Big Sis Knows Everything, You Know?

“Jangwoo, hand me that energy drink can over there.”
“…Here you are. Senior.”

— Clunk.

The energy drink landed on my desk. I cracked open the can and tipped it back, and the cold ran down my throat. Maybe it was because Hong Jangwoo had been the one to hand it over, but it tasted twice as sweet.

Seeing this sort of thing, I’ll admit he really is an elite.

I stole a sidelong glance at the seat beside me. One of Hong Jangwoo’s legs had turned into an octopus’s, and now one arm had changed into a lizard’s on top of that; he worked the keyboard with it as deftly as if it had always been his. He had skipped denial, anger, bargaining and depression outright, and gone straight to acceptance of the reality he was in.

A shame for Hong Jangwoo, but the mood’s changed since that day.

I got up quietly and made a circuit of the Villain Research Office. Inside the lab, researchers in coats stood talking with serious faces, and the hopefuls who had applied to become Villains were eagerly pitching ideas of their own; from the way one of them kept flapping his arms, he was asking for wings. Next door in the attached office, Hong Jangwoo and the rest of the staff sat hard at work on their computers. Early on, Director Amos’s sudden outbursts had kept everyone strung to the limit…

That’s all down to results.

— Tromp-tromp.

I headed for the one private room inside the TF team’s space.

The most important thing at this damned Beyond Villain: results. Now that it looked as if those results could be met, everyone’s morale was up, naturally enough. And the key figure who swung those results one way or the other was right inside this room.

“Director Amos, I’ve brought the chocolate snacks you mentioned.”
“Yay! I been drawin’ sooper hard this whole time!”
“I always look forward to your pictures, Director.”
“Hee-hee-hee! You can look forward to it!”

I looked at her picture with a smile.

“Is it a chicken?”
“S’not a chicken!! It’s a velociraptor, duh! Look properly!”
“Ah.”

What she had brought this time was a velociraptor with wings. …Velociraptors don’t have wings to begin with, do they? As I stood staring doubtfully at those wings, Amos spoke up.

“Flyin’ feels good! An’ wings make ya look cool! Like a eagle!”
“Hmm… then how about this? If we hardened the wing feathers like steel and made it able to fire them off…”
“Oooh!! Fun! Fun!”

Humoring her the way you would any child, I nudge Amos in a slightly more useful direction. When she turns my suggestion down, all I have to do is show her a striking photo or video; a small child is easily swayed by whatever vivid thing sits right in front of her eyes.

“Then I’ll do it this way!”
“Understood. And… I’ll be stepping out for a moment.”
“Why! Where’re ya goin’ ‘stead of playin’ with me!”
“The Strategic Analysis Office’s Team 5 leader has sent for me.”
“Uuugh… ya gotta buy me somethin’ tasty on the way back, ’kay?”
“Of course. I’ll be back shortly.”

I left Director Amos and went to meet the Team 5 leader. It wasn’t a stopgap excuse thrown together to get away from her, either. Kwon Hyeri had summoned me herself, by phone.

I’ve got a rough idea what it’s about.

In the elevator I switched my phone on for a moment. A search for ‘Liger Villain’ brought a flood of posts from every community site, and from the portals besides.

Title: Liger Villain << what’s this guy’s deal?

(photo of the Liger Villain transformed into a wild beast)

why’s this guy the one transforming and not the hero lolol

└ ah its phase 2 lol
└ a phase 2 boss is facts tho;
└ it does look damn cool tho
└ prolly cause its shittiger and kinglion mixed together
└ cut the shit lion-mutt
└ if hes beating speedgirl too isnt he basically A-rank?
└ villains been no fun to watch lately but honestly im into this guy
└ beyond villain << upvote if theyre livin up to the name lolol
└ upvoting through tears

And the reaction’s good.

A rising star had appeared in a Villain industry that had become as everyday as a public-transport strike, and Beyond Villain’s corporate image had climbed along with him. There was no way Kwon Hyeri had called me in to discipline me.

— Knock-knock.

“Im Taeseung, Team 5.”
“Come in.”

Kwon Hyeri, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, still looked steeped in exhaustion. But if there was one change… a faint smile had settled on her face as she looked at me.

“I heard. They say you pulled something off over at the TF team.”
“I’m only doing my best at the duties I’ve been given.”
“It looked like rather more than your best.”

— Flick.

A single sheet slipped from Kwon Hyeri’s fingers and landed precisely at my feet. The report laid out the ripple effects the Liger Villain alone had produced.

“Search volume for Beyond Villain is up, and so is the number of new sign-ups to Hero Gamble, one of this company’s main revenue streams.”
“…”
“With Superior and Villain Corporation both quiet, we’ve reaped a great deal of the benefit.”

Superior had been pouring its energy into magazines and internet broadcasts lately. Even when its people did go out on Villain activity, the outing amounted to half a fan meeting. If that was the direction a Villain organization wanted to take, then fair enough, I supposed. Superior’s Villains topped out at B-rank, and that was judging generously.

