Behind the Scenes
Behind the Scenes
A few weeks before the day the plane fell from the sky and Stardus saved it.
At the underground base, I made a solemn declaration.
"Alright, let’s give it a shot. The airplane attack."
The two of them nodded in agreement.
That was how we began planning the airplane attack.
"Big bro, which flight should we attack?"
"Definitely a domestic flight. One heading to Jeju should work."
"What's wrong with an international flight?"
"If we attack a flight heading overseas, there’s a high chance foreign heroes will get involved. And if foreigners are aboard, who knows how the situation might spiral? We need a Korean airline flying from one Korean city to another with only Korean passengers."
"I see... This is complicated too. A night flight is out, right?"
"Of course. Otherwise, that bastard Shadow Walker would slip straight onto the plane, carry everyone away through the shadows, and end the whole thing."
"Got it. Let’s see... This looks like a good time to attack one."
"Let me see. Hmm... Yes, that should be perfect. Then we’ll need to prepare in advance. What do we need?"
"You said we’re doing some kind of deadly nonsense quiz. Go find some questions."
"Find nonsense quiz questions? Seo-eun, I already know plenty. What do you call a monk going downhill?"
"...I have no idea. What?"
"An illegal download—Buddhist law going down the road! Puhahahaha!"
"...Big bro, please find something else while I’m still asking nicely."
Seo-eun’s reaction was ice-cold.
But the illegal-download joke was funny...
Just as I was about to try another dad joke, Soo-bin spoke from beside me.
"Dain, should I look into explosives? Can I get them through the same supplier we used for the train attack?"
"We won’t actually need explosives this time, Soo-bin."
Seo-eun and Soo-bin both looked puzzled.
"What, big bro? Didn’t you say we were going to blow up the plane?"
Right, I had not explained that part.
"Hmm... Alright. I’ll explain the entire plan from the beginning."
The Ego Show execution plan.
Hold a nonsense-quiz competition aboard an airplane.
Announce that the bomb will explode unless someone answers all ten questions correctly.
"Here’s the key: I’m going to make the plane fall no matter what. If we use a real bomb, though, it’ll break apart in midair. So we won’t use one. We’ll simply make the plane descend."
"What? What are you even talking about?"
Seo-eun sounded completely lost.
"No... There’s more than one strange part. First, you said you’re definitely making the plane fall. What happens if someone gets all ten questions right? Are you still going to drop it?"
"No. Although I doubt anyone will answer every question correctly... Still, I prepared a backup just in case."
"What kind of backup?"
"The final question will have two valid answers. Even if they give one, I can declare the other correct answer and drop the plane anyway. If that somehow fails, I’ll just insist they’re wrong."
"Wow... Big bro, I never noticed before, but you seem kind of demonic when you explain it like this."
Seo-eun stared at me in disbelief.
What, kid?
That was how the world worked! You either deceived people or got deceived!
"Dain, what did you mean when you said we’d make it fall without a bomb?"
"A real explosion could damage the fuselage and make it break apart in an unpredictable direction. We’ll only pretend a bomb went off. In reality, we’ll angle the plane downward. If an aircraft descends without aiming for a landing point, that’s a crash."
I shrugged, and Seo-eun asked another question.
"So our goal is to make the plane fall and have Stardus lift it?"
"Exactly! It boosts my menace and Stardus’s popularity. Two birds with one stone, right?"
"Uh... Dain, can Stardus really stop a plane?"
Soo-bin asked while searching for information and running calculations on her computer.
When I looked over, she continued.
"The plane-crash idea was mine, but... Stardus’s greatest feat so far was stopping that runaway train. That alone was impressive, but trains and airplanes are worlds apart. It looked as though she pushed herself to the absolute limit stopping the train. A plane isn’t merely dozens of times faster. Once you account for gravity, mass, and energy, stopping one would be hundreds of times harder."
Soo-bin’s concern was entirely reasonable.
It was the kind of concern anyone would have.
It was like a child who had learned addition and subtraction yesterday announcing that they would solve the hardest calculus problem on the college entrance exam today.
Her argument was perfectly logical.
How could Stardus, who had barely stopped a train, stop an airplane?
My answer was simple.
"Stardus can do it."
That was what it meant to be the protagonist of this manhwa.
In the later arcs, this world produced enemies who could stop time, control space, and cause natural disasters by themselves.
Eventually, the setting became completely insane, with godlike beings appearing to destroy Earth.
And the hero who stood alone to protect South Korea—and the planet—in that world was Stardus.
She was the protagonist.
The world practically revolved around her.
Only one thing made that possible.
There was no limit to how far her abilities could grow.
The protagonist does not die.
Put another way, anything that fails to kill her makes her stronger.
