A Hero Is Born (3)
One by one, the employees clocked out, and silence settled over the noisy factory.
Wearing P1, I stood alone in the open yard.
P1 was the first model of the Purple Devil suit.
At last, tonight.
This was my first sortie as a hero.
My heart pounding with excitement, I turned my head.
My reflection shone back at me from the place where the chrome shield parts for the tanker suit had been propped up.
I flexed my hand open and closed beneath the moonlight.
Purple helmet. Black armor.
Since it was a prototype, the detailing was rough around the edges, but the overall look was surprisingly convincing.
The Purple Devil’s first mission had already been decided.
Theft.
I was going to steal someone else’s property.
Who was the target? The boss? Or the other employees?
Of course not.
The target was…
“Mister Boss!”
From far away, Karki came dragging something with both hands.
Wheel marks cut across the ground as a heavy object slowly came into view.
“The thing you asked for before! This one!”
Its shape was similar to an electric bicycle, but on closer look it was a motorcycle.
“So this was what you’d been fixing so carefully?”
“That’s right! How is it? Pretty badass, no?”
Karki parked the motorcycle in front of me.
Its red body was caked in mud and looked battered and shabby.
Still, I could tell at a glance that this was a hidden gem.
“A Honda XR80?”
“Oh! Bingo! Mister Boss, you know it? As expected!”
Karki snapped his fingers, delighted.
“Mister Boss, you watched Terminator 2, right? It’s that bike from there!”
In that movie, oddly enough, the police were the villains.
The motorcycle the protagonist chose while escaping the cyborg attack was this exact model.
The image of the XR80 racing alongside a Harley-Davidson was considered one of the film’s most iconic scenes.
“Where did you get this?”
“I found it under that overpass over there! The second I saw it, I yelled, ‘This is it!’”
Karki said it with a voice full of triumph.
“Oh shit. Wild find.”
The motorcycle had been released all the way back in 1979.
By now, it was practically an antique.
How had an XR80 ended up here?
As if reading my mind, Karki added, “Probably some foreign worker bastards stole it, used it, then dumped it.”
I wasn’t the only foreign worker at the Ilsan industrial complex.
“Here, boss! Take it!”
I accepted what he held out.
It was a silver key with a classic design.
A key, huh. Been a while.
I thought back to the time before my regression.
Electric bikes and electric cars usually started with a smart key or a fingerprint scan.
And yet here was a fat old-fashioned key that looked like it would open a public restroom door.
It was retro to the point of rebellion.
The key even had a key ring attached.
“What’s this?”
“I made it myself!”
It was a cute little figure of the Purple Devil, reimagined in SD form while wearing a purple mask.
Looking at it, I suddenly remembered the Zin Shark figure my father had never been able to buy me as a child.
“How is it? Boss! Do you like it?”
I closed my hand around the key ring tightly.
“A lot. Thanks.”
Karki grinned and stepped aside.
“Now it belongs to boss!”
After giving Karki a smile, I climbed onto the motorcycle still wearing the suit.
I inserted the key, pressed the pedal, and started the engine.
Rrrrnnng!
The old machine rattled and vibrated its suspension with a harsh metallic growl.
The rough, lively feel unique to an off-road bike ran through my whole body.
“Oh, right! I put a Z engine in it!”
Karki pointed at the body of the bike.
“I got one from a busted unit at Factory 1, from Khan!”
Khan was a foreign worker from Bangladesh, and one of Karki’s friends.
The Z series was a cutting-edge internal combustion engine.
It was basically like putting a jet engine on a light aircraft.
Illegal modification, sure.
So what?
“Boss. I rode it for a bit myself? It’s amazing! The torque-driven ride is insane!”
With Karki’s hands, something that had never existed in the world had been born anew.
Before I left, there was one last thing to gather.
“Karki. What’s that?”
“Ah! I bought it at lunch today!”
Karki fished a black cloth out of his inner pocket.
It had clearly been only handkerchief-sized when he took it out.
But the more he pulled, the bigger it became.
It looked like magic, but it was simply a peculiar property of the cloth itself.
This was what was known as Dvergr Cloth.
It was made by processing special fabric, and could freely stretch or shrink depending on the situation.
Not only that, but if you wrapped an object in it, the item’s volume would shrink.
It was, quite literally, a magical item.
Originally it had been a cloth made by dwarves in a dungeon, but it could be bought on the black market if it had been smuggled out by porters who’d gone through a Gate.
“I’ll put it on for you!”
Waving the blanket-like cloth, Karki draped it around the neck area of my suit.
That completed it.
I gripped the handlebars with both hands and set one foot on the peg.
“I’m off.”
“Boss. Be careful, okay?”
I nodded and leaned my wrist back.
“Good luck with the theft!”
Leaving Karki behind, still waving,
I let out a loud roar and vanished into the darkness of the industrial complex with my cape flaring behind me.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
I stopped the motorcycle in a spray of dust.
I had arrived at Factory 7.
Among the factories that made up the Ilsan industrial complex, from Factory 1 to Factory 9, this place was especially unusual.
It was the base of a gang.
I parked the bike a little ways away from my destination.
Fixing my gaze ahead, I activated the dial at the side of my helmet.
As the blue night-vision sensor came online, two gangsters guarding the entrance to Factory 7 came into view.
They were standing around lazily, yawning, but one had a machete strapped to his back and the other wore an axe at his waist.
Should I just break through the front?
I considered it briefly, then dismissed it.
Tonight’s plan wasn’t to crush the gang.
We’re sneaking in.
