How Did It Come to This?
How did it come to this?
"Will you follow me?"
At my question, Chae Nayeon hesitated a moment. Then she asked one of her own.
"What are you planning to do from here on?"
What was I going to do from here on? That was an easy question. From before I had even fallen into this world—no, from the very moment I had started playing Path of the Superhuman—I had always wanted just one thing.
"I'm going to help the heroes."
To give the heroes their happy ending. It was what I had wished for across ten long years, and there was not a shred of falsehood or hesitation in it.
Chae Nayeon gave a small nod at my unhesitating answer. Had she liked what she'd heard? She ought to. This was a woman crazy enough to rob villains blind just to support her little sister.
I gave her a decent enough answer. She'll say she'll follow me now, right?
Chae Nayeon's invisibility was a thoroughly useful ability. The fact that it applied not only to herself but to anything she touched was especially nice. Having more cards to play was always a happy thing. With this, the odds of saving the world had just gone up—
"How are you going to help them?"
"Pardon?"
"I asked how you're going to help the heroes."
How was I going to help them? Well, first I'd take Fat Guy down, and then... hmm.
My mind locked up. Not because I didn't have a plan. Because the plans I had already made suddenly felt wrong.
Now that I think about it... is this actually right? Am I even allowed to do it this way?
Taking Fat Guy down would not be hard for me now. I had staked my life on eliminating Machine Doctor, and I had succeeded. Everything he possessed was in my hands. In effect, I had inherited Machine Doctor's combat power wholesale.
Fat Guy is a powerful villain, sure—but only because the comparison is Nova at the start of the story. On the scale of the world as a whole, he isn't that strong.
Fat Guy was a villain who only made a name for himself in this one city. Machine Doctor, on the other hand? A named villain whose reputation reached other cities entirely. With everything of his now in my possession, Fat Guy was no match for me.
But did that mean I should be the one to take him down? That was something I needed to think through again. Because—
What makes a hero strong is trial. And a villain is the greatest trial a hero can face.
In the world of Path of the Superhuman, a villain was a hero's trial. The moment you lost, you were humiliated, raped, your spirit broken. For rookies like Nova, villains were natural predators. But precisely because they were such bitter enemies, a hero grew by bringing them down. You only became truly strong by overcoming hardship and adversity with your own two hands.
So what happens if I just go and flatten Fat Guy myself?
Nova would lose her chance to overcome that trial. She would be safe, sure—she wouldn't lose. But I knew what was coming for this world. What awaited it was catastrophe. A calamity you could only stand against by taking the optimal route, squeezing out every last drop of efficiency, and producing the best possible result. Nova had been born to face that calamity.
Which means Fat Guy is a trial Nova has to overcome herself.
I had been thinking too simply before. Looking at it again, this was not something I could just casually handle for her. Nova had to overcome countless trials. She had to grow strong that way. I could not take Fat Guy down in her place.
The protagonist of this world was Nova, in the end. And the best card we had against the coming calamity was Nova as well. If she did not grow enough, the world would end. Fat Guy was the trial she had been given—and the foothold for her growth. I had no business forcing my way into that.
Once my thoughts reached that point, I did not have a clean answer for Chae Nayeon. So I gave her the best one I could manage right now.
"Machine Doctor's lab is in my hands now. I'll use everything in here to help them as best I can."
I could not erase Nova's trials for her. But I could at least pull her out right before she lost. Even that might get in the way of her growth, sure. But it was a hundred times, a thousand times better than letting her lose, get raped by a villain, and have it all end there.
Yeah. This is the best I can do right now.
Honestly, I was not even satisfied with my own answer. But what else was I supposed to do? The protagonist of this world was Nova, and Nova had to get strong on her own. Me jumping in, beating down every villain, and wrapping her in bubble wrap was absolutely not a good play.
That thing where you transmigrate as an extra in a novel or a game, vacuum up every hidden piece, and steal the protagonist's spot—that is something I cannot do here.
Nova's ability, Child of the Stars. The greatest late-bloomer power in the entire Path of the Superhuman setting. That late-game, top-value force was the strongest weapon any hero possessed. What I had to do was support that weapon so it could be honed to a killing edge. Yeah. I had to hold the line as a supporter, thoroughly and without exception. That was the path to saving this world.
