The Hero Technology Innovation Center Intrusion Incident (2)
Just as announced, before class that day, the Hero Union’s S-class hero Dimension Walker came to the school in person.
A graduate of Seoul Hero Academy himself, he was widely regarded as especially powerful even among S-class heroes — a man whose mastery of applying and adapting his ability was nearly unmatched.
But when the time of his scheduled PR visit arrived, Dimension Walker still hadn’t set foot in the classroom.
No — it went beyond simply not entering the room. There wasn’t even any word that he’d set foot on campus grounds.
The professor kept anxiously checking his wristwatch while the students murmured and the atmosphere grew increasingly restless — until, without warning, a black portal opened in the ceiling at the very front of the lecture hall and something dropped with a soft thud in front of the microphone.
“Hey there.”
It was a human head.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
A man with slicked-back black hair and a louche, insolent look — just a head resting on the podium — opened his mouth, and the girl in the front row let out a piercing scream of pure terror.
“Whoops. Didn’t think you’d startle that hard. Maybe I overdid the prank? Okay, okay — that’s enough of that.”
At once countless black portals bloomed in front of the blackboard. Like the scattered parts of a robot mid-transformation, severed pieces of a human body shot out from every direction and snapped together, assembling into a single man.
In an instant the black-haired man in the slicked-back style — Dimension Walker himself — stood on the lecture platform, grinning.
“How was that little surprise for a change of mood, juniors?”
“Th-that was so cool!”
“It’s really… really Dimension Walker…!”
“I’m a huge fan!”
Dimension Walker basked in the students’ cheers, making exaggerated gestures, a thoroughly satisfied smile on his face.
“Good, good. This kind of welcome is exactly what I like. At least it makes me feel like there’s some point to taking on this annoying chore, right?”
He clapped his hands once, scanned the room, spotted Eun Seol and Kim Sejin, and gave them a casual little wave.
“Coming back to the alma mater after so long, seeing familiar faces — nice. You all know why I’m here, right?”
Everyone answered with a chorus of “Yes!”
Then one of the students raised a hand and asked a question.
“Dimension Walker! What exactly is this government event over the weekend? Do you know what they’re going to unveil?”
“Of course I know. But spoiling it here would ruin the fun, wouldn’t it? What I can say for certain is that, just like the government claimed, they’re going to showcase technology so groundbreaking it’ll change the era. You won’t be disappointed — so come see it for yourselves. As for a hint… among you ability users, I’m sure there are kids who figure, ‘I’ve got powers, so I can half-ass my studies, tank my grades, and still coast through life somehow later,’ right?”
Laughter rippled through the students.
“But if that’s what you’re thinking, start studying and training your ability for real from this moment on. Otherwise there might not be a place left for you in the future. I’ve been there — poverty is something no human being should ever have to experience. Hint ends here!”
That settles it.
With those words from Dimension Walker, my ninety-nine percent certainty had become one hundred.
Another question followed.
“Will you be at the event too, Dimension Walker?”
“It’s a pain, but yeah. A government public showcase? You really think the villains won’t show up? Especially for something this important.”
The instant I heard that, I cursed inwardly.
Damn it.
The moment I learned Dimension Walker would be handling security at the venue, the vast majority of the simulations I’d been running in my head shattered into pieces.
While the students kept firing off questions, I deliberately avoided looking at him, turning my head so he wouldn’t catch my face. Eun Seol seemed to pick up on something ominous; she clenched her teeth and whispered under her breath.
“Hey… don’t you dare start thinking something stupid.”
“Thinking what?”
Of course, on the inside, that was exactly what I was doing.
The public unveiling at the Hero Technology Innovation Center was set for three o’clock this coming Saturday afternoon.
In the meantime, true to form, I wrote a formal notice as Kid G — rooted in my usual principles — and had a drone drop it secretly near the venue, then steadied my breathing.
Well. I’ve already crossed the line.
As long as Dimension Walker was guarding the place, it made no difference whether I launched a surprise attack without warning or announced myself first. The odds were almost hopeless either way.
If I kept doing things the way I always had, I would fail one hundred times out of one hundred.
