Her Strategy
Her Strategy
"Nngh..."
A wide, empty street. Everyone had already scattered in every direction.
There, Shin Ha-ru was locked in combat with a giant robot called the Starbuster.
[Haah, haah. Heh, big bro said you were really strong, so I was a little worried, but you're not that tough after all!]
The girl inside the Starbuster sounded slightly worn out, but she still threw out provocations as best she could.
Dodging another steel fist flying straight at her, Shin Ha-ru was thinking to herself.
'Where in the world is Egostic finding all these villains?'
It wasn't just one or two. Watching new villains keep popping up like peeling an onion, she couldn't help but wonder.
It hadn't even been a few years since Egostic announced he'd form his own Villain Alliance, and the villains he'd already unveiled were quite numerous: Electra, the Lepis Squad, even Death Knight.
And now, some girl piloting a mechanical contraption that was tough as a walking armored vehicle.
[Haah. Try attacking me for once! Why do you just keep running away?]
...And this girl, no matter how she looked at it, seemed strangely young. Her age was... hard to say. Middle school? High school, maybe?
Having made that judgment, Shin Ha-ru was once again engulfed in fury.
Was Egostic even sane, recruiting a minor and making her do villain work?
[Haah, hah! All you do is run away. You are not much, old lady!]
...That line of thought gradually fizzled out under the continuing voice.
The relentless provocations were starting to crack Shin Ha-ru's composure.
Just moments ago she had been thinking, 'Egostic must have exploited that poor child!' Now that thought had shifted: she needed to educate this impudent little brat as an adult.
...Old lady, really. Ha. What a baseless provocation.
Just how old did the girl think she was? Ha, ridiculous.
The childish taunt — the likes of which she'd never heard from any villain — served instead to fill her with fury.
But letting emotion ruin her work prematurely was the mark of an amateur.
'A first-class hero must suppress her emotions and fight with a clear head.'
"..."
Words she'd heard somewhere, once.
Reviving that old memory, she cooled her head and analyzed the situation once more.
Thoom— Thoom—
Right now, the robot kept attacking, and she was dodging — or occasionally blocking — while fighting defensively.
The girl inside the machine shouted:
[Hmph, rrah! Stop just dodging and face me!]
"..."
She was getting annoyed at Stardus for only running away and blocking.
[You dodged that too? Then how about this? Hiyah!]
For the moment, Stardus was responding defensively to observe how things played out.
Watching her do that, the girl inside the machine muttered.
[Man, even when I try fighting you, I don't get it. Why does big bro always only care about you?]
"!!!"
Shin Ha-ru flinched at the words the girl tossed out.
...He only cares about me?
Clutching her pounding heart, Shin Ha-ru turned the thought over.
The truth was, there wasn't that much information on Egostic. He was a veiled figure who always said his piece and vanished, after all.
She dodged the next incoming attack and glanced toward where Egostic was.
He sat on one of the barred cages floating in the air, chattering to the camera.
Right. Maybe this was an opportunity.
Egostic. A chance to extract information about him — information more valuable than anything.
...A chance to learn more about him, something she had always been curious about.
Having made that judgment, Stardus launched her body backward to put some distance between herself and the Starbuster, then shouted at the girl in an angry voice.
"You. Where did a villain like you even come from? Are you another one Egostic newly hired this time?"
Words delivered with feigned anger, subtly mixing in provocation to fish for information.
If this had been Electra or Death Knight, the only reply she'd have gotten would've been a 'Hmm... who knows?' or a 'Ha ha ha ha!' and that would be that.
[What! I wasn't newly hired—I have been with big bro from the very beginning!]
Bingo.
Just as expected, the girl in the robot was starting to spill everything freely.
Her insistence that she had been with him from the start—and the familiar way she referred to him—was irritating, but Stardus could use it.
Keeping up the angry front, Shin Ha-ru asked again. In the most dumbfounded voice in the world.
"What nonsense is that? Everyone already knows you aren't Egostic's first colleague. If you were a colleague from the start, what have you been doing all this time?"
[You—!]
The girl, hearing the provocation, burst with frustration and began working the robot more roughly.
The attacks pressed in far harder than before.
Dodging the fists, Stardus focused intently on the girl's words.
[I'm his first colleague! I'm the one who's handled everything behind the scenes all this time—the Broadcast Hijacking, the hacking, all of it! I am dying of frustration here, honestly!]
The girl sounded genuinely wronged.
Hearing that, Stardus raised her voice slightly, as if surprised, and asked.
"You're saying you did all that hacking? Where on earth?"
[Where else? Obviously, from the same house...]
The girl, who'd been talking excitedly up to that point, suddenly stopped mid-sentence.
Then, she whispered so quietly it was barely audible.
'...Huh? No, big bro. This much is fine, is it not? It isn't? ...Okay, hmph.'
After muttering to someone inaudibly, she raised her voice again.
[...Stop with all the pointless chatter and just fight me properly!]
With that, she sealed her lips tight and focused entirely on the fight.
'...Tch.'
Clicking her tongue inwardly while dodging, Stardus glanced back. Egostic was looking this way.
...She'd almost fallen for it completely. A shame.
But no matter.
The rest of the story, she could get once she dragged the girl to the Association.
She stopped the passive dodging she'd been doing and began summoning power back into her body.
Her momentum shifted abruptly.
At the same time,
she charged at the Starbuster again, ferociously.
[...Huh? Wait!]
Finish this fast.
That was the only thought in her mind.
***
This world is nothing but despair.
A hellish world where ceaseless malice and everything that accelerates destruction bubbles like poison in the world's foundations.
Humans try to kill humans.
Monsters try to kill humans.
