Ch.16Episode 4. Shadows Moving in the Night (End)

“!”

The air is drawn in.

As soon as I move, the lumpy silhouette on the wall throws a punch.

So it was that pig bastard after all!

“Nullify.”

When the air wave touches my hand, it scatters and disperses.

Nullification is most effective when touching the caster’s body, but I had no choice.

I can’t just walk forward while getting hit.

“Hup!”

The gentleman villain reacts to my movement and tries to thrust with the tip of his cane.

But his speed wasn’t enough to touch me. He was just swinging at empty air.

“I beat up villains regardless of age or gender, you know?”

“What—!”

I’d like to hit him with full force, but if I did, the surrounding buildings would collapse, so I eased up on my strength just before striking.

Whoosh—!

“…?”

My fist, which was aimed precisely at his face, grazed past the gentleman’s ear.

Did my fist waver?

No, this isn’t my problem.

That woman next to the pig bastard cast “Confusion” on me.

I spread my arms and started singing “Ah~ Ah~” like an idiot.

In that moment, the gentleman-concept villain quickly distances himself.

Frowning at the sudden noise coming from all directions, I put my hand to my head and nullified the skill.

“Ah… you can’t sing. Shut up.”

“What! So being handsome means you can say things like that?!”

I’ll deal with that chattering woman first.

If she casts some kind of suggestion, things could get troublesome.

I kick off the ground, leap forward, and clench my fist in front of the woman.

“Like I said, I beat up female villains too.”

Just as I’m about to swing my fist without hesitation, the pig bastard next to her launches an air wave at me.

“How annoying!”

I nullify the air wave and try to swing at the woman, but a high heel strikes my abdomen.

“Ugh!”

I blocked it with my hand just before the high heel made contact, but the pain of it digging into my flesh was quite sharp.

Isn’t kicking with high heels against the unwritten rules? That really hurts.

I spin once in the air and land stably on the ground.

Just as I’m about to leap again, I notice the gentleman villain pointing a gun at me.

“Die!!”

Click!

Just before the trigger is pulled, I close the distance.

Bang!

I force his gun hand upward with my strength. Seeing the gun firing into the sky, I sigh.

“Ah, Mr. Gentleman. What are you doing with a gun in South Korea?”

Thwack!

I plant my fist precisely in his solar plexus. You’re despicable, so double damage for you.

“Who… who are you calling a villain…! Someone who attacks an old man is a son of a… how can you be a hero…”

Unable to finish his sentence, the gentleman finally passes out.

Since I was holding him, he couldn’t fly away and just went limp.

I toss him aside and turn to deal with the tone-deaf woman and the pig bastard, when a shocked voice comes from behind me.

“S-shit! What the hell! How did you escape my shadow binding?!”

“Curious? Want to play twenty questions?”

“Are you joking?!”

“I’m serious.”

This guy is more support than combat anyway.

He can be pushed down the priority list.

Originally, Yaeyoung was more focused on intelligence missions rather than killing people.

In other words, their individual attack power wasn’t particularly high. Yet they showed themselves openly before me, which means they have a purpose…

“What were you thinking, appearing before me?”

“…Lord Moonlight ordered us to bring you in.”

The pig answered my question straightforwardly.

“Hey, pig! Should you be telling him that?”

“I’m not a pig. I go by the codename ‘Cannon.’ Call me properly. Whore.”

“Who are you calling a whore! I’m ‘Slander.'”

“Cannon or Slander, both your names are shit.”

That serial writer, look at how he names these extra villains.

“What did you say? You dare insult the name Lord Moonlight gave me…! He told us to avoid fighting if possible, but I’m going to half-cripple you and take you back!”

Ah, so in this world setting, Moonlight gave them their names?

Still, crappy names are crappy.

“Really? Then I won’t hold back this time either, so block with all your might.”

As soon as I finish speaking, I move immediately.

My accelerated movement at maximum output is something no one below executive rank can react to or keep up with.

In an instant, I’m behind the two people on the wall.

“Behind you!!”

The shadow-skill villain shouts urgently, but my fist is faster. My punch hits Cannon’s face precisely, and his body, unable to withstand the impact, rises and then crashes into the ground.

“Damn it!”

I dodge Slander’s outstretched hand and strike her chin.

“I told you. I don’t spare women villains either.”

After taking my punch, her eyes roll back and she falls head-first off the wall, her neck bending. But she’s not dead.

She might die if left like this, but what happens after isn’t my concern.

Unlike other heroes, I have no intention of saving villains’ lives.

The only reason I’ve kept them alive and sent them to the police so far is because of the small conscience remaining in my heart and to avoid becoming a villain myself.

