A Difference of Perspective
Just moments ago he had been brazenly declaring himself Kid G — and then, without warning, he flipped his entire attitude. Eun Seol's face flooded with pure disbelief.
She had even prepared a recorder, tucked into the front pocket of her jacket… if you could even call that "hidden." Either way, the sudden denial had clearly thrown her.
"What the hell…? You just said you were Kid G and told me to bring evidence if I had any!"
"When did I ever say that? Why are you sleep-talking with your eyes open?"
A recorder captures a voice. It does not capture a face. I made a point of wearing an openly mocking smile as I needled her, and Eun Seol's patience finally snapped. She lunged, seizing me by the collar.
"Hey! Say it! You said you were Kid G just now! You are Kid G! Admit it!"
"Whoa, whoa — what's going on? Are you just grabbing random people now?"
"Random people? Random people? A thief calling himself a random person? Same old pattern again? Not this time! Say it! You're Kid G! Say it right now!"
When the confession she wanted refused to leave my mouth, she started shaking me like some hired thug trying to force a statement out of a debt collector.
This is exactly why leading questions only work when the person asking them knows what they're doing.
I swatted her hands off my collar, let an unmistakable sneer curl at the corner of my mouth, and spoke in a voice of pure, wounded innocence — as if I had no idea what any of this was about.
"I genuinely don't know what you're trying to pull here. If you took your meds, go lie down. If you still haven't woken up, splash some water on your face. I seriously have no idea what this is even supposed to be…"
Break was almost over, so I left the empty classroom behind me, abandoning a Eun Seol who looked ready to start climbing the walls.
"Break's ending. If you don't hurry, you'll be late again and get marked absent."
"You… you…"
She was furious enough to breathe fire, but there was nothing she could do. In the end she returned to the lecture hall empty-handed, the secret recorder in her jacket pocket having captured nothing useful, huffing with every step.
When she sat back down, the recorder that had been in her front pocket was gone. With the plan a total wash, she must have stuffed the now-useless device into a pants pocket or somewhere similar.
The moment I noticed, I gave her a little smirk and a light teabagging for good measure.
"Nice try. Didn't work, though."
"?!"
"Hiding a recorder that obviously and then demanding a confession out of nowhere? Who falls for that? Even some F-class street villain wouldn't get tricked by something that transparent. And I'm Kid G."
"You… you little…"
Blood must have been rushing the wrong way, because her face had gone redder than a tomato. She was so overheated she was practically hyperventilating, so I made an exaggerated show of slow, deep breathing.
"Easy there — you're going to hyperventilate. Come on, relax. Re-laaaax."
"You… you knew the whole time and you were just messing with me?!"
"Yep. Your reactions are so worth the price of admission, Eun Seol. Watching them is half the fun."
"How do you know my name?! Don't tell me you've been stalki—"
"You said it during roll call after you showed up late. Are you actually that dumb?"
"Ah."
"The brand-new rookie hero Valkyrie is this dim? The future of the citizens is looking pretty dark."
"Y-you…"
She was clenching her teeth so hard her pronunciation started to slip.
There was no way to keep talking through the middle of lecture, so she sat through the rest of class in a state of extreme irritation while I happily watched her stew. She had finally confirmed that the Kid G she wanted so badly to catch was sitting right next to her — and she still couldn't do a thing about it. Of course she was seething.
After charging in headfirst looking for proof that I was Kid G and getting thoroughly played in the palm of my hand, Eun Seol finally looked a little drained. Figuring a real conversation might actually be possible now, I casually tossed her a question.
"Let me ask you just one thing."
"No."
"Why are you so dead set on catching me? There are more villains out there harming society than you can count. Among them, aren't I on the relatively gentle side? The kind who doesn't hurt ordinary citizens?"
I grinned as I asked. Eun Seol whipped her head around and glared at me. She had just said no — and then answered my question anyway.
"Doesn't hurt anyone? Do you even know how many people work at the companies you robbed? What about the damage they took?"
"Which is exactly why I never touched corporate assets. I only went after the personal fortunes of the CEOs and owners."