As long as she possesses a desperate, life-or-death will,
there is nothing she cannot stop.
"Stardus can do it. We only need to trust her and make the plane fall."
When I said that with complete seriousness, Seo-eun pouted slightly and asked,
"What makes you trust that woman so much?"
I merely laughed the question off.
***
The preparations went smoothly.
We made fake bombs and secretly attached smoke generators to the wings to simulate an explosion.
Before takeoff, I teleported aboard and installed the equipment, arranged for the pilots to fall asleep midflight, and tampered with the instrument panel...
The final plan was possible only because my ideas—drawn from consuming so many superhero comics and movies—were combined with the help of two geniuses.
Honestly, an attack this elaborate had practically become a work of art.
After all that preparation, the attack itself unfolded in no time.
Conducting an attack remotely for the first time felt strange, but I had to accept it. I could not exactly ride a falling plane. Safety first. Good. Very good!
"Hello, everyone! Welcome to the greatest quiz show on earth, happening at 25,000 feet—no! The greatest quiz show in the sky, The Ego Show Live!"
When I spoke to a camera out in the open, the words came naturally.
Speaking into a microphone inside a cramped room deep underground, however, was beginning to feel embarrassing.
Seo-eun and Soo-bin kept staring at me from the side. Please stop looking.
It was seriously distracting! I could not get into the performance!
"The rules are simple! I’ll give you ten nonsense quiz questions, and all you have to do is answer them!"
"But if everyone gets one wrong? Boom. The bomb explodes!"
I projected as much energy as I could into the microphone.
The monitors in the base showed the passengers aboard the plane in real time.
The same feed was also being broadcast nationwide after we hacked the three major networks.
They seemed to have hired every technician they could find and installed every possible safeguard against another broadcast hijacking...
Yeah, Seo-eun and Soo-bin tore straight through all of it. Adios, amigos...
Honestly, even if we had only streamed it on YouTube, the networks probably would have interrupted their schedules and aired it themselves...
Whatever. It was tradition now.
"Right! Let’s move straight to the second question! What is the hottest fruit in the world?"
As I continued hosting the nonsense quiz, one thought kept bothering me...
Why were these people so good at it?
I had honestly expected everyone to be eliminated around the seventh or eighth question.
Instead, they held on through sheer grit and stubbornness and reached the tenth.
The last contestant still in the running was a balding middle-aged man. His name was... Kim Deok-bae? How did he keep answering correctly...?
"Now! At last, the tenth and final question! What oil do children love the most?"
I delivered the final question.
An answer came back: IU.
Whether he sent IU or May Oil—the fifth of May—did not actually matter.
Whatever he submitted, I was going to declare it wrong.
...Still, he had answered correctly right to the end. I would have been in serious trouble if I had not prepared two valid answers.
"Now, let’s check your answer. Let’s see... You wrote IU. The correct answer was... May Oil—the fifth of May! Too bad. Well then, goodbye!"
After saying that, I pressed the button.
Bang! The sound generator we had installed played the explosion noise.
The plane began spewing smoke and descending. Technically, it was only flying downward.
"Whew, finally done."
I switched off the microphone and sprawled across the chair.
Keeping my energy up while sitting still and talking was exhausting...
As I lay there, Seo-eun finished operating the controls and asked,
"Big bro, what do we do now?"
"We wait for Stardus to arrive."
"Will she really come?"
"Of course she'll. She’s Stardus."
So I waited.
"She’ll be here soon."
I waited.
"She should have left by now, right?"
I kept waiting.
"She’s on her way... right?"
After waiting and waiting,
"Aaaaaah! Why isn’t she coming?!"
I finally screamed.
Why was she not coming? If she did not move soon, the plane would smash apart on impact!
"Big bro, why did you suddenly scream like that? You startled me!"
"Seo-eun! Find out what she’s doing, now! Hack the nearby CCTV cameras if you have to!"
"Okay, okay... I’m on it."
"Found her. Big bro, Stardus is standing on the beach and doing nothing but watching the plane."
"What?! Why is she doing that?!"
This was not the Stardus I knew!
"She seems to understand the situation too. She knows she’ll be killed instantly if she goes, so she’s staying put."
I leaped to my feet at Seo-eun’s words.
What? No! Stardus could do anything once she set her mind to it! If we could only put her in front of the plane, she would awaken and stop it!
"Damn it... What do I do? At this rate, there’s no way... Right! Her earpiece—the in-ear monitor!"
I remembered!
Shin Ha-ru always wore a tiny in-ear monitor. If I could communicate through it...
"Seo-eun, can you force a connection to the earpiece Shin Ha-ru is wearing? Hurry!"
"Give me a moment... This is a secure internal communications line, so it’s difficult to crack... Big sis, help me!"
