Reality Escape by Another Name
Summer vacation had finally come to Seoul Hero Academy.
Once again, I attended as Black Cell’s representative, paid out a massive sponsorship, and played the part of honored guest.
Black Cell made money hand over fist, so the sponsorship amount was bigger than I’d expected.
As soon as the people attending the closing ceremony heard how much it was, they broke into appreciative applause.
The sponsored students, of course, looked absolutely thrilled.
Before long, I accepted the sponsorship presentation board from Headmaster Baek So-ah and handed it out to the mutants one by one.
Clap, clap, clap, clap!!!
Click! Click! Click! Click!
"I-I really appreciate it!"
"I’ll definitely become a great hero!!"
"T-thank you for supporting our dreams!!"
It was a sponsorship funded with other people’s money.
But seeing the mutants so happy made me feel oddly proud, too.
Then it was Lee Se-ra’s turn, the one known as Red Cat.
The moment I stepped up in front of her, her tail started whipping around like crazy, and she looked completely flustered.
Still, I gave her words of encouragement right away.
"I’ve been watching you, Lee Se-ra, for some time now. Please keep doing your best."
"Th-thank you so m-much!"
With Red Cat’s turn complete, the sponsorship ceremony ended smoothly, and I headed back up to the guest seats.
I’d been worried Victory might cause trouble in the meantime, but instead she looked at me with sparkling eyes.
"M-Mr. Maxwell... were you even more amazing than Victory thought?"
It was a little awkward, seeing Victory mistake Black Cell’s dark prestige for my own, but the guards were smiling at how cute she looked.
As soon as the sponsorship presentation was over, the closing ceremony moved along quickly, and everyone cheered with delight.
Unfortunately, I still had a lot left to do.
It wasn’t long before Headmaster Baek So-ah’s secretary came to find me.
"Mr. Maxwell, from this point on we’ll be holding one-on-one meetings with the mutants who received sponsorship. Would it be all right to head over now?"
"Of course. But may Victory come with me as well?"
"Ah... you mean the young girl who’s been with you?"
Victory was only ten years old, and on top of that, she was a superpowered mutant Headmaster Baek So-ah had her eye on.
So the secretary was happy to give permission.
"To be honest, it’s called a one-on-one interview, but your guards are welcome to come in as well."
"Thank you for being so accommodating."
"No, no, we should be the ones thanking you."
Was this the effect of becoming Seoul Hero Academy’s biggest patron?
The academy staff had become remarkably deferential.
Anyway, following the 안내, I arrived at a very luxurious room.
As planned, each mutant who had received Black Cell’s sponsorship came in one by one.
Of course, the moment they stood in front of me, they all became extremely nervous and started stumbling over their words.
But Victory was a huge help here.
"What are you going to do with the money, mister?"
"H-huh?"
Thanks to the innocence of the white rabbit’s question, the mutants slowly began to open up about their dreams, one by one.
"I’m planning to use it for special training during vacation!!"
"Hahaha... looks like I won’t have a single moment to relax during break."
"It’d be wonderful if I could take my family to a nice restaurant."
"I’m planning to donate to the Mutant Foundation fund so I can pass on this kindness!!"
Not a single person was planning to spend the money on something ridiculous.
Then again, since they were all students at Hero Academy, male or female, they were naturally good-hearted.
I still had no idea what the future held, but I hoped this little bit of help would strengthen the forces of good as much as possible.
After that, the bright and hopeful one-on-one meetings continued, and only the last person remained.
Creak....
"E-excuse me."
At last, my main objective.
Red Cat, Lee Se-ra, stepped into the room.
Back when Maxwell was still working at Black Cell, almost every student at the Hero Academy had cheered at the long vacation finally arriving.
But Lee Se-ra, with her cat ears and tail drooping low, could do nothing but sigh.
...Should I really go back there?
Mutants were generally ostracized by society, since they caused all sorts of problems in the eyes of others.
Because of that, nearly all mutants belonged to the impoverished class.
She came from a very poor family herself.
Just the thought of returning to that hopeless hometown made it harder and harder for Lee Se-ra to breathe.
Fortunately, she’d been given an unexpected opportunity this time.
"I-I’m receiving Black Cell sponsorship?"
"Congratulations, Lee Se-ra."
The subsidiary of the megacorporation that had swallowed the capital of the former North Korea.
Black Cell had extended a hand of salvation to Lee Se-ra.
Since the company was famous for creating spare lives, she had high expectations for this sponsorship.
But the amount was far bigger than she’d imagined.
Th-thirty million won? Thirty million right now?!
Most mutants worked in factories and still didn’t even get minimum wage.
Yet now she had been handed a sum that might otherwise take two or three years to save.
With that much money, she could survive vacation in Seoul no matter how expensive the city was!
The other mutants, thinking the same thing, were overjoyed as well.
Then everyone was informed that there would be one-on-one meetings with the sponsor.
As Lee Se-ra, the last one in line, was imagining a happy future outside, she suddenly heard voices nearby.
"Figures, huh... they really do everything for mutants."
"Seriously, everything gets handed to them."
"Isn’t this kind of reverse discrimination?"
At first, they were the sort of remarks she could have ignored.
But in Lee Se-ra’s state, every word from the students became a bullet that pierced her skin.
"I barely got in here by matching the scores, and they just waltz in because they’re mutants, then get sponsorship on top of that? It’s honestly ridiculous."
"I know, right..."
"It’s fine to take care of mutants, but why does it feel like they’re taking away what should’ve been ours?"