"Uh…"
In reality, I had been meticulous about that. To keep government workers and company employees from becoming collateral damage because of my thefts, I only ever hit the personal property of the pure evil heads of those organizations — and even then, only collectibles and luxury goods that could never affect anyone else's life.
Eun Seol seemed to realize, even to herself, that I had a point. She hesitated a moment, then switched angles.
"That still doesn't change the fact that you stole property from people who weren't bothering anyone!"
"For example?"
"I don't know — like the president of Cheonok Logistics you hit last time?"
"Lee Jeongseok verbally promised hundreds of non-regular workers permanent positions, then dumped recommendation-for-resignation letters on every last one of them a month before the conversion date. He planted industrial spies in rival companies to sabotage their competitiveness and siphon talent and technology, so he never even competed fairly. And that's not all. Pocketing employee performance bonuses, workplace bullying, verbal abuse — all standard for him. Meanwhile he's incredibly generous with himself. His own incentives run into the tens of billions like it's nothing.
Do you know how fast Lee Jeongseok's personal assets ballooned? Faster than Cheonok Logistics' annual net profit growth. How? By skimming employee bonuses, embezzling budgets, and tax evasion — every dirty method of accumulating wealth in the book."
"That's just your claim. No investigative agency has ever announced any of that."
"Of course they haven't. Have you ever seen the people who already have everything play by the law? The investigative agencies are on the same side as people like Lee Jeongseok — the ones who already own everything. Why would they ever announce that?"
"Not even worth listening to. I've seen plenty of antisocial paranoid delusionals like you among the villains."
"If you're curious whether I'm just some delusional paranoid or not, go to Hero Union Headquarters later and ask what Lee Jeongseok has to say about it."
Eun Seol narrowed her eyes at that.
"…What are you talking about?"
"When a civilian suffers damage from a villain, the Hero Union dispatches an investigation team to assess the scale of the harm. Right?"
She nodded.
"In cases of personal victims like Lee Jeongseok, the investigation goes through multiple steps to determine the size of the victim's assets and the exact amount of damage. In the process, the flow of their personal wealth naturally comes to light.
Go to headquarters later and ask around. See whether Lee Jeongseok is cooperating with the damage assessment — or whether he's fighting tooth and nail to keep a single investigator from setting one foot on his estate. And if that still doesn't settle your doubts, feel free to check the investigation results on every other person I've hit. They'll all be the same."
"……I don't believe you."
Treating me as nothing but a villain from start to finish, Eun Seol dug in her heels even after hearing all of that. Well — from a hero's point of view, a villain is exactly what I was.
After that, neither of us spoke to the other. We just sat through the rest of class.
With about fifteen minutes left until the period ended, the lecture itself wrapped up, and the professor moved on to a separate topic.
"That concludes today's lecture. So — do you feel the 'Heroes and Villains' major will be of some help to you going forward?"
"Yes—"
The students' answers were thoroughly perfunctory.
"The Heroes and Villains course is a fairly important subject at our university. Heroes and villains both possess superpowers, but depending on how those powers are used, their classification and their standing in society become completely different.
Quite a few of you here already have abilities of your own. Through this class, you need to clearly understand how to use that power correctly — what makes someone a hero, and what makes someone a villain."
One student raised a hand.
"Isn't it just that if you work with the Hero Union you're a hero, and if you don't you're a villain?"
"Is that how you see it? What about the rest of you?"
The professor used the spare time to draw out the class's opinions. Most of the answers were not very different. Belong to the Union, help the government, corporations, and people, and you're a hero. Otherwise, you're a villain.
After listening, the professor asked another question.
"Did any of you catch the news today? The piece on the new villain, Kid G."
At that, Eun Seol's head snapped up. A few students, including the two of us, raised their hands to say they had seen it.
"I've been reviewing the records the Union side has released, and he's a rather unusual villain. I'd like to hear your thoughts. Does anyone here know Kid G's activities in detail?"
Every other hand went down. Only mine and Eun Seol's stayed up.
"Two of you, then. What do you think of Kid G?"
"A pathetic, idiotic villain with a messiah complex and a delusion that he's the definition of justice!"
"A Dark Knight who delivers the justice that should have been carried out in the first place — on behalf of the heroes — against the vested interests who play in the law's blind spots."
Our war of nerves was nowhere near over.