After the Performance
After the Performance
"Ugh... I'm dying here..."
After the terrorist attack.
I teleported straight home to escape Stardus, who was chasing me, and the backlash dropped me flat onto my bed.
Come on... teleportation isn't even that big of a power, so why does it come with this kind of recoil...
That was the last conscious thought I had that day.
"Ngh."
In the end, I passed out right there.
...Life's not easy.
***
When I managed to open my eyes again, it was already the next morning.
I hauled myself up, clutching my pounding head, and turned on the TV first thing. I wanted to see if there was any coverage of what I'd done yesterday.
And sure enough.
[News Wide - In-Depth Analysis of the Villain Egostic]
The channel I'd randomly switched to was already talking about me. Well, I'd forcibly shut down all three major broadcast networks and made them air footage of my attack. The whole country probably knew by then.
Still, seeing myself on TV—black hat, white mask covering half my face—was a pretty surreal sight. Mother, your son was on television. I'd become a celebrity. A villain celebrity, but still. Haha.
I sat perched on the edge of my bed for a while, watching the screen with my thoughts drifting, then eventually dragged my aching body upright. I decided to check the internet first. Everything people were saying would be compiled there.
With that in mind, I peeled off the cumbersome cloak and changed into comfortable clothes, then opened the laptop on my desk.
Sunlight streamed through the window of the tiny studio apartment, the only sound the soft hum of the computer booting up.
...It was time to get out of this place. I'd stayed far too long in what was supposed to be temporary housing.
Once the boot-up finished, I went straight to the news section of a portal site.
And there it was.
"There we... oh. Yep. Total chaos."
The place was an absolute madhouse. All about the terrorist attack I'd pulled off last time.
The portal's front-page headlines were nothing but me.
[Mass Terrorist Attack Livestreamed... Who Is the Villain 'Egostic'?]
Starting with that article at the top, complete with my photo, the list below was packed end to end with stories about me.
Quite the heated interest. Yep, nationwide broadcasting really was the answer for grabbing attention. Next time, I should stream to YouTube too, not just the major networks.
I skimmed through the articles about me, reading as I scrolled.
The previous day's incident was basically a giant entertainment show—except actual human lives were at stake. Maybe that was why the public had watched with bated breath and the online communities had gone wild. After all, the whole thing came down to whether anyone would press the button.
And at the end, it turned into something out of a movie: the hero's speech reformed people's hearts, and nobody pressed the button—nobody chose to sacrifice another person to save themselves. A heartwarming, humanity-praising finale. That seemed to be getting even more buzz. After all, it was still a terrorist attack, but nobody died.
Having roughly taken stock of people's reactions like that, I broke down what I'd gained from this terrorist attack into two big takeaways.
First: getting my name out nationwide.
Egostic. A unique villain name I'd coined from 'egoistic,' meaning selfish, so it wouldn't overlap with anyone else's. And now the entire nation knew it. The unusual name was easy to remember too. For someone who planned to stay active, gaining this much recognition and attention was an enormous win.
...I did feel a twinge of regret when I saw [Mangostic, catch that bastard!] in the comments — people warping my name Egostic — and briefly wondered if I should've skipped this name. But anyway.
Second: getting the name Stardus out nationwide.
Stardus, an A-rank hero with the Association, already had a decent public profile. Unlike me, ordinary people couldn't make out her face because of her perception-disruption device, but they still somehow sensed from her aura or whatever that she was pretty. And there weren't that many A-rank heroes to begin with.
The problem, though, was that Stardus's image gradually worsened in the Original Work... The villains in the later arcs skillfully tormented her and manipulated public opinion, even succeeding in making people see her as rude and stuck-up.
Eventually, they would meticulously destroy not only her social standing as the hero Stardus, but her life as Shin Ha-ru as well. The Original Work was a true misery story in every sense.
Reading all that had infuriated me, and I had no intention of letting it happen. Our Stardus was going to walk a flower-lined path, got it? I'd clear away every villain who got in her way and change things so I was the only one she had to deal with. Let's make South Korea free of terrorist attacks.
...Anyway. Thanks to that plan, Stardus's public profile had skyrocketed after this attack. And not because of her looks, but because of her sense of justice. Her heroism. I'd planted an overwhelmingly positive image of her in the public's mind.
