Casual Interrogation
No matter the circumstances, I couldn't very well ask Eun Seol to come all the way out to the slums where I lived.
Even if something did happen, she was strong enough that nothing in that neighborhood would truly pose a threat—but she was a justice-obsessed fool who didn't know the first thing about compromise. If she set foot in a place like that and got tangled up in something, the whole situation could explode far beyond what either of us could handle.
So I dragged my exhausted body out to an alley a good distance from the slums and called her there instead.
When Eun Seol arrived at the meeting spot and took one look at me, she froze in place with her mouth hanging open.
Hardly surprising. Soot and the reek of scorched flesh still clung to me all over. Sparks had left my hair in a ridiculous state, and burn marks mottled my skin. At a glance, I looked like absolute hell. She had clearly expected a light, casual meetup; seeing me this badly hurt left her genuinely stunned.
"You… what the hell happened to you?"
"……"
"Oh, for—I didn't bring a recorder!"
When I stayed silent, still eyeing her with suspicion, she snapped in frustration and turned her pants pockets and the breast pocket of her shirt completely inside out, proving there was nothing there.
Given her personality—about as far from the type who'd prepare something underhanded behind your back as you could get—if she really had been recording, it would have shown somehow. I hadn't needed to be suspicious from the start. I just found her reactions entertaining.
Only then did I pretend to accept her word and lean against the wall, still keeping my distance.
"Whew… So, what did you call me out for, ma'am?"
"Hey, that's hard to hear. Come a little closer, will you?"
"And what am I supposed to do if you suddenly grab me and haul me in? It's not like I can overpower you."
When I kept acting like I still didn't trust her, the way she forced down the anger rising in her throat was plain to see.
"Ha… you little… No. Forget it. What's the point of talking to you."
"Ah, so you've decided to drop the conversation? Perfect. I'm exhausted myself—saves us both some time. Take care on your way back."
"That's not what I meant!"
Eun Seol really was fun to mess with.
"I was just joking. So, what brings you here?"
"Hey. Those guys who pulled the terror attack in Myeongdong this afternoon… they weren't really people you sent, were they? You said they were your followers."
"Is there a man alive who personally guns down his own followers?"
"How should I know? With murderous villains, nothing would be weird, right?"
"Fine, I'm a villain, so maybe that tracks—but their behavior was weird too, wasn't it? Followers who revere someone should be happy when they see him. Instead they looked shocked, and that guy Flood flat-out looked down on me and attacked. What kind of followers act like that?"
"That's…"
Even her sense of justice couldn't explain that point, so she had no answer. While she was stuck, I filled her in on a few more things I'd noticed.
"After what you said earlier, I checked the news for a bit. There were more than one or two things that didn't add up."
"Like what?"
"You probably thought the same thing. Right after the situation ended, the shopping street wasn't wrecked to the degree the news is showing, was it? Looking at the footage, it looked like a bomb had hit the place. Even right up until the moment you took Flood down and I ran, it wasn't that bad. Doesn't that strike you as strange?"
"……"
"And the terrorists themselves. I killed a fair number, sure, but there were still a lot more alive than dead. Yet according to the news, every last one of them is dead. Even if they were going to torture them afterward, interrogating them would have been better for uncovering who was backing them. So why kill them all? Almost like they were trying to silence them."
"They were advertising themselves as your followers. What 'backing' is there left to uncover?"
"That's just what they themselves were shouting. If I stand here right now and say, 'I'm actually Valkyrie's biggest fan!' does that make me Valkyrie's fan?"
"Say something that makes sense."
It was the truth, though.
How much I liked and cared about Valkyrie was something even the real Valkyrie herself had no idea about.
"You think so too, right? They let those guys run around claiming to be my followers and carrying out a terror attack so the media would eat it up—then the second the situation was over, they killed every terrorist so there couldn't be any further reporting. Interrogating them and digging up more links to me would have put a lot more pressure on me."
"That's… because they were caught in the act and had already caused casualties. Summary execution on the spot for people like that isn't exactly rare."
"I heard Skull Crusher was the one who sortied and wiped them all out. Does Skull Crusher usually do things like that?"
"……"
Skull Crusher, A-class hero of the Korean Hero Union.
He fought with a massive armored suit that let him handle just about any combat situation, and even without the suit he was a mountain of muscle with outstanding personal combat ability. He was only one rank above B-class Valkyrie, but the gap between those ranks was enormous—enough that his skill was incomparable to Valkyrie's current level.
He had earned the moniker Skull Crusher from the way a single punch from that armored suit could cave in a villain's skull, yet despite the brutal name he rarely actually killed. He was good at holding back, beating villains just short of death and hauling them in. This time, though, he had acted completely out of character—refusing to hear a word of explanation and slaughtering every last one of them without question.
Among heroes there were more than a few extreme hardliners who simply killed anyone even remotely connected to villains without a second thought, but Skull Crusher was a fair distance from that type.
Valkyrie knew his usual disposition well, so her pupils trembled as if an earthquake had hit them.
