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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Vine
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“Th-thank you, Professor…”
Ariel, sitting in a corner of the cafeteria, greeted me, glancing at me nervously.
“You’re welcome. Eat up.”
“O-okay.”
As I said so and smiled, she bowed her head once again, then reached for the food in front of her with trembling hands.
“…Ah, um.”
Then, Ariel suddenly looked back and forth between my tray and hers with a slightly embarrassed expression.
‘It is a lot.’
She did take a lot of food. Except for the hamburger steak, which was served by the staff, the rest of the food on her tray was almost twice the amount on mine.
However, I believed that growing children should eat that much.
Good food was essential for heroes, who were very active, and a person had to eat well to be healthy.
“Don’t feel pressured. Eating well is also a hero’s duty.”
“Th-then, I’ll enjoy my meal.”
So, I encouraged her to eat without feeling pressured, and Ariel, after glancing at me for a moment, started eating with a gleam in her eyes.
“*Nom nom…*”
Ariel, her cheeks puffed out like a squirrel, ate hurriedly with a blissful expression, shuddering involuntarily.
“Delicious…”
‘She eats well.’
As I watched her adorable appearance with a warm smile, I quietly fell into thought.
‘…Is her financial situation really that bad?’
Justitia, Ariel’s guardian, earned a substantial income as the Rank 1 hero, but her assets were quite small.
Because she regularly donated almost all her earnings to orphanages and disaster relief areas.
An absolute good, dedicating herself to others despite her overwhelming power.
That’s the kind of hero Justitia was.
‘But it doesn’t make sense for her to be this poor…’
However, it didn’t make sense for Ariel to be this poor.
Even if Justitia donated most of her earnings, Ariel should have inherited some assets.
Then why had she been starving for days?
“Hmm…?”
Lost in thought, I felt a gaze.
“…”
Ariel, who had almost finished her food, was staring blankly at the hamburger steak on my tray, then quickly averted her gaze.
– *Growl…*
At the same time, a sharp pain shot through my stomach.
“Hmm.”
Growing children were indeed different.
“You can have this.”
“H-huh? B-but…!”
“I don’t like hamburger steaks.”
Since the hunger I felt was fake anyway, I gave her the steak without hesitation, and Ariel stared at me blankly.
“…Thank you, Professor.”
As I smiled brightly at her, she blushed, lowered her gaze, and thanked me in a low voice.
“*Nom*.”
Then, as if embarrassed, she started looking at her smartphone, avoiding my gaze while chewing on the steak.
‘Looking at your smartphone while eating is bad for digestion.’
As I was watching her, Ariel, who had been chewing on the steak while looking at her smartphone, suddenly darkened.
“…”
Then, she stopped chewing and stared intently at her smartphone.
“Professor.”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to the restroom.”
“…Go ahead.”
Ariel quietly gritted her teeth, stood up, and walked towards the restroom.
“…”
– *Ding, ding♪*
As I was looking at her retreating figure with a worried expression, my smartphone vibrated with a notification sound.
> Hi
It was Pandora.
Well, she was the only one who contacted me when I wasn’t in my Kang Haneul state.
Of course, whether hacking my smartphone and forcibly sending messages counted as contact was debatable.
> I have important news.
Anyway, as I was quietly looking at my smartphone, she sent a message in an unusually serious tone.
> The analysis of the monster that killed Justitia is complete.
My head suddenly felt hot.
Ever since I learned about the existence of ‘Grotesqueries,’ I’d had one question.
The Outlier-grade monster that killed Justitia, the world’s strongest hero, whose power was on a different level from ordinary heroes.
Could it have been a Grotesquery?
> The Outlier-grade monster, ‘Impact Event,’ was a Grotesquery.
And it seemed my assumption was correct.
> And that’s not all. Traces of multiple Grotesqueries were found at the scene besides that monster.
“…Are you sure?”
> Paradise and I infiltrated the scene and confirmed it ourselves. It’s 100% accurate.
My heated head started to cool down. No, it wasn’t just cooling down, it was turning ice-cold.
“I see.”
The blurry target of my revenge was finally coming into focus.
“Then I have to find and kill them all.”
Find and kill all the Grotesqueries that killed Justitia.
And then, tear apart and kill every single Grotesquery in this world.
