Chapter 61

Chapter 61: Main Story (4)

Chairman Daniel.

A person whose name always came up when Americans were polled for their most disliked figure.

Typically, key positions in the Hero Association were filled by retired Heroes. Even Korea's current Association Chairman was a former S-rank Hero.

Considering that, Chairman Daniel's career was highly unusual.

He was a former member of the House of Representatives.

When Daniel first entered Hero society, he was met with universal hostility.

No Hero would tolerate a politician's dirty feet trampling the sacred domain of Heroes.

But Daniel was remarkably shrewd.

He didn't understand Heroes.

But when it came to politics, he knew the Hero world better than anyone in it.

Daniel's platform was this:

-- I will break Unicorn Guild's monopoly.

Daniel had never directly named Unicorn, but every policy he put forward targeted them.

Unicorn fiercely resisted Daniel, but the other guilds welcomed his policies.

Public enemy.

That was the engine that drove Daniel's approval ratings.

Under the banner of "Anti-Unicorn," America's guilds rallied one by one.

As a result, Daniel was welcomed by the majority of American guilds and became Hero Association Chairman with ease.

In blunt terms, Daniel was incompetent as a Hero.

But as a politician, he was exceptional.

That was why Americans hated him.

"To all the Heroes who have gathered for the sake of humanity. You are the true heroes, the saints, the messiahs."

Daniel began his speech in a booming voice.

"The world now faces a crisis."

"The only ones who can protect our homeland and our families are you."

"Please, fight for humanity. You are this world's one and only hope."

Daniel spouted these and other honey-coated words.

Naturally, few Heroes took him seriously.

Those gathered here were S-rank Heroes with considerable experience.

None were naive enough to be moved by Daniel's hollow words.

"Professor, we absolutely have to save the world!"

...Damn it. There was one.

My own student was that fool.

Then again, Lee Yeeun wasn't S-rank and had little experience, so it was understandable.

Fortunately, there was one more fool nearby.

"Oh... Magnificent. Now that's a true man who knows honor and righteousness."

It was Wang Sheng, China's S-rank Hero.

China's future looked bleak too.

Lie Xiao, sitting next to him, pressed his palm to his forehead.

"Wang Sheng, you... never mind."

"Lie Xiao, doesn't your heart burn too? What about you, Soyon?"

China's genius girl, Zhuge Soyon, whipped her head around.

"Don't talk to me, moron."

"This pipsqueak, so disrespectful."

"Both of you, quiet. You're being rude."

When Lie Xiao mediated, the two fell silent.

Meanwhile, Daniel's speech ended.

There was a brief round of perfunctory applause.

Before Chairman Daniel could move to the next agenda item, someone asked a question.

"One question. Why'd you bring us in secretly? If you gathered us for a good cause, you could've just sent official documents to each country and done this properly."

The timing was perfect.

I'd been wondering the same thing -- why we'd been assembled this way.

MURMUR--

The S-rank Heroes' gazes turned momentarily hostile.

The Heroes gathered here were no ordinary people.

Each one was a human weapon who could casually level several cities.

A single finger would be enough to pop Chairman Daniel's head.

If hundreds of such Heroes radiated killing intent, an ordinary human passing out on the spot wouldn't be strange.

Yet Chairman Daniel didn't lose his composure.

An impressive mental fortitude befitting the chairman of the American Association.

"Originally this was top secret, but there's no reason to hide it from you. SH! Those damned bastards issued a terror threat. At this critical time!"

The meeting hall erupted.

Daniel's statement was no trivial matter.

Superhumans. Super Human.

Abbreviated: SH.

The world's most notorious terrorist organization.

Their defining characteristic was that every member was Awakened.

Terrorists who rejected becoming Heroes to protect humanity and instead aimed to destroy it.

They called themselves "Superhumans."

They claimed that the existing inferior "old humanity" should be eradicated and only the superior "new humanity" should survive.

What a joke.

"If word got out that this many S-rank Heroes had gathered in the Pacific, those bastards would wreak havoc everywhere, right? You wouldn't want that either. That's why we kept it secret."

Every Hero seemed to understand and nodded.

The appearance of the SS-rank dungeon.

And the involvement of SH.

The puzzle of what had happened in the game was roughly coming together.

"This just got complicated."

A rough scenario of why America ended up the way it did in the game was taking shape.

Most likely, while the majority of American Heroes were concentrated here, SH launched a terror attack.

The Hero Association sent part of the force back to the mainland to try to catch both rabbits, and both sides were annihilated.

That would make everything fit.

For this deduction to hold, there was a prerequisite.

Was it coincidence that SH attacked, and the American mainland just happened to be undefended?

Not a chance.

If they'd been stupid enough to gamble everything on luck, they'd have all been captured already.

They'd moved knowing everything.

Someone inside the Hero Association had leaked information.

A traitor.

The American Hero Association had a traitor right now.

"Yeeun, you said only Association executive-level people knew about the Gate's existence, right?"

"Yes. That's what they said."

The pool of suspects was narrowing.

Every executive in the American Hero Association.

One of them was the traitor.

I wanted to identify the traitor, but the clues were still too scarce.

Besides, the information about the forces gathering in the Pacific had likely already been passed along, so finding the traitor wasn't of immediate significance.

America's downfall in the game was caused by splitting its forces.

The dungeon and SH.

One had to be dealt with first.

Going after SH first was not an option.

If the monsters inhabiting the SS-rank Gate spilled out while they were busy, the world would be turned upside down.

By process of elimination, the dungeon had to be finished first.

Clear the dungeon in the shortest time possible, then immediately return to America.

