C-Rank Villain: Deogi (4)
"Grraaaaaah—!"
Deogi roared like a mad beast, charging forward and destroying everything in his path. Every time his claws slashed at whatever blocked him, there came the wet thunk—crack—of flesh tearing and bones shattering.
The old street vendor selling drinks from her cart in front of a food stall—her body was bisected with a single graze from his claws. "Guhk..." Her guts spilled onto the pavement with a sickening splat. "Guh... guh..." Her severed upper half still blinked, hands flailing weakly.
The drunken middle-aged man crossing the street slammed into Deogi's shoulder with a crunch—his bones splintering as he flew a dozen meters before crashing into a lamppost. "Ugh..." His spine snapped, blood spewing from his mouth as he convulsed.
And then.
"There it is! Fire!!"
The gang members from Bupyeong's back alleys, furious after chasing Deogi, pursued him madly with crude, illegally modified homemade guns clutched in both hands. Bang!Bang!Rat-tat-tat!
The problem was, it was midnight. Their muzzles weren't aimed solely at the villain Deogi. In their frenzy, without proper aim, they sprayed blind bullets even at the cluster of civilians blocking the escape route.
"Kyaaaaah!"
"Get down! Everyone, get down!"
Bullets ricocheted off the plaza's pavement and pillars, spraying shards. A fleeing woman took one in the calf and tumbled. Thud! "Kyaaaaah—!!" The round tore through, flesh bursting out with a pop.
And over her. Squish. The gang members trampled her mercilessly as they passed.
"Guhh..." Bang!Bang! Another bullet punched through a homeless man's chest and shoulder in succession. "Ugh, uwaaa...! It hurts... it huuuurts—!" He begged anyone nearby, but crunch—someone fleeing accidentally stomped his head. His skull caved in with a resounding crack.
Every time Deogi tore through civilians, trampling and hurling them aside to clear his path, the gang's stray bullets burrowed into the survivors' flesh, spraying blood, chunks of meat, and bone fragments everywhere.
"Fuck... those crazy bastards."
Ohoo clenched his teeth, watching the carnage from inside the car. Even in a world where villains and heroes clashed, he'd never witnessed such indiscriminate slaughter using civilians as shields.
"Ahh... ahh..."
Han Eunbyeol's legs began trembling again. The courage and confidence she'd mustered moments ago in the car crumbled like a sandcastle before the raw horror of real combat—flesh exploding, blood geysering.
This wasn't a training arena. Mistakes here didn't mean bruises; they meant bullets through the heart, guts spilled by claws.
"Grraaaaaah!"
At that moment, Deogi—spraying blood as he crossed the plaza—smashed through the thick glass doors of Bupyeong Station's Exit 1 with his body. Crash! He plunged into the station interior.
Glass shards rained down as Deogi vanished into the dark station.
"Don't let it escape! You fuckers, kill everyone inside if you have to—find it!"
The dozen armed gang members chasing him poured into the station after, gripping bloody knives and guns.
"......!!"
And in the abandoned Bupyeong Station plaza.
Shattered glass and spent casings littered the concrete. Dozens of civilians who hadn't escaped lay bleeding and moaning.
Food carts were smashed, tables overturned. The ground was slick with blood, flesh, sweat, and tears, blurred into a hazy puddle.
And above all.
"It's gone into the station...!"
Deogi and the armed gang's slaughter had fully shifted into the Bupyeong Station Underground Mall—now a residential zone.
"......Master."
Miyang turned to Ohoo in the pickup truck. Han Eunbyeol, pale as a ghost, stared alternately at the station entrance and the bleeding civilians, fists clenched and trembling.
'Neither's in their right mind. If I leave them like this, they're dead.'
Ohoo quickly pulled out his smartphone from his pocket. What they needed now wasn't heroic courage—it was cold rationality for survival.
But erasing fear entirely would backfire. The fearless turned reckless, and recklessness led straight to death.
Ohoo swiftly opened the Hypnosis App input screen and typed a command to implant in their minds.
> 【 Command: Suppress panic and reckless impulses. Maintain appropriate vigilance, but keep your mind ice-cold with rationality. 】
Tap, tap. Fwoosh! In a dark corner of the plaza, a silent purple flash burst, brushing their retinas.
"......!"
