Seeds of Doubt
Seeds of Doubt
[...So while Egostic is stalling for time, move out. Understood?]
After her call with the Association President, she was already flying.
She had received Perception Inhibition.
She had made the round trip as quickly as possible, so she could not say that much time had been lost.
Even so, without Egostic, the incident could easily have produced hundreds more casualties by now.
"Huff, huff..."
She flew dozens—perhaps hundreds—of kilometers across the sky.
Afraid that she was too late and everything had already ended, she continued to fly.
The in-ear monitor connecting her to Association staff had become inaudible in the wind generated by her speed. She could not slow down. Who knew how many more people would be hurt during even a brief hesitation?
By the time she arrived at the villain's rampage site—
The villain was already down.
Nearby, someone was calmly picking up a discarded firearm from the ground and putting it into a bag.
It was Egostic, the man occupying the largest share of her thoughts these days.
"Huff... huff..."
She turned her head to assess the situation.
A massive figure, crocodile-faced, was collapsed on the ground.
Green smoke drifted around the crocodilian monster, while Egostic wore a gas mask. It appeared that he'd used some kind of biochemical weapon to subdue him.
Where the hell did he even get something like that, and what made him think of handling it that way?
Swallowing her burgeoning questions, she simply confirmed the fact with him once more.
"...You're the one who took him down?"
"Yes, that's correct. I took him down."
His nonchalant answer made her brow furrow. She couldn't understand. Why had he suddenly appeared and taken down that crocodilian monster? What did an action like that mean to him?
Condensing all those questions, she could only ask this:
"...Why?"
Egostic began answering smoothly, as though he had prepared the explanation in advance.
"Well, I was just relaxing at home when the broadcast suddenly showed some thug causing a scene. He was calling for Stardus and everything, so I cracked open some popcorn, thinking, 'Wow, our Star has gotten popular lately~.' Then, wouldn't you know it, he mentioned me."
The thug called for Egostic?
Perhaps she had missed it because she had immediately left the scene with Chae-hyun, Shin Ha-ru thought. Egostic continued.
"Apparently you and I were busy sucking face or something. That annoyed me. What had I even done?"
Her face also twisted into a frown.
What? Me and him, sucking face? It was ridiculous slander. We were enemies to begin with.
...Yet when Egostic said that it had annoyed him too, she felt strangely displeased. Something about that bothered her.
"And according to my personal dictionary, anyone who plays games with my name needs a little education. I figured I would make an example of him, so I played with him for a while."
So that was the main reason after all.
Unknowingly, her expression relaxed.
Right. If it's that lunatic, he'd totally do that.
Everything he'd shown so far had been impulsive and destructive.
It seemed that a weaker man invoking his name had angered Egostic enough to kill him.
Right as she resolved all her questions—
He suddenly manipulated the cameras filming them with telekinesis, turned his back on them, and stood facing her.
Then, in a small voice directed at her:
"...And since the audio is muted, I'll tell you this: never even think about going out there with your face exposed like you considered doing today. The moment you do, your life will become extremely difficult."
What?
She was completely caught off guard.
How do you know I was thinking that?
Her brain froze for a second, but Egostic was already waving his hand at the camera.
"Alright! That is all for today's broadcast. I had to rush out without any plans, so I'm exhausted. Something big is coming next month, so look forward to that. Until next time. Bye~."
Wait, something big next month?
No, before that—how the hell did he know what she'd been thinking earlier?
"Hold it!"
Before she could question him, he had already vanished.
And just like that, the rooftop was emptied, save for the crocodile monster lying unconscious beside her.
"...What the hell."
***
A few days after that.
The public quickly forgot about the incident.
Within the Association, the incident ended with disciplinary action against the B- and C-rank heroes who had been able to deploy but failed to do so.
"Hah. Really, if that bastard Egostic hadn't shown up, we'd have been in serious trouble. He's a mad dog, I tell you, a mad dog. If a mad dog bites us it's big trouble, but when he charges at our enemies, there's no one sturdier! Haha."
Leaving the easygoing Association President's hearty laugh behind, she walked out of the office.
"Phew..."
