Belia

“…What the hell are you plotting?”

I fiddled with the business card Belia had given me. Printed on the jet-black card: the department name ‘Beyond Villain, Strategic Analysis Office,’ and my own name spelled out in full, ‘Im Taeseung.’

Belia gave me an unhurried smile.

“I have been watching you for a long while. You, who did nothing but burn through the money Cha Huigyeong gave you, are suddenly showing results at Hero Gamble… You must surely have come into a Gift that accounts for it.”

“…”

“And there I saw possibility. The Gift held by the son of an A-rank Hero… surely it is no ordinary Gift.”

I fought to keep my poker face. If she knew even about my relationship with Cha Huigyeong… she really had been watching me from before I ever logged in to Hero Gamble?

Belia slipped the card out of my frozen hand and tapped the words ‘Strategic Analysis Office’ with her index finger.

“The Strategic Analysis Office is the department that analyzes Heroes and Villains of every stripe. It exists in order to make Villains who surpass Heroes.”

“…You’re telling me to join a Villain organization?”

“Hoo-hoo. Precisely so. Should you enter the Strategic Analysis Office and produce fine results… I shall unwrap the secret of your father’s death for you, a little at a time, as your reward.”

“Why would I…”

“For your information, the operation and management of Hero Gamble is handled by the Strategic Analysis Office as well. Well, then? Does that whet your appetite a little?”

If the question was whether my appetite was whetted or not, then yes. It was whetted.

If I could learn the secret tangled up in my father’s death…

Her choice of words was unpleasant, but she wasn’t wrong. Every avenue that stayed inside the bounds of the law had been blocked. Buried under the Hero Association’s power and its money. Maybe the only way left to me… was to join hands with a Villain.

But would my father really want that?

Unlike other Heroes, my father was rarely the subject of scandal. He ran himself ragged night and day rather than allow so much as one casualty… He was the kind of man who was more Hero than the Heroes.

This isn’t the same as just taking part in Hero Gamble.

Betting on Hero Gamble and joining a Villain organization are on completely different levels. Plenty of ordinary people play Hero Gamble too, but joining a Villain organization means, in practice, siding with the Villains. And with Hero Gamble in particular, not a single won of my own money was in play, so in a way I was taking their money off them.

However badly I wanted to dig into my father’s death, was joining a Villain organization really the right thing to do? Wouldn’t what I was doing amount to spitting in my father’s face instead?

Thoughts crossed and re-crossed until my head ran hot.

“That is the face of a man with a great deal on his mind.”

“…You’re telling me to betray my father.”

“Come now. Was it not the Association that betrayed him first? Your father was a true Hero. And it was the Hero Association that filed that death away as unexplained.”

“Fine, the Hero Association’s trash. I’ll give you that much.”

Just thinking about the Hero Association was enough to make my blood boil. They had worked harder than anyone to bury my father’s death, and… hiring an actual law firm to whittle down the death benefit had drained away the last of my affection for them.

“But that doesn’t make every Hero trash. There’s my father, and Big Sis Huigyeong… there are plenty of Heroes who aren’t like that.”

“…Hmm.”

My father goes without saying, but in my own heart I respect Cha Huigyeong too. Buying me a meal every week for years and handing me money on top of it can’t have been an easy call.

But at my words, Belia’s smile deepened.

“Do you truly believe that?”

“Yeah.”

“Hoo-hoo. How amusing. Then let us do this.”

She raised her index finger.

“One month exactly. I shall grant you one month. I will leave a message waiting on Hero Gamble, so press the button in it whenever you please. I shall come to you at once.”

“And if the month passes and I never come looking for you?”

“Such confidence is a fine thing.”

— Snaaap!

She flicked her fingers, a knowing smile on her lips.

“I shall await the day we meet again in this place, before long.”

“Wait…”

The instant Belia finished speaking, the space around me rippled. Sight, touch, the beat of my heart. All of it had felt real… don’t tell me this had been a virtual space? Before I could finish the thought, the whole place started coming apart.

Belia’s mouth, faded now to a blur, moved one last time.

“Whatever your Gift may be, I shall turn a blind eye to your coveting our pot. Watching how long that paltry power of yours holds up will be an entertainment in itself.”

Before I could answer a word, the space collapsed completely.

“…Haaah!”

When I opened my eyes again, I was back home. Half-eaten jokbal, my phone lying where it had fallen, the cold floor. I turned the phone on with shaking hands; time had passed, at any rate.

