episode_0277

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It was about 20 years ago that awakened beings began to appear in this world in earnest.

Of course, it’s not that there were no awakened beings before that.

People who used unusual powers, and many people who were known to have performed miracles, had existed continuously from the past.

People who survived even after falling from fortress walls.

People who got up perfectly fine even after being shot with eight bullets.

People with special knowledge that went several steps beyond human common sense.

People who breathed fire from their mouths, or single-handedly defeated armies….

Not all of them could be called awakened beings, but there must have been special individuals who had received the power of the stars even before.

But for some reason, as we moved into the 21st century, ‘special people’ who would only appear in fairy tales or novels began to appear in large numbers.

These people had even more absurd powers than the characters in fairy tales.

Most of them had dangerous mental flaws, and they recklessly used their extraordinary powers, freely disrupting the order of the world.

The armed force prepared by the public authorities for ordinary crimes could not stop them.

Even if they were imprisoned as a humanitarian measure, they would break the iron bars of the prison with their bare hands, break down the walls, dig tunnels, and escape, so they couldn’t even be caught.

As a result, it didn’t take long for society to be completely paralyzed by uncontrollable awakened beings.

In a situation where the government and society were not functioning properly and were in complete chaos.

It took about 10 years for the government to make a firm statement about the awakened beings.

Someone says that if it weren’t for that 10-year setback, this country might have achieved about twice the current economic growth rate.

That’s how many people died or were injured.

The economic decline was enormous, and the losses due to the collapse of various expensive facilities for technological development were also enormous.

Anyway.

In order to prepare for the awakened beings who caused such huge social losses, each country hired awakened beings with relatively moderate minds who could fight against them.

Such organizations exist in each country, and their existence to protect the people is called ‘Heroes’.

Heroes.

The heroes.

Originally, it was a general term for specialists who showed all kinds of talents to deal with the awakened, but… now, its scale has been reduced to a security group consisting only of awakened beings.

These heroes, who wield superhuman powers and, above all, use their powers as allies rather than as enemies of the people, were… clearly a light-like existence.

Of course, to those who have not yet washed away their anxiety about the awakened, heroes and villains may not seem very different.

However, in some countries, their power is welcome and the social atmosphere and public opinion greatly support them, so these heroes receive very positive evaluations.

For example, Europe and North America.

In Europe, the perception of heroes is almost like idols.

In North America, unlike South America, which has a bad perception of heroes, they have taken the lead in defending them.

Because of the differing opinions between North and South America, the hero organization operated by the state is not very powerful, but instead, private hero dispatch companies launched with the support of the North American and Canadian chaebol federations are very popular, greatly raising the status of heroes in the United States.

In that way, overall, it can be said that public opinion about heroes is steadily improving in the United States as well.

There are many other things to talk about, such as the organization of heroes and the treatment of each country, but… I will omit it for now.

One thing to know is that.

Some countries, such as Korea, attract hero groups as public power for each country, and in Korea, this group is called 【Hero Association】.

In the case of Europe, they have one hero group jointly supported by each country, and its name is 【Aius】.

The United States also has two teams, a nationally designated hero group like Korea and a private hero organization, 【Supernatural】, working together to protect the country.

【Supernatural】protects the entire North America, but since its headquarters is in North America, it feels like it’s giving a little more power to the United States.

And among those many hero groups.

A certain talent from the European hero group 【Aius】is currently showing great interest in Korea, a country located in Asia.

Almost no one currently knows what is attracting ‘her’ attention….

***

Tick-tock-tick-tock

Dragging a large carrier with a rattling sound, a beautiful white woman comes out of I Airport.

A woman with a fairly tall height for a woman, and a curvy, feminine body suitable for a Westerner.

And a woman with heavily curled blonde hair, exuding a kind of pressure just by being there.

She looked briefly at the crowded airport scene beyond her sunglasses, then took off her sunglasses and looked back at the sky beyond the window.

She frowned at the glaring summer sunlight.

“…Long time no see, Korea.”

“It’s been a long time here too.”

The first thing that came out was a British accent that an old aristocrat would use.

And what followed was Korean so fluent that you would believe she was of Korean-mixed race.

In her eyes, muttering alone after taking off her sunglasses, there was a strange emotion.

Today.

One of the key figures of the European hero organization 【Aius】has arrived in Korea.

***

“I was a little surprised by this. If it was going to be such a big deal, I wish you had told me.”

Meanwhile, at the Hero Association, the base of the 7th squad.

In the captain’s office there, three captains were gathered and talking.

Rahe, the captain of the 7th squad.

Ashe, the captain of the 4th squad.

And Mer, the captain of the 3rd squad.

The three are powerful people who went through the dark ages called 【The Great Disaster】together in the past, and they are also contemporaries of the same age.

Among the total of thirteen captain-level heroes, these three are very close and continue to interact, and the current topic of conversation is the recent 『Villain Organization 【Dawn】Raid Operation』.

The hotel occupied by the villain organization named 【Dawn】.

