Chapter 44 - Deepening Suspicion

Truth be told, she'd been harboring doubts about Egostic for a while now.

Yes, to be precise, it started after the airplane terror incident.

The phone call he'd made to her had been the decisive turning point.

He'd told her he believed in her.

That she could do it, that she should stop the plane.

What kind of villain says something like that to a hero?

Could someone like that even be called a villain?

That's when it began.

That's when Stardus started conducting a personal investigation into Egostic.

He'd orchestrated a total of three terror attacks.

A ship, a train, and an airplane.

All with zero casualties.

Perhaps this too could be chalked up to coincidence.

As her supporters—the so-called Stardus Squad—claimed, maybe Egostic had intended to kill, but Stardus had stopped him every time. That's why there were no casualties, they argued.

But she knew something the others didn't.

She knew that the final airplane terror incident had been orchestrated by Egostic to ensure zero casualties.

When the plane was actually about to crash and be destroyed, he'd personally contacted her to make sure she stopped it.

In other words, this allowed her to speculate.

What if the previous terror attacks had also been rigged by Egostic somehow?

What if all the attacks had actually been designed to prevent fatalities?

Which raised the question:

Suppose his goal wasn't to cause casualties or demand ransom.

Then why?

Why plan the terror attacks at all?

The most common answer would be this:

Because he's an attention seeker. Because he's insane. Because he's lost his mind.

Yes, that was the most convenient answer.

But she had her doubts.

Was that really the only reason?

Of course, she didn't deny that he was a bit... unhinged.

But her intuition.

Her intuition whispered to her.

There's something more.

That couldn't be the whole story.

So she investigated.

What had changed after those terror attacks occurred.

She read newspapers, checked the Statistics Office, read articles...

And what she discovered was this:

Explosive inspections on transportation had been strengthened. Cybersecurity had been enhanced across various organizations including the government and broadcasters.

And the crime rate among villains had decreased. Egostic himself had taken out three villains, for one thing. And since villains don't act when other villains are active, the terror rate had dropped during the period Egostic was operating.

But to say Egostic had intended all this? That was far too much of a stretch. She couldn't escape the criticism that she was conveniently interpreting things in Egostic's favor.

In fact, the Mango Squad—Egostic's fan club—used similar logic to justify his terror attacks.

Truth be told, none of that really mattered. Among all the changes brought about by Egostic, there was one she felt most profoundly.

Her own power had grown much, much stronger.

"....."

Clench.

She balled her hand into a fist.

Stopping the train. And stopping the airplane.

Through those two incidents, her power had grown remarkably. The Association had even considered promoting her to S-Rank.

Of course, promotions were extremely difficult. Since the International Hero Association Alliance handled the evaluations rather than the Korean Hero Association, they rarely approved them. There were hardly any people who'd risen from A to S in the first place.

So the mere fact that it had been discussed was remarkable in itself.

Her power had grown at an unprecedented rate.

Faster than anyone else's.

And who should she credit for that?

That bastard Egostic?

"..What am I even saying."

No, that couldn't be it.

She'd just gotten lucky, things had coincidentally worked out well, that's all.

There's no way that bastard Egostic knew her abilities grew stronger in crisis situations and orchestrated terror attacks to develop her power, right?

'What ridiculous delusions.'

Even she found the thought laughable and dismissed it with a chuckle.

And yet.

[That's right, Ms. Stardus. Well done. In a way I never imagined. To think you'd save everyone that way—I truly didn't expect it. It's your victory.]

[So step forward. Clench your fists, put strength in your legs, and fly into that sky to save people. You can do it. Because that's who you are.]

"...."

It was absurd.

How could he know anything about her, how could he have known her abilities would grow?

And yet, when she recalled the words he'd spoken before, she felt strangely unsettled.

'Those were definitely a villain's words... from a terror attack he himself orchestrated...'

So why couldn't she get his words out of her head?

She shook her head vigorously, dispelling the stray thoughts.

Just delusions of grandeur. Delusions of grandeur.

Besides, Egostic hadn't just orchestrated terror attacks.

He'd killed three villains. Including the followers who'd carried out his terror attacks, he'd killed quite a few people.

The way he eliminated villains without hesitation, as he pleased. Vigilante justice. It sounded nice to call him an Anti-Hero, but killing people as you pleased without proper legal authority was just murder.

However...

She turned her eyes away from the laptop screen.

What she'd been looking at was classified material she'd obtained security clearance for from the Association President.

Though it was supposedly confidential that only the Association's top security agents and the President could access, she'd practically extorted the files from him. She'd barely gotten approval after emphasizing her status as an A-Rank Hero and insisting on her right to know.

