Ch.146Solution

Jericho Amael regained consciousness, and Yu Anna immediately headed to A City with Iron Might.

“Huff… huff…”

Iron Might, whose body had been tempered by that monstrous creation called the Hero Cannon, collapsed from exhaustion as soon as they landed in A City.

Yu Anna immediately asked Nam Gyeong, who was waiting at the landing point, about Jeong Ho-young’s condition.

“I heard Ho-young regained consciousness? How is he? Oh, and Electris… where’s Electris?”

“She’s talking with Ho-young right now.”

“They’re both in the same place? Might, you should go see your girlfriend. Hurry up and pull yourself together.”

“Are you okay? It must be difficult for an A-rank to endure this.”

“Just a moment, just a moment… phew, have we been using this ridiculous thing for transportation all this time?”

Yu Anna left Iron Might to follow at his own pace and walked ahead.

Inside the temporary headquarters set up in a repaired building.

When she arrived at the treatment room in the corner where Jeong Ho-young was, Electris was just opening the door, apparently having finished her conversation.

Electris widened her eyes in surprise upon seeing Iron Might, then averted her gaze with a sullen expression.

“…What now.”

“Maria.”

“You didn’t come when I asked you to. Hmph, it’s already too late! There’s no point trying to stop me now… Ah!”

“Let’s talk over there for a moment.”

“Let go! Are you going to let go or not? I said let go!”

Electris, unable to properly use her ability, had her wrist grabbed by Iron Might and was dragged into the hallway.

Yu Anna gave Iron Might a nod to have a good talk, then entered the treatment room.

“Jeong Ho-young?”

Yu Anna felt an inexplicable sense of discomfort seeing Jeong Ho-young sitting up in bed, where he had always been lying down whenever she visited A City.

His gaunt face, skeletal body, and quiet heartbeat that seemed ready to stop at any moment.

Nevertheless, his eyes, sharper than before, strangely gleamed in the shadowy room as they turned toward Yu Anna.

Unconsciously, she recalled the monster-like rumbling that had spread from his heart before he lost consciousness.

“Visitors coming one after another without giving me time to rest after opening my eyes.”

“You are Jeong Ho-young, right?”

“Hmm… yes, that’s right. I’m here, neither a dream nor an illusion.”

Jeong Ho-young naturally extended his hand to the side, and his two secretaries who were standing guard beside the bed handed him cut fruit and tea.

Watching him silently accept and eat the tea and fruit, Yu Anna was able to wash away some of her anxiety.

“Seems like you’ve properly regained consciousness. How’s your body?”

“As you can see, it’s a mess.”

Jeong Ho-young weakly pulsed his ability’s wavelength as if to show her.

A wavelength close to dissonance, an irregular heartbeat that seemed ready to collapse at any moment.

“At this level, even a D-rank would struggle.”

His heart, which should be responsible for ability output, had collapsed so much that it was questionable how he was even keeping his eyes open.

Without the recovery ability of an S-rank superhuman bordering on monstrous, he would already be dead.

“I’ve heard about everything that’s happened so far. I’ve also checked the data. A safety zone created by Black Cat who became an Annihilation-rank monster—sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? I thought creating a perfect safety zone was impossible… hmm, perhaps I should have somehow brought Black Cat to A City.”

Jeong Ho-young picked up a tablet from the bedside table and showed her the screen.

It appeared to be a brief report on the current situation in W City, compiled by his secretaries.

“I’ve also heard about the current situation. It seems you’re quite short-staffed due to A City’s reconstruction and the W City refugee problem. Especially S-rank heroes…”

Jeong Ho-young glanced toward the entrance.

“Just now, Electris came here and told me. She’s pregnant, isn’t she? I never thought Electris would take maternity leave. The world is truly unpredictable.”

“I know, and with Iron Might of all people.”

“It’s a blessing, but it’s impossible to protect A City with just Baskerville. Electris seems to understand this well, as she asked if it wouldn’t be better to terminate the pregnancy now.”