Until they were completely eradicated.
That would be my top priority from now on.
“…”
As I organized my thoughts, clutching my smartphone tightly, I quietly stared at the empty seat across from me, where another of my top priorities had been sitting just now.
“Pandora.”
My other top priority was to raise Ariel, Justitia’s only blood relative, into the greatest hero.
To achieve that goal, I needed to know a little about Ariel’s current situation.
“Look into Ariel for me.”
> Will you play a visual novel with me tonight?
“…I will, so please.”
So, after making a devilish deal to play a 9-hour visual novel with Pandora all night, a file was immediately sent to me.
> Bank_statement.jpg
Thinking that was incredibly fast, I clicked on the image file and frowned.
> [20**0326 ♤♤ Orphanage $5,000]
> [20**0327 Monster Damage Recovery Center $7,000]
> [20**0330 International Medical Federation $11,000]
> [20**0330 Retired Hero Association $3,000]
> [20**0331 Justitia Relief Foundation $15,000]
…
A large sum of money had been withdrawn in the past few months.
All of them were practically run by Justitia’s donations.
“So that’s what it was.”
I finally understood why Ariel had been starving.
She distributed all her inheritance to the organizations Justitia ran.
She probably didn’t want to waste her inheritance. Like sister, like sister. She resembled Justitia not only in appearance, but also in her kindness.
‘How foolish.’
But she was also quite similar in her blind devotion to justice. She couldn’t even afford to feed herself.
It seemed I had to find a way to help her financially.
“Pandora, investigate all the places listed here.”
With that thought, I asked Pandora.
Of course, since they were organizations run by Justitia’s donations, it was unlikely, but
…if there was a place that was misusing her inheritance,
…then I, as Trauma, would have to pay them a visit.
> Ego_search.jpg
As I was quietly gleaming, a large file appeared below.
“What’s this?”
The moment I clicked on it without thinking, numerous search records filled my screen.
> Hero Academy freshman
> Justitia’s younger sister
> Promising hero
> District 17 lockdown incident
> Ariel
> Ariel Everley
I frowned and muttered to my smartphone.
“Where did you get all this?”
> I hacked the phone in front of you.
“No, this is a privacy violation. I just asked for information.”
> Then the bank statement is a privacy violation too! We’re villains, so it doesn’t matter.
Then, she sent me a cheeky message and continued to send files. One of them was a post from the Hero Minor Gallery, where Pandora was often active.
[Title: Who among the new students seems the most promising?]
[Justitia (221.17): What about Ariel?]
ㄴ [ㅇㅇ (117.11): Is that you?]
ㄴ [ㅇㅇ (52.39): Incompetent parachute relying on her sister’s name.]
ㄴ [Justitia (223.36): That doesn’t seem to be the case…]
ㄴ [ㅇㅇ (16.34): Ariel caught red-handed lol]
ㄴ [*Liberis: I honestly don’t understand how someone with no basics and a failed entrance exam got into the academy.]
I was about to back out with a slightly unpleasant feeling when I froze, seeing the contents of the post, and scrolled down.
ㄴ [ㅇㅇ (17.26): Other kids train their asses off for 10 years and barely get in lol Does it make sense that someone with uncertain abilities suddenly changes their major a month ago and gets into the academy?]
ㄴ [Justitia (221.17): But she stopped Trauma single-handedly…]
ㄴ [ㅇㅇ (25.61): You believe that PR stunt? How can a one-month trainee stop an A-rank villain lol]
ㄴ [ㅇㅇ (46.52): If she had that kind of ability, she wouldn’t have done so poorly on the entrance exam.]
ㄴ [ㅇㅇ (17.26): This person keeps writing posts like this, so they must be an attention seeker or Ariel herself lol]
ㄴ [*Liberis: Just ignore them.]
The screenshot ended there.
> Justitia in that post is Ariel herself.
“…”
> She searched for herself dozens of times, and all the posts are like this.
‘This is heartbreaking.’
I understood how she felt.
When someone suddenly became famous and started receiving attention, they naturally started searching for their reputation online.
Justitia, when she first became famous, also had a slight dip in her self-esteem after seeing strange posts online.
Of course, she overcame it quickly, being the complete hero she was.