It was a famous traditional hotel, and although a considerable number of guests were using it, those villains were trying to carry out a terrorist attack.

Ashe and Rahe, who had obtained the information in advance, cooperated to carry out the suppression operation of the organization.

…For now, that’s how it’s known to the outside world, but there are many mysteries.

The existence of the man who was clearly not an ordinary person, who hugged Ashe and jumped out of the hotel at the time.

In addition, why such an important fact was not reported to headquarters, or the existence of the mastermind who seemed to be behind it but whose whereabouts could not be found in the end.

However, such stories, which raised many questions, were organized and resolved surprisingly easily.

Mer, who was not involved, did not know, but it was thanks to the talented personnel of a certain villain organization who used their power.

Apple’s information manipulation and the Staff Officer’s command.

The synergy between the two was so great that this situation, which had many problems, was packaged to the point of satisfying almost everyone in a month.

There is no problem.

The two are being treated as heroes who saved everyone, just like the 7th squad during the previous 【Lesser Rat】incident.

‘…It’s suspicious.’

And Mer, who is a friend of the two, was trying to find some clues in their words without any gaps, even while laughing and talking.

Many people quickly accepted the incident and accepted it as okay, but Mer couldn’t do that.

It’s not that she doesn’t trust these two.

But no matter what, there were too many mysteries to think of it as a ‘lie of good intentions’.

It was a sense of incongruity that she could feel because she was not just someone who encountered the incident through documents, but because she went directly to the scene after receiving a help call at the time.

‘It smells fishy.’

‘It can’t be that these two would do that.’

‘But… there’s something there.’

‘Something happened, it’s clear…!’

“…Mer? Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

Did what she was thinking slip out on her face?

Rahe asked Mer, and Ashe clicked her tongue as if she knew what she was thinking.

“Are you suspecting us? That we’re hiding something?”

“…….”

At Ashe’s question, Mer shut her mouth as if she had been stabbed in the heart.

She just sips the coffee given to her.

…The coffee is really delicious.

“I told you there’s nothing to hide? Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“…There may be some suspicious parts. Actually, there are many parts that we don’t understand either. We’re not hiding it, we really don’t know.”

Ashe and Rahe speak in order.

Unlike Ashe, who is clever in many ways, Rahe rarely lies.

Above all, she is not the type of person who would lie and act nonchalantly among friends.

She is smart, but she is very sincere, and when there is something she shouldn’t say, she remains silent, but she doesn’t subtly embellish her words.

Thinking that way, Mer finally sighed as if giving up.

“……I know. I got it. It’s just that I’m jealous because only you two have made achievements. It seems like you’re getting pretty good reviews for this.”

“No, even though it looks like that, we received pretty harsh reviews because ordinary people were harmed.”

Even so, achievement is achievement.

Mer, the captain of the 3rd squad, who has a strong desire for advancement, couldn’t take her dissatisfied gaze away.

As a long-time friend, Rahe, who deeply understands the meaning of that gaze and Mer’s feelings, smiled faintly.

“And the executives of 【Dawn】ended up escaping even while being imprisoned. It would have been better to kill those guys on the spot at the captain’s discretion. The reviews dropped a lot because of that.”

“But you know who the villain guys who helped them escape are, right?”

“There are no videos or anything left. Instead, there was a message left intentionally by that organization.”

Ashe said that and opened her smartphone and sent a picture.

In the picture, there was a messy letter with scribbled handwriting.

[Thirteen of Darkness, come here!]

A childish phrase as if a child wrote it.

However, the phrase that she had seen several times in the field of villain terror was not difficult to guess who left it.

“The 13th of the villain organization 【Abyss】… is it Thirteen because it’s the 13th? It’s really childish.”

Mer said that with a sigh, and Ashe nodded in agreement.

The leaders of the villain organization 【Dawn】that were arrested were being held in a special facility at the insistence of Ashe and Rahe… but they escaped due to the intervention of 【Abyss】.

In the first place, the facility where they were imprisoned was also too flimsy a place to hold the executives of a giant villain organization.

Mer felt a strange trick in this fact as well, but she didn’t bother to mention the fact now that it was just a guess.

Anyway, continuing this story doesn’t seem beneficial.

Rahe, who judged that way, was about to change the subject right away.

But at the same time as she opened her mouth, there was a knock-knock sound from beyond the door.

『Captain Rahe. Your guest has arrived.』

The voice heard from beyond the door was Club’s.

Rahega was taken aback because there was no one scheduled to visit today.

But before she could answer, the door burst open.

“Hello, Captain Rahe. It’s been a long time. Oh my, were there other guests?”

“Those white uniforms must be the captains of the Hero Association. I greet the honorable Korean hero captains.”

The person who said that and greeted gracefully like an aristocrat was a blonde-haired white woman.

She with alluring hair and blue eyes was a woman Rahe had seen before.

“Aius’… Olivia-nim.”

“Olivia QueenHeart. …I look forward to working with the other two captains as well.”

The guest from Europe tilted her head and smiled affably at the three captains.