Chapter 158: Reunion (1)
Chapter 158: Reunion (1)
The reunion where Kang Young-hoon would be waiting. I had returned home to prepare for it, but what awaited me there was shocking, unexpected news.
[The Operator has vanished.]
The news the Association Chairman personally called to give me was the disappearance of a Hero Operator. For someone like me, who didn't have many people I could truly call friends, she was one of the few—a dear friend and a reliable colleague. And now, she was gone.
The sudden report caught me completely off guard, leaving my mind blank for a moment. For now, the Hero Association suspected that the Hypnotist, of all people, had kidnapped her. When I heard the details, the situation was truly appalling.
[It seems it all started with the Common Sense Alteration Zone incident.]
It felt like a long time had passed, but in reality, it hadn't been that long since the Common Sense Alteration Zone incident ended. Perhaps it was because I’d spent more time than others due to Kang Young-hoon’s superpower, Time Stop, but the incident felt like a distant memory.
In truth, however, I had only just wrapped up that incident when the Chairman assigned me a new mission: to arrest an executive of the Villain Association. According to Queen’s Future Sight, there was no time to waste, so I had finished the bare minimum of preparations and immediately gone undercover as a reverse bunny girl on the cruise ship.
Only three days. Only three days had passed since the Common Sense Alteration Zone incident ended. I never imagined the Operator would be kidnapped in that short window.
In the meantime, I ran into my old classmate and time-stopper, Kang Young-hoon... but I failed to catch him.
While I was supposed to be on a vital mission to capture a villain executive, I had been secretly indulging in defeat play. To think the Operator was captured by another executive, the Hypnotist, during that time... A heavy sense of guilt began to crawl up my spine.
[We suspect the Operator was taken right then. I don’t know if you remember... but it was that moment. The moment you grabbed the marble to destroy the Core of the Common Sense Alteration Zone.]
"Ah."
So, the Operator hadn't been kidnapped during those three days after all. Though I'm sure he didn't mean to, the Chairman's words relieved some of my guilt. At least she wasn't captured while I was busy enjoying myself. Still, my concern for her remained unchanged.
[As you know, heroes with high resistance to mental attacks were each assigned a Common Sense Alteration Zone to handle. The Operator was one of them.]
"Was she acting alone?"
[It couldn't be helped. We were severely short-staffed this time. Besides, the Operator had particularly high mental resistance even among us, so she was the hero we trusted and felt most secure about.]
"Then how did...?"
A sigh echoed from the other end of the line. It seemed the Chairman was also feeling overwhelmed by the situation.
[The entire Common Sense Alteration incident might have been bait just to lure the Operator in.]
"What do you mean by that?"
[It seems the Hypnotist was waiting for the Operator from the very beginning. He was lurking secretly at the location assigned to her, just waiting for the moment to kidnap her. The moment he confirmed she was alone, he revealed his true objective.]
"Why would he want the Operator...? Oh."
I didn't know the exact reason, but even I knew the Hypnotist had been trying hard to bring the Operator over to his side. The incident at the Academy had been part of that effort. Seeing as he had plotted this despite her clear refusal, there had to be a specific reason why he needed her.
[I'm ashamed to say we don't know the reason yet. However, seeing as the incident was resolved fairly quietly thanks to the heroes' efforts... it's more accurate to say that what the Hypnotist really wanted wasn't the chaos in society, but rather using that chaos as a cover to secure the Operator.]
"But... isn't that strange? The Operator has higher mental resistance than most heroes. Even then, the Hypnotist was overinvesting his power into the Common Sense Alteration Zones at the time, so he shouldn't have had the leeway to hypnotize her separately..."
But as I spoke, I realized. I realized why the marble-shaped 'Core' in the police station's Common Sense Alteration Zone had lost its light the moment I grabbed it.
It wasn't that it lost its light because of something I did; the Hypnotist simply withdrew his power at that exact moment.
If that were the case, the other Common Sense Alteration Zones must have lost their effects simultaneously. If he had used all that reclaimed power to hypnotize the Operator, it made sense that even she would fall.
Besides, those guys... they seemed to have 'awakened' recently.
According to what the Beast Tamer said, some of the Villain Association executives had discovered a new way to wield their power. He didn't give details, but I suspected it was a form of awakening.
Since ordinary people discovering superpowers is commonly called an Awakening, it might be more accurate to call an evolution of an existing power a 2nd Awakening. Regardless, if it was a 2nd Awakening level of hypnosis, there was a chance it could work even on the Operator.
"In the end, we have no choice but to find the Hypnotist."
