“The only skill I can reveal is psychokinesis. So it’s the returning student ending after all….”
I looked around to see if there were any loner types nearby.
But then Yang Minseo suddenly approached me.
She stood in front of me and spoke.
“Mr. Sin Noda. Won’t you form a team with me?”
“What?”
The students gathered around Yang Minseo whispered as they looked at me.
“Who’s that guy?”
One student pretended to know.
“I know him! He’s the guy who got lucky and passed because the testing equipment malfunctioned during the entrance exam.”
“You mean when that monster suddenly disappeared?”
“Why would Yang Minseo go for someone like that….”
The applicants for Yang Minseo Corporation seemed quite dissatisfied.
I can hear everything, you bastards.
By testing equipment, do they mean that glass box from the entrance exam?
I suppose compressing the troll into a bead looked like equipment malfunction to everyone else.
With them reacting like that, it would be awkward to blindly accept.
“There seem to be plenty of people who’d want to other than me.”
Yang Minseo bent down and whispered into my ear.
A subtle perfume scent pleasantly filled my nose.
“I know. You aren’t D-Rank. I don’t know why you’re hiding your strength, but let’s get along.”
“…….”
I sighed and nodded.
She was going this far; it’s not like I’m Zhuge Liang, so I couldn’t keep refusing.
I signaled my assent.
“Fine. I’ll join your team.”
“Thank you.”
Yang Minseo wrote my name on her paper.
Then she turned around and spoke.
“Would those confident they can display B-Rank performance or higher please raise your hands?”
Most couldn’t.
B-Rank was the stage where one could fight in earnest using esper abilities.
It was a level rarely seen among students.
Except for exactly two people.
A beautiful girl with red hair and light green eyes.
Her chest was overwhelmingly large compared to the others.
It was Oh Haena, the main character.
And Ji Soyeon, a black-haired, black-eyed girl who had raised her hand but lacked presence.
She wasn’t quite at Oh Haena’s level, but she was beautiful nonetheless.
Yang Minseo jerked her chin as if telling them to appeal.
It was an arrogant attitude completely different from when she had dealt with me.
Oh Haena stepped up first.
“My name is Oh Haena. I can manipulate air. Like this.”
Her body floated slightly in the air.
Wind whipped beneath her feet.
The spectators let out small exclamations of admiration.
Since I already knew this, I wasn’t very surprised.
‘Not a bad ability. And against humans……’
“It would be a shame to stop here, right? I also have the optimal ability for a hero! Could someone help me for a moment?”
No one stepped forward.
Well, of course.
They were all competitors hoping to join Yang Minseo Corporation.
Oh Haena frowned and reached toward the male student standing beside her.
“Thanks, friend. You’re going to help?”
“N-no, I, k-huk… k-ack.”
He suddenly grabbed his throat in agony.
Unable to breathe at all, his face turned bright red.
“Wh-what?”
The students backed away from the struggling boy and watched what was happening.
The boy was on the verge of death.
“Spare… spare me… c-can’t… brea….”
“Shall I stop here?”
When she withdrew her power, the male student could finally breathe.
She put on a triumphant expression.
“How’s that, ‘Miss’ Yang Minseo? This much is sufficient, right?”
Oh Haena seemed slightly offended by Yang Minseo’s condescending attitude and said “miss” in a sarcastic tone.
“Hmm. I suppose so. Pass.”
Oh Haena was a character with a fairly useful ability in interpersonal combat.
But against monsters that appeared later, she was useless and became “air.”
Next was Ji Soyeon’s turn.
Only I noticed, but she was already demonstrating her ability.
Yang Minseo looked around for Ji Soyeon and opened her mouth.
“I believe there was one more person earlier; where did she go?”
“H-here……”
Ji Soyeon’s voice was heard right beside Yang Minseo’s ear.
Her ability was invisibility.
While Oh Haena was suffocating an innocent student, Ji Soyeon had gone to the corner of the classroom and taken off her school uniform.
Because clothes couldn’t turn invisible.
I had focused my gaze, wondering if I might catch a nice view, but she turned invisible the moment she took off her clothes and couldn’t be seen at all.
Ji Soyeon, hugging Yang Minseo from behind, released the invisibility on only her hand to show her.
“If I h-held a k-knife, Y-Yang Minseo would be d-dead…….”
Yang Minseo looked slightly displeased at her timid manner of speaking, but soon smiled in satisfaction.
“Hehe. Interesting. You join our team too. With this, all four members are gathered, so our team recruitment is closed. Those not selected will have another opportunity next semester, so please look forward to it.”
And so the team was completed.
Me. Yang Minseo. Ji Soyeon. Oh Haena.
Somehow it seemed like everyone except me was a woman, but.
Teacher Song Siyeol spoke in a drawling tone.
“If you’re done forming teams, move outside. Be out on the main athletic field by 10:30.”
The students poured out in a rush.
I leisurely rose from my seat.
‘I have plenty of time anyway.’
As I was leaving the classroom and walking down the hallway, someone shoved me against the wall.
It was one of the followers who had been sucking up to Yang Minseo earlier.
The guy with an explosion ability whose father was supposedly a businessman.
He threatened me with a menacing face.
“You! I heard your skill is psychokinesis and your intelligence is low too. I heard you passed because you got lucky with a machine malfunction. A guy like you doesn’t belong in Yang Minseo’s team, so get lost.”
A guy a head shorter than me.
I pushed his shoulder and asked.
“What if I refuse?”