Even if I burrowed underground and moved completely out of sight, I still wouldn’t escape Dimension Walker’s grasp.
No matter how I planned it, alone I had zero answers.
So this time I did something different: I built a little passivity into the plan and deliberately left room for variables.
If the government was going to hold a public event and flaunt its technological might, there were bound to be villains who would try to crash it.
In the original story the incident had barely been covered — just a brief mention in a flashback — but from the description, villains had forced their way in. They had simply failed.
So I would use the chaos of that moment…
I spent the remaining time devising every possible way to slip out of Dimension Walker’s line of sight, even for a split second.
Yeah. It was a plan worth trying.
To calm my racing heart I poured coffee into a cup and took a sip.
Rattle-rattle-rattle—
My trembling hand spilled coffee all over my clothes.
Worth… trying…
Friday, the day before the event.
Union Headquarters had put Dimension Walker on standby and tried to keep track of his location in advance for the event preparations — but starting that evening, all contact with him went dead.
Headquarters went into sudden emergency mode and began calling heroes one after another, asking if anyone knew where he was.
None of the other heroes had the slightest idea, but one person — Nightingale — gave a different answer.
“I’m not certain, but I have a rough idea where he might be. I’ll go check myself, and if he’s not there I’ll report back.”
After ending the call, Nightingale drove to a villa tucked away in an extremely discreet location even within Chuncheon.
The navigation showed nothing but empty mountain wilderness, yet in reality a rather luxurious villa stood there. Nightingale parked nearby and strode straight inside.
The moment she opened the door, a wave of stifling heat rolled out to meet her.
A subtle, cloying smell stung her nose, and from every direction came a chorus of moans so lewd that just hearing them made her face burn.
Right there on the sofa visible the instant she stepped in, a completely naked young man was embracing four women who looked considerably younger than him, greedily pawing at their bodies in the most vulgar way.
The man noticed the unexpected guest, staggered to his feet as if drunk or high, and lurched toward Nightingale.
“Mmm…? Ohhh, well if it isn’t Nightingale!”
“Hello, Councilman.”
“What brings you here? Finally decided to take me up on that old offer? You’re welcome any time, you know.”
When he reached out to grab her backside, Nightingale lightly caught his wrist and stopped him, smiling. The smile was ice-cold.
“No, Councilman. I’ve told you any number of times — I have no such intention. I only came looking for someone today. I thought he might be here.”
“Ehhh? Talk about a buzzkill… Well, if you change your mind, just say the word. Hic… Hey, girls. One of you go grab me another ‘good one.’ And you — get over here and suck me, yeah?”
The man staggered back toward the women.
Nightingale shot that direction a look reserved for garbage, then climbed the stairs.
All the way up she saw the same scenes: young men sprawled with multiple women, openly indulging in debauchery.
On the third floor of the villa Nightingale opened door after door, checking who was inside, until at last she found the man she was looking for in the final room.
His slicked-back hair was a sweat-soaked mess. Looking thoroughly satisfied after a good time, he lay sprawled on the bed with a glass of whiskey beside him, chain-smoking.
And on the bed with him, three women lay collapsed, drenched in sweat.
In a room reeking of sweat and drugs, Nightingale pinched her nose, scowled as if she had seen something filthy, and called out to him.
“Dimension Walker.”
He didn’t seem to hear; he just took another swig of whiskey.
“Dimension Walker!”
When Nightingale raised her voice, the sweat-slicked Dimension Walker finally lowered his glass and sat up with bleary, unfocused eyes.
Nightingale squeezed her eyes shut at the sight of him. Dimension Walker answered in a thoroughly wasted, slurred voice.
“Ehhh~? Nightingale, what’re you doing here? Wait, how’d you even know about this place… Ahh~ right! Back when you were B-class you got a ton of sponsorship offers, didn’t you! Makes sense you’d know what this place is! What’s this~? Decided you finally want to spread your legs for the old government geezers and climb the ladder? Ambition finally kicked in? Well if you’re gonna start selling it, you could always give me a turn firs—”
“Save the garbage talk for when you’re alone. Headquarters has been trying to reach you about tomorrow’s event and couldn’t get through, so I came to drag you back myself.”
