A certain autumn morning, clear without a single cloud.
Though it was morning, it was already 9:30. Students had long since finished arriving at school, and office workers would have reached their companies and be in the middle of their work—
[Next news. Recently, a factory located in Cheonan City was attacked by villains, causing a great stir.]
“Hey, that’s—”
“Shh.”
[The factory burned down entirely and disappeared without a trace, and according to what Detective Hero Holmes uncovered, everyone who had remained there was confirmed dead.]
The students gathered in one spot inside the classroom, watching the news—students of Justice Academy, Korea’s only hero academy—were likewise wide awake.
[According to the Cheonan Seobuk Police Station, this factory was revealed to have belonged to the worst villain organization, the Evil Brigade—]
“That’s the factory we were supposed to raid this time, right?”
“To be precise, it was the villains’ hideout, but yeah, that’s right.”
Once the news ended, the students sank down with sighs and soon began talking about the report they had just seen.
“Who on earth did it? It wouldn’t have been other heroes.”
“Must’ve been villains.”
“But villains wouldn’t attack each other, would they? They’re already busy committing crimes or fighting heroes as it is.”
It was a shocking incident, but they were students who, out of a four-year curriculum, had now entered their third year. Among them, they were elites among elites, nicknamed the Golden Generation for having constantly fought villains.
As full-fledged heroes now being acknowledged even among active-duty heroes, if they heard about such an incident—especially if the hideout of villains they were supposed to raid had collapsed—it was only natural for them to discuss it.
“Maybe there’s some kind of conflict between factions?”
“What organization would fight against the Evil Brigade? Villains are too busy groveling in front of the strong.”
Amid all sorts of speculation, the topic they moved on to was—
“Could it be those guys again?”
“The villains who kill villains?”
None other than the villain organization presumed to have caused this incident.
“Was it Repentance?”
Repentance, which had suddenly come to prominence a year ago. A veiled group that never killed ordinary people, merely incapacitated heroes who came at them, and killed only villains.
“...Repentance, huh.”
Repentance. Regret, atonement, contrition. It had many meanings, but—
“Does it mean villains repenting and taking care of other villains?”
“Or maybe it means telling dying villains to repent for their sins.”
No matter how one interpreted it, it made sense, so countless experts were trying to deduce their identity.
“Well, they’re still villains.”
No matter what, they were a villain organization that could only be enemies to heroes.
In the end, they were people who killed. To students attending a hero academy, even students learning in order to become heroes, they were ultimately nothing more than villains.
They didn’t kill civilians? Who knew about that? Who could say they weren’t going around killing people behind the scenes? They didn’t kill heroes? No one knew that either.
They did put forth that slogan, and experts were making noise about them being the second coming of vigilantes—but in reality, there were heroes they had killed. Of course, they had been people colluding with villains, or people corrupted by using their strength and authority, but they had still killed them all the same. For all anyone knew, they might have killed heroes and framed them with crimes.
Besides, even if they killed villains, to keep those villains from receiving legal punishment and to pass judgment on behalf of the state—depending on how one looked at it, that could be a challenge against public authority.
But while the students might suspect and curse them for the first two reasons, they absolutely did not speak the last sin aloud.
“I wonder if Hyeonu’s doing all right?”
“...Who knows.”
They knew all too well how their classmate had fallen into despair, and what result had come of it—and—
“Seriously... not even one call.”
Because the girl who had been his childhood friend, who was still trying to find him but had recently burst into tears when no evidence turned up, was in their class, they never brought up such words.
“If he calls, what then? He’s been branded a villain now.”
“That’s true, but...”
“...I just hope he’s hiding somewhere without getting caught. Does that make me unqualified as a hero?”
“No way.”
Even if not for her, saying it was a crime because he had hurt a villain, because he had hurt a student, because he had killed a villain—those words were no different from a reverse scale to the students who had had Hyeonu as their classmate and still thought of him as their friend.
Others might not know, but they did. They knew how hard he had worked, how he had silently continued doing what he had to do despite others’ envy and insults, and how bright a smile he could wear.
