The Assignment
Two stormy weeks flew by, and before long presentation day for the university's Heroes and Villains class had arrived.
I'd been so busy thieving that time had run short, but preparation hadn't been all that hard. After all, the hero and villain I'd chosen for the assignment were someone I knew extremely well and myself: Valkyrie and Kid G.
I knew Valkyrie's past, present, and even her future as they appeared in the original story…
Eun Seol strode into class wearing a look of pure confidence, took the seat beside me as if it were only natural by now, eyed me with open contempt, and snorted.
"You've been so busy every night — I wonder if you even managed to prep for this. Among the subjects you researched, the villain's Kid G for sure, right?"
"Of course. And among yours, Miss Eun Seol, the hero side is Valkyrie? Being a fan of the hero currently on her Hero Union 'internship'?"
"As if I'd stop at Valkyrie. The villain I researched is Kid G too. Today's presentation is going to show everyone exactly what a self-obsessed megalomaniac Kid G is. At the very least, the people in this class will finally get it."
"What a coincidence. I researched Valkyrie on the hero side as well, so it seems we both picked the same hero and the same villain."
"Then it's a head-on match. We won't know the exact scores, but once we hear the professor's feedback after the presentations, we'll have a pretty good idea who won."
"Hmm. You've never beaten me in a direct contest even once, so I suppose you'd want to win at least somewhere like this. I understand the feeling."
At those words, Eun Seol abruptly froze. A twitch started at the corner of her eye, and her voice began to shake.
"Y-you little… bastard… what did you just say? I've never beaten you…? Want me to settle that with my fists right now?!"
"Technically, with one of us chasing and the other running, we're a detective and a thief. You're the detective who has to catch me; I'm the thief who has to get away. And yet after how many times we've run into each other, the detective still hasn't caught me and I'm sitting here perfectly fine attending college. If that isn't me winning, what is?"
Trembling with fury, Eun Seol pointed at me and shouted.
"Y-you… fine! Then it's a real match! After the presentations, we'll see whose assignment the professor rates higher!"
"Ohhh. Feeling confident, are we?"
"Obviously! If I win, you will immediately…"
She glanced around, then lowered her voice so only I could hear.
"…confess every single one of your crime plans."
"Even if I told you, who's to say any of it would be true… but fine. We'll go with that. In return, if I win, just once — leave me alone and stay far away. Don't even think about coming after me."
"Ha? You want me to just openly let you walk— no. No, fine. We'll do it that way."
Somehow, neither of us really believed the winner would actually grant what the other wanted. Still, the wager was sealed right then and there.
But before our turn came, it was first the turn of our adorable idiot, Black Friend Kim Sejin.
She breezed through the hero portion with a ridiculously short, slapdash presentation, then of course chose Kid G for the villain side.
And even after finishing her analysis, Kim Sejin did not return to her seat.
Watching her refuse to leave the podium and launch into a fiery speech, Eun Seol clutched her head in defeat and quietly looked away. The other students traded awkward glances, equally at a loss.
And the content of that speech was…
"These deeds of Lord Kid G! Do you all finally understand how thoroughly he has cared for the marginalized people the Hero Union never protects? Cheonok Logistics, Chilseong Construction, and even before that! Those companies, sheltered by the government and the Union, ran wild with their outrages — they were no different from villains themselves!
Government and Union are all in on it together, so those companies never faced punishment and did whatever they pleased — until Lord Kid G brought them to justice! Someone more heroic than any hero should no longer be dismissed as a mere villain! People like Lord Kid G are unrecognized heroes!
What did the government and the Union ever do for the victims of the Cheonok Logistics incident?! What did the heroes ever do for them?! But Lord Kid G did! Without sparing himself, he punished the corrupt company president and supported the victims! Everyone! The Myeongdong terror attack was not ordered by Lord Kid G! Lord Kid G is not a villain! We have to correct the very definition of villain first! Is Lord Kid G the villain — or is it the people who bleed the weak dry and the ones who protect them?!"
…Was this an election stump speech?
Apparently the professor thought something similar, because he finally cut her off.
"…Miss Kim Sejin?"
"Come on, everyone, raise your voices! Kid G! Kid G!"
"Miss Kim Sejin?"
"Ki— ah, yes, Professor?"
