Hero Plus Research Institute

Sixteen new family members had, somehow, materialized out of thin air.

Two full weeks had already slipped by. June. Early summer. On any other year I would have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been at the beach by now, living the unemployed life the way it was meant to be lived. Nobody would even have been there.

"Hrmm..."

The reason I was drowning in self-loathing? I looked at the monitor.

On the western sea of the Super-science Dungeon, a spectacle was unfolding. Maids in bikinis were tearing across the beach, shrieking and splashing like they had never heard of dignity.

"Kyaaaaah!"

"Ah! Cold! You! I'm serious! Take this!!"

"Who wants beach volleyball?! Hands up!!"

...

They were all having a fantastic time. Well — the modification surgeries had gone off without a hitch, and watching them enjoy a vacation under the official pretext of rehabilitation therapy was, I had to admit, a pleasant sight. They were all idol-grade beauties, too. My eyes were certainly feasting.

How. Ev. Er.

The court of public opinion was not being kind!!

The community boards were losing their minds. Posts were going up faster than I could refresh.

Fuck!

Tapped, my ass! I hadn't even laid a finger on them!

Well... okay. I mean, I had to look, to perform the modification surgery...

But I, Lee Dogwang, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠am a gentleman! I did not do anything vulgar!

Haaah...

I was genuinely going to lose my mind.

"How fortunate that everyone so enjoys this Messat's touch! Hiyohohohohot!"

Beside me, Hongryeon bowed her head.

"Having received Messat-nim's grace, vast as the sea itself, it is only natural that they should feel such happiness."

Hongryeon. Could you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not say "grace" like that? Someone overhearing is going to get the wrong idea!

...I decided to just roll with it.

"Oh! Yes! Exactly! A single fantastic touch from this body, and anyone's endorphins hitting Max is simply a matter of course!"

This role... it really was not easy. Somebody, please, just let me retire already...

I'm begging you here, heroes.

"Horollolololo!"

I opened the planning file Hongryeon had sent over.

Spring Joy Corps. Summer Flame Corps. Autumn Lantern Corps. Winter Spirit Corps. She had split them four to a division, each specialized by ability. The problem? Every last assignment was combat-related!

Taking people who had been heroes and planting them at the vanguard of world conquest? That was absurd. That was the kind of nonsense you could not even dress up as a joke. It was like pressing a knife into your own child's hands and saying, Right! Time for a massacre! Go slaughter your family!

...That was exactly what it looked like!

Huuu...

So I dressed it up.

"Hongryeon. This body worships perfection. But these were feeble he-roes! I find myself questioning whether they can execute their missions perfectly!"

How was that? Wrapped in kindness, but the pressure underneath was unmistakable: reassign them to desk duty.

Hongryeon, however, narrowed her eyes at the screen.

"Feeble..."

The lenses in her pupils adjusted, scanning them one by one. Then she turned her gaze to me, slow and deliberate.

"Now that you have entrusted the Maid Corps to this humble girl, the word 'feeble' shall never again be spoken. Should you but grant your leave, this girl shall prove it with results."

That look. That insufferably confident look!

Oh? So that's how you want to play it, all the way to the end?

Fine. I had thoughts of my own.

I flicked my hand, and a hologram bloomed in the air. A DNA helix turned slowly before my eyes. A red strand slipped into Baekho's existing genetic structure and began to warp it.

Ah. Looking at it again still made my blood boil.

In the corner of my desk sat a glass cylinder. Inside, displayed like a trophy, was the syringe Baekho had used.

"Hero Plus..."

The words etched across the syringe's surface. I had looked into it. A research institute operating under the Hero Association. Their stated goal: enhance a hero's immunity, self-recovery, muscular strength, and Gift.

And the hero faction — not even Mains — was running human experiments?

Fuck...

I was a Main, and I was only just now cracking Hwa Minam's skull open!

"KYAAAAOOOOOOOH!!"

BANG!

I slammed my fist into the desk. Whether it was the epinephrine drowning my brain or something else, the blood running from my hand did not particularly hurt.

More than anything — the fact that they had toyed with the Baekho I had already staked my claim on, using some incomplete cocktail of drugs, made me see red.

A map of Yongin City rose in the hologram. A bunker buried beneath Mt. Seokseong, 471 meters above sea level. They had hidden it well.

Did you really think I wouldn't find it?

You sons of bitches!

I will erase that mountain — and you with it — from the face of the earth, right now!!

I was about to smash the red button with a fist still slick with blood when gas hissed from the ceiling.

Fsssssshhhhh!

Whoops. What was I just about to—

I had come within a hair of wiping Yongin City itself off the map.

I gathered myself and slipped back into the performance.

"Hiyohohohohohot! Yes, Hongryeon. You said you would prove it, did you not?"

What I actually wanted was to find the people behind this myself and tear them apart. But if I moved again, Articetia would pick a fight. And I could not very well inflict collateral damage on innocent civilians who had nothing to do with any of this, could I?

