〈 Chapter 10 〉Part 1 Chapter 1 (9)
“Wow. How can there be no bus to Seoul?”
I picked up a newspaper that was lying around on the terminal’s rooftop and examined it. The newspaper was full of all sorts of news, especially information about ‘Monsters’ and ‘Heroes.’
‘I need to get a smartphone quickly.’
In an information society, there’s nothing more out of touch than being disconnected from the electronic world. Isn’t the 21st century a modern society where the world changes overnight in just a short year?
“But this place is….”
I scanned my surroundings. Overall, it had the typical appearance of a developed modern city, but here and there, there were traces of destruction from the aftermath of battles.
The city is dying.
If a metropolitan city right next to Seoul is in this state, it was obvious what the other cities would be like.
‘There are even places where Monsters have nested in city hall.’
Fortunately, Incheon was in a better situation because the Association’s Heroes were stationed there, using the city hall as a base. Of course, at the start of the original story, they wouldn’t be able to hold out any longer, and Incheon would also become Monster territory.
‘Five years left?’
The newspaper’s publication date was April 3, 2020.
Assuming this is today’s newspaper, there are about five years left until the start of the original story.
‘It’s going to be tighter than I thought.’
It wasn’t the worst-case scenario—the original story already having started—but five years wasn’t as long as I thought.
The start of the original story is definitely in the spring of 2025. Unless something special happens, the original story will definitely begin then.
‘I have to recover all the fragments and find a way for me to survive.’
I’m newly amazed at the protagonist’s extraordinary abilities. During the one year of the original story—actually, about 10 months—the protagonist gained wealth, power, and love, and also saved the world.
‘If I had my way, I’d just let it flow according to the original story….’
No matter how much of a protagonist he is, the foundation of this world is a dating sim. There are correct ‘choices,’ and you have to follow the correct route to reach the true ending.
In the game, I played as the protagonist, but now I’m not the protagonist but an evil executive A who sacrifices for the protagonist.
‘If necessary, I might have to raise the protagonist myself.’
Becoming a Princess, no, a Hero Maker. I neatly folded the newspaper and got up from the chair.
“……?”
Suddenly, a shadow falls over my head.
“Student. I heard you’re looking for a bus to New Seoul?”
Suddenly, a slender, blonde young man appeared with a friendly smile. His skin was slightly tanned, as if he had been sunbathing at the beach.
‘What’s this bastard?’
I tried to ignore him and pass by, but I changed my mind and responded to the man.
“Yes. I have some business in New Seoul….”
“Did you get a number? Let’s see. Ugh. In the 5000s? No way. It’ll take at least three months, no matter how early you are.”
“Oh, really?”
I asked again as if I didn’t already know, and the man patted my shoulder and smiled brightly.
Should I just cut him off?
“Yeah! Thousands of people say they want to go down to New Seoul every day. You saw it, didn’t you? That Unni was kicked off earlier and was crying and making a fuss.”
The man lowered his voice.
“So, we have vehicles to New Seoul for those unfortunate people….”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
I interrupted the man, and his eyebrows twitched slightly. But the man shrugged.
“If the country says so, it’s illegal, right? But come on. Are they really going to shoot people who came down because of the Monster damage? We’re all Koreans, right?”
That’s true. They won’t shoot. They won’t shoot.
“I won’t force you if you’re a good kid from the new country who upholds the law. But student. Among the guys running vehicles to New Seoul in this neighborhood, I can give you the cheapest price.”
His appearance of smiling brightly while pinching his thumb and forefinger was ridiculous, and I snickered inwardly. Of course, I pretended to be full of caution on the outside.
“…Are you really going to New Seoul?”
“Yeah! If you have just a little bit of money. In that sense, student, how much do you have right now?”
I took out the bills I had stuffed in my pocket. Two King Sejong bills that Grandpa Park gave me for travel expenses.
“This is all I have….”
“Ah. That’s a problem. It’s nowhere near enough.”
