Firing The Spines

“So you pushed all this morning’s appointments back to the afternoon.”
“…Sorry?”
“What are you planning to do with the morning? Ah — don’t tell me you’re going to sit and watch your first assigned Villain’s first deployment?”

The Team 5 office of Beyond Villain’s Strategic Analysis Office.

Assistant Manager Ko Hyeonsik came over with a beaming smile on his face. A man built like a bear who behaved like a fox. That smile of his was never particularly welcome. He gave my shoulder a couple of pats, as though he understood.

“I get how you feel. I was never like that myself, but every now and then one of the kids who came in as my junior would be.”
“…”
“It’s not as though the work is punishing anyway, so take it easy and watch. It’ll be starting soon — cheer her on properly.”
“Thank you.”
“Ah, and one more thing.”

— Plop.

He took a sheet of paper out of his jacket and set it down on my desk.

“That’s the letter-of-explanation form¹.”
“A letter of explanation…?”
“That’s right, a letter of explanation. Normally you’d never have cause to write one, but if a fight goes badly, the Combat Analysis and Evaluation Office goes through the causes with a fine-tooth comb. The documents you filled in yourself would probably go up along with it, Assistant Manager Im.”
“…”
“Well, you might end up writing one, so I’m just saying get familiar with it. Don’t let it spook you, all right? The first letter of explanation is fine. It’s the second and the third that are a problem.”

— Pap-pap.

Ko Hyeonsik patted my shoulder and walked straight out of the office. There was more spring in his step than usual, and I didn’t care for it. He had appointments booked first thing in the morning, and still he’d gone out of his way to come to my desk…

Keeping me in check? Or maybe he’s just being petty.

Whichever way I read it, the motive wasn’t a kind one. Going by Ko Hyeonsik’s usual conduct, the latter was the likelier of the two. Apparently it stuck in his craw that I’d ignored his advice and given Hedgehoggirl a combat consultation.

Guess he’s got nothing better to do.

I brushed off the shoulder he’d touched. He was still a man I couldn’t bring myself to like. Then again, I do wonder whether anyone who has survived this damned competition system has any choice but to end up that way.

— Clap!

Kwon Hyeri appeared, clapping her hands.

“It’s Wake-Up Call Villain time. Everyone start work, please.”

At the Team 5 leader’s word, the office stirred into motion. Over on the far side I caught sight of Yang Hayun hurrying past with an armful of documents. Our schedules hadn’t lined up lately, and it was a shame how little time I got to talk with her. Meeting up in the evening was out too, thanks to the bounty on my neck.

Maybe I should call her out to the bar in the company dormitory sometime.

Now that I’d made Assistant Manager, even Wake-Up Call Villain time left me with time on my hands. Villain management and consultation is my job, after all. And while I watched the office churn with all its heat and bustle, as though it were somebody else’s business, the breaking news I’d been waiting for finally came in.

I worked the remote and turned up the volume on the TV carrying the report. Hedgehoggirl, in a hedgehog-shaped mascot suit approved in advance by the Villain Costume Production Office. She bristled the spines that grew in place of her hair and glared around her.

“Th-this whole area is being taken over by Beyond Villain’s Hedgehog— Hedgehoggirl…!”

— Shunk-shunk-shunk!

She turned a somersault in the mascot suit, and spines buried themselves in the road. Bulky as that suit looked, it shielded her body from being hurt by the spines in her hair, and it gave her physical abilities a small boost besides.

Hedgehoggirl, occupying the commuter road and driving spines into everything around her. Her thoroughly flushed face looked as though embarrassment and excitement were living side by side on it.

After all my worrying about how passive she was, there she was carrying off the Villain role properly, better than I’d expected. I felt as though I finally understood how a parent feels watching a child let loose at the water’s edge.

The announcer’s face brightened all at once. A Hero, appearing in front of Hedgehoggirl. The Hero wore a skintight suit and held a whip made from transformed iron chain in one hand.

C-rank Hero Chain Blade!

The moment I saw that face, gooseflesh prickled up over my whole body. It was exactly as I’d seen it in the Future Observation.

I broke off from the news, picked up my tablet and went into the Hero Gamble site.

└ ah ffs of all the matchups it had to be Chain Blade
└ fr this ones a loss;
└ upvote if you also want that whip to rip the mascot suit clean off lolol
└ oh
└ …dude
└ hedgehog big sis please hang in there ;_;
└ its obvious Chain Blade is taking this, and the odds come out 2 to 1? how does that make sense
└ clueless. underdog bets are the tasty ones, thats just how it works

So public opinion has Chain Blade ahead.

Chain Blade was a ranged-attack specialist. On top of that, the Hero was famous for being merciless in a fight, hard enough on Villains making their first deployment that the nickname ‘the Villain Crusher’ had stuck.

…I’m betting.

