Hero Is Born (1)
Under the orange light.
When the Purple Devil suit finally came into view, a single sentence rose up in my head.
Hero is born.
At last, a hero had been born inside a shipping container.
For a moment, I even felt moved.
Then I brushed the cobwebs from my face and kept walking.
The closer I got to the suit, the more disappointment rolled over me like a tide.
“This is…….”
A childish design that looked like some half-assed modification of a hunter helmet.
On top of that, someone had sloppily sprayed it with blotchy purple paint.
The full-body suit had leftover alloy slapped all over it, so at first glance it looked like a bundle of rags.
There was even a huge letter “P” plastered across the chest.
I’m going to lose my mind.
I ran my hand over the costume here and there.
The cold, hard texture of steel was vividly real beneath my fingers.
“It’s more shoddy than I expected.”
When I voiced my honest opinion, Karki let out a yelp like he’d just been hit with a heart attack.
“Boss, that was savage truth bomb!”
Karki lifted the purple helmet.
“Don’t worry too much. There’s a saying, you know—failure is the mother of success!”
Mother, probably.
“You can’t blow your belly out on the first sip!”
First mouthful, you can’t be full…… never mind.
“We had to rush it, so we can always find the flaws later!”
That made sense, at least.
To have made a suit this good in such a short time was impressive enough.
I had to remember that this was just a prototype.
With upgrades, it would get better.
“Please take that giant chest P off in the next model. Please.”
“Got it, Boss!”
Answering with a hearty nod, Karki lifted the helmet.
“Then let me brief you! This one’s made of Burn Light. I pushed up the carbon content in the wyvern lamellar layers, so…….”
Why had I asked Karki to make me a hero suit, anyway?
Because he was a close acquaintance?
Because he was the kind of guy I could trust to keep a secret?
Not even close.
There was a perfectly good reason.
Karki had originally been one of Nepal’s elite.
Back in school, he had never once finished anywhere but first, and rumor had it he scored a staggering 151 on an IQ test.
“I was this close to getting my skull caved in sneakin’ Burn Light out from under the boss’s nose!”
“…….”
On the surface, though…….
No. They said genius and idiot were separated by a single sheet of paper.
Karki had been offered a full scholarship to Nepal National University, but he turned it down and came to Korea instead.
He needed money right away because of his poor circumstances.
If Karki had been born into a wealthy family and gone on to a prestigious university, what would have happened?
He would have been living a better life than this, at the very least.
“This fixed liner section here uses micro Burn Light…….”
“Karki.”
I stood squarely in front of him.
“You worked hard. Thank you.”
Karki bared his white teeth in a broad grin.
“Put it on first, Boss.”
I pulled the helmet he handed me down over my head.
Contrary to how it looked, it wrapped around my face in a soft, comfortable fit.
For the record, Burn Light was the same material Seo Gwang-pal had used.
“Not bad.”
“Right? I wanted to use Silver Night or Gold Night in the first place, but our factory didn’t have any of that.”
Materials with “burn” in the name were infused with wyvern scales.
Silver and gold, by contrast, included dragon scales.
Of course the dragon variety overwhelmingly outperformed wyvern materials.
It’s basically a cheat item, if you ignore the fact that it costs a ridiculous amount of money.
After the helmet came the suit.
Since the exterior was made of steel, it made a racket every time I moved.
Under its weight, my whole body felt as though it had sunk.
It’s less a suit than armor.
I muttered as I rolled my shoulders once.
“Pretty heavy.”
“Yeah. Couldn’t use Burn Light for the suit. It couldn’t be helped.”
Karki had built the suit out of leftover materials he’d quietly skimmed from the factory boss.
There was no problem putting a little Burn Light into the helmet, since the amount was tiny, but covering the entire suit with it would have been impossible.
You had to steal just enough to get away with it.
Karki muttered, looking dejected.
“If only we had some Bronze Light, at least…….”
My thoughts drifted back to the years I’d spent working at the factory.
Come to think of it, wasn’t a new material called Dark Night developed a few years later?
A legendary monster with a disaster-class threat rating.
The Black Dragon.
The Black Dragon’s skin became the main ingredient in Dark Night.
Dark Night didn’t conduct electricity, it didn’t burn, and depending on how it was processed, it could drastically reduce both heat and cold.
Especially in terms of shock absorption, it was a miraculous material with no rival.
But the Black Dragon was so rare that, across all human history, it had appeared only a handful of times.
