A Special Book for Lazy Heroes
Crunch… crunch… crackle…
The next day, Sonia woke in the late morning and reached for a bag of potato chips the moment she left the bed. The bag tore open under the lightest pressure of her fingers, and rather than savoring each chip one by one, she scooped up a full handful, dumped it into her mouth, and chewed with wet, noisy abandon.
"Ahh… nothing beats chips with cola!"
In a world where it was common knowledge that zero-sugar cola cost more than the regular kind, Sonia pulled a two-liter jug of Pop-Pop Cola from the fridge without a second thought and guzzled it down in greedy gulps.
It was a luxury denied to office workers who had to clock in on time, or academy students who had to bolt out the door for morning lectures — a languid morning spent with a face still puffy from oversleeping, a pillow damp with drool shoved casually aside.
Even as a D-class, being a hero was a profession that put your life on the line. The pay, accordingly, put ordinary salaries to shame. That was especially true for someone like Sonia, who possessed a specialized skill set for facility safety inspections and system checks.
"Hehe… I slept in again…"
She picked the crust from the corners of her eyes and, with fingers still glistening with chip grease, pressed the power button on her computer.
When the monitor lit up, she opened her browser with practiced ease and clicked the bookmark for the Sky City Public Commission Board.
The association she had once belonged to had absconded with everyone's paychecks and dissolved into thin air, but the new one she had joined — MegaCorp — was reasonably stable, if you overlooked the fact that every single employee wore a full-body latex suit.
Of course, you could still walk into an association office in person to pick up commissions, for the benefit of old-fashioned types who still weren't comfortable with computers. But the times had changed.
With greasy fingers on the mouse, Sonia clicked the commission category button at the top of the page.
"Blah blah blah… Just say the law changed and we have to inspect these things on a regular schedule! Why do they always write it so long?"
Sonia skimmed the long-winded commission description and hit Accept.
It was close enough that she could ride the bus with music playing on her phone and arrive without effort. All she had to do on-site was confirm that the safety equipment was functioning properly. Simple work.
No combat, no danger — just a job that put her technical knowledge to use. This was the real niche market.
Once the commission was accepted, her hand drifted unconsciously to her navel.
Her fingertips no longer met soft flesh. They found the cold, smooth surface of a cybernetic implant — the navel plug port.
The memory of yesterday's VR session flashed through her mind like a spark: that electric pleasure flooding out through the port and racing through her entire body.
If she pushed her finger just a little deeper, she might taste that searing, skull-crackling sensation all over again.
"…La…ter…"
A fleeting temptation. Sonia overcame her own desire. She slowly drew her hand away from her navel and checked the address of the commission site displayed on the screen.
Today, she decided, she would not be the Sonia lost in lewd daydreams. Today she would carry out her duties as a D-class hero of Sky City.
And a little while later—
"See…? The world outside is dangerous…"
Sonia's voice, thick with residual drowsiness, murmured into the empty living room and gently stirred the still air.
The cold metal front door shut with a dull thud, and in that instant the clamor and sharp tension of the outside world were sealed away as completely as if they belonged to another dimension.
Only then did Sonia let the thin film of wariness that had clung to her body slip away, surrendering herself entirely to the comfortable atmosphere of her familiar space.
Roll… roll…
Feeling the chill of the artificial marble floor seep through her thin clothes and climb her spine, she sprawled flat on her back and stretched her arms and legs toward the ceiling.
She might have been nothing more than a run-of-the-mill D-class hero, but Sonia's specialized skill had carved out a blue ocean all its own: the ability to map the internal structure of complex mechanical systems and precisely diagnose their structural weak points.
That rare talent had let her successfully complete a commission that other heroes would have refused with a grimace — a full safety inspection of a high-rise building's integrated security system.
The pay had been generous, and the mental strain had been just as heavy.
The heat of a server room tangled with tens of thousands of data cables; eyes gone dry and gritty from staring at monitors so as not to miss a single micro-error; the all-day mental grind of analyzing potential hazards — it had drained Sonia's energy down to the dregs.
If she had gotten home even a little later, who knew what might have happened. In the dark of a Sky City night, in some back alley lit only by the faint glow of a broken streetlamp, she might have come face-to-face with a low-ranking combatant from one of the infamous brainwashing-villain syndicates.
Or she might have woken up after being hit by an isekai truck, standing before a goddess and picking out reincarnation perks — the most tired cliché of them all.
Fortunately, no such special and bothersome incidents had occurred. Sonia had returned safely to her only sanctuary: Sky City Residential Complex 32, Unit 102 — her own little nest.
A few days earlier, after the absurd disaster of her previous hero association vanishing overnight with every last asset in tow, Sonia had joined a fledgling association called MegaCorp with the resignation of someone eating mustard while crying.
It was a strange place, steeped in an almost unreal atmosphere. Whether they had decided to theme the entire association around cutting-edge cybernetics or not, everyone — from the reception desk staff to the administrative workers walking the halls — wore glossy black latex bodysuits that clung from head to toe, every contour of the body on full display.
