Scorpion

“Phew…”

The moment I stepped outside, the chill had me pulling my collar closed for no real reason. Eyes dazzled by sunlight I hadn’t seen in seventy-two hours. A bonus on top. With fingers stiff from gripping a pen too long, I worked my phone and sent Scorpion a short message.

Things had turned awkward between us, but Scorpion still drove me to work and back every single time. He had been paid up front through Belia, so in a way, only natural. Of course, the only one who found it awkward was me. He still called me Squirt and laughed that hearty laugh of his.

And so I waited for his reply.

…That’s strange.

Normally an answer would have come back inside a minute. But a minute passed, then five, and nothing came. I told myself he might be busy, this being the morning rush, and then remembered I had asked him in advance to come seventy-two hours later.

Did he simply forget? Or is he asleep?

I texted, I called. Nothing but silence. In the end I gave up and used my phone to call a premium taxi. The Villain-proof taxi Yang Hayun rode so often slid to a stop in front of me; I had taken it a few times myself, so calling one was no trouble.

…Why do I feel like this? It can’t be from not sleeping.

It felt as though my heart were knocking on the inside of my ribs. Out of nowhere, the memory of a taxi ride in the past flashed through me. The day Cha Huigyeong called me out to the hotel restaurant. Before I climbed into that one, Future Observation had shown me her face watching me coldly.

“Sir, you don’t look at all well… are you all right?”
“Sorry?”
“I was just wondering whether I ought to be taking you to a hospital.”

The taxi driver kept stealing glances at me in the rearview mirror. My reflection was pale as a patient’s, exactly as he said. Perhaps because it was a premium taxi, the man was genuinely kind.

“I’m fine. Just take me to the destination.”
“Hmm… understood.”

I said nothing more and stared out the window. Songnang’s scenery streaming past. I don’t get carsick, and yet the pressure crushing down on my chest wouldn’t lift.

— Bzzzt—!

“…!”

With a pain like my retinas tearing, Future Observation forced itself into motion. It had already fired so often during the Advancement Match that my eyes were dry and gritty, so why now… The complaint vanished at the sight that unfolded in front of me.

This is… the Beyond Villain dormitory building I live in?

The wreckage of a half-collapsed building filled my vision. The bar’s signboard, still hanging, and the layout of the streets around it told me it was the old walk-up I had been staying in. And there, with the people around it running for their lives and rebar and fallen debris flying through the air.

Cha Huigyeong? Scorpion? How on earth…

Cha Huigyeong, standing there in a racing suit reduced to rags. She had Scorpion by the throat, hauling him up into the air. She seemed to be saying something, but Future Observation carried no sound.

Yoyoboy had come to the Villain Special City. She can too. I had been attacked once already; I should have known she would come hunting me. To have missed something that important with my head full of the Advancement Match…

The moment the observation ended I grabbed the taxi driver’s shoulder.

“Driver, go as fast as you possibly can!”
“Wh-whoa… sorry?”
“Fast… I’ll pay you double, triple, just go fast!”
“Y-yes, understood!”

At the promise of more money the driver stamped on the accelerator, and inertia threw my body back.

— Booooom—!!

At that moment, from far off, came the sound of an explosion fit to tear my eardrums. A shockwave strong enough to make the taxi’s frame sway faintly. With a trembling hand I gripped the laser fountain pen in my pocket.

Cha Huigyeong. That woman had finally found the one refuge I had. She’s not the same as a sidekick like Yoyoboy. A woman who, up until a few months ago, everyone had said was certain to be promoted to A-rank Hero.

Could I, as I was now, actually beat her? Honestly I didn’t know, and in the aftermath of the Advancement Match my body was in the worst condition it could be. I had the WD-401 and the fountain pen Scorpion had given me, but at the end of the day they were nothing more than Artifacts, and they didn’t look like enough to overcome the gap between Gifts.

But if I don’t go, old man Scorpion is going to…

If there were two people I had wanted to protect since coming to this Villain Special City, they were Scorpion and Yang Hayun, without question. I hadn’t even properly made up with him yet, and I didn’t want to lose him like this.

“Damn it…”
“Um… d-do you really want me to go in any further?”
“I’ll pay you extra, so at least get me close.”

The driver gripped the wheel tight, looking tense. The closer we came to the district where the walk-up stood, the more the road turned to bedlam with fleeing people. The instant I made out the wreckage, I kicked the door open and was out before the taxi had fully stopped. I had already paid, so it didn’t matter.

“Ah… aah…”

The wreckage of a familiar building, showing through the thick dust. And the silhouette in the racing suit standing on top of it… And Scorpion, held fast in her hand.

“Oh my, I was going to come looking for you, Taeseung, and here you’ve come on your own two feet?”
“…Cha Huigyeong.”

The outcome Future Observation had shown me was unfolding right in front of me.

“Then I won’t be needing the torture anymore.”
“Scorpion!”

Cha Huigyeong took him by the throat and flung him down in front of me the way you throw out trash. I switched on the WD-401 and barely managed to catch him. Up close, the state of him was far worse than I had thought.

His arms, his legs…

Every joint in his fingers, and both his arms, were bent at grotesque angles. As though someone had taken hold of each finger joint, one at a time, and tortured him with it. Cha Huigyeong had done it. Anyone could see that.

“Old man, come on, wake up. Old man!”
“Nnngh.”
“Damn it…”

Scorpion’s eyes wouldn’t focus. He was breathing, but the ragged breaths were so precarious they seemed ready to cut out at any moment. …I could not begin to guess how horrific the torture had been.

“Taeseung, do you have any idea how much Big Sis has lost because of you?”

Whatever I did or didn’t do, Cha Huigyeong just went on wearing that grotesque smile. There was too much madness in those eyes now to read them as a hero’s. Did she think of me as prey she had already caught?

“My honor, my standing, and my image as a hero.”
“…”
“All of it got shoved into the gutter because of that pathetic little prank of yours. Would you know? What that feels like?”

— Pfffft.

And then Cha Huigyeong burst out laughing.

“But it’s fine. If I just drag you, only you, back to the Association, everyone will acknowledge me again. Right?”

I couldn’t listen to her delusions any longer. Ignoring what she was saying, I moved the old man somewhere safe. For the moment that meant propping him against the wall of another building.

She’s completely lost it.

She didn’t seem to care in the slightest what I did. Whether she was sunk in self-pity and madness and couldn’t climb back out… Or whether she thought of me as prey she had already caught.

What she is thinking, I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t even want to know. All I wanted was to clear that lunatic out of the way and take revenge for my father.

I forced my rage-hot head to settle and asked.

“…What did you do to the old man.”

With a trembling hand I gripped the laser fountain pen in my pocket. For now, to learn the old man’s condition, I had to ask.

Cha Huigyeong licked her lips as though my question amused her.

“Nothing much. Where you were hiding, what power you’d picked up… I only asked simple questions.”
“Simple questions…?”
“That’s right. Simple questions. If he’d answered, he’d have been perfectly fine…”

She shook her head as though she couldn’t understand it.

“The idiot wouldn’t open his mouth.”
“!”

I couldn’t help being shocked. To have given no answer at all, even while being tortured for information about me. …Something surged up in me for a moment and I could not get the next word out. But even that feeling was soon buried under the ugly sound of her laughter.

“He wouldn’t open his mouth right to the end, so I tortured him just a tiny bit.”
“Just… a tiny bit? That?”
“That’s right. Maybe I should have taken him down to the Association’s basement instead. He’d have tucked his tail in no time down there.”

I didn’t know what kind of place the Association’s basement was, but it certainly wasn’t a kind one. Back when Cha Huigyeong revealed what she was, she had said she would bring in an awakened with a psychic-type Gift and make me open my mouth. The ugly truth hidden behind the name ‘Hero Association’.

“Taeseung, there’s no need to be curious. You’ll be going there yourself soon enough anyway.”
“That someone like you is a Hero…”
“Not just any Hero. A woman who’s going to be a B-rank… no, an A-rank Hero. So, Taeseung.”

She feigned a benevolent smile and held out a hand to me from where she stood, far off.

“Resisting any further is meaningless. So come on back to Big Sis, now.”

To think I had been fooled by that sickening smile all this time. Cursing my own stupidity, I held out a hand to her too, far off as she was. With the middle finger raised as hard as it would go.

“Fuck you.”

— Zzzzing!

I flipped the WD-401’s switch and pulled the power up to maximum. Explosive strength running through my whole body, and the sense of omnipotence that came with it. My field of vision narrowed to nothing but the woman standing in front of me. The instant I confirmed the fountain pen’s laser springing out, I kicked off the ground and leapt.