That was the best course.

***

The command center inside the aircraft carrier.

Here stood the American Hero Association's strategic simulator.

Unlike the half-baked one at the Academy, this was the real deal -- one that could freely set the enemy's conditions as well.

The commanders who would lead this raid, along with tactical experts gathered from every nation, had all assembled.

"I'm Edelin, and I'll be commanding this expedition."

Edelin introduced herself.

No matter how hostile the American Hero Association was toward Unicorn, they couldn't slight Edelin.

Considering her symbolic power, the difference in morale between her commanding versus not would be night and day.

"Pleasure. I'm Christian, Expedition Commander."

"John Dickell. Likewise."

Instead, the American Hero Association had chosen a remarkably petty method.

A three-commander system.

On paper, they'd placed three commanders for the sake of caution before a major expedition.

Obviously, the real intent was to check Edelin.

The other two commanders were Heroes close to the Hero Association.

Even if Edelin pushed an opinion hard, if those two opposed, she'd be outvoted.

In practice, they intended to borrow Edelin's name while leaving the actual command to those two.

"What cheap tricks."

There was no way a meeting would function properly under these circumstances.

It was already off the rails from the first step.

Christian spoke.

"First, this is the personnel deployment we've prepared."

In raids of S-rank and above dungeons, personnel distribution was critical.

The dungeon interior was vast and the monsters powerful, so the standard approach was to enter in multiple waves and progress gradually.

Every Hero reviewed the personnel allocation Christian had set.

Edelin asked.

"What is this idiotic deployment?"

The vanguard.

A crucial role that could make or break a raid, but also the one with the least reward.

When an unknown dungeon appeared, having a vanguard gather intelligence before the main assault was standard.

Naturally, it was an extremely dangerous role.

Going in first to an unexplored dungeon with zero information was no easy task.

That was why everyone avoided it.

"Isn't the standard to draw vanguard members equally from each guild? This is blatantly inequitable toward Unicorn."

Christian said,

"We simply divided roles according to ability. Splitting the roster by faction is too inefficient. Wouldn't it be better to group guilds with good chemistry as single units?"

"This arrangement unfairly burdens a specific guild."

John Dickell sneered.

"The Commander seems more selfish than she looks."

"Excuse me?"

"A crisis for humanity has arrived, and you're worried about your own plate. For someone who's supposed to be the pillar of this raid, that's disappointing."

"......"

Edelin was at a loss for words.

In any argument, the hardest opponent to deal with was one with no logic.

Edelin was someone with a strong sense of heroism.

With the shared mission of an SS-rank dungeon raid ahead, she wouldn't want to sour the atmosphere from the start.

In the end, she kept her mouth shut.

"The rear guard composition will be......"

"Rather than that, it'd be better to......"

"I hear Roberto's been in great form lately......"

What remained was a third-rate play.

The prime positions in the dungeon raid were divvied up in order of closeness to the Hero Association.

The Heroes gathered from overseas grumbled.

But with Edelin of America taking on the most grueling vanguard role, they couldn't protest too strongly.

"Please confirm the final decision."

Laid out together, it was even more absurd.

Heroes meant to protect humanity were acting worse than market thugs.

Jo Seongung clicked his tongue.

"Tsk, the American bastards have sunk as low as they can go. At this rate. Is Professor Cha going to just sit around as a leftover and call it a day?"

"I'll find a way in somehow."

"Oh? So Professor Cha has ambitions for glory too?"

Ambitions?

I'd have preferred it if that were the reason.

From what I'd seen, if I sat on my hands, far from finishing quickly and returning to America, the entire raid would fail.

"It's nothing grand. I just want to finish up fast and see my kids' faces."

SH was a terrorist organization with enough power to topple a minor nation.

But their opponent was America.

A significant number of America's S-rank Heroes had gathered here, but a considerable number of S-ranks still remained on the mainland.

On top of that, every Hero A-rank and below was intact.

That should be more than enough to repel SH.

But America had failed.

It had been so dire that they'd had to recall the SS-rank dungeon expedition back home.

That meant there was something I didn't know.

Most likely, the intervention of the Evil Gods.

The Evil Gods again.

Fucking bastards.

"This concludes the first meeting."

Chairman Daniel announced the meeting's end.

We came back out onto the deck.

"What do you think, Professor Jo?"

"What's there to say? It's a shitshow. Tch, America's done for. Heroes are supposed to cooperate with each other, not fight over their share. This is why you can't let politicians get involved with the Association."

Jo Seongung's expression was bitter.

With the world's strongest nation, which was supposed to protect humanity, in this state, his heart was understandably heavy.

"That wasn't the meeting I'd imagined. To think this is what a world-class summit of Heroes looks like......"

Even my naive student had picked up on the undercurrents.

That's how blatant this meeting had been.

"What are you going to do, Professor Cha? You're perceived as Edelin's person, so you're in the same boat. No matter how capable you are, they won't give you a seat at the table."

"I just need to prove my capability."

"Come on, man. They won't even give you the chance to prove it! Even if you pull great results on the strategic simulator, that's never perfectly reliable. They'll have more than enough grounds to reject you."

"I don't necessarily have to propose tactics."

"Hmm? You going to go fight out there or something?"

The Evil Gods.

With their involvement, this dungeon had to be finished as quickly as possible.

This was no time to be picky about methods.

"Professor Jo, could you get permission for us to use one of the research labs on the aircraft carrier?"

"Huh? What for?"

"You'll see. Yeeun, you get ready too."

"Get ready?"

"Yeah. Let's you and me have some fun."