I'm Not a Villain Though (2)
I scanned my surroundings to see if there was anything useful. The laboratory was packed with every kind of cutting-edge machine imaginable. Nothing that could reasonably be called a weapon was in sight. Only experimental tools whose purpose I couldn’t guess and stacks of unidentified documents. Well, there was one thing.
I glanced at the object sprawled across the floor. The pistol that had been aimed at me only moments earlier. The hunk of metal that had threatened me with murderous intent now lay ownerless, rolling coldly across the tiles.
I swallowed hard and picked it up. The heavy, icy weight against my palm finally grounded me in reality. This should work for self-defense, at least.
Emboldened, I approached the sleeping researcher. I ripped the ID card from the chest pocket of the man snoring peacefully and moved on.
I’ll need this to open the door.
Preparations were finished. Or rather, my mind was nowhere near ready, but I had no choice. Face stiff with tension, I stood before the exit. I pressed my ear to the doorframe, bracing for the sound of boots or shouts from the other side.
But…
“……?”
Nothing. I held my breath, wondering if the blaring siren inside the lab was drowning it out, yet still no presence reached me from beyond the door.
Hadn’t they said the security team was deploying? Then why was it so quiet? The unnatural silence sent a chill down my spine. Still, I couldn’t stay locked in here forever.
I swiped the ID card across the reader.
Beep.
With a smooth mechanical tone, the massive steel door parted. I tightened my grip on the pistol, dropped into a firing stance, and hurled myself through.
“Freeze! Nobody move—!”
The rest of the shout scattered uselessly into the air. What lay before me was not a squad of armed soldiers pointing guns my way. Only an empty corridor where red emergency lights flickered, casting grotesque shadows.
“…What the hell. Where did everyone go?”
Abandoned documents littered the floor. The siren continued to wail, echoing hollowly through the space. An unpleasant calm lingered, like the wreckage left after a storm had passed.
Feeling strangely awkward, I scratched the back of my head and looked around. The long corridor, sealed with smooth metal and devoid of windows, pressed down with claustrophobic weight.
I kept the muzzle lowered, hugged the wall, and crept forward. That was when I reached the corner.
Thud. Thud.
The sound of heavy boots striking the floor. Close. My heart plummeted. I dropped low. Fortunately a large ventilation control unit nearby cast a deep shadow. I slipped inside it and held my breath.
Moments later, a group rounded the corner.
“Sector 3’s blockade has been breached too!”
“Have you identified the intruder? It can’t be anyone from the Hero Association, right?”
“We still don’t know! We’re prioritizing defense of the core power room for now.”
“Then hurry. Redirect all remaining forces there!”
“Yes, sir!”
The heavily armed soldiers rushed past. Fragments of their conversation lodged in my mind.
An intruder…? Someone besides me?
So the siren hadn’t been for me. My thoughts spun quickly. Whoever it was, I owed them. The timing was perfect. Thanks to this distraction, I had the single flawless chance to escape.
I stared down the opposite direction the soldiers had come from. If they were heading for the facility’s central zone, the path they had emerged from was most likely the exit route.
Move. It has to be now.
Senses razor-sharp, I walked silently, careful not to let my footsteps echo. My mouth was bone-dry from tension, but stopping wasn’t an option.
After several minutes, I spotted it. Unlike the other sealed doors, a massive electronic gate glowed brightly at the end of the corridor.
There…! Just get past that and I live.
Hope swelled inside me—then a sharp voice sliced through the cold air.
“Hey! You! What are you doing?!”
My heart hit the floor. I slowly turned. A nervous-looking researcher with glasses was approaching, arms full of documents. He glanced between my ragged appearance and the pistol in my hand, brow furrowing deeply.
“Test subject from the RX sector? Who’s your handler? Why are you wandering around without authorization?”
“Uh… well…”
Panicked, I backed away without answering. My throat had gone completely dry. The more I retreated, the uglier the researcher’s expression became.
“Mute? Or drug side effects? Hey, just stay right there!”
When he shouted and started toward me, I reflexively spun to run. But before I could take a single step, I slammed into something massive.
Thud!
A hard, unyielding wall of muscle. I looked up and froze.
A giant easily over two meters tall blocked my path. The moment I met the bald, dark-skinned, muscular man’s terrifying glare, despair flooded me.
It’s over. I can’t beat this.
The overwhelming physical gap brought crushing helplessness. At this range I’d be subdued before I could even raise the gun.
As I trembled, a red warning notice on the wall behind the giant caught my eye.
Unauthorized ability usage inside the research facility is strictly prohibited.
Only then did I remember the one fact I had briefly forgotten.
Oh, right. I have powers.
My mind snapped back into focus. Physical difference or not, I possessed a powerful weapon.
“Subdue him, now!”
As the researcher’s order sent the giant’s huge hand slicing toward my collar, I poured every ounce of strength into my voice.
