Through the collapsed ceiling, Nova climbed onto the roof of the train, and the thing came into view.
It had the form of a horse, its entire body armed in pure white armor.
Its curves were far too smooth to be called a mere lump of metal, and from between its brows jutted a steel horn that gave off a keen, blue-white light.
Even amid the wind pressure of the racing train, it stared at Nova without the slightest disturbance in its stance.
“Prrr. Are you Hero Nova?”
When a low, mid-range voice mixed with mechanical noise reached her ears, Nova swallowed dryly and answered.
“……That’s right.”
Nova’s face hardened as she faced the thing.
From the suffocating pressure she felt—like when she had faced the lion on the bridge that day—she could tell this one, too, was strong.
Just as she clenched her instinctively trembling hand and tried to suppress her tension, Stella’s scolding echoed in her head.
『There you go again. As long as I’m lending you my power, you’re not some lousy B-rank hero!』
She was right. Right now, she was not alone, and on her wrist was Core Relic Stella, possessing a mysterious power.
The sensation from the day she had awakened, when she had exchanged blows on equal footing with the lion, came alive throughout her entire body.
Whether her opponent was a lion, a horse, or anything else, there was no need to shrink back anymore.
Nova took one step forward and declared boldly to the Deviant.
“You will face me, Hero Nova!”
At that, the light in the Deviant’s eyes blazed even more intensely.
“I, Accel Unicorn, shall determine whether you are truly a hero worthy of Lord Sigma’s attention!”
@
“For a first act of terror, the weather’s nice and clear, and the cameras are picking everything up perfectly. Our Nova was a little clueless, but she still made a cool entrance, so there’s no problem.”
Beyond the screen, on top of the train that had burst out of the dark tunnel, stood a beautiful hero in a pitch-black suit, facing off against Accel Unicorn.
At the bottom of the footage being transmitted in real time by a stealth drone Machina had made with future technology, the chat window was flying by like mad.
[Whoa, you guys see that? She just came out through the tunnel, damn]
[Holy;; Is she a hero? She’s crazy pretty??]
[I’m searching the hero database but nothing’s coming up. Is she new?]
[A train is being hijacked and people are about to die, and you care about looks?]
[ㄴ Yes, I do. She’s freaking gorgeous, you idiot]
[Insane... noona, I’m dying...]
A train hijacking in broad daylight and an unidentified villain were shocking enough, but naturally, the public’s attention would focus on the hero facing him.
What more needed to be said? This was a terror attack staged for one person alone, and the star of this stage was Hero Nova!
To be sure, Lee Seoha normally felt more like a cute little animal than a beauty, but after transforming, her visuals were so overwhelming that even the word beautiful wasn’t enough.
My heart had even pounded the first time I saw her.
Stella, you bastard. The original protagonist just got a half-assed full-body suit, but Nova… Damn it, I’ll acknowledge your aesthetic sense!
“…What are you doing right now?”
“I was simply moved by Nova’s first stage.”
“Oh, please.”
Under Machina’s chilly gaze, I cleared my throat and calmed my excitement.
This time, I intended to engrave her name into the minds of everyone in the country so that Nova’s accomplishments wouldn’t be buried by the circumstances of adults.
“By the way, this is Nova’s first real battle, right?”
“Machina, even if Nova is a lousy hero, she does have some experience…….”
“I mean her first real battle after getting the Core Relic!”
“You should’ve said that sooner.”
Machina ground her teeth and continued irritably.
“Ugh, anyway, is it really okay for her first fight to be on top of a moving train?”
Logically, she wasn’t wrong.
No matter how much experience Nova had, she was still only a B-rank hero.
Would someone like her have experience fighting in such an extreme environment—a runaway train with no brakes, dozens of lives at stake, and a collision possible at any moment?
Of course, even if Nova failed to win within the time limit, I had prepared things so the people inside the train wouldn’t die. But honestly, I couldn’t imagine her losing.
“It’s fine.”
Nova was neither a main character whose skills had been proven, nor even a supporting character. In the original, she had been nothing more than an extra villain A who existed to make the protagonist shine.
That was why, if I thought about it normally—if I were the old me—I wouldn’t even have given her a second glance.
But ever since I saw those upright eyes of hers, I had gained a strange belief that she could do it.
Of course, the conditions were perfect for screwing over that Tanaka bastard in the most ideal way possible, but even so, I trusted my intuition.
“She won’t grow unless it’s at least this much, don’t you think?”
Though from me, the one who opened the stage, to Machina, who built the devices, to Unicorn, the villain, and Stella, the helper, we were all in on it together in a staged WWE match, if I wanted to make Nova the protagonist, I had to push her this far.
Even the ordinary civilian protagonist of the original had his first real battle on top of a Shinkansen, so a mere regular railway was nothing.
“If we’ve set the board up this much and she still fails to meet expectations… well, then I suppose I had no eye for people.”
“Hmmm~ Is that so?”
Machina seemed interested as well, and sat beside me to stare at the screen.
‘Our engineer is looking forward to your performance too, Nova.’
So overcome the trial I prepared for you splendidly.
@
『It’s coming!』
No sooner had Stella finished speaking than Accel Unicorn swung its leg, sending a sharp slash flying toward Nova.
Since she was on top of a narrow train with no room to dodge left or right, Nova instinctively jumped, narrowly avoiding the attack.
“Hah!”
But the moment her body rose into the air, the fierce wind resistance from a speed exceeding one hundred kilometers per hour pushed her back, and the distance between her and Unicorn opened in an instant.
Fortunately, she avoided falling off the train, but it had been a dizzying moment.
