Secret Room
Secret Room
"...."
After careful deliberation, I arrived at a single conclusion: we were fucked.
Leaving Stardus standing there in a daze, I quickly scanned our surroundings.
A professional villain stayed cool-headed and analyzed the situation even in a crisis.
What had changed? Was there some way out?
After looking around, I did find one thing that had changed.
A clock on the wall.
It had been a powered-off digital clock, but now the display was lit and counting down.
[2 : 58.42]
[2 : 58.41]
[2 : 58.40]
...
A timer, visibly running down.
Yes. The mystery was solved!
"Huh... what?"
Stardus was still stammering.
No, seriously—what's with all the panicking?
A competent hero in this situation should have been like me: quick, calm, and objective in assessing the situation.
The Stardus I knew wouldn't have acted like this.
She wouldn't have been that rattled!
....Right. Now that I thought about it, the Stardus I knew was the veteran from the later arcs of the Original Work, after she had been put through the wringer.
The current Stardus apparently hadn't been through enough hell yet, because she was showing a rather clueless side.
Still, that was a bit much, wasn't it?
"Stardus!"
"Uh, yeah?"
She looked at me in utter confusion, and I pointed toward the clock.
"Do you see that over there? Given that the time is counting down, I suspect we'll be able to leave when it runs out. So please, calm down."
"Huh? Oh... ah."
Only then did she look up.
She stared at the clock, then frowned and muttered.
"Three hours...?"
"Yes. We just need to wait three hours. That's not so long. Let's sit tight. There we go."
I said that and plopped myself down on the spot.
If I was going to be locked in here for roughly three hours, I was not going to stay on my feet.
My legs would kill me.
I'd just sat down and was about to suggest she do the same when—
BANG—
Stardus slammed her fist against the wall again.
"What are you doing?"
"How can you just wait? For all we know, when those three hours are up, a bomb goes off instead of the door opening."
She kept punching at the door as she talked. Thud. Thud. Any harder and she'd bring the whole place down!
But no matter how hard she tried, the door didn't budge.
In the end, she gave up first.
"Tch..."
She rubbed her hand.
What?
Looking closer, I saw blood dripping from her knuckles.
Seriously, what the hell was she doing?
"Why would you keep hitting it so recklessly when your abilities are already suppressed?"
"....."
"Good grief. Here. At least use this to stop the bleeding."
I pulled a bandage from my bundle and tossed it to her.
Seo-eun and Soo-bin had packed it for me in case I got hurt. I had not expected it to be used like this.
"...."
Stardus caught the bandage, hesitated for a moment, then cut off a strip and began wrapping it around her arm.
"....I'm not going to thank you."
"Isn't that basically saying thank you?"
"......"
She flinched slightly, like I'd hit a nerve.
I hadn't actually expected her to thank me, but I hadn't expected that reaction either.
...That wasn't normally how she treated villains. Honestly, when I tossed her the bandage, I had half expected her to throw it right back in my face. The fact that she quietly accepted it surprised me even more.
What was going on? Was her personality a little gentler at this point in the timeline?
That couldn't be it. Then was she giving only me special treatment?
Why? There was no particular reason for that.
Right as I was thinking that, the bandage came flying back at my face.
There it was.
"Ow! I went out of my way to give that to you! What did I do wrong? Would it kill you to just roll it back nicely?"
"...."
When I grumbled and shot her a dirty look, she averted her eyes slightly off to the side. She must've felt a little bad.
...Though, to be fair, she really had no reason to feel bad for a villain.
"Tch. Let's just sit down and wait. And frankly, doesn't this look like the door will open after three hours? Don't you have a... 'gut feeling' about it?"
"...Gut feeling."
She repeated the words under her breath.
Yeah, gut feeling. Your Hyper Sense. The one that's practically precognition.
The truth was that I didn't know what would happen after three hours either, so it was her job to figure it out.
She frowned briefly, then her expression relaxed.
Apparently, her intuition told her the door would open in three hours.
Phew, that's a relief. Well, Stardus's Hyper Sense might not be fully developed yet... but it should at least be accurate for something like this.
And so, we sat.
Silently.
Without moving.
Just the two of us, in this cramped room.
Not a single word exchanged. Dead silence.
"...."
Wait a second.
This is hell.
***
And so, an hour passed in total silence.
The only sound was the faint rhythm of our breathing.
Mind you, I hadn't just been sitting motionless.
I pulled some crackers out of my bundle and ate them. Tasted great.
When I first reached into the bundle, Stardus flinched, but when she saw it was just crackers, she let out a small sigh of relief.
What, did she think I was going to pull out a gun?
...Don't worry. At the very least, that won't happen.
Or wait—maybe if she's not worried, she's failing in her duty as a hero?
"Would you like a cracker?"
"...Absurd."
I just asked because she looked hungry. Fine, don't eat them.
After that, we continued to stay quiet and motionless. It was painfully awkward.
And aside from the awkwardness, there was something else I noticed after the first hour: the oxygen was getting a little thin. My breathing was becoming labored. Was that the tragedy of a sealed room?
Oxygen deprivation is serious. Without enough oxygen, your brain doesn't work properly, and you're more likely to speak without thinking. Words can slip out before they pass through your rational filter.
...And obviously, that would have been disastrous for me, considering how many secrets I was hiding.