All her reports done, she stepped outside the building and sighed, staring up at the sky.
It was a good thing. A good thing, but—
Why was her mind such a mess?
Walking down the street, she pulled up her university's online community on her phone.
In the community search bar, she typed it in, letter by letter.
[Egostic]
Hardly any posts showed up.
Confused, she thought for a moment, then tried a different search.
[Mangostic]
Posts sprang up one after another.
*
[Mangostic! Mangostic! Mangostic!]
[Idk why but I'm really craving Mangostic today]
[A baby Mangostic fan just joined the fandom... can this make the hot page?]
[Looking at it now, Mangostic's way better than most heroes fr lol]
[Mangostic seems to be from our university (proof included)]
[When I praised Mangostic before, I got a 1-month ban for "supporting a villain" and now suddenly nobody cares wtf lmaooo]
[Mangostic next-month terrorist attack prediction... real fact]
*
The flood of posts consisted solely of praise for Egostic.
As she scrolled through the posts with mixed feelings, one caught her attention.
[Nowadays everyone's yapping Mangostic-this Mangostic-that and mindlessly sucking up to a villain... if Korea keeps going like this...]
Yes, so there are people here too who, like me, have identified a problem with the current state of society.
Hopeful, she clicked the post.
The body of the post that appeared:
***
[Author]Anonymous
[Title]Nowadays everyone's yapping Mangostic-this Mangostic-that and mindlessly sucking up to a villain... if Korea keeps going like this...
Rider
(meme image of Masked Rider reaching out a hand)
[Anonymous1]Like if your prediction came true
↳ [Anonymous2] If you hate like-begging, leave a like here
***
"Oh, come on."
She just hit the back button.
Having found nothing useful, she turned off her phone, rested her chin on her hand, and watched the scenery race past the window.
...Everyone except her seemed to like Egostic.
Where exactly did it all start going wrong?
'...Didn't that bastard not cause a single casualty, at least? On top of that, the bastard Egostic's been hunting other villains lately, so crime rates have gone down too. Let's just leave him be for now. He's a teleporter anyway, so he's hard to catch...'
'What? What if he incites another terrorist attack? Haha, well at that point, can't you just stop him again? I'm putting my faith solely in you. The Association trusts you.'
...The Association President's words kept swirling in her head.
If even the head of the Korean Association of Superpowered Individuals spoke like that, Egostic truly might be harmless.
Yet everything he had shown so far made him the embodiment of unpredictability.
Truthfully, if she hadn't stopped him, the people on that ship, and the people tied to those train tracks, would all be dead.
If someone had actually died because of Egostic, would people still be praising him like this?
"..."
Right. There was no way they would.
She leaned her face against the window and shut her eyes.
How had Egostic known she was considering revealing her face and intervening?
Did he read her mind? Like a telepath?
No, there's no way. He wouldn't have an ability like that.
Then how did he know? Could he tell that she was there at the festival?
How could he know? Did that mean he knew my identity too—that I was Shin Ha-ru?
"..."
Right. None of that matters.
What mattered was that Egostic was unquestionably a villain, and she would arrest him just like any other villain.
She steeled herself once more.
Yet unbeknownst to her, a seed had been planted in her heart.
A seed of doubt: that maybe everyone else was right, and she was wrong.
***
"...Big sis Soo-bin, he still hasn't woken up?"
"Yeah. But his vitals have come way back to normal. Looks like he'll wake up soon."
"Haa... Seriously, what is that idiot big bro of mine relying on, pushing his body this recklessly...?"
Egostic. Han Seo-eun leaned against the bed where Dain lay and stared at him.
What did this man think he could rely on, charging in blindly without making a proper plan?
...It must be because of her. That bitch, Stardus.
"..."
As Han Seo-eun thought of Stardus, she felt a growing discomfort in her chest.
Dain had never said it outright, but she had deduced it instinctively.
Both before and now—this time as well.
Dain would charge through fire and water without hesitation for Stardus.
What was so good about Stardus, anyway?
More to the point—
"Cough, cough."
"Big bro!"
Before she could even finish the thought, he woke up.
It was three days after he'd collapsed.