The Weight of a Hero (13)
I blinked, and a white ceiling bloomed into view under a wash of harsh, pale light.
Where am I...?
For one absurd second, a ridiculous thought crossed my mind.
No way.
Did I get reincarnated again?
I had beaten the Dirty Kraken, but my strength had been drained dry, and I’d failed to escape on my own. I’d sunk deeper and deeper into the sea until I finally blacked out.
I should be dead.
So why was I looking at a ceiling?
And what point in time had I come back to this time?
I didn’t feel the least bit happy. Eternal life without death wasn’t all that different from hell.
“Oh! Hunter Choi!”
A bright, cheerful voice rang out beside me.
“You’re awake! Right? You’re definitely awake, aren’t you? Hunter Choi? Can you hear me?”
When I turned my head, Heo Da-yeong’s bone-white face came into view.
“Do you know who I am?”
She was making such a fuss that my ears rang.
“...My head hurts.”
“What? You missed me that much?”
“Shut up. ...You hopeless rabbit.”
“Ahaha! You do recognize me!”
Mun Dal-su, who had been standing beside Heo Da-yeong, spoke up.
“Hunter Choi. You okay?”
“No. I feel like I’m dying.”
It was the truth. I didn’t have the strength to twitch even one finger, and my mouth was so dry it felt like my throat was scraping itself raw.
When I tried to sit up, I groaned.
“Ugh.”
It felt like I’d been beaten senseless all night with a thick club.
“Hunter Choi, just lie still. The doctor said you need absolute bed rest.”
“No wonder. I really did almost die.”
Heo Da-yeong and Mun Dal-su stared at me with worried faces.
“What happened?”
My last memory was of sinking into the endless deep.
“Well, you see...”
Mun Dal-su began explaining what had happened.
The Dirty Kraken’s life signals had gone dead. They’d spotted me sinking beneath the waves. Then Mun Dal-su and Jang Na-ik had joined forces and pulled me back from the brink.
So that’s how it happened. Na-ik did it.
It was unexpected.
The original plan had only been to use Jang Na-ik’s psychokinesis to attack the Dirty Kraken.
And beyond that...
He saved my life too.
Maybe it was a case of stepping backward and catching a mouse by accident.
No. That couldn’t be it.
Maybe, deep down, I’d been hoping for exactly this.
The youngest and weakest member of Dio Guild.
Obtaining the Blessing of Effort.
Surpassing his limits and creating a miracle by accomplishing something great.
“So where’s Na-ik?”
Mun Dal-su and Heo Da-yeong lowered their heads.
“...”
“...”
Their expressions darkened.
Damn it.
So that was it.
Taking on risk always came with a price.
He’d probably forced mana out of his body so hard that it had taken a toll on his life itself. He must have pushed his body far beyond its limits.
I was afraid Jang Na-ik hadn’t made it.
Mun Dal-su gave Heo Da-yeong a glance.
Huh?
Heo Da-yeong pulled back the curtain at my bedside.
“Ta-da!”
On the other side of the curtain, there was another bed set up right next to mine.
“...You.”
Jang Na-ik was lying there.
“Uh, hello, Hunter Choi.”
He greeted me with an awkward expression.
“I wasn’t trying to hide anything, but Team Leader Mun here wanted to spring a surprise prank on you... Ugh!”
Jang Na-ik groaned.
Fair enough.
He was wrapped in bandages like a mummy, and every blood vessel in his eyes had burst. He was a complete wreck.
Jang Na-ik grinned weakly and went on.
“They say I pushed myself so hard my molars are ruined and I’ve got cracks in my ribs.”
“...Sorry. You got hurt because of me.”
“Huh? No! Not at all!”
Jang Na-ik waved his hands frantically.
“It’s because of Hunter Choi.”
Heo Da-yeong, standing nearby, added her own voice.
“That’s right. Because of Hunter Choi, everyone lived. The Coast Guard, the Navy, the hunters, and even the citizens of Busan!”
