Han Eunbyeol (5)
“M-Mom...?”
The strength drained from Ohoo's hand clutching the card. The noisy clamor of the supermarket checkout suddenly felt like a distant vacuum, fading into oblivion. All that pierced his retinas was the red-haired girl standing before him. Especially those vivid crimson locks, their dye fading to reveal patches of black roots, yet gleaming brilliantly under the fluorescent lights.
“H-Huhk... Heuk...!”
Ohoo's chest heaved and fell in ragged bursts. He couldn't breathe. Oxygen refused to enter his lungs, choking at his throat. Hyperventilation gripped him, his heart pounding wildly.
How... how can that face...
He had temporarily switched off the emotional control hypnosis he'd set on himself. Life with Miyang had been enjoyable. Warm. But that tiny lapse in vigilance had returned as a fatal poison.
Caught defenseless with his emotional suppression defenses down, he was struck head-on by the face etched deepest and most absolutely in his mind as love—his mother's.
“Um, excuse me...?”
Eunbyeol had boldly revealed her identity, only to panic as the chubby man before her turned pale, gasping and staggering. If anything, she was the flustered one now.
“A-Are you okay? Hey, mister!”
She took a single worried step forward, but Ohoo's massive frame shuddered violently, reeling backward in a huge sway.
“M-Master!”
The moment Eunbyeol pulled back her hood, exposing her face, Miyang hastily canceled her electric current and withdrew it. Miyang had seen Shooting Star's face clearly in Ohoo's smartphone gallery and in classic videos circulating online. She recognized that the woman before them looked exactly like her master's mother.
“Heuk... H-Heuuk...”
Ohoo fumbled for his smartphone in his pocket, desperate to reactivate his emotional control command. But...
“Sir? Aren't you going to pay?”
“Ugh, why's the guy in front taking forever? Blocking the whole line with that huge gut.”
Dozens of people trailed carts in a long line behind Ohoo, the cashier glaring impatiently. Too many eyes watching.
He couldn't flash a purple hypnotic spiral in the middle of this crowd and hypnotize himself.
“Ch-Checkout... cash... one-time payment...”
Ohoo's trembling hand barely extended Park Ayoung's card to the cashier. Miyang hurriedly swept the bagged items into their basket.
“Heuk... Miyang.”
Wiping sweat from his brow, Ohoo gripped her shoulder tightly, gasping his plea.
“K-Keep that woman close... don't let her get away. I... I need the bathroom first...”
“Master! Are you okay?! Your face is ghost-white!”
Ohoo shook off Miyang's support and stumbled toward the restroom like a fugitive. But with his shattered knee and ankle joints braced, piled on by a panic attack, his hulking body couldn't manage a single proper step, lurching wildly.
“Ah, watch out!”
Eunbyeol reflexively caught Ohoo's tottering form. Guilt seized her—she'd startled him by blocking his path and revealing herself, triggering some heart episode or panic disorder.
“S-Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you... Ugh, you're heavy.”
“Don't touch Master's body without permission!”
Miyang and Eunbyeol—the blindly devoted she-cat and the girl cloaked in his mother's shadow—each grabbed one of Ohoo's arms, grunting as they hauled him toward the restroom.
Ohoo's mind was a charred white void. Every brush of Eunbyeol's shoulder on his right brought a whiff of cheap soap and sweat from her nape. It was utterly unlike the warm, tender scent of his mother's skin etched in memory—a stranger's odor entirely.
Yet each glance revealed those red locks and jawline, short-circuiting his thoughts.
“Uwoooeek—!”
Ohoo clutched the toilet, retching violently. His stomach twisted, esophagus burning as breakfast spewed out in sour gastric acid.
“Kuhk! Khek, heuuk... Haa...”
He flushed, staggered to the sink, rinsed his mouth, and splashed cold water on his face. His tear- and sweat-streaked, distorted reflection stared back from the toilet water.
With shaking hands, Ohoo pulled out his smartphone and launched the Hypnosis App.
> Slot 1: Ohoo
He knew all too well the root of this uncontrollable state, heaving and trapped in panic.
It stemmed from the first command he'd brutally seared into his own brain in this app's Slot 1.
Command: My mother is Shooting Star, Han Sara. The mother who birthed me in pain. Never doubt it. She's the only one in the world who ever loved me.
To endure his dead mother's scent. To forge a reason to bond with this world as an orphaned outsider. This fabricated maternal love he'd force-fed himself.
Seeing that redhead tore his heart and choked his breath because this command hijacked his neurons, forcing an extreme reaction to his mother's phantom.
Ohoo's thumb hovered, quivering over the red delete button beside the command.
If I just... delete this one command...
He gasped the thought. Erasing it would let him face the redhead outside without emotional turmoil—as a stranger, blood be damned. No palpitations, no hyperventilation. Pure, detached outsider's gaze to navigate this.
The simplest, most rational escape.
“...”
But his finger froze mid-air.
“Ha... haha.”
A bitter, hollow laugh escaped his lips.
If I delete this, what's the point of me even living?
