Kid G Extermination Order
Eun Seol had empathized far too deeply with Eve’s memories from her days as a test subject, and the pity she felt for the girl left her sobbing bitterly.
She was the kind of person who put herself in others’ shoes so readily, who felt the pain of ordinary citizens so keenly and threw herself into helping them, that she had become a hero beloved by the public—adored by everyone.
"Hic… That’s so cruel… How could they…"
"Intense lacrimal stimulation response and elevated heart rate detected. Judging by the emotional wavelength, the subject is currently experiencing grief."
"That’s what she says. Is that true, Eun Seol?"
"Ugh… D-don’t mess with me! If you could watch something like that and feel nothing, that would be the weird part!"
Eun Seol hurriedly wiped her tears and glared at me with eyes already red and swollen.
"You… you knew all of that when you took Eve, didn’t you?"
"Pretty much."
"How… I had no idea anything like that had ever happened. It wasn’t in any of the educational materials I saw growing up, and it wasn’t in the Union headquarters’ records either! That… is that really true? You’re telling me that footage wasn’t faked?"
"If I could fake all of that, I’d be directing movies instead."
"……"
Eun Seol was too shocked to form another word.
She had awakened her ability at an age far too young to understand the world, and from that moment on she had been subjected to the government’s endless ideological training. As a result, the government had taken root in her mind as absolute good—the final bastion that protected its citizens.
To watch a member of that absolute good carry out human experiments, expose filthy desires toward Eve, and electrocute her for fun… of course the world she had believed in all her life would feel like it was shattering into pieces.
I spoke quietly, deliberately driving a crack into the false world Valkyrie had trusted for so long.
"You always told me that no matter who the other party is, if you’re going to punish them, you have to do it fairly under the law. That trying to settle things through illegal means only makes you another criminal…"
"……"
"The government makes the laws. The government enforces them. So if the government is doing things like that, who judges the government? The law? They’re the ones who write it and enforce it. Do you really think they’ll hold themselves to the same standard for their own corruption?"
"Th-that’s…"
"Or what—are you going to hand Eve right back over to the government? She didn’t get a fair chance to hold those filthy government bastards accountable for their crimes; she just lost control and killed them. If you return her now, that poor girl will either be executed on the spot or shoved straight back into being a test subject, trapped in a sleep she can never wake from, forever."
Eun Seol shook her head hard, as if the very idea were unthinkable.
At her core, Valkyrie always stood with the weak and the oppressed. For someone like her, the thought of sending Eve—who had already endured all of that—back into government hands as a test subject again was simply impossible to imagine.
And Eve, of course, had no desire to go back either.
"I refuse. I do not wish to return to the laboratory. My present freedom is far preferable. If you attempt to send me back there…"
"You heard her. I have no intention of sending Eve back to that nightmare either. What about you, Eun Seol?"
Eve and I both looked at her at the same time. Her face flushed as she raised her voice.
"O-of course not! No human being could do something like that!"
"I’m relieved. That’s the Eun Seol I know. I believed you wouldn’t do anything so cruel to Eve. After all, no matter what anyone says, you’re Valkyrie—the people’s hero."
"Are you teasing me right now?"
"Of course not."
I gave her a sly little grin. That only seemed to irritate her more; she crossed her arms and fixed me with a flat, unwavering stare.
"That doesn’t mean I’m going to overlook what you did. I won’t catch Eve and send her back, but you’re a different story. You’re still a villain who openly stole government property. The government is so furious they even—"
She stopped mid-sentence, mouth falling open as if she had just remembered something she had completely forgotten. Then she jumped as if startled by her own thought.
"Th-that’s right! Do you even understand what you’ve done?! The government is so mad they issued an extermination order on you!"
"Oh. Did they?"
"Don’t just say ‘oh’! Do you even know what an extermination order means?"
"I do. From this point on, the government and the Union will dispatch ability users far stronger than me, and they won’t be coming to stop me or arrest me. Their only purpose will be to kill me on sight—no questions asked."
"So you do know! Then why are you so calm about it?!"
I hadn’t fully expected the government to play the extermination-order card this early, but it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility either.
Until now I had assumed they still looked down on me enough to stick to a public-opinion war. Apparently having Eve stolen out from under them had stoked their anxiety more than I thought.
If they had issued an extermination order, I couldn’t just sit still either.
"Eve, what abilities can you use, exactly?"
"As a result of ability-user cell transplants, I can employ portions of the abilities of Dimension Walker, Lightning, Brightwing, Mist, and four others. Separately, as a result of physical modifications and installed gear, I am capable of hacking, signal hijacking, small-scale EMP, communication jamming, melting optical beams, barrier deployment, sonic dampening, recognition interference, high-speed computation, self-regeneration, and rapid healing of others, among other functions."
"W-why are there so many…?"
Eve watched Eun Seol’s dumbfounded expression and held up two fingers in a V.
"Obviously. Unlike my incompetent, feeble master, I am an extremely competent and powerful superhuman."