[That is why I called you. That unidentified Villain Association executive who will appear on the cruise ship—if you can catch him, we might be able to find their headquarters, which has been impossible to track down.]
"Ah..."
The Villain Association headquarters couldn't be found no matter how thoroughly the country was searched. Heroes famous for tracking and investigation all agreed it was either abroad or hidden away in some incredibly secret location. The only way was to capture an executive-level villain and interrogate them.
In that sense, I absolutely had to catch Kang Young-hoon. I already felt I had to, but hearing that the Operator had been kidnapped filled me with an even greater sense of duty. Hiding my guilt from the Chairman, who didn't yet know I had already let Kang Young-hoon slip away once, I replied.
"I'll make sure to catch him and bring him in."
To do that, I first had to prepare for the reunion.
*
To cross-dress, or to tail him. That is the question.
Thanks to lurking in the reunion group chat, I already knew the location and schedule. The question was whether I would attend proudly as a member of the group, or if I would linger nearby and watch him with the sole purpose of catching him.
However, I was starting to think that cross-dressing was realistically impossible.
After all, the friends gathering for the reunion all knew what I used to look like. No matter how well I dressed as a man, my face was different, and my height and build were completely different now. Even if the disguise itself was convincing, it would be more suspicious if some pretty boy showed up and asked, "Don't you recognize me?"
And this time, I have no way to hide my chest.
So, naturally, only one option remained. Since I knew the location and time, I would just have to hang around the area and tail him. However, since I’d have to do this in my civilian form, I did have some concerns.
Kang Young-hoon would obviously be with the reunion group. He knew my civilian face. Hadn't he just unloaded several thick loads of semen inside me while I was disguised as a reverse bunny girl on the cruise ship? Like the true villain he was, he clearly had no intention of taking responsibility, whether I got pregnant or not.
He might recognize me.
I was wearing a hat and a mask, but I was still anxious. Would it be better to flip the script and approach them in my Magical Girl form, drawing everyone's attention by saying, "I can't reveal my identity, but I'm actually your classmate—"? That would certainly make Kang Young-hoon horny enough to lung at me.
What a crazy thought.
If I did that, the reunion would turn into an impromptu autograph session. Fans would swarm from inside the restaurant and even from the street.
I wasn't exaggerating; my popularity these days was really at that level. Perhaps because of my girl-crush charm, I was especially popular among women. I felt a bit like the "Prince of an all-girls school."
Tailing it is, then.
After going in circles, I settled on tailing. I pulled my hat down low and put on a black mask. I added baggy clothes that didn't reveal my figure as a bonus. I even put on glasses, though they weren't really my style.
With this, I judged there was no chance of being caught unless Kang Young-hoon looked at me very closely... or so I thought. I didn't know how it would actually play out.
"......Oh."
When I actually arrived, I was a bit flustered to find that the reunion spot was a much noisier bar than I had expected. A woman eating alone in a place like this was bound to draw eyes.
I was hesitating, wondering if it would be better to scout from outside rather than wait inside, when a mixed group of men and women swarmed into the bar. I didn't even need to check who they were. One glance at their faces told me they were my high school friends.
"Hey, it's been so long!"
"What do you mean 'so long'? It's only been a year."
"A year is a long time. Anyway, what do you guys want to eat?"
"Order drinks first. Is this our first time all drinking together?"
"It's a shame the Class President couldn't make it, sigh."
"He must be busy. If we have fun, he'll want to come next time, so let's just eat."
My classmates sat around the largest table in the center of the bar. Seeing so many familiar faces made me want to join them immediately, but I suppressed the urge. I was here to catch Kang Young-hoon.
I have to rescue the Operator...!
However, Kang Young-hoon was not among those currently at the gathering. If he wasn't coming, he would have said so in the group chat beforehand, so he was likely to show up today. It seemed he was just running late.
"Wait, isn't someone missing?"
"Ah... I guess Kang Young-hoon isn't here yet?"
"Honestly, I didn't expect him to say he was coming."
"Right? I thought he was a bit creepy back in high school..."
"What's the point of bringing that up now? We're all just old friends. I'll text him."
After ordering something for myself to avoid suspicion, I focused all my senses on the reunion group. Specifically, I was only concerned with when Kang Young-hoon would arrive.
He hasn't noticed I'm looking for him and run away, has he?
Just as I was starting to worry that I’d missed him again, someone placed a hand firmly on my shoulder from behind. The moment I turned around, the words that followed in a familiar voice nearly made my heart stop.
"Excuse me, are you here for the Class 7 reunion?"
Kang Young-hoon, spotted.
...And at the same time, it seemed I had been spotted as well.