Kid G's Influence
Free time before the lecture began.
I had claimed my seat early, and when Eun Seol walked into the classroom I waved and motioned her over. The second she spotted me, she looked at me like I was garbage and went straight to an empty desk on the opposite side of the room.
I snorted, grabbed my bag and books, and sat down right next to her. She stared at me in disbelief and snapped.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Get lost."
"What do you mean? I'm a college student trying to take a class."
"Tch…"
Eun Seol huffed in irritation and tried to move seats, but this time Kim Sejin barged in from the other side and cut off her escape route.
"Hi hi! Our Valkyrie's… uh, super devoted fan? Valkyrie totally made it as a hero, huh? Must feel great!"
Still unaware that I already knew Eun Seol's identity, Sejin was working overtime to talk around it.
With Kim Sejin blocking the other path, Eun Seol sighed.
"Move. I'm changing seats."
"What? I don't want to get up again. Just sit down already—why bother switching?"
"I said move."
"You know what, I've been putting up with this, but why have you been bossing me around this whole time? Don't like me? Too bad. I'm not moving!"
While Kim Sejin held the line, the professor walked in. Having failed to relocate, Eun Seol pressed a hand to her forehead and sat back down.
In the original story she kept making pointless trouble and trolling Valkyrie until everyone hated her. Right now, though? She's doing great.
I lightly teased Eun Seol.
"The moment I show up you try to flee. Even I get hurt, you know?"
"Do you actually want to die?"
And as the lecture went on—
We were sitting a bit far from the board, so Kim Sejin started chatting me up.
"Hey, hey, Lee Yechan. Last time I saw you, it looked like you were into Kid G. Am I right?"
"I don't think badly of him, at least."
Eun Seol, stuck between us, snorted.
Kim Sejin gave me a thumbs-up, eyes sparkling even brighter as she launched into a brag.
"Wanna hear something that'll blow your mind?"
"What?"
"I actually met Kid G a few days ago!"
That was me.
Hearing Sejin's boast, Eun Seol's head finally whipped around.
"…Where."
"Heh, that's a secret. If I told you, you'd… go running straight to that Valkyrie you idolize and snitch, wouldn't you?"
A hero like Valkyrie wasn't someone an ordinary person could just meet whenever they felt like it—but publicly, Sejin was supposed to be interning at the Hero Union, and more importantly, Eun Seol herself was Valkyrie…
Somehow Sejin kept almost calling Eun Seol "Valkyrie" out of habit, then twisting her words because of me sitting right there. I almost felt sorry for her.
Should I tell her someday that I already know Eun Seol is Valkyrie?
Kim Sejin cut Eun Seol off and went back to bragging at me.
"Jealous? Envious? He had a mask over his face and I couldn't remember the face itself, but he was over 185 centimeters tall, built like a pro fighter, and his face was pure Cha Eun-woo!"
"Uh… yeah, I don't think so…?"
Even allowing for the Recognition Deterrent Chip scrambling people's memory of his face, that was a wild distortion.
More importantly, I wasn't even 180.
"And and! You saw the news yesterday, right? That perfect drop—the box falling from the sky in the sunset light! The box everyone thought was a bomb, and inside it was money for the laid-off contract workers! Kyaaah~ How heroic was that! Lee Yechan, you think so too, right?"
"Hey, why is Kid G a hero? He's a villain."
"Oh? Is our Seol jealous because people are fawning over Kid G instead of Valkyrie?"
"It is not that!"
"Anyway! Watching that made me realize it all over again! The ones who actually save the world aren't heroes with government collars around their necks getting jerked around every which way—it's righteous villains like Kid G! From now on, my life goal is to join Kid G as his assistant and operate as a duo!"
"Ha. So you're openly announcing you want to team up with a villain? Should I call the Union and have them pick you up right now?"
I shot back at her.
"But would Kid G even take you as an assistant?"
Kim Sejin put on that signature smug grin of hers and answered with total confidence.
"Heh. He won't have a choice."
"Why?"
"It's common knowledge that every detective needs one pretty assistant, right?"
"That's for detectives. Kid G isn't a detective."
"Plus, even though I'm not officially registered with the Union, I can use an ability too. Capability-wise, I'm not lacking! And the decisive part is… when I asked him to take me as his assistant last time, Kid G coldly turned me down, so I put a terrifying curse on him."
Eun Seol tilted her head, curious despite herself.
"A curse?"
"Until he takes me as his assistant, every time he steps through a doorway, he'll smash his little toe on the threshold! Now every time he trips, he'll think of me—and if he doesn't make me his assistant, he won't be able to stand it!"
"Ah… I see."
