Pheromone Monster
I climbed onto a rooftop, the cold night wind of New York cutting across my face.
Flutter. Flutter.
My crimson cape snapped and billowed in the gale.
Beneath it I wore light armor. Back in the old days, skintight spandex had been the superhero standard — these days, fantasy-style light plate was apparently the fashion.
I glanced at my right shoulder. Curved metal cupped it snugly, and etched into the surface was the mark of a skull struck by lightning — Jupiter's emblem, slapped together that very afternoon.
Sophia's careful face as she designed the mark floated up in my mind.
"A costume is essential for a superhero. And of course you need a mark that represents you. A superhero without a costume isn't a superhero at all."
She had shown me the countless hunters operating across America. Not just the A-Class elites at the top of the food chain — even the E-Class and below worked in outfits tailored to their own personal flair.
Well, hunters in other countries wore specialized gear for monster hunts too, so I couldn't really argue. When your life is on the line, armor is a serious matter. America and Japan were simply more obsessive about the costume side of things. Japan's aesthetic ran in a slightly different direction, though.
I looked down from the building. Cars streamed along the roads; pedestrians moved along the sidewalks.
"We don't have time. We have to move fast and hit hard. That doesn't mean you can just kill anyone, though. When you kill a criminal, the American public will get curious about who you killed. We use that. Kill the criminals connected to Boshi — and let the people discover his ugliness for themselves!"
Crack.
Pale sparks leapt around me.
I raised a hand. I was a dark hero, but I couldn't operate in secret. For Sophia's goals and mine, I needed the nation's eyes on me.
Whoooooosh.
Mana poured out of me.
The air itself seemed to shift in an instant, and a thick bolt of lightning slammed down onto the building. The world flashed white. A heartbeat later, thunder rolled out in every direction.
New Yorkers stared up, baffled by lightning from a cloudless sky — and those with sharp eyes spotted me standing on the rooftop.
Flutter. Flutter.
I stood still and gave the citizens their photo op. The faster they uploaded me to the internet, the faster I'd get famous.
One minute down. Plenty of time for people to pull out their phones, start recording, even go live.
I summoned Stormbreaker and lifted the spear in my right hand.
In its greatspear form, Stormbreaker was far more eye-catching than Hwaryeonbido.
Crackle.
Blue electricity spat from Stormbreaker.
The glowing current was spectacle enough to snag every gaze — but it still felt lacking. I summoned Hwaryeonbido and fused it with Stormbreaker. The dagger slid into the spear with a soft hiss, less a merger than an absorption.
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACK!
The blue current raging around Stormbreaker bled into crimson. Empowered by Hwaryeonbido, the lightning grew fiercer still.
I hurled the red-lightning spear at the building across the way.
The greatspear punched into the structure, red current flooding over a section of the facade. I shoved mana into my legs and leapt. Clearing a gap that had to be a good thirty meters, I landed cleanly on the building Stormbreaker had just wrecked.
I looked straight ahead. A middle-aged man in a suit, seated in a chair, heaved his heavy frame upright.
"So you're that Jupiter?"
"And you're Bill Hyton, high priest of the High Tree Church. Correct?"
The High Tree Church.
A cult tied to Juji Boshi. Word was they'd planted a branch in New York the moment Boshi became president.
I reached for Stormbreaker where it was buried in the floor, ready to kill him — then froze. On Bill Hyton's sleeve, I saw a familiar crest.
Five water droplets spinning in a circle.
The symbol of Bramasen, the Evil God of the Tattoo World.
My mind lit up. Bramasen. Cults. The Gwangwon Sect. The keywords tangled together and snapped into a single conclusion.
"A remnant of the Gwangwon Sect…"
Bill Hyton's eyes flashed.
"Oh-ho. You know of the Gwangwon Sect? So you're connected to the ones who brought it down. You'll tell me everything you know."
Bill Hyton flung both arms wide. They blackened and stretched, lengthening like tentacles. I sparked lightning into my left hand and scattered it in every direction. The current raced along the floor and clung to both of his arms.
Nothing happened. Bill Hyton didn't so much as flinch. He sneered at me and cracked his arms like whips.
"You think static electricity is going to drop me? It doesn't even tickle!"
I swung the greatspear at both arms as they coiled in from left and right. The blade, sheathed in sword-ki, touched them — and didn't cut so much as a thread. The arms wound around Stormbreaker and my body alike, binding me tight.
Disgusting.
His arms felt alive and not alive at the same time. The fact that sword-ki did absolutely nothing suggested they were immune to physical force.
The arms cinched tighter. They meant to crush my bones.
Boom.
I stamped a true step into the floor.
Red lightning erupted from my heel, raced along the ground, and slammed straight into Bill Hyton.