Leaving the guards alone, I moved to the wall of Factory 7.
I stretched out both hands and planted my palms on the concrete.
When I manipulated my fingers in the designated pattern, my palms gained traction.
Thud. Thud.
After testing the grip a few times, I climbed the wall like a climber scaling a face.
The more heroes I would eventually Purchase, the more abilities I’d have at my disposal.
But not yet.
I was still in the stage of growing little by little, step by step, so there was a long road ahead.
For now, it was most efficient to use the suit as much as possible.
I crossed the wall in an instant and landed on the other side.
Thud.
When I touched down, I dropped to one knee and thrust the opposite elbow high into the air.
The so-called superhero landing.
A cliché, yes, but a cool one, essential to any hero story.
…
Had I gotten too into it?
I shrugged and stood up straight.
When I turned my head, the tall wall loomed behind me.
This thing is amazing.
Once again, I marveled at Karki’s talent for building gear.
To squeeze this much performance out of such poor conditions.
If I gave him abundant resources and financial support, just how much better could his equipment become?
With that anticipation in my chest, I moved forward.
I kept my body low and moved quickly, hiding my presence.
Two buildings stood in the center of Factory 7.
One was used as an actual factory, while the other was the gang’s headquarters.
Where the factory occupied the larger lot, the gang base was a two-story temporary building.
As befitted a hideout, two larger men than the guards I’d seen before stood in front of the main entrance.
They were armed as well.
Submachine guns?
After the Gate outbreak, monsters had appeared all over the world.
Citizens wanted powerful weapons as a means to protect themselves.
It was nonsense to believe you could kill monsters with guns, but people still wanted at least the comfort of feeling prepared.
So the National Assembly passed a bill, and firearms were legalized in South Korea.
But as small and large incidents kept piling up, the process of ordinary people buying guns became more and more complicated.
Well, that won’t be a problem for those bastards.
The gang hideout had only one entrance.
If I wanted to get inside, I had to go through there.
I raised my head and looked at the second-floor window of the building.
That was where I was aiming.
Like before, I’ll climb the wall…
Just as I was about to move around to the back, I hesitated.
Thin red laser lines spread across the concrete wall.
Security sensors.
Why the hell were gangsters who’d merely occupied an industrial complex maintaining such tight security?
I knew exactly why.
Just wait.
I aimed the back of my hand at the window.
To avoid failure, I set the target point through the VR device built into my helmet.
Right here.
At the perfect moment, I pressed the button.
A wire with a sharp grappling hook shot out and lodged itself squarely in the window frame.
As the steel cable reeled in, my whole body lifted off the ground.
Controlling my balance, I clung to the window like a spider.
Now all that remained was—
I pressed the button on the back of my other hand.
The plasma cutter on my hand activated like some kind of techno-berserker.
With it, I cleanly sliced through the window’s lock.
Clink.
Quietly. Swiftly.
I opened the window and slipped inside.
“Hey. What if the boss catches us?”
“We’ll just open the window and smoke in secret.”
I found myself face to face with two gang members out of nowhere.
The two had their heads bent together to light each other’s cigarettes.
Shit.
Had they come up to the second floor just to smoke?
And at exactly this time, of all times.
The gangsters flinched and dropped the cigarettes from their mouths.
“Wh-what the hell?”
“Who are you! You little bastard!”
What now?
Instinct told me the truth.
If I hesitated, I was dead.
My body moved before my thoughts could get complicated.
Whoosh.
I seized both men by the head.
Then I shook them violently back and forth.
Judgment of the Superhuman activated.
Withdrawn: ₩1,000,000.
The two gangsters’ eyes rolled back in their heads as if they had agreed on it in advance, and they collapsed at the same time.
“Phew.”
I let out a relieved breath.
In movies, you can knock someone out with a quick chop to the back of the neck.
Reality isn’t that forgiving.
Just one solid shot to the jaw from a boxer and a person can crumple like a puppet with its strings cut.
All it really takes is enough violent shaking of the brain to make someone black out.
Of course, that wouldn’t work on an ordinary person.
With Super Kid’s power backing me, I’d taken out two gangsters with ease.
I stepped past the fallen men and walked down the long corridor.
From the second floor of the temporary building, I could see the first floor stretched out below.
There’s nobody downstairs.
Most likely the men guarding the lower level had come up here.
Now this place was entirely mine.
My steps growing bolder, I reached the end of the corridor.
There, set against the temporary building, was a thick iron door that looked completely out of place.
On the center of the door, someone had taped a white sheet of paper.
Written across it in a nasty red scrawl that looked as if it had been done in blood were the words:
If you come in, you die!
I ignored it, gripped the handle with one hand, and twisted.
Crack.
Judgment of the Superhuman activated.
Withdrawn: ₩1,000,000.
I set the iron door down and stepped inside.
I felt along the wall and switched on the light.
The orange fluorescent tubes flickered twice before the room brightened.
I’d already expected what lay before me, but seeing it in person still felt strange.
This was the room of a gang boss.
Inside a large tank, a human-faced fish with a disgusting appearance swam in circles.
On the floor lay a Shabel tiger rug, and on the wall was a taxidermied werewolf head.
What atrocious taste.
The shelves were packed with all kinds of luxurious indulgences, but I ignored them and headed for one place in particular.
Behind the desk, a safe sat there all by itself, with no sign that anyone had even tried to hide it.
“Found you.”
Back when the story first broke, there had been a huge uproar, so I already knew what was inside that safe.
Before beginning the real theft, I spread out the cape around my neck and laid it on the floor.