“Ha. Fine. I won’t tell you to back out empty-handed. Three million won.”
“What?”
“I’m giving you three million won. Go tell Yang Minseo. Say you have circumstances and want to leave the team.”
“I refuse.”
His fist grazed my cheek and struck the wall.
A small explosion occurred on the wall.
This bastard used his ability on a classmate.
‘Oh Haena too, and this guy too…. To think these kinds of guys are hero hopefuls.’
I decided there was no need for mercy.
Trash deserved to be dealt with like trash.
“What’s your name?”
“Bak Sangjin. Does this make the conversation easier now? But let’s say the three million won never happened. A negotiation conducted through force is a different story, isn’t it?”
Bak Sangjin. Bak Sangjin……
I remembered.
He was the guy who had tormented Yong Cheonhwa in Class A.
A nouveau riche thug who solved every legal problem with money.
I had forgotten because he was such an extra.
“Ha, jeez.”
I grabbed his hair.
“Bak Sangjin. You son of a bitch. You want to die?”
*Slap.*
I struck his cheek.
“Try using your ability.”
*Slap.*
I slapped him again.
He put his hand on my chest and bit his lip, concentrating as if trying to do something.
“Use it, bastard.”
There was no way he could.
Because Laura was dispelling it in real time.
Bak Sangjin struggled to escape, but it was futile.
My pure physical strength is B-Rank.
Even the B-Rank boss monster, “The Nameless One,” couldn’t escape.
This mere C-Rank student couldn’t get free from my grip.
I threw another slap.
Before I knew it, Bak Sangjin’s face was burning red.
His lips seemed to have burst; blood was smeared around his mouth.
I let go of the hand gripping his hair.
Bak Sangjin slumped down and sprawled in the hallway.
I stepped on his neck.
Stepped again and again.
Not enough.
I soccer-kicked Bak Sangjin’s head.
“Urg. Kehak. S-stop.”
A red crystal appeared on Bak Sangjin’s chest.
I habitually reached for it before snapping to my senses.
‘Was I… originally this violent?’
I had definitely only intended to hit him a few times and be done.
But while hitting him, I had gotten excited without realizing it……
‘Damn it.’
What was I doing actually acting like a villain when people called me one everywhere?
I rebuked myself internally to come to my senses.
I supposed killing people continuously had done something to my sanity.
I took a potion from my pocket and poured it on Bak Sangjin.
His wounds began to heal.
“If you catch my eye next time, you die.”
I pushed aside my complicated feelings and headed for the main athletic field.
***
Seoul Supreme Court.
A group dressed in strange attire appeared.
Masks on their faces.
Work uniforms with the K Group logo below.
The masks they wore were exactly the K Group mascot Kodori masks.
Kodori was so popular for its cute image that it was even used as a messenger emoticon.
That Kodori figure had grotesquely melted into a horrific form, half-torn to expose the wearer’s mouth area.
Clunky speakers hung around the assailants’ necks.
[“This is K Group, Korea’s representative enterprise endlessly pursuing progress.”]
♫♪♫.
A recorded mechanical voice along with cheerful music.
It was the ringback tone you heard when calling K Enterprise’s customer service center.
The assailants broke into the courthouse.
A security guard stepped forward to stop them.
“Stop right there! What is your business here?”
[“This is K Group, Korea’s representative enterprise endlessly pursuing progress. A world breathing and living together with human society, made by K Group.”]
♫♪♫.
The assailants let out guttural “ugh-ugh” sounds, rushed at the security guard, and bared their teeth.
The security guard had his throat bitten out and died.
He soon joined the assailants’ ranks, his neck swaying loosely.
“Police—no, call a hero!”
The other security guards fought back with tasers and batons, but they were outmatched.
They too followed their comrade.
Judge Gim Yongseok was attending to work in his office today as well.
With so many trials lately, his workload was piled into a mountain.
It was all because villains were running rampant like headless chickens.
*Bang.*
Right then, assailants appeared as his office door burst open violently.
Blood was smeared around their mouths.
[“A world breathing and living together with human society, made by K Group. Hello? Our K Group is a safe company completely free from industrial accidents.”]
♫♪♫.
The low-quality mechanical sound flowing from the cheap speakers was eerie.
“What… you people. How did you get in here!”
The assailants surrounded the judge in an instant.
Then a man wearing a Kodori mask entered the office.
Unlike the other assailants, his gait was human-like.
“It has been a while, Your Honor! You remember me, right?”
“Wh-who are you….”
“You don’t remember Case ‘2024GaDan441’? You know, when K Pharmaceuticals stole a small business’s product. I suppose it was nothing to you? But this is what happened to me.”
“Ah, ahh. I remember. I remember. But why on earth are you doing this….”
The man took off his mask.
A grotesque face, little different from the mask, was revealed.
He bared his teeth and grinned.
“I’m that small business owner. You took a bribe from K Pharmaceuticals and ruined me, didn’t you?”
“What are you talking about? That was a case any judge would have lost.”
“Go on, say it. Say that you took a bribe from K Pharmaceuticals and ruined Ma Boseong’s life.”
He held out a recorder to the judge.
The judge intuitively realized.
‘Even if I do as he wants, he won’t spare me.’
“I cannot do that. Go back.”
He steeled his heart, determined to preserve his honor.
[“K Pharmaceuticals, protecting the world with safe medicine. Thank you for waiting. All our counselors are currently on calls, so please hold for a moment!”]
♫♪♫.