Chapter 147 : Collaborator

Ho-cheol patted the bench next to him, looking at the assistant who was frozen in a hunched posture.

“Have a seat?”

Her eyes trembled pitifully.

She was so flustered that she didn't even hear Ho-cheol's words.

“Wh-what do you mean by that?”

After a long while, she finally feigned ignorance with a "I don't know anything" expression.

But her reaction alone was no different from a confession.

This is why rookie villains are so...

Ho-cheol shrugged his shoulders.

“I have no intention of arresting you. Not yet. If I did, I would have brought a whole bunch of heroes or security guards.”

“I-I didn't come out to talk about this. I'll be going back now.”

The assistant said, turning around as if to flee.

But watching her retreating back, Ho-cheol said, as if spitting out the words.

“Right now, only I know, but if you take even one step back, the police, the Association, and the Clington professors will all find out.”

She froze again in her turned position.

Though her words denied it, she couldn't bring herself to take a step.

Watching her back, Ho-cheol said.

“The money bag. You couldn't have kept your Trait active for several hours from the moment you stole it until now, so if I track a few of your movements and search everything, I'll find it. Running away? You know that's an even dumber move.”

“Money bag? I have no idea what you’re talking about……”

“Ah, so you’re sticking to the ‘I know nothing’ concept. Well, fine. Then just listen.”

Ho-cheol crossed his legs.

“It's a really amazing trait. Invisibility is a simple Manipulation type, but this is such an anomaly trait that it wouldn't be out of place in the Anomaly category. How do you hide all your senses? Don't tell me you can even ignore pressure sensors when your Trait is active?”

At a glance, it seemed similar to the invisibility trait of the escaped villain who was now living as a public slave, but a closer look revealed a completely different nature.

That kind of invisibility trait could basically erase sight and presence perfectly, but it was quite powerless against other senses like smell or intuition.

But the employee in front of him, even in a limited situation, had toyed with Wolf Fang, who could be called a counter to invisibility.

Moreover, it was a far superior version of simple invisibility, capable of disabling even Ho-cheol's intuition.

In modern hero society, a hero was a star.

That's why she was considered a substandard ‘hero’ and was eventually forced to give up, but the performance of the Trait itself was one of the top three among the Traits Ho-cheol had encountered since his release.

Ho-cheol leaned back on the bench and thought.

In fact, if she were an ordinary student, he would have just told the dean, the supervising professor, and a few other related parties, gotten the money back, and focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment.

If she were a staff member, he would have immediately arrested her and made sure she received a proper punishment.

She wasn't his student anyway, and he had just been thinking of dealing with it quickly before the matter got bigger.

But the person in front of him was in an ambiguous situation, neither a student nor a staff member.

Most importantly, that Trait was much more useful than simple teleportation.

So much so that he immediately thought of a third way, different from the two possibilities he had been considering until just now.

No, honestly, his heart was already leaning heavily in that direction.

Considering the things Ho-cheol was about to do, that trait could more than double his range of activity and make him freer.

It was one of the traits he needed most right now, and honestly, his true intention was to make use of it.

However, a criminal was a criminal.

He couldn't trust her even if he had a fatal weakness of hers.

Should I check properly first?

He clapped his hands and stood up from the bench.

“Well, this doesn't seem like a conversation to be had in such an open place. Shall we go somewhere quiet and have a cup of coffee while we talk?”

“Uh, I. That.”

“You don't have the right to refuse, do you? Right?”

The assistant followed Ho-cheol with a tearful face.

The assistant, of course, had expected a quiet cafe somewhere when he said they should go somewhere quiet for a cup of coffee.

There were plenty of cafes at the academy, after all.

But the place she followed Ho-cheol to was far beyond her imagination.

“H-here is……”

The assistant was completely frozen, her body trembling.

The vibration was so strong that it reached Ho-cheol through the ground.

“The coffee here is delicious.”

Ho-cheol, who had nonchalantly opened a cupboard and taken out snacks and coffee, plopped down on the sofa opposite her.

This was the dean's office, which was now as comfortable as his own home.

Of course, the owner of the room, the dean, hadn't even come to work, but it was more comfortable to be without him today anyway.

“F-for such a reason……”

Not just the assistant's body, but her voice was also trembling.

Only Ho-cheol treated the dean so casually.

To an ordinary professor, the dean was someone so far above them that it was burdensome to even call him by his name.

To her, who was just a mere employee, the dean was no different from a being in the distant sky.

She had only seen him once or twice as a student, and her entire connection with the dean was seeing his signature on her appointment letter when she was hired here after dropping out.

And now, to think she would come to such a dean's office.

Yet Ho-cheol shrugged his shoulders leisurely.

“Just for that? The taste of coffee is a pretty important reason.”

Of course, there was another real reason.

Naturally, in a normal cafe, you never knew who might be listening, so it wasn't a place to have such an important conversation.

And at the academy, there was no other place as secure as this.

“Now, let's get back to the main topic.”

Ho-cheol tore open an individually wrapped snack and put it in his mouth.

“Come to think of it, this is just the first time you've been caught, but there's no guarantee you're a first-time offender.”

“I-I'm not a villain.”

It was a statement that wouldn't work on Ho-cheol.

Villains don't have anywhere to complain or report to even if they're the victims of a crime.

That's why there's almost no crime sample against them.

And the Association doesn't really investigate either.

He swallowed the snack, letting the assistant's rebuttal go in one ear and out the other.

“But I have connections in that area, so it's not like I can't find out.”

That connection was Wolf Fang.

Just a month ago, he had been living quite well in an illegal underground fighting ring, so he had built up a pretty solid network with the villains in that area.

That network was still intact, and he was actually using it usefully from time to time to catch escaped villains.