"......Nyang?"
The moment the flash hit, Han Eunbyeol's hyperventilating gasps magically steadied into calm, rhythmic breaths.
Ohoo pocketed his phone and drew a firm line with a heavy voice. "Don't push it."
His words echoed across the plaza.
"Our goal from here isn't capturing Deogi. The second we go underground, it's out of our hands."
Ohoo gestured to the bleeding civilians in the plaza.
"Deogi's capture is off the table. What's happening inside is just the Bupyeong back-alley gangs fighting it out. We focus on evacuating civilians outside and moving the wounded to safety."
Park Ayoung stepped out of the pickup truck's driver's seat, adjusting her bulletproof vest, and backed him up. "Ohoo's right. Our top priority is civilian evacuation and scene preservation. Minimizing damage in this plaza until backup arrives will prove Unmarked's stellar debut."
Overwhelming firepower gap. Aspiring heroes' safety. Ohoo pivoted the op to rescue over combat, factoring both.
"......Got it, Master. I'll do as you say."
Miyang nodded, rationality restored by the hypnosis. Han Eunbyeol nodded silently too. Her mind was brutally cold now; the terror that had bound her legs felt distant, like someone else's emotion. Only efficient circuits for safely moving the wounded whirred at full speed.
Bang!Bang!Rat-tat-tat! Gunfire echoed from the underground mall as Han Eunbyeol and Miyang sprang into action.
"This way! Grab my shoulder!"
Han Eunbyeol supported a middle-aged man hit by debris, hauling him to safety behind the pickup truck. Miyang dragged the injured one by one behind the fence.
Blood reeked, but Han Eunbyeol didn't gag. Broken bones and burst flesh left her expression blank. She moved with calculated precision, staunching blood, saving lives.
'Once this is over safely...'
While tying a tourniquet with bloodied cloth, Han Eunbyeol pictured her shining future as a full hero: cheers from crowds, confident interviews before cameras. Becoming the true hero carrying Shooting Star's legacy.
'Grandma should've seen this...'
A faint smile touched her lips, even under the hypnosis's chill.
But.
'......Huh?'
At the smile's edge, she sensed something off. Hands busy laying wounded down, but her rational circuits flagged a fatal contradiction.
'Wait. This is Bupyeong's immigrant quarantine zone...'
Her gaze shifted to the ragged illegal immigrants and ex-cons she'd treated—no IDs, nothing.
'Will... ambulances even come here?'
She'd called for backup, but in this lawless slum ignored by government and police—who waited outside the cordon—would official paramedics arrive in time to save these nameless souls?
'......Something's wrong.'
Unease bubbled as she tied another tourniquet. She was saving people, fulfilling a hero's role. Yet no heartbeat. No fear. No sorrow. No swelling passion of duty. Just a robot following protocol.
Calmly aiding evacuation, Han Eunbyeol spotted a woman clutching her gut beside a collapsed stall, blood pooling. She approached.
"Are you okay? I'll staunch it—just hold on."
As she tore her hoodie to press the wound.
"Hurk... haa... are you..."
The woman, moaning in agony and vomiting blood, reached with trembling hands, desperately grabbing Han Eunbyeol's collar.
"Are you... a hero...?"
Han Eunbyeol froze. Hero. She was just an unlicensed trainee in shabby sweats.
But to reassure the bleeding woman—and justify her own actions—she nodded slowly.
"Yes. That's right. So don't worry."
At those words.
"R-really?"
Tears poured from the woman's eyes. She clutched Han Eunbyeol's sleeve like a lifeline, wailing through bloodied lips.
"Save me! Hero... please, please!"
Her blood-smeared finger pointed to the underground mall entrance, endless gunfire and screams echoing.
"In that mall... my child's there! My seven-year-old daughter...!"
"......What? Your kid's inside?"
"I... I was vending late outside, left her alone in our one-room under the stairs...! That monster and those armed freaks rushed in there—my baby's in there... waaaaah!"
Han Eunbyeol's pupils quivered. Bupyeong's underground mall, untouched by government control for decades, was a maze of converted shuttered shops into immigrant and slum housing. And in that labyrinth right now, countless elderly and children...
Exposed defenseless to the gang's stray bullets and the rampaging mutant villain's claws.