The only reason I knew about it was because I saw it on the news.
No, wait.
Something flashed through my mind.
“Karki. If I bring you Silver- or Gold-grade Night material, can you make a suit out of it?”
Karki blinked.
“Yep! Of course!”
It wasn’t possible yet, not at this point in time.
But I knew where I could get dragon hide.
The problem is how to get in there…….
No matter how much I relied on a hero’s powers, I still wasn’t a proper hunter yet, so nothing came to mind for the moment.
For now, I’d do what I could do immediately.
“I’ll look into it little by little.”
“Got it, Boss! Just leave everything to me!”
“All right. Then shall we go?”
I suited up completely and stepped out of the container.
In the open lot, I ran lightly, then rotated my arms.
“How is it, Boss?”
“It’s a little uncomfortable. I think a mask would be easier to breathe in than the helmet.”
“Got it, Boss!”
Karki scribbled furiously in his notebook at my words.
“The next version will be way, way better! I’ll make it amazing!”
Human beings were creatures of adaptation, weren’t they?
After pacing around the lot like an astronaut on the moon, the suit had already started to feel familiar.
“Feels like it was made to fit my body perfectly.”
“I designed it to match your height, weight, and body quirks, Boss!”
For a prototype, it was incredibly ergonomic.
Once again, I had to admire Karki’s skill.
“When’s your first outing, Boss? Right now?”
I thought for a moment.
I wanted to go out immediately, but there was something I absolutely had to do first.
“Not tonight.”
Karki’s eyes lit up.
“Then your first mission in the suit is what? Saving people from a subway derailment or a sinking ship? That kind of stuff?”
As expected of a hero maniac. He’d watched plenty of movies.
Maybe I’d do something like that someday.
But not on the short-term plan.
My first mission.
That would be…….
“I’m going to steal something.”
“Huh?”
Karki gaped and leaned forward.
“What d’you mean, steal somethin’? What kind of talk is that, Boss!”
I knew it.
A sacred hero going around doing something as petty as stealing.
It didn’t fit at all.
But my plan wasn’t changing.
Doing what I believed was right.
That was the Purple Devil’s creed.
“……Boss. You’re not planning to rob a bank, are you?”
“That’s right. If I end up in prison, remember to send me some food. You’d do that for me, wouldn’t you, Karki?”
Karki stared at me for a moment, then snorted with a grin.
“You’re teasing me again. Tsk! I’m not falling for it!”
After that little joke, I patted his shoulder.
“Good work, Brahma.”
When I called him by his call sign, Karki huffed out breaths as if deeply moved.
“Yes, sir! Boss! So what should I do now?”
“Go home.”
“Huh?”
“Clock out. You’ve been working all day, so you’re tired.”
“Tch…… all right. Fine, Boss.”
Scowling, Karki ran to the back of the container and dragged something out.
What he had in his hands was a bicycle.
“Where’d you get that? You buy it?”
“Dunno? I found it in the bushes over there, so I fixed it!”
It looked like one of T Company’s early electric bikes.
Its futuristic design and rapid-charge battery gave it a distinctive whining sound when it ran.
“Ugh.”
Karki climbed onto the bike.
There were plenty of bikes like that, abandoned around the Ilsan industrial complex.
They’d been used by foreign laborers for commuting to and from work.
“Boss should get one too! There are tons of these in the complex. I’ve even been fixing another one carefully lately!”
“Sure. If you have a spare, give me one.”
“Got it, Boss! See you tomorrow!”
Riding the electric bike, Karki buzzed away into the distance.
Left alone, I drew in a slow breath.
The one thing I had to do before taking my first step as a hero was training.
Temper the iron, strike it while it’s hot, and it becomes harder.
What I needed was hardness.
From my fight with Giant, I had learned something painfully well.
I still didn’t truly understand my hero abilities.
Back then, I’d only won because I got lucky and fulfilled the conditions for Divine Aura.
And luck only clung to those who made an effort.
I stretched out a hand into the air and activated the blue window.
1. Super Kid Series
1) Judgment of the Superhuman
: ₩1 million per use.
2) Divine Aura
: ₩5 million a day.
…….
The condition for moving from skill 1 to skill 2 in the Super Kid series was simple.
All I had to do was use Judgment of the Superhuman five times.
Then what about the next step?
I scrolled down.
2. Speeder Series
1) Infinite Acceleration
: ₩10 million within a 1 km radius.
: Duration: 1 minute.
