This damned world had gone mad over playing hero.
Even when a Gate opened in the middle of Gangnam Station and monsters came pouring out, people raised their smartphones before they screamed. They were chasing that perfect “Insta-worthy” shot.
Hunters who were supposed to cut down monsters and save people only swung their swords after checking whether the camera filter looked good. Beside citizens weeping over their collapsed homes, ranked heroes struck poses like models in energy drink ads.
The Age of Heroes.
And yet all they cared about was raising their value through vulgar entertainment.
“Power—Up! Awaken the hidden hero instinct inside you!”
You could tell just from the obnoxious jingle blaring from the TV commercial. The world had long since lost its mind.
The sight of Seoul, where life-or-death battles became bar snacks and public spectacles, could not possibly be called sane.
In that world, there was one young man who had been lucky enough to awaken. His name was Gang Jinu. But even after awakening, he did not become a hero. In other words, he did not operate as a hunter.
If anything, Jinu despised heroes and avoided them.
If he could return his awakening, he would have gladly taken a number at the community service center, but unfortunately, awakening was not a subscription service you could cancel whenever you liked.
The only fortunate thing was that he could perfectly hide the fact that he had awakened.
[Erased Boundary of the Everyday]
That was the name of Jinu’s ability. While others exploded with mana, demolished buildings, and flew through the sky, Jinu merely erased his own presence.
The life Jinu chose that way was the life of an ordinary small-time citizen A. The life of a coding slave at some small-to-mid-sized company where it made no difference whether he existed or not, a life where his only bonus after forced overtime was hoping for a discarded convenience store lunchbox.
That was the only resistance Jinu, who despised heroes, had chosen.
But beings called heroes were like disasters. They had no interest in other people’s peace or wishes. They simply descended without warning and trampled over daily life.
“Ah, not again.”
On his way home from work, a dazzling fireworks show unfolded above Jinu’s head. His smartphone vibrated noisily with an emergency alert.
[Warning: Villain appearance and suppression in progress near Daerim-dong. Nearby residents are advised to evacuate.]
If he had not been right in the middle of the scene, he would have thought, There must be another commotion somewhere.
A brilliant display of flames, like fireworks embroidering the night sky.
It was the signature of a famous hero. Rank 5, “Flame Fist.”
The bastard was pouring mana into the middle of the city just to catch one villain.
“Citizens! In the name of justice, I am punishing the villain! Please evacuate with peace of mind!”
His voice, shouting for justice, was spirited, but behind him, the signs and equipment of nearby shops were melting away.
Countless people began running from the disaster. Jinu also quickened his pace to get away from the scene.
His ability to hide the fact that he was an awakener was still active even now.
All Jinu, who had chosen the life of a small-time citizen, could do was blend into the crowd and flee. Even so, he thought it was better than becoming a hero.
As long as the hero was not the kind who ignored the crowd, he should be able to slip away quietly this time as well.
Kwaaang—!
A fireball slammed into a nearby building. With a roar, chunks of concrete poured down like rain. His senses, sharpened by awakening, sent him a warning, but it was already too late to dodge.
‘Damn it!’
Jinu instinctively threw himself forward. Toward the only gap among the collapsing debris where he could not sense any mana.
Kugagagang!
In a pit thick with dust, Jinu came to his senses while coughing harshly. The moment he lifted his head, thinking he had somehow survived by luck, his eyes met those of a woman.
An office outfit soaked in blood. Torn stockings. But beyond her glasses, her gaze was so beautiful it felt cold.
Even in the middle of this chaos, her appearance was enough to steal his eyes.
‘Incredible.’
Enough that he could still think such a thing to himself in this situation.
But soon, the overwhelming pressure emanating from her pricked at Jinu’s skin.
‘Is she the villain?’
If she was in here right now, there was a high chance she was the villain they had been fighting. I might be in danger. He thought that for a brief moment.
Just as his body was about to stiffen from instinctive tension, her lips trembled faintly.
