140) Chapter 20. Because I Hate Villains! (9)
This is a story from when I was very young.
Perhaps from a time even younger than the age I remembered.
From before I remembered my previous life—in other words, from so long ago that originally, I shouldn’t have been able to remember it at all.
Held in someone’s arms, I kept crying endlessly.
Even though those arms were so soft and warm.
“I thought about it, you know.”
Words that the me from that time wouldn’t have understood.
Even if I had understood them, words I wouldn’t have been able to answer.
No, maybe I did understand.
Not because of the words themselves, but because of the expression looking down at me.
The woman holding me looked remarkably similar to how I look now. If this little child was me, then this woman must have been my mother.
A gaze that looked tired of me.
Or perhaps disappointed.
Maybe instinctively, I recognized that look.
“You know, Mommy grew up without parents too. But I turned out just fine, didn’t I? So I thought about it, and I don’t think Mommy really needs to raise a little kid like you.”
My crying only grew louder.
“But I still gave you a name, didn’t I? Mommy was abandoned without even a name. Someone will probably come looking for you eventually, so you should grow up into a good child who listens to Mommy, okay?”
It seemed my crying didn’t matter to her at all.
The person who called herself my mother simply set me down on the ground.
And then she turned away without hesitation.
There was nothing I could do except cry, so I probably just kept crying.
The air was cold.
That was why my birthday was in January.
I didn’t know a person could make such horrible sounds with their mouth.
You know, that thing people call the “death rattle.” The dreadful breathing sound patients make when they’re close to dying.
That sound was coming out of my throat.
Gurgling, wet noises too, like phlegm bubbling up.
My mouth tasted like licking metal. Some kind of liquid kept clogging my throat. Not from outside—like vomit, it was rising up from below.
Everything around me was incredibly noisy.
The sky was gloomy. Just a little while ago it had been bright enough to feel hot.
Beyond my blurry vision, black clouds were moving incredibly fast. Huh? But there wasn’t any wind.
Ah, I see.
Those weren’t clouds.
That was smoke.
I was lying on hard ground. They’d only laid down a thin cloth underneath me while adults bustled around nearby.
“Rua!”
Was the one calling my name Soi? Chae-yi? Jinwoo? Hyeonji?
Maybe all of them?
The villain?
I tried to open my mouth and ask that, but only another choking, rattling sound came out. My side hurt so much. No, a little higher than that. Around my ribs, where my lungs were.
“Student, don’t talk.”
One of the adults said that.
Their hand was pressed against my wound. Were they healing me?
“The healers are on their way.”
Ah. No, then.
Even though there were enough healers for them to practically form part of this country’s medical system, that didn’t mean every hospital had dozens of them.
Especially not a regional hospital like this one. There were probably so few you could count them all on one hand.
There were injured people near the wildfire who needed urgent treatment, and there were people hurt fighting villains who also needed healing.
So then—
“Student!”
“Rua!?”
The moment I tried to push myself up with my arm, the people around me firmly held me down.
No.
This still wasn’t over.
That woman couldn’t be the only one. People disguised as civilians among the patients, trying to escape.
Had she said they attacked an orphanage?
Maybe it was someone else. Maybe there had coincidentally been two or three villains who attacked orphanages. Maybe there were several people who stabbed a hero protecting a little kid in their arms with that same ability.
…No, that couldn’t be.
Maybe there had been similar incidents, but there was no way there’d be two separate cases matching that perfectly. It had to be her.
“That..."
A wet rasp escaped my throat. Annoying. I pressed down hard on my side. Not with my real hand, but with the invisible hand others couldn’t see. I’d held together wounds much worse than this before. So it was fine.
“That... woman.”
“Police arrested her.”
“…Did she die?”
“No.”
Soi answered quickly, probably thinking I was worried.
Would it matter if she had died?
Honestly, I didn’t know. It just didn’t feel real. Meeting that woman here, and more than anything, I don’t think I’d actually seen her directly back then.
I’d just stayed wrapped in Uncle Dohyun’s arms the whole time.
And the blood.
“What… what happened?”
“For now, it looks like all the villains were subdued.”
Soi said that with a worried expression.
“Are you really okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“She is absolutely not okay.”
The adult helping me said that.
“With injuries this severe.”