In my previous life, Busan had been reduced to a wasteland by the Dirty Kraken’s invasion, and tens of thousands had died.
Because of me, the future had changed.
Mun Dal-su placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Hunter Choi. You saved all of us.”
Something rose up in my chest and pressed against my throat.
Even though a war that had dragged on forever was finally over, I couldn’t bring myself to savor victory.
The reason was this.
MURDER: 〈 100/100 〉
That was right. Because of me, more than a hundred Navy sailors had died.
Right. Even if it wasn’t my fault alone...
I couldn’t wash my hands of responsibility completely.
Then a question surfaced in my mind.
What exactly had the System been trying to make me realize through this mission?
Guilt? Self-reproach? Self-loathing? An inerasable trauma?
No. None of that.
It wasn’t trying to turn me into a murderer or manipulate me like a puppet through a mission.
The System seemed to be asking me this:
Do you want to be a hero?
Or maybe...
Do you just want to play at being a hero with a shiny face?
The weight of a hero was never light.
To become a hero, I had to endure pain.
Accept pain.
Embrace pain.
I had to treat pain like a destiny I’d been born to carry.
Just as I had fought the Dirty Kraken alone in that pitch-black trench, only when I endured and kept moving forward through the horrible agony of facing death...
...did I become a true hero.
The tension draining from my entire body, I let my head sink back into the pillow and lay there at last in peace.
“Hunter Choi. Don’t worry about anything now. Just get some proper sleep.”
Mun Dal-su comforted me and pulled the blanket up over me.
Just then, sleep came crashing over me.
My body apparently still hadn’t fully recovered.
“What’s the situation outside like?”
I’d been lying in a hospital bed all this time, so I had no idea what was going on beyond these walls.
There was still the Dio Guild’s position to sort out, the government’s announcement, damage to facilities, and a dozen smaller issues besides.
My eyelids grew heavy.
Through my closing vision, I saw Heo Da-yeong lift her thumb with a bright smile.
“You’re probably going to be shocked. The whole world’s turned upside d—...”
I didn’t hear the rest before I fell into a deep sleep.
The next day, I woke again.
There were scratches all over my body, along with severe muscle pain. The sprains were bad too, and every time I moved, muscles throughout my body screamed in protest.
If I wanted to, I could use Regeneration and heal the injuries in a single day.
But I couldn’t do that.
My money had taken a huge hit after the showdown with the Dirty Kraken.
Five hundred million won.
...I guess I need to spend carefully.
Once again, I was reminded of something important.
Hero abilities were powers so overwhelming they were practically natural disasters.
One slash split the sea in two. That said enough.
Thank God the Dirty Kraken had been able to regenerate itself.
If it had been any other monster, it would have died in a single blow.
Still, Awakener's Balance was not infinite.
In other words, it was a double-edged sword.
The more superhuman power I unleashed, the faster my balance drained away.
In short...
A broken skill with limits.
If I wanted to make use of those limited conditions, I had to watch my spending and avoid waste.
After three weeks of natural recovery, I was discharged from the hospital.
“Na-ik. I’m leaving first.”
Jang Na-ik still hadn’t fully recovered.
They said he’d need at least another month in the hospital.
Still, he was in much better shape than before.
“Yes, Hunter Choi! Go ahead! I’ll catch up!”
Jang Na-ik waved at me.
Heo Da-yeong, acting as my manager, gathered my things and followed along behind me.
“Let’s go together, Hunter Choi!”
“Ah, I’m starving.”
I rubbed my stomach.
For some reason, hospital food had never suited my palate.
“Let’s get something delicious once we’re out! Sashimi, spicy braised seafood, milmyeon, pork soup... just say the word!”
“Let’s start with pork soup. And make sure the boiled meat is the extra-large portion.”
“Yes, sir! Oh, right, but we’ve got a schedule before that.”
“Ah, you mean the Navy.”
“That’s right. Today...”