2) Regeneration
: Deducted in proportion to damage.
…….
Speeder, one of DX Comics’ flagship heroes.
A founding figure among speed-based heroes.
After the Super Kid, the next hero was Speeder.
But the second hero was, as expected, grayed out.
Clicking it only triggered an alarm.
- Condition not met.
To acquire a new character, I needed the proper qualifications.
The system mission was marked in newly added red text.
Judgment of the Superhuman: ⟨0/1,000⟩
Last time, against Giant, it had reached ⟨5/5⟩, and the condition had been met.
Which meant……
“Use it a thousand times?”
Judgment of the Superhuman cost ₩1 million per use.
A thousand times would mean……
“₩1 billion.”
That was all the wealth I had saved up in my previous life.
You’re telling me to spend all of that in one shot?
My brow furrowed as I kept thinking it over.
There was no way.
It was absurd to demand I burn ₩1 billion just to get a second hero skill.
Wasn’t that way too unreasonable?
Could it be. Is that what it means?
I lowered my stance, gathered mana into my fist, and hurled it with all my might.
Sand blew across the yard as Judgment of the Superhuman activated.
Ding.
1/1,000
Just as I thought.
I had used Judgment of the Superhuman, but because it hadn’t landed a valid hit, I hadn’t been charged for it.
Instead, the condition had been fulfilled.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine more times.
After that, I’d be able to claim Speeder.
Going from five times to a thousand all at once was enough to catch me off guard, but that probably meant the Speeder ability was worth the effort.
“Good. I’ll finish it tonight.”
I took a boxing stance and kept firing off one-twos without a break.
2/1,000
11/1,000
23/1,000
39/1,000
…….
How much time had passed?
“Huff. Haaah.”
Before long, I was gasping for breath.
Judgment of the Superhuman wasn’t just a matter of throwing a punch.
It was about gathering an extreme concentration of high-quality mana into one point and releasing it as an attack.
It demanded intense focus, and it was brutally hard on the body.
And with that heavy suit on top of everything else, it felt even more like hell.
When am I ever going to get to a thousand?
Sweat poured down like rain and soaked the suit.
Should I take the suit off?
I shook my head right away.
Once I went out in the suit, there was no telling when or where a fight might break out.
I had to prepare for real combat through grueling training.
“Huff. Hahh!”
And so I kept going, one hundred, two hundred, three hundred…….
By the time I crossed five hundred, my stamina had dropped sharply and my movements had slowed.
“……ugh.”
My whole body felt like a cotton blanket soaked in water.
I couldn’t even lift both arms anymore.
I desperately wanted to lie down and rest.
Should I stop here and call it a day?
“…….”
In the silent factory lot, with insects chirping in the grass, I found myself alone, fighting myself beneath the moonlight.
The sweat dripping from me, the heat, and my ragged breathing were proof that I existed.
No one had ever forced me to reach a thousand.
It was the same with heroes.
No one had ever ordered me to become one.
And that was exactly why I couldn’t give up.
This was a promise to myself, a vow.
I extended my fist slowly, refusing to quit.
Each punch took more than thirty seconds.
It felt as though my entire body was being stabbed with awls.
“Ghk.”
I gritted my teeth and endured, then endured some more.
Every hero had something in common.
They were trampled by villains, sometimes condemned by the public, and sometimes pushed to the very edge of death.
But they never gave up. They got back up.
My favorite hero, Zin Shark, had said it.
“A human grows only as much as he decides to.”
That was right.
I had decided to define myself as a hero.
Not just any hero.
A great hero.
That was the thorny road I had to walk.
When I passed seven hundred and then eight hundred, I had already forgotten how to keep count.
My vision blurred, and my consciousness grew hazy, like I was dreaming.
“……huff. Haaah.”
Dawn began to break far in the distance.
The red glow of sunrise stained the desolate ground of the factory.
And then it happened.
1,000/1,000
Condition satisfied.
It was done. A thousand.
What had been gray Speeder turned a sharp, clear black.
As soon as I confirmed that, my legs gave out and I collapsed to the ground.
Somewhere nearby, the faint buzz of a bee drilled into my ears.
Just as I was about to let go of the thread holding up my distant consciousness, someone lifted me.
“Boss? Why are you getting to work so early?”
Karki gasped and then blurted out,
“No way, you stayed up all night? Huh? You’re soaked with sweat! What on earth were you doing?”
I curled my fist and gave Karki’s cheek a light tap.
“One thousand.”