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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Xrecker
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I was in a foul mood. I thought it would pass, but the random thoughts crowding my mind wouldn’t leave.
The wounds healed quickly. They weren’t the kind of injuries that would leave scars, nor did they take long to heal. Most of the marks on my body disappeared after I showered.
Even after I came out, Yu-bin didn’t ask about what had happened that day. I tried to act normally, but it seemed she could see right through me. And perhaps because of my unusual state, she chose not to ask immediately.
Seeing me return home in such a mess, she seemed to have decided to wait until I brought it up first. If I kept my mouth shut, she would probably ask eventually, but for now, she was clearly waiting for me to speak first.
The original plan was to go to the arcade the next day and meet Su-a. But even the next day, the intrusive thoughts hadn’t vanished.
The more I saw Yu-bin not asking why I was in such a state, the more my mind became tangled. This web of thoughts persisted into the next day, so I just stayed home and did nothing.
The weekend began, and on Saturday, I went to the café for my part-time job. Yu-ra, glad to see me after a week, immediately threw her arms around me, but she tilted her head when she saw my less-than-bright expression.
“Did something happen?”
“Yeah, a little.”
I gave her an answer that hinted it was difficult to talk about right then, and gave her a light kiss on the lips.
“If you’re having a hard time, just tell me. I’ll help.”
I felt comforted by Yu-ra’s words, who was simply happy to see me after our kiss, and a small smile touched my lips. But the random thoughts still lingered.
I worked as usual and talked with Yu-ra as usual. But we didn’t go for drinks after my shift. I wasn’t in the mood to drink, and Yu-ra, sensing that it wasn’t the right day, said her goodbyes in front of the café, and we went our separate ways.
The next day, Yu-ra’s behavior didn’t change much.
After my Sunday shift, I headed to Ha-yeong’s house. Seeing her greet me at the door with a bright smile lifted my spirits. But even as I felt better, complicated thoughts surfaced again.
“Are you okay?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m fine.”
I had zoned out while eating, and Ha-yeong, seeing me sit there quietly, asked in a worried tone, wondering if something was wrong. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell Yu-bin, Yu-ra, or Ha-yeong about it.
Yu-bin hadn’t told me she was a superhuman, while Yu-ra and Ha-yeong knew I was aware of their identities. The reason I couldn’t speak wasn’t because of that.
I considered my relationships with them to be close. That’s why I couldn’t easily bring it up. Even if I tried to talk about it indirectly, hiding Indigo’s identity, I couldn’t bring myself to share the tangled mess in my head with them right now.
Was it because we were close? I didn’t want to burden them.
They might not have felt it as a burden. But that’s what I thought.
My position as a Spacetroe made it difficult to speak freely, but even if an opportunity arose, I didn’t want to talk about it now.
Monday arrived, and thinking that staying home would only lead to more random thoughts, I left the house to clear my head. Moving habitually without any specific destination, I found myself in front of the arcade when I came to my senses.
Would Su-a be inside? With that thought, I went down the arcade stairs, but I couldn’t see Su-a in the arcade on a Monday morning. Was she at a meeting?
Since I came here out of habit, it wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t meet her. And I didn’t think I could talk about anything even if I did.
I came out of the arcade and was about to head somewhere, anywhere, when…
“A?”
I turned my head at the familiar voice behind me. Su-a was standing there, holding a sports drink and dressed more casually than before.
“Oh, hi.”
“?”
I greeted her the moment our eyes met, but Su-a just stared at me, slowly approaching without a word.
“Why didn’t you come on Friday?”
It was possible to miss a day, but perhaps because we had been playing together every day recently, Su-a bluntly asked why I hadn’t shown up. Should I tell her something similar to the truth? I wasn’t sure. But I felt like I could talk to Su-a about the superhuman situation, at least a little.
The reason…I didn’t know. It wasn’t a feeling I could easily explain.
But it was true that I felt I could at least share a bit of the reason why it was so difficult to talk about.
“…Can we just play games at your place today?”
What came out of my mouth wasn’t an answer but a request to play games at Su-a’s house. Su-a’s eyes seemed to be trying to figure out if something was wrong. Su-a, who was tall for a woman, met my eyes with just a slight upward glance, and I saw the tension in her gaze soften.
“Sure, let’s do that.”
