novelraw Chapter 278 : Chapter 278
Chapter 278 : Chapter 278
Chapter 278: Hero
The entire assembly of S-rank Heroes looked at the screen on the wall in shock.
Though the expression "shock" doesn't suit those who have endured all sorts of hardships, the current situation far exceeded the line they could respond to with composure.
No, it would be closer to astonishment than shock.
Ho-cheol also looked at Eclipse on the screen, stroking his chin.
He was just as surprised, but not to the extent of being dumbfounded like the other Heroes.
He could already roughly sketch the outline of the situation.
A gathering like this could not have been organized with mediocre intelligence.
Information on active S-rank Heroes might pop up easily with a quick search online, but information on retired S-rank Heroes is treated as confidential.
The Association must also handle it quite strictly.
Yet, the number of retired Heroes present today was substantial.
Not even an average S-rank Hero could know all of their personal information.
This meeting was led by a highly influential Hero, and if that person was Eclipse, it made sense.
He could recall their contact information with just a decent memory, or perhaps he had noted it down somewhere.
By the way, there was a significant change between the Eclipse's face I remembered and the face on the screen.
“Maybe it’s because he’s lived abroad. His face has become quite vicious.”
Did his face just become vicious?
His eyes also looked fierce, and the atmosphere he exuded was now much closer to a villain than a Hero.
Especially the long scar tracing from the corner of his mouth up to his eye socket on his left cheek gave off a rather dangerous vibe.
It was useless to scoff and ask if he had just been stabbed somewhere, because Eclipse's strength was genuine.
A normal stabbing would result in the knife-wielder being evaporated along with the knife before the blade even touched his body, and most injuries would heal quickly.
For such a person to be unable to erase that scar, it meant the wound was inflicted by a considerable formidable opponent.
Ho-cheol silently clenched and unclenched his fist.
His last activity was on the African continent.
There, he raised the largest sun in history.
It was unlikely he deployed it as a mere illumination.
The cause must have been his battle with the gigantic regenerating monster that was still there.
Perhaps that monster left this wound.
A monster that nuclear bombs could only neutralize.
Unlike myself, who used a slight trick to eliminate the monster, perhaps Eclipse truly reached the state of transcendence.
Ho-cheol decided to observe the situation first, moving backward instead and leaning his back against the wall next to the entrance.
At least the Dean was the only one on my side.
Everyone else was hostile.
In this situation, if I stepped forward to gather information, I would surely feel the heat from Eclipse in front and the prickly stares of the other S-rank Heroes behind me.
There were many other Heroes, so why should I be the scapegoat?
As Eclipse looked around the Heroes in the hall amidst the silence, various complex emotions were revealed in his eyes.
He despised the ignorance of these Heroes, respected their efforts, and at the same time, pitied them.
As the heavy silence continued, one Hero stepped forward and shouted.
“The Sun! Why in the world are you doing this!”
His defection to villainy was a well-known story to most S-rank Heroes.
Nevertheless, there were still some Heroes who refused to use the villain name Eclipse, sticking to his former name, The Sun.
His perfect and solid sense of justice and values were an object of admiration for countless Heroes.
“You can still come back! To the right path! As a Hero!”
[A Hero, you say.]
At those words, Eclipse, who had been silent except for his initial greeting, let out a hollow laugh.
[That's ridiculous. Are you equating a Hero with the right path?]
“……Isn’t that obvious?”
[No. That premise is wrong from the start. That is why you cannot understand me. And above all, I am neither The Sun nor Eclipse now. I am simply a man named Lee Byeong-hoo.]
Eclipse.
No, Byeong-hoo continued speaking calmly.
[I tried harder than anyone and fulfilled my duty as a Hero. I believed that this was the way to establish justice in this society and protect people. That is what I believed.]
[But it was the exact opposite. What was plaguing this society was not the villains, but the very existence of us Heroes.]
A bewildered murmur echoed throughout the hall.
It was surprising enough that he defected to villainy simply because he went mad, but to make such an absurd claim.
Only Ho-cheol, with his arms crossed, relaxed his posture, his eyes gleaming with interest.
[The Hero system should never have existed in the first place.]
Shouts of Don't be ridiculous— That's nonsense— echoed from various corners of the hall.
It was a natural reaction.
If one claimed the uselessness of the Hero system even in front of ordinary citizens, they would be heavily criticized, let alone making such a claim to a gathering of S-rank Heroes.
The fact that harsh insults weren't immediately thrown out only proved how patient they were.
Despite their opposition, Byeong-hoo said nothing.
Instead, his face on the screen shrunk and moved to one corner.
And on the vacant screen, another person’s face appeared.
A brightly smiling girl.
She still retained a slightly youthful look, younger than an adult.
Most Heroes were puzzled by the sudden new photo, but some instantly froze.
Ho-cheol was one of those who froze.
That face, it was certainly imprinted in my memory.
Definitely…….
[She is my daughter. Although not a drop of blood was shared, I birthed her with my heart. I raised her with my heart. And I buried her in my heart. My only family, more precious than anyone.]
The photo disappeared, and this time, a video file appeared.
[And this is…….]
Ho-cheol let out a long sigh.
He also quickly realized the identity of that video.
It was the footage the Association had shown him in the past while interrogating the reason for Eclipse's defection to villainy.
The biggest reason he defected, and likely the same reason he made a declaration like today.
[The final moments of that child.]
As Byeong-hoo said that, the video on the screen began to play.
However, the video started slightly earlier than Ho-cheol remembered.
