A Beating Is The Cure

“…Excuse me.”
“Come in.”

— Gulp-gulp— Pah!

Kwon Hyeri greeted me midway through an energy drink she was downing in one go. For once she wasn’t wearing her usual look of a woman about to drop dead; something had put her in a good mood. She dumped the empty can on the desk and started leafing through a stack of documents.

“You bet another ten million won this time, I hear. On Hedgehoggirl.”
“…Yes, she is the Villain I’m assigned to, after all.”
“Chain Blade isn’t exactly an easy opponent, though.”

She wasn’t wrong. Chain Blade rarely loses. Rarely enough that the Hero Gamble boards had two names in circulation for that Hero, ‘safe asset’ and ‘the Villain Crusher’. Even inside the Strategic Analysis Office there couldn’t have been many people willing to bet on a Chain Blade loss.

“I got lucky.”
“All in with a bare four hundred thousand won left over, and it was luck. Right.”
“…”
“How interesting.”

The corner of Kwon Hyeri’s mouth crooked upward. Whatever that was, it surely hadn’t been meant as a smile.

She rummaged through a file and let a single sheet of paper drop with a flick. The combat consultation report I’d written.

“It was interesting. Hardly anyone runs a consultation this way.”
“This way, meaning…”
“I definitely said this in the team leader’s office, right before you made Assistant Manager. That Villain consultation, Villain management, all of it — in the end it’s all window dressing.”

I nodded faintly. She had said exactly that while walking me through the work an Assistant Manager has to do. Hero Gamble is the main event in the end, and an Assistant Manager’s work is an extension of it.

“That was a lie, actually.”
“…Sorry?”
“A barefaced lie, that.”

The corner of Kwon Hyeri’s mouth climbed higher. Like a child who’d just pulled off a good prank.

“Think about it. What kind of company ours is.”
“Beyond Villain…”
“Let me ask you, Assistant Manager Im. Is our company a Villain company? Or a Hero Gamble company?”
“…!”

My eyes flew wide.

That’s true… this isn’t an internet gambling company.

Hero Gamble is nothing more than a means of making money; Beyond Villain is unmistakably a Villain organization. An organization that has to recruit Villains, manage them, and build itself up. So what becomes of a man in a place like that who puts the Hero Gamble side business first and neglects the Villain management that actually matters?

“Assistant Manager Ko Hyeonsik is too stupid to have worked it out. He thinks the reason he’s a perpetual Assistant Manager is simply that his gambling is garbage.”
“…”
“When the truth is the exact opposite. Funny, isn’t it? Assistant Manager Ko Hyeonsik has held on this long precisely because he’s good at the gambling.”

— Nudge.

She pushed the empty energy drink can off the desk with one finger.

“Because if his Hero Gamble numbers had come in below expectations, he’d have been cut on the spot.”

The can rolled across the floor and came to a stop against the toe of my shoe. The feel of it raised gooseflesh all over me, for no reason I could name.

If I had thrown the Villains aside like Assistant Manager Ko Hyeonsik and buried myself in nothing but Hero Gamble…

That means I’d have been fired myself, sooner or later.

A system that fuses Hero Gamble with performance-first management, and hides the essence behind it. And those who never grasp that essence, who sink into the dopamine of the gambling, are never promoted.

…Whoever built Beyond Villain’s structure was a Villain, no question. Otherwise a system this cruel would never have seen the light of day.

“That’s what I was curious about, so I called you in. Whether you’d seen through to the essence or not… Well, from your reaction, it doesn’t look like you had.”
“…”
“It doesn’t matter, though. So long as you ended up close to the essence… Congratulations.”

Kwon Hyeri dropped one more sheet of paper.

Ten million won had swollen into twenty-nine million. Set against the three million won I’d started with, a return rate pushing close to ten times over. And there was still a full half of the month to run before the next month-end evaluation.

“Keep at it. Carry on the way you are and you’ll probably be promoted again in no time.”
“…Thank you for thinking so well of me.”
“You may go.”

I bobbed my head in a bow and stepped out of the team leader’s office. Somewhere along the way, the electric thrill of Hedgehoggirl’s win had gone cold and settled. It felt like noticing, far too late, that someone had been resting a sharp blade against my throat.

Don’t let your guard down.