"You heard her. As you can see, Eve is this capable, so even if the government issues an extermination order… wait a second. Rapid healing of others? If you had something like that, you should have said so earlier! Why did you just sit there? The knife wound I took still hasn’t healed!"
"You never asked."
"…… Just heal my wound."
"If left alone it would heal on its own. Must I really do it?"
"Hurry up."
"Tch."
A substance with the same composition as the rapid-healing spray Eun Seol had brought last time sprayed from Eve’s hand and sealed the deep stab wound in my abdomen left by the dagger.
Pain flared for an instant, then the wound closed over completely, and my body felt markedly lighter.
"Ahem… Anyway, because Eve is this capable, I can handle things to a certain extent even if the government has issued an extermination order."
My shameless attitude seemed to leave Eun Seol speechless.
She looked back and forth between Eve and me with an unreadable expression. A mischievous impulse seized me, and I poked her cheek with one finger.
"Or what? Did you come all the way to my house because you were worried the extermination order might get me killed? Wow~ I never imagined the famous Valkyrie would worry about me this much. Is this competitive spirit because you see me as a rival, or affection for a college classmate who keeps getting under your skin?"
"…… That’s it. I’m taking you in right here, right now."
Eun Seol was genuinely pissed; she even unfurled her wings and opened her power.
Once the teasing had gone far enough, it was time to get the mood under control again.
I dropped the smile I had been wearing a moment ago, lowered my voice into something much more serious, and spoke again.
"Earlier you asked me why I was doing this to the government. As you’ve just seen, it’s because the government is this kind of organization—and because this is far from the only case."
"There have to be other ways besides this! Normal ways! Debates, sending emails, or at least going through the Union…"
"The Union? What exactly did you see in Eve’s memories just now? The ones who beat the rampaging Eve down and subdued her at the end were none other than the Union’s three greats—Dimension Walker, Nightingale, and Dreamweaver. Even Nightingale, who’s supposed to be peaceful and moderate, took part in putting Eve down. Do you really think filing a complaint with the Union is going to change anything?"
"B-but… you can’t know unless you try…"
"I’m not some idiot who goes around spouting nonsense to an organization that refuses to give up its privileges and ends up climbing into bed with the government as partners. To you, Eun Seol, the government and the Union might both be absolute good. To me, they aren’t."
"……"
I could feel the cracks spreading more clearly through the world Eun Seol had believed in so absolutely.
Of course, I still hadn’t told her the truth about her younger sister, Eunhwa.
That was something she needed to see and learn for herself rather than hear from my mouth.
If I carefully opened these cracks first, the effect would be far greater.
"Anyway, I’m genuinely moved that our Valkyrie is this worried about Kid G. But you don’t need to worry about me so much. Just like I’ve always managed to run away from you, I’ll find a way to keep running. I even managed to escape Dimension Walker, didn’t I? Haha."
"The one who successfully escaped was not my incompetent master."
"Ahem, ignore her… Anyway, what I’m saying is you don’t need to spend any tearful nights fretting over me. If you really are worried about me, why not just lend me your major textbooks and notes with the lecture content written down? I’ve been a little neglectful of my university classes lately."
"No! And who said I was worried about you?! I just… thought an extermination order was going too far! You’re a villain, sure, but you haven’t actually killed anyone… and dying without even knowing what hit you just felt wrong no matter how I thought about it…"
"Hahaha! Look at you, being all tsundere. That’s what people call interest and affection for someone, you know? If you were just a little more honest, Eun Seol, I think you’d be a lot cuter."
"…… I was wrong after all. I’ll just kill you here and hand the body over to the Union."
As she left Kid G’s house, Eun Seol found herself unable to stop thinking about how completely unbothered he had seemed the entire time.
If she simply contacted Union headquarters right now and reported that she had seen Eve there, S- and A-class heroes would storm the place instantly, and Kid G would be finished the moment they arrived.
Catching that delusional, self-righteous bastard who believed he alone was justice and locking him away had always been something she wanted. All she had to do was press a single call button and it would be done.
Yet she only kept fidgeting with her phone. She never quite managed to put her finger on the call button.
Why… why am I hesitating like this? If I just make the call… if I just tell them, it’s over…
Was it because she had seen Eve’s past?
But she had already decided she wanted to meet Kid G and talk to him from the moment she learned the extermination order had been issued—before she even knew Eve was there.
What had she meant to tell him when they met? Right—she had meant to warn him that an extermination order had been issued…
…Then why had she actually told him?
Wouldn’t it have been better if he stayed ignorant and got caught?
Had she… actually wanted Kid G not to get caught?
Because she had realized that, while pretending otherwise, he had been helping people more than she thought?
That’s ridiculous. There’s no way.
I am a hero. Kid G is a villain.
There is absolutely no way I would want something like that.
Right… I… I just wanted to catch Kid G with my own hands… so… finding out about Eve’s past was only a secondary reason… if he got caught like that, Eve would be too pitiful… so…
In the end, Valkyrie never pressed the call button that would have summoned Union headquarters.