OMH Chapter 29

Okay, My Hero – Episode 29

29. The S-Grades I Ended Up Raising (10)

I immediately went to the next room and knocked on the door. The door, which I knocked on vigorously, opened, and Kim Sanghyuk poked his face out.

Kim Sanghyuk, looking flustered, spoke to me.

“…What’s up at this hour?”

I cut to the chase and stated my business.

“Give me some clothes.”

“Did you leave your clothes with me…?”

Kim Sanghyuk grumbled, as if he couldn’t believe it, but immediately brought a hoodie.

It’s not like I particularly wanted to borrow his clothes, but mine aren’t the right length.

Still, Kim Sanghyuk is about the same height as Woojin, so the length should be right. I took the clothes I got from Kim Sanghyuk and returned to my room.

Only after receiving the clothes I handed him did Woojin shake off the blanket he was curled up in like a silkworm cocoon.

I’ve seen Kim Sanghyuk wear that gray hoodie and training pants a lot, but…

‘It definitely didn’t look like that?’

The clothes Kim Sanghyuk wore were definitely like a bulging potato sack, stuffed full of muscle knots.

But the clothes Woojin wore were different. The clothes Woojin wore had a naturally flowing line from the perfectly fitted shoulders, making him look stylish. The moderately loose clothes were completely different from how Kim Sanghyuk looked in them.

Woojin, who showed off a fit that Kim Sanghyuk could never imitate, squatted silently on the bed.

So I sat down next to him.

It seems the time has come to keep my promise with Oh Joohyun.

I gently stroked Woojin’s back and carefully chose my words.

‘What should I start with? Comforting him first, I guess?’

But just as I finished pondering and was about to open my mouth, Wooreen suddenly hugged Woojin.

“……”

I stared blankly, taken aback, but the little child hugged her protector even tighter, burying herself deeply in his embrace. I wanted to let the child be as spoiled as she wanted, but I had something I needed to do right now.

So, just as I was about to pull her away, Wooreen opened her mouth.

“Oppa, you’re not going to be a cat anymore, right? You’re not going anywhere, right?”

I didn’t know why Wooreen’s question came up, but I knew that the information I needed to find out would soon come out.

I subtly moved my hand to turn on the Smartwatch’s recording function. And soon, Woojin spoke.

“…Yeah, Oppa