Surprise! Your Savior MadSci Has Arrived!
The sewers of Seoul.
In the endless dark, a black tide rippled.
Cockroaches.
If hell were a real place, it would look like this. Tens of thousands of them sheathed the walls in black, rustling and writhing in a living carpet of legs and shells.
A wet, heavy crunching filled the tunnel. The black shape at the center of it all stirred.
"Insolent little humans..."
A giant cockroach Main paced the brick, muttering to itself.
"I have waited a full hundred years for this moment."
Its antennae snapped upright. It scooped up a fistful of ordinary cockroaches and stuffed them into its mouth.
CRUNCH—
The sound of it chewing its own kind echoed into every last corner of the sewer.
"We cockroaches are a perfected life-form. We have existed for three hundred and twenty million years..."
The Main's black eyes gleamed with a sly, ugly light.
"We are the original masters of this Earth!"
A human face grafted onto a monstrous cockroach body. The grotesque hybrid scaled the wall and tipped its head back to stare at the manhole cover overhead.
"The age of humans is over!"
Its voice climbed, swelling toward a shriek.
"The golden age of the cockroach shall dawn!"
The Main's antennae swept across the lesser cockroaches crowding the tunnel. In that instant the entire sewer seemed to come alive. Millions of them writhed as one.
"Go forth, army of the cockroach!"
The black tide surged toward the manhole, a nauseating procession climbing over one another's bodies like soldiers storming a rampart.
"Glory to the civilization of the cockroach!"
Hero Association infirmary.
"Are you sure you're all right?"
The doctor closed the chart and looked at Baek Seoha with real concern.
"If you want, I can write you a certificate. You're welcome to take some time off."
Baek Seoha only looked down at her own arm. She clenched her fist, then opened it. The arm whose bones had been pulverized was whole, as if nothing had ever happened. The abdomen that had nearly stopped her heart didn't hurt at all. It was a recovery that could only be called a miracle.
"Yes... I'm really fine now."
She managed a smile and bowed her head.
"It's all thanks to you, Doctor."
The doctor just sighed.
"All I did was hang an IV and wrap a splint."
She tapped the ultrasound printouts with her palm.
"You're the one who put that body back together. Entirely you."
It was true. The explanation she had heard in the hospital room still did not feel real. Her abdomen had been torn open. That much was certain. Her major organs had ruptured. That much was certain. She had needed emergency surgery on the spot. And then she had woken up in the morning...
Don't tell me that insane scientist did something to my body...?
The doctor caught the sudden shadow on her face and gently took her hand.
"It might be another facet of your Gift."
She gave the hand a soft squeeze.
"So don't worry too much. If anything happens, you come tell me right away. All right?"
"Yes..."
Baek Seoha forced the words past her throat.
"Thank you so much."
She stepped out into the corridor. She had meant to walk straight out of the hospital, but her feet faltered.
"Hmm..."
She slipped off her glasses, wiped the lenses, and glanced toward the restroom. She was worried. She was afraid. But she had to know.
"Is it really like the doctor said...?"
Baek Seoha clenched her fist, slipped into a stall, and changed into her hero suit. She drew a long breath.
Gift Release
The black hair that had made her look like a straight-A bookworm bleached to a white as clean as fallen snow. Luminous strands shimmered as they swayed. Then she set off toward the Hero Association's hidden passage.
If I go out the front there'll be reporters. Fans, too...
She wanted no part of anything annoying or complicated.
"Hahh..."
A deep sigh carried her to the launch ramp reserved for flight-type heroes. A forest of towers spread beneath a hard blue sky. Wind whipped in, wrapping itself around her suit.
"There's a safety net anyway..."
She used this place every time she tested her jump. The target was always the rooftop of the building across the way. And she always dropped into the net about halfway there.
She loosened up with a few quick stretches and stared down the ramp.
This time I'll make it.
She hypnotized herself with the thought and gave her wrists a light shake.
"Don't be scared, Baek Seoha. You can do this."
She pulled in a lungful of air and ran.
"Hyaaaaah!"
At the lip of the ramp she kicked off and leaped.
BANG!!
The steel floor dented under her foot.
"...Eh?!"
This was usually about when she started to fall. But—
"Whooooa?!"
Her body shot far higher than it had any right to, and she came down on the rooftop across the street. The landing sent her tumbling end over end.
"Urgh..."
She had been too startled to break her fall.
I think I split my forehead open...
Red filled her vision.
Ugh... I just got discharged and I'm already hurt again. The doctor's definitely going to lecture me.
She wiped the blood from her eyes and felt for the cut.
"Huh...?"
The skin under her fingertips was smooth. Not a scratch.
Baek Seoha stared blankly at the blood on her glove.
"But there was definitely blood..."
What was this? The unnaturally fast healing was one thing. That leap was another. She had been so busy lately she hadn't even trained properly. Was it really a new face of her Gift, the way the doctor had said?
Her thoughts tangled into a knot. Then—
"Kyaaaaaaah!"
A scream knifed up from the street. Baek Seoha was at the rooftop rail before she knew she had moved.
Below, people were scattering in every direction, white-faced with terror.
"That's..."
She narrowed her eyes. A manhole cover had been blown open as if it had exploded, and something like black liquid was boiling up out of the hole.
"Wait... that's not liquid."
Looking closer, the black tide was writhing. Goosebumps crawled over her from scalp to heel.
"Don't tell me those are cockroaches...?"
She checked her smartwatch on reflex. There was not even an emergency alert yet.