A Gift this broken actually exists?

I was still dumbfounded. Yanking a person in from far away, by force, to stand right in front of you. …Is this the sort of thing you have to be able to do before they make you a Director of a Villain organization?

Villain organizations really are dangerous.

I wiped the cold sweat off my forehead. One brush with a Villain organization had been enough to teach me something.

A place like that would be crawling with monsters on Belia’s level. Against that, an ability like Future Observation was far too tempting a piece of prey. Dragged in there without a single defensive power to my name, I’d be a dead man on the spot.

Should I quit Hero Gamble too…

If I was enough of a talking point to be trending on the forums, my information could start circulating before long. Since the operator was a Villain organization, the data probably wouldn’t leak that easily. Still, you never know.

Just as I was about to go ahead and withdraw, the last thing Belia had said circled back into my ears.

“I shall overlook Hero Gamble money up to a billion won. Withdraw more than that… and even I cannot simply stand by.”

…Not a won more, not a won less. Let’s put together exactly a billion.

After some deliberation, I left the withdraw button alone. A Director of a Villain organization had handed me the billion-won guideline in person, after all. I would earn exactly a billion and get out.

A few days later.

I looked at my Hero Gamble account balance and smiled.

A billion, right in front of my nose… Let’s stop here.

In exactly one bet I’d turned fifty million won into a billion. An absurd figure, when the starting stake had been ten thousand won.

The forums were running hot about it, too.

Title: so what’s the deal with 107 the GOAT?

numbers like this make no sense unless the guy has a future-prediction Gift lol

└ does a Gift like that even exist?

└ never been a single reported case so far tho

└ isn’t it just a fluke run

└ dumbass, could YOU fluke your way to money 10+ times straight? he shoved his whole net worth in every time too lol

└ if a Gift like that existed the Association and the Villains would both be tearing the place apart looking for him lol

└ facts lol

└ yeah no question

└ but a guy who supposedly has future powers and what he does with it is Hero Gamble lol

└ lolololol

└ he made bank tho. have a drink

└ last I checked his return rate was like 90,000 or something.

└ what the fuck lol

└ that’s a bug fr;

…Feels good and makes me nervous at the same time.

Being the talk of the town is a thrill. It means a lot of people have their eyes on me. And at the same time it frightened me, because the comments were right. Future Observation was a Gift anyone would lose their mind over.

Let’s withdraw just ten million for now.

I pulled ten million won out of Hero Gamble. I checked my real-world account right away, and the money really had landed. Not a dream, not a hallucination. Ten million won, real cash, in my hands.

Pull out too much and someone might think it’s strange.

Hero Gamble is illegal gambling, plain and simple. Take out a sum like a hundred million in one go and of course I’d get busted. For now I’d draw it a little at a time, as I needed it, and grow the pile that way.

While I was thinking that.

— Vrrr!

“…A call?”

My phone was ringing. There shouldn’t have been anyone with a reason to call me. Don’t tell me somebody had found out I’d gambled my way to ten million won?

“…Big Sis Huigyeong?”

Thankfully it wasn’t the bank or the National Tax Service. I let out a breath of relief and picked up.

“Hello.”

“Yeah, Taeseung. You doing all right?”

“Yes… What are you calling about?”

“Nothing much — something’s come up for me this weekend, so could we maybe meet this evening instead?”

“Uh… should we?”

“Great. I’ll pin the place for you, so come there. Big Sis is buying you something delicious and expensive today.”

“Okay.”

— Click.

The call ended quickly. Conversations with Cha Huigyeong never ran long to begin with. Because I was deliberately putting up a wall from my side.

Today, though…?

Being unemployed, I had nothing scheduled, so it made no difference to me either way. But Cha Huigyeong moving the day was unexpected enough that it nagged at me. We always met on the weekend, and not once until now had she stepped outside that.

“Well… whatever. I’ve got something to tell her anyway.”

One way or another, I was in Cha Huigyeong’s debt. Now that I had money, I could just tell her I’d found work somewhere. Years of buying me meals and handing me money. It was about time that stopped.

And at that moment.

“…Ngh!”

Along with that feeling of something lodged in my eyes I still hadn’t gotten used to, the ‘future’ began to show itself in front of me.

What I saw inside a ‘Future Observation’ that had started with no warning at all…

…was Cha Huigyeong’s face, watching me coldly.

…What was that future I saw?

