Fan
Fan
All right, let's think about this.
A villain launched a terrorist attack.
What were the odds that the people he took hostage would turn out to be his fans?
I didn't know the exact odds, but I was pretty sure I'd just defied them.
"Mangostic!!! We're your fans!!!"
The college girls rolled down the window and screamed at the top of their lungs.
Why did this kind of thing keep happening to me?
All I'd wanted was an ordinary family trembling in fear...
Well, I supposed they were trembling.
The problem was that they seemed to be trembling with excitement...
"Haha, this is... not what I expected."
I said with a hollow laugh.
Metal music was still blaring from inside the car.
At the same time, their excited gazes remained fixed on me. These were... hostages?
[This is so damn funny lol]
[Regarding the incident where the hostages were my fans]
[How do you call him Mangostic to his face? LMAO. The nerve]
[Wait, is this the first time he's actually heard the word Mangostic?]
[Considering he called himself Apple Mango before, he def knows the nickname lol]
[Those girls have serious nerve, coming out as villain fangirls on national TV with no masks, their university jackets on, just straight-up owning it]
[That's real madness right there]
The chat was an absolute disaster.
No. Situations like that were exactly when I needed to keep my head straight.
It was well within the expected range. I only had to maintain my composure and smooth it over. No problem.
I reset my expression, smiled, and spoke.
"Yes, yes. Hello. I'm Egostic. You all seem remarkably... erm... happy. Might I ask you to introduce yourselves?"
"Yes!!!"
They answered energetically.
Yeah, yeah.
Bright was good.
At my greeting, the one sitting nearest the window where I stood spoke up first.
"Hello! We're members of Veritas, the hero and villain club at Yeonhee University!"
She answered in a bright, energetic voice.
I hadn't asked for the university or the club's name, by the way. TMI.
They smiled at the camera like idol rookies making their debut on a music show.
...This was supposed to be an interview with the unlucky hostages I'd trapped on a bridge, right? I wasn't hosting Music Bank, was I?
"My name is Kim Yeon-hwa. I'm the president of the club."
The girls in the back introduced themselves one by one.
Then one of them suddenly shouted from the back.
"Kim Yeon-hwa there is the manager of your fan cafe!!!"
...And since when had I become their "bro"?
Separate from that, though, what she'd said was quite interesting.
"Manager of my fan cafe?"
I took another look at the girl sitting in front of me.
Her face reddened slightly with embarrassment.
Twisting a strand of her short brown hair around one finger, she spoke again.
"Yes. Have you heard of... the Mangostic Fandom? We're fans who like Mango... I mean, Egostic. For the record, everyone here, including me, is part of the Mangostic Fandom!"
She puffed out her chest proudly and gave a little "ahem."
Ah...
Please stop.
My entire body was cringing from secondhand embarrassment.
Who did this right in front of the person involved...?
But I was a professional. A professional villain.
As a professional, I smiled brightly and answered without a flicker of hesitation.
"I see. I'm honored to have people who like me. But, um... I'm genuinely curious. You do know I'm a villain, right?"
I went straight for the weak point.
I mean, I was grateful for the support.
But had they seriously forgotten I was a villain?
I'd assumed the Mangostic Fandom was just people playing a bit online, but I'd just changed my mind.
When someone was taken hostage at the scene of an attack and their eyes still sparkled at the terrorist, that wasn't an act.
That was simply insanity...
Seriously, why would people who looked completely normal and popular do something like that?
At my genuinely puzzled question, she flinched in surprise and asked in confusion.
"Huh? Weren't you the S-rank hero Apple Mango, big bro?"
I nearly blacked out right there.
No, I couldn't take any more of this.
My mental resistance was bottoming out. Please stop.
"Yes! Thank you. That was fascinating. Any final words?"
I hurriedly delivered my closing line.
My entire goal had been to make the public feel guilty about blindly pocketing 100,000 won. Instead, the conversation was several thousand light-years off course.
Ending it quickly was definitely the right move.
As soon as I signaled that I was done, the others in the back started whining, "Why are you ending it already~?"
Hmm. This might have been the most agonizing moment since I fell into this world. I was seriously losing it.
Of course, I didn't let any of that show. I merely kept smiling.
Thank goodness the mask covered half my face.
The corners of my mouth behind it were twitching like mad.
Ignoring the rest of them who were just shouting nonsense from the back, the girl who said she was my cafe manager thought for a second, then her eyes lit up as if she'd realized something.
"Ah!"
She began rummaging through the bag in front of her.
The other girls in the back seemed to realize what she was doing and rummaged through their bags too. What was it?
What they pulled out of their bags were...
Notebooks?
"Could we have your autograph?"
Their eyes sparkling, they held out their notebooks to me.
In the end, my poker face cracked. I pressed my hand to my forehead and sighed.
Please... please stop...
[LMAOOOOOOOOOO]
[You can literally see how baffled Egostic is LMAO]
[Are these crazy bitches for real? LMAOOOO]
[Dizzying, isn't it?]
[So let me get this straight. This is a conversation between a terrorist and his hostages?]
[No, but why is he actually giving them autographs? LMAOOOO]
[Mango GOAT sighing but still doing everything they ask hahaha]
[And this guy is supposed to be a villain? LMAO]
In the end, I did the autographs.
I just scrawled "Egostic" in English. I barely even tried, but man, they loved it...
Finally, I gave each of them a few of the remaining strawberry cream buns, and the interview was over.