"Hey, keep it down. If you say anything, you’ll just get labeled a bigot."
"Tch. That’s even more annoying."
Some of the students currently enrolled at the academy couldn’t hide their sense of deprivation because of this event.
And Lee Se-ra’s hard-won hope now felt like a privilege stolen from someone else.
So while the Red Cat’s mood shot up into the sky and then crashed back to earth, the time for the one-on-one meeting with the sponsor finally arrived.
With trembling hands, she opened the door and stepped inside, only to find a room far too extravagant for someone like her.
And inside, a cool, composed man in a crisp suit sat waiting on a sofa.
The genius of the century, Maxwell Gray....
Before her eyes stood a giant who had built an enormous reputation with nothing but his own power and not a single supernatural ability.
The more Lee Se-ra compared herself to him, the smaller she felt, until even her ears and tail seemed to shrink with embarrassment.
Still, she had to thank him for the sponsorship first.
So she sat down across from him at once.
But beside the giant, a tiny white rabbit was hopping around.
"Mr. Maxwell, is that sister the last one?"
"That’s right. Can you bear with me a little longer?"
"Yes!"
Maxwell smiled at the rabbit mutant girl and patted her head, and the cold feeling Lee Se-ra had first sensed melted away in an instant.
Then began her conversation with Maxwell, who did not discriminate against mutants.
"It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Maxwell Gray. I sincerely congratulate you on being selected as a sponsorship recipient this time."
"Ah... hello! I’m Lee Se-ra!"
Seated as she was, Lee Se-ra bowed her back over and over again.
But Maxwell showed not a trace of arrogance as he continued speaking.
"This sponsorship was prepared by Black Cell with the hope that you’ll be able to focus on your studies in a slightly more stable environment, Lee Se-ra. So please don’t feel burdened, and don’t think you must repay anything in return."
Even though they were standard words, the other man’s gentle atmosphere and way of speaking eased her tension considerably.
But as the conversation went on, one question kept rising in her chest.
It was a question she had carried there all her life.
And the man before her was a giant known as the genius of the century.
She had the strong feeling he could untangle this knot for her.
To her surprise, the chance came immediately.
"Is there something you’re wondering about, Lee Se-ra? I’ll answer as best I can."
"R-really?"
"Of course. Personal questions are fine, too."
In a sense, it was the same as having a sage who knew the answer to every question offer to help.
It might be a question she was deeply ashamed to ask, but...
She opened her mouth with a trembling heart.
"Am I... am I running away?"
Carefully, Lee Se-ra grasped her cat ears.
"People around me say mutants only get benefits. But I can’t deny it."
In fact, mutants did receive all kinds of support from the state.
Thanks to that, she had entered this Hero Academy despite her terribly low grades.
Even this sponsorship fit that pattern.
With a faint, self-mocking smile, she went on.
"I train and study several times harder than everyone else just to escape that prejudice... but in the end, I’m always stuck in the same place. I fight with my classmates a lot, too. So sometimes I find myself thinking..."
Lee Se-ra paused for a moment, trying to read Maxwell’s expression.
Fortunately, he was listening closely.
So she continued in a shaky voice.
"Maybe I’m just someone who keeps turning away from reality while eating up other people’s profits... And beyond that, I worry I’ll end up as nothing more than someone who keeps taking help just because I’m a mutant. What do you think, Mr. Maxwell?"
That was the honest question she finally laid bare.
She worried that showing such weakness might leave Maxwell terribly disappointed.
But he only closed his eyes calmly and continued.
"Because you started late. Because the world is so vast. Because geniuses live on a different level. Still, if you’re happy, isn’t that enough? People often say things like that when they’re urging someone to give up. Usually, they call it reality escape."
Maxwell turned his gaze toward the window, and the blue sky settled into his eyes.
"But giving up without understanding reality and moving forward even while knowing it are completely different things. In that sense, reality escape can also be seen as expectation placed on oneself. Lee Se-ra, do you want to give up on yourself?"
"!!!!!"
"Exactly. You wouldn’t. That’s why you’ve taken so many injuries even now."
To escape reality, one must first understand it.
No matter what sound reasoning, insight, or truth people placed before her, she simply believed in herself and kept running.
If success was unreal, then all she had to do was flee from reality with everything she had.
And that wasn’t called reality escape.
"We call that effort. At the very least... I won’t doubt your effort, Lee Se-ra."
At Maxwell’s final words, Lee Se-ra drew in a sharp breath before she even realized it.
It felt as though something that had been strangling her throat for years was loosening, little by little.
Until now, she had constantly doubted her own efforts.
Wondering if she was merely ignoring reality.
Wondering if she was clinging to pointless regrets.
Wondering if she was nothing more than a creature living off the goodwill of others.
She had asked herself those questions again and again, countless times.
But Maxwell had called her struggle effort.
Thud.
"S-sorry."
Even after Lee Se-ra hurriedly wiped at her eyes, the tears that had already burst loose would not stop easily.
Effort.
In her dark future, it was the faint starlight with which she illuminated herself.
The official schedule at Hero Academy had come to an end.
I hadn’t expected Red Cat to shed tears in front of me, but by the time the interview ended, she seemed to be shining even more brightly than before.
Victory, who had been listening in on my conversation with Lee Se-ra, was now looking at me with sparkling eyes, and even the guards had started sending me uneasy looks.
I might have been getting treated a little oddly, but I gathered the briefcase stuffed with documents and headed for my meeting with Baek So-ah.