"Then let us do this. Hongryeon, you will personally lead the Super-science Maid Corps and abduct the target."

A research institute sealed inside a bunker. The security would be brutal, no question. Hongryeon would get wiped. The Maid Corps would be taken hostage by the heroes. In the process, everyone would learn that the maids had been heroes all along. The Maid Corps would be liberated, and as a bonus I would secure the bunker's internal intelligence.

And in the end, I would learn the identity of the son of a bitch who had toyed with Baekho.

Huhuhuhu...

Absolutely perfect.

"Kyshishishishishishishit!! You will announce the super-science born from this Messat's hands to the entire world!! Now, go! Kindle the sacred flame of Evolution!!"

Hongryeon gathered her hands neatly before her and bowed her head.

"This girl receives your command."

The underground bunker beneath Mt. Seokseong.

The Hero Plus Research Institute.

Seo Aegyo — the Association's attending physician and chief researcher — was gazing through the one-way mirror with an expression of pure rapture.

"Nnngh... Baekho..."

An iron plate weighing twenty-four tons. Baek Seoha drove her heel into it.

"Hyaaaaah!!"

KUUUUUNG!!

The rectangular steel button shifted, just barely. A figure lit up on the display overhead.

117,600 N.

A Muay Thai champion's high kick clocked in at around 9,000 N. This was fourteen times that. The equivalent of a twelve-ton truck colliding head-on.

Seo Aegyo licked her lips and filled in the chart.

"It was nowhere near this before she deployed to the Super-science Dungeon..."

Messat had clearly done something to Baekho's body. And although Baekho herself had stated that she had been administered BM-21...

"There wasn't a single trace of it..."

A flush crept into Seo Aegyo's cheeks as she leaned against the one-way mirror.

"Haah... Messat... nngh... how was my child...?"

The new drug she had poured her ambition into. Her ample chest rose and fell with each ragged breath.

I want to hear it from him. His impressions... would he praise me...?

The automatic door slid open. Baek Seoha stepped into the control room, wiping sweat with a towel.

"Haaah... moving my body really does clear my head."

She beamed at Seo Aegyo, sheepish and bright.

"Kicking that measuring device felt the best, honestly. Like I was driving my foot straight into Messat's face. Heh."

Seo Aegyo quietly folded the chart closed and hid it. Then she smiled with her eyes.

"This is an institute for enhancing heroes, so of course the facilities are better than the Association's. I'm glad you like it."

A worried look crossed Baek Seoha's face.

"Um... about that... what happened to the person who came in with me?"

The heroes transferred here after escaping the dungeon, ostensibly for physical examinations. Among them, one had been in particularly grave condition.

"You mean Shadow Assassin?"

Seo Aegyo sighed and tapped at the keyboard. A CCTV feed bloomed across the monitor. A woman on a bed, knees drawn to her chest, gnawing at her thumbnail.

Seo Aegyo hit Enter.

Click.

THUNK—

The stark white room plunged into darkness. Shadow Assassin, whose Gift was to hide in shadows — a woman who by every right should have been at home in the dark.

"Hiiiek!"

An ugly scream tore out of her.

"N-no!! The lights! Turn the lights on! He's coming... the... the ghosts!! KYAAAAAAAAAAH!!"

Seo Aegyo hit Enter again.

Click.

She was curled in the corner of the bed, her whole body clenched, shaking violently. For a hero named Shadow Assassin, she was not using her ability at all.

Baek Seoha's breath caught. She pressed a hand to her chest.

"Ghosts...?"

She had known it was a dungeon under the Mausoleum Temple. But the Super-science Dungeon had not felt remotely spiritual.

That's strange...

The other heroes were fine. Only she had come unhinged. Had Messat done something to her?

Messat's words still circled in her mind. His voice — unexpectedly, unmistakably serious — was still vivid.

Her brow furrowed.

Messat... why did you save me? And what on earth did those words...

She dropped her gaze from the screen where Shadow Assassin was coming apart, and looked at Seo Aegyo with a bitter little smile.

"Doctor. Um... do you think I could be discharged soon? You said yesterday's numbers were normal. And you said no virus with an incubation period was detected, so..."

Seo Aegyo rested a finger against her chin, considering.

"Hmm... you're right. There shouldn't be any problem processing your discharge."

Then she hooked her arm through Baek Seoha's and smiled.

"But how was it?"

"Sorry...? How was what?"

"Messat's laboratory... no. The dungeon."

Baek Seoha managed an awkward smile.

"Ah... of every dungeon I've ever heard of, that one was the most vicious."

Her brow knit.

"I couldn't begin to understand how they see people. It wasn't a place you could make sense of while still in your right mind."

Seo Aegyo stroked Baek Seoha's hip and whispered against her ear.

"Well... I might understand Messat's thinking a little, actually...?"

"What...?"

In that instant, warning sirens screamed through every corridor of the bunker.

WEE-OO! WEE-OO!

Baek Seoha looked up at the warning lights flaring red across the ceiling.

"An S-Class Main...?"

Don't tell me — Messat?!