I Became the World's Only Hero Everyone Is Obsessed With
I'm the good guy hero.
Long before monsters started appearing on Earth.
Grandma Kim Mi-ja had been running her snack bar on this street for sixty straight years.
Time had passed, but the shop had held on.
Or rather, "barely survived" would be the more accurate way to put it.
She had been torn apart by monsters several times, set on fire, torn down and rebuilt from scratch.
In the end, the place had become a pathetic wreck—half the walls crumbling, the ceiling patched with a tarp.
Still, Grandma Kim Mi-ja called that old shop her "baby" and kept firing up the griddle every single day.
That was the stubborn pride of a sixty-year-old owner.
Because of it.
Her eyes when it came to customers had reached the realm of the divine.
Same as that day.
Under the shabby tarp, a man in completely strange clothes suddenly appeared.
He wore a horned mask and was sitting there eating pork rice bowl as if he were playing at being a hero.
The little kids around him yelled "Hero!" and snapped photos left and right, turning the shop into a brief ruckus.
But Grandma instantly caught on.
This young man… he's the kind who actually eats for real!
Just one piece of meat, three spoonfuls of rice, a sip of banchan.
He ate every spoonful of his pork rice bowl with perfect proportion, as if he were calculating ratios in battle.
This wasn't ordinary dining.
It was routine and combat at once.
Looking at his eating style, Grandma Kim Mi-ja let out a soft laugh.
It reminded her of the politicians who, during election season, pretended to be ordinary citizens and ate tteokbokki while rolling the rice cakes around with a fork.
Eating tteokbokki by chopping the rice cakes, wrapping up japchae with chopsticks, complaining that cold noodles were too bland because they forgot the mustard.
She had watched countless such hypocritical performances.
So in front of her now stood a genuine eater.
This guy came here to eat real food.
And he was devouring it so hungrily.
"Mmm… Sasaengnim, could I get some rabokki and kimbap with it too?"
"Whoa, young man, are you okay? You've already had more than ten things!"
"Mmm… ah, maybe because I'm in Shaman Mode right now… even though I'm eating, my stomach never feels full."
Grandma burst out laughing.
Of course he was eating because it tasted good, but he was still trying to act like a hero.
Still, seeing a customer eat this happily after so long, she even found the jawline moving under the mask kind of endearing.
These days, because of the monsters, people had forgotten how to smile, forget about money, or just plain laugh.
She turned toward the kitchen, feeling inexplicably good.
Then.
WHIIIIIIING──!
"Huh?"
"Emergency! Police! Everyone, step back!"
"From now on, this area is designated a closed zone! Civilians are prohibited from entering. Evacuate immediately!"
In an instant, the outside of the shop erupted into chaos.
Between the camera flashes of students snapping photos, the red emergency lights illuminated the shabby tarp ceiling.
And soon, heavily armed police in riot gear pushed their way into the shop.
"What the heck is this?!"
Grandma Mi-ja shouted, face blank.
Throughout all of it, the horn-masked youth—
"Frrrup… gulp."
—finished off the shop's signature udon broth in one go.
***
"Hands up! Move and I shoot!"
"Alpha Team, target in sight. Confirmed 95% match with 'Horn Mask Subject'."
"Currently disguised as unarmed. Requesting additional personnel. Over."
It was instantaneous.
The door shattered as the heavily armored police unit burst in.
Steel shields rammed the counter, chairs toppled over with clattering.
The once-shabby snack bar had turned into a battlefield.
Dozens of gun barrels were aimed straight at me.
The shop went dead silent in an instant.
The only sound was Grandma Mi-ja's shout.
"What the hell are you people doing?! If you wreck my shop, you'll answer for it?!"
But the police didn't move an inch.
Outside, citizens were still holding up their phones, filming me.
The expressions that had once been "He's a hero!" were now twisted with suspicion and fear.
At that moment, one man stepped forward in front of the guns.
The leader of the suppression unit.
On his shield, it read 'Special Unit-2nd Mobility'.
"Get up, terrorist."
Thud—
He knocked the tray on my table off the table with the back of his hand and sent it crashing to the floor.
Crash!
Kimbap pieces scattered everywhere.
"We've already confirmed you're the 'scammer' who has been faking 'synthetic videos' to incite citizens by pretending to be a hero lately. The conclusion came from police investigation."
"Synthetic videos?"
The moment his words dropped, the surrounding area buzzed.
"So all those videos… were fake?"
"That hero… wasn't real?"
"Then who the hell is this guy, an actor?"
"Wooong wooong."
In an instant, the atmosphere flipped.
Fear, doubt, and the crowd's instinct to watch others' reactions.
Without any verification, just "everyone else is saying it must be true" expressions.
Those three emotions spread like rotten water.
But I didn't show a single hint of it.
Because I already knew everything about this situation.
Hehe, see? I told you it would work, right?
Yeah, at least one stat is for sure.
Hehe, of course. Look at me—I'm just a top-tier AI android that humanity only reached in a thousand years. I have ordinary people psychology in the palm of my hand!
At the central computer of the underground base.