“You didn’t…”

It’s a cruel reality, but when a high-ranking female hero becomes pregnant, it creates a significant gap in city defense, making it difficult to receive positive feedback from citizens.

While people might offer congratulations on the surface, most will question the hero’s sense of responsibility behind their backs.

That’s why heroes tend to celebrate their colleagues’ pregnancies more enthusiastically, but this time, the timing is extremely poor.

“Objectively speaking, this isn’t a good time to have a child, but it’s a precious baby between an S-rank and an A-rank superhuman. I persuaded her to keep it.”

“Sigh…”

“The awakening rate for children born between superhumans is significantly higher than for other children. Anyone can see that a child of Electris and Iron Might would be a thoroughbred.”

This is actually why the number of awakened individuals increases with each generation.

Even without that, having and giving birth to a child in the monster era was considered a sacred domain that shouldn’t be interfered with for all humans.

The problem was that awakened individuals were in many ways in a different position from humans.

“With my body like this, I can’t fill Electris’s vacancy either. A City without a proper S-rank superhuman will gradually lose citizens.”

When high-ranking superhumans like Electris leave the battlefield, civilian casualties increase accordingly.

After mentioning this practical concern that everyone was worried about, Jeong Ho-young sighed and placed his hand on his chest.

“I’m sorry if you came with expectations. The S-rank hero, Cage, who could solve all these problems, no longer exists.”

What remains here now are just the remnants left behind after Cage collapsed.

Seeing him blame himself for his damaged heart, Yu Anna responded incredulously.

“What are you talking about? Who said I came expecting you to solve everything?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Coming here on that monstrous creation as soon as I regained consciousness.”

“I came because my colleague nearly died and then came back to life.”

“Kuk kuk kuk…”

At that, Jeong Ho-young weakly laughed, holding his stomach.

“I apologize for the misunderstanding. Everyone who’s visited me in A City since I opened my eyes has only wanted something from me.”

“It would be a lie to say I didn’t expect any help from you at all, but I don’t want to dump work on a patient.”

“Hmm, I appreciate the sentiment, but resting is impossible in the current situation.”

Jeong Ho-young had his secretary bring a chair for Yu Anna to sit beside the bed.

“While it’s already impossible for the superhuman called Cage to solve everything, I can’t just rest and do nothing. Though I’ve died as a hero, fortunately I’m still alive as a human. Let’s think together about solutions appropriate for the current situation.”

“That’s kind of you.”

“No need to feel sorry.”

As Yu Anna felt guilty about not being able to refuse help from a patient who had just regained consciousness, Jeong Ho-young manipulated his tablet and spoke.

“You’ve always said that you should delegate tasks you’re not good at to people who are. Let’s all work together, right?”

“I meant it’s good if it’s voluntary, not that I wanted to make patients work.”

“I am being voluntary right now. And… this was bound to happen eventually anyway.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“My methods aren’t suitable for a safe city.”

Jeong Ho-young calmly expressed thoughts he’d been having for some time.

“I can lead citizens, but I can’t give them proper trust. My methods aren’t clean either. The same goes for those under me. If I stayed at the top, I’d only create stagnant waters.”

He knew this, but continued anyway because there was no other option.

“I was planning to take down all the higher-ups, clean house, and then hand over control to you… but the situation has changed too much. To think that Black Cat, that monster, would create the safe zone I’ve been aiming for my entire life.”

“What? Wait, hand over what to me?”

“The ruler suited for a safe city is you, not me. Hmm… it’s a shame I can’t become your second-in-command and handle the dirty work you can’t touch, but it can’t be helped. From now on, I’ll offer advice from the sidelines.”

Jeong Ho-young had confirmed through statistics that Yu Anna had been involved in managing city complaints, food situations, and crime rates, maintaining the status quo.

After Jeong Ho-young lost consciousness, the human casualties in W City and A City remained under 10.

“It seems you’ve been doing quite well so far. Better than I expected.”

“Doing well? I arrived late and there were still casualties.”

