Miracle?
Miracle?
"Ugh, seriously."
Scarlet—head of the Hero Association's Korean branch and a former A-class hero—clutched her head as if the whole mess were giving her a migraine.
Spread across the desk in front of her was the report on the recent string of incidents that had torn through Eain City and its outskirts.
Small-scale monsters had erupted simultaneously across multiple points centered on Eain City, rampaging through the streets. Fortunately, most of the outbreaks had occurred in remote, sparsely populated areas, so the damage caused by the monsters themselves had been relatively light.
The real problem was how perfectly those outbreak points had been scattered—far apart from one another, almost as if someone had planned it that way.
Because of that, the heroes already on duty that day had been forced to split up and hunt the creatures separately across the city.
And the villains struck the moment they did.
Villains had ambushed the C-class and D-class heroes who had gone out alone to deal with the smaller monsters. The attacks had unfolded so naturally that it almost seemed as though the timing and locations of the monster outbreaks had been deliberately orchestrated to lure the heroes into isolated traps.
"There were five separate ambushes in total."
Scarlet pulled the finished file on the hero ambushes from the stack of sorted documents.
Three D-class heroes and two C-class heroes had been targeted.
Two of the D-class are... thankfully not in critical condition. But the psychological trauma is severe. They might retire.
D-class Sticky Girl is missing... Did they take her? Or did she surrender and defect to the villains of her own free will? That will need further investigation.
And C-class Chainsaw Girl... is dead.
Of the heroes who had been attacked, two were seriously injured, one was missing, and one had been killed outright.
As she read, Scarlet's face twisted when she reached the section on the fallen C-class hero. The report included the autopsy findings for Chainsaw Girl—discovered in a horrific state.
"Judging by the marks left on the body, the perpetrator is believed to be the B-class villain Second Generation Bomber Girl... Hah."
Scarlet muttered the identity of the murderer under her breath, then bit her lip, her expression thick with disgust.
What disgusted her even more, however, was herself—the fact that instead of grieving the death of a hero, her mind had already moved on to damage control and how to fill the empty seat left behind.
It was the cold, rational thinking of a bureaucrat, not a hero.
"How on earth has Master endured a hundred years of this..."
She had only recently been appointed head of the Korean branch, yet she could already feel her sensibilities growing duller by the day, the fatigue piling up without end. Unbidden, one person rose in her thoughts.
Her master—the Association President who oversaw every branch of the Hero Association nationwide, an S-class hero of absolute renown.
Red Dragon Serafina.
How had that woman stood at the peak of power for over a century, propping up the entire Association all the while? Scarlet found herself wondering.
I'm already overwhelmed just managing a single national branch.
After a brief moment of weakness, Scarlet recalled her master's face, slapped her own cheeks hard enough to sting, and forced her mind back into focus.
There were other matters that demanded her attention right now.
—Tap.
She checked the clock, set the papers aside, and headed down to the special interrogation room prepared in the Association's underground levels.
Only A-class heroes and a tiny handful of personnel with explicit Association clearance were permitted to enter.
Still wearing a troubled expression, Scarlet stepped inside—and the moment she did, her face turned ice-cold as she confronted the figure locked within.
"Elastica."
"Hnnngh... Well, well. If it isn't the oh-so-great A-class hero."
The state of the prisoner was appalling.
Severe frostbite scars covered her entire body; patches of skin had already necrotized. Her arms and legs were gone, sheared off along jagged, glass-like fracture lines.
If anyone had been told that the person strapped into this room had once been a vicious villain who murdered heroes for sport, how many would have believed it?
The B+ threat-level villain who had once inspired terror was now barely clinging to life, kept alive only by the medical equipment in the interrogation chamber. She looked ready to die at any second.
The only case among the five ambushes where a hero defeated the villain—and even captured her alive.
Scarlet regarded Elastica with eyes devoid of even a shred of pity, recalling the contents of the report she had just finished reading.
Among all the heroes attacked by villains that day, only one had managed to overcome and capture her attacker. And not just any attacker—a B+ class villain—despite the hero herself being only C-class.
They say C-class Snow White's power went berserk when she saw her dying comrade.
Scarlet reviewed the combat records of the engagement with Elastica.
According to the joint testimony of the heroes who had been present—Snow White and Astra—it was the C-class hero Snow White who had subdued Elastica. Much like Astra's own recent power surge that had allowed her to take down a monster far above her level, Snow White's ability had erupted, and she had overwhelmed the enemy.
Not impossible... but for miracles like that to appear back-to-back?
She was grateful that not every hero had fallen. Still, a small doubt lingered.
It was true that a superhuman's power could runaway under the influence of intense emotion—those cases happened often enough. But runaway abilities almost always brought greater catastrophe in their wake.
The superhuman who lost control frequently harmed themselves. Worse, the overflowing power could easily injure fellow heroes or nearby civilians.