“Run… away… civilian…”
It was not something he could imagine a villain saying. It was unexpected.
Only then did Jinu look upward. Enormous fragments of concrete were suspended in midair. She had squeezed out the last of her strength to block the death that had been pouring down over Jinu’s head.
The woman let out a relieved sigh, then lost consciousness where she was. Fortunately, perhaps because they had gotten caught on something, the concrete fragments did not fall.
In that case, he could simply leave.
If he pretended not to know and walked past her, he could return to his ordinary daily life. But Jinu’s feet would not move. In this ironic scene, where a villain saved a citizen and a hero killed citizens, if he abandoned her—
‘Then how am I any different from those hypocritical bastards?’
Once that thought came to him, Jinu ultimately decided to save the woman. It would be a lie to say her beauty, which had stolen his gaze, had no influence at all.
Jinu took off his outerwear and covered the woman with it, then carried her on his back and pushed through the cloud of dust.
The outside of the building was a sight to behold. The heroes had not even considered the possibility that there might be survivors inside the collapsed building.
“Just dump area attacks on it! We have to catch them this time and raise our ranking!”
Ranking. What was so important about that? The sight of them creating this chaos for the sake of their own little hierarchy was disgusting.
Leaving their ugly conversation behind, Jinu fled the chaos as if running away.
He had erased the villain’s pressure. Using his ability, he erased the pressure emitted by the villain, so no one paid any attention to her. Not once, the entire time he was fleeing and leaving the chaos behind.
Behind him, the heroes, who did not know that fact, were talking.
“The pressure disappeared. Is she dead?”
“Who knows. We already sprayed area attacks for now, so let’s leave the rest to the search team. We should get ready for the interview.”
In the place the heroes had left behind, firefighters who had arrived late were struggling desperately to save citizens.
Jinu adjusted the woman on his back and murmured quietly.
“Damn it. I have to pay for my life somehow.”
Even if it was only the life of a pathetic small-time citizen A, his life was expensive. That price had to be paid.
Even if she was a villain.
Because that was the way he could be different from those filthy heroes.
A strange housemate appeared in Jinu’s roughly ten-pyeong studio apartment.
The woman lay sick for three days. He could not take her to a hospital, so they endured with ointment from the pharmacy and fever reducers.
Before going to work in the morning, he checked her condition, tried to feed her some water, and then went to work. When he returned late at night, he checked her condition, applied a little medicine if he could, tried to feed her some, and then slept uncomfortably on the floor. The bed was hers.
When the woman finally woke and asked who he was in a wary voice, Jinu answered without taking his eyes off the monitor. He was busy working.
“I’m just a civilian. You saved me, so I did the same for you.”
The woman looked as if she had many questions she wanted to ask, but soon she left behind a brief thanks and vanished into the darkness beyond the window.
The sight of her when she finally left was something he did not think he could easily forget.
A celebrity—no. In this era, even heroes were classified as celebrities. Put another way, she was a beauty like a jewel, like a masterpiece.
Over those three days, he had already figured out who she was.
Codename [White Night (白夜)].
A disaster-class villain whose name adorned the very top of the public wanted list. But unlike the devilish figure shown on the news, all that remained in Jinu’s memory was a face that could only be described as beautiful.
‘Well, I probably won’t ever see her again now.’
Jinu chuckled and pushed the incident into a corner of his memory. Just like that, everyday life seemed to return to its proper place.
A week passed. One night, after finishing another tedious round of overtime and returning home, she was standing in front of his door, even more horribly battered than last time.
A flicker of apology crossed her eyes as she looked at Jinu. Her lips moved as if to say something, but then she collapsed straight into Jinu’s arms.
From far away, the arrogant pressure of heroes was tightening its encirclement. In a hurry, he spread out his ability and erased the traces of White Night.
The extraordinary, which he had tried so hard to push away, had finally smashed through the old door of his home and entered.