And they already knew why that whole disaster had happened.
Of course, the person who knew all of this best was Choi Jihyeon, who had her head lowered with a dark expression.
As all the students in the class looked at her with worried gazes, her classmate and class president, Seong Hangyeol, looked at her with pity before immediately approaching and asking,
“Jihyeon. Are you okay?”
“More or less.”
She nodded to Hangyeol and answered, smiling faintly, but—
“...Haaah.”
She turned her head as she was and looked out the window, letting out a deep sigh.
A childhood friend who had been with her since they were five. Back when they were still so young they did not even know what superpowers were, he had scolded all the kids who bullied her, and he had treated her, who had no family, like real family. To her, he was family.
Even after their superpowers manifested, they had trained together and laughed; in hard times, they had encouraged each other and endured; when she was bad at studying, he had taught her, and when he despaired because his ability would not develop, she had comforted him and put her head together with his to worry over it. To her, he was a true friend, and—
“...Hyeonu.”
Someone she had wanted to protect, just as he had protected her, but in the end had failed to protect.
“Where on earth are you...?”
Thinking of him, she let out a sigh, then stared blankly out the window and clenched her teeth.
The sky beyond the window was clear without a single cloud. It was an autumn morning that contrasted with her heart, which seemed filled with dark clouds.
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“...The weather sure is nice.”
A boy sat in his room, clutching a pen as he scribbled words on a notebook.
He kept writing down everything that came to mind. No matter how much he wrote, it was certain to be erased according to the laws of this world—but even so, he did not stop his pen. Since he had nothing else to do anyway, it did not really matter. Only—
“You got hurt again! I told you to stop getting hurt!”
“Ah, shut up! You crazy bitch, of course I could get hurt when I went out fighting!”
“Who are you calling a crazy bitch, you lunatic? Want me to not heal you?”
“I’m sorry! So please heal me!”
“Pick one, are you being cocky or apologizing?!”
He only thought that those incredibly noisy things should shut their mouths.
The atmosphere was so disorderly that one would never think this was the hideout of a villain organization. Guardian—Lee Hyeonu—frowned as he glared at the door beyond which he could hear the two girls arguing. He did not particularly like noise. He was only putting up with it because they were not mere extras, but chapter bosses or helper characters from the game.
“Villains Ash and Jewel. Even Priest, who was on the heroes’ side, is on my side now.”
His gaze remained fixed on the door, but his pen moved without rest.
“As for the heroes... the protagonist, Seong Hangyeol, Choi Jihyeon, and many others are growing without dying—and this time, I’ve twisted things up through the fifth chapter.”
What he was writing down were the things that had happened so far, the current situation, and—
“Then the fifth chapter ends with this, so next is—the sixth.”
Stories about the things that would happen from now on.
After continuing to write down whatever came to mind and his plans going forward, he finally placed a period and leaned back in his chair.
“Hmm... Justice Academy, huh.”
He skimmed through the words he had written in the notebook, then slowly dragged the finger he had placed on the paper from top to bottom—
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen them.”
As he finished speaking and rose from his seat, the part his finger had touched was cut away and fell to the floor.
“I wonder how much they’ve grown. Our protagonist and his party—”
Hyeonu stood without even closing the notebook and headed for the door.
He immediately opened it, saw the girls still shouting at each other, and drew in a breath—
“Shut up, you brats—!”
“Boss!”
“God! Do something about this bitch! She comes back hurt every single day and—”
“I told you not to call me that!”
He shouted as he slammed the door shut.
The continuing commotion, the sound of footsteps gradually moving away from the room.
As time passed, no one remained in the room where only silence flowed—but from the moment the door closed, the words written in the notebook began to vanish one by one.
As if the ink were evaporating, the letters slowly disappeared one at a time, and what remained was only the phrase on the first line of the first page.
Even that was on the verge of disappearing, but on the very first line of the first page, the words “The Evil Brigade’s Academy Assault Operation” were written.