Chapter 103
Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 103
So he kept clearing games at a rapid pace, and day by day the number of unfinished game titles kept shrinking. It was far faster than he’d expected. It helped that he dropped games that weren’t very fun without hesitation.
At some point, he realized he’d been going too hard. To pace himself with games and to digest the post-ending emptiness, he followed Director Maria’s suggestion and dropped by the research institute for a bit.
Life is a journey. And what’s the charm of a journey? Isn’t it about not rushing ahead, but moving slowly and finding things to enjoy along the way?
It was pretty fascinating. When he contacted them saying he was coming to the institute, a door-sized opening appeared in the wall on the institute’s side.
He’d thought it was just a rectangular decorative pattern on the wall, but hiding a door there… Honestly, she wasn’t in her right mind. She had a strong mad scientist vibe.
Anyway, when he entered the institute’s front courtyard through the opened door, the guards stopped him.
But only for a moment. They pressed some strange device against his body to verify his identity, then let him through without issue.
Once again, he was struck by how impressive Kim Maria, the institute director, really was. Running a research institute this freely in a country like Korea, packed with old fogeys, nuisances, and people easily offended, no small feat.
Maria turned her gaze to the young man standing beside Kyung-wan and smiled.
“Mr. Hancheol. Is everything ready?”
“Yes, y-yes…”
Kim Hancheol nodded with a tense expression. At her gesture, he hesitated, stood up, and followed behind her. The researchers lined up and walked after them.
Curious about what kind of nonsense required such pomp, Kyung-wan took up the rear of the line and followed along.
They arrived at a bright space with a high ceiling, surrounded on all sides by solid concrete walls. The gray urethane coating on the floor was striking, but even more striking was the steel pillar erected at the center and the cutting-edge equipment arranged around it.
Even to Kyung-wan’s eye, it was clearly equipment related to psychic research, but he had no idea what its actual purpose was.
“Alright! Let’s begin!”
As Maria clapped her hands and gave the order, the researchers moved to their respective tasks. Some operated computers, while others swarmed the advanced machinery.
After confirming that everyone was in position, Maria spoke to Kim Hancheol.
“Now it’s your turn.”
“M-me? What should I do?”
“Please use your ability on that pillar over there.”
“A-are you sure it’s okay?”
Kim Hancheol hesitated.
“It’s fine. This place is much sturdier than you think.”
Reassured by her confidence, Kim Hancheol hesitated only briefly before approaching the steel pillar and placing his fingertips against it.
Soon, a voooooom sound came from the pillar.
Kyung-wan watched the experiment with interest. To his senses, he could feel concentric circles within Kim Hancheol’s body traveling through his fingertips and transferring into the steel pillar.
“Aren’t you curious what kind of experiment this is?”
Maria asked Kyung-wan at that moment.
It was a bit like poking him so she could take a bow, but since she clearly wanted him to ask, Kyung-wan obliged.
“What kind of experiment is it?”
“A psychic equipment development experiment.”
“Psychic equipment?”
“Yes. Quite literally, we’re testing whether it’s possible to create equipment imbued with psychic abilities.”
Kyung-wan thought he understood why Maria was conducting this experiment.
For S-particles to interact with physical matter in reality, a medium called the human body was required. The manifestation of psychic abilities originated from humans themselves.
Because of that, the only existing ‘scientific’ way to prove the existence of S-particles was an indirect method: measuring their effects on the material world through a human intermediary. For this reason, it was impossible to measure how many S-particles actually existed using equipment alone. Since the manifestation of abilities via S-particles varied greatly from individual to individual, indirect measurements carried equally large margins of error. Strictly speaking, it was less S-particle measurement and more like psychic ability measurement.
So what Maria intended with this experiment was likely to test the possibility of a material or device that could directly interact with S-particles without using humans as intermediaries…
Thinking that far, Kyung-wan couldn’t help but admire her, even inwardly. Because Kim Hancheol’s psychic ability had characteristics that were extremely well-suited to testing that very hypothesis. If his ability truly created a kind of psychic magnet in which S-particles lingered, then it was entirely possible that it would be influenced by the surrounding concentration of S-particles.
Had she really seen through that? As expected of a researcher.
Kyung-wan asked,
“An ability that turns any iron you touch into a magnet, right?”
“At the factory he collapsed, large quantities of iron are still left magnetized.”
“Normally, iron doesn’t revert once it becomes magnetized, does it?”
There were exceptions, of course.
At Kyung-wan’s words, Maria smiled meaningfully and replied,
“But the iron in that factory remains in a state of magnetism far stronger than usual.”
“So… the S-particles are still acting on it?”
“Exactly. And the fact that it’s magnetism makes it even better.”
If Kim Hancheol could create a psychic magnet, and if that magnet could react in any way to S-particles, then a foundation for measuring S-particles would be established. All technology ultimately begins with measurement.
“If this works out, that kid’s market value will be enormous.”
“Hehe.”
At Kyung-wan’s remark, Maria let out a low laugh. The expression she gave him from the corner of her eye seemed to say, ‘You too.’
Vooooom! Vooooom!
The steel pillar vibrated as it became magnetized. Kim Hancheol, looking utterly exhausted, pulled his hand away from the pillar.
“I can’t go any further.”
“Alright. Good work. Go rest. What do the readings say?”
After granting Kim Hancheol a break, Maria asked the researcher who was staring at a monitor.
“It’s an extremely powerful magnetic force. It exceeds the theoretical limit iron can have.”