The young man subtly scanned my body up and down. I thought about gouging out his eyes, but I was startled by my own cruelty and calmed myself down.
Just the thought of him looking at my lovely angel Phoenix with lecherous eyes.
“Is, is there any way?”
“There is a way, but student. Do you have parents? Or a guardian?”
“…I have a cousin Unni in New Seoul. I don’t have parents.”
When I said that in a tearful voice, the man looked sympathetic. But his sunken eyes were full of lust.
The man scratched his head as if he was troubled and grabbed my wrist, leading me away.
“I have no choice. Let’s go for now. I’ll try to plead and ask-”
“Excuse me.”
I smiled, grabbing the hand that was tightly holding my wrist.
“Who said it was okay to touch me?”
“What?”
The man frowned for a moment with a dumbfounded expression.
I just gave him a soft smile and then
Thwack!
I let go of the hand holding my wrist and kicked him.
Crack
“”
With the sound of something precious being crushed, the man collapsed to the floor without even screaming.
“Seok-pil!!”
“This crazy bitch?!”
One by one, the men who had been hiding behind the door appeared and supported the blonde young man who was foaming at the mouth.
‘Since when did they notice?!’
‘From the beginning.’
‘How! The plan was perfect?!’
I could already see this conversation unfolding.
I sighed inwardly and just looked at the blonde young man with pitiful eyes.
‘Blonde hair and tanned skin, it’s 100% a Hitomi angle.’
To be clear, the foundation of this world is not an open-world RPG or a post-apocalypse, but a 19+ dating sim.
It’s a world full of all sorts of 19+ tags, not a 100% pure love story. You can’t survive without rolling your eyes intensely.
“I’d rather wait than follow people who might do something to a penniless high school girl. I’m going to call the police.”
Now. Let’s unleash the flames of justice (public power) towards the thugs who dared to covet Phoenix’s sacred body-
“Hey, you crazy bitch! If you don’t have money, ask your cousin Unni to send you some!”
“Huh?”
In the eyes of the colleague supporting the unconscious blonde young man, I felt a sense of injustice.
“Um…what happened?”
A woman appeared from the bottom of the stairs with a bundle. She was the one who had been forcibly kicked off the bus earlier.
“N, Noona. Just a moment. Right now, Seok-pil is….”
“Gasp?! Wake up!”
In the terminal’s passageway, a man was lying on a chair, screaming silently. I could only stand by their side, fumbling around without saying anything.
“T, This isn’t it….”
I wiggled my fingers and looked up at the sky.
The sky was clear without a single cloud.
* * *
“Nice to meet you. Student. My name is Kim Sang-ah.”
The middle-aged woman who introduced herself as Kim Sang-ah took out a business card from her wallet as if it were a habit and handed it to me.
The words ‘Law Firm Raon, Attorney Kim Sang-ah’ were beautifully engraved on the gold-plated business card.
“You’re a lawyer? But….”
Kim Sang-ah smiled bitterly at my surprised question.
“You saw something you shouldn’t have, right? I’m sorry. This is really precious.”
Kim Sang-ah took out an album from her bundle.
“It’s my ex-husband and daughter. After the divorce, my husband went down to his hometown of Busan. My daughter is with her dad now.”
“Are you going to New Seoul perhaps….”
Kim Sang-ah nodded.
“Yes. Before Pyongyang was destroyed, my daughter’s dad took her to see Busan for a while. Since then, she’s been living in Busan.”
Kim Sang-ah’s hand, which was stroking the photo, was full of calluses, making it hard to believe she was a lawyer.
“…Then I thought Incheon wouldn’t be safe anymore, so I decided to go down there. I feel bad for my ex-husband, though.”
“I see.”
Unlike New Seoul, it would be difficult for a lawyer to earn money as before in a neighborhood where Monsters were rampaging for three days and nights.
Judging by her shabby clothes, she probably hadn’t worked as a lawyer for almost a year and had been doing odd jobs. Then she ran out of money and was going to rely on her ex-husband.