Ohoo, isekai'd into this world. A total trash heap in body, mind, and soul. Subjugating Ayoung. Keeping Miyang by his side. Vowing to rip apart the loan sharks. His sole drive on this bloody path of vengeance teetered precariously on this fabricated maternal love as its foundation.
Denying and deleting it meant losing his revenge motive. Castrating his last shred of humanity in this world—suicide by his own hand.
No matter how much of a trash I am... I can't erase the mother who uniquely loved me with my own hands.
Ohoo resolutely withdrew his finger. Instead of deleting the love command, he reactivated the paused emotional control one.
Command: Endure. Don't waver. Erase anger and all emotional fluctuations. Maintain absolute calm.
Whiiing— A purple flash erupted from the screen, striking his pupils.
“Fuu...”
In the instant after, his breathing steadied impossibly in one second—unbelievable for the man who'd been pale, clutching the toilet, tears and snot streaming moments ago. His inflamed eyes cooled, the tremors in his fingertips vanishing like a lie.
Ohoo wiped his mouth with tissue from the sink dispenser, then strode out with heavy, steady steps as if nothing had happened.
Outside the restroom, Eunbyeol and Miyang stood fidgeting, laden with heavy baskets, glaring daggers at each other.
“Ah? Master! You okay?!”
Miyang startled and scurried over as the door opened. Eunbyeol slunk behind, head bowed like a criminal, stealing glances at Ohoo.
“Um... are you alright? Earlier, I came up behind you so suddenly... seemed like it shocked your heart bad.”
She stammered an apology. Ohoo's demeanor was worlds apart from the gasping wreck moments before.
His gaze, devoid of even 1% emotional ripple, flatly scanned Eunbyeol's red hair and face. The hypnotic shield prevented any hyperventilation or heartbeat spike.
“Puked it up once, feels better.”
He replied indifferently, adjusting his knee brace.
“So. Why tail someone on the street and step on their heels? What's your business?”
Eunbyeol flinched at his direct thrust, but soon parted her pursed lips, pointing squarely at Miyang to declare her purpose boldly.
“Um... mister! Do you know the wanted villain next to you is Nyestringer?!”
“I know. And?”
“...Pardon?”
Her eyes widened. She'd expected horror from the civilian man upon the reveal—in her righteous calculus, he'd flee or call the cops.
“I know she's a villain and hang with her anyway. What's that got to do with you?”
“Y-You knew...? And you're not a hostage or anything?!”
“Hostage? No hostage gets a villain tailing their master.”
“W-Well, that's true, but...”
Miyang shrugged at Eunbyeol with a what now? smirk. Her anticipated scenario derailed, confusion clouded the girl's youthful face.
But she couldn't back down. The pager from Rapidstar burned hot in her pocket.
Clenching her fists with resolve, she bowed 90 degrees to Ohoo and Miyang.
“Um! Then... please help me out!”
As she squeezed her eyes shut, steeling for the grave plea—
Grrroooowl—!!
“...”
“...”
Eunbyeol's gut rumbled embarrassingly through the supermarket restroom hallway.
Starving after tailing without a bite, the poor apprentice's plight outing itself at the most dramatic moment.
“Ah, aaah...! N-Not that!”
Her face flushed crimson. Clutching her belly, she flailed in panic.
Ohoo pressed his forehead at the growl, a hollow chuckle escaping thanks to enforced calm.
“...Haa. No idea what you need help with.”
He gestured inside the mart.
“But let's eat first. I was hungry anyway.”
Thus, at his pragmatic suggestion, the trio lugged their baskets to the first-floor food court. They ordered three bowls of the quickest tonkotsu ramen, settling at a cramped four-seater for lunch.
Slurrrrp! Chomp chomp!
“Kuhhh... Ah, so good!”
Ramen arrived, and Eunbyeol dove in face-first, devouring noodles in a frenzy, decorum be damned. The rich pork bone broth soothed her tension and hunger from days past, drawing involuntary moans.
Ohoo, arms crossed, chopsticks untouched, coldly analyzed the girl inhaling her bowl like it was her last meal.
This is the world of the hardcore eroge, Hero Hypnosis Corruption Diary.
With emotions sidelined by hypnosis, his mind shifted to pure eroge logic, dissecting the scene.
No matter how much I've strayed from the original corruption routes to focus on Mom's revenge, the game system wouldn't toss a heroine who looks 100% like my dead mom's youth at me randomly on the street.
A blatant setup. The eroge creator planted this contrived element for some brain-melting payoff.
Right. Taboo thrill.
Ohoo's eyes gleamed coldly. A girl with his blindly loving mother's face. The near-incestuous, heinous depravity of hypnotizing and ravaging her.
Undoubtedly a grotesque setup for the original Hypno-Uncle Ohoo's final boss sin—the deepest plunge into corruption, crossing the ultimate line.
But...
Ohoo narrowed his eyes at Eunbyeol downing her broth in one go, wiping her mouth.
I haven't gone around hypnotizing indiscriminately like the original, making a mess.
In canon, Hypno-Uncle Ohoo would abuse hypnosis everywhere, leading to this encounter. So why her? Why now? Approaching first in broad daylight at Premium Mart?
The causal chain defied inference.