Masked Warrior Red – Now Yeom Hana
Masked Warrior Red――now Yeom Hana.
…………… Six months ago, a horrific catastrophe struck in the life of Masked Warrior Red.
Right in the heart of Gangnam. The sky tore open, space crumpled like paper, and a threat entity emerged. Named the Form of Madness, it was a horrific monster composed of hundreds of millions of tentacles, teeth, and eyeballs.
Red didn't hesitate. The moment civilian evacuation was complete within the minimum radius, he unleashed his ultimate move with everything he had. Masked Warrior Kick――Antimatter Annihilation Leg. He remembered up until the moment his kick, more powerful than a tactical nuke, slammed into the monster's core.
But after that, his memory went blank. From the flash of the antimatter explosion to the moment consciousness returned, that entire stretch of time was a void.
When he opened his eyes again, Red was staring at the ceiling of a hospital emergency room. What hit him then was an intense sense of wrongness. His whole body felt heavy. And his center of gravity had completely shifted. Something massive was crushing his solar plexus, and his hips felt several times heavier. The groan that slipped out unbidden was unnaturally high-pitched. When he lifted his head, two peaks rose under the blanket, blocking his view.
"……What the hell is this?"
Breasts bigger than his head. Hips even bigger than those breasts. And on top of that, an outfit so revealing it offered zero defense――like a high-cut anime heroine cosplay straight out of some fanservice show. That day, Red screamed for real. Her scream was a perfect soprano.
After that day he never wanted to remember again, Masked Warrior Red vanished from the world.
The Threat Management Agency's official announcement went like this:
Masked Warrior Red fell in combat against a Tera-grade threat entity. The Republic of Korea has lost a vital pillar of its national security.
The Masked Warrior gear has been lost. It is presumed to have been absorbed and annihilated by the Tera-grade threat in question.
Thus, Masked Warrior Red disappeared, and a new figure entered the world――the rookie A-rank Awakener, Yeom Hana. That was her new identity and name.
The drop from S-rank to A-rank was unavoidable. Unlike her past as Masked Warrior, where she'd been chosen for transcendent power, now she had to fight with her bare body.
And the trials of former Red, now Yeom Hana, didn't end there. Her steel-hard body, forged through hellish training, had turned into a woman's. Specific parts were enormous and beautifully so. On top of that, she was suspected of physical and mental contamination by the threat entity and had to endure isolation quarantine.
The quarantine lasted a full three months. In an underground solitary cell without windows, she underwent mental resonance scans multiple times a day, had blood and tissue samples taken, and fielded endless questions from Threat Management Agency researchers.
What did you feel inside the Alpha Outer God? Were you conscious? What information flowed in during contact?
Yeom Hana's answer was always the same. I don't remember. Nothing.
When the three months ended and she was cleared of contamination, the name "Red" was already carved on a memorial stone at the national cemetery. She was no longer Masked Warrior. Her gender had changed. Even her identity was gone.
Yet Yeom Hana didn't yield. The reason had always been the same since childhood. She was born with great power. So she wanted to help people.
Did the public recognize Yeom Hana's grand, beautiful sense of justice? Strangely, she was far, overwhelmingly more popular now as rookie Awakener Yeom Hana than she had been as Masked Warrior Red.
You could tell just from her recently opened official SNS account. Under short videos of her sweating through intense training, explosive comments poured in cheering her dedication.
Yeom Hana read those comments sometimes, but she only understood about half of them. She could tell they were cheers, though. Having more fans is a good thing, she thought.
…………… And now.
Threat Management Agency HQ, 5-minute standby physical training room.
"Eight hundred ninety-two! Eight hundred ninety-three!"
Yeom Hana was sweating buckets, deep into her squats. Thin tube top and skin-tight leggings. She'd sweated so much the clothes clung transparently to her skin, the fabric making everything underneath visible.
Without her Masked Warrior gear anymore, she had to boost her raw strength that much more. With that resolve, she never skipped these high-intensity sessions.
Weeeeng――
Then, the hologram comm panel on the waiting room wall lit up blue. The caller was the agency's top brass, Director Shin Chang-seok.
"Oh, Director!"
Yeom Hana greeted him briskly without stopping her squats. Meanwhile, the man in Kim Gu glasses on the hologram rubbed his brow with a weary face.
"……What are you doing?"
"Nothing to do, so working out? Gratitude squats, ten thousand reps!"