Those latex bodysuits revealed every curve without a single wrinkle or scrap of concealment. The thin, sleek material adhered like a second skin, transmitting even the finest tremor of muscle and the outline of flesh beneath.
On the well-endowed female staff in particular, the taut tension of the latex exaggerated the shape of their breasts until even the form of their nipples stood out in sharp relief at the peaks.
If I… if I pressed that part with my finger… what would it feel like…
She knew it was a shameful fantasy, but she couldn't stop the perverse impulse from flickering through her mind.
With every employee's individuality effectively erased behind black latex and opaque visors, the only way an unobservant Sonia could tell them apart was by the size and shape of the breasts showing through the latex.
She had more than enough reason to guess how abnormal the new association's dress code really was. Even in deep black, the material gleamed under every light, flowing along the elegant line of the abdomen and printing the hollow of the navel in perfect, sharp detail.
Even the official uniform issued to affiliated heroes followed a similar design. The color was pure white, yes — but it was still a glossy, springy latex bodysuit with a deep plunge that half-exposed a generous bust and laid bare the lines of waist and abdomen without a shred of mercy.
It looks like pure fetish wear with zero practicality, but… for now… for now it's armor…!
Sonia forced herself to believe it. In truth, the uniform was said to be made of advanced smart material — soft and pliant under normal conditions, but capable of rearranging its molecular structure in an instant the moment it detected external impact, hardening like steel.
It was clearly designed with function in mind.
The pristine white hero uniform currently draped any-which-way over a chair at Sonia's dining table seemed to whisper: armor, yes… but first and foremost, a latex bodysuit.
Yesterday, returning home exhausted after finishing her commission, Sonia had had no time for such profound reflections.
What greeted her the moment she stepped into her nest was an unexpected sense of loss. The virtual reality VR unit she had borrowed from the association under the pretext of stress management had vanished without a trace.
She had expected it would eventually be reclaimed — she had only been a beta tester — but seeing the empty space left a hollow, aching feeling in a corner of her chest.
The reason the association had reclaimed that expensive equipment was clear. Data had been collected showing that Sonia's mental resistance fell far below the average civilian baseline.
Sonia herself had simply been lost in naive wonder — wow, modern technology is amazing — without thinking deeply about the dangers hidden inside.
From full-body capsule systems the size of industrial refrigerators that immersed you completely in virtual reality, to simple visor helmets, to ports that connected directly to the nervous system — technologies that made her heart race just imagining them existed in this world.
"…Whatever you want to do, you need money first. That's just common sense, right?"
No matter how pleasant the daydream, an empty wallet reduced it to hollow fantasy. Even lying comfortably on the floor like this only became true peace and security when a healthy bank balance was there to back it up.
With a practiced motion, Sonia unlocked her portable communicator and opened the official Sky City Bank app.
After a brief loading screen, the balance appeared bright and clear. A satisfied smile spread across Sonia's lips as she confirmed the number. The recent deposit history showed a crisp line item: Sky City Hero Commission Payment.
On top of a D-class hero's base pay, the success bonus for a difficult commission requiring specialized skills had been quite substantial.
"Heh… heheh… This is it… This is exactly what being a hero is all about…"
The number stamped into her account was sweet compensation for hard labor — and a certificate of freedom guaranteeing she could spend the next several days doing absolutely nothing but rolling around in bed.
Grinning foolishly, she swiped her finger across the balance screen again and again, then picked up the air conditioner remote without hesitation. Target temperature: eighteen degrees. Fan: maximum. Cool air flooded the room in an instant, raising goosebumps across her skin.
Hiss—! A chip bag tore open with a cheerful sound. She also cracked open, without a second thought, a bottle of premium zero-sugar cola — the kind whose price rose every month under the monopoly's tyranny, leaving her to swallow nothing but drool. Savoring the icy fizz as it slid down her throat, Sonia scanned her surroundings once more.
Glance left. Glance right…
Checking an empty house as if she were a child about to do something naughty was an old habit of Sonia's.
It was an unconscious behavior that surfaced whenever a vague prick of guilt stirred in the corner of her mind, for no particular reason. Reassured, she pressed the computer's power button with fingers still slick with chip grease.
She moved the mouse with those slippery fingers and double-clicked a familiar desktop icon. A logo filled the monitor. It was Nebulix — Sky City's largest adult video streaming service.
In that moment, Sonia was not a hero who protected the city. She was just an ordinary Sky City citizen, shut away in a dark corner of her room to feed her private desires.
Nebulix. In this sanctuary of hers, the place Sonia spent the most time was neither the bed nor the sofa — it was right here, in front of this computer monitor.
The screen was packed with flashy thumbnails. Beneath the provocative banner Today's Recommended Videos!, a list of eye-catching clips unfurled. Below them, tags that seemed to see straight through Sonia's tastes glittered and shone. #Hardcore, #Fantasy, #Hypnosis, #Brainwashing, #FemaleProtagonist… and the word that snagged her gaze hardest of all: #Training. As if begging her to click — this one's for you — it was seducing Sonia.