"Using Machine Doctor's lab to help the heroes... Hmm. I like it. All right. I can follow that."
Chae Nayeon seemed reasonably satisfied with my answer.
"At the very least, this is going to help a lot more than the villain-robbing I've been doing. I'll work hard from here on."
She offered me her hand. A gesture that said she would be my ally. She, too, had chosen the path of a supporter, just as I had. I took her hand gladly.
And just like that, the invisibility user Chae Nayeon became my first companion.
"By the way, Mr. Woojin—what are you going to use as your alias going forward?"
"My alias?"
"Yes. If you're going to help heroes, you need a name that fits the part."
A name. There was no denying that names carried real weight in the world of Path of the Superhuman. Heroes and villains did not pick separate aliases for nothing. They used operating names instead of their real ones for a single purpose: to pour power into the name itself. Every deed a hero or villain piled up added weight to that name, and that accumulated weight became a force all its own. Heroes stacked that weight to become symbols of hope. Villains did the same to become symbols of terror. And just as Chae Nayeon said, I needed an alias of my own.
What I'm aiming for is the role of a supporter who helps heroes. I do need a name that heroes would welcome the moment they heard it.
But I did not need it this second. The first order of business was taking full possession of everything in this lab. Getting my hands on the full extent of Machine Doctor's power was the top priority.
"Let's take our time with the alias. We've still got time, don't we?"
There was a week left until Nova's hero debut. More than enough time to come up with a single name.
A week passed. The day I had been waiting for had arrived: Nova's hero debut. The city she had been assigned to was Meteor City. Her first mission was to patrol the city's northern district.
"Hello, everyone! I'm Nova, the hero making her debut today! Please treat me well!"
Nova greeted the citizens with a bright smile, her golden hair swaying. It was exactly the sight I had watched for ten years. The Nova I had only ever been able to see on a monitor was standing right in front of me.
Honestly, I wanted to run over and hug her on the spot.
If I actually did that, I'd get arrested immediately.
I had decided to become a supporter of heroes. I could not go around doing things like that. Anyway. Let me take stock of the situation. Assigned city, assigned mission, even the first line of dialogue. Everything was identical to the original.
Except for one thing.
"Boss, do you see her? That's my little sister! That's our Sia!"
Chae Sia. Hero alias: Ray. The girl standing at Nova's side right now was the one difference from the original. Yeah. This time, Nova was not alone. Chae Nayeon's little sister was with her.
In the original, Nova takes the patrol mission alone. Her partner, Chae Sia, uses up vacation days starting from debut day.
The reason the original Chae Sia took leave from her very first day as a hero was standing right next to me. Her older sister, Chae Nayeon, had gone missing a week earlier, and she had taken time off to find her. In the original timeline, Chae Nayeon vanished and was later found as a corpse—dead in the middle of one of Machine Doctor's experiments. That was who she was. A character who only ever appeared as text. No face, no name. Just an extra.
"Look at how pretty my little sister's costume is. Hnnngh. She grew up so well. Our Sia really grew up beautifully..."
But right now she was standing beside me, making absolutely no effort to hide what a hopelessly doting older sister she was. Chae Nayeon had not died. She talked to her sister every day. And thanks to that, Nova was not alone.
Things are already better than the original from the starting line. Maybe I don't even need to worry.
The plan Chae Nayeon and I had put together over the past week: support the rookie heroes Nova and Ray with everything we had built—gear and all—in every way we could. Becoming thorough supporters. That was the plan. Leave the trials for them to overcome themselves, and just help them grow well through it.
I had thought it was a good plan. And for a while, things had been flowing in a good direction. I had thought it would all work out.
The world, as always, had a way of refusing to go according to plan.
Ray, slammed into a wall and out cold. Fat Guy, dangling in midair with a hole punched through his gut. Me, holding that fat, heavy, middle-aged bald villain aloft on a tentacle run clean through him. And—
"Kh—ugh. You... who the hell are you?"
Nova, wounded and staggering, asking me who I was. Everything had gone wildly off-script.
"...Hah."
How did it come to this?