So I resolved to keep my mouth firmly shut and remain still. If I stayed put, I could at least manage halfway.
At first, the awkwardness was so bad I kept shifting around, but as time passed, I got used to it. I even briefly felt the urge to pull my phone out of the bundle, but I held back—that could expose my identity. I couldn't even use Teleportation in here to escape if I got caught.
Around the time when even the sound of her ragged breathing had become familiar, I'd spaced out thinking, Just one more hour of this and we're free.
But seriously, being locked together in a small room really did make it feel as though it was becoming harder to breathe. Had those Han-eun Group bastards not installed an oxygen generator in that sealed room? What the hell had they been thinking?
Thanks to the lack of oxygen, my head was becoming foggier. It felt as though I was drugged—or drunk, perhaps. That was why oxygen mattered.
We were fortunate that it was only a three-hour lockup. Any longer and we really would have been in trouble. Just as I thought that...
Suddenly, she spoke.
"....Mapo Bridge."
"Excuse me?"
I'd been spacing out at the ceiling; at her words, I lowered my head to look at her.
She was sitting with her knees drawn up, her hands wrapped around her legs. Without looking at me, she stared at the floor and murmured.
"At Mapo Bridge... did you stop that car from falling?"
She was almost mumbling.
Wait, she's asking this out of nowhere?
Looking closely, her eyes were already half-closed.
What, is she asleep? Doesn't seem like it.
Ah. Is she feeling dizzy too?
...She's a physical ability user—can a little oxygen deprivation really make her that woozy?
Oh, right. Her abilities are suppressed right now too, aren't they?
While I was stuck in this sluggish, unhelpful train of thought, she pressed again.
"...The car. I asked if you stopped it."
The car? Why would I stop a car? If a car stops, does that make it a manual?
Oh—she was talking about Mapo Bridge. The one that had been about to fall. Had I nudged it a little to stop it?
...She saw that after all?
I never stopped anything like that. Whatever the case, I didn't do it.
"I didn't stop anything. I'm a person who always pushes forward, you see."
"What kind of bullshit is that..."
She mumbled back, then threw another question at me.
"Then the plane... why did you tell me to save it?"
"I already told you back then. To become a true villain, I naturally need an adversary, a hero, to oppose me. A villain isn't simply someone who commits acts of terror. It's when he has a worthy opponent standing against him that a villain finally becomes a proper villain. That is why."
"....."
At my reply, she fell silent again.
Hmm. Honestly, what I just said is simply the reverse of 'a hero is made by the villain.' Whatever. I'm dizzy and my head hurts. I'm just giving her half-baked answers.
Just when I was starting to wish she'd stay quiet because my head was starting to hurt—
She spoke once more.
"Then... did you destroy Mapo Bridge because you knew in advance that the monster attack would happen?"
Seriously? Even she's asking me this now?
I felt as though nearly everyone had asked me some version of this by then. Good grief.
Anyway, just as always, I was about to look at her and write it off as pure coincidence—
Our eyes met.
The moment our eyes met, she quickly looked back down.
But I'd seen it clearly, just then.
Her sharp eyes had been boring into me as if she intended to uncover every last one of my secrets.
"......"
My mind snapped back into focus.
Wait—was all that mumbling and slurred speech an act? To lower my guard?
Shin Ha-ru. Truly a frightening woman. Like a viper.
Now that my head was a little clearer, I swallowed hard.
Right. Now that I thought about it, something was definitely wrong.
Why did she so readily agree to form an alliance with me in the first place?
Could it be... she agreed just to get closer and pump me for information?
A chill ran down my spine.
Stardus, Shin Ha-ru! Just how far ahead had you planned...?
Wait. What were the questions she'd asked me so far?
Whether I was the one who stopped the falling car.
Why I told her to save the plane.
Whether I destroyed Mapo Bridge knowing the Black Tentacle Monster attack would happen...
The moment my thoughts connected all those dots, my face went stiff.
Taken together...
Wasn't she doubting whether I was even a real villain?
Maybe not. It could just be my own paranoid delusion. A misunderstanding.
My instincts said that was it, but I didn't have Hyper Sense like Stardus, which let her land intuitively on the exact truth every time.
Even so, this is a crisis.
I'd always been a fake villain, someone merely pretending. Deep down, I'd always been insecure about lacking true villainous conviction.
I could not let the truth about me come out.
The truth that all my attacks were for her sake and that all I wanted was to save this world...!
What was I supposed to do?
Right. This is actually an opportunity.
While we were alone together, I could completely clear up any misunderstanding.
I would make her discard all her doubts about me and see me as a perfectly, irredeemably evil villain!
To do that, I would take the direct approach.
I covered the part of my face not hidden by the mask and chuckled.
"Ha ha... ha ha ha ha!!!"
She stared at me, baffled by my sudden laughter.
Oh, Stardus. Stardus, Stardus.
A true villain knows how to rattle his opponent's mind and seize control of the situation.
In that sense, acting completely unhinged is also a valid tactic.
Now then, let's shake things up.
"I shall tell you, and only you.... Yes. You're right."
I smiled, looked her in the eyes, and spoke.
"I knew in advance that this disaster was going to happen."
"I knew, and I destroyed that bridge on purpose."
At my sudden admission, she flinched.
That was right. She had never expected me to agree so readily, had she?
Time to keep running my mouth.
"So what."
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"So what?"