Chapter 52: The Aphrodisiac King (4)
Chapter 52: The Aphrodisiac King (4)
The moment our eyes met, I grasped the situation.
‘Did he know from the start?’
It was clear the Aphrodisiac King was aware of my presence. Whether he had just realized it or had known for a while, he was definitely conscious of the fact that he was sharing the room with an invisible person.
I had tried my best to suppress my presence, but it seemed I wasn't perfect. He didn't appear to have any superpowers, but as the boss of an organization, his instincts were incredibly sharp.
The Association Chairman didn't have any detection or sensory abilities either, yet he had noticed me. It seemed that for those with keen intuition, invisibility didn't mean much. Even I had easily noticed the invisible man on the subway.
However, the Aphrodisiac King felt a bit different. How should I put it? It looked as if he had anticipated this exact situation.
‘Did he prepare for this, thinking Shin Tae-geon would come?’
I mean, he wouldn't be carrying around a de-invisibility agent otherwise. The fact that he kept it in a spray bottle in his desk drawer, ready for immediate use, showed just how thoroughly he had prepared.
Regardless, the Aphrodisiac King had realized that I—or rather, the 'Invisible Man'—was in the room and began acting as if his guard was down. When you know someone is secretly watching you and you have to pretend you don't, what is the most effective course of action?
‘Still, I can't believe he actually started jerking off.’
Knowing it's a tactic is one thing, but actually putting it into practice is something only a true madman could do. Moreover, the Aphrodisiac King mistook my invisible self for the original, Shin Tae-geon. That means he was stroking his cock right in front of his former boss and clear enemy.
‘He’s a total psycho.’
I guess you have to be at this level to run an aphrodisiac distribution business. I was so dumbfounded I almost let out a hollow laugh.
‘What’s even more absurd is that the lewd photo he pulled out was of me.’
At first, I wondered why, out of all the countless pieces of jerk-off material on the internet, he had pulled out a photo of me. Did he know I was the one who was invisible and pulled out my lewd photo just to provoke me?
If it were a normal female hero, she wouldn't just stand by while a villain masturbated to a lewd, composite photo of her right in front of her eyes. Forget being a hero; no woman would easily tolerate that. Maintaining one's composure would be impossible.
But I was different. Seeing the Aphrodisiac King masturbate to my lewd photo actually made me feel a bit sympathetic. I suppose I really am different from normal people.
‘It was a coincidence.’
However, it didn't seem like the Aphrodisiac King had pulled out my photo to manipulate my emotions. If he had, he wouldn't look this flustered seeing me now that my invisibility had worn off.
Furthermore, considering he shouted Shin Tae-geon's name the moment he sprayed the bottle, seeing my lewd photo was clearly a pure coincidence.
"W-Why is Floss here instead of Shin Tae-geon? Did Floss have invisibility powers too...?"
As expected, the Aphrodisiac King knew Shin Tae-geon was the Invisible Man, but he didn't seem to know that he could make others invisible as well.
"A-Anyway, since you've snuck in this far, I can't let you go."
But it was clear the situation wasn't great for me. The best plan would have been to take down the Aphrodisiac King in one blow while invisible, but that plan was now ruined. Unfortunately, the Aphrodisiac King was someone who could distinguish between his personal tastes and reality.
"Surrender quietly, Aphrodisiac King. You know the situation is already over now that I'm here, don't you?"
"I can't do that. The Hero Association... I heard rumors they were tracking down and interrogating customers who recently bought my products, but I didn't expect them to reach my hideout so quickly."
"I had an accomplice."
"Hmm."
The Aphrodisiac King hesitated for a moment, then tilted his head and asked.
"But why did you show up naked? I thought this potion... only had a de-invisibility effect. Did it have a side effect that melts clothes?"
"……."
"You don't even look embarrassed showing your naked body to a man. You're a strange woman."
I didn't bother answering. There was no need to provide information to the Aphrodisiac King, who didn't even have a proper grasp of Shin Tae-geon's abilities.
"Does that matter? Coming from the guy who was stroking his junk while looking at that 'strange woman'."
"T-That... Ahem, I have no intention of talking further. This is the end for you."
"What?"
The Aphrodisiac King raised the hand holding his phone. As it unlocked automatically via fingerprint recognition, the phone screen, which had been displaying my lewd photo until a moment ago, now showed a mysterious red switch.
"……That is."
"If I press this one button, the hideout will collapse. Does that sound like a joke?"
I knew it wasn't a joke. I already knew through Shin Tae-geon's intelligence that the Aphrodisiac King had a button to self-destruct the hideout.
The Aphrodisiac King's hideout was located underground, between the surface and the subway lines. The moment the hideout collapsed, the subway used by citizens would suffer immense damage.
I had tried to launch a surprise attack to prevent this, but it had come to this in the end.
"This isn't self-destruction or anything like that. I've already prepared a way to escape. It'll just be you and the innocent citizens dying in the collapsing earth."
"……Sigh, right. It's been a while since I've seen a true villain. I saw you had many subordinates earlier; what about them?"
"How am I supposed to worry about all that? I can just get new ones."
The Aphrodisiac King was a villain on a different level from Shin Tae-geon, the wannabe molester, or Michael, the druggie who just wanted to fuck an Asian bitch. Ironically, however, I was much more familiar with this type of villain. And they were relatively easier to handle.
‘It would have been really dangerous if he had sexually harassed me for being naked or tried to rape me.’
