A Narrow Escape

My body kicked off the asphalt and flew at Cha Huigyeong like a bullet.

— Whuuump—!

“Kuh-hagh?!”

Cha Huigyeong took my fist in the face without a moment to react and went flying backward. A blow that left my fist and even my wrist aching. Her body slammed into a collapsed wall and threw up a thick cloud of dust.

…I can do this.

Even through the sting in my fist, a smile drew itself across my face. Cha Huigyeong, the woman I had been sure until now I could never lay a hand on. The fact that I was fighting her at all, the fact that I might even win, had me exhilarated.

The woman once praised as a hero rolled across the ground and spat, ptoo, a gob of blood-laced saliva.

“…So you had awakened after all?”
“Of course I had.”
“You shouldn’t be hiding things from Big Sis. Taeseung.”

Cha Huigyeong wiped at her mangled lips and put on a crooked smile. How long would she be able to keep smiling like that?

I pulled the laser fountain pen from my pocket and pressed the back of it three times, fast. With a tsssss, a blue beam tore through the darkness and blazed to life.

“Is that… an Artifact?”
“Uwaaah!!”

I didn’t answer her question. Instead I kicked off the ground with my legs accelerated, charged at Cha Huigyeong, and swung the beam straight at her throat.

But she slipped it easily, as though laughing at me.

“Sorry, but that’s not going to work on me twice.”

— Vrrrr!

Cha Huigyeong, moving at a speed my eyes could barely follow. Proof that Super-Acceleration, her Gift, had fired.

I gritted my teeth and swung the fountain pen, but the laser never once touched her body.

Damn it, damn it…!

She dodged everything I had at her leisure, as if that first attack, the surprise one that had landed, had been nothing but luck. Even with my physical abilities boosted by the WD-401, I couldn’t keep pace with Super-Acceleration.

If I had known it would go like this, I should have staked everything on that first attack and finished it there…

— Bzzzt—!

“!?”

In the very instant of that regret, a pain like my retinas tearing ripped through me and the sight of Future Observation forced itself open.

Inside it, I took a kick from Cha Huigyeong. A blow I couldn’t even see caught me square in the side, and I slammed into the building’s rubble and vomited blood. Future Observation ended on that image.

…How the hell am I supposed to dodge that?

Against Yoyoboy, or in a fight with other Villains, Future Observation might well have been a help. But against Cha Huigyeong, moving at a speed the eye could not even see, it was barely any help at all.

Still, for the moment, I raised my guard to block the attack coming for my side.

“Too late.”

The speed of Super-Acceleration was far, far beyond anything my body could match.

— Thuuud—!

“Nnngh…!”

I barely got my arm up in time, and the shock still came through like a sledgehammer blow. After that, naturally enough, I went flying a long way off. I was driven into the wreckage of the collapsed walk-up, and every bit of air went out of my lungs.

Without the WD-401 boosting my physical abilities, it might well have killed me. The thought alone felt like it was turning my hair white.

As I lay groaning in pain, Cha Huigyeong was already looking down at me.

“I’ve got the gist of your power now. Physical enhancement, isn’t it?”

She came on slowly, parting the cloud of dust. An unhurried smile, the smile of someone already certain of victory. She hadn’t grasped even the essence of my Gift, and the sight of her barking up the wrong tree was funny. None of it changed the fact that I couldn’t beat her.

“Let’s go now, Taeseung. Big Sis will dote on you so, so much once we’re there.”
“…Shut up. You’re making my skin crawl.”

I hawked up blood-laced phlegm and spat it at her face. Cha Huigyeong’s figure vanished for an instant, dodging it easily, and before I could react, a dull impact landed on my wrist.

“Hahaha, yes. That’s more like the Taeseung I know.”
“Ugh…”
“Should you really be leaning on an Artifact like that?”

She had kicked my wrist with Super-Acceleration. The laser fountain pen went spinning uselessly off into the air. The one weapon I had that could land a fatal blow…

“Don’t move. It only hurts more if you move.”

— Whuuump, whump! Whuuump—!

Cha Huigyeong blurred once more. Fists at invisible speed poured indiscriminately into my chest and my stomach. Attacks meant to crush bone outright.

“Ah, agh…!”

My whole body was being crushed, and just as the pain began to drag my consciousness under, she snatched me roughly by the scruff of the neck. She shook my limp body like a toy and whispered, sounding satisfied.