"I heard your presentation clearly, but… the content you delivered was heavily weighted to one side, and rather than analysis of the actions plus your own opinion, it was closer to a simple list of exploits. And even if it's true the Union has never taken real action, excessive glorification of a villain is something we expressly forbid."
"Ah…"
"In any case, I heard the presentation. Other students still need to present, so you may return to your seat."
Kim Sejin came back to the seat beside us amid faint snickers. The moment she sat down, her voice trembled as she muttered,
"Damn it… why… the presentation I prepared was perfect…"
"They asked you to analyze why a hero is a hero and a villain is a villain. Who told you to recite a hagiography? Sounded like Communist Party propaganda."
At my criticism, Kim Sejin shot me a sharp look.
"Tch. So the world still can't see the big picture the way this Kim Sejin does?"
"I don't think that's the problem…"
Other students presented in turn after that, and then it was Eun Seol's turn.
Because she was Valkyrie herself, she could analyze Valkyrie in more detail than anyone else, and thanks to the public cover of being on a Hero Union internship, she could easily include details no one else would know.
When she got to the villain analysis, she tore into Kid G without mercy. By any measure she delivered a presentation superior to every student so far, and the professor's evaluation followed at once.
"That was truly excellent. A detailed, outstanding analysis — almost as if Valkyrie herself had given the presentation. There is one thing that bothers me, though…"
"Yes?"
"Listening to you, I got the sense that Miss Eun Seol draws an extremely hard line — heroes are good, villains are evil — and refuses to acknowledge any gray area in between."
"Gray area…?"
"Every hero is good and every villain is evil… Of course villains are closer to evil, which is why they are villains. But does that mean every hero is unequivocally good? If a hero, under orders from the government or the Union, ignores the residents of a redevelopment district and razes every building there — is that hero unconditionally good simply because they followed Union orders? Would everyone truly accept them as good?"
"Uh…"
"There is no absolute good that every person accepts. The reverse is mostly true as well. That is why we must understand precisely why someone is called good — a hero — and why someone is called evil — a villain."
The professor went on to explain that while Eun Seol's analysis had been excellent, drawing lines so sharply and rendering such absolute judgments could sometimes be dangerous.
Even so, he praised the presentation highly. Eun Seol returned to her seat with a stiff, unsettled expression.
And then it was my turn.
"First, the villain I will introduce is also Kid G. However, the research for this assignment was conducted prior to the Myeongdong terror attack, so I ask that you keep that in mind."
Then I explained — as if piecing together an inference — why Kid G, meaning I myself, had begun robbing companies. In truth it was no inference at all.
How thoroughly the Union and the government had joined hands with corporations and turned a blind eye to countless scandals; how the Union had protected those companies instead; how heroes who ought to stand for justice were used as tools to shield the very corruption they should have opposed.
After finishing the Kid G portion, I turned to the hero side and shone a light on Valkyrie.
And here I mentioned something even Valkyrie herself had not yet fully recognized.
"Unlike other heroes, Valkyrie has never personally killed a single villain. From that, it is hard to call her temperament fundamentally extreme. And yet, more than other heroes, she is unusually fixated on the act of 'punishing villains.' When you compare every registered Hero Union hero's period of activity against their number of villain battles and arrests, Valkyrie's metrics spike dramatically."
I displayed a chart graphing average villain engagements and arrests relative to each hero's active period. Valkyrie's line soared as if it meant to pierce the sky.
"Numbers like these are not normal. It would not be an exaggeration to say she is almost pathologically throwing herself into combat with villains. Valkyrie is still a person — she must have a private life when she is not on hero duty — yet at this rate, the acquired status of 'hero' has completely consumed the innate self.
As a result, the Hero Union wants to make Valkyrie its next face. But is this truly a healthy set of indicators? My conjecture is that Valkyrie has gone through some major ordeal that drives her to push herself this hard."
"What kind of major ordeal?"
"There could be any number of reasons, but I do not believe it is simply about money. Something more wrenching… a reason that would make her harbor deep hostility toward every villain. For example…"
I glanced toward Eun Seol. Our eyes met.
"…believing that villains are her family's sworn enemies?"
At words that called to mind her younger sister Eunhwa — caught in a villain's terror attack, left blind and severely injured, living for over a year now in a rehabilitation facility, or so it was assumed — Eun Seol's face went rigid.