Eun Seol looked like she regretted asking, sighed, and went back to focusing on the lecture.
And after class, as we headed out for lunch…
"Uwaaaagh!"
I caught my foot on the classroom doorframe on the way out and went down hard.
A few days after Kid G's fake bomb-terror stunt.
The upper leadership of the Korean Hero Union held a remote video conference with government officials.
The subject: how to deal with Kid G.
That the Union's top brass and government figures would convene over a mere B-class villain—one of the most common kind—was not just unusual. It was completely unprecedented.
Once every participant's face filled the monitors, Union Leader Kim Seyeol spoke first.
"Good day. I am Kim Seyeol, Leader of the Korean Hero Union, attending this meeting at the government's request."
"Yes. Good to see you, Leader Kim."
The government side returned the greeting briefly and, without bothering with introductions, cut straight to business.
"Leader, shouldn't something be done about this villain called Kid G?"
"Whenever Kid G's crime notices arrive, Valkyrie has been deploying."
"And she has failed to catch him every time."
"Until Kid G's ability is accurately identified, it remains a disadvantageous fight for Valkyrie. However, based on every time window when the Cheonok Logistics security team witnessed Kid G during the recent bomb-terror incident, every instance when the subject himself appeared, and the intelligence Valkyrie previously gathered while fighting him—"
"Leader. We are not asking what Kid G's ability is."
Kim Seyeol fell silent for a moment.
"We did not call this meeting because we care about the ability of some B-class villain—one who was only just upgraded to B-class. Do you know what the real problem with that bastard is? He is eroding public trust in the government."
"Take a look at this, Leader."
Another assemblyman shared a screen full of charts and graphs.
"Look at the list of companies this Kid G has targeted. What does it look like to you?"
As Kim Seyeol scanned the roster of executives Kid G had hit, he deduced a single common thread.
"They are all… companies with a distinctly 'pro-government' bent."
"Since it's just us here, let's speak freely. Every single one of them either paid us lobby money and benefited in bidding competitions, or received our subsidies and, in return, provided us with 'various things.' Not only the government—the Union as well."
The assemblyman deliberately dragged the Union into it, making sure there was no room to wriggle free.
"Isn't he picking them off far too precisely for it to be coincidence? And look at this as well. Compared to when Kid G began operating in earnest, the proportion of articles and editorials criticizing the government has risen by 217 percent."
"The news I have encountered has not seemed all that different from before."
"Of course not—we had those articles taken down. But every single one of these incidents means more unnecessary things for the government to worry about. Especially after that bomb-terror farce a few days ago, the situation has blown up to the point where media control has become almost meaningless."
Other assemblymen piled on.
"Can you even imagine how much CEO Lee Jeongseok raged when he came to us? We have taken plenty from Cheonok Logistics, so we have to look after them properly—yet this little rat keeps stirring things up, damaging the company. If the Union cannot protect businesses, the basic trust between the government and the private sector cracks."
"Those so-called contract workers went on air praising Kid G and cursing the government, and we nearly killed ourselves cleaning up the mess. Now even complete idiots who know nothing are jumping on the bandwagon, mindlessly worshipping Kid G all over the internet. How pathetic is that?"
"Leaving everything else aside, looking at the targets he keeps going after, we cannot ignore even a one-in-a-million possibility. What happens if—by coincidence or otherwise—he starts digging into KU Bio, Yuseong Pharmaceuticals, or Korea United Severance?"
"I understand what you are saying."
The government assemblymen laid out their demands regarding Kid G.
"What we require of the Union is simple. Kill Kid G as quickly as possible. Honestly, that alone would end it. There will be a brief uproar at first, but if we just drop some celebrity dating scandal on the public, they will forget the whole thing in less than a day. Can you do it?"
"There are currently signs that Oblivion is preparing to resume activity. The S-class heroes cannot take their eyes off that situation, so they cannot be reassigned, and even the A-class heroes… if Oblivion moves, reassignment will effectively be impossible."
"Meaning for now you have no choice but to make do with rookies like Valkyrie."
"Yes."
"Then, as a slightly more troublesome Plan B—tarnish Kid G's reputation. All we need is for the public to accept that he is not some righteous outlaw like he claims, just another common villainous piece of trash."
"That… should be possible. Figuring out the method may take a little time."
As Kim Seyeol spoke, the man who appeared to be the assemblymen's top figure cut him off.
"Ah, don't worry about that. We will tell you the method shortly. The Union only needs the will to carry it out."
"Understood, Assemblyman."
Soon the meeting ended. Kim Seyeol sighed and dismissed the other Union leaders who had attended.
It ought to be at least somewhat legitimate…
Just imagining what kind of "solution" the government would bring made his head ache.