But Ariel, who had just become a trainee, wouldn’t be able to.
‘Is this why my chest has been aching lately?’
The pressure of having to become a hero who surpasses her sister, me. Her dwindling self-esteem due to the gazes of others. Her ego-searching, which started as an attempt to boost her self-esteem, was actually eating away at her. Although she appeared bright and cheerful on the outside, she was already cornered.
> Article.jpg
As I was looking down at my smartphone with a gloomy expression, the last file was sent.
> This is the article Ariel just read.
“…Ha.”
I couldn’t help but click my tongue after skimming through the article in the screenshot.
[Ariel Everley, the hero of District 17, actually a fraudulent enrollee?]
[The shadow under Justitia’s halo, is this acceptable…?]
Complete bullshit was being published as a legitimate article.
> It’s a reporter famous for negative articles. Quite well-known in the industry.
It was so absurd that I couldn’t even get angry, and as I was staring blankly at the article, a pain shot through my eyes.
“…”
My eyes, reflected on the tray, were bloodshot.
Like someone hiding in the restroom, crying silently.
“Pandora.”
> Why?
I stood up, fiddling with the mask in my pocket.
“Can you track the location of the reporter who wrote this?”
> Do you even know how difficult location tracking is? It’s not like in the movies, where you open a few windows, tap on the keyboard, and say ‘Game on.’
“I’ll play two visual novels with you.”
> Tracking complete. Game on.
Restore Ariel’s self-esteem.
That would be the first mission of my ‘Hero Raising Project.’
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That night, in the safe zone of Navier Artificial Island.
– *Tap… tap, tap…*
Cheon Sang-myeong, a reporter for News Guide, who was busy working on his article in his room, took his hands off the keyboard and stretched.
“Today’s article is getting good reactions too.”
His eyes landed on the responses to the article he wrote in the morning.
As expected, focusing on the hot issues of ‘Justitia’ and ‘academy corruption’ was the right answer.
It hadn’t even been a day since he uploaded it, and there were already hundreds of comments.
“Hmm…”
As he hummed and looked through the comments, he frowned slightly.
As always, the comments weren’t pleasant.
“Well, I just reported the facts.”
So, scratching his head, Cheon Sang-myeong muttered and clicked the back button.
It was a fact that Justitia’s younger sister was suspected of fraudulent enrollment, and it was also a fact that she failed the entrance exam. His article was written based on those facts, a truthful article. How the public interpreted it was up to them. In other words, he, as the messenger, was innocent.
“And I’m also innocent of the views and recommendations.”
Honestly, Cheon Sang-myeong knew that he wrote provocative articles.
However, in this world full of surprises, articles that weren’t provocative didn’t get attention.
In that sense, wasn’t he a praiseworthy reporter who always provided interesting content to the public?
– *Ring♪*
“Hmm?”
Just as he was thinking about that and about to start working on his next article, Cheon Sang-myeong looked at his ringing phone with puzzled eyes.
‘…At this hour?’
There was no way he would receive a work-related call at this late hour. He was always strict about separating work and personal life.
‘Is it a complaint call?’
He occasionally, or rather, quite frequently, received complaint calls or correction requests.
Especially when the comments were this heated.
“Tsk…”
With a frown, sensing a bad feeling, Cheon Sang-myeong answered the phone.
“Hello?”
– Is this Mr. Cheon Sang-myeong, reporter for News Guide?
As expected, the caller asked for his name.
“Yes, it is. I’m not taking work calls right now, so…”
He answered irritably, then
“Ah, it really is you.”
“…?”
…widened his eyes and turned his head at the voice coming from the window, not his phone.
“Wh-what…!”
“Good job, Pandora.”
Someone wearing a familiar mask was sitting on his windowsill.
“Y-you! How dare you…”
Cheon Sang-myeong stared blankly, then scrambled to his feet and started backing away.
“…Wait, that mask?”
“I have a question for you, reporter.”
Trauma, staring intently at him as if he realized something, asked in a low voice.
“Are you right-handed or left-handed?”
As Cheon Sang-myeong hesitated and couldn’t answer, Trauma muttered as if he’d figured it out.
“Ah, you use both hands for the keyboard, right?”
Large beads of sweat started rolling down Cheon Sang-myeong’s forehead.
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