The Monster Aspires to Be a Hero!

March 1st, Monday.
After today, the long winter break will end and the first semester of my 4th year will begin.
Even though the semester hasn’t started yet, the graduate student slaves in the lab sent a group message for the 3.1 Independence Movement Memorial Day.

[Web Sent]
Students applying for a leave of absence this semester, please contact us separately.

I didn’t send a message since I didn’t plan to take a leave of absence, but receiving this message made it feel real.
University is really starting now.
My heart is pounding.
For a 4th-year student, it’s too late to join a hero-related club or transfer to a related department for a double major.
Still, I had a premonition that something would happen, which made me feel upbeat.
While thinking I should study for the NCS as a precaution, I couldn’t turn a single page.
This won’t do.
I decided to go out for a walk first.
It was still a bit chilly outside, but enough to cool my racing heart for now.
Before registering at a training room or gym for ability users, I should check my own limits first.
With that thought, I headed toward the spring pavilion, a place I normally never visit.

!
I flinched.
Standing still, I turned back again.
That sensation again.
The strange feeling that someone was staring intently at me.
It felt like their gaze was licking my entire body with their tongue.
My breath quickened.
But soon, that sensation dissipated.
Just what was that?
…We should be careful.
You’re right.
Someone might be observing me for using my powers so indiscriminately.
For the time being, I should refrain from conversing with this monster presence.
Since our conversation seems to occur mentally, I should be able to manage it somehow.
I hurried away and headed toward the spring pavilion.
At this early hour, the spring pavilion was nearly deserted.
Enduring the early March chill to climb the hill behind it seemed like a tough task even for the elderly spring water drinkers.
Indeed, I no longer sensed that unpleasant gaze here.
I lightly moved my body to test what I could do.
I did pull-ups on the horizontal bars, standing long jumps, high jumps, and 100m sprints.
I definitely felt like I could do more, but it also felt lacking in some way.
It seemed my mind couldn’t keep up with the changes to my physical capabilities.
For example, my 100m time was between 11-12 seconds.
But now, the 9-second range felt effortless.
I had the feeling I could run even faster if I tried, but I couldn’t.
Whenever I tried to move faster, my legs would get tangled up strangely.
It was the same for the high jump and long jump events.
My physical abilities had risen to potentially record-breaking levels.
Yet I had the feeling I could do even better, but couldn’t go beyond that.
It seems I need to adapt to my changed body and learn to use it more efficiently.
I should quickly find a training room and receive proper guidance.
It would be good to get used to the sensations when transforming your body too.
And this presence is also an issue.
The strength that comes out when it transforms my body is incomparable to my current state.
If it focuses, it can unleash strength ridiculous enough to pierce a bear’s belly with its arm like a javelin.
But whether I have the control to wield that is a separate issue.
I need to learn how to use my body more efficiently.
Only then can I truly take my first step as a hero.
Jinwoo (23 years old), finally, a hero.
Feeling upbeat, I decided to eat lunch at a nearby restaurant.
There were a few scattered people in the dining area, so it wasn’t completely empty.
I sat at a moderately vacant spot, looked over the menu, and my eyes landed on the TV.
It was tuned to a 24-hour news channel.
I blankly watched it as I ordered food.
The news reported about monsters appearing in various places and villains causing incidents again.
The monsters emerging recently seem to be mostly harmless D-rank ones.
Monsters with strength ratings of 1-3, which are low-level.
Most are at human levels, where getting hit by a car would kill them.
Ratings over 3 are classified as 3.1-4 for C-rank, 4.1-5 for B-rank, going up to S-rank, which is considered a national disaster-level threat.
An S-rank hasn’t appeared in Korea yet, but when one first emerged in China, it caused complete chaos.
It made heroes realize they were powerless against overwhelming mass, no matter how strong.
With China’s vast land and population, the casualties were immense.
Heroes hurried to evacuate people, and immense firepower was unleashed on the empty city.
That was an incident 5 years ago.
3 years ago, an S-rank monster appeared in the US, also causing tremendous casualties.
Even heroes capable of facing A-rank monsters have limits in reality.
If an S-rank monster appeared in Korea instead of the US or China, academia consensus is that Korea would be doomed.
Since then, nations around the world have been developing personalized weapons for heroes.
Weapons that can unleash overwhelming firepower using hero abilities and monster corpse cores without causing secondary damage from radiation or explosions.
The US claimed to have created a weapon called a railgun.
Similar weapons are rumored to be under development in countries like China and Russia as well.
Anyway, excluding those unconquerable monsters, the story is that monsters constantly appear and get eliminated.
So the news never runs out of material.
That’s why I didn’t have high expectations.
Next is the incident that occurred at Eunsung Hospital.
Perk perk.
I perked up at the mention of ‘Eunsung’ and looked up at the TV from my pot of beef soup.
There, the now familiar scene was playing.
A bus charging menacingly, spitting sparks.
The swaying man who had stopped that bus.
This news report even included the smartphone footage I had found online before.
‘Are… the other people… okay?’
“Wow~ That’s awesome.”
“I know, right?”
Some middle-aged men at another table were watching the TV with satisfied expressions while eating their beef soup.
To think those simple words could make my heart flutter like this.
I hurriedly finished my slightly hot beef soup, grateful that my body didn’t burn my palate from the heat.
It felt like I needed to walk all the way to Eunsung Hospital to cool this heated heart.
I started walking at a slightly faster pace toward Eunsung Hospital.