She readily agreed to my request. But why was Su-a at the arcade on a Monday morning instead of at a meeting? Were there still unresolved issues with the other members? Or had things been resolved, but she was just maintaining her usual routine for now?
“What do you want to eat?”
“No, I’m not hungry right now.”
My mind had been so cluttered over the weekend that I hadn’t eaten properly. I had eaten, but only enough to fill my stomach.
We headed to Su-a’s place without buying anything. Her familiar, spacious penthouse. I sat on the living room sofa.
Su-a offered me a drink, and in the meantime, I turned on the game console and placed her controller on the table. She seemed about to grab the controller without asking anything, but then her gaze turned to me.
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Fucking obvious.”
It seemed I was showing it not just a little, but a lot. No wonder Yu-bin, Yu-ra, and Ha-yeong had been so worried.
I mulled over how to start, but thinking wouldn’t conjure up the perfect words, so I just said whatever came to mind.
“How’s the superhuman work going?”
“Huh?”
I could see her surprise. It was understandable. She had asked if something was wrong, and I had suddenly brought up her work.
“It’s alright. Why?”
“The perception of superhumans isn’t good, is it?”
“Yeah, it’s not.”
“I think I’m starting to understand that.”
The complicated thought that had been swirling in my head all weekend was, why did hardworking superhumans have to be criticized because of those who weren’t?
I knew that superhumans faced discrimination. The Hunter Killer members also lived in a discriminatory environment, and I wanted to show them that there was no reason for them to be discriminated against.
But after personally experiencing the actions of Indigo and his group, it hit me that there were those who were providing a reason for the discrimination against superhumans.
I knew from my previous investigations that there were superhumans who engaged in violent behavior. I had thought the media’s portrayal was an exaggeration, but I had subconsciously assumed it wasn’t that severe.
I had been naive. People believed what they saw in the media and viewed the world through that lens. That was the role of the news. It informed people about world events and made them think.
“Why? Did you get beaten up by a superhuman somewhere?”
The fact that her casual remark hit so close to home made me uncomfortable. Was it right to tell Su-a that I had been assaulted by a superhuman?
“Not really. I just saw something.”
Of course I couldn’t tell her.
But just by hearing that I had seen something, Su-a let out a deep sigh, put down her controller, and turned her gaze from the screen back to me. She looked at me not with her usual intense gaze, but with eyes full of worry.
“Are you hurt?”
Did she think I had been at the scene?
“No, I’m not hurt.”
“…You know there are superhumans who commit crimes, right?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“The other superhumans know it too. Why do you think they don’t do anything about it?”
A simple guess would be the fear of being labeled a whistleblower. But considering Yu-ra’s and Su-a’s personalities, that didn’t seem right. So why did they know and do nothing?
“Because we gave up.”
As I was thinking without answering, Su-a spoke in a low voice. It seemed to carry the weight of her years as a superhuman and her time as a Hunter Killer.
“Do you know how superhumans came to be?”
“No, I don’t.”
I had done a lot of research on superhumans, but I didn’t know how or where they originated. Even if I tried to gather information, the Earth Defense Alliance and Spacetroe had completely separate information systems, making it impossible to collect any data.
“I don’t think it’s everyone, but at least 90% of superhumans were born out of money.”
What Su-a said next was quite shocking. Twenty years ago, shortly after the Spacetroe invasion, a worldwide DNA screening identified genes suitable for superhumans. The couples with those genes were paid, and their children were subjected to superhuman experiments.
Having invaded various planets, I had some understanding of how a species on the brink of extinction behaved. Crimes and immoral acts were committed by those who had lost their humanity.
But Earth was the first planet to experiment on children who hadn’t even reached puberty. Were there other cases like this? Even in war, children were supposed to be off-limits, but it was incomprehensible that they would experiment on their own planet’s children and then place them in a discriminatory environment once they grew up.
“Me, the other members… We all became superhumans because of our parents’ greed. And most superhumans were born that way and were thrown into a world that discriminates against us.”
Then where were the initial superhumans, the ones before the current generation? They must have discovered the results that necessitated experimenting on pre-pubescent children somewhere. And the subjects must have been the first generation of superhumans.
Since I couldn’t draw a conclusion right now, I decided to focus on Su-a’s words.
