-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter Title: A Hero's Revelation
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[Good evening, everyone. This is the 9 O'Clock News. Earlier today, there was an airplane terrorist attack by a villain. Our nation's hero caught the falling plane, saving everyone. Reporter Jeon Jae-seung has the details.]
[At 1 PM today, the screens of all three terrestrial broadcasting channels suddenly changed.]
The TV, which had been showing an entertainment program, went black. Then, suddenly, footage from inside an airplane began to be broadcast. People trembled in fear, and then Egoistic's voice could be heard.
[Welcome to the sky's greatest quiz show, The Ego Show Live!]
Egoistic's pre-recorded image appeared on the screen. He wore a sinister smile.
[This marks Egoistic's third act of terror, following two previous broadcasts of his terror scenes on public television.]
And once again, Egoistic's voice chimed in.
[The rules are simple! I'll give you ten nonsense riddles, and all you have to do is answer them correctly! If even one person gets all of them right, I'll let the plane go. Quietly. And safely! But what if everyone gets them wrong? Boom! The bomb explodes!]
The passengers were in chaos, frantically trying to solve the riddles.
[Despite their panic, the passengers calmly attempted to solve the riddles, hoping to save themselves from his threat of detonating the bomb if they failed. However.]
Egoistic's playful voice chimed in.
[...was not the answer!!! Too bad. Well, gee. That's all, goodbye!]
At the same time, a loud bang shook the cabin.
People screamed as the plane began to descend rapidly.
The camera switched.
The news showed footage from a camera on the ground, capturing the distant ocean.
At first glance, it might not be obvious, but a closer look clearly showed the plane descending at an angle.
As the plane plummeted downward,
a small dot began to fly towards it.
And that dot collided with the plane.
THUD—
An immense vibration, strong enough to be felt by the camera recording the scene.
The anchor continued.
[Towards the plummeting plane, a figure flew. Her identity: A-rank Hero, Stardust. She had been on standby near the plane's projected landing zone, and when it began to fall, she flew out alone to stop it.]
[Many experts had predicted that her known abilities wouldn't be enough to stop it, but as if mocking those predictions, the plane visibly slowed.]
The plane in the video was noticeably slowing its descent.
[Ultimately, the plane was halted, and all passengers were safely rescued. Stardust later collapsed and was transported to the hospital, but the Hero Association announced that she had merely fainted from exhaustion and her life was not in danger. This has been Reporter Jeon Jae-seung.]
With the reporter's broadcast concluded,
the news returned to the female anchor standing.
She opened her mouth.
[Yes, a hero. What is a hero? Justice, salvation, sacrifice, faith... What Stardust showed us this time was truly the act of a hero. On behalf of our broadcasting station, we extend our deepest gratitude to Stardust for protecting the citizens of the Republic of Korea.]
With that, the anchor bowed her head.
***
[Yeah, you've done enough, you can take a day off, can't you? Come down, see the ocean, and clear your head. Let's go for a run together for old times' sake.]
"Alright, I'll go this time."
[Really? Promise! You promise?]
"Yeah, yeah."
The call ended.
Placing her phone down, she sat in the chair at her desk and let out a deep sigh.
"..."
It had already been several days since she had single-handedly stopped the plane.
It was a wonder to her how she had managed to stop it, and how she was still alive.
What mattered, in any case, was that she had stopped the plane, saved the people, and was still perfectly fine.
She clenched and unclenched her right hand.
Her strength had grown again. Much more than before, too.
Witnessing her unprecedented growth, the Association likely concluded that they had underestimated her power all this time.
They accepted that she had possessed such strength all along, and no one had realized it.
In truth, the increase in her abilities wasn't just that.
As she flew towards the plane, gritting her teeth and desperately pushing forward, she had broken through another barrier.
For some reason, her flying speed had become much faster than before.
The Association explained that she seemed to have underestimated her own power until now.
But since it was her own power, she knew clearly.
Her ability hadn't been this strong all along; it had grown.
It wasn't a matter of questioning 'how could that be?' Her ability had truly become stronger.
