I couldn’t remember how I got home last night.
“Ughhh…”
The only thing on my mind right now… was how unbearably thirsty I was from the hangover.
I grabbed the water bottle sitting next to the bed and gulped it down in one go.
“Haaah… What did I even do yesterday…”
I began to retrace the fragments of my broken memory, one by one.
“…Ah, right.”
When I first told the woman to bring me drugs.
She called the club guards to the VIP room.
But… I had already been watching what was going on outside the club using the third-person view ability I learned yesterday.
“I killed them all, huh?”
I beat the crap out of every guy who came in without much thought.
The problem was… while dealing with them, my body moved around too much, and the alcohol I drank felt like it was rising up to my throat.
The last thing I remembered was seeing the woman, terrified, bring me the drugs.
I took them and went home just like that.
“Ah… I left the money there.”
I was definitely planning to bring the cash with me… but ended up leaving it behind.
I guess I’ll have to go back to the club sometime today to try and retrieve it.
But anyway…
“Whoa… I even changed my clothes before sleeping?”
I should’ve had blood all over my clothes from fighting the club guards.
Yet, my bed was perfectly clean without a single stain, and I had been changed into clothes that suited me well.
“Guess I’m a pretty responsible drunk.”
Realizing that my drunk self was surprisingly neat and diligent,
I decided to head out of the room to cure my hangover first—
“Whoa!!”
“!! Geez, you scared me…”
“…How long have you been there?”
“Since you groaned and woke up.”
“…Do you have an invisibility ability or something?”
“You just didn’t notice me.”
“…I always prided myself on being more sensitive than most people…”
“Guess hangovers don’t care about stuff like that.”
“Ah…”
I wasn’t sure when she got there,
But Pyro Bomber was sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed.
Seeing her there…
“Ahem… I, uh, didn’t do anything weird last night, did I?”
Not remembering much from the night before, I awkwardly asked if anything happened.
“Mhmm, nothing happened.”
Phew… thank go—
“Well, except for puking on my clothes, freaking out about the blood on your own clothes, and begging me to help you change.”
“……”
“Haag…”
“I-Isn’t now the part where you also say I confessed to you or something?”
“Why would I say that?”
“Because if you say something like that, I might be able to brush off everything else you said as a lie…”
“…You did. You mumbled in your sleep about how much you liked me.”
“Thank you…”
Min-hyuk.
Swear you’ll never drink again.
Or find someone with an ability that makes you immune to alcohol…soon.
“Half of that was a joke.”
“…Thank you.”
Just like Pyro Bomber said, half of it must’ve been a joke.
I probably didn’t actually confess my feelings in my sleep.
Throwing up on her clothes, demanding she change my clothes…ugh…
Come to think of it…
I had thought it strange how, despite being terrible at dressing myself, I ended up in clothes that suited me even though I was dead drunk.
So it was Pyro Bomber who had changed me…
…She even matched the underwear.
It felt like the time had finally come to admit it.
That the Villain Hunter mask looked hopelessly tacky…
That my sense of fashion was… utterly terrible…
“Our little guy is finally showing his quiet side, huh?”
“…Thank you for the compliment.”
“That’s right, it is a compliment. I made some dried pollack soup, so go eat it.”
“…Thank you. Really…”
…
This must be the place.
I arrived at the address V had given me.
As expected of a hero with one of the highest-ranked abilities out there.
The apartment he lived in was famously expensive. One of those luxury buildings.
“Who are you?”
One thing about these kinds of apartments…they always have security patrolling the area.
And most of those security guards were former heroes with abilities of their own.
“Oh, I’m just looking up the unit number. My friend invited me over.”
If I attacked this guard right now and drank his blood…
I’d gain one more ability.
Wait? Come to think of it, this is totally like Attack on Tita—
“I can help you. Do you happen to know the unit number?”
That brutal anime briefly flashed through my mind.
But I wasn’t so obsessed with collecting powers that I’d hurt someone just for helping me.
I followed the guard as he led me toward V’s apartment.
“There you are!”
“Is this your friend?”
“Yes. Thanks for your help.”
“Have a good day.”
Standing in front of the building’s main entrance on the first floor, I finally saw V’s real face.
Step, step.
As I walked toward V who was no longer in his hero persona but his real self—
He’s totally off guard.
Maybe because he thought I was just there to give him the drugs.
I could clearly see a V more relaxed than I’d ever seen before.
If I hurt V and only extracted his blood… I could gain the Word Magic ability.
While I was struggling with this desire rising from deep inside me—
“A call will come at 8 p.m. tonight.”
“Huh?”
“The Vice President said he’d bring up meeting you then.”
“I see…”
I realized that the Word Mage’s information-gathering abilities were more helpful than I’d expected.
“Curious about the next piece of info?”
“I am.”
“There has to be a price.”
“Understood. Summon.”
“Ha! That’s what I’m talking about!”
“I got a top-grade one. It’s 100 grams.”
“Only 100 grams?”
“The info is high quality, so I’ll give you one more. Summon.”
“Knew you were a villain hunter!”
Deciding to keep using him for now to get the information I needed,
I handed over the two bags of drugs I had hurriedly repackaged this morning.
Just like that—
“Now, tell me the next bit of information.”
“You said you’d be the one to decide the meeting location, right?”
“That’s right.”
“The Vice President’s hoping I’ll kill you on the spot…”
Through him, I was able to hear about the Vice President’s plan.
…
Bzzz— Bzzz—
The phone Seo-yoon had lent me started to vibrate.