If he had purely displayed his lust and bombarded me with his specialty aphrodisiacs, I don't know how I would have reacted. I might have become a heat-crazed bitch, wasted on drugs. But the Aphrodisiac King was just a cliché villain, threatening me with the lives of citizens like a cookie-cutter antagonist.
‘It would have been trickier if he had threatened to distribute my nude photos instead of threatening citizens' lives.’
No matter how much he threatened me, the Aphrodisiac King was just an ordinary person. I just had to pretend to follow his demands to make him lower his guard, then rush him in an instant and take him down before he could press the self-destruct button. Although the scale was quite large, I had confidence because this wasn't the first time I'd dealt with such a situation.
‘You're disqualified as a partner for defeat play.’
It was a bit disappointing, but I felt more at ease since I could now focus on Shin Tae-geon as I had originally hoped. For now, I just needed to focus on taking care of the Aphrodisiac King.
"Don't move a single step. Heheh... The moment your feet leave the ground, countless people will die."
"What do you want me to do?"
"It's simple. Just die. Since you seem to have come alone, if I just get rid of you, I'll have enough time to escape."
"I doubt someone like you could even kill me."
A Magical Girl's body is harder than any material when it comes to external attacks. It means that even if someone wanted to kill me, it would be difficult for most ordinary people to even leave a scratch.
And yet, the Aphrodisiac King, who had no superpowers or significant weapons, was going to kill me? That was impossible.
"Oh, it's very possible. It'll be over the moment you drink this."
"Is that... poison?"
"Bingo."
I frowned. He must have thought poison was my natural enemy since it's a flower of death that blooms from within, and annoyingly, that was somewhat correct. While aphrodisiacs don't work well on me, they still have some effect; similarly, if it were a lethal, extreme poison, it could put me in a state where I'm unable to fight.
But just because I'm handed poison doesn't mean I have to drink it. It was entirely possible to fake drinking it to trick the Aphrodisiac King.
No matter how thoroughly the Aphrodisiac King was keeping me in check, as his name suggested, he had excessive trust in the drugs he created himself. The moment I opened the cap of the poison, his tension would ease, and he would be certain of his victory.
‘I shouldn't miss the moment he lets his guard down; I'll take him down right then.’
While I was thinking, the Aphrodisiac King began to move slowly.
"Heheh, then……."
Without turning his back to me, he walked straight toward a display case filled with drugs. He probably intended to take the poison from there.
I also turned my head to look toward the display case, and there was someone completely unexpected hiding there.
‘……Shin Tae-geon?’
For some reason, the invisible man, Shin Tae-geon, was standing in front of the display case. Unseen by the Aphrodisiac King, he didn't miss the split-second timing and quickly moved the label from the poison to an unlabeled bottle.
The Aphrodisiac King handed that bottle to me without any suspicion. He was under the firm delusion that the bottle containing a mysterious new drug he had just received today was the one containing the lethal poison.
‘What is even happening right now?’
*
After Magical Girl Floss fell into the hideout's bathroom while invisible, Shin Tae-geon couldn't just wait quietly and crawled around inside the ventilation ducts.
It was due to the anxiety that he had to do something. Regardless of the circumstances, this was directly related to his company, and he couldn't bear the immense pressure of leaving everything to Floss and just staying still. He needed something, anything, that he could do right now.
‘It’s a bit much to just wait until Floss finishes him off and comes out, so should I look around?’
Having reached a conclusion, Shin Tae-geon discovered a few more passages leading from the ventilation ducts into the hideout. Most of them were connected to rooms where experiments were in progress, but there was one room that wasn't.
‘A bathroom? But this is different from the one Floss went into earlier.’
It was a bathroom, but instead of the old-fashioned bathroom for the Aphrodisiac King's subordinates that reeked of waste, it was a clean, modern one. Shin Tae-geon felt suspicious and carefully infiltrated. While invisible, of course.
‘This place is…….’
Curious about where it led, he peeked out through a slightly open door and realized that this was a private bathroom attached to the Aphrodisiac King's personal office.
Since a bathroom attached to the Aphrodisiac King's office was a much better point for a surprise attack than the employee bathroom, Shin Tae-geon regretted it, thinking that if he could only turn back time, he would have sent Floss down here instead...
However, he soon realized that the Aphrodisiac King and Floss were together in the office and felt relieved. Since she had succeeded in infiltrating, taking down the Aphrodisiac King would be an easy task for Floss.
‘Wait.’
But things began to take a strange turn. Starting with the de-invisibility spray, Floss was now in a situation where she was forced to drink poison. Shin Tae-geon had been watching quietly, trusting Floss, but when it came to the poison, he felt the need to act.
‘I have to do it.’
He couldn't be certain he could take down the Aphrodisiac King one-on-one, but Floss could. So, he believed that if he left that part to Floss and just swapped the poison that would be a threat to her with another drug, it would definitely be a help.
The cowardly invisible man moved without hesitation. Even he was surprised by his own bold actions. It was a movement as if he were possessed by something.
For a moment, he didn't even know what he was doing. By the time he realized it, he had already swapped the potions.
‘But what kind of potion did I swap it with?’
Of course, Shin Tae-geon didn't know. The unlabeled potion he had swapped with the poison. That is, the identity of the new drug the Aphrodisiac King had just brought in today.
……There was absolutely no way for Shin Tae-geon to know that it was an 'Absolute Lactation Aphrodisiac'.