The Black-Haired American Hero (1)
“...Hmm.”
A familiar ceiling. A familiar room. None of it made any sense. After all, I had just died.
‘...Great America. That insane bitch. She was really that strong?’
Great America. America’s representative number one hero. A psycho—sociopath hero for whom the phrase “supreme under heaven, I alone am honored” fit far too perfectly. The crimson beam that erupted from her eyes had pierced straight through my stomach, scorching my organs and finally killing me. That was how it should have ended.
So why had I opened my eyes again? And why was I waking up in the very lodging I had stayed at during my first days in America?
More than anything, though, the scene of my death refused to leave my mind.
‘...I lost in the end.’
I had genuinely believed I was reasonably strong. As a Korean hero, I possessed a status window and even the unique ability of Future Prediction—though at best it only lasted a minute. Because of that, I thought that even if victory was impossible, I could at least catch her off guard.
‘...It was meaningless in the face of overwhelming power.’
Only after dying did I realize how complacent that thinking had been. No matter how I looked at it, stopping that madwoman would require cooperation on a national scale. On top of that, I would need the meticulousness to uncover her weaknesses and strike them precisely.
In short, my failure had been the perfect combination of complacency, carelessness, and inadequate preparation. Yet even after recalculating, my odds of victory still didn’t seem high. That was what made her worthy of being America’s number one hero, I supposed.
“...Haa.”
Shaking off those regrets, I scanned my surroundings once more. Sure enough, this was exactly the space I remembered.
‘...The lodging Pax Corporation prepared for me. There was probably a surveillance camera hidden around here somewhere.’
That damn surveillance camera. Just thinking about it made my head spin. When the scouting offer first arrived from this company, I had held grand dreams. A scout from America’s premier hero corporation? Who wouldn’t welcome that with open arms?
But the truth was far uglier. It was nothing more than riding the K-POP boom and fulfilling an Asian quota. When I remembered how they had secretly filmed my private life with those cameras and sold the footage on the black market, I was reminded once again that no place was more fucked up than this.
Alright. Time for another round of self-objectification.
For whatever reason, I had returned to the past. In the future, Great America would crush every hero in existence, declare herself a god and president, and devour the world. Faced with that, I had roughly two choices.
Become Great America’s loyal servant. Or flip the board from the very beginning, tilt the game in my favor, and somehow tame her.
The answer was already obvious.
‘Loyal servant? As if. How many idiots tried sucking up to her and still ended up dead?’
This crazy bitch was, as I kept repeating, a socio-psychopath. Offer her well-meaning advice and she’d get irritated and kill you. Shower her with constant praise and flattery and she’d call you pathetic and kill you anyway. Effectively, there was only one real option.
Now it was time to plan.
‘Today’s date is…’
...Huh. The timing was almost too perfect. Today was exactly that day—the day Pax Corporation would announce the members of its flagship hero team, The Paragon.
From this day forward, five heroes—including Great America and myself—had made their debut. In other words, this was the moment she first stepped into the outside world.
I saw this as… a tremendous opportunity.
‘It’s worth trying.’
She wasn’t a naturally born ability user. She was the end product of human experimentation that had condensed every technology Pax Corporation possessed. That was why her mind was unstable and her social skills had completely collapsed.
‘If I guide her onto the right path starting now…?’
If I could normalize Pax Corporation and somehow fill the voids within Great America, I was certain the future massacres and countless tragedies would vanish along with them.
Therefore—
“...Let’s do this.”
I opened the door to the lodging and stepped outside. I would see quite a few familiar faces after so long. Not that I was particularly glad to see them.
After changing clothes and arriving at Pax headquarters, I headed straight for the conference room on the top floor.
—Weeeing….
The automatic door slid open. The interior was so familiar it was almost identical to what I had seen in my previous life. Inside…
“...”
Only she stood there, hands clasped behind her back, arrogantly staring out the floor-to-ceiling window.
Well… that was to be expected. The Paragon hadn’t debuted yet, and no one had grasped what kind of person Great America truly was. Everyone had gathered at the exact appointed time, yet I had arrived two hours early to prepare.
What I hadn’t expected was that she would already be here waiting.
‘Not bad.’
I calmly steadied my emotions and stepped inside.
“...So you’re that circus monkey?”
The voice that greeted me. Circus monkey, huh. I suppose I did look the part. I had been brought in on the K-POP boom and the Asian quota. But she was a genuine powerhouse who had survived that brutal laboratory. From her perspective, I probably looked pathetic.
It had been nearly the same in my previous life… which was why I had started by getting beaten half to death right from the outset.
But this life would be different.
‘Great America is a paranoid. She destroyed every camera and recording device in sight.’
That meant nothing I said or did here would be caught.
“For a lab rat, you talk pretty well.”
“...What?”
So I decided to provoke her openly.
“You vermin bastard. What the hell did you just say?”
Her pupils trembled. I could feel the violent vibration rolling off her. Yet her expression carried a hint of laughter—as if my provocation was so ridiculous it was amusing.
“...Tsk. Yeah. That’s exactly what a homo-looking bastard would do.”
Still, she hadn’t actually moved yet. Since she was about to debut, she seemed to be exercising some restraint. If I stopped here, it would end as nothing but pointless provocation. I couldn’t let it end like that. Which meant… I needed to push her further.
“Did I say something wrong? If I’m a circus monkey, then you’re a lab rat. You grew up in a laboratory and spent your whole life there. If you’re going to insult someone, you should at least have the mindset to accept insults in return.”
I didn’t stop.
“Well, I understand. Growing up without parents—”
Before I could finish, a chilling sound sliced through the air.
—Woong——!!
Her figure vanished from my sight. No—it hadn’t vanished yet.
The future in which she closed the distance and attacked me appeared in my vision. In that instant, within a world drained of color, a single vivid red trajectory burned itself into my sight.
‘This crazy—!’
A trajectory flying at overwhelming speed using nothing but physical perfection, with no combat experience behind it. The saving grace was that her lack of experience made the path brutally straightforward.
—Shiiiik———
The moment I read the trajectory, my body moved on instinct. No—I only made the absolute minimum movement required to dodge her fist. In front of her, I had to appear ‘ideal’ and ‘overwhelming.’ I had to become the example.
Only then would she not be consumed by evil or madness.
—Kwaaaaaang———!!
Her fist finally grazed my cheek and obliterated every piece of furniture in the conference room.
“...!”
She couldn’t hide her shock. Her red eyes were filled with raw bewilderment at the ‘failure’ she was experiencing for the first time in her life.
I pretended nothing had happened. Looking straight into her stunned face, I curled my lips into a smile.
“A lab rat that can’t even catch a single monkey… Looks like Pax Corporation’s experiment was a failure after all?”
At my provocation, the muscles in her face twitched violently.
“You— you son of a bitch…! How the hell did a homo bastard dodge my fist…!!”
Her voice, now filled with confusion rather than the killing intent from moments ago. I answered her with perfect calm.
“Want me to tell you? How I did it.”
“...What?”
I brushed the dust off my suit jacket and slowly walked toward the window. Standing where she had been, with the sunlight streaming in behind me, I declared:
“But if you want to learn from me, you’ll first have to fix that pathetic way of thinking. Calling people monkeys and bastards… Those aren’t words a hero should use.”
I looked her dead in the eye.
“So from now on, when you address me, call me Ryu Hajun. Or Jun, if you prefer. That’s my official hero name.”
The education and taming of Great America.
It began now.