As I was about to come down from the wall, I noticed that the shadow villain who was there until just now had disappeared.

How annoying, did he run away? Should have just stayed put quietly.

He couldn’t have gone far.

I immediately put strength into my legs and jumped onto a building.

Just as I was trying to figure out where he went, a pure white light that momentarily dispelled the darkness burst out from the right.

“That light…”

I headed toward the source of the light.

Only the shadow villain was lying there, collapsed. He was still twitching, as if he had just been attacked.

Even when I heightened my senses to check for presences around, I couldn’t feel anything at all.

What was that light just now?

Could it be Jung Iyeon?

In the original story, cases of emitting pure white light were only when someone like Jung Iyeon was generating weapons…

Could she be nearby?

I peered around the alleyways, but couldn’t discover anything.

Right. There’s no way someone who should be at the academy would be here.

Even if she were in the area, someone without a hero license wouldn’t have used their ability.

At the very least, the person I’ve observed directly has been honest and upright.

Yet why do I have this suspicion?

“…Let’s put that aside for now. Let me ask you all some questions.”

I carried the shadow guy on my shoulder and returned to the place where I had fought with Yaeyoung.

However, only the unconscious thugs remained in the alley. The Yaeyoung members had fled without a trace.

These heartless bastards, abandoning their comrades.

“Haah. This is annoying.”

I put down the guy who was draped over my shoulder against the wall.

“Hey. Hey. Wake up.”

He looks at me with drowsy eyes after I tap his cheeks.

He looks around as if trying to assess the situation, then suddenly grabs his head.

“Argh! My head…!”

“Stop the act.”

Thwack!

After I gave him a knock on the head, he screamed “Aaaagh!” and collapsed. Was that too hard for a simple knock?

“Stop overreacting. Let’s play twenty questions.”

“…What?”

“From now on, answer my questions only with the truth. If it’s not the truth, I’ll break one finger at a time. Okay?”

“H-how would you know if I’m telling the truth or not? Do you have some lie-detecting ability?”

“Something similar.”

I read the original novel, so it’s totally possible.

“Then let’s start with your name.”

“…”

“Your name. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll hit your solar plexus too.”

When I clench my fist, he turns his head and mutters quietly, “Kim Dowoo…”

“Codename?”

“S-Shadow…”

Name: Kim Dowoo. Codename: Shadow.

…Seriously, put some effort into it. Are you dismissing extras?

“Good. That’s the truth.”

“How…”

“I ask the questions. I’m not very patient. You’d better answer well.”

“If I answer, will you let me go unharmed?”

“Of course! I’ll definitely send you away!”

To prison.

* @ *

“Phew. I didn’t get caught, right?”

In a corner of the alley.

A white-haired woman who had been hiding in a crevice removed her hand from her nose and mouth. She sighs in relief while patting her chest.

“That was really, really close…”

She was startled because Yujin’s speed was much faster than she had anticipated.

How nervous she had been when Yujin entered the alley right after she used her ability to knock someone unconscious.

If she had been caught here, she would have been misunderstood as a “stalker fan.”

“Huff… I wonder if he handled the villains well today? I hope I was of some help.”

She murmured, looking at the spot where she had just struck down a villain with her created shield.

“I want to get my hero license soon. I want to fight proudly beside Brain God.”

To Jung Iyeon, Yujin was both an admired figure and like a “celebrity.”

Two months ago, when she went on a high school graduation trip with her friends to another city, she was almost killed after being kidnapped by villains.

At that time, Jung Iyeon tried to fight back, but had to give up resistance when her powerless friends were taken hostage.

That’s when Yujin appeared.

The way he appeared faster than any hero when they were in danger, subduing the villains in an instant, ignited a fire in the heart of Jung Iyeon, who aspired to be a hero.

She began to admire him, wanting to become an overwhelming hero like him.

So she had asked the masked Yujin:

“W-what’s your name?!”

Yujin, knowing that Jung Iyeon was the protagonist, readily told her.

It was to easily bridge the distance when the day came for them to make contact.

Of course, Yujin never thought that after that incident, Jung Iyeon would come to admire him so much.

The reason she voluntarily entered the special class was to observe the instructor named Yujin, and the moment she saw the spark during their sparring match, she was convinced he was the one who had saved her.

‘I got some good photos today too.’

Jung Iyeon smiled as she looked at the photos on her phone of Yujin wielding overwhelming violence against villains.

“Ah~ I wonder what conversation we’ll have tomorrow…”

This too was a variable created by Yujin’s possession.

The story was changing little by little in ways even Yujin didn’t know.