Yet there was none of that. She suppressed only the villain, as if she had perfect control the entire time... and no aftereffects to speak of.
It was a situation that could rightfully be called a miracle.
But Scarlet, whose perspective had grown somewhat cynical since taking the post of Korean branch head, harbored a quiet suspicion.
Is it really a miracle?
Not once, but twice—and both times involving two heroes who happened to operate in close proximity?
One of the truths she had learned after rising to this position was that reality was far colder than people liked to believe.
A hero dramatically reversing a hopeless situation through pure miracle? She had confirmed time and again that such things only happened in movies.
No other heroes were nearby. No traces of an unregistered awakener were found. The only residual power signatures belonged to Snow White.
A faint unease remained, yet every piece of evidence supported the report's account as fact.
But still...
What if it doesn't stop at two?
What if another "miracle" like this appeared? Could she still dismiss it as pure coincidence then?
I'm overthinking this.
Scarlet cut the train of thought short.
Perhaps it was because she had prayed for miracles in desperate moments countless times before, only to confirm that no such thing existed. Now that she was finally staring a real miracle in the face, she found herself unable to simply accept it.
But right now, she needed to accept the miracle with humility and move on to the work that remained.
"Elastica. I have questions for you."
"Hnn... I've already answered everything you asked. Just heal me already. You said if I answered nicely you'd treat me."
"Shut up. Do not open your mouth unless I ask you something."
"That's so mean... Is this really how a hero of justice is supposed to act?"
"Hah."
Scarlet regarded Elastica with icy eyes, then seized one of the villain's glass-shattered, ruined arms. Flames bloomed across the tattered, necrotic flesh and began to cook the meat where it clung to bone.
—Sizzle!!!
"!?!? Gghhhk—?!"
She wanted to thrash, but without arms or legs there was nowhere to go. Elastica could only endure the agony of her frostbitten body being roasted alive. When Scarlet finally released her, the villain's face was contorted with pure terror.
"People like you always make the same mistake. You run wild without a single thought for consequences, and the second you're caught you start spouting words like 'justice' and 'humanitarianism.'"
The Hero Association operated under a fundamental principle of non-lethality. That rule existed to prevent the deaths of potential innocents—people whose powers might have run away by accident, or who might have been coerced by villains.
But.
"Did you really think that meant we wouldn't lay a finger on you?"
"Nngh...!!"
"Now answer. Who put you up to this?"
Scarlet's voice was languid yet absolute. In front of that tone, Elastica abandoned every scrap of bravado and began to tremble, spilling words without delay.
"I-I really don't know! I was just hunting for prey on my own when they jumped me out of nowhere! They said, 'Don't you want to play in the big leagues?' and offered me an initiation test!"
"An initiation test..."
"They said other people were taking the same test at the same time! All I did was go to the place they told me and find my target!"
A group capable of locating and subduing a B+ class villain like Elastica with ease—then ordering her to commit terrorism and murder heroes under the flimsy pretext of an "initiation test."
"Their base of operations? Membership?"
"I t-told you I don't know! The one who took me down didn't even use any special powers—just bare hands! I've never even been to any base or anything—!"
"Still haven't learned your lesson."
"It's the truth! I swear, you son of a—!!"
—Sizzle!!!
"!%!!^!!!@$!@!"
As the acrid stench of burning flesh filled the interrogation room, Scarlet silently thought of the two heroes who had produced the only real results in this entire terror incident.
It's because juniors like them still exist that I can keep going.
Dirty work like this was the job of a senior already stained beyond saving. That was how she saw it.
She only hoped the two heroes who had wrought this miracle would grow stronger as quickly as possible.
And once the interrogation was finished, she decided, she would go see the two of them—by then their treatment should be complete.
At that same moment...
"Umm... it should be fine, right?"
Back at the restaurant I had closed and locked up because I couldn't focus on work, I—Siwoo—wandered around scratching my head.
The news kept looping coverage of the mass monster outbreaks and the villains' terrorist attacks.
Both of them are safe. That's a relief, at least...
I felt a wave of relief knowing that Astra and Snow White—the two I had set out to save—were both unharmed. My intervention had been worth it.
But in the process of saving them, I had ended up feeding Snow White one of my buff dishes.
I don't regret saving them. Not for a second. Still... they're being treated at the Association. Did anyone notice something? And even if the Association didn't, Snow White herself...
I was stewing over the consequences of a choice made on pure impulse.
Of course, if I could go back to that moment, I would make the exact same decision. Regret over what I had done was minimal.
What had me pacing alone and clutching my head right now was something else entirely.
"...Tch. It's not a side effect that causes immediate physical problems, so it should be okay, right?"
After everything was over—the instant the buff on Snow White had worn off—information about the side effect now attached to her had flooded into my mind.
I thought again about the side effect that had taken root in Snow White, let out a long sigh, and waited for the two of them to contact me once they were discharged.