"Is this a Main's doing?"
Hunting Mains was a hero's first duty. Saving citizens in a disaster was no less of one. She was about to jump without a second thought—
"Ugh..."
Her body locked. One whole side of the road had gone black under the swarm. They were insanely disgusting. Before she was a hero she was a soft-hearted college girl, and of course her stomach turned. Her skin crawled from head to toe.
She bit down hard on her lip and jumped anyway.
I'm a hero! I can't hesitate!
She kicked off window ledges on the way down to bleed off speed, then hit the asphalt in a magnificent three-point hero landing.
BOOM!
Emerald eyes leveled a glare at the swarm.
"Baekho. On scene."
Fleeing citizens twisted around at the sound of her voice.
"Huh?! Look! It's the B-Class hero Baekho!"
"Help us! There's a sw-swarm of cockroaches...!!"
"Do something already! They're so disgusting I can't stand it! This is what I pay my taxes for!"
Baek Seoha's eyebrow twitched at the last woman's remark.
I think they're just as disgusting...
The entitled snap of it made her blood heat. She did not let it show. A hero didn't.
"Everyone, get inside the buildings. I'll hold them until Association support arrives."
She said it. She had no idea how. Crushing down a revulsion worse than the fear of dying, she charged the swarm that owned the road.
"Hyaah!"
She sprang high and dropped a kick loaded with gravitational acceleration.
KRAANG!
The asphalt blew apart. Pulped cockroach fragments sprayed in every direction.
Whoa... what is this power?
It was a completely different class of strength from anything she had ever had. Nothing about her body made sense today. Unfortunately, she had picked the wrong enemy.
Cockroaches started climbing her legs.
"...Get off me!"
Kicking did nothing. Spinning did nothing. They were so small and so fast that raking them off with her hands was not enough either. Before she knew it they had crossed her stomach and were swarming up over the curve of her chest.
"Eugh..."
She tore at them with both hands. It did not matter how many she crushed. They kept coming in waves. The dry rustle of cockroaches crawling over every inch of her skin turned her whole body cold.
Disgusting! I'm going to throw up!
She held the tears back and swept the street with her eyes.
That's it! The hydrant!
Stamping cockroaches as she ran, she reached the hydrant, used the inertia of her spin, and drove her heel down through the metal.
CLANG!!
The hydrant burst. Water erupted in a white column of raw pressure.
FWOOOOOOSH!
At last the cockroaches plastered to her body were blasted away. That was when the emergency alert on her phone finally went off.
BEEEEEEP—
A public safety alert has been issued for your area.
Dammit. Too la—
The thought cut in half. Baek Seoha's entire body froze as a black silhouette rose from the sewer mouth.
"A... Main...?"
A giant cockroach stood upright on two legs.
"Heroes make excellent nutrients. Perfect for a first hunt."
The cockroach Main's antennae locked onto her.
"Consider it an honor to become the fertilizer of cockroach civilization!"
Tens of thousands of cockroaches surged toward her at once. Primal terror set her hands shaking.
"Stay back..."
She shook her head and crushed the tremor down.
"No. I'm a hero. If it's an enemy of humanity... I won't fear it, no matter what it looks like!"
Tears stood in her eyes. She held them there. And then a single image smashed that resolve to pieces.
The giant billboard on a Yeouido tower. The announcer mid-disaster-broadcast suddenly smeared into static, and through a snarl of unidentified noise a madman in a gas mask took his place.
"Alpha! Is the camera rolling?"
He wiggled his fingers.
"Oh! We're live, you say? In that case..."
He covered the gas mask with both hands, then flung them wide.
The cockroaches carpeting the road. The Main twitching its antennae. Even Baek Seoha, soaked to the skin from the hydrant. All of them stared blankly up at the billboard.
"My dear humans! You have worked soooo hard managing Seoul all this time! Keeheeheeheehee!"
The scientist poked the broadcast camera with a mechanical gauntlet.
"Today is a So lucky day! There is Good news for all of you hardworking people! Did you know that?!"
Baek Seoha could not begin to understand what she was looking at.
"Curious, aren't you?! What could the news be? Getting excited?! Hiyohhohot! All right then, everyone together! Drumroll, please!!"
A frantic wash of canned applause poured out of every speaker on the street.
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP!
As of this day, this city has been placed under the gracious rule of Lady Articetia, Lord of the Mausoleum Temple.
A round of applause, everyone!
The scientist's voice dropped.
"Therefore... other Main factions, remnants of the current regime, and you heroes... yes, I'm sorry. I must politely ask that you... get the hell out."
He pressed his hands together in a courteous bow, then lit up again.
"Keeheeheeheehee!!"
A curse slipped out of Baek Seoha before she could stop it.
"Ha?! Is that lunatic... actually sane?"
A map of Seoul bloomed across the billboard.
Red dots glittered across every corner of the city. A blue zone raced outward from them, swallowing the map. Baek Seoha's face went white.
"Ah! How could this genius brain forget a thing like that? I'm so sorry! For your information, I will be dropping hypersonic low-altitude missiles across the whole of Seoul shortly! So everyone close your windows and stay indoors! Ok?"
HYPERSONIC LOW-ALTITUDE MISSILES
Target: All of Seoul
Directive: Close all windows. Do not go outside.
The scientist seized the camera and shoved the gas mask right up against the lens.
"That is all... this has been MadSci, Interim Quarantine Director of the Republic of Korea! Kishishishishi!!"