The community forums and news comment sections were full of praise for her. Just as I'd figured, my plan to have her give a speech had hit the mark perfectly. Yeah, our Ha-ru was great at speeches too, wasn't she? I was happy people were finally seeing it.
"Now that the first step's taken..."
After taking it all in, I closed the laptop and got up.
There was no time to rest. None at all. I still had far too much to do. I needed to deal with the other A-rank and even S-rank villains, then plan more terrorist attacks... Haah. Living as a villain wasn't easy either.
"Ah. It's already this late... I'd better go meet that kid first."
I muttered to myself, glancing at my smartphone.
As I'd said before, handling everything from the attacks to the planning was ridiculously hard. That was why I needed an assistant.
And that assistant was her.
The girl who had helped me hijack the broadcast. The one who would become an S-rank villain in the Original Work, but whose future I had changed by taking her in before that happened.
I fiddled with my phone and called her.
"Hey, Seo-eun. I'm awake... Ah, yeah. I was out cold until just now. Yeah, yeah. Sorry for calling so late. Were you worried? ...You weren't? Anyway, got it. I'm heading over now. Yeah."
After the call ended, I grabbed my coat and headed out. I could've teleported, but my ability was so crappy that long-distance jumps made me pass out, so I decided to walk. The weather was nice anyway.
***
Outside the window, spring rain whispers.
A six-mat room lies in another country.
...As though the nice weather had never existed, a light rain suddenly began to fall. I opened my umbrella and walked for about an hour before reaching a residential neighborhood.
An ordinary house stood there.
I walked up and casually punched in the four-digit code on the door lock and went inside.
But once I was inside, I found another door with another keypad lock. Was this what they called double-locking?
Anyway, I'd been back and forth so many times that I wasn't even fazed. I just punched in another code.
The one difference: this time it was long — over ten digits.
I entered the code one more time.
Thud.
Instead of the door opening, the floor beneath me vibrated and began descending, like an elevator. Down below.
How long did I ride down, staring at the black wall in front of me?
A short while later, another thud sounded and the elevator stopped.
Beyond it lay white walls and an interior filled with LED lights, like something straight out of a near-future science-fiction movie.
A massive underground space hidden beneath an ordinary residential neighborhood. After walking a bit, a huge room greeted me — one entire wall packed with countless displays, like a NASA research lab out of a film.
And there, in the center of all those glowing monitors, a silver-haired kid with a bob cut sat in a giant leather chair that looked twice the size of her body.
This was the kid who'd helped me pull off the broadcast hijacking.
The one who would later appear as an S-rank villain in the Original Work.
"Seo-eun, I'm here."
"You're here, 'bro'?"
She was Han Seo-eun, the genius hacker.
I walked over to where Seo-eun was sitting and ruffled her hair, then asked,
"Why do you keep calling me 'bro' anyway? Whatever. What've you been up to?"
"What do you think? I was cleaning up the mess you made, bro."
When I stroked her white hair, Seo-eun made a little purring noise and shook her head.
Petite and pretty, Seo-eun was unmistakably a girl... except that she vehemently insisted she was a boy.
Since I already knew from the Original Work that she was a girl, it all just seemed cute to me. I figured she might have some trauma about being female or something. Still, it felt a little strange to hear a girl around ninth-grade age repeatedly insist she was a boy.
"Ah, and Seo-eun. You did an amazing job with yesterday's broadcast hijacking. The production and editing were top-notch, like a real PD. I don't know what I would've done without you, seriously."
"Please. Something that easy? Anyone could have done it."
She answered curtly, but when I praised her, I could see her lips twitch without her realizing. I could see that smile, kid. It was completely obvious.
"And, bro, that's not the issue right now. We've got trouble."
"What is it?"
As we talked, she suddenly seemed to remember something and began tapping at her keyboard. I tilted my head.
"You remember that woman I mentioned before — Lee Soo-bin? The one I said could become our new assistant."
"Yeah. The one you said operates on the Deep Web? And that she seemed like a fan of mine..."
"Right. I said that because she was in one of those fan groups for you, but... here, look at this. I think she's gotten tangled up in something weird."
Seo-eun turned the screen toward me.
And there it was.
[Egostic's followers are currently staging a hostage terrorist attack in the middle of Incheon! They've rigged the building with explosives and...]
Unknown figures were pulling some shady crap while name-dropping Egostic.
...Who the hell are these bastards, and why are they using my name to start shit?