“So…what brings you to New Seoul, student? Are you also evacuating?”
At Kim Sang-ah’s words, I told the background I had set up in advance.
“My cousin Unni works in New Seoul.”
“What about your parents?”
“…….”
“…I’m sorry. I misspoke.”
It was convenient that if I pretended to have a story, they would misunderstand on their own. Is this the power of a school uniform?
“But your hair color is very unique. Are you perhaps a Hero?”
Kim Sang-ah smiled brightly and tried to continue the conversation.
Well, she would. Anyone would be uneasy being alone in a shabby office that looked like it was straight out of a gangster movie. It might be that she was trying to ease that anxiety by chatting like this because I was there.
“It’s dyed.”
“Ah, I see. The color is the same as your eyebrows, so I thought you had awakened as a Hero. Princess Snow White’s hair is also the color of white snow.”
“I guess so.”
It’s a common story that the color of a Hero’s body hair changes under the influence of their power after awakening their abilities. Thanks to that, my blue hair was a bit noticeable, but not to the point of being particularly strange.
“Hero awakening.”
Grandpa Park mistook me for a Hero. The thought of registering as a Hero and becoming active briefly crossed my mind.
“Ah. Do you also want to become a Hero, student?”
“…It’s better to have power, after all. In this crazy world.”
Kim Sang-ah took a sip of green tea and nodded.
“That’s right. The world is no longer a place where everything can be solved with money like before. Do you know how Heroes are treated in the United States or Europe?”
“Human butchers managed by the state?”
I recited the same answer that the protagonist chose in the original story. Kim Sang-ah wagged her index finger with a condescending look.
“Idols. Superstars. Idols. Surpassing all of that, they are literally the ‘Heroes’ of humanity. You need to have a little more sensitivity.”
I almost argued, wondering why she was picking a fight with someone she had just met, but I held back.
“I guess so. Sensitivity.”
“That’s right. The more desolate the world is, the more we need to share love for humanity between people….”
“Excuse me. Can I ask you something?”
I deliberately interrupted Kim Sang-ah. Kim Sang-ah had a rather unpleasant look on her face, but I didn’t care at all and asked.
“How should I live as a person in this desolate world?”
“……That’s a really sudden question.”
When Kim Sang-ah fell into thought, I made the situation a little more specific.
“For example, like this. When all I have is my body, but the world is too hard to live in. How would you want to survive in this crazy world, Attorney?”
“Well. …It seems to coincide with my situation.”
Kim Sang-ah hugged her bundle with a self-deprecating look.
“If it were me, I wouldn’t care about the means or methods. I’d use any means to go through New Seoul and down to Busan. To where my daughter is.”
“……Hmm.”
“Ah. Just so you don’t misunderstand, I’m clearly saying that I’ll do it within the legal framework. Would I ever violate the law? I’m a lawyer, right?”
“I see.”
I turned my head to the window and closed my mouth. Kim Sang-ah seemed anxious and tried to talk to me, but I ignored her and kept my eyes on the window.
‘Without caring about the means or methods.’
Does that include committing inhumane crimes? I wanted to ask that outright, but I decided to hold back.
‘I’ll find out soon anyway.’
Kim Sang-ah and I silently waited for them in the office that the young men had led us to. Whether they were really a group of brokers going to New Seoul, or whether it would be the first case showing the dark side of this rotten world.
‘I don’t care either way.’
“Because I can just kill them all if they piss me off.”
“Pardon?”
“Ah, I was just talking to myself. Don’t worry about it.”
I waved my hand at the surprised Kim Sang-ah to reassure her. Kim Sang-ah was slowly scooting away from me on the sofa, widening the distance between us.
“So, the student is also an esper…?”
Bang.
The office door burst open. I glanced briefly at Kim Sang-ah, then smiled gently at the young men entering the door.
“I’ve been waiting.”
I really have.