Chapter 20
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: Lee Seo-yul (2)
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“Haaah...”
A week had passed since that day.
Not much had changed in the meantime.
Aside from deciding to ramp up my activities a bit more, I still had to show up for my part-time job.
‘That villain... they said he died...’
The villain behind that terrorist attack had died just yesterday, according to the news articles.
The cause wasn’t clear, but something about side effects from drugs.
I mean, his ability had only been able to absorb a tiny bit of energy before, but it got that strong, so I figured there had to be some kind of price.
I just didn’t expect him to drop dead like that.
I gazed out the window, recalling how thrilled he’d been.
Oh, right.
Come to think of it, the logistics center gig was completely off the table now.
That terrorist attack last time had already damaged the building during repairs, but it fully collapsed, so they have to rebuild from scratch.
I could go to another one if I wanted, but since the need for that money was gone, I planned to just stick to part-time work that let me scrape by day to day for now.
Not like I had to reenroll in school or anything.
‘Maybe I should just drop out.’
Before, I hadn’t been confident in my powers, and I was still fumbling around without a clear path for my future, so I thought I had to go back to school.
But considering the power I had now and what was about to go down in Korea, becoming a hero made way more sense than reenrolling.
I was already working toward that anyway.
‘They’re looking for me after that last incident...’
Maybe because I stepped up and handled things for them last time.
Rumors were going around that the Hero Association and the government wanted to find me.
Of course, they probably knew who I was, but they had to realize that sneaking around with background checks wasn’t a great way to approach someone.
The ability they’d clocked me at was at least A-Rank.
At minimum A-Rank, but they were probably assuming S-Rank was more like it.
Try to investigate or exploit talent like that?
The Korean government and Hero Association would have to be a total clown show to attempt it.
I wasn’t out there committing villainy or anything; I was just an unlicensed hero catching villains and saving civilians from danger.
Even as an unlicensed one, that kind of hero work should make them reasonable about it.
Most likely, they’d come through heroes I was already friendly with soon enough.
Sword Fairy or Kinesis, maybe...
I wasn’t sure about the rest.
“So boring...”
Business is slow today.
With that incident a week ago, fewer people out and about was inevitable.
I wondered if they’d be in the red for a while as I turned on my phone.
Ding-a-ling.
“...Huh?”
“Ah...”
Kinesis?
‘What? Wasn’t she seriously hurt?’
She recovered this fast in just a week?
“...Are you okay?”
I set aside my surprise and asked if she was alright first.
“Ah...”
Kinesis, in civilian clothes, fiddled with her hair shyly and looked away.
“I-I’m fine... I got plenty of treatment...”
“That’s a relief, then. The news made it sound like you were in critical condition, so I was really worried.”
“Ah...”
“The usual from last time today?”
“No, uh... I actually wanted to talk for a bit today...”
“Talk?”
This was the first time she’d approached me so directly.
“Ah, um... first, I need to apologize...”
“Huh? No, why all of a sudden...”
“I’m really sorry about that time...! I should’ve at least given you some basic info on the villain, but I let my guard down...”
“Uh...”
“Ah...”
Is this really the place to bring that up...?
I glanced around.
As expected, the cafe was empty.
Good that no one was here, but...
Even if there were, no one would understand what we were talking about anyway...
Kinesis seemed to have blurted it out from nerves, so getting mad here would be overkill.
“Uh... can we talk after my shift ends?”
It was almost over anyway.
At my words, Kinesis nodded slightly, head bowed in embarrassment.
At least she’s willing to hear me out.
Good.
With that, my cafe shift ended, I handed off to the next person, and stepped outside.
“May I treat you to a meal?”
“A meal?”
“I know a nice place. Great food quality... and it has private rooms.”
Private room, huh.
“If the food’s that good, isn’t it pricey? Sorry, but I’m not loaded enough to eat at places like that...”
“N-No, not at all... I’ll cover everything.”
Why is she being so meek?
This was pretty different from the personality I remembered.
“Is something wrong?”
At my question, Kinesis jumped and looked at me.
Even through her sunglasses, I could tell she was rattled.
“Ah, no, nothing’s wrong...”
Hmm...
If she says so, pushing it wouldn’t be right.
The place we ended up at looked ridiculously expensive.
I sat in the private room we reserved and instinctively reached for the menu to check prices.
And...
‘Whoa, what the...’
Prices that felt like they’d never touch my life.
A single ordinary dessert going for hundreds of thousands of won...
The meals looked like they’d easily hit that if you ate decently...
“You sure it’s okay to eat here?”
“If I’m treating you, it should be somewhere nice... and, um...”
Kinesis mumbled, her face flushing somewhere.
“You saved my life... let me do this much as thanks. And... I still think it’s not enough...”
“Nah... you don’t have to feel that bad about it. It was only natural.”
“......”
What I really wanted to ask wasn’t that, though...
“Honestly, up until recently, I figured we’d just keep pretending not to know each other. I’d done a bunch of dumb impulsive stuff I couldn’t hold back on, so I assumed Seo-yul would know my identity.”
I’d waffled a lot.
I kept telling myself to hide who I was, but whenever something happened, I couldn’t stand by and ended up jumping in.
Yet I worried my identity getting out would shatter my peaceful daily life.
I’d shown power despite being a powerless person, blaming a machine error, and wondered if they’d rule it as an actual error and let me do hero work.
Just recently, I’d been hyped up, wanted to test my strength, didn’t want to let that fleeing villain escape, so I’d recklessly assumed the old man nearby was a regular civilian and revealed my power.
Nothing had happened since, so he probably really was just a civilian.
Anyway... looking back, all my actions based on guesses felt insanely reckless.
The stuff I’d been through was surreal, I didn’t know the extent of my power, and I had no connections, so as an ordinary young guy in Korea, it all felt complicated.
Once I realized my power was at least A-Rank—practically S-Rank—my worries about it vanished completely.
At S-Rank, you could call it ‘national power’ level without exaggeration, which was why I could finally relax.
“What did you want to meet me for?”
It could just be repaying the favor with this meal.
But I couldn’t assume that was the only reason.
She was a hero following orders from above, after all.
She might be pretending to repay a debt while actually trying to learn more about me from that previous incident.
They’d probably dug up my identity already, but knowing that didn’t mean they knew my inner thoughts or personality.
“I... I know it’s hard to believe, but...”
Lee Seo-yul said it with a wistful, sad expression.
“I just wanted to talk to you alone about some personal things, so I set this up...”
“Uh...”
“I’m not under any orders from above about you, aside from what I mentioned last time. If you want, I can show you the official documents right now...”
“No... you don’t need to go that far...”
What?
So she really just called me here out of pure gratitude?
I couldn’t hide my confusion watching her embarrassed expression.
It was the complete opposite of the her I remembered.