“Stop!”
The giant froze mid-motion like a machine that had overloaded. Success.
“Wh-what?! What did you just—?!”
Both the researcher and the giant stared in horror. I didn’t stop. I had to end this cleanly.
“Subdue that man.”
The giant’s body twisted at an unnatural angle, then charged the researcher behind me with terrifying speed.
“Uwaaaaaah!!”
“Ack! You crazy bastard! Let go! Let go of me!”
Crashing noises filled the corridor as the two men tumbled across the floor. Leaving their screaming chaos behind, I pulled the ID card from my pocket with shaking hands and slapped it against the terminal.
Beep—!
The heavy door opened. Cold outside air rushed into my lungs. I didn’t look back. I simply ran.
I had no time to check what sounds chased me or whether anyone was following. My heart hammered as if it would explode, and the burning in my lungs consumed every nerve. I ran until I couldn’t feel the rough asphalt against my bare feet.
When my legs finally gave out, I stopped at the entrance of some nameless alley and gasped for air.
“Haa… haa…”
A quick glance behind showed no pursuers. I let out a sigh of relief, lifted my head toward the sky, and froze.
Brilliant neon signs embroidered the deep blue night. Massive holographic billboards. Flying vehicles weaving between buildings. Skyscrapers rising endlessly.
The scene was disturbingly identical to the cover of volume one of the comic I had read at the manga café—Eden’s Horizon.
Only after witnessing that impossible sight did I finally understand where I was.
“…No fucking way.”
I had entered the world inside the comic.
The corridor reeked of acrid gunpowder and scorched wiring. A woman in a flamboyant suit with a flowing red cape strode through it. Polaris lightly brushed dust from her shoulder as she gazed down at the fallen armed troops.
The secret experimental group that had conducted human experiments in the shadows of Ark City. The heart of the Omega Research Institute was now wrapped in silence.
“Situation terminated. All sectors suppressed as of this moment.”
After the brief report into her communicator, Polaris approached the main terminal in the central control room. The screen flickered with red warning lights and streams of complex data.
Her eyes moved to the transparent culture pods lined up inside the laboratory. Six glass tubes. Inside each lay a life form so ruined it was difficult to call it human, kept alive by oxygen respirators. Their brainwave graphs were nearly flat. Most were pitiful victims who had lost all sense of self and fallen into a vegetative state.
“…Is this everything?”
Frowning, Polaris tapped at the keyboard. As she cross-checked the rescue list against the experiment records, her finger suddenly stopped.
There were clearly six pods before her eyes. Yet the management system’s log showed a different number.
“……So there was one more?”
She hurriedly tried to pull up the missing subject’s detailed data, but the screen displayed nothing. It was as if someone had deliberately erased it.
“RX-007…?”
The only thing left was the test subject’s code name, blinking alone on the monitor.
A city drenched in neon that never slept. The back alleys of Ark City were filled with shadows the glamorous downtown lights could never reach.
Rachel, one of the city’s few remaining peace officers and detectives, stepped across damp asphalt and let out a long sigh. Being a cop in this place meant the exhausting job of trying to keep order between corrupt higher-ups and lawless slums.
“This damn city never gives you a single quiet day.”
Urgent reports about the research lab raid had been pouring from the communicator at her waist for a while now. It wasn’t a case for a plain detective like her. She just hoped the bums and vagrants in front of her wouldn’t start another fight.
But the moment she turned the corner into the dark alley, her footsteps halted.
Beside a puddle reflecting the billboard’s blue glow, amid steam leaking from a narrow ventilation grate, a boy had collapsed.
Rachel rushed over and checked his condition.
“Hey, kid! You okay?!”
“Ugh……”
At least he was breathing. As relief washed over her, Rachel finally registered the boy’s bizarre state. Thin white patient gown stained with grime and dust. Bare feet covered in cuts and bruises. But what truly caught her was his face—gaunt enough to show bone, as if he hadn’t eaten in days. His faintly closed eyes carried the weary sorrow of someone who had endured every pain the world could offer.
When she carefully touched his shoulder, the boy’s lips trembled.
“Hungry……”
That raw, instinctive plea made something inside Rachel waver. Criminal? He didn’t look like one. Faces of countless abused children from Ark City’s ugly underbelly flashed through her mind.
“Ha, shit… I’m already broke as it is……”
Rachel clutched her throbbing temple. By the book she should report him and hand him over to central services. But sending a kid in this condition there would probably just send him straight back to whatever hell had made him like this instead of helping.
After a moment’s hesitation, she shrugged off her coat and draped it over the shivering boy’s shoulders.
“Count yourself lucky, brat. I’m in a decent mood today, so I’ll cut you some slack.”
Not as one of Ark City’s merciless cops, but as a person. Rachel reached out her hand to the boy.