The Weight of a Hero’s Burden
Rank F Hero (2) — For the first time in her life, she faced the flow of energy coursing through her body. Swoosh. When her fingertips brushed against the ground, the sensation that traveled up her arm wasn't the cold, hard reality of a junkyard’s concrete floor, but something that rippled like rubber. "...Huh?"
It wasn't her own body, but the external object her hand touched that had been imbued with Elasticity. Although the repulsive force was incredibly weak, Triple Power, who had been well-versed in mechanical engineering and mechanics theory back at the academy, immediately deduced a hypothesis. 'If I can imbue a solid with elasticity... then what about the gas particles floating in the air?'
Even with the villains closing in, she was drawn by instinctive curiosity and threw a punch into the empty air. As she imbued the air particles around her with a faint elasticity, her fist struck an invisible wall of air, and the law of action and reaction caused her fist to bounce right off. "...?!"
For the first time in her life, she understood her ability. 'Ah... so this was it.' Back in her academy days, her martial arts were abysmal because whenever she got excited, her entire body would become elastic, making her bounce around uncontrollably. But before that bouncing started, she had clearly been moving her body violently. She had been stepping. She had been trading blows. Every time, the external impact energy generated was being stored inside her body by her Elasticity ability. And when that massive, uncontrolled energy transferred to her legs and exploded all at once, her stance would collapse, and she would inevitably be sent flying.
'If that’s the case, what if I intentionally control and release this stored energy? What if I imbue the air with elasticity to use as a foothold, or pour the energy stored in my body directly into the enemy?' She finally realized that a bottomless mechanism for converting physical impact energy into destructive power had been hidden within her all along. She had finally grasped the true potential of the ability that would one day grow her into an A-rank hero.
"Is that bitch crazy? Why is she suddenly hitting the floor?"
Triple Power glared at the approaching villains and began to slam both hands into the ground. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Every time she struck the floor, the impact energy began to accumulate in her body. And the moment the villains surged forward to overwhelm her, she shouted, "Hyaaaah!"
She released the stored energy through her toes and vaulted into the air. "W-what?!" She had imbued the air with elasticity to create a transparent foothold. Kicking off the air, she bounced away, flying in every direction like a pinball. She drew a random trajectory that the eye could never hope to follow. Thwack! Crunch!
"Gyaaaah!"
"W-what the hell, why is this bitch acting like this!"
Every time she bounced off a surface and landed a blow loaded with accumulated kinetic energy, the armed villains collapsed one after another. 'I... I finally...!' Her body trembled with the thrill of battle and a power she had never felt before. However, due to her complete lack of real-world combat experience, there were errors in her ability's duration and trajectory calculations. The moment she drove a full-power strike into the chest of the boss, the bear-beastkin Kuma:
Thwack—!
"......!"
Even though the strike was loaded with elastic energy, Kuma didn't even budge; he took the attack head-on, absorbing it with his thick bear muscles and layers of fat. "I enjoyed the gymnastics. You rat-like bitch." Kuma’s massive arms seized her waist, locking her into a bear hug. Crack.
"Aaaaaah!" The pressure, as if her bones were being crushed, constricted her very breath. "Now die." The moment Kuma squeezed his grip, intending to snap Triple Power in half:
KRAAAAAAASH—!!!!
With a massive roar from beneath the earth, the concrete floor surged upward like a volcano. "KRAAAAAAAAGH—!!!" A drill, piercing through the ground, surged upward, mercilessly grinding Kuma—who had been holding Triple Power—from his crotch all the way to the top of his head in a single stroke. As blood and flesh were kneaded into a paste by the rotational force, the remains of the bear-beastkin slumped to the floor, and a man wearing gloves caught Triple Power in his arms.
"Mr. Hoseob..."
The regular customer she had relied on most, the one who would grumble while repairing her suit in the workshop. The only sturdy protector who had occupied a deep place in her heart. The A-rank hero of South Korea, Triple Axel.
"W-what the fuck! What is that guy!"
As their boss was instantly turned into a pulp of flesh, the remaining armed villains backed away. Triple Axel shook the blood off the drill on his right arm and scanned the remaining stragglers. "You guys, want a pro-tip?"
Vrrrrm—! The drill began to rotate at high speed again. "In a situation like this, where the higher-ups haven't authorized a deployment, they have no way of knowing whether we keep you bastards alive or kill you. Anyway, it’s common for villains in this business to die while fighting over their own rice bowls." A smile spread across Triple Axel’s lips. "So, if I grind you all into meat paste and leave? I don't have to deal with the headache of disciplinary action for excessive force or writing incident reports. I just get a little nagging from headquarters for being out of contact during patrol, and it ends cleanly."