Why? Her ability grew on its own to solve a situation she couldn't handle? Does that even make sense? How convenient is that?
But the fact that her ability had grown was undeniable; it had already happened.
However, in truth, she wasn't particularly focused on her increased abilities at the moment.
What she was constantly thinking about instead was Egoistic.
Due to this airplane terror incident, many of those who indiscriminately revered Egoistic as an anti-hero had disappeared. People had once again realized that he was a villain officially recognized by the Association.
Although there were no civilian casualties this time either, had Stardust not intervened, many would have truly died, leading to widespread criticism of him.
However.
Stardust, the one directly involved in the incident, was the only one thinking differently from the public.
When she had been standing by helplessly, a sudden call came.
And he had told her. He told her to stop that plummeting plane.
"You have to fly out and save the plane."
When she countered, asking how she could possibly stop it, he spoke with a voice full of conviction.
"You can do it. Stop the plane from falling."
When she asked if he was trying to kill her, he had said this:
"What meaning would I have without you? Without you, I'm just a common, ordinary villain."
"You complete me."
As she reeled slightly from his sudden declaration, he continued in a voice filled with sincerity, as if pleading.
"So step forward."
"Clench your fists, put strength into your legs, fly into that sky, and save the people."
"You can do it."
"Because that's who you are."
His words, full of trust, as if he believed in her even more than she believed in herself—words she had never once heard throughout her hero career.
Had anyone, even one person, ever believed in her like this before?
Even when she first started as an A-rank hero, all she heard were unfavorable comments: "too young," "can't resolve incidents quickly enough," and so on.
Amidst a public that didn't particularly trust heroes to begin with, she had simply persevered silently. She had just quietly done her part to uphold her sense of justice.
But the fact that her archenemy, a villain, was the first to speak words that sounded like complete trust in her was truly ironic.
And it had actually happened just as he said.
She didn't know what he had seen in her to speak like that, but either way, she had succeeded just as he had said.
A fool's errand. A suicide mission.
Something that any of those phrases could describe had actually come to pass.
Just as he had first foretold.
"Egoistic..."
Alone in her home, she quietly murmured his name.
He said he believed in her. He told her to lift the plane.
But the point to focus on here isn't actually the part where he said he believed in her.
It's that he told *her* to lift the plane.
Why? He drops the plane, and then tells her to save it? Then why drop it in the first place?
To simply call him a psycho who kills people with his powers, there were too many suspicious points.
The plane would have crashed if she had just stood by. But because he told her to save it, she was able to.
So why did he tell her to save it?
He wants to orchestrate a crazy death game where the plane crashes if they fail a nonsense quiz, but he doesn't actually want civilians to die? Is that it?
Yes, that's a possibility. It is.
But her intuition was screaming that, for some reason, that wasn't it.
"Without you, I'm just a common, ordinary villain. You complete me."
His words kept echoing in her ears.
He said he needed her because without her, he would just be an ordinary villain.
Why would he be an ordinary villain just because she wasn't there? Wouldn't it actually not matter if another hero, not her, became his adversary? Was it because she was the only A-rank hero near him?
It didn't seem like that. Her intuition kept screaming it.
There seemed to be some other reason.
A groundless, illogical, utterly preposterous speculation. To be blunt, it was almost a delusion.
But this time, she decided to trust what her instincts were telling her.
"...I need to investigate his past actions."
What has he done so far?
What was the outcome of it all?
If I gather all the incidents he's caused, won't something emerge?
She stood up from her seat and started to head outside.
Egoistic. The suspicion that he was planning something, intending something, and doing all of this for a reason.
It couldn't be called a rational suspicion, but still. She decided to try and deduce it.
And so, Shin Haru got dressed and stepped outside.
Egoistic. Whatever you're hiding. Whatever you're planning.
I will find it.
***
"Ugh, why is my ear itching?"
"Oppa, isn't it because you haven't cleaned your ears?"
"No, I don't think that's it."
What the heck? Is someone talking bad about me?