Chapter 1
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: This Isn't a Superpower
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This isn't a superpower...
A single-player story game from a famous superhero series had just launched.
Noble Heroes Beginning.
Truth be told, since it was set from a different perspective than the original, it felt more like a side story.
Just like that game where you could roam the original world freely as an original protagonist in a magic school that swept the globe, this one launched amid similar hype.
In fact, people said it was incredibly fun thanks to its high degree of freedom and the random superpowers you got each time you started a new game, letting you tackle it in all sorts of ways.
But there was a problem.
'I heard this thing's brutally hard.'
They said the difficulty was insane.
You could save, but since it was a roguelike genre, dying meant your save file got wiped.
If you weren't good at games, you couldn't even see the original story properly.
That's how it was at launch, so you can imagine the backlash.
Naturally, players were up in arms.
Once it became full-on content, countless streamers threw themselves into no-death runs, desperately trying to clear it.
Players begged to remove the roguelike elements so they could just enjoy the story normally, but the devs refused.
In the end, the community made their own mod that kept save files intact even on death.
But still...
"What is this, roguelikes with soulslike difficulty in this day and age..."
A roguelike that was notoriously tough enough to be called soulslike.
Not exactly welcoming for an old, jaded gamer like me.
In the end, I decided to turn on cheats.
"Gonna watch the story and delete it."
Stat Cheat.
There was a cheat to get whatever superpower I wanted, but this one felt more reliable than a superpower cheat.
Still, a game needed some game feel to it.
Just handing me my dream power outright would've killed the gacha fun of rolling for abilities.
Even with just this cheat, I'd be overwhelmingly strong enough never to die, so no need for extras...
Call it the gamer pride still flickering inside me, not wanting to overdo the cheats.
Sure, players who skip cheats might laugh, but whatever.
The moment I applied the cheat and booted the game...
"Hm."
I was inside the game.
Or so it seemed.
- A-Rank Hero Blast captures B-Rank Villain Viper in Songpa-gu... 37th arrest this year alone.
- B-Rank Hero Blossom now starring in dramas too. Are heroes okay like this?
- S-Rank Hero Thunder Emperor declares participation in World Exchange Tournament, vowing victory.
"What the hell are these news headlines..."
I couldn't ignore the weird stuff on the news.
Just moments ago, I'd been sitting in my chair to play the game. Why was I watching TV now?
With headlines like that, it was impossible not to notice.
"I've gone into the game world."
...That was the fact.
'Did I possess a character or something?'
Didn't seem like it.
This was still my house, after all.
But to be sure, I checked myself out in the mirror.
"Whoa."
I had changed.
Taller overall, face mostly the same but features sharper, more defined.
But more than anything...
"What the hell happened to my body?"
The chiseled muscles showing even through my shirt made me strip off my top.
Out came sleek yet powerful build.
The kind where anyone could tell at a glance, "Damn, this guy must grind hard in the gym."
No exaggeration—I could've stepped into a bodybuilding contest right then and not looked out of place.
'I've never trained that hard.'
At first, I thought maybe I'd swapped into some fitness buff's body, but my face was too similar to my old one for that.
Sure, I'd worked out a bit, but nothing to justify this.
I stared in the mirror for a while until nature called.
'Might as well hit the bathroom...'
If worst came to worst, I could check there.
Muttering to myself, I headed to the bathroom.
The second my hand touched the knob,
Crunch.
"Uh."
The doorknob snapped off.
What the—
"The knob isn't broken, is it...?"
I'd just gripped and turned it like normal.
But it couldn't handle my strength and twisted right off.
'Ah... Can I fix this?'
Cold sweat beading, I checked if the root was totally smashed.
Luckily, just the knob part was mangled and broken off.
'Okay, I can patch this up...'
If the whole thing had ripped out, I'd have needed a new door. Dodged a bullet.
"Already broke as hell, can't afford dumb expenses."
Business first, think later.
Brushing off the minor heart attack from nearly pulverizing a toilet plunger mid-business like it was nothing, I pondered what to do next.
First things first: dedicate time to figuring out what happened to my body, including how to control this strength.
This clearly wasn't my original world, but aside from it being full of superpowered people worldwide, nothing had changed—not my house, not my money, nothing.
Contacts looked the same too, so relationships intact.
'So, did I awaken a superpower?'
Not impossible.
Sure, this world had people without powers, but they were rare.
The so-called Powerless.
In the original story, since almost everyone had powers, the Powerless got treated like dirt—so badly that villains from their ranks even popped up.
Those villains developed their own gear to pull off crimes, of course.
There were even villains running experiments to forcibly grant powers to the Powerless.
Probably still happening somewhere right now.
If this really was the Noble Heroes world...
I let out a deep sigh.
"What a headache..."
I'd mostly watched movies, so I didn't know much.
Just vague worldbuilding details.
Anyway, the originals were often parallel worlds, so unless you were a diehard fan, knowing them wouldn't let you pinpoint which timeline you were in. Interfering was pointless.
Besides...
'Noble Heroes is set in America. Korea barely shows up.'
Being in Korea, which had zero ties to the main plot, meant plot knowledge was useless unless I lived in the States.
So I decided to roll with it.
No point fighting it anyway.
"Hm."
Eventually, curiosity won: time to check my power.
'Why does my body feel so damn light?'
Even walking here, it felt insanely light.
Like I could leapfrog a building with one good push. This weird sense of omnipotence.
'Nah, just my imagination.'
Hadn't tested yet.
Testing with eyes around was awkward.
I arrived at the hospital and looked up.
They did power tests here.
Free? Score.
'In a world where most folks have powers, maybe I got something decent.'
With that thought, I stepped inside.
Almost yanked the ticket machine off pulling a number—minor oops, ignored.
Told the counter my purpose, booked the test.
No one else, so quick turnaround.
Chatted briefly with the doc, then to the testing room.
Worried might need to flex, but nope.
Just step in the machine for a scan. Easy.
Out I came, and a nurse approached right away.
"Ha Do-yoon, right?"
"Yes."
"Results are in. Head straight to your doctor."
Her expression was off.
Like pitying me.
"Aigoo... Handsome face, healthy build, and yet..."
"Such a shame..."
The other nurses' whispers carried clear.
They thought I couldn't hear...
I could.
'From that far? Weird.'
Nah, couldn't be.
Mixed feelings as I sat before the doc.
He eyed the screen, then glanced at me.
"Ah, Ha Do-yoon?"
"Yes."
"Please... don't be shocked. Your results..."
Ah.
Yeah, that.
"...Negative. You're, uh... Powerless."
The doc said it with a voice thick with sorrow.
Of fucking course.
Looks like I can't live easy this lifetime either.