In the taxi, riding to the address Cha Huigyeong had pinned for me. The future I’d observed wouldn’t leave my head.

The woman who never lost her smile no matter what I said or did… was glaring at me, wearing an expression I had never once seen on her.

“We’ve arrived.”

“Ah, yep. Thank you.”

— Vroom—

I got out of the taxi and looked up at the building. A high-rise in the middle of Seoul. Today’s meeting place was a high-end restaurant inside it, the kind of place I’d never once been to in my life.

…Why call me out here?

The Cha Huigyeong I knew picked a cheap snack place near my apartment, or the pork cutlet shop. And she was calling me out somewhere this palatial?

The sense of wrongness didn’t stop there.

“Ah, Taeseung! Sorry. Long trip out here, wasn’t it? There was a Hero Association banquet just nearby today, see.”

“Ah… yeah. It’s fine.”

“I ordered the course menu ahead of time. Big Sis is paying, so don’t you worry about the price~”

Cha Huigyeong greeted me with a smile outside the high-end restaurant. The banquet story didn’t seem to be a lie. She was in a dress, and it didn’t suit her at all.

We sat down, and before the waiter could even come over, she asked me something.

“Taeseung, hey — something good’s been happening lately, hasn’t it?”

“…Sorry?”

“You might not notice it yourself, Taeseung, but your face looks great these days. Your complexion, your build… Or did you start working out or something?”

“It’s nothing like that.”

“Aw, come on, it is something. One look and I can tell you’ve changed a lot. Tell Big Sis and only Big Sis. Hm? Big Sis can tell everything, you know? Did you get a job or something?”

“…”

She pressed on, asking about this and that until it started to feel dogged. All I could do was smile vaguely and dodge every answer. There was no way I could tell a B-rank Hero I’d made my money off something illegal.

Does it show that much?

I caught myself touching my own face for no reason. I’d never thought of myself as having a very expressive face, so how was she reading me this well? …Or had she simply picked up on the change naturally, after years of seeing me?

“Ah, sorry, I’ve got a call… You go ahead and eat, Taeseung.”

“Okay.”

Cha Huigyeong picked up her phone and left the table.

The course was well along and I couldn’t remember the taste of a single dish. Between the endless barrage of questions, I couldn’t have told you whether the food was going into my mouth or up my nose. It didn’t help that everyone else was in a suit or a dress shirt and I was the only one in everyday clothes.

…When she’s done with the call and comes back, let’s leave right away.

She had turned so suddenly different that I still hadn’t managed to say my piece. But today was the last day I’d be meeting her, all the same. I’d made money; there was no need to cling to her any longer. Today the curtain came down on our awkward relationship as well.

Maybe I’ll go to the bathroom.

— Scrape.

I got up from my seat and headed for the bathroom. Maybe it was because I’d started eating the moment I got out of the taxi, but my stomach wasn’t feeling great.

High-end place that it was, there was a fairly long corridor to walk, and just as I was about to step inside…

“Yes. I still haven’t gotten an answer to the question.”

“…?”

A familiar voice, right at the moment I was about to go in. The emergency exit door beside the bathroom stood half open. And I knew who that voice belonged to.

…Big Sis Huigyeong?

The hem of a dress, visible through the gap in the emergency exit door. No mistake. The person talking with someone inside that stairwell was Cha Huigyeong. Not a conversation, probably; she’d be taking a call.

I let it go at that and was about to head in…

“It seems Im Taeseung has no intention of opening his mouth.”

“!”

“Yes. Shall I try approaching this a different way?”

Cha Huigyeong’s voice came out flat and dry, and my feet stopped. …Im Taeseung. That was me, wasn’t it? Who was on the other end of that call, and why was my name coming up?

Then the dress visible through the gap moved.

“Yes. I’ll make the attempt right away.”

— Click-clack.

The emergency exit, opening along with the sound of heels.

The look in Cha Huigyeong’s eyes as they settled on me was cold. I felt a sense of wrongness in her face. The scene I’d seen through Future Observation was unfolding right in front of me now.

“Saves me the trouble of coming to find you.”

“…B-Big Sis Huigyeong?”

“How much did you hear? …Ah, I suppose it doesn’t matter now. The acting ends today anyway.”

— Shff.

She held her phone screen out to me. On it, an account holding ten million won and a few hundred thousand besides, and an account number I knew well. It was the balance of the bank account I mainly used.

“The ten million won that went into your account — where did this come from?”

She asked it with a soft, spreading smile.