"H-he's a crazy hero! R-run!"
"Get lost."
Triple Axel charged without hesitation. He suppressed the scene by turning the fleeing armed villains into the same meat paste as Kuma. "Well, I’m the only one who turns them into paste like this, though." After wiping out all the enemies, Triple Axel exhaled and turned around. He strode toward Triple Power, who had collapsed on the floor, and let out a roar.
"Hey, you foolish girl!!!"
Triple Axel’s shout rang out thunderously. "I was shocked because my exclusive equipment maker, whom I’d already staked my claim on to recruit, suddenly disappeared from the workshop without a word!" He grabbed her shoulders tightly and scolded her with a voice strained by rage. "Why the hell did you do this without saying anything! Why did you crawl out to the field to die a dog's death! Why!!"
The moment she heard that fiery scolding and rough concern, the resentment and inferiority complex that had piled up in Triple Power’s heart, along with the guilt over her comrades' deaths, came pouring out. "Hic... Waaaaah!" Wearing a suit that was smashed to pieces, she threw herself into Triple Axel’s large embrace and burst into sorrowful tears.
"I also... sob, I also...!" she cried out like a child, her face smeared with tears. "I also... instead of just hiding in the back... like my friends, like you, sir... I wanted to become a real hero who saves people...!"
It was miserable because it was reckless. It was an act of bravado that didn't know its own limits. Yet, it was a sincerity that hadn't changed for a single moment.
Whoosh—!
"Haa... haa..." Triple Power gasped for air. Rainwater streamed down her face incessantly, but she couldn't even tell if it was the rain falling from the sky or the hot tears pouring from her own eyes. That night, thanks to Mr. Hoseob—Triple Axel—she had dramatically saved her life. Following him, she had undergone training under the protection of an A-rank hero and finally managed to properly bloom her ability. She had eventually become a member of Triple A, the number one performance crew in South Korea, and had been reborn as a proper A-rank hero, Triple Power, reaching the position of hero she had longed for so much.
But she couldn't do it anymore. The man had left. Could she stand alone without him? Back in her academy days, her most brilliant and righteous peers had all turned into a handful of dirt in cold graves. And she, the F-rank underachiever who had been the most pathetic and useless, the one who hid in the back and only felt inferiority—she had somehow survived and worn the A-rank badge, but even Mr. Hoseob, the only world and protector who had saved her, had left.
And now, in the middle of this vast ocean, she was trapped in a ridiculous tube balloon, unable to move a muscle, barely clinging to life while getting struck by lightning and gasping for help. 'In the end... I still haven't become an adult.'
"Hic... sob..." Triple Power swallowed rainwater and muttered bitterly to herself. Ever since she was taken in by Triple Axel that day, she had never once performed hero activities on her own. She had only ever followed the safe path paved by her senior, who would open the way with his drill, and provided support. She was still a child hiding in her senior's shadow. She hadn't taken a single step away from being that pathetic, useless F-rank underachiever.
Above all, the reason she had been so obsessed with and settled for the fence of the Triple A crew was because it was a place overwhelmingly strong enough that no one would die. Not to mention Triple Axel’s martial prowess, even Triple Crown, who had a rotten personality and was a destruction maniac, was never the type to go anywhere and die. Having lost her academy peers, Triple Power never wanted to experience the death of someone precious to her again. That was why she had hidden by the side of the strongest, covering her own eyes and ignoring reality. And now, the moment Triple Axel left, she couldn't do anything, getting struck by lightning and drifting with a tube attached to her. Even to herself, she looked like a total idiot.
Shuaaaaang—!
"...?"
A strange sound came from across the sky, where dark clouds and rainstorms were raging. Triple Power managed to open her eyes and look in the direction of the sound. Someone was flying through the heavy rain. There were two of them. A woman was clinging tightly to a man’s waist, and the large man was desperately reaching out one hand toward her. Triple Power’s vision barely managed to capture their faces.
'They're just kids...?!' They were kids who might even be younger than the academy peers who had died before her. They were Ohu and Eunbyul, who had been thrown hundreds of meters across the sea by Triple Crown, who had transformed into a 15-meter giant at the breakwater.
"W-what?! Those brats!"
Those kids were heading exactly toward the middle of the ocean where she was floating.
Shuaaaaaaack—!!
"Aaaaaaaah—!!" Eunbyul’s scream scattered into the air amidst the downpour. Thrown by the giant’s ignorant strength, their bodies were flying in a parabola toward the middle of the sea at a terrifying speed, piercing through the wind’s resistance. Ohu, held tightly in Eunbyul’s arms, endured the biting rain with his bare eyes and stared intensely at the tube floating on the water’s surface. 'With the dynamic vision of my Acceleration state, I can catch it!'
