A New Test Subject

“Good to see you, Im Taeseung. We’ve met a few times, haven’t we?”
“…”
“Though every one of those times you had a face on you like you’d been chewing shit.”

— Whirrr— Whirrr—

Yoyoboy chewed his gum and kept the yo-yo spinning. At a glance the silver thing turning between his fingers looked like nothing much, but I knew perfectly well the Hero Association had made it to order. Even the string was more than an ordinary sword could cut.

“Why aren’t you answering?”
“…We’ve met.”
“Hah. Talking down to me?”
“You’re doing the exact same thing.”
“Well, true enough. This is fun. And that snotty look in your eyes hasn’t changed a bit either.”

— Ptoo.

He spat out the gum he’d been chewing. The whole sequence of movements read closer to a street punk than a Hero, and it matched the personality I remembered.

Cha Huigyeong used to have a meal with me every weekend, and it wasn’t always just the two of us. Now and then she brought her sidekick along.

It’d be stranger if I didn’t remember him. Not when he squared off against me that openly.

Every time we met he made a point of being difficult with me, enough that Cha Huigyeong would pull a troubled face and hold him back. Back then I’d wondered what his problem was. Now I thought I had a rough idea why.

“Did Cha Huigyeong send you?”
“…You’ve got the nerve to say that name to me? You dare?”
“Why wouldn’t I. It’s not as if…”

I shrugged and looked at him.

“You’re just the errand boy Cha Huigyeong is fond of.”
“You little bastard…!”

— Whirrr—!!

The words were barely out before Yoyoboy moved. I’d gotten right under his skin, then. I planted myself in front of Yang Hayun to shield her and gave the switch inside my suit a light press.

— Vrrr!

A mechanical vibration running down my spine. It synced with my heartbeat and pumped explosive strength through my whole body, and I used it to grab Yang Hayun around the waist and throw us both straight backward.

“Hold on tight!”
“Kyaaah!”

— Kaboom!!

The asphalt caved into a hollow and debris sprayed up. Was the lunatic actually planning to kill me? I set Yang Hayun down and shoved her back.

“Taeseung, that person… isn’t he Speedgirl’s sidekick? Why us…”
“Hayun, calm down and listen to me. You know how to call a security robot, right?”
“Sorry? Ah… I do know how, but…”
“Just run first, then call a Beyond Villain security robot.”
“What? Th-then what about you…”
“No arguing — go!!”

Yang Hayun’s eyes trembled, but I pushed her away without wavering. If I was going to live and she was going to live too, this was the only way. I buy time, Yang Hayun calls a security robot, the robot pins him down. That was the only move I’d come up with.

“Hahaha, don’t tell me you’re going to play at being a Hero?”

Yoyoboy scattered the yo-yo through the air with a flashy turn of the hand.

“Forward Pass!”¹

— Bzzzt—!

Future Observation exploded, and with it a pain like my retinas burning through. The yo-yo pouring down in gaudy arcs. In the observed future, even wearing the WD-401 I couldn’t do a thing. He wiped the floor with me.

Of course, that future never became reality.

“What…?!”

Dodging every arc the observation had shown me, I closed in on him. And that wasn’t all. The fountain pen, leaping out of my pocket with a zzzing. Three quick presses on its end, and a laser lightsaber sprang out.

— Klang—!!

So it doesn’t cut after all.

The laser was superb, but not enough to sever the yo-yo’s string. Still, going by the tsssss and the smell of something charring, the string wasn’t coming through untouched either.

I knocked the yo-yo away, caught it on the laser fountain pen, and closed the distance one slow step at a time.

“Tsk!”

Just as I thought I’d nearly reached him, Yoyoboy sprang back in one great bound. He was a ranged type, and getting in close was no small trouble. He spat off to the side and ground his teeth.

“Weren’t you a non-combat-type awakened…!”

He was under the impression I’d awakened a non-combat Gift, when all I was doing was using an Artifact called the WD-401.

…Well, if he was kind enough to be mistaken, so much the better. I had no wish to hand him information about my Gift.

“Tsk! Pinwheel!”

— Bzzzzt!

As Yoyoboy’s yo-yo came rushing in again, Future Observation activated.

…Close quarters?

Yoyoboy, hurling the yo-yo at a speed the eye could barely follow. He hid behind the gaudy arcs and lashed out with a surprise kick, and I saw a future where it caught me in the solar plexus and sent me flying.

In that instant I remembered the ‘lessons’ Scorpion had hammered into my ears.

— Fling!

I ducked the yo-yo, scooped a fistful of dirt off the ground, and threw it at his face.

“Hurgk?! Y-you cowardly…!”
“Some nerve, from the man who opened with an ambush.”

He screamed and clapped both hands over his eyes. Quite possibly the perfect chance. Without hesitation I drove the toe of my shoe deep between his legs.

— Whuuump—!

“Gyaaaaagh!”

The impact landed with a horrible sound, and Yoyoboy shrieked and rolled across the asphalt. A cheap but certain strike to a vital spot, the kind the Hero Association would never teach. Naturally, it was one of the lessons Scorpion had taught me.

“You should have finished me with the first strike. Idiot.”

He writhed in pain and rolled on the ground. Sorry to say it, but I felt no pity. If I hadn’t put him down for certain… the one lying there now would have been me, not him.

“Hold still. Stop thrashing.”
“Khh… Fuck.”
“Should a Hero be using language like that?”

I used his own yo-yo string to bind his hands and feet good and tight, on the chance he shook off the pain and came at me again. First I needed to squeeze as much information out of him as I could.