“Well, so much for small talk… you’ve made another interesting bet, I see.”
“A bet?”
“I’ve never seen anyone who’d made Deputy Manager go all in. And not as a last desperate throw, either — on his very first bet.”

— Plop.

Another single sheet came down.

One bet had not only cleared the target amount, it had left me 3,840,000 won in profit on top of it. With more than two weeks still to go until the next month-end evaluation, I had already filled my quota.

“I got lucky.”
“You go all in on luck alone? On a Villain your own TF team developed, no less?”
“I trusted my team members. And I trusted the Villain my team members researched and developed themselves.”

“…”

Kwon Hyeri looked at me like I was some kind of oddity. As though she knew that wasn’t all there was to it. She was the one who broke the awkward silence.

“Well, let’s leave it at that. You’ve got off to a fine start… so see it through properly for me.”
“Thank you for thinking well of me.”
“The TF team will most likely be dissolved at the next month-end evaluation. I’ll be counting on you until then.”
“Understood.”
“You may go.”

I ducked my head in a bow and slipped out of the team leader’s office.

Until the next month-end evaluation, then…

About two or three weeks from now. Short if you called it short, long if you called it long. Time enough and to spare to unveil four or five more Villains born of Amos’s power to the world. Inside that span, the TF team had to produce results.

Not difficult.

My steps back to the TF team were lighter than they had ever been.

— Kaboom—!!

With a violent explosive noise, the front door of a private home was blown apart.

“Boss, go easy. Easy.”
“There’s nobody here anyway, so what does it matter.”

— Click-clack.

A woman in a racing suit and high heels stepped over the half-shattered front door. Her name was Cha Huigyeong. Known to the world as the B-rank Hero Speedgirl. The home she had forced her way into was a studio so small it was a stretch to call it a home at all.

“Ugh, the smell. Looks like he hasn’t been back once since that day.”

A somewhat flippant-looking man tagged along behind Cha Huigyeong. Baggy pants, a loose T-shirt, a beanie on top. Street fashion itself. Most distinctive of all, he held a yo-yo in one hand and worked it without a moment’s rest.

“Just keep watch outside. This won’t take long.”
“Sorry? But you don’t know what might be in there, so let me come with—”
“Yoyoboy.”

Cha Huigyeong’s razor-edged glare turned on him.

“I’m the Hero and you’re the sidekick.”
“…”
“You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”

Hero and sidekick.

Originally the word means an assistant, but the Hero industry uses it a little differently. Before you become a Hero outright, you serve at a Hero’s side and your qualities are assessed. That was the Hero Association’s ‘sidekick system’. Put the other way around, a sidekick had to do as the Hero said.

“Fine. I said fine. Don’t look at me like that, Boss.”
“…Just keep watch outside. This won’t take long.”
“Yes, yes.”

Yoyoboy waited outside the front door, playing with his yo-yo. A sulky face, as though he’d taken offense.

Cha Huigyeong paid it no mind and went deep into the studio. There was a murderous edge in her eyes.

Everything went sideways because of that bastard Im Taeseung…

From the moment he slipped out of her surveillance net, Cha Huigyeong’s life had gone downhill. It began with losing Im Taeseung, ‘the one she was keeping’. Then, hooked by the fake message he’d sent, she lost a fight she should have won. That got her marked by the Hero Association’s ‘upstairs’, and the promotion she had originally been slated for was postponed. And then she had gone and racked up a second straight loss, beaten by some joke of a creature called the Liger Villain.

I have to find Im Taeseung, at the very least.

If she was to recover her original standing, she had to find Im Taeseung. That was why she had raided his home. And since she had simply smashed the door in and barged through without a detention warrant, she naturally needed a sidekick posted to keep watch.

“…He really hasn’t been back once.”

The room was lived-in enough that you could believe someone had been there until moments ago. But food waste left to sit had the stench rolling through the place, and insects swarmed. Proof that he hadn’t come home in at least a few weeks. She went through the place with a fine-tooth comb on the chance there was some clue, but nothing turned up.

“Fuck!”

— Whump.

She kicked the innocent bed. She hadn’t come this far to learn nothing, and she had to find something, whatever it took. What ability Im Taeseung had awakened, and where he had gone…

“This…?”

What caught her eye then was the computer.

— Flash!

She switched it on just in case, and luckily there was no password. Hoping for something, she dug through its records, but the folders sitting on it turned up nothing meaningful.

“Beyond… Villain?”

The name Beyond Villain, left vivid in Im Taeseung’s search history.

A scene from the past flashed before her eyes. The day Im Taeseung ran. She remembered a mysterious woman holding a phone screen up to her.

“Why am I only remembering that now? Idiot!”

The blurred memory of that day came back sharp. Im Taeseung had gone with a figure called ‘Beyond Villain, Director Belia’. Which meant that if she went to Beyond Villain herself, there was a good chance she would find him.

“Taeseung, Big Sis knows everything, you know?”

The corners of Cha Huigyeong’s mouth twisted upward.