Since Skull Crusher himself had announced it to the press, the total wipeout had almost certainly happened right in front of her. And because she knew how much he cared about public safety, civilians, and junior heroes, the fact that he had done something like this only multiplied her doubts.
"In short, my take is that someone orchestrated this whole thing by setting those guys on me specifically to drag my reputation through the mud."
"…So you're still saying you had nothing to do with it."
"I didn't have anything to do with it. What else am I supposed to say?"
"Then who do you claim put them up to it?"
"I have a pretty good idea… but if I tell you, will you believe me?"
"I'll listen."
"The government."
"……"
Eun Seol fell silent.
"The ones taking the heaviest hits since I started operating have been the big corporations, and every single one of them is extremely pro-government. Yet neither the government nor the Union has been able to protect those companies from me. From the corporations' point of view, they pay their bribes and play nice with the government, and still get no cover.
How irritating must that be for the government? Their trust with the corporations tanks, their reputation among civilians tanks… So they stage something like this to bury my reputation without getting their own hands dirty—"
"Enough. I was an idiot for trying to hear you out. After all that, your conclusion is that the government staged a terror attack just to ruin your reputation? I thought this whole thing felt off too, but say something that actually makes sense. There's no way the government would do that."
"You seem to have a lot of faith in the government, Miss Eun Seol."
"Of course I do. The government is one of the two pillars holding up this country, standing alongside our Union to protect the citizens. Leaving everything else aside, what does the government even gain by faking a terror attack?"
Our pure little Valkyrie.
Her nature was fundamentally too innocent, and from the moment she awakened her ability she had been registered with the government and subjected to years of ideological education. As a result her thinking was even more narrow than an ordinary person's. Years of that mental conditioning, starting before her values were fully formed, meant the very possibility that the government might have dirt under its nails simply did not exist in her head. To her, the government was absolute good.
In the original story, Valkyrie never escaped that half-brainwashed mindset. Later, after a series of events, her mind shattered at high speed; she came to hate the government with a murderous passion, turned into a ruthless killer, challenged them in a fight she could never win, and was finally killed by the junior heroes she herself had trained.
I had planted a few seeds of doubt so that wouldn't happen—but those seeds still hadn't sprouted inside her.
"From a pure 'what do they gain' standpoint, maybe nothing. But it does have the effect of diverting the arrows that would otherwise come flying at them."
"Ha. And you're saying you're the target? You really think the government would go to that much trouble over a B-class villain?"
"I'm part of it, sure, but there's something more important. People even more pitiful than me."
"Who?"
"There'll probably be a reaction soon enough. When it happens, you'll understand. Citizens aren't nearly as kind as you think they are. And that reaction is exactly what the government wanted."
"…… Sophistry."
"That's all I can tell you. Did that clear up any of your questions?"
Eun Seol was silent again.
There was no need for me to say anything more. She had already sensed from the beginning that the whole situation was deeply fishy—that was why she had gone so far as to dig up a villain's phone number just to cross-check her suspicions.
"Sorry, but I'm… pretty wiped out right now. I want to rest, so could you head back first?"
"What did you even do to be this exhausted?"
"How many of that Flood guy's explosions do you think I took head-on by myself while you were rescuing the hostages?"
"Ah…"
Only then did she remember how long I had been exposed to those attacks; a flustered look spread across her face.
"Well, after all that near-death effort, the only thanks I got was a single forced 'thank you' jabbed out of you like a knife in the ribs. Aigoo~ Life is so unfair. I did my best from the back, drawing aggro to save the hostages just like a hero would, and just because I'm registered as a villain I get branded a monster, torn apart by the media, and the Valkyrie who fought beside me summons a wounded man for an interrogation. How is anyone supposed to live with this kind of resentment?"
"I-interrogation? I never—"
"You called me out intending to interrogate me. You even pried my number out of Kim Sejin. Didn't you?"
Her conscience pricked, Eun Seol finally dropped her head and gave a tiny nod.
"Ha… Physical wounds and now emotional ones on top of them. I can't stand here another second; it's too sad. If you're not leaving, I'll go first. See you at school tomorrow."
"W-wait—"
I rounded the corner and teleported to the location of the clone I had parked near home. Completely drained, I collapsed onto my bed without even eating dinner and blacked out on the spot.
The next day I smeared ointment thickly over every wound and headed to school—only to find Eun Seol waiting for me outside the lecture hall.
The moment she saw me, her face twisted into a bizarre mix of embarrassment, shame, and humiliation. She thrust a small package at me.
"Hey… t-take this. I, I brought it from HQ… healing medicine."
"……"
"I-it doesn't mean anything else! It's true I owed you a little yesterday, so… but don't you dare think I'll go easy on you next time! If you pull any more stupid stunts trying to steal stuff, I'll sortie and beat you senseless! This is this and that is that! Don't get any weird ideas!"
Apparently even she felt guilty about summoning an injured man for interrogation instead of doing anything to help him. Swallowing her pride, she had forced herself to hand healing medicine to the very villain she so despised.
Today she looked even cuter and more lovable than usual.
I couldn't wait for the day Valkyrie truly opened her eyes.