“Excellent.”
Nodding in satisfaction, Maria asked Kyung-wan,
“How long do you think that pillar’s magnetism will last?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Just tell me honestly, based on your intuition. You said you’d be honest.”
At her words, Kyung-wan glanced at the steel pillar. When he focused, he could feel the S-particles injected into it generating concentric waves.
Kyung-wan answered honestly,
“I think it’ll last quite a long time.”
“I hope so too.”
Maria replied, her voice filled with anticipation.
= = = = =
Would the first Korean-style hero truly be a civilian?
Ever since K-heroes appeared, all sorts of rumors had circulated online, but there was one point most people agreed on: without national backing or support, it would be hard for something like a hero industry to exist.
That was because public safety in Korea was exceptionally good.
Surprisingly, this was thanks to the competence of the police and the level of civic consciousness. Systems like national health insurance played an important role in easing social unrest caused by the ever-widening wealth gap, and thanks to scientific investigative methods, the clearance rate for violent crimes exceeded 90%.
There were issues, of course, cops in bed with gangs, or security officers who became civil servants just to make a living, but Korea’s public safety was still clearly different from places like Detroit in the U.S. or drug-ridden regions of South America, where public authority was so weak that heroes were needed.
Even so, the Korean government decided to foster the hero industry due to pressure from the United States, pumping by major corporations, the villains who were still nowhere to be found, and finally, a newly emerged organization called Übermensch.
In truth, this wasn’t the first time the Übermensch organization had appeared. They had emerged in Europe around the same time vigilantes first appeared in the United States.
However, unlike the vigilantes, who stayed quiet after killing Manny Face and causing no major incidents, Übermensch operated widely across Eastern Europe, West Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and beyond.
They weren’t quite a terrorist organization, but many countries had already designated them as a criminal group. There were numerous cases where they treated the law like dirt and acted however they pleased.
Actions that were clearly illegal, yet involved minimal casualties, hard to call terrorism.
A representative example was the mysterious duo who infiltrated a prison in an attempt to kidnap Kyung-wan.
A muscle-bound man who appeared to be from a physical enhancement line, and another man who claimed he could interfere with the Higgs field.
The Higgs-field interferer was nicknamed the Mass Ejector. He was such a powerful psychic that authorities were forced to agonize over how to arrest him.
Bullets wouldn’t work, and even if they tried to subdue him with brute force, he’d just make them light and toss them away.
As lawless individuals against whom traditional public authority no longer worked continued to increase, strengthening psychic forces became an unavoidable task for the state. The hero industry emerged as a catalyst for that purpose.
“Good work, Officer.”
“Yes.”
Officer Lee Cheol returned the greeting from someone who looked like a broadcast station staff member and headed into the changing room. He began removing the full-body tights with a lightning mark on them and changing back into his police uniform.
Then he let out a sigh.
How had he ended up like this?
K-Hero No. 1, Thunder Boy. That was him.
Honestly, it was embarrassing. Starting with the outdated-sounding name Thunder Boy, he didn’t like any of it.
There were plenty of other people, why him? Just because he placed second in the nationwide psychic police combat tournament? The first-place winner, Sergeant Ha, wasn’t doing it.
Lee Cheol, who couldn’t even imagine that this was all the result of a collusion between high-ranking officials who wanted to plant government influence in the hero industry and others who still wanted to keep the best cards in their own hands, was living a double life as both a patrol officer in the psychic crime investigation unit and K-Hero No. 1, Thunder Boy.
His most recent dispatch had also been to subdue a robber using psychic abilities.
Fine. Up to that point, he could accept it. Even the tight, yellow lightning-marked full-body ballistic suit.
But filming his dispatch and arrest process was something he just couldn’t understand. A camera attached to his helmet, and a cameraman following him around to capture his ‘heroic’ exploits(?)?
The funniest part was that the cameraman assigned to keep up with his speed was himself a physical enhancement-type psychic. Apparently, footage shot with heavy, expensive cameras looked better?
It turned out they were also filming material for image-making, to ensure Thunder Boy would gain popularity later. Once he became popular, they planned to recover their investment by releasing documentaries or fan DVDs.
What was this, some kind of idol documentary…?
When he heard that, Lee Cheol couldn’t help but experience culture shock at this strange, capitalist version of heroes. Since when had arresting criminals become a show?
But there was nothing he could do. He was just a patrol officer.
Trrr-rrr-rrrk! Trrr-rrr-rrrk!
“Yes, Director, it’s me. Have you been well?”
[Cheol! Have you been well?]
It was a cheerful voice. But no matter how many times he heard it, Lee Cheol found the director of Happy Home’s voice unfamiliar. Was this really the same director who had once been so cold and razor-sharp?
Thinking about the difference between then and now, it was impossible not to realize just how much damage the gangs clinging to Happy Home, and the corrupt cops in bed with them, had done to the director. Just removing them had changed her this much…
Considering that, even though he himself was a police officer, he couldn’t possibly forgive those people. Still, he had no intention of stepping outside the bounds of the law to do something about it. He was, after all, a police officer.
“What kind of gifts do kids like these days?”
It was his day off in a few days, and Lee Cheol planned to visit Happy Home. Even though he was an adult now and had to leave the facility, he worried about the children who remained. They didn’t have financial backers like he did.
The director tried to dissuade him.
[You should save your money and get married. Why bring gifts?]
“It’s fine. I’ve got a bit of extra income now…”