episode_0014

-Did you see this villain?

-Yeah, his face is seriously menacing;

-What was the hero doing while he was walking around with that face? Why didn’t they catch him?

-LOL, right? With that face, even if he gave money to a homeless person, it’d look like human trafficking.

His popularity is soaring.

I watch the comments fly by at an incredible speed.

The title of the article was “Villain Who Attacked the Orphanage Appears, Knocks Down Hero and Disappears,” and my face was plastered on the front page of the newspaper, likely to attract attention.

It’s not just the article.

-Wow, his face is crazy.

-If I met a face like that on the street, I’d kneel and give him all my money…

-But if you actually gave him money, he’d probably kill you, saying he doesn’t need it;

I’ll just take the money and go.

I couldn’t help but let a satisfied expression spread across my face.

Look at this explosive reaction.

Honestly, if I were a typical villain, I wouldn’t have received so much attention from the media and others.

It’s only possible if you have a face like Eclipse, or a face that works in a different way, like mine.

Of course, Eclipse and I weren’t the only ones attracting attention.

-But honestly, with that face, I’d probably be a villain too.

-How did he pick up such a beauty with that face? Did he drug her or something?

Since Firebringer’s face is nothing to scoff at, there were occasional comments about her as well.

It’s just overshadowed by my face.

“Wow…! Water’s coming out!”

“What do you think this place is?”

I look up at Firebringer’s voice, full of excitement.

She’s jumping around the hideout.

Now that we have more people and my face is properly known, I think I need to repair the hideout.

But before that.

The voice rings in my ears again.

I need to check this first.

Villain Management Mode.

What is it?

Just from the name, it seems like a villain management mode.

“…”

But how do I turn it on?

I wave my hands in the air, but nothing changes.

“What are you doing?”

Eclipse looks at me like I’m a weirdo, and I can only stammer.

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“…”

She turns away again, resting her chin on her hand, lost in thought.

Ah, could it be.

“…Villain Management Mode.”

I mutter quietly so no one can hear,

Only then do I hear the emotionless voice in my ear.

And,

“…”

Numbers appear above the heads of the two people in front of me.

First, Eclipse.

“…”

What is this?

As I stare blankly at the numbers above Eclipse’s head, Eclipse stares back at me.

“What is it this time?”

“Mind your own business.”

“…”

Hearing my words, Eclipse sighs and starts sewing the dress again.

I think I know what’s going on.

This is the same principle as allocating stats to a character.

Strength, intelligence, agility, luck, etc., elements related to the character.

But courage, composure, decisiveness?

Isn’t this a bit strange?

These are such vague concepts.

“…”

Then what about Firebringer?

I turn my head and look at Firebringer.

Numbers were floating above her head as well.

The numbers are different.

“…”

But the points to invest were different again.

Courage and decisiveness are shared with Eclipse, but madness?

What is madness?

I don’t think I should raise something like that carelessly.

“…”

In this case, I should try it on Eclipse.

Looking at the numbers above Eclipse’s head, I decided to use just one point.

Let’s see.

My eyes turn to the item.

It’s not that Eclipse isn’t composed, but what will change if I raise her composure?

Thinking that way, I look above Eclipse’s head,

Soon, the number in the composure item increases.

Eclipse is still frowning as she sews the dress.

“Hey, Eclipse.”

“What.”

When I call her, she finally takes her eyes off the dress and looks at me.

“Do you notice anything different about yourself?”

“Out of the blue?”

She looks at me with a bewildered expression, then closes her eyes and thinks.

“Well, first of all… I’ve been thinking a lot.”

She continues in a calm voice.

“I realized that what I think is different from what others think, and that it’s wrong to judge people by their appearance-”

“Don’t talk nonsense, I’m asking if anything about your body has changed. Or your mind.”

Who told her to talk about her thoughts?

“…”

Eclipse looks at me as if I’m ridiculous and shakes her head.

“No.”

“Okay.”

“I must be crazy.”

Eclipse mutters and starts sewing again.

Is one point not a big deal?

No, as with all games, you don’t really notice the stats increasing unless you increase them a lot at once. You only know little by little, like getting soaked in a drizzle.

But let’s put off using points for now.

The time may come when I need them.

I may need Eclipse’s composure, or I may need more of Firebringer’s madness.

Although I hope I don’t need madness that much.

“So, PD-nim.”

“Yeah.”

While I was thinking that, Firebringer comes up to me.

“What are we doing next?”

“Next…”

I’ve already set the biggest framework.

The rivalry between me and Eclipse.

Thanks to that, Eclipse has changed from a villain to a strange hybrid between a villain and a hero, but she doesn’t complain to me, so I decided to just let it be.

With the basic framework in place, what else should I do?

“Expand it.”

“Yes?”

“My goal is to end this fight.”

To save myself.

In the hero world, the conflict between heroes and villains is intensifying, leading to even bigger incidents.

First, I’ll take over those big incidents one by one.

“…”

I turn my gaze away from Firebringer, who is looking at me with a subtle expression, and fall into thought.

First, I’ve secured the variables of Firebringer and Eclipse.

The problem is what comes next.

Since the protagonist hasn’t appeared yet, I can’t intervene in the incidents that appear in the story yet, even if I want to.

In other words, there’s not much I can do right now.

Except for one thing.

“Probably in the near future, heroes will come up with special measures to catch villains.”

“Yes?”

Public order is getting worse, and the position of heroes is getting worse.

There are also heroes who are just garbage, like the hero who attacked the orphanage this time.

But humans are always the same.

They don’t try to find the problem in themselves, they try to find it in others.

Therefore, the heroes also place all responsibility on the villains and create new rules.

That is, punishment of prospective villains and mandatory hero enlistment.

Basically, the definition of a villain only applied to cases where they caused great harm to society or declared themselves a villain, but since there are so many villains, the government has enacted a policy to take all ability users as heroes.

Naturally, ability users revolted.

Because becoming a hero didn’t exempt them from the duty of national defense.

In other words, ability users had to serve in the military and then become heroes.

Naturally, the clause was met with a lot of opposition, but it was still enforced.

The problem is that it had the opposite effect.

Ability users who didn’t want to become heroes went into hiding, and ability users who were forcibly caught only increased their antipathy toward society and became prospective villain prodigies.

And that dissatisfaction eventually explodes.

I pick up the remote and turn on the news.

“A riot will break out soon.”

“A riot?”

“Yeah.”

Eventually, the ability users who can’t stand it any longer rise up.

This is the First Chaos.

And heroes who worked diligently in the riot are also killed.

Many of those who quietly helped the citizens die, and eventually the heroes and villains engage in a bloody battle of killing each other.

“At that time, we’ll bring in a few people.”

And our, no. My goal is to minimize that riot.

Because that’s the root cause of all the incidents.

“Bring them in?”

“It’s like sales.”

I’ll put villains with stories and heroes who are about to die in debt to me.

And I’ll use them when I’m in danger.

“Who are they?”

“They’re on now.”

At my words, Firebringer looks at the screen, and Eclipse, who was listening to the story together, also looks at the screen, and then,

“…”

With a long silence, she frowns and looks at me.

“Her?”

“Yeah. Her.”

It was a familiar person.

Well, she was the woman in the white tights who Eclipse and I fought when I first fell here.

Hero name: Snow.

The ill-fated hero who was tragically murdered and the conscience of the heroes.

That person must not die.

I clap my hands together loudly and continue.

“I’ll win her over.”