"Got it!"
The two of them crowded around the computer and worked furiously.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I bounced my leg uncontrollably. The anxiety was killing me.
After what felt like an eternity,
"Big bro! I got through!"
"Finally!"
I hurried over.
A complicated frequency graph filled the computer screen.
"Big bro, there’s one important problem. If she doesn’t answer the call, we’re finished."
"That’s fine. We’ll keep calling until she answers."
I answered and sat down.
Then I took a deep breath.
Hooo...
Brrring. Brrring.
The call went out.
And then—
Click.
She answered.
I calmly lowered my voice and spoke.
"Hello, Stardus. Egostic speaking."
[You piece of trash...]
The insult came back the instant the connection opened.
But being insulted was not important right now.
"I was wondering about something. Why aren’t you going to save them?"
Why was she not going to save them?
Why was she simply standing there?
After throwing a few more mild curses at me, she finally answered.
[How am I supposed to stop that?]
[That thing is falling at 1,000 km/h.]
[Are you telling me to die?]
Her answer hit me.
It was more surprising than I had expected.
Far more surprising.
I was genuinely shaken.
So that was what she had been thinking.
At this point in the story, this was how she thought.
I almost told myself that the Stardus I knew was not like this.
Then I realized that Stardus at this stage could indeed react this way.
Her refusal to surrender even before an unbeatable enemy belonged to the latter half of the Original Work.
Early in the Original Work, she had fought only enemies she appeared fully capable of defeating.
Because I had disrupted that progression, she was now feeling despair.
The situation I had created was impossible to solve with her current strength.
Faced with a sudden disaster of that scale for the first time, she had lost heart.
This would not do.
The Stardus I knew was not like this.
Even when a situation seemed impossible, she gritted her teeth, raised her head, stepped forward, and confronted it head-on.
She trusted her abilities, believed in her own will, and advanced against her enemy with unbreakable determination. That was Stardus—Shin Ha-ru.
So why was she refusing to step forward now?
Ah.
Had I given her a wall that was far too high from the start?
I should have let her overcome barriers gradually and build the confidence to break the next one.
Had this overwhelming wall broken her will instead?
Then what could I do?
What could I do now?
...
What did I mean, what could I do?
I had to restore her will.
I had to show her that she could do it.
I had to make her believe in herself.
What had she said?
‘How am I supposed to stop that? Are you telling me to die?’
Right. That was what she had said.
Once I had organized my thoughts, I spoke again in a calm voice.
"No, you can do it."
You can do it.
Because you are the protagonist of this world.
Because with enough will, you can achieve anything.
"You can do it. Stop the plane from falling."
I put the full weight of my sincerity into the words. Her quiet voice answered.
[...Does that make any sense? You think I don’t know you’re trying to get rid of me while you have the chance?]
Get rid of you? Me?
I was dumbfounded.
Who was supposed to be getting rid of whom?
I momentarily lost my composure and answered with complete sincerity.
"Why would I try to kill you?"
Why would I kill you?
"What meaning could I possibly have without you?"
After realizing that I had fallen into this damned manhwa world, I had wandered, agonized, and finally resolved to devote the rest of my life to you.
"Without you, I’m merely another dime-a-dozen villain."
I could not even simply be described as a villain.
Without you, I was only an outsider in this world. An unnecessary spare part.
I had lost my family, friends, assets, social standing, honor, companionship, love—everything. A version of me living in another world after losing all of that was no longer truly me.
What meaning could there be in my life in this world if I did not live it for you?
You.
Only you.
"You complete me."
"So step forward."
"Clench your fists, brace your legs, and fly into the sky to save those people."
"You can do it."
"Because that's who you're."
After saying all of that, I ended the call.
I looked aside and found Seo-eun and Soo-bin staring at me in surprise.
Right. I had just spilled out everything I felt about Stardus in front of both of them.
Well. This was embarrassing.
I gave them a faint smile and said,
"Now, let’s watch and see what happens."
I had done everything I could.
The rest depended entirely on what Shin Ha-ru decided to do.
***
[Yes!!! Stardus has!!! Successfully landed the plane!!! Every passenger is safely!!! Disembarking!!! People of Korea!!! South Korea is safe!!!]
"Wow, big bro. She really stopped it just like you said. How did she do that? Big bro? Big bro!"
As Seo-eun called to me, I slid lower and lower in my chair.
"Seo-eun..."
"Big bro, what’s wrong?"
"Let’s go on a trip..."
Carrying out an attack was so damn exhausting.
I needed a break.
I had to rest.
"One more attack and I’m going to ruin my health..."
I had carried out three attacks in a row.
It was time for a vacation.
This villain needed a break.