I can see the future. What I can’t see is the reality I’m standing in. The Hedgehoggirl consultation had been the product of coincidence and nothing else, and I hadn’t seen through to the ‘essence’ she spoke of in the slightest. One round of attention at the month-end evaluation and I’d gotten far too full of myself.

Taking myself to task, I got into the elevator. Time to clear the consultations I’d been pushing back.

“T-t-today — did you watch my fight?!”
“Sorry? Ah… yes, I did make time to watch.”

— Sway-sway.

The long spines that grew in place of her hair swung from side to side. Hedgehoggirl, eyes shining from the moment she stepped into the meeting room. She poured out everything she’d wanted to say in a rush, as though she’d been holding it in all this time.

“I won. I actually won…! And the ranged attack you told me about, it somehow, somehow worked, and…”
“Let’s calm down first.”
“H-how did you know? I didn’t even know I could fire my spines at will… It’s really like magic.”
“Haha…”

I laughed awkwardly at her question. Telling her the truth, that I’d seen it in the future, wasn’t an option. So I dressed it up as something plausible.

“The thing about a Gift is that imagination matters enormously.”
“I-imagination…”
“If you imagine it will work, it actually comes true. Of course, it’s such an absurd thing to say that you might not believe it…”
“I believe you!”

— Wham!

She planted her hands on the meeting-room table and shot to her feet.

“…Sorry?”
“N-no, that’s not — I b-b-believe you… What you said, Taeseung.”

Her face went red in an instant and she sat back down. Disconcerting, yes, but there was something good about watching so many different feelings run across her face. Her trust in me had probably gone up a notch, and she’d opened up to me a little. Small as that was, I felt grateful for it, and rather proud.

“Keep up the good work as a Villain from here on. You’ll go from strength to strength, Hedgehoggirl — I’m sure of it!”
“Th-thank you… Um… will you w-watch my next deployment too?”
“Of course.”
“…”

She fiddled with her spines and dropped her head low.

Hedgehoggirl’s next deployment is about a month away. They can go out every two weeks if they want, but once a month is the norm, apparently. In company terms, that means coming in to work once a month. Beyond Villain has so many Villains on its books that it amounted to an ultra-luxury benefits package.

Of course, that means training in between to match.

Beyond Villain has all sorts of departments besides the Combat Analysis and Evaluation Office and the Villain Planning and Management Office. One of them, if I remember rightly, is a Training Support Office. Its work, exactly as the name says, would be managing the training rooms so the Villains on the books can get in every kind of training they need.

“Um… you said you w-watched my fight. How did it look to you…?”
“Yes — as it happens, I’m about to run the combat feedback consultation now.”
“Yes…! I’m ready.”

Hedgehoggirl and I went back and forth over the last fight. The result was a win, but she’d been on the losing end of it all the way through the middle stretch, and if the mascot suit hadn’t handled her defense for her she might well have come away seriously injured. By the time the feedback was finished, her spines were hanging limp.

“I got so excited about having won… I never even thought about my own mistakes…”
“It was your first deployment. Winning at all means you did well.”
“I-is that so?”
“Then we’ll wrap up the combat feedback there. Is there anything else you’d like to ask?”
“Ah…”

Hedgehoggirl’s eyes wavered left and right. Was there something she wanted to say? She kept her mouth shut tight, turning something over, and in the end shook her head slowly.

“…Um, nothing.”
“Then I’ll see you next week.”
“Ah… U-um!”
“Yes?”

Hedgehoggirl called out to me just as I took hold of the door handle.

“Um… n-not Hedgehoggirl…”
“Er… your Villain name?”
“I w-wondered whether you could call me by my n-name… i-instead.”
“Your name…”

Her spines stirred and bristled. Nerves written all over her.

I called up the name I’d seen in her file. It had been unusual enough that I’d remembered it.

“Wi Seona… that’s right, isn’t it?”¹
“!!!”
“Is it not?”
“Th-th-that’s right!”
“Then may I call you that from now on?”
“Y-yes… Ah, and can I call you T-Taeseung…?”
“Of course.”
“Ah, th-thank yuh. Ah, I b-bit my tongue…”

I gave her a soft smile, watching all those expressions chase one another across her face. Every other Villain is too busy snapping at me or making threats. Watching her, though, was healing, and I don’t think there’s another word for it.

