Chapter 99: Memory (2)
The past week, I was busier than ever since my release.
Midterms were hectic, but just desk work, moving a pen. This was worse—dealing with people, not just papers.
While buried in paperwork, the Dean chewed me out.
Back to work, the Legal Department head called to yell.
Tried working again, got dragged to Association HQ for more scolding.
Then catching escapees and old Organization remnants—three bodies wouldn’t be enough.
Flipping through papers, I grumbled.
“Think I’m doing this for fun?”
I felt wronged.
Busy was one thing, but why the abuse?
Their incompetence caused this mess.
Without it, I wouldn’t be rounding up has-been villains to form a pseudo-hero team.
Worst of all—
“No solutions, just nagging.”
They disliked my “non-hero independent team” but had no better ideas.
Rejecting it left two options:
Incorporate hunters as temporary heroes, despite huge costs and legal fights, or back existing heroes more.
Both were unrealistic.
Hunters demanded sky-high pay the Association couldn’t match.
Even if they could, current heroes wouldn’t stand for it.
Backing heroes was tough too.
The biggest villain group was led by Eclipse, a former hero.
Something fishy was behind it—government or Association screw-up—but publicly, they’d been burned.
More hero support?
Public backlash, and in the worst case, cleanup would be impossible.
Knowing this, they couldn’t reject my plan, just nagged.
I tuned them out, waiting.
If the Organization or Eclipse caused a big incident, the nagging would stop.
Too quiet lately—pity.
I sighed softly.
“Ugh, exhausting.”
“Haa. Why make so much work?”
Nagging echoed beside me.
I wasn’t the only one swamped—So-hee was struggling triple.
Flipping through classified papers, she groaned.
As the agent longest with me, she handled my evaluations, trustworthiness reports—all from her hands.
“Still, actual reviews mean progress.”
She was surprised.
Even with tight control, letting villains form a team?
Unexpectedly.
I spun my pen, smirking.
“Told you. Not heroes—politicians, businessmen.”
“But even with a team, there are no villains to fill it.”
Wolf Fang’s list of ex-Organization members?
We tracked them all.
Only two were usable.
The rest, stuck in villain habits, committed crimes and had rotten attitudes—unusable.
I gave up, beat them, and sent them to jail.
“Even a few buys time.”
Those two, Wolf Fang, and an escapee I’d urged to surrender —now slaving for the
Association after procedures—met my team’s minimum.
It wasn’t for grand causes, just a buffer for unexpected crises.
A safety net for those around me.
If I said that, it’d get shot down, so I slapped on a noble pretext.
I stopped spinning my pen.
“Let’s wrap up and rest.”
Evening had passed.
“Quitting time!”
So-hee eagerly packed her papers.
Heading to the dorm, she spotted a black plastic bag on the fridge, asking curiously.
“What’s this?”
“Oh, just… late-night snack.”
I answered shortly.
Bought for working late, maybe.
Rustling, she opened it—convenience store bread and banana milk.
She asked, surprised.
“Don’t you hate banana milk?”
Months together, she knew my tastes were cold.
This was off.
Not just the milk.
She examined the bread.
“You never touch this kind either.”
Popular with young students, but I liked classics—red bean buns, fish-shaped pastries.
Never saw me eat this.
I nodded.
“Not my thing.”
“Then why?”
“Dunno. The clerk said it’s their bestseller.”
Even if it's not my taste, sometimes you crave it.
She shrugged, losing interest in the bread and milk.
“I’m off.”
“Good work.”
“You too.”
She left.
I pulled out a blank notebook, thought a bit, and slowly wrote something.
* * *
At dawn, the dorm’s common corridor was dark, filled only with faint cricket chirps.
A figure shimmered in the shadows.
It moved without a trace, like it didn’t exist.
The corridor’s motion-sensor lights stayed silent.
Slipping through, it stopped at my dorm’s front door.
The figure didn’t move further, just stared at the small window beside the door.
Clouds parted, faint moonlight spilling through, illuminating the figure from below.
The Organization’s boss emerged from the dark.
How many days had it been?
Visiting my dorm at dawn had become her routine.
She muffled her presence, ready to bolt if I noticed.
Thankfully, no reaction—she’d gone undetected.
She gazed at the window, wistful.
Despite our enmity, it was just a matter of positions.
Her feelings for me were beyond goodwill, uncontainable no matter how she tried.
Unable to resist, she came.
No one understood, so she came in secret at dawn, her feelings a lonely burden.
Standing there, she stared at the window.
Blacked out by film, she couldn’t see inside, but knowing I was there filled her with deep satisfaction.
Days ago, she didn’t know my name or if I lived.
This alone made her happy.
She recalled our first meeting.
How could she forget?
Clutching her friend’s cold corpse in the dark, waiting for death.
I broke through her walls with ease, appearing.
Backlit, standing over bodies, I was a demon to some.
To her, my only salvation.
She couldn’t forget my words to her and her friend.
“Didn’t know people were here.”
Thud—her heart sank.
To me, a casual remark.
To her, everything.
The first time, facing death, anyone called her human.
Born human but never raised as one—just a disposable test subject, a tool.
Even in death, just scrap, waste to toss.
But I called them people.
From that moment, she became human.
She placed her hand on the window.
I avenged her friend, a revenge she, terminal, couldn’t achieve.
I called it a whim, not worth remembering, but she didn’t believe it.
The money I gave up wasn’t small.
Without that, her short life would’ve been wasted in vengeance’s gutter.
I saved her from dying, from living to die.
I gave her a reason to live.
Without it, she’d have closed her eyes like the others.
Thinking of my kindness, she had endless reasons to devote her life to me.
She’d come nightly but never saw this bag.
Hesitating, she took it from the doorknob.
Feeling its slight weight, she opened it—bread and milk.
Her heart surged.
Maybe delusion, but it had to be.
No way I knew she was coming, left instead of catching her.
I didn’t remember her, and had no reason to care for an enemy.
But finding a note under the bread, she collapsed.
[Sleep at night. Won’t grow tall.]
She clutched the bag, silent.
She thought she was used to enduring.
Injections under “experiments.”
Burning veins, melting nerves, gutted alive without anesthesia—she never cried.
But this hurt more.
* * *
In my room, lying in bed, I heard faint rustling, soft sobs through the window.
I sighed.
Just surrender already.
* * *
Another week passed.
No matter how busy I was or how much the Organization’s boss suffered, time flowed evenly.
And then—
Final exam day arrived.