Attitude Adjustment
Attitude Adjustment
Superpowered individuals made up an extremely small percentage of South Korea's population.
People who possessed two abilities were rarer still.
My abilities: telekinesis and teleportation.
Objectively speaking, having two Major-grade abilities at once means I could be considered a "gold spoon" in the superpower world.
...Yeah, if only I really were a gold spoon.
Unfortunately, my abilities were closer to a gold-plated spoon than a solid-gold one.
The reason is simple. Both of them have defects.
Take teleportation, for example. If I teleport one kilometer, the fatigue you'd feel after sprinting that same distance at full speed hits me all at once right after I arrive.
I'd tried a long-distance jump yesterday and ended up sleeping the entire day. That alone showed how defective it was.
Compare him with Teleporter, one of the villains in the Original Work. He possessed only teleportation, but it had no restrictions.
Basically, he could appear and vanish at will, popping up anywhere he pleased.
By the same logic, my telekinesis also has a pretty big defect.
To make a comparison, it feels like the flimsy claw on a crane machine.
It was absolutely useless at restraining a person who was struggling violently—barely enough to float objects in the air. Like the smartphone I was levitating at that moment.
Holding things in place was difficult, but knocking them aside was easier. It was like a crane-game claw that could move around just fine even if it couldn't grip anything properly.
The one advantage is that it sort of works as a pseudo charge attack? If I gather power over a long time and release it in one burst, it actually deals some decent damage. I'd combine that with teleportation and run around cracking villain skulls.
Whatever advantages it had, there was no denying that it was riddled with defects.
Still.
Still, even so.
But put a gun in my hand, and as for dealing with low-level grunts like these...
I had more than enough power.
"Wh-What are you doing?!"
The building was filled with the screams of hostages.
I simply answered the clearly panicked man.
"Since you're making such a mess, shouldn't I teach you a little lesson?"
At the same time, I put a round into the guy who'd spoken up.
The distance between him and me was fairly long, but the bullet flew straight and true, right between his eyes.
Apparently, the mask wasn't bulletproof. The way he crumpled to the floor made that clear.
Rock-steady aim. Egos Bullet.
Sure, it only worked because I pre-stabilized the bullet's trajectory with telekinesis, but hey—that's still my "ability," right?
Whew. I was really glad I had my pathetic telekinesis.
Without it, there was no way I—whose only firearm experience was in the military—could have hit people this precisely.
Only after three had dropped did the remaining guys finally start aiming their guns at me.
Wait, weren't they supposed to be my followers? Why were they pointing guns at me? What a ridiculous bunch.
The situation was on a knife's edge. I glanced at my smartphone, which was still floating in the air and streaming without issue.
*
[he just killed three of them on the spot lmaoooo]
[So refreshing~ for real lol]
[wait, weren't they on the same side? why'd he just kill them? idk]
[They need to put a 19+ rating on this with all that blood]
[My brother's in there, shit, this is bad]
[What's up with Egostic? Is this bastard a good guy?]
[one shot, one kill. holy shit]
[You crazy bastards~~~ Does this look like a game to you? This is real, and you're all laughing... kids these days...]
[But what are the heroes doing? A villain is doing their job for them lol]
[What about the people in there?? I'm so worried]
[Stay strong everyone!]
[Release Kim Seon-woo! Release Kim Seon-woo! Release Kim Seon-woo! Release Kim Seon-woo! Release Kim Seon-woo! Release Kim Seon-woo! Release Kim Seon-woo! Release Kim Seon-woo!]
[isn't there a fucking mod here? deal with the spam]
[Even half of Egostic's face looks handsome to me T_T]
[So many crazy people here lol. This is a real situation, idiots]
[watching a villain attack live and asking for a mod, what a joke lmao]
[If someone screenshots this comment section and posts it, national embarrassment for sure;;]
*
...One quick glance and my head was already spinning.
I turned back and assessed the situation.
The hostages who had been screaming were now covering their ears and trembling.
Yeah, gunfire is pretty terrifying.
The hostages were mostly men and women in their twenties and thirties.
...I didn't even know what kind of building this was. An office building?
While I was speculating, one of the guys aiming at me started shouting. Look at this rude little shit.