I waved to Hedgehoggirl, whose face had gone scarlet with the shame of biting her tongue, and left the meeting room.

“What’s the occasion? Taeseung, offering to buy the drinks first!”
“I got promoted and then got too busy to talk to you properly about any of it.”
“That’s because you’re never in the office! I’ve been lonely all by myself.”

After clocking out, I went drinking with Yang Hayun. The idea was to catch up with her properly at the barbecue place we’d been to before. I’d meant to buy her a round to celebrate the promotion, but learning the job had left me no time for it.

“How’s the Team 4 work going?”
“I’ve gotten a bit more used to it. Which means more time for Hero Gamble.”
“Oh yeah? Sounds like you’ve been making a lot.”
“It’s nothing next to you, obviously… but I’ve already hit my target.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Everything I make from here is my performance bonus.”

She flashed a V with her fingers and grinned.

Hitting the target amount in under two weeks meant there was next to no chance of her being let go. Next month she might well be promoted to Senior Staff.

“Congratulations in advance, Senior Staff Yang.”
“Assistant Manager Im, what’s got into you~”
“…Pfft.”
“Don’t laugh! I thought it sounded weird myself as soon as I’d said it, but that’s mean!”
“Sorry, sorry.”

The time flew by as we talked and grilled meat. She unpacked her whole bundle of stories as though she’d been waiting for exactly this moment. One of Team 4’s Senior Staff had been caught talking about me behind my back; the Team 4 leader had called her in privately to tell her she was doing well; and so on…

I told her about Hedgehoggirl in return.

“I’m grateful for how well she takes to me. The combat advice worked, so she’s opened up to me more than before, I suppose you’d say.”
“…Is that so?”
“Yeah — she asked me to call her by her name instead of her Villain name next time we meet. Her name’s Wi Seona.”
“…Right.”
“Sorry — was that a boring story?”
“No, it’s not that…”

— Steady.

Yang Hayun kept shooting me searching looks. Had there been something odd in what I’d just said? Or maybe it had simply been too much shop talk to be interesting. Or maybe, from where she sat, hearing an Assistant Manager go on about his work came off as showing off.

“Anyway, that’s enough about work. It’s getting dark, so we should get you home before it turns dangerous—”
“Bit late for that, I’d say… hurk… pal?”
“…?”

— Thud.

A thick fist came down on the bottle-stacked table. I turned my head a little and found myself looking at the owner of a face every bit as villainous as Scorpion’s. A muscular body swaying on its feet, and the smell of alcohol rolling off it.

“You’re the guy, right? Fifty-mil bounty… Khehehe, never thought you’d be in a place like— hurk —this. Hit the jackpot here.”
“…I’m with the Beyond Villain company. You’ll be in serious trouble if you lay a hand on me.”
“Beyond Villain?! Ha, what am I supposed to do about that? What, are you— hurgh —bragging or something?”

A punk letting out one foul belch after another, like a man three sheets to the wind.

Something Scorpion had said flicked through my head. That a Beyond Villain employee badge couldn’t guarantee your safety.

“Taeseung… sh-should I call a security robot? We’re still near the company, so if we call one…”
“Haah!? Call what? The cops?! You wanna die?”
“Eek…”

— Thud!

The Villain, hammering the table with his fist and making threats. The owner glanced over, and so did the other Villains, and that was as far as any of them cared to take it. The last time I’d come to this place, petty scuffles between Villains had been let go the same way.

In that case—
First punch wins.

— Vrrr—!!

The WD-401 layered under my suit kicked in, and a surge of exhilaration wound through my whole body. My physical abilities leapt, and everything around me looked as though it had dropped into slow motion.

The Villain threatening Yang Hayun; Yang Hayun with her shoulders pulled right in, shaking; the meat burning on the grill and the bottle sitting beside it.

“If you’re going to get drunk, get drunk quietly.”
“What? Are you telling me to—”

The Villain never got the sentence out.

— Crash—!

“Gyaaaargh!!”

Quick as lightning I’d swung a bottle up and smashed it over the bastard’s skull. Him sprawled on the floor with a wet slap, clutching a head running with blood.

I set down what was left of the bottle, no more than the neck now, and picked up another empty one.

“Sobering up yet?”

Throughout history, for a bum who’d gotten drunk and turned into a dog, a beating was the cure.