In one week I’d grown three million won to more than three times that, and it had taken exactly two bets, both off Future Observations that had fired sporadically. I’d had nowhere to put a bet as it was, so this worked out well.

I pressed the ‘Yes’ button without hesitation. As a hedge against that one percent chance of something going wrong, I’d held back somewhere around four hundred thousand. There were more than two weeks left until the month-end evaluation, so even this much would be enough to fill the target amount.

Now, the only thing left: waiting for Hedgehoggirl to win.

“…”

But things went badly for Hedgehoggirl. She kept trying, somehow, to work her way in close enough to attack… Chain Blade, a seasoned C-rank Hero, never allowed it.

The reaction in the Hero Gamble comments was explosive too.

└ why wont the mascot suit come off why wont the mascot suit come off why wont the mascot suit come off
└ ugh you perv bastard ffs just die
└ what are you even expecting from a Hero you crazy bastard lolol
└ that ones just into crushing Villains
└ man this is painful just to watch;
└ no matter how you look at it isnt Chain Blade the Villain here?
└ ???: so, who’s the Villain now?
└ they spoon fed us this one, no morons put money on the underdog right lol

The odds are almost 3.

Bets on Hero Gamble can only be placed up to ten minutes after a fight starts, because a fight between a Hero and a Villain usually takes somewhere around thirty minutes.

From the start of the fight until now, Hedgehoggirl had done nothing but take a beating.

The Team 5 staff watching and analyzing the news noticed something was off, too.

“Hang on, isn’t that Villain one of ours?”
“Beyond Villain, all right. But why can’t she put any force behind it?”
“Scrawny thing like that… whose assignment is that, anyway?”
“Ah, don’t tell me…”

— Whisper-whisper—

I could feel the insinuation in the voices and the looks around me. People had caught on that Hedgehoggirl was my assignment.

“Two-rank promotion, they said — and sure enough, he isn’t ready yet.”
“What good is being good at Hero Gamble alone? You have to be good at the rest of it too.”
“Watching him work, he’ll be dropping back down in no time.”
“Shh, he’ll hear you.”

Blatant sneers and reproaches. They were the voices of people who wanted, more than anyone, to watch someone riding high in the competition fall.

The one exception was Yang Hayun, watching from far off with worry in her eyes. I gave her a smile, as if to say it was fine.

I believe in you. Hedgehoggirl…

I shut out the voices around me and watched nothing but the news.

Hedgehoggirl, curled in on herself, doing nothing but taking the whip. Chain Blade swung that whip without mercy, as though delighted by it.

And at some point, watching the arc of that swinging whip, I felt a sense of ‘déjà vu’. The whip, moving exactly as it had in a scene I’d seen before.

It came to a dead stop. Chain Blade stepped closer to Hedgehoggirl and muttered something. Immediately after, Hedgehoggirl’s spines burst out in every direction.

As Hedgehoggirl scattered her spines, the camera cut out and the screen switched to black. Even the camera watching from a distance had been hit by the spines.

The announcer wasn’t the only one startled.

“…Wh-what was that?”
“The camera’s out?”
“Huh?”
“What just happened? Did anyone see?”
“Don’t tell me…?”

Bewilderment spread through the voices of blame like ink through water. The fight had run exactly as I’d seen it in the Future Observation.

On the news screen the announcer cut their mic for a moment, spoke with someone off-camera, and cleared their throat.

The announcer went on with a grave expression.

The black screen switched to a different picture. The image quality was poor and the camera shook badly.

Belatedly, the announcer realized the picture had come back.

The Gangnam Station area on the phone screen was a wreck. Centered on the spot where Hedgehoggirl had stood, long spines covered the asphalt and the sidewalk.

And then…

The announcer couldn’t go on.

Chain Blade was embedded in the outer wall of a building, whole body twisted every which way, spines driven through all of it, like a broken robot stuffed and mounted.

…She won.

Thanks to a cameraman with a fierce sense of professional duty, I could tell for certain. Hedgehoggirl had beaten C-rank Hero Chain Blade.

And spectacularly, with the ranged attack I’d advised.

I opened Hero Gamble and checked the reaction right away.

└ nah holy shit she actually won this?
└ where did that finisher come from lolol
└ so it wasnt the mascot suit getting stripped it was Chain Blade getting stripped?
└ stuck in the wall like some kinda art piece what is this
└ quit lying there and get up you dumb bastard
└ yep the underdog is way too sweet, chalk-betting bastards got cut lolol

She did it…!

— Clench!

I gripped my trembling fist tight. I had believed in Hedgehoggirl, but I hadn’t managed to shake off that one percent of what-if anxiety. I felt grateful to her for pulling it off so splendidly.

“!”

Just then Team Leader Kwon Hyeri’s voice rang out across Strategic Analysis Office Team 5.

…A team leader calling for me in person the instant Hedgehoggirl’s fight ended.