The new semester has begun.
I put on cleaner clothes than usual, checked my face in the mirror, and left home.
It’s about a 50-minute bus ride to the university, or 1 hour if there’s traffic.
Honestly, after the bus incident, I was afraid to ride the bus, but I didn’t want to take the long subway detour or an expensive taxi either.
As I got on the bus and sat in an empty seat, a hunched elderly woman boarded.
I smoothly stood up and offered her my seat.
“Oh, thank you…”
“You’re welcome.”
My body has become sturdy enough that I could sit in a riding stance all the way to university if needed.
After glancing at the elderly woman, I grabbed a handrail and took out my smartphone.
Normally, I would study for certifications while sitting on the bus, but I don’t need to do that anymore.
So the only thing left to do was web surf.
Out of habit, I searched for the “Eunsung Hospital Bus Incident” on Google.

It seems to be a modern human disease.
What is?
Modern humans all feel a loneliness, a desire to be acknowledged.
I overheard the monster’s words, showing surprisingly deep insight into humans in just a few days.
The more I listened, the more persuasive it sounded, despite myself.

No, think about it.
There are people praising me, and that praise is being reprocessed in 1st, 2nd, 3rd derivatives.
I can’t help but be swayed by it.

As I was absentmindedly fiddling with my phone with a satisfied expression, someone swiped their finger across my smartphone screen.
What the…?
Wondering what it was, I glanced up to see a familiar face.
“Mamang.”
“…You only have one more year left to call me that, sunbae.”
“Sorry, sorry.”
“Did you prepare well for the NCS over break?”
“Huh? Um… I did alright.”
“Why the lackluster response?”
Jieun Lee.
A year younger than me and in the ‘With You’ volunteer club. Her nickname is Mamang.
She said she has two younger siblings with a considerable age gap at home, which is why kids tend to follow her around, leading to that nickname.
I was annoyed at first about being called that, but it has become familiar now.
“Our ‘otaku’ sunbae has it good~ Praised by professors and good grades~”
Who are you calling an otaku?
You rude brat.
As we chatted, the elderly woman in front of me tried to get up from her seat.
“Student, thank you. You can sit here now~”
“No, please be careful on your way.”
“Thank you.”
The elderly woman pat my shoulder with a smile as she left.
“Sit down.”
“You sit down, sunbae.”
“Tch. If I say sit down, then sit.”
“Okay~”
Jieun pretended to pout before sitting down.
“Give me your bag.”
“Here.”
After I handed her my bag, she lifted it a few times before frowning.
“Why is your bag so light?”
“One notebook, one pencil case.”
“You delinquent, really.”
“If you complain, then you pack your schedule fully too.”
Jieun hugged my bag and gave a wry smile.
“You’re the same as always, sunbae.”
“What is?”
“Giving up your seat to that elderly lady.”
“She’s an elderly person.”
“…That’s what I mean by the same as always.”
Jieun muttered that and slightly bowed her head.
“What was that?”
“I said you’re a hero otaku, sunbae.”
Jieun said that while snorting derisively.
“If you like heroes so much, why don’t you just become one instead of studying business administration?”
“Well, that’s what I’m going to do now, become a hero.”
“Huh?”
“I’m going to become a hero.”
“…”
Jieun stared at me with a blank look, as if I was spouting nonsense when it wasn’t even April Fool’s Day.
“I’m not joking. I really want to try becoming a hero.”
“…Why suddenly?”
“Because I’m a hero otaku?”
“But what if you fail…? Isn’t it a waste? You worked so hard on your studies…”
“I’ll figure something out.”
I managed my grades as a basic, and was active in clubs too.
I attended the MT every year and always prepared gifts for my academic advisor’s birthday.
So her reaction is understandable.
In our country, the gap period while failing to find employment after graduating can be quite detrimental.
But that doesn’t scare me much.
I think I can find a way to make a living no matter what.
What’s scarier is not being able to do what I want and dying with that lingering attachment, always regretting it.
“We’re here.”
By the time our conversation finished, we had already arrived at the university.
Jieun still didn’t seem to believe I was serious about becoming a hero.
“Ah, good morning, sunbae.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Good morning!”
“Ugh.”
I gave a casual wave to some acquaintances who greeted me by name.
“Oh, right. What’s your class schedule like this semester, sunbae?”
“You ask so quickly.”
I showed her the schedule app on my smartphone.
“Ah, what is this. You total delinquent!”
Most of my schedule was special lectures by visiting professors and 4th-year P/NP courses, with only 2 graded courses.
Those graded courses were even online lectures, where you just had to take the offline exam during the test period while attending school. They were easy A/A+ courses as long as you didn’t sleep through them despite the large enrollment.
“A hero needs to allocate time well to be ready for deployment at any time.”
“…You’re being ridiculous.”
I took my phone back from the grumbling Jieun and headed to the club room.
“Ah, I’ll go with you!”
I would need to explain the situation to my academic advisor and guidance professor, so it might be tiring.
The academic advisor is just an automatically assigned professor, so they’ll probably just tell me to work hard.
The guidance professor might get angry with me.
They’re someone who has helped me a lot in various ways.
But overcoming such hardships is part of being a hero, isn’t it?

What a petty idea of a hero.
Shut it.
I’m aiming to be a kind, neighborhood hero like Spider-Man.