It was just as I stepped out through the hospital’s front entrance.
“There he is!”
Blinding flashes exploded around me, followed by a storm of shutters clicking in rapid fire.
“Hunter Choi! What does it feel like, rising from Gangnam’s hero to Haeundae’s savior?”
“Is it true you charged into enemy territory alone and wiped out a sea monster?”
The front of the hospital was packed with reporters.
Heo Da-yeong had been right.
The media had gone wild with stories about me.
...and so on.
To think I’d gone from a mere D-class hunter to being praised as a savior.
It was the kind of thing that could make the world feel unrecognizable.
The articles had attracted a mountain of comments as well.
According to Navy footage, the scene of me surfacing with the Dirty Kraken wrapped around my waist had spread across the entire country.
I was soaked through, my lips swollen and blue from the water.
It made for a pretty moving image: a man risking his life and sacrificing himself to destroy a sea monster.
It hadn’t been intentional.
Still...
Well, mostly according to plan.
I had already laid the groundwork when I came down to Busan.
I was going to use this incident to build my reputation as a hunter.
“Hunter Choi! As Haeundae’s savior, could you share a few words about what happened?”
Standing on the photo line, I took the microphones that all the media thrust toward me.
“Haeundae’s savior is far too grand a title for me.”
The moment I opened my mouth, the crowd fell silent and all attention locked onto me.
“The Dirty Kraken was a sea monster approaching apocalypse class. It fired off tentacles endlessly, infiltrated a wide area, and threatened the safety of Busan’s citizens. It was that strong. If I’d been alone, there’s no way I could have stopped it.”
I looked straight into the camera.
“My comrades who came running at once despite opposition from headquarters—Bang Su-hwan, Ha Se-na, and Lee Ji-jun. The so-called Round Table Hunters. And the Dio Guild Busan team, the Black Cop, Blood Fighter, Gwangnang, the Dongbaek Guild, and the rest.”
I wasn’t trying to be modest.
I could accept the honor, but...
I had no intention of monopolizing it all by myself.
“Lastly, I’d like to offer my heartfelt thanks to the Coast Guard and the Navy.”
I pulled a letter out from my chest pocket.
“This all started with this letter. Lee Chun-bae, an old man living in Suyeong-gu, begged us to exterminate the monster. But the large guilds in Seoul didn’t lift a finger. Dio Guild was the only one that accepted the request.”
When I unfolded the letter, the cameras zoomed in close.
At this rate, the contents would be leaked to the outside world too.
That was part of the plan as well.
For Lee Chun-bae’s sake, making him into a public figure was essential.
I drew in a breath and let it out slowly.
“I know it. In the past, Dio Guild was a disgraceful organization. But that won’t be the case anymore. Starting with me, we’ll definitely wash away the stains of the past and be reborn as something new.”
After finishing the short speech, I moved away.
Heo Da-yeong hurried over with the car.
One reporter followed after me.
“Hunter Choi Yongki! You said, ‘despite opposition from headquarters.’ Are you saying people inside Dio Guild opposed this mission? Who was behind it?”
I stopped walking.
When I turned my head, the reporter was staring straight at me.
The sticker on the microphone caught my eye.
Guk-keun Ilbo.
One of the three major media outlets, and one famous for printing negative stories about Dio Guild.
So here it is.
I couldn’t rush this.
After the Dirty Kraken battle, there was still one target I absolutely had to handle.
“Well. I’m only a hunter hired by the guild, so I don’t know the details.”
Then I gave a meaningful smile.
As if to say, you’ll have to dig that up yourselves from here on out.
I left the reporters behind, got into the car, and shut the door.
Outside, the clamor still raged on, loud and chaotic.
Heo Da-yeong, holding back her excitement, gripped the steering wheel.
“Hunter Choi! Where to?”
“Yonghodong.”
I’d chosen today as my discharge day for an important reason.
There was going to be a Purple Heart award ceremony at the naval base.
In other words, today was the day I would receive a national decoration.