"How many times do I have to tell you it's useless?"
Bill Hyton threw his head back and roared with laughter.
I ignored him and kept pouring current into his body. Crack. Crackle. Red electricity leapt across his frame, stacking higher and higher inside him.
That should be enough.
I clenched my left fist as if slamming a detonator.
— Explosive Quake Thunder
The red lightning stacked within the enemy's body detonates in a cascading chain of internal blasts.
KRA-KOOM!
An explosion tore through Bill Hyton from the inside. Not one blast — every scrap of crimson lightning I'd piled into him went off in a rapid, stuttering chain.
KRA-KOOM! BOOM! KRAAAAA-KOOM!
Thud. The arms coiled around me went slack and dropped. I kicked the limp, blackened limbs away in irritation and strolled toward him at a leisurely pace.
Bill Hyton was on his knees, barely clinging to consciousness. Dark blood poured from his mouth, nose, and ears.
"Thirty internal detonations and you're still holding your shape. I'll give you that — it's impressive."
He glared up at me, coughing up thick gouts of black-red blood.
"Bramasen…! Lay a curse of death upon this man…!"
"That bastard can't do a damn thing."
I shifted Stormbreaker into a sword and swung. Bill Hyton's head came off and rolled across the floor.
I picked up the laptop that had fallen beside the desk. The screen was cracked, but it still worked.
A password prompt appeared.
No need to hack it. I'll just take the whole laptop.
Laptop in hand, I headed downstairs. I shredded a locked steel door with my blade and stepped inside.
Hundreds of men and women knelt naked, praying toward something — or someone. Lost in their devotion, they never even noticed me.
I frowned at the pure cult-horror of the scene. Memories of the Gwangwon Sect surged up, and irritation with them.
I crushed the urge to sweep the naked congregation away in a tidal wave of lightning and raised my phone instead, slowly circling the room, filming every repulsive second of the prayer meeting.
…Oh. That one's actually pretty cute.
A beautiful woman knelt naked, utterly absorbed in prayer. I fought down the lust that flared hot and sudden. I didn't have time to roll around with cultists. I needed to be gone before the cops arrived — before Association staff flooded the place. Because right now, I was a dark hero.
I finished recording. In the distance, sirens wailed faintly. I tore a spatial-transfer scroll and vanished.
Jupiter.
The name of the newly emerged criminal set the internet on fire.
Some called him a mad villain. Others called him a dark hero. Online opinion leaned overwhelmingly toward the latter.
The three criminals I'd killed in a single night had been, respectively, a child sex offender, the boss of a drug-trafficking syndicate, and the high priest of a cult.
Sophia and Blue Cad steered public opinion exactly where they wanted it. Having hard evidence made the job easy, apparently.
Sensing the threat, the Boshi administration branded the dark hero Jupiter a criminal and jacked up the bounty on his head. Thirty million dollars. That was the price on my neck.
Fresh from the shower, I sat on the bed and watched Sophia hammer away at her keyboard. Yesterday's dejection was gone. Her fingers danced across the keys with real bounce.
"Things going well?"
"Yes. Very well. People are thrilled that the criminals rotting America from the inside have been erased from this world. And that joy is turning straight into praise for you — for Jupiter."
"And the Boshi administration's response?"
"They're parroting the same condemnations on loop. Beyond that… not much. They know that moving carelessly will only blow back in their faces. And right about now they should be frantically scrubbing every trace. All three of the people you judged were criminals tied to Boshi. Heh. Articles I wrote ages ago are suddenly getting attention again. Honestly, things are going so smoothly I almost wonder if someone else is helping us behind the scenes."
"Blue Cad's firepower must be something else."
"It isn't Blue Cad. Blue Cad alone couldn't whip up a reaction this intense. Some other organization is… hmm. Well, that's just my imagination, so I'll leave it there."
"What about the American Hunter Association?"
That had been our biggest worry — Sophia's and mine. If the American Hunter Association came after me in earnest, even I would have a hard time playing dark hero.
"The Association condemned you. They said you're not a dark hero — just a criminal carrying out private justice."
"…Yeah. Figures. And then?"
"That's it."
"What?"
"There's nothing beyond that. The American Hunter Association is taking a lukewarm stance. I can't read their real intentions, but from the outside it strongly feels like they've taken a step back."
"Which works in our favor either way."
"Yes. Everything is falling into place."
Sophia stretched and stood. She turned to look at me, her face faintly flushed. With a walk that was somehow languid and alluring all at once, she came over and sat beside me.
"Thank you. If it weren't for you, I would have…"
I cut her off — caught her cheek and kissed her. Her eyes went wide for a heartbeat, then softened.
Before long, the cramped little workspace was thick with heat.
"Oh yes! Fuck me! Fuck me!!"