The Real Clash
Four days remained until the planned strike on Bukso Dairy.
Barely a week after the Kid G scandal, news that I had resumed operations sent the media scrambling to spotlight my latest crime notice. The way they covered it, though, had shifted.
Where they once reported my notices in dry, straightforward terms, the outlets now spun elaborate interpretations of the wording—eagerly painting me as a man about to commit murder. By day two they had already treated an assassination as a settled fact, analyzing whose throat I was after and debating my supposed motives for the hit.
What a circus.
Their intent in turning me into a devil was obvious. They were parties to the Kid G scandal themselves. The public had already learned how they had taken bribes and free dinners from the government, corporations, ministries, and public offices, keeping silent while they buried or twisted the truth. Demonizing me was how they planned to drain the force from every message I sent.
And thanks to their tireless campaign of framing me as a killer with an open murder threat, the public swallowed it almost at once. People were already busy arguing over who I was going to kill.
Planning a job of this scale had cost me two days of university classes. I showed up again the day before the strike.
When I arrived, Eun Seol was already in her seat in the lecture hall, looking a little gaunt as she stared blankly at the ceiling.
I dropped into the seat beside her as if nothing were wrong and asked casually,
"Wow, three days already, right? So why are you just staring at the ceiling like that? Something wrong?"
A beat late, she registered that I was there. Her upper body snapped upright as she turned to look at me. Without a word she seized the cuff of my sleeve and hauled me out to the empty lot behind the lecture building—our usual spot.
She switched on the Sound Barrier Device, then stood facing me in the open ground. Her expression was a complicated tangle of almost-tears, anger, and anxiety all at once.
"You don't look so good. What a waste of that face, scowling like that."
"......Hey. Cancel the crime notice you put out this time. Right now."
"Excuse me? Where is this coming from all of a sudden?"
"I said cancel it! The notice you sent to Bukso Dairy! Can't you just not do that and live quietly for once? Do thorns just sprout out of you if you sit still?! Why are you doing this?!"
"This is a fresh reaction. Usually you go straight to, I'll thrash you on site and drag you in—isn't that the standard line?"
"Yeah! If I run into you, I will thrash you without mercy and make sure I catch you! But we don't even have to get that far! You could just live quietly! Why are you so desperate to shorten your own life? Do you even know there's an extermination order out on you?!"
"Of course I know. I've been active several times since the order went out, and I've run into A-class heroes more than once."
Eun Seol ground her teeth as if holding something back, then finally exploded.
"I got promoted to A-class!!!"
"? And you're bringing that up now? Congratulations? I think I already congratulated you last time, though."
"Who asked you to congratulate me?! Do you not get what becoming an A-class hero means?! It means I get put on higher-difficulty operations now!"
"Right, that follows. You're A-class. You'll be busy in all kinds of ways going forward."
"You idiot!!!"
She couldn't hold it in any longer. Her hand shot up to point at me.
"The extermination-order operation!!! I'm!!! Participating!!! I'm the lead officer on the operation to stop your Bukso Dairy strike this time!!!"
That was genuinely unexpected. I hadn't imagined they would hand the lead of an extermination-order op to Valkyrie the moment she hit A-class. Because she'd fought me so many times, maybe?
"Ah. That does make sense. A proud A-class hero now, so of course you'd be running extermination-order missions. Since we're familiar faces, maybe go a little easy on me?"
"Does that sound like something a person would say?! No—before that, are you seriously fine with this? Before, fighting you meant thrashing you and hauling you in. It's different now! If I meet you, I have to kill you! And it's not just me—six more A-class heroes are joining! No matter how good you are at running, you think you can escape a situation like that?"
"Won't know until I try."
"You little...!"
Furious, she grabbed me by the collar. It wasn't pure personal rage so much as the frustration of a situation she couldn't solve, bursting out of her.
"Is that all?! You're in a situation where I might have to kill you, and that's all you have to say?"
"It's not as if you can go easy on me in the open on site, is it? You said plenty of other heroes are joining. And even if I asked you to spare me, a champion of justice like Valkyrie couldn't do it anyway."