She was watching the situation with me, sharing my vision and hearing.
Even though I could only hear her voice on the screen, Sora would be wagging her tail excitedly right about now.
From now on, this is the really important part, Master!
Of course.
Ordinary citizen cosplay was over.
I was about to execute my plan next.
Swish—
As I slowly stood up from my seat, the surrounding area stirred even more intensely.
"Eh?!"
"He's standing up!"
"Oh? Surprisingly obedient surrender? Or maybe your cover is blown and you're hoping for some mercy now?"
The suppression unit leader shrugged with a mocking laugh.
Once again, citizens raised their phones.
Flashes, murmurs, eyes filled with agitation.
But my gaze was locked on only one person.
It was Grandma Kim Mi-ja, bending over to pick up the broken chair and table.
"Sasaengnim."
"Huh?"
"I'm sorry for the trouble."
I didn't even glance at the suppression unit as I bowed 90 degrees in front of her.
And.
Tap.
One finger snap.
[Site Recovery Mode activated.]
[Description: Mode for neat freaks who hate mess after a rampage. All surrounding objects are restored to their original state.]
The world began to rewind.
Dust particles in the air reversed direction.
The spilled broth stains flipped and flowed back into the bowls.
Shattered glass pieces floated in the air, then "clack" together along an invisible line.
Click click click.
The broken chair legs stood back up at perfect angles, the torn tarp slid back into place as if time had been sucked backward.
Each piece of the shattered sign regained its light and was engraved again.
And that was only the beginning.
Brick by brick flew back into place, stacking the wall itself.
Cracks healed like concrete hardening, a faint glow spreading between the red bricks.
The ceiling slowly descended as if the sky were folding, then settled softly in place.
And.
Click—
The last screw fitting perfectly into place.
The entire scene froze.
Instantly, silence.
Even the air was clear, as if all the earlier chaos had never happened.
It was spotless.
The shop that had just been ash-gray now sparkled as if time had reversed, like the snack bar on the day it first opened sixty years ago.
It was restoration on a level that rewound time.
The hidden crowd.
The police frozen with guns lowered.
And in the center, I slowly exhaled.
"I didn't expect to come out for lunch and end up doing an interior remodel."
I lifted the corner of my mouth slightly and added lightly.
"Since I offered it as service, don't expect any AS."
At the same time.
"Uwooooo…"
"Ooooooo…!"
"Waaaaaaaah!!"
A roar exploded like a bomb.
The atmosphere that had frozen solid from doubt flipped in an instant.
In the blink of an eye, the front of the snack bar had become a festival ground.
"W-what was that just now?! That was fake, right?"
"Don't bullshit! That's real!"
"Magic! Or superpowers?!"
"Mom, it's a real hero!!"
Everyone cheered.
Their eyes had changed from suspicion to awe, from fear to excitement.
To turn people into villains, you at least need to make sure the villain isn't real, right?
I laughed inwardly.
Yeah, I'm the real hero.
Just the one crazy guy in this monster world who got a cheat-mode buff.
I waved my hand lightly toward the window.
That single action sent the cheers into an explosion.
"Horn Mask! Horn Mask! Horn Mask!!"
The crowd cheering my name.
Phone camera flashes rained down like snow.
That was the moment.
BANG!
"Kyaaaa?!?"
"Everyone down!"
Screams and chaos erupted.
The cheers flipped to fear in an instant.
The gun owner was the suppression unit leader.
He had pointed his handgun at the ceiling of the just-restored shop.
As everyone's eyes shot toward him, my heart sank with a thud.
"T-this… it's definitely… yes! It's some kind of trick!"
"Eh?"
Even his subordinates looked bewildered.
"A trick! I'm sure he made a deal with that old hag behind him! The whole shop is a set! Holograms, video synthesis—it's all fake!"
…No, is this guy actually crazy?
Then did he run the snack bar as a set for sixty years?
Surrounding citizens shouted back "What nonsense?!" "We saw it with our own eyes!" but he just turned the gun toward them, as if the police themselves were the problem.
Thoo… Normally, at this timing, the police would retreat…
I muttered inwardly.
At that moment, the comms on my ear rang.
Master! This is actually the perfect chance right now!
…A chance?
Yes! Crisis is opportunity! This is the perfect timing! It's almost time for me to appear…
Saying that, Sora started moving something again.
Eh? What are you talking about?
Ah, nothing special… just a monster♥
…?
At first I thought I had misheard.
But in that moment.
Crackle, crackle.
A suspicious noise leaked from the suppression unit leader's walkie-talkie.
And the voice came through.
"L-leader! Big problem! Crackle… monster sighting confirmed!"
"W-what? What did you just say?!"
"Monster! Rank… Calamity Class! Machine readings spiking! We can't handle this with our current manpower! Crackle… retreat!"
At the same time—
WHIIIIIIING!
The entire city shook.
The alarm siren tore through eardrums, vibrations traveling up from the toes to the skin.
KRRAAAAAAAHH!!
The monster's roar.
That single sound from beyond the horizon made the windows shatter and the air twist.
Alright, player's turn.