『You idiot! It’d be one thing inside the train, but how could you jump on the roof when it’s moving this fast!』
“Ugh, sorry, Stella.”
“Chitchat during battle? Are you taking me lightly?”
But before she could even regain her senses, Unicorn leapt high from where it stood.
“Jet Kick!”
The thing blasted the turbo engines at the backs of its legs at maximum output and launched a kick toward Nova at terrifying speed.
“!”
『Don’t just stand there, dash forward!』
There was no time to think about what to do.
Nova accelerated instinctively and threw herself onto the roof of the car ahead, evading Unicorn’s attack by a hair’s breadth.
Kwa-boom! Immediately after, the train car Nova had been standing on just moments ago shattered under Unicorn’s powerful impact and fell off the tracks.
She had known it was an empty car, thankfully, but Nova still swallowed dryly at the sheer destructive force.
『Don’t get distracted, focus! It’s not over yet!』
Through the thick smoke of debris, the white unicorn began charging again.
『Don’t let it get back onto the train—shoot it with Nova Magnum!』
Nova had been thinking the same thing, so she summoned the hand cannon she had seen before, Nova Magnum.
For some reason, its name felt familiar, but now was not the time to dwell on that.
Nova pulled the trigger without hesitation at Unicorn.
“Do you think an attack like that will hit me?”
Energy bullets rained from the muzzle, but Unicorn displayed evasive maneuvers close to acrobatics and dodged every single attack.
“This time, I’ll knock you off the train!”
The thing drew close to the side of the train, just as it had when it first appeared, then leapt straight into the air.
『Now!』
“Charging!”
Not missing the moment when Unicorn was airborne and defenseless, Nova fired the energy beam she had condensed in advance.
“Guh!”
A direct hit. Struck in the chest by the bullet, Unicorn plummeted to the ground.
Seeing that, Nova muttered in relief.
“Did... did I get him?”
『You idiot! How could you say a line like that now!』
It was at that exact instant, as Stella shouted at her.
Far in the distance, Unicorn, which had been flung outside the rails, let out a thunderous roar as though tearing through the atmosphere.
“Uoooooh──!!”
Together with the thing’s roar, as if it were enraged, whoosh! Something passed by Nova at an invisible speed.
“Huh?”
There wasn’t even time to react.
By the time she realized it had grazed past her, red blood was trickling down Nova’s cheek.
Flustered, Nova instinctively turned her muzzle, caught Unicorn in her sights, and pulled the trigger, but the bullets pierced only an insubstantial afterimage.
『Nova, get ahold of yourself! It’s entered the sonic range!』
In an instant, Unicorn had climbed back onto the train, and now it moved at high speed from left, right, front, back—all directions—tracing irregular trajectories.
Every time it stepped on the train’s metal roof and leapt, crack, crack, the sounds of rupture rang out from every side, disrupting Nova’s sense of balance.
As though it had multiplied into several copies, Unicorn dug into Nova’s blind spots and began to overwhelm her.
『You have no chance if you only defend! Counterattack somehow!』
“Kh, but it’s too fast, I can’t see…….”
“Where are you looking?”
“Keugh!”
Her body bent into a ㄱ shape from the thing’s kick, Nova was sent flying for a long distance and only managed to stop after rolling all the way to the very front car of the train.
『Are you okay?! Answer me, Nova!』
At Stella’s urgent question, Nova spat out the blood surging up her throat and answered.
“……I’m okay.”
In the past, it would certainly have been a fatal wound, but thanks to the defensive power of Stella’s suit and the amplification of her original body-enhancement ability, she could endure it well enough.
If she could just rest for a moment, she would recover cleanly, but there was no way the enemy would give her that chance.
Nova quickly got to her feet and took her stance, but soon she wore a puzzled expression.
“What is this?”
Unicorn did not charge in immediately, but lowered itself and adjusted its posture.
Just as she was about to wonder why it had stopped attacking, Stella’s urgent scream burst out.
『A tunnel! Duck!』
Before thought could even pass through her mind, her body moved first, and she flattened herself against the roof.
In an instant, darkness covered her surroundings, and the cool sensation of the tunnel entrance passing just barely over her head gave her only a brief moment of relief.
“The reason I stopped attacking was to ensure a certain hit!”
From its lowered stance, Unicorn swung its leg with a mechanical whir and sent out a slash.
With the tunnel ceiling blocking above her, she could not rise to dodge—an absolutely desperate situation.
“Eat this!”
Still lying flat, Nova fired Nova Magnum in rapid succession.
Energy bullets and the slash collided in midair, causing a great explosion.
The train shook violently along with a roar, but that was all. Thankfully, it seemed she had safely blocked the thing’s attack.
Soon after, the train emerged from the tunnel, and the surroundings brightened again.
As she briefly narrowed her eyes at the sudden light, Stella shouted once more.
『Above you!』
When she raised her head, Unicorn, having concentrated all its energy into its horn, was shooting toward Nova like a missile.
“It ends here, hero! Accel Override!”
She couldn’t dodge. By the time she recognized the thing, it was already too close, and even if she did dodge, the place where she stood now was the first train car, where the most people were gathered.
She didn’t need to think to know what kind of disaster would occur if Unicorn’s blow reached this place.
『Nova!』
As though responding to Stella’s cry, Nova unleashed all the energy she had been condensing in the muzzle at once.
“Full Charging Magnum!”
The instant two gigantic energies clashed head-on, an enormous shockwave tore the atmosphere apart.
A blinding flash swallowed the top of the rampaging train, and soon the world was engulfed in pure white light where not even sound could be heard.