As I shut the window, they shouted one last thing.
"Oh! And we already got our 100,000 won! Thank you!"
Tch.
Well, that attack was a total bust.
***
Anyway, after all that chaos, the promised time arrived.
I turned the camera back on after switching it off for the interviews.
Hovering above Mapo Bridge, I activated the microphone and made my announcement.
Behind me wasn't the blue sky, but a giant electronic scoreboard.
Seo-eun had somehow put it there with computer graphics. Was this that famous metaverse?
"All right, everyone. The promised time of 7 p.m. has arrived. It is time to reveal the results of my public-participation attack: one hundred thousand won, or the bridge and other people's lives? Let's see just how selfish humanity can be."
[Ba-dump, ba-dump]
[Oh please, like it hit 5 million lol]
[For real, do they think 5 million is a joke? No way they hit that in this short time with zero advance warning lmaooo]
[Here we go~ here we go~ here we go~]
[We can't disappoint Gay Young-jin. Show them Korea's power!!!]
[Lesbian Yeon-hwa doesn't look like she'd be disappointed]
[Shit, if Mapo Bridge collapses, my commute is fucked. Don't do it.]
[Passing civil servant here. Hands together praying it doesn't go off. If it blows, we're fucked.]
"Show us the results! The results are...!!!"
The numbers on the giant board behind me began to spin upward with a whir.
One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand... The numbers climbed rapidly.
"The result iiiis!!!"
I was practically screaming by then.
The numbers shot up like crazy! Even the video feed showing me began to flicker! The flashing screen! My flickering image!! The blazing numbers!!!
"The result iiiiiis!!!!!"
By then, the screen was barely visible!!!
The feed showing me abruptly switched to a white screen with the word Egostic on it.
Bang. Fireworks burst around me, and the feed cut back to me.
The number on the massive board behind me read:
[7,523,660]
"Seven million!!! Five hundred and twenty thousand people!!! Have claimed their 100,000 won!!!!!"
I roared.
A distant cheer of "Wow!" rang out. A prerecorded sound effect, obviously.
Clap clap clap. I applauded in response.
"Magnificent! Citizens of South Korea! Honestly, I thought we'd barely scrape past five million, but seven million! Beyond anything I imagined!!!"
I smiled wide as I said it.
Then I spread my arms wide, as if cheering in triumph.
"You selfish people, this explosion is dedicated to you. Congratulations to you all!!!"
Behind me, as I stood with my arms spread wide...
The scoreboard had already vanished.
And the bridge that had looked like nothing more than a backdrop...
BOOOOOOM—
Began to collapse in a massive explosion.
Explosions are... art!
"Thank you all for participating in my attack! Until next time! Farewell!"
I grinned at the camera and waved.
After waving goodbye, I switched it off.
Phew. Another shoot wrapped safely.
The livestream over, I wiped the sweat from my brow in midair.
Man, I'd been out here for nearly ten hours. It had been a marathon of an attack. I was exhausted...
Floating in the sky, I looked down.
The bridge was collapsing with a tremendous rumble.
And far in the distance, a woman was flying toward me at incredible speed.
Our Stardus.
It really had been a long time.
She looked incredible in her red hero suit, blonde hair streaming behind her.
The last time I'd seen her was... that festival? That was ages ago. It really had been a while.
Who knew when I'd see her again after today? I might as well watch.
So I didn't run immediately. I simply floated there at leisure, held up by telekinesis, and watched. I felt a little guilty that I'd essentially created a mess for her to clean up, but... wasn't it better this way?
She shot over and caught an SUV that was about to plunge off the far side of the collapsing bridge with one hand.
Wow. First trains and planes, and now she was lifting a car one-handed?
...No matter how I looked at it, it really seemed like I had made her grow far faster than she had in the Original Work. But I guessed that was a good thing.
Holding the SUV in one hand, she flew toward the sedan on my side.
But perhaps because she was already carrying the SUV, she was a little slow...?
And wait. Wasn't that car about to dive straight into the Han River?
The car carrying Choi Young-jin—was that his name?—was about to slip between the broken slabs of asphalt before Stardus could reach it.
She was almost there, but the car slipped clean through the gap in the collapsed bridge.
"Damn it."
At that exact moment, before I knew it, my hand shot out. I pushed my telekinesis to the limit and held the falling car in midair for just a moment.
I held it for only a second or two.
But that was enough time for Stardus to save it.
In the end, she managed to catch every falling car in time.
"Shit... Huff. Huff."
Shit, I was dying.
That sudden use of telekinesis completely drained the strength from my whole body.
Ha-ru, Shin Ha-ru. Why were you so late...? He almost died.
A villain saving the hostage he was trying to kill. If anyone had seen that, it would've been pretty damn funny.
Still.
I couldn't exactly let Stardus's spotless reputation for saving every civilian take a hit, now could I?
I had no choice... I had no choice, okay...
Then Stardus, still holding both cars, suddenly turned her head toward me.
Our eyes met. Oh shit, she hadn't caught me, had she?
The instant our eyes locked, I whipped my cloak around and turned my back.
Then I teleported straight out of there.
I didn't do anything.
I didn't know anything...!
***
Stardus. She stood against the backdrop of the collapsing bridge, a car in each hand, lost in thought.
Egostic. That falling car, the one on the side where he'd been.
It had looked ready to drop before she could reach it, but...
'Just now, I'm sure...?'
It fell for a moment, then seemed to... stop short.