“That was due to Electris’s ability control issues from what happened to her. Your standards are too high. Even though Black Cat is settled in one city, managing two cities with fewer than 10 casualties—that’s something even I couldn’t do.”

While it was a painful loss compared to W City with zero casualties, the citizens and heroes of A City didn’t complain about what was essentially a miraculous figure.

“But that’s as far as it goes. Neither I nor Electris can fight for a while. At this rate, A City’s citizens will gradually die off.”

After praising Yu Anna for her efforts so far, Jeong Ho-young bluntly stated the reality.

However, there was no immediate solution to this situation.

“What do you think would be best to do?”

“…I’m thinking of asking Black Cat if she could stay in A City for a while. Once you’ve fully recovered, or after Electris has given birth and regained her strength, we can hold out again.”

“Entrusting everything to Black Cat and holding out until A City regains its fortress form… reasonable. However, that’s not a proper solution.”

Yu Anna nodded at Jeong Ho-young’s words.

No matter how trustworthy, relying on Black Cat—a monster, not a human—isn’t a proper solution.

If she were to move to another city or even go for a walk, it would immediately create an emergency situation.

“Even with Black Cat’s help, humans need the strength to protect themselves. Black Cat is ultimately a monster. We can use her temporarily, but shouldn’t take her existence for granted.”

“I agree. The problem is we don’t have any other immediate options.”

“Then let’s summarize the problems we need to solve.”

Jeong Ho-young looked around at everyone in the hospital room as he spoke.

A City’s safety, resolving the shortage of heroes.

W City’s food shortage problem, dealing with the influx of refugees.

“The easiest solution would be to terminate Electris’s pregnancy, but let’s keep that as a last resort.”

“Electris seemed quite unstable. It would be troublesome if we upset her and she became a villain.”

“Even if she doesn’t become a villain, committing such an act wouldn’t make her an effective force. Earlier, she kept touching her stomach while saying maybe she should be the one to give up.”

“There’s also the problem of villains coming to W City. We’re screening all refugees, but the prisons are at capacity and we lack surveillance personnel. Simply put, we’re severely understaffed.”

“What about bringing some soldiers and police from A City? With the current restored size, superhumans alone could manage security for a while without military or police.”

“That won’t work. Right now, the military and police are needed to prevent illegal refugees rather than maintain security.”

“Hmm, that’s true.”

“Um… isn’t the term ‘illegal refugees’ a bit strange? Refugees are just refugees, and if we have to be specific, they’re illegal residents, right?”

“It’s probably another term those pigs made up because they can’t admit their own incompetence. There must be an overflow of people wanting to go to W City, but instead of properly managing these citizens…”

How much time had passed as they continued discussing solutions?

Everyone seemed a bit tired, and the conversation had started to drift.

“Refugees… huh.”

Jeong Ho-young fell silent, seemingly lost in thought as something occurred to him.

W City’s manpower issues, villain management, hero shortage, A City’s safety.

If ordinary methods couldn’t solve these problems, what about extraordinary ones?

After contemplating for a long time amid the ongoing discussion, Jeong Ho-young spoke up.

“Starlight, what do you think about moving the entire A City to W City?”

“What? What do you mean…”

Yu Anna frowned at Jeong Ho-young’s outlandish suggestion.

But after a moment, her eyes widened as if pieces of a scattered puzzle had suddenly come together.

W City’s food problem would be solved if Meister came to W City.

A City’s safety would be ensured if its citizens were with Starlight and Black Cat.

And the shortage of personnel to screen and manage villains and refugees would be addressed if all of A City’s heroes and law enforcement came to W City.

“Abandon A City?”

“It’s already a collapsed fortress. The resources from the river would be a loss, but as W City expands, we could eventually reach the upstream, so we wouldn’t lose anything.”

What matters in A City isn’t the city itself, but its citizens.

If A City’s citizens and heroes relocated to W City, most of the current problems could be solved at once.

The only issue was one:

How would so many citizens move to W City?

Everyone already knew the answer to that question.

“It’s possible if Black Cat helps us a little.”

The safety zone moves with Black Cat at its center.