Chapter 277 - The World After Calamity

The incident known as the Moonlight Catastrophe, when the Moonlight Cult Leader opened gates worldwide to unleash monsters and attack the entire planet, had finally come to an end.

The catastrophe that nearly brought the world to extinction was finally over.

[Everyone! The sun is rising again! Yes, we've won, everyone!!!]

Under the dark night sky, as the gates that had been endlessly pouring out monsters disappeared one by one, people finally realized when they saw the bright sun rising again.

Ah, it's finally over—they thought.

Although numerous cities were destroyed and casualties occurred during the battle, unlike the original timeline where everything collapsed, the world was still intact.

It was a great victory where heroes, villains, civilian ability users, and governments all joined forces to drive away the invaders in an unprecedented global catastrophe.

Although countries worldwide would be busy with post-war measures and rebuilding destroyed cities for a while, experts judged that recovery would be quick since they had survived. With the gates inland all gone and most monsters eliminated, they just needed to focus on recovery efforts.

After the catastrophe ended and things stabilized somewhat, people finally sought to understand how this disaster had been resolved.

And they found a video.

A recording of a broadcast that countless people worldwide had watched live, on the edge of their seats.

[Hello everyone, this is Egostic!]

A villain called Egostic, wearing a black hat and white mask, started broadcasting from South Korea where the Moonlight Cult Leader was located.

Smiling, he said he would stop this incident, and fearlessly headed toward an ominous black tower.

[It's simple. We reversed that gate thing or whatever you created.]

He went to the tower where the cult leader was, manipulated the gate to protect the world from the monster invasion, and finally confronted the Moonlight Cult Leader who caused this catastrophe.

He fought against attacks from enormous monsters that blocked the sky and dimensional assaults.

[How... how could you! It's impossible for a human body to cross through that dimensional current...]

[Well, I did it just fine. Anyway, there's nothing more to do, right?]

Then, holding a gun.

[Everyone, today's Egostic surprise event, "Dealing with the Moonlight Cult," ends here. Did you all enjoy it?]

[Now I'll say goodbye for today. Everyone, take care!]

[You...!]

[Bang-]

He finally defeated the Moonlight Cult Leader who caused this whole situation, and as the bright sun rose behind him, dispelling the darkness, the video ended.

And because of all those people who watched the broadcast live, shouting in excitement, and those who saw it later.

South Korea's A-class villain. No, now S-class villain Egostic.

*

[Do you know Egostic?]

[Replies] 2463

*

He had suddenly become the center of global attention.

His name was constantly mentioned in broadcasts and communities all over the world.

And Egostic, who was receiving all this global attention.

That is, me.

"Yawn... These grapes are delicious."

"Da-in. Would you like another one?"

"Yes, thank you."

I was resting comfortably at home.

I'm exhausted.

***

After the day we finally suppressed the Moonlight Cult's terror attack.

Taking advantage of the chaos when everyone was still disoriented, we escaped together and returned home. Since then, I've been recuperating at the mansion.

"Cough..."

My physical condition had deteriorated, probably because I pushed myself to the limit using teleportation and psychokinesis.

Thanks to Ha-yul's healing and Seo-eun's fatigue recovery device, I've recovered quite a bit. Still, I mostly stayed in bed. My body was fine, I suppose.

"Oppa. Give me grapes too."

"Here."

"Aah."

I put a grape in the mouth of Seo-eun, who was lying next to me with a bright smile, then put another one in my own mouth.

After preventing the Moonlight Cult's great catastrophe, which I had been preparing for as a major goal for years, I came to one conclusion: it was time to rest.

Having created a PMC, entered Kathedal, met with the Director, and done all sorts of things to stop this, I felt completely drained after actually stopping it—like a student who finally passed the college entrance exam and got accepted.

The reason I could rest so comfortably for so long was that, although we had only just finished Part 2 of the original four-part story, I thought we could skip Part 3 entirely. The biggest problem in Part 3 was the continuous appearance of all kinds of monsters due to the remaining Moonlight Cult gates, and Seo-eun as the final boss of the third phase.

In other words, I had already moved all the gates to the sea to drown the monsters, and the final boss of this phase, Seo-eun, was lying next to me, looking at her phone and lounging around—that was the current situation, which was quite reassuring.

...Of course, there was still the problem of powerful villains remaining. Especially from Phase 3 onward, all kinds of villains with unique abilities would emerge, and since I had ended the Moonlight Cult gate incident early, the world's history had changed dramatically. It would be dangerous to rely solely on the original story anymore. Not to mention Part 4.

Still, wouldn't Stardus take care of the rest until then...?

I was thinking that when:

"Wow, oppa. This is really crazy right now."

"What is?"

I turned my head at Seo-eun's words.