But the world didn't work so easily. No matter how precisely the giant Triple Crown had controlled his strength, it was at the level of an outfielder throwing a fly ball far toward the catcher, so they were flying toward a general location. And as the resistance of the wind and rain mixed in, a fatal error began to occur.
"The trajectory is off!" Ohu’s eyes widened. He realized that the path they were flying on would soar far above the air where Triple Power was floating. If they passed Triple Power at this speed and crashed into the sea, they would never be able to approach that tube again amidst the endless waves.
"Reach out your hand!! Reach out your hand right now!!!" Ohu screamed desperately toward Triple Power. He stretched his right hand down like a madman to close the distance even a little.
"I-I don't have a hand to reach out with!!!" Triple Power shouted back, weeping. Her arms and legs were tightly wrapped in the survival tube, which had been forcibly inflated for safety, so she couldn't pull them out.
"Haaaaaaah!" Ohu twisted his waist in mid-air to somehow correct the trajectory, forcing his upper body to bend downward. The moment his body brushed over the tube, he intended to grab the surface of the tube with his fingers to apply the brakes. Then Eunbyul’s Flight ability would stop them.
Ohu’s fingers touched the round surface of the tube. Swoosh.'Got it.'
But—
Screeeech—!
"......!"
The lifebuoy restraining Triple Power was soaked with rainwater and seawater. Moreover, the special material made for survival had low friction, so Ohu’s fingers couldn't grip the tube’s surface. Slippery! He slid right off, pointlessly. The sensation of the tube slipped futilely from his fingertips.
"Oh." A short sigh escaped Ohu’s lips. And—
"Kyaaaaaaah—!!"
Ohu and Eunbyul’s bodies flew right over Triple Power’s head and crashed into the sea. Splash—!!! With a spray of water, the two children’s bodies disappeared into the waves in an instant.
"......!!"
Watching that futile sight from right below, Triple Power’s eyes rolled back. 'They were trying to save me... and innocent kids fell into the sea!'
The one year she had spent as a suit maker after graduating from the academy. The peers who had returned as corpses, half of them within just one year of going out into the field. The remnants of their suits, returned to the workshop torn and caked with blood and guts, flashed through her mind. Back then, she had been so pathetic and incompetent that she had holed herself up in the safe workshop, unable to even watch them die. She had only been able to hold onto the damaged equipment and wail helplessly.
But now. Young children, around the same age as her dead peers, who had jumped in to save her, were crashing into the sea and dying right before her eyes.
"No! No, please! I have to save them! I have to save them!!" Triple Power screamed like a madwoman. But her entire body was wedged tightly in the tube, and she couldn't move a single finger. She couldn't even jump into the water.
'Please, please burst! You damn tube!!' Triple Power twisted and bent her head forcibly, beginning to bite down on the taut surface of the tube that had inflated up to her chin. Even if it meant bursting her only lifeline, she had to get out and save those kids.
"Ughhh! Grrrgh!"
But this tube was none other than one Triple Power herself had designed. It was made of the same ultra-high-strength special material used in the giant Triple Crown’s sturdy suit. It wouldn't even tear with a decent blade. Triple Power chewed and tore at the tube with her fangs until her gums bled and her teeth shook.
"Burst! Burst, please!!"
Grind! Screech!
After a desperate struggle, her fangs finally pierced the outer surface of the tube, tearing a small hole. Hiss—! The sound of compressed air escaping through the hole began to be heard. But—
The speed at which the air was escaping was far too slow. 'No... at this rate, while I wait for the air to empty, those kids will sink and drown. It's too late, it's too late!'
As soon as Mr. Hoseob abandoned her and left, someone was dying because of her again. She was losing people again, helplessly, without being able to do anything. Just as Triple Power was about to bury her face in the tube and burst into tears, crushed by helplessness and self-loathing:
Clunk—!!
"......?!"
Something struck the bottom of the tube hard from below. At the impact, the tube floating on the water’s surface swayed and jolted slightly into the air. It was a vibration too similar to the time when she had stood on the threshold of death, when Triple Axel had pierced the concrete floor, surged upward, and saved her by grinding the boss Kuma’s crotch.
Fwoooooosh—!!!
"Khaaaaaa—!!"
As the seawater surged, Ohu, holding Eunbyul tightly in one arm, burst above the water’s surface, drenched. Ohu gripped the edge of the tube, which had started to wrinkle as the air escaped, with a desperate, crushing grip and hung on.