— HERO ASSOCIATION Vice President —
Just as V had said, the Vice President called precisely at 8 p.m. on the dot.
I ignored the call and continued my conversation with Pyro Bomber.
“Not going to answer it?”
“I’m planning to ignore him for now.”
It was frustrating, but I had to admit it.
If I went to meet the Hero Association’s Vice President this time, I’d almost certainly end up locked away in the villain-only prison.
“The world’s greatest villain hunter?”
At first, I considered asking Seo-yoon for help.
“But this situation is dangerous even for Mobia.”
“Huh? That’s even possible?”
The Vice President’s “next move” was dangerous enough to threaten even Seo-yoon.
For now, I decided to wait and let the Vice President play his trump card.
“This time, the Vice President spent quite a bit of money to import a special treatment for ability users.”
“A treatment for ability users?”
“They say it’s in the form of a tranquilizer gun, but since we don’t know where the shot might come from…”
“Whoa… So if you get hit by that, your powers disappear?”
“That’s what it seems like. I heard a Japanese hero who developed augmented alloys has been making the treatment, one dose every two months.”
“The same alloy developer Hye-won couldn’t identify?”
“Yeah.”
“That suddenly makes it feel way more legit.”
Bzzz— Bzzz—
Ignoring the repeated calls from the Vice President, I glanced over at Pyro Bomber, who had suddenly become unusually affectionate toward me.
…What’s going on?
It’s hard to explain, but… something felt different.
Normally, if I pushed her away just a bit, she’d take the hint and give me space, like we were each just living our own lives.
But today, Pyro Bomber seemed oddly attentive, almost like she was taking care of me.
…Did she mess something up?
Did she cause some kind of trouble I don’t know about?
Like a younger sister who breaks her brother’s laptop and suddenly starts acting overly kind until she gets found out—
Pyro Bomber was watching me, like she was reading my reaction…
“What are you staring at? Ah~ You’ve fallen for me, haven’t you?”
She doesn’t seem like someone who did something wrong, though.
Judging by that shamelessness, there was no way she’d done something wrong.
Then what was it..?
“I just looked because I wanted to.”
I didn’t really have a better excuse, so, as always, I threw out the kind of banter we usually go back and forth with.
“I’m heading to the club in about an hour. Want to come with me?”
I reminded her about the club I’d mentioned earlier that morning—
And asked if she wanted to go with me to collect the cash.
“Oh my, oh my… Just wait right there!”
Suddenly beaming, Pyro Bomber darted off somewhere—
…
“…We’re going to collect the cash, just so you know.”
She came back dressed in an outfit that showed off her figure.
“I’m going on a date, though.”
“…With who?”
“With you.”
“…I’m telling you, we’re going to collect cash.”
“And I’m telling you, I’m going on a date with you.”
She said it so confidently, I was at a loss for words.
Well… she had taken care of me the other day when I got drunk and made a mess of things.
Is this what it feels like to be a husband in the wrong or something…?
Just this once, I decided to go along with her.
“…Well then, I guess I don’t have much of a choice.”
“Hmm? Where are you going?”
“I’m going to change clothes.”
I quickly pulled out my phone and started searching for the knowledge I needed right now.
***
Villain hunter who said he was going to change hadn’t come out for twenty minutes.
Did he suddenly need to use the bathroom?
Just as that thought crossed my mind—
Creak…
The closet door opened.
“Thinking of me while jerking off…”
From there, a man stepped out. He was clearly trying, if a bit awkwardly, to dress nicely.
“…Oh my.”
“Hmm… I knew it. It doesn’t look right, does it?”
But the moment he showed himself, not even two seconds passed before he turned to go right back into the room.
“No, no, don’t go back in!”
I grabbed the villain hunter by the arm and pulled him all the way out of the room.
“My babe really dressed up nicely today.”
“Thank goodness. I’m really not very confident when it comes to fashion.”
And in the villain hunter’s hand, which I had just pulled outside, I could see a search result that read: “Men’s fashion that looks good to women.”
He flirts as naturally as he breathes.
With this innocent man who didn’t even realize he was flirting, I decided to have the happiest date in the world, at least for today.
…
While the villain hunter was cleaning up the club, just like the night before,
I found myself wanting to see his cute, drunken side again.
Fufu… I’ll dress you with love again tonight, babe~.
I grabbed an expensive-looking bottle at random, poured a glass for him in advance,
And then, to get a taste myself, took a sip from my own glass.
Thud… Clatter…
Whether they had predicted we’d be drinking or not,
The liquor had already been heavily drugged.
This isn’t… an ordinary sedative…
The effect spread so quickly that I realized it the moment I drank it.
“Villain…”
Clutching my throbbing head, I tried to call out to the villain hunter but the drug’s effects had already spread too quickly.
Before I could even open my mouth, the sedation tightened its grip, making my barely-holding-on consciousness begin to fade.
And then…
“She drank it!”
“Bring her, now!”
While the villain hunter was upstairs clearing out the people, just like the night before,
A few club staff members who had been hiding on the first floor lifted me up and carried me off somewhere.
I… need to detonate the bomb…
What I had to do in this situation was clear. It was to trigger the bomb in my pocket.
But I couldn’t muster a single ounce of strength in my body…
I’m sorry… babe…
Just as I was about to become nothing more than a useless burden—
“…Huh?”
“Mo…bia?”
Crack—
The two men carrying me suddenly collapsed.
At the same time, I felt a familiar woman catching me in her arms.
“…unconscious, huh?”
“……”
“Whew…”
And that…
was the last thing I could see, feel, or remember.
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