When she'd demanded to know why this information wasn't shared with heroes and only circulated internally within the Association, she'd received the absurd answer that it was unavoidable due to security concerns.

"Tsk... Do they think we're hunting dogs?"

In any case, this material she'd successfully extorted—it was a compilation of data on villains ranging from S-Rank to B-Rank.

Files with [Level 1 Classified] plastered across the site in huge letters.

From there, she'd looked up information about the villains Egostic had dealt with so far.

***

[Enzodiac] Real name: Jeon Jaehyuk.

S-Rank Villain.

Shaman.

Caught attempting to use eight murdered victims as sacrifices to trigger a spell.

The danger lies in the unknown limits of his shamanic abilities.

Level 2 Classified Information: The earthquake that occurred on 03.24.20 was caused by him, but this was [Record Erased] and announced as a natural disaster.

*Designated S-Rank because with sufficient sacrifices, he could trigger any disaster. Heroes affiliated with the International Hero Association are also searching. Do not tell domestic heroes anything beyond /immediate termination order/.

Eliminated by A-Rank Villain Egostic.

***

After investigating other villains Egostic had killed—including Rhino, Teleporter, and others—she discovered one thing.

The villains he'd actively killed all shared a common trait: they possessed abilities capable of causing 'large-scale disasters' at some point, even those who hadn't caused any particular problems up until now.

Incidentally, she'd also tried to see how Egostic himself was recorded in those files, but it was blocked by [O-Level Classified Information] that only the Association President or Supreme Council Members of the International Association Alliance could access. When she'd confronted the Association President about it, his only response was that he didn't know either since it was designated by the International Alliance above him.

Something felt off about it, but she let it go for now.

What mattered was Egostic. Looking at his actions...

'To simply call him a villain...'

Judging by the large-scale terror attacks he committed, he was definitely a villain.

However, the path he showed had many ambiguous aspects. Not to mention the suspicious terror attacks that never resulted in casualties, there were many strange points—like killing his own follower and stopping Alligator Man.

And this recent Apple Mango incident had added certainty to her suspicions.

"..."

Apple Mango.

Truth be told, she'd recognized him as Egostic the moment she saw him.

The voice, the height, the behavior—all identical. How could she not know?

Of course, since she was the only one who'd seen Egostic in person, the other two didn't seem to notice on the spot.

The very fact that he named himself Apple Mango... it didn't seem like he was particularly trying to hide his identity.

But what mattered was this:

Why was he there in the first place?

That previous incident had been planned from the start.

After receiving intelligence about a large-scale raid scheduled in Busan, the plan was to deliberately leak information to the media about Shadow Walker being down, then round everyone up at night.

Since there would likely be many hostages, the plan was to safely suppress the terror with Shadow Walker, who excelled at anti-personnel combat.

But Apple Mango—or rather, Egostic—had already dealt with the minions, leaving no opportunity for them to step in.

Egostic had spouted nonsense until the end before leaving.

Should she have attacked and captured him on the spot?

"..."

Right.

She had to admit it.

Her suspicion about Egostic had become a kind of certainty.

Why would someone claiming to be a villain rescue people in that situation?

His visible behavior was that of a madman through and through, but if you traced each action he'd taken so far... he could also be seen as a hero pretending to be a villain, just like the netizens said.

But then why not just operate as a hero, or at least an anti-hero... Why commit acts of terror?

Was he drawing some bigger picture that she and others didn't know about?

Maybe the bastard was just doing whatever he pleased and she was over-interpreting it.

Still.

Highly developed intuition is itself reasonable deduction.

She'd continued to suspect.

And with this Apple Mango incident, that suspicion had become near certainty.

Egostic was not a simple villain.

He could never be called a hero either, but even so.

Too ambiguous to call an enemy, impossible to consider an ally, yet ultimately helping their side.

The suspicion that this bastard was orchestrating something on a grand scale—

Stardus couldn't help but have it.

She couldn't sleep well that night.

'What exactly is that bastard Egostic scheming? Is he actually on our side? No, that's definitely not it. What if he's actually a senior hero doing villain cosplay? What are you even saying, Haru? You've finally lost it.'

She lay awake with only complicated thoughts swirling through her mind, vowing to reveal his identity at his next terror attack...

'But seriously, why did he call himself Apple Mango? Does this have some hidden meaning too?'

***

"This fucking sucks..."

"Why did you call yourself Apple Mango? Tell me, Oppa. You pretended to hate mangoes so much, but did you actually like that nickname?"

"Please be quiet... I'm begging you...!"

I want to jump off a cliff from embarrassment...