"You know that much! So just stay quiet! Why are you so desperate to kick every hornet's nest you see? I get that the government is rotten and you want to flip the whole thing over! But is that something you have to stake your life on? Even if I'm the one dispatched on the operation to kill you—is that still something you can't back down from?!"
"Yes. Even then, it's not something I can back down from."
"Why?!"
"You wouldn't understand no matter what I said right now. But someday a moment will come when you have no choice but to admit I was right."
"So you... even knowing I might really have to go kill you, you don't care? You really don't feel anything?"
Her voice trembled, and her eyes looked on the verge of tears.
"From the moment I bared my teeth at the government, it was a life where dying to anyone wouldn't be strange. If anything, dying at the hands of Valkyrie—my century's greatest rival, the one who knows me best and is tangled up with me the most—wouldn't that be a good death? Hahaha."
At that, Eun Seol flung the hand gripping my collar away. She glared at me with a vicious look, breathing hard through her teeth.
"So what is it, then? From everything you just said, it almost sounds like you really can't stand the idea of killing me with your own hands—like you're worried about me. Is that it? Hm? Hm? Is our gentle Valkyrie so worried about the heinous anti-government thug Kid G that she's about to cry over him? I'm so moved I can barely speak."
Startled, Eun Seol hurriedly scrubbed at the corners of her eyes with her hands, then glared at me even more fiercely with eyes slightly red and swollen, and roared,
"W-who said I was worried! You think I'm doing this because I don't want to kill you? D-don't flatter yourself...! Fine. Great. If you're going to be that stubborn, then I'll fight with a clear conscience and zero mercy, intending to actually kill you! Even if you die, don't you dare think about blaming anyone!"
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Thoroughly furious, Eun Seol stamped her foot hard and stormed out of the empty lot. One step short of leaving the Sound Barrier Device's range, she stopped, looked back at me, and shouted one last time.
"I mean it... I am not going easy on you!!!"
After she left, I thought about her reaction and snorted a quiet laugh. She could just honestly say she was worried about me—but she wasn't ready to admit that yet, was she?
Still, compared to the beginning, that bristling attitude of hers had softened a great deal, and I felt quietly proud.
Not that I expect to run into her while this job is going down anyway.
Every target and site I had hit so far had been the headquarters of a company that had stirred up major social controversy, or the private residence of its owner. The Union, factoring in my track record, would almost certainly station their forces at Bukso Dairy headquarters and the CEO's mansion... which meant I wouldn't cross paths with Union forces during this operation at all.
One day left until the strike. Tonight, as always, I was going to be extremely busy with the groundwork until dawn.
Ever since Kid G's crime notice had landed, government assemblymen had been in an extremely foul mood. Among them, the hardliners who insisted Kid G had to be killed immediately with every resource available were even more so.
"How long do you intend to leave this entirely to the Union?! Nightingale has deserted, and even when we tell them to deploy Dimension Walker they just keep whining about Oblivion and saying it's impossible. No one even knows where Dreamweaver is holed up! How many more times do we have to let him slip through our fingers, dragging this out with nothing but A-class heroes, before you people come to your senses?!"
"Look here, Assemblyman Lee Chansik. We can't exactly unleash every direct unit we have, either. If the Union actually turns against us over it, we'll have a headache of our own."
"Dimension Walker is already as good as one of our own direct units, and you're still going on about justification and cooperation... What, do we have to wait until Kid G actually hits KU Bio, or Yuseong Pharmaceuticals, or Korea Union Severance before any of you wake up? I can't wait any longer!"
The assemblyman called Lee Chansik slammed his fist on the desk and rose from his seat.
"What are you planning to do?"
"Isn't it obvious?! If you gentlemen are going to sit there with such heavy backsides and do nothing, then I will take action first! I will not be able to cool this rage until I've cut off Kid G's head and hung it in Gwanghwamun! Once Kid G is dead, don't any of you even think about stealing the credit!"
"Heh heh. With a temper that short..."
......
After leaving the conference room, Assemblyman Lee Chansik cracked his knuckles and loosened up.
"Kid G. This is as far as your swagger goes. You thought I'd leave you to those unreliable Union heroes forever, didn't you. This time I'll step in myself and kill you."