Shin Chang-seok's eyes flicked over Yeom Hana on the hologram――then up to the ceiling.
"Put some real clothes on."
Yeom Hana looked down at herself. Tube top. Leggings. What was the problem?
"I am wearing clothes!?"
"That's barely clothes."
"C'mon, Director, you used to go on TV in your gray sweats."
"It's a mantoman and jeans, not sweats!"
A vein throbbed at Shin Chang-seok's temple. If this were old Red, he'd have stormed over and put him in a joint lock. But now…
"……Anyway, not the time. There's an escape incident at the B41 threat isolation facility."
Yeom Hana's squats stopped.
"No alert on 'that one,' thank goodness… but multiple isolates have broken out. Get down there ASAP. On-duty agents are there."
"Yes sir!"
Her back snapped straight, right hand to her temple in salute. But the tube top followed inertia, and her upper body was already straight, so the result was――
Jiggle jiggle.
Unable to watch, Shin Chang-seok just closed his eyes and spoke.
"At least throw on a shirt――"
But Yeom Hana was already gone before he finished.
"……That damn idiot."
Shin Chang-seok cut the hologram and removed his glasses. A vein throbbed on his brow again, but this time it didn't subside.
……………
Yeom Hana opened the bulkhead door and stepped inside.
Multiple isolates had escaped. Tragic, but if any unlucky staff were caught, survival wasn't guaranteed. So the isolation facility should be filled with the stench of blood and monster roars right now.
But.
The corridor beyond the bulkhead was eerily silent.
Instead――strange things littered the floor. Brown cubes, about three centimeters on each side, scattered everywhere. Uniformly browned surfaces, faintly warm to the touch.
And among those cubes.
A girl with long purple hair stood there. White dress. Barefoot. Petite and fragile build.
The girl nudged one cube on the floor. It rolled and bumped the wall before stopping. Then she nudged another.
Yeom Hana knew that girl. She'd seen the face dozens of times in audiovisual records.
Alpha Outer God. Estimated threat grade: over 40 Tera.
And――the culprit who had upended Yeom Hana's entire life.
"O-Outer… God…!"
Why was she here? She'd heard Dr. B. Riemann from the Tower of Reason had installed a multi-phase reinforcement barrier.
The girl turned at Yeom Hana's voice. Her big eyes locked on. No emotion readable on her mostly blank face.
Pat pat.
The girl approached without hesitation.
"――!!"
Yeom Hana's body reacted on instinct. She lowered her center of gravity, raised her arms, stepped back half a pace with her left foot into a guard stance.
But the girl ignored the wariness, closing right up to her face.
Yeom Hana looked down. Purple pupils stared up unblinking.
Soon, the girl's cute little finger pointed at the cubes on the floor.
Yeom Hana's eyes reflexively scanned a cross-section.
Not cut by a blade.
Her senses, honed in monster battles, analyzed in 0.5 seconds. Browning. Heat-coagulated proteins. Something ultra-fine had sliced through at hypersonic speed. The passage was so fast that friction heat sealed the cut instantly, cooking the surface.
So those cubes are chunks from a Giga-grade threat entity――
Sliced flesh. Each cube was remains of an isolate.
"You… you did this…?"
She hadn't meant to ask, and didn't expect an answer.
Sure enough, the girl didn't reply. She just looked up silently.
But.
Something flowed in. Into the deepest recesses of Yeom Hana's brain, the border of conscious and unconscious.
A feeling not her own. Expectation. Pure and simple, no adjectives needed.
Like――Did I do good?
Not words, but the meaning was clear. Awaiting praise.
"………Ugh!"
A Tera-grade threat entity that diced Giga-grade ones into perfect cubes was waiting for praise in front of Yeom Hana.
Two pieces of info clashed in her head.
One. This girl's true form was a Tera-grade threat of millions of tentacles, teeth, and eyes.
Two. The girl in front of her looked like a kid waiting for praise.
One and two refused to connect.
The girl kept looking up. Blank-faced. The sparkle in her pupils was like a cat waiting for treats.
……Ah, screw it.
Yeom Hana's palm touched the top of the girl's head. Soft. Each strand of hair felt like a living tentacle.
Pat pat.
An awkward, ridiculous sight. An Awakener petting a threat entity's head.
Am I insane?
Yeom Hana muttered to herself. No answer came to her own question.