“Who sent you after me? Cha Huigyeong? The Hero Association? Or did you come on your own?”
“…”
“No answer.”

I pressed the end of the fountain pen and drew the laser out again. A shard of asphalt lying on the ground sliced apart like tofu when I stabbed into it, and Yoyoboy’s eyes wavered at the sight. Still, a demonstration alone was hardly much of a threat.

— Tsssss!

“Gyaaaaagh!!”

I seared the laser into his bound palm. Didn’t they say our ancestors got their information by searing people with an iron heated red in the fire? The unpleasant smell of burning squid hung around for a while, and once I’d confirmed the burn on his hand I put the fountain pen away.

“Y-you crazy bastard… You’re torturing me? A Hero?”
“You’re not a Hero, you’re a sidekick. And from here on, you answer only what I ask.”

I laid the laser fountain pen against his throat.

“You came to Villain Special City, so you’ll know — I live here as a Villain.”
“…”
“Which means killing someone like you wouldn’t make me blink. And you in particular I’ve disliked for a long time.”

I smiled softly and gave his cheek a couple of pats. Honestly I had no intention of killing him, but the threat seemed to have worked fairly well, going by the way his face had gone white and his lips were the only thing still moving.

Now I could ask my questions.

“Who sent you? Cha Huigyeong? The Hero Association?”
“…It was my own call.”
“Then how did you know I was here?”
“The records… on the computer in your room…”
“Lunatics.”

Putting together what he gave me, the picture was something else. Breaking into another man’s home hadn’t been enough for them; they’d gone through his search history too. There wouldn’t be anything strange in there, but it still didn’t feel good.

So they’ve worked out I’m at Beyond Villain…

It frightened me that they had found out where I was, but the place I live is Villain Special City. Heroes generally don’t come inside it, and Villains, conversely, don’t send excessive forces outside it. Thanks to that strange peace between the city and the Seoul Capital Area, I could count on being at least relatively safe.

“Are you even allowed here, a mere sidekick?”
“…”
“Judging by the fact that you can’t answer, you came without permission.”
“I figured I’d grab someone like you in no time and haul you out. …Damn it.”

He must have taken me for a real pushover to come up with a plan like that. I gave him one good rap on the head.

That was about everything I had to ask. I stood, switched the WD-401 off, and while I was stretching, Yang Hayun came running up from far off.

“T-Taeseung! I came with a security robot! Are you hurt anywhere… huh?”
“Lucky you made it in time.”

The robot with the Beyond Villain brand logo stamped on it made for a reassuring sight indeed. I handed Yoyoboy over to it, tears and snot streaming down his face, and Yang Hayun looked blankly back and forth between him and me.

“You… won? Against a Hero?”
“Not a Hero. A sidekick.”
“Still! And how did you do that just now? You got, like, super fast all of a sudden… I saw it before too, but back then I thought maybe I’d been drunk and seen it wrong! I’m not that drunk today, you know?”

Worked up, Yang Hayun acted my exploits out with her whole body. I snorted a laugh and shook my head.

“What about you — you’re not hurt anywhere?”
“Of course not! What about you?”
“Me neither. That must have been a shock — you should get home now. I’ll see you home.”
“Sorry? I’m fine, though…”
“What if you get jumped like that again? Come on, let’s go.”
“Okay. Thank you, Taeseung, hehe.”

I put Yang Hayun in a taxi and sent her home. As for Yoyoboy… well, Beyond Villain would handle him, presumably. What I was more curious about was the face Cha Huigyeong would make, having lost her sidekick.

I ought to thank Scorpion.

My Gift would account for more than half the credit for winning this fight. Still, without his training and the laser fountain pen, I might well have lost.

The thought turned the back of my neck abruptly cold. Because if I’d lost to Yoyoboy, I’d have been the one tied up and hauled off to the Hero Association.

“Guess I’d better head home too…?”

— Whip!

I felt eyes on me from somewhere and spun around at once. A silhouette off in the distance vanished in a hurry. So I hadn’t imagined it; somebody really had been watching?

Who was that? I feel like I’ve seen them somewhere…

They were far away and had something over their face, so I couldn’t see properly. Even after the suspicious figure was gone I stayed on guard, staring at the spot for a long while. It was only when Scorpion pulled up in his car to collect me that I could relax.

Villain Special City really is… dangerous.

The next morning.

I went inside fiddling with the bag of chocolate snacks meant for Director Amos. It stays in my pocket, to be presented the instant her mood turns.

And so, when I entered the lab, Amos greeted me brightly.

“No. 1! You’re here?”
“Good morning.”
“A new test subject came in today. Wanna see?”
“Er…? A test subject?”
“Follow me! I’ll show ya!”

Puzzled, I followed her pattering steps. It hadn’t been long since the Unicorn Villain came out. Wasn’t it early to be making a new one?

And so, in an incubation pod in the lab she led me to… ‘something’ had been set down.

“Whaddaya think? A yo-yoin’ monkey! Cool, huh?”
“Uh… uh.”
“S’prised? Hehehe.”

Amos gave my thigh a pat and beamed innocently.

Inside the incubation pod sat an enormous monkey shaggy with brown fur, its gaze vacant, as though something had been done to its head. And the most important thing was…

“D-Director. That yo-yo…?”
“Oh, that? They say it’s a Hero who came into Villain Special City! Sooo fearless, right?”

“…”

A familiar silver yo-yo hung from the monkey’s wrist.