“So a lot of people went astray. Of course, I don’t condone the actions of those who commit crimes. I know there are things you just shouldn’t do. And we’re not doing a good job by not coming up with countermeasures. But…”
The confidence in Su-a’s voice, which had been directed at me, rapidly faded, and her gaze dropped. The atmosphere was completely different from her usual high-spirited self. I swallowed hard and stared at her.
“After going through that for so long, we just gave up. On persuading those who discriminate against superhumans, and on correcting the superhumans who commit crimes.”
Su-a was a good person. I hadn’t known it when I first met her, but as I got to know her and tried to understand her, I learned about her. Her words and actions were rough, but her heart was kind, and she was someone who sometimes regretted her own clumsy actions.
But when you constantly encounter people with whom you can’t find common ground, no matter how hard you try, you eventually give up. Mutual understanding is essential to persuade and change someone. But there were those with whom mutual understanding was impossible.
For Su-a, those were the people who discriminated against superhumans and the superhumans who committed crimes.
“I got a little sidetracked. You said you saw a superhuman hitting someone?”
“Yeah.”
“Honestly, my first thought when I heard that wasn’t concern for those people.”
It was to be expected. After listening to Su-a and applying a little of my own collected information and experience, it was clear that from a superhuman’s perspective, there was no reason to worry about people who discriminated against them getting hurt.
“……Do you hate superhumans now?”
I froze at Su-a’s hesitant words.
I realized that I had subconsciously started to think of Su-a as a strong person. Even after just thinking that she was someone who regretted her own clumsy actions, I had arbitrarily fixed the idea of her being strong in my mind.
Su-a also hated being disliked as a superhuman. Of course. Who in the world liked to be hated? Absolutely no one. Even a heinous criminal, in an extreme example, didn’t like to be hated.
Even if she had given up on dealing with other superhumans’ crimes, there was no way Su-a, who fought Spacetroe every week to protect Earth, would be indifferent to being disliked.
And on the other hand, I was glad I hadn’t brought this up with Yu-bin, Yu-ra, and Ha-yeong. Especially Yu-bin, who had seen me in such a mess. If I had told her it was because of a superhuman, she would have been quite shocked.
“No.”
I said to her in a firm voice. I was glad I had brought this up with Su-a. Even if it wasn’t entirely comfortable for her to hear, it was easier to talk to her than the other three, and just talking about it seemed to clear my head a little.
Nothing had been solved.
But I had learned the fundamental reason why the superhumans fighting for Earth were being criticized. There were superhumans who engaged in violent behavior, and there was no one trying to correct them. This had gradually built up and turned into a general aversion towards all superhumans.
But I still didn’t know what came first: the discrimination against superhumans, or the criminal acts of superhumans.
The fact that I couldn’t solve this right now remained unchanged. I didn’t have the ability to solve it either.
But I had found a partial answer to the question of how to prevent the Hunter Killer members from being disliked and discriminated against.
I couldn’t solve the public’s hatred and discrimination against them right now. So, for now, I just had to not hate or discriminate against them. And then, I could slowly find the answers, one by one. It was a simple, trivial answer, and it seemed to have taken me a long time to realize it, but just talking to Su-a had eased the worries that had plagued me all weekend.
Even after hearing my firm “no,” Su-a still looked somewhat anxious. It probably didn’t fully sink in. To Su-a, I was an ordinary person, and she had probably seen many who claimed to understand and not hate superhumans, only to leave.
“Maybe a day will come when I hate superhumans.”
This was true. After being subjected to one-sided violence from Indigo and his group, I couldn’t say that a day when I hated superhumans would never come. But what I was saying to Su-a was also sincere.
“But even if that day comes, I will never hate you.”
To me, superhumans were residents of Earth, just like ordinary humans. So a day when I looked at her with discriminatory eyes would never come. Even if a day came when I disliked Earthlings, a day when I disliked the current Hunter Killer members would never come.
“…….”
Su-a, who had been staring blankly at my words, suddenly kicked me in the side, knocking me over on the sofa. She then grabbed her controller and turned her gaze to the TV.
“I already started the game, you crazy bastard!”
“You could have left out the ‘crazy bastard’ part.”
My heart felt much lighter, and perhaps because I was seeing the usual Su-a, a smile spread across my lips.
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