"Egostic! What have we done wrong for you to suddenly do this!?"
This guy was yelling his head off at me. The nerve of him.
Honestly, if these bastards hadn't been using my name, I wouldn't have given an attack like this the time of day. That was a hero's job. Though I did plan to eliminate any villains who would cause mass casualties before they could do so.
Anyway, for the benefit of that ignorant fool who still didn't know what he'd done wrong, I decided to kindly enlighten him.
"Wrong? You haven't done anything wrong."
As I said that, I spun the gun in my hand. The way they flinched was hilarious. Bastards. Still, as my supposed followers, at least they didn't shoot at me. Though when the hostages who'd been glancing this way flinched too, I felt a little bad...
"Of course, if ignorance counts as a crime, then I suppose you're guilty. By that standard, all of you..."
At the same time, I used telekinesis to lift the guns I'd stashed inside my coat earlier.
The way their eyes went round at the guns suddenly floating in the air—
What, did they think I could only fire guns by hand?
I'm a telekinetic, you idiots.
"All of you are guilty of high treason. The sentence is immediate execution."
With that, I fired all the guns floating in the air in different directions at once.
As the hostages shrieked in the background, my followers collapsed one by one to the sound of gunfire.
I only meant to discipline them, but maybe this was a bit excessive...
Oh well. Maybe they'll learn from today's lesson and be more careful in their next life.
Thinking that, I smacked away one bullet heading toward me with telekinesis.
Weak as my telekinesis might be, it still has enough force to alter the trajectory of an incoming bullet. Then again, that only works because I already know the bullet is coming.
"Ah, ahh..."
One person remained after everyone else had fallen.
The last of my followers, left alone with all her comrades down.
The reason I kept one alive was simple.
[Big bro! You have to spare that woman!]
Because she was the person Seo-eun had said could be useful—the one we'd marked from the beginning as a potential helper.
Her name was Lee Soo-bin, wasn't it? Seo-eun had explained that she hadn't even wanted to be there but had been dragged out by the other followers against her will. Once she'd arrived, she'd stood rigid without laying a hand on anyone. Still, she'd participated in a terrorist attack without stopping it, so she was a bad person all the same.
After shooting everyone else dead, I smiled and slowly walked toward her.
Step. Step.
"A-ah... p-please, sp-spare..."
As I drew closer, she trembled.
She didn't even try shooting me anymore. Maybe because she realized it wouldn't work.
I soon reached her. She was shaking so badly she looked like a broken machine.
"Hh, hh-hic..."
Standing before her as she hovered on the verge of tears, I took her chin in one hand.
With the other hand, I removed the mask covering her face.
Once the mask came off, her face was revealed.
My first thought upon seeing her face was...
'...She's pretty?'
Yeah. She was pretty.
I hadn't expected anything in particular, but a beauty suddenly appearing threw me off a little.
The sight of her looking up at me with tear-filled eyes would have awakened anyone's protective instincts... Wait, that wasn't what mattered right now.
I pulled myself together and spoke to her.
"Did you do something wrong or not?"
I asked gently, and she answered while trembling.
"I-I did something wrong. I was wrong. I was wrooong... h-hic, hic."
Wait, why is she like this? Is someone going to eat her?
Even in tears, her face was radiant, and I felt my composure waver for a second, but I firmed my resolve. This wasn't the time.
Steeling my heart, I asked the question that would finish off what remained of her composure.
"What exactly did you do wrong?"
"H-Huh?"
"I asked what you did wrong."
At my smiling repetition of the question, all strength seemed to leave her legs and she collapsed.
"Ah... ahh. I... we... did this without your permission..."
"And?"
"A-and also... a-ah... h-hic. I was wrong. Please spare me. Please spare me... h-hic, huaaaahh."
Mid-sentence, she suddenly broke into loud sobs.
What the hell? What had I even done?
She was the bad person here, yet somehow I looked like the villain.
...Ah, right. I was a villain.
Her sobs became the only sound in the quiet building.
*
[lol, wow, seeing it like this without any context, Egostic really does look like an absolute piece of trash lmaooooo]
*
...Reading that in the chat stung.
I never thought I'd get called a piece of trash for a reason like this...