Rat-tat-tat! "Kyaaaaah—!!"
A child's piercing scream and gunfire erupted to the surface.
"My baby... save my baby... you're heroes... you heroes are...!"
The woman sobbed, clutching Han Eunbyeol's pant leg, tears of blood streaming.
Thump.
Deep in Han Eunbyeol's heart, suppressed by Ohoo's Hypnosis App.
Thump.
A crack shattered the veil of cold reason.
Thump.
Han Eunbyeol slowly turned to the underground mall entrance. Gunfire still raged. A death trap the moment you entered.
'No. Go in and you die. Wait for backup.'
The hypnosis-laid cold logic hammered safe, rational answers into her brain.
But.
'But...'
Beyond that logic, her idol's silhouette from childhood TV flickered. When all shook their heads as impossible. Diving fearlessly into flames in yellow-and-red costume. No calculations of odds or gains—just hurling herself when someone cried for help. The true hero, Shooting Star, hammered Han Eunbyeol's heart.
Just evacuate outside. The plan said so.
But.
'Am I...'
Frail lives trapped in that deathtrap right now.
'...a hero?'
A hero's core duty. The essence she'd cherished turned her head toward the gunfire.
"Haa... haa..."
Han Eunbyeol gently pried the woman's hand free and rose slowly.
And as if entranced. Step. Drawn by something. Step. She moved toward the gunfire-riddled underground mall entrance.
Even as hypnosis weighed her ankles.
"Hey! Han Eunbyeol!"
A hand seized her forearm viciously.
"Where the hell you going? You nuts?!"
Ohoo. Spotting her sudden move, he'd rushed over and yanked her back hard.
"Let go... let me go!"
"Snap out of it! I said that's not our place! Don't push it. Just rest!"
Ohoo dragged the struggling Han Eunbyeol toward the pickup truck, pulling out his smartphone. The hypnosis was destabilizing, clashing. Left like this, this reckless trainee would charge underground as a bullet sponge.
'No. Gotta knock her out.'
Ohoo activated the purple swirl on screen, shoving it toward her eyes to input a new command. Stronger control to fully sedate or bind her feet...
Grip.
"......!"
The instant he thrust the phone, Han Eunbyeol grabbed his hand with her free one.
"......Han Eunbyeol."
The hypnosis hadn't broken. Her face remained coldly composed from its remnants.
Indeed. Her brain coldly recognized how stupid—suicidal, low survival odds—rushing into that mall was.
Thus. She realized bone-deep.
Avoiding unwinnable fights. Safely evacuating outside for camera-friendly shots, scheming tomorrow's portal headlines.
Under that thorough calculus, cherry-picking safe tasks. Her current self was a far cry from the Shooting Star she'd idolized—a fake.
"Haa... hngk..."
Her mind ice-cold and rational. Yet hot tears poured uncontrollably from her eyes.
Cognitive dissonance from soul-rejecting logic. Amid it, Han Eunbyeol—face tear-streaked—turned to Ohoo.
Then to Park Ayoung and Miyang controlling the scene by the truck.
Hiding vests for media play. Scripting narratives. Weighing profits. Clearly goodwill toward her. Grateful. Acting for her sake.
And she'd joined, tapping the calculator too. To reach her dream.
But.
Han Eunbyeol's trembling lips parted.
"Mister..."
In the blood-soaked chaos's din.
Her thin voice stabbed Ohoo's heart like a dagger.
"Right now..."
Tears dripped from her chin.
"Right now... do I seem... like a hero?"
"......!!"
'Just like...'
Ohoo's grip on her arm slackened.
'...Mom.'
Calculated planning to become a hero. Amid it, this mom-like trainee confronted him head-on: what was a true hero's mindset?
Ohoo couldn't reply easily. That gut-punch question overlapped with his real hero mom—diving into death's jaws to save others—mirroring in his eyes.
Midnight. Her red-dyed hair, faded, mimicking that mother. Yet in Ohoo's eyes, vividly crimson.
Rat-tat-tat! "Kyaaaaah—!!"
Another scream from underground.
But Ohoo and Unmarked stood frozen, unable to tear eyes from Han Eunbyeol's tearful face, weeping endlessly.
In the cold, wretched Bupyeong Station plaza.
Only the heavy echo of her question lingered in the darkness.