The New Hero Association
To Sonia, stepping inside for the first time, the scene before her was nothing more than a bizarre and unreal workplace.
The perfectly flat, seamless pure-white space stripped away any sense of reality. The air had been artificially purified until it carried no scent at all, and the only sounds were Sonia's own uneasy breathing and the beat of her heart.
The woman standing before her — an employee of the Megacorp Hero Association — wore an outfit that defied Sonia's every assumption. From head to toe, even down to each individual finger, she was sheathed in a glossy black latex bodysuit that revealed every curve of her body with an almost obscene fidelity.
Sonia convinced herself that the employee's appearance was nothing more than a "new-material protective suit with energy-resistance coating." It was certainly unique, but for a cutting-edge tech corporation, she figured it was entirely possible.
Of course, even if she had known something more, Sonia's thoughts had no room to wander in that direction. Next month's rent and the Nebulix Premium subscription fee — the sole pleasure of her life — were both hanging by a thread. Standing on the brink of securing hero work, her mind was filled with only one desperately practical goal: somehow, she had to seal a contract with this new association.
In this city — Sky City — the most common way for a hero to receive commissions was to belong to an association. Only heroes registered with an association could gain access to the official commission-request sites or the communication-terminal applications.
Even the facility-inspection jobs Sonia was most confident in and preferred were mostly delegated by Sky City Hall to the various associations. An independent hero operating freely without affiliation was, for all practical purposes, nearly impossible. It was a matter of survival.
Whirr— swish.
Just then, a section of the wall directly ahead slid open without a sound, shattering Sonia's train of thought. There was no creak of hinges, no noise of seams — until the moment it opened, she hadn't even been able to tell a door existed there at all.
A portion of the smooth white-metal tiles that made up the walls and floor — tiles so sleek they looked as if they would squeak if you rubbed them with a finger — had been perfectly continuous with the rest of the space. Now that section parted as if the space itself were splitting open.
Th-that's... incredible technology...?
"This way."
The guide left Sonia with only those brief words to follow, then stepped without hesitation into the newly formed passage.
The employee's stride was as brisk and precise as it had been in the lobby. Click, click — the sound of her heels striking the pure-white metal corridor rang out at intervals as regular and exact as a metronome, tapping against Sonia's eardrums.
"W-wait a moment...!"
Sonia's voice was so small it barely rose above a mutter, matching her cowed state of mind. And yet—
"Yes, Ms. Sonia."
Amazingly, the employee seemed to have heard her, answering without so much as breaking stride.
The reply echoed low through the cold corridor. Step by step, advancing at a fixed stride as if following some invisible line, the employee spoke in a tone devoid of emotion.
"Regarding the performance record of Ms. Sonia, to whom our Megacorp Association has extended a scouting offer: pursuant to Sky City Association management regulations, we have meticulously reviewed and evaluated every activity record to date. Your results fully satisfy our standards. Therefore, Ms. Sonia, you need only follow me without any concern."
At that mechanical, confident tone, Sonia found herself nodding before she knew it.
It felt like listening to the voice guidance of a well-written program. The employee's words carried neither doubt nor speculation — only clearly verified facts, delivered as such.
"Ah... I understand...!"
Into the passage that had appeared with a soft swoosh, as if space itself had parted, the employee walked with a posture that never once wavered.
The corridor, lined entirely with gleaming white-metal tiles, stretched on so far that its end was nowhere in sight. LED lights in the ceiling reflected off floor and walls, turning the entire space into a shimmering silver-white that stirred a sense of unreality.
A perfect white space without a single shadow. Sonia followed behind the employee, glancing around with open curiosity.
The way the employee walked wasn't strange enough to call abnormal, but it certainly wasn't ordinary either. In a bodysuit that clung to her skin, she lifted her thighs nearly to waist height at a right angle, then planted her foot on the white-metal floor with a decisive click, without the slightest hesitation.
The motion was powerful and confident, like a well-drilled military march — and at the same time, it carried an unnatural quality hard to believe belonged to a human being. It was like the gait of an android programmed to imitate the skeletal and joint structure of a human.
There were no sunglasses or visor on the employee's face, yet no emotion rose there either. If forced to describe it: a professional smile. Nothing more, nothing less.
Like a meticulously crafted mannequin, her expression was blank and hollow, as if every emotion had been deliberately stripped away. Even the rate at which she blinked seemed mechanically fixed.
Is she... a workaholic, maybe? Is that even the right word for this...? Or is she actually an android? But back in the lobby she definitely looked like a living person...
As Sonia pondered this, her steps slowed for a moment — and the distance between her and the employee opened up in an instant. The employee showed no intention of matching Sonia's pace, advancing toward the far end of the corridor at nothing but her own predetermined speed.