Even gods try to kill humans — that kind of horrific world.
...Which, of course, I was working hard to prevent.
One by one, I'd been steadily eliminating every path that led to annihilation.
Though who knew how long I could keep it up?
Even meeting Stardus like that and laughing while staging terrorist attacks might not have lasted much longer.
'...Well, it's probably a little early to be worrying about that.'
Things are still peaceful for now.
Countless citizens haven't died in droves like ants, and Seoul hasn't been reduced to ruins, starting the decline of South Korea's national fortunes.
"...Not bad."
I muttered that to myself.
Yeah. The world's peace was holding. Though it was all thanks to me.
It was nice that the world was peaceful.
The problem was that it had grown so peaceful that society by then fawned over a villain like me.
"...Not bad. Not bad weather, that is. Perfect weather to kill you, in fact!"
"Eeeeeeek!"
I was sitting cross-legged on the iron bars, brandishing a gun and shouting that at the person below me. Smiling.
A woman trembling, shivering, hiding in the corner.
Yeah, her reactions were fantastic. The reason I'd chosen to sit above this particular cage in the first place was because she'd had the biggest reaction earlier. A reaction goldmine. Nice.
Anyway, having forcibly stuffed a disarmed civilian into a cage and threatened to kill her with a gun while smiling, I casually glanced at the chat window. By now people should be terrified, furious, cursing me out, right?
[Kehahaha, Mangostic actually acting like a villain for the first time in a while lol]
[Anyone wish they were trapped in that cage instead, drop a like lol]
[I want to see Egostic smile sexily while pointing a gun at me and threatening me too T_T I am so jealous T_T]
[When Mango does villain stuff he's kind of cute... hah. Is this what they call gap moe?]
[I'm in a taxi right now, if I rush over there will you put me in a cage too?]
...Wrong. These people are insane.
Please. Just one person, please curse me out.
Had my fan-cafe regulars rented out the entire chat? Was that what was happening?
Thinking that, I turned my head again to watch the fight between Stardus and the Starbuster.
Seo-eun was still pushing Stardus, and Stardus was still scrambling to dodge the Starbuster's attacks.
...Stardus could not even handle this much with her current abilities? What was going on?
Eun-wol and I had been on standby to rescue Seo-eun because we assumed her Starbuster would get wrecked quickly, but the fight was taking longer than expected. Was Stardus just off her game today?
Well, that's actually better for me. Time to keep up the Villainous Deeds Project.
I aimed the gun at the still-trembling woman and spoke to her with a smile.
"Now then, Ms. A, whose name I don't know, I have a question for you."
"Eeeeeeek!"
"Get this right and I'll let you go. How about it — nice, right? Hurry up and say it's nice!"
"Eeek, it's nice, it's niiiice!"
"Yes, yes. Lovely. Here's the question. What is the date of my very first terrorist attack?"
I said that and grinned.
Yeah. Villainous Deeds Project, Number Two: Ask a question they can never answer. Toying with a hostage who keeps failing to respond — truly the behavior of a psychopathic villain.
Just as I was about to taunt her for not knowing, a small voice came from inside the cage.
"...April. April... the seventeenth."
She answered in a trembling voice.
And that date.
It was correct.
...How the hell did she know that? Did she guess?
My brain short-circuited for a second. I turned my head and stared at her. Just what kind of woman was this?
Still shivering, she met my eyes, then ducked her head deep. Her cheeks, unlike before, were faintly flushed.
"...Eeeek."
And a scream that somehow had way less effort behind it than before.
...Alright. Let's stop investigating. Because this feels extremely unsettling.
"...Sadly, you're incorrect! So you don't get out. I'm afraid you'll still be staying in here. Ha ha ha ha!"
[??? Wasn't April 17th right?]
[Yeah, it's right. The wiki lists 4/17 as the day of the first ship terrorist attack.]
[Wait, it's right, why's he gaslighting her lol]
[Hold on, how did that woman even know that!!!]
[Wtf is she a Mangostic fan too? lol]
I clenched my teeth and ignored the chat window.
I know nothing.
Ending the hostage exchange that had left nothing but an unsettling feeling, I looked back toward the fight between Stardus and Seo-eun.
And there it was.
[I'm! The first! Colleague! I'm the one who's been doing all the Broadcast Hijacking and hacking and everything from behind the scenes! I'm dying of frustration here, honestly!]
There was Seo-eun, freely spilling information to Stardus.
...Seo-eun, please.
"You're saying you did all that hacking? Where on earth?"
[Where else? Obviously, from the same house...]
Just as Seo-eun was about to broadcast our internal affairs to the world, I urgently muted the broadcast and whispered to Seo-eun through the connected earpiece.
"Hey! St... Starbuster, why are you blabbing so much? Stop talking!"
Seo-eun, having heard me, stopped snapping at Stardus and whispered back through the earpiece connected to me.
"...Huh? No, big bro. This much is fine, is it not?"
"No, it isn't fine."
"It isn't?... Okay, hmph."
Seo-eun answered in a slightly deflated voice.
I felt a little bad, but it couldn't be helped. Shin Ha-ru was way too sharp. Some information control was necessary.
With that, Seo-eun sealed her lips as I'd requested and focused on the fight.
Having failed to extract any more information, Stardus suddenly began pounding the Starbuster as though she had never been on the back foot.
...I knew she'd do that.
"Eun... Moonlight Priestess, Moonlight Priestess, respond. I think it's about time we stepped in."
[Yes, big bro. Understood!]
Listening to Eun-wol's spirited voice through the other receiver, I began loosening up my arms and preparing to enter the fray.
Preparing to rush in and rescue Seo-eun right before she got wrecked.
Ah, tough. This is tough.