“Event… right, the event. Tomorrow’s event. ……But why?”
“It’s the day before. You’re supposed to be on standby, aren’t you?”
Dimension Walker hiccupped, checked his phone, saw dozens of missed calls, and flung it aside.
“Haaah~ I swear, Headquarters acts like a dog that can’t hold its shit, scrambling around trying to find people.”
“You’re the strange one for coming to a place like this the day before the event.”
Nightingale glanced over the three women he had finished with and pointed toward the door.
“I need to talk for a moment. All of you, leave the room.”
Normally she was gentle and soft-spoken with everyone, but toward the women selling their bodies here her tone was cold and commanding.
The women hastily covered themselves with blankets or clothes and hurried out. Dimension Walker made no attempt to hide his nakedness; he flopped back onto the bed in a full sprawl. Nightingale still refused to look at him, keeping her body turned aside.
“Haaah~ I don’t like having my post-fun sage time interrupted like this.”
“You’re one of the few S-class heroes Headquarters has. How about showing a little self-awareness and acting like it?”
“Aaang? What’s that supposed to mean, Nightingale? Isn’t this exactly the kind of behavior that suits an S-class hero?”
He strode right up in front of her. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Wealth, fame, power, strength! I’ve got everything, so of course I enjoy the privileges no one else can touch and live a life ordinary citizens can’t even dream of. Where exactly does that not match my rank?”
“Dragging girls who look half your age into a place like this and doing this — you really think that matches your rank?”
“Obviously!”
Dimension Walker grabbed a bottle of the finest whiskey from the shelf and gulped it straight.
“You know what it was like when I was poor? Every single day was hell. I didn’t know how I was going to eat that day. I’d walk into a restaurant just to beg for water because I was dying of thirst and get chased out like a sewer rat. Survival was the only mission, every day. Friends? Hobbies? Food? Studying? Exercise? Booze? Women? Sex? I couldn’t even dream of any of it, you get me?
“Then I got an ability. I got power. And look! Everything I never could have back then comes crawling to me on its own! Now I can eat nothing but AAA beef and tuna belly every meal and never worry about money! The shops that used to slam the door in my face the second I got close now prostrate themselves begging me to visit just once! Women are dying for the chance to spread their legs for me!
“On the way up you saw those old geezers — or are they young guys now? — worse than me, stripping girls and throwing drug parties. When you’ve got power and rank, the world hands you things to enjoy… that’s just how the world works. Is enjoying it wrong?
“Ahhh~! Looking at you, Nightingale, I guess you never hit rock bottom the way I did? Makes sense. With that face of yours you were drowning in sponsorship offers since B-class, and if things ever got truly desperate you could just sell your lower half. No way you were as desperate as me, aaang?”
“…You’re vulgar beyond belief. Back when I still barely understood my own ability, and even now, I simply never intended to live like… like the women here. No matter how desperate I became.”
“Hah~ You’ve got a real talent for saying things that kill a good buzz.”
Dimension Walker took another long pull straight from the bottle and walked over to the window overlooking the scenery below.
“Hic… I’m completely satisfied with this life right now. Standing up this high looking down, those days of crawling through the gutter feel like someone else’s story. No matter what you say, I’m not changing the way I live.”
“I have no intention of wasting time preaching at you either. I only came to tell you to answer Headquarters already and get ready for tomorrow’s event. Do you have any idea how many villains have already announced attacks for tomorrow while you’re fooling around here…?”
“Huh? Ohhh, right, right. Hic…! That boring event was tomorrow. Haaah… I was right in the middle of enjoying myself and now talking about work has killed my son completely.”
“Good. Since the mood’s ruined, sober up and get back. I’ll report to Headquarters that I found you and passed on the message, so you contact the Union Leader yourself.”
With that, Nightingale left the villa. Dimension Walker clicked his tongue and pulled out his phone.
His excitement thoroughly dead, Dimension Walker simply passed out on the villa bed. He woke the next day when the sun was already high in the sky.
Kid G and several other villains had issued terror warnings for the venue, but he paid them not the slightest attention. And so the hour of the event arrived.