Flustered, Sonia called out urgently toward the employee who was all but leaving her behind.
"L-let's go together...!"
At Sonia's cry, the employee's footsteps stopped at once. Without turning around, she stood as if nailed to the spot. A moment later, the same emotionless voice as before came back.
"Yes. Adjusting guidance protocol. I will reduce walking speed to 0.8 meters per second to match Ms. Sonia's gait."
"...Excuse me?"
Sonia doubted her own ears.
Not "I'll go slowly," but "adjusting protocol" — and with a specific figure of 0.8 meters per second, no less. Whether it was a concept or the association's staff guidance manual truly worked that way, she couldn't tell, but that rigid, completely emotion-stripped manner of speaking left Sonia flustered all over again.
This time the employee clearly slowed down, matching her stride to Sonia's. Even so, the way she walked remained stiff as a machine. Like a robot whose speed setting alone had been changed, the length of each step and the angle at which she raised her legs were perfectly identical to before.
Tilting her head at the strange sight, Sonia still couldn't bear the awkward silence and spoke first.
"Um, I don't mean this in a bad way at all. Somehow the inside seems so much cleaner and neater than what I saw from outside. The walls are all silver, too... Is this maybe really expensive white-metal tile? It looks like a special alloy... And also..."
"..."
Even Sonia, for all her lack of social awareness, could tell by now. This employee had absolutely no intention of engaging in personal conversation. Whether it was talk about the weather, complaints about work, or any other question, the employee simply walked the corridor as programmed.
The words Sonia tossed out struck the cold metal walls and scattered into emptiness.
How much farther had they walked? At the end of the long corridor, before a smoothly gleaming wall, the employee came to a stop.
Still fully clad in the black bodysuit that covered even her fingertips one by one, she raised a hand and lightly touched a section of the wall. Where her fingers made contact, a keypad that was normally invisible lit up with a faint, engraved-like glow only upon touch.
With a low whirring of operating sound, another section of the wall slid silently open to the side.
"We've arrived, Ms. Sonia. ...Hoo..."
Suddenly, a deep sigh escaped the employee's lips. It was a distinctly human sound of breath, utterly different from the mechanical demeanor until now.
As she drew a long breath in — haa... hoo... — the employee's full breasts, which the latex outfit had made visible all the way down to the navel, swelled slightly and then slowly settled.
"First, I must apologize, Ms. Sonia. In the association lobby and the exterior corridors, in order to prevent potential personal-information leakage risks that can arise with individuals whose affiliation has not yet been confirmed, all interactions were conducted strictly according to established security regulations. You must have been quite startled. Once again, I offer you my sincere apologies."
The moment they passed through the door, the employee who had been behaving like a programmed robot suddenly bowed deeply at the waist, offering Sonia a formal apology.
At that abrupt change, it was Sonia who was the flustered one. She stood awkwardly, her large chest shifting slightly.
"O-ohh...? Uh... y-yes... I suppose so... Honestly, I thought you were a real android or a robot..."
"It's not unreasonable that you saw me that way, Ms. Sonia. Frankly, I think I would have thought the same."
The employee made a show of wiping away a bead of sweat. Her expression and eyes still held a stiff impression, but the way she lightly brushed aside the bangs that had fallen over her forehead with a finger was unmistakably that of a person bound by strict regulations.
"If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask them right away, Ms. Sonia."
The employee's voice had softened from its earlier mechanical tone, yet the firmness within it remained unchanged. She had spoken at length and in a roundabout way, but the core was clear. You must have a mountain of questions about this strange, strict-looking association — so ask whatever you like.
Sonia, a D-class hero who had lost her affiliated association and become, for all practical purposes, unemployed, sat in the chair with the tense posture of a job-seeker facing an interviewer.
At first she had fretted over where to rest her gaze, but before long her golden eyes had gathered the courage to settle on the glossy black bodysuit wrapping the employee's body.
A uniform she had thought merely peculiar. But once the idea struck her that it might be a type of cutting-edge armor, Sonia began to stare intently at the smooth surface and the material that clung perfectly along every curve of the body — pure technical curiosity taking over.
She was dying to ask about the bizarre clean room right in front of her, the device sitting alone in the middle of the room that looked like a dental chair, and this procedure she had never heard of called "association regulation training." But before any of those questions, Sonia voiced the most fundamental doubt of all.
"Um... I don't really know the details, but... is there some special reason you contacted me first? Of course I'm truly grateful that you reached out... It's a little awkward to say this, but I'm just a D-class hero — ordinary Sonia..."
Even saying it herself made her feel a little diminished. D-class. That was the official rank the Sky City hero system had assigned to Sonia.