If he mobilized that network, he could gather such trivial information quite quickly and easily.

And the result.

Ho-cheol took out his phone and shook it up and down.

“Just this year, the number of villains who have been robbed by a thief identified by a teleportation Trait is well over ten. The amount of damage alone is……”

The long text message that had arrived when he got to the dean's office.

He diligently moved his finger to scroll down the screen, and his eyes widened when he saw the amount.

Ho-cheol was slightly impressed.

“You've been quite thrifty with your crimes.”

He had thought she was a rookie villain, but she was practically a walking corporation.

She had been particularly good at gutting the well-off villains who only committed financial crimes.

And this was just what Wolf Fang had confirmed with the villains in the vicinity of his activity area, so it wouldn't be strange if there were more villain victims.

Ho-cheol counted on his fingers, listing the clues he had gathered so far.

“Aspiring hero, dropped out, only robs villains.”

It wasn't a crime motivated solely by money.

He didn't feel the unique atmosphere of a person who enjoys luxury and consumption at all.

And unlike the invisibility villain, there was no sense of urgency as if she needed a large sum of money.

In the end, money was not the only purpose.

A means, not an end.

And Ho-cheol knew well that such people had a screw loose somewhere.

And if you put all the clues gathered so far together, one result emerged.

“You. What, do you want to be a dark hero or something?”

Dark hero.

Villains who only committed crimes against other villains.

Of course, legally they were just villains, but citizens at least gave them the title of hero as a sign of respect.

Such dark heroes had appeared from time to time even when Ho-cheol was a villain.

Aspiring heroes who had given up for realistic reasons.

And if that was not simply due to a lack of ability, but because they didn't fit the ‘correct model of a modern hero’ and were forced to give up by others.

They would not be able to give up on their dream of being a hero itself.

Perhaps because he had hit the nail on the head, the assistant's expression, which had been trembling pitifully until now, turned serious for the first time.

Of course, it was only her expression; her body was still trembling, and the discrepancy was almost pitiful.

“But until now, you've only been robbing villains' wallets, so that's that. But today, you stole the money that a villain stole from a bank, so there's just an intermediate process, but doesn't that mean you robbed the bank? What's the difference between you and a villain?”

“That’s not it! That villain also robbed an armored car that was transporting illegal funds, so the only one who lost out was a criminal! Ah.”

The assistant, who had gotten worked up at the words that she was no different from a villain, raised her voice for the first time.

But she soon realized she had said something she absolutely shouldn't have and clamped her mouth shut again.

But it was already too late.

A de facto confession.

In the end, she relaxed her body and waved her hand as if she had given up.

Then she covered her face with both hands and shouted.

“That’s right. I wanted to be a hero, but they said I could never do it with this kind of trait, this kind of personality, so this is what happened. So what about it! I know it’s wrong! But I haven’t spent a single 100 won of the money I stole like that. It’s all to give back to the poor, to society! Is that such a big crime?”

“Hmm.”

Ho-cheol was also slightly taken aback.

He had wondered how she could have done such a thing with that kind of personality, but it seemed she became quite shameless when she covered her face.

Anyway, since she had confessed with her own mouth, there was nothing more to hide.

“It's not a big crime. Honestly, I don't see dark heroes that badly.”

It was just that there was a high probability that they would go crazy or get twisted along the way.

His opinion of a pure dark hero itself was somewhat favorable.

Of course, that was just his personal impression, and he had no intention of defending her as innocent.

“But if you're going to do it anyway, wouldn't it be better to become a real hero?”

Perhaps because she was tempted by the words ‘real hero’, the assistant removed the hands that had been covering her face.

“……I-is that possible?”

“Of course, you'll have to return all the money you've stolen to society, and you'll have to pay for your crimes accordingly. But I can greatly shorten the intermediate process. And after that, I can make you a hero.”

“R-really?”

She asked back with eyes full of expectation.

In the first place, the reason dark heroes received excessive sentences compared to their actions and could not debut again as heroes was simply because the Association or the government was wary of them, who were ultimately just villains in the grand scheme of things, being idolized.

But that was the kind of thing Ho-cheol could block with his connections.

Ho-cheol leaned forward.

“Instead, you have to help me a little before that.”

He got to the point.

“We're going to rob a corporation. To be precise, we're going to catch and beat a person belonging to that corporation, but they'll be tied together as a set anyway.”

It wasn't a matter that would end with just catching and beating the doctor who had betrayed Ho-cheol.

In the first place, if the doctor, who was a member of the Society, had returned there, there was a high probability that Black Oskopf, where he currently belonged, was also related to the Society.

Or, in the worst-case scenario, the two could be the same organization with different names. In that case, Black Oskopf would also be within Ho-cheol's target range.

But the assistant thought for a moment and answered.

“If it's not the right thing to do, I will refuse.”

The reason she took the risk of being a dark hero was solely to realize justice.

She hadn't heard the detailed circumstances yet, but at least for now, it could only be interpreted as Ho-cheol wanting to catch a person for his own personal greed.

Ho-cheol, realizing that his explanation had been insufficient, chuckled.

“Illegal human experimentation.”

At that moment, the assistant flinched.

Wasn't it a horrifying crime that could never be ignored?

But that wasn't the end.

“Monster-human fusion experiment.”

“Development of weapons of mass destruction.”

“Arms smuggling.”

“Harboring villains.”

“Instigating urban terrorism.”

“Environmental destruction and unethical waste disposal.”

The assistant's eyes widened each time he listed a charge.

“This is just the list of crimes of that corporation that I know of. If I look for more, I'm sure I can find more.”

Ho-cheol.

“Before you retire from being a dark hero, don't you think you should try catching a real ‘great evil’ once?”

Her deliberation was short.

She asked with a determined expression.

“What should I do?”