She grinned and used the remote to turn on the TV in front of us.

And on the TV, my face appeared all too naturally.

[These days, our country's S-class villain Egostic is quite the talk of the global community, isn't he?]

[Yes, that's right! Egostic, who has swept all overseas popular topics, is a very hot subject in all media outlets these days. There's pouring interest from various countries about him stopping the Moonlight Cult catastrophe.]

As the female anchor finished speaking, the screen changed to show footage.

There were dozens of photos of posts from overseas communities.

[Yes. As you can see, he's extremely popular overseas as well. The half-joking, half-serious reference to him as an S-class hero has already taken root globally. Especially as many of his previous activities in Korea have become known overseas... his Moonlight Cult broadcast has far exceeded hundreds of millions of views...]

Listening to that, I shook my head and took the remote to turn off the TV.

"Why? That was just getting interesting. S-class hero Egostic!"

"..."

I held my dizzy head.

It had been like this lately. After broadcasting the process of defeating the Moonlight Cult Leader, people's interest intensified, wondering who had stopped this catastrophe, and now the name Egostic had spread widely overseas. When Seo-eun showed me a foreign community post in English saying [K-Hero Mangostick!], I felt truly dizzy.

...To be honest, I hadn't completely failed to anticipate this. Broadcasting the process of stopping the cult leader? I expected it would attract some attention. But stopping the Moonlight Cult was the priority, so I thought my future self would handle it.

The problem was that I didn't expect to receive this much attention, and now my future self who would have to endure this had become my present self.

There's nothing good about attracting this much global attention... but what can I do? I can only hope the interest dies down over time. At least there's the positive aspect that Stardus is also being mentioned positively along with me.

"Oppa. And the fan cafe is... pfft. Really funny! Take a look."

While I was thinking about this, Seo-eun showed me the fan cafe again.

And sure enough, there were dizzying popular post titles lined up.

*

[Egostic <<<< Like if you're proud of our K-hero lolololol]

[(Image heavy) Collection of overseas Mangostick reactions]

[Sigh, the whole world is a Korea-pride TV... America, England, France, Japan, they're all just talking about Mangostick...]

[Mangostick <- Just earned lifetime immunity from criticism lololol]

[Collection of Egostic's true love Stardus's activities during this catastrophe that everyone's forgetting.gif]

["Jesus, why aren't you starting the meeting?"]

[Like if you're a pure Mango team member who hid in an underground bunker watching the Mango broadcast live lololol]

[Personal opinion) Honestly, Mango probably isn't gay?]

[Seeing all the Ego-stream members come out to catch monsters, Ego-stream is definitely a hero group]

[Just like if you love this bastard Egostic lol]

[Overseas Mango fans are binge-watching Ego-stream's old videos belatedly lol]

[I'll tell you about seeing Electra in person lololol]

[Republic of Korea=Mango-owning country]

[Thank you GOAT Worship you GOAT Thank you GOAT Worship you GOAT Thank you GOAT Worship you GOAT]

*

...What was scarier than the post titles was that the view counts for these posts easily exceeded tens of thousands.

"What are you two giggling about?"

"Ah, unni!"

"...Seo-eun. Aren't you too close to Da-in...?"

"Hehe~."

Anyway, recently I'd been relaxing and having fun like this. I was thinking that if I had finished preparing for the relatively easy early to mid-part of Part 3, it might not be unreasonable to retire.

'But I wonder what Stardus is doing right now...?'

As I rested, I occasionally had such thoughts.

Well, knowing her personality, she's probably busy with post-war processing. I just had those light thoughts and moved on.

***

Seoul.

Hero Association.

"Sigh..."

After dealing with reporters and returning to her office, Stardus staggered to her seat.

After eliminating almost all the remaining monster forces hiding in various locations following the Moonlight Cult monster attack, she thought everything was mostly over and returned to Seoul.

She was startled to see reporters crowding in front of the association, and after being bombarded with all kinds of questions, she was finally able to escape thanks to the Director who came down personally to help her.

After defeating the Lunar Beast, that enormous monster, not only Egostic but she too had received quite a lot of attention. She had also become South Korea's first S-class hero.

And the only thought that she, who had reached the pinnacle as a Korean hero, had been having recently was:

"...I miss Egostic."

Yes, she only thought about how much she missed Egostic.

After witnessing the previous Moonlight Cult incident and directly observing another world, she had made her own judgment that Egostic was not a villain. With even that last psychological resistance gone, her heart would race unconsciously whenever she thought of Egostic.

...Despite the excuse that he was a villain and she shouldn't feel this way...

She now had only one thought.

She wanted to see Egostic again.

She wanted to be with him.

The fact that he was a villain was no longer important to her.