He narrowed his brows.
Did the Association conceal some crucial information from me?
The other Heroes also watched the video as it played.
The video quality was quite poor.
However, it wasn't difficult to distinguish the person's face.
Nor that the girl standing in the center of the video was the daughter Byeong-hoo had just mentioned.
Loud roars could be heard from afar, and intense vibrations shook not only the utility pole where the camera was installed but the entire road.
The camera shook, and the focus kept shifting.
The girl did not run away; instead, she pushed through the crowd, heading in the opposite direction of the people who were fleeing.
And when she returned, she was always supporting an injured person next to her.
She moved them to a safe place, searched for another casualty, and repeated this several times.
In the meantime, none of the hundreds of other people in the crowd helped others like her.
They didn't even pay attention.
And just as the number of people she had moved exceeded ten.
Kugugugung―
The road collapsed, and the adjacent street tree fell.
The girl trapped under the street tree screamed.
That was the end of it.
Byeong-hoo paused the video.
Instead, he switched the screen, filling it with himself again.
[My child struggled for ten more minutes at the threshold of death like that, but she finally died. If anyone had made even a small effort for her, if they had paid attention, if they had shown kindness. She would never have died.]
Being trapped under the street tree was not even a fatal injury.
It was merely a broken leg.
There was a considerable amount of time—ten minutes—remaining before the villain who caused the incident could reach her, and if anyone had helped her, she would not have died so tragically.
[It was ten minutes in the video, but those few minutes were no different than an eternity to me.]
His voice was as calm as it was initially.
However.
Ddu-uk― Ddu-uk― Ddu-uk―
Tears of blood were streaming down his eyes as he spoke.
[There were eighty-three citizens who discovered the child. Thirty-five could have helped and rescued her. And there was not a single person who moved to save her.]
No Hero gathered here dared to speak first.
If Byeong-hoo had claimed that the Heroes were late, or the Heroes were incompetent, at least someone would have spoken out.
However, they, too, felt the indifference and lack of morality of the citizens to some extent because of their work as Heroes.
No, they knew it better than anyone.
This was not an area that they, as Heroes, could deal with or solve.
[This. This is the final moment my daughter experienced, and the worst absurdity I realized the Hero society possessed. The Hero has already lost its reason for being.]
If a Hero's purpose is not to save citizens, but to slowly kill them.
Can they be called Heroes?
[Hiding behind the shield called 'citizens,' they have already lost the most important values and concepts. 'The Hero will come.' So I don't need to take risks to save others. Everyone there thought and acted that way. And they won't feel any guilt about the result. If they had even a little bit of guilt, regret, lingering attachment, or reflection left. At least there would be a possibility for improvement next time.]
Byeong-hoo shook his head.
Then he slammed his hand down on the table with a boom― sound.
[The existence of you, the Heroes, is what made them this way.]
He immediately continued with blatant and sharp accusations.
[You, the Heroes who are stronger than anyone, you who are righteous. You who strive for the lives and safety of others.]
However, unlike before, none of the Heroes dared to contradict his words.
[You are making the entirety of society weak, both inside and out of the citizens, slowly euthanizing the entire society.]
His eyes shone fiercely.
The flames burning in his pupils looked ready to engulf and burn not only the world but also himself.
[That is why I will dismantle the Hero system.]
“……Then, did you gather us to declare war? Or did you plant bombs in the building?”
To the question of one Hero, Byeong-hoo relaxed the hand that had been clenched into a fist.
[No. This is an invitation preceding a warning. If all S-rank Heroes quit being Heroes together, the Hero system itself will collapse without anyone getting hurt or shedding blood.]
He did not gather the S-rank Heroes for no reason.
If they followed his words and quit being Heroes, the Hero system would quickly collapse.
Although the number of S-rank Heroes does not even reach 1% of the total Heroes, it is no exaggeration to say that their influence is over 90%.
Although inevitable noise and damage would follow if Heroes suddenly disappeared, it was a minor issue compared to the current situation where society was slowly dying.
Ho-cheol was quite flustered because he didn't expect the main point of the gathering to be: Quit being Heroes and find a new job.
[I hope you make a wise choice. What truly is the path for the Heroes, the citizens, and the world.]
With those words, the face on the screen disappeared, and light returned from the dark ceiling of the hall.
Only a little over ten minutes had passed, but it was a period of time when everyone felt overwhelmed.
“Hmm.”
Ho-cheol clicked his tongue and looked around.
For me, this was nonsense not even worth considering.
However, that only applies to Ho-cheol, who had gained experience by moving between both villain and Hero sides, and could maintain a neutral perspective.
It was not the same for the others who had lived as Heroes their entire lives.
He focused on the murmurs coming from around him.
The content was quite troublesome.
Even if Byeong-hoo's logic wasn't the definitive answer, it had some value worth considering. We shouldn't just ignore it.
—The moment an atmosphere like this was even slightly created, they were already halfway swayed.
No matter how righteous and fundamentally good S-rank Heroes were, they must have been under considerable stress from being relentlessly harassed by citizens.
And now, a suitable justification was thrown their way.
This was quite problematic for Ho-cheol.
Until now, I was the clear protagonist and the definition of justice.
The opponent was 'evil' and a disaster that must be stopped.
However, this time was different.
In the worst-case scenario Ho-cheol envisioned, he would be labeled as the evil of society, taking on the image of fighting against righteousness, and more.
He covered his mouth and muttered softly.
“I think this is messed up.”
And quite severely, too.