“Because of my ability… I’m okay.”
Actually, it still hurt constantly.
But it hurt so much that the sensation there was gradually going numb instead. So it was fine.
“You can’t move. The wound is one thing, but there’s blood inside. Pressing on it won’t solve the problem.”
It felt like another choking sound was about to rise up from my throat, so I couldn’t answer.
“…What happened?”
Another voice suddenly cut in, and when I looked up, my eyes met Instructor Justina’s.
“Ah, Instructor.”
“Villains.”
I hurriedly interrupted Soi before she could speak.
“There are villains mixed in with the people.”
“…Really?”
Without wasting even a moment, Instructor Justina immediately turned her gaze toward the patients.
“…Yeah, I can see them. Haah.”
Then she rubbed her face.
She stood there silently for a moment, looking deep in thought, before turning toward Chae-yi and asking:
“Chae-yi. Could I ask for your help for a moment?”
“Yes.”
As if she instantly understood what Instructor Justina intended to do, Chae-yi followed after her.
“No.”
When I tried to get up again, Soi firmly pressed my shoulder down and forced me back onto the ground.
“Cough.”
As I inhaled while lying back down, I coughed. Red blood splattered across Soi’s school uniform. Her expression froze.
I’d never seen Soi look this pale in my life. She looked like she wanted to explode in anger right this second, but didn’t know what to say or where to direct it.
Even while lying down, I forcibly turned my head to look toward Instructor Justina and Chae-yi.
Instructor Justina walked straight toward one of the patients.
The patient must have realized something was wrong and reached out toward the two of them—
THUD!
At the loud noise, everyone turned simultaneously.
The person in the patient gown was twitching on the ground with their face smashed against the floor.
People’s gazes turned back toward me.
Soi’s expression became complicated.
I couldn’t even think about why I’d done that. It hurt, I was dizzy, my senses were dulling. And yet the duller my body became, the sharper the sensation of that hand not directly connected to my body grew.
I opened my mouth to try making some kind of excuse, but after feeling Soi tightly grab my hand, I closed it again.
Not long afterward, a healer arrived and treated my side. The blood in my lungs would apparently need separate treatment, and for now they’d only managed to deal with the life-threatening wound itself.
My body still hurt all over, I was dizzy, and I shivered as though I had a fever, but at least the situation had somehow been resolved.
Strictly speaking, I was still just a civilian. In fact, I hadn’t even decided whether I wanted to become a hero when I grew up.
So I probably had no justification to see the captured villain.
Still, I insisted.
I argued that since I was the one who’d made her like that, I was worried whether she’d survived and whether she’d suffered permanent disabilities, and eventually the adults gave in and brought me to her.
One of the hospital rooms.
Apparently there wasn’t a prison nearby equipped to hold superhumans, so until a special transport vehicle arrived, they planned to keep her restrained here under the teachers’ supervision.
So naturally, I wasn’t left alone with her one-on-one.
“Hh, hehe.”
The woman laughed the moment she saw my face, as though nothing else mattered.
Her fingers were horribly swollen.
No, her entire arm was swollen.
It didn’t look like just one place had broken. Maybe it was because I’d crushed the whole hand with my invisible hand.
At a glance, it looked like she should’ve been able to escape restraints using her ability.
But considering everything below her neck stayed motionless while she stared back at me, maybe her injuries were far more severe than they appeared.
“What, this still isn’t enough to satisfy you?”
“……”
“Go ahead and do more. Why don’t you try choking me like you did back then?”
But strangely, her words didn’t provoke me.
Cold sweat covered the woman’s forehead. Whether from pain, or because she was afraid of me.
No, she definitely was afraid. I could see her eyelids trembling.
Did she really think I couldn’t do something like that?
I reached out a hand.
Not the one attached to my arm.
“Hik— hiiiik!?”
The moment something invisible touched her body, the woman panicked violently.
“H-hey! Hey, over there! This bitch is trying to kill me! Kill me!”
People’s gazes turned toward me.
I shook my head.
“No, I didn’t do anything.”
“She says she didn’t.”
Standing beside me with a crooked posture, Soi spoke like she was about ready to spit at the woman.
The woman’s face filled with overwhelming injustice.
Even though she’d lived a life with absolutely no right to feel wronged.