“There, you’ve gone nice and quiet. Good boy, Taeseung.”
“Nnnnngh…”

I had awakened, and I had trained steadily. I had even laid out serious money to buy an Artifact. And still, to lose to a B-rank Hero without being able to do a thing.

…I’m still weak.

The sense of defeat had me on the verge of tears. The woman tied to my father’s death, the one who had left Scorpion a broken wreck, was standing right in front of me, and I had lost to her without managing a single thing. It galled me, and galled me again.

“Taeseung, let’s go home now. …Hm?”

That was where things took an unexpected turn.

“What the… why won’t my arm…?”

She made to take a step and drag me off with her, but her body wouldn’t move properly, as though it had gone rigid. Or more precisely, the arm she had around my neck wasn’t stirring at all, fixed in midair for some reason.

A jet-black sphere had formed around it.

“How audacious.”
“!”

A voice came down from the sky above, cool and low. Cha Huigyeong’s head and mine turned upward at the same moment. And there, standing on empty air, was a woman.

Pure white hair, staining green toward the tips.

“To dare enter Villain Special City, destroy company assets and attempt to carry off company talent.”

Belia, Director of Beyond Villain, looked down at Cha Huigyeong with a chilly gaze.

— Snaaap—!

Belia flicked her fingers, elegantly. In that instant, the jet-black sphere wrapped around Cha Huigyeong’s arm contracted.

“Ah, aaaaaagh!!!”

Her arm bent at a grotesque angle as she screamed, and the sphere sucked it in. Blood burst out like a fountain in the same moment and soaked my face.

“I shall trust you were prepared for this.”

Belia watched the spray of blood without feeling and murmured it low.

The arm was drawn deeper into the sphere until not even its shape remained. All that was left was Cha Huigyeong’s hand, still gripping the back of my neck. I dropped straight down and rolled across the ground; with the arm that had been holding me up gone, it could hardly have gone any other way.

“Ngh…”

The impact drove my shattered ribs into my lungs. But my whole body was throbbing so hard that even that pain came through faint.

Cha Huigyeong clutched the stump at her shoulder with her one remaining arm and screamed.

“Ah, aaah! My arm! My aaarm!!”
“Such a fuss to make, over a mere arm coming off.”
“You crazy bitch…!”

She glared up at Belia in the empty air with eyes drenched in madness, then kicked off the ground and leapt as though wringing out what life she had left, driving her remaining fist at Belia’s face.

It never so much as touched Belia’s collar.

“What…?”
“Did you truly suppose I would let so obvious an attack land?”

A jet-black sphere, formed around Belia in an instant. It had shaped a perfect barrier and blocked the attack, and Cha Huigyeong’s fist bounced off that wall, powerless.

“You do not know your place.”

From the empty air, Belia pressed a hand lightly downward. That one gesture drove Cha Huigyeong straight into the ground. And not only that, the ground she had been standing on caved in.

— Thuuuud—!

“Nnngh…!”

Cha Huigyeong was somehow holding out, but cracks like a spiderweb spread out across the asphalt in every direction. She stared at Belia with bloodshot eyes.

“You think… this ends here? Im Taeseung — and you too, bitch… I’ll kill you both, I swear it!”
“You speak well enough, at least.”
“I swear it… I swear it!”

She spat out the blood pooled in her mouth and triggered Super-Acceleration once more. Her figure left a red afterimage behind it and slipped out beyond the reach of gravity.

A Hero down one arm and beaten to a wreck. She turned tail like a third-rate villain and vanished into the dark.

“Tsk. A quick-footed little rat.”

Belia clicked her tongue as she watched Cha Huigyeong flee. Even had she wanted to give chase, the woman had already vanished without a trace. Before long she came slowly down toward me, sprawled there on the ground. She settled onto the asphalt with an elegant motion and studied my face, caked with clotted blood.

“You are in a dreadful state. There is not a single bone in your body left where it belongs.”

“…Cough— thank you… for saving me…”

“If anything, it is I who should apologize for being late.”

Belia laid a hand against my cheek. It was cold as ice, and somehow it still felt tender. Under that touch, the tension slowly drained out of me.

“Rest a while. You shall be safe now.”

“Scor… pion…”

“Ah, yes. There he is. I shall see him saved, without fail.”

Belia’s voice reached me like a ringing in the ears, receding. Before long the taut thread of tension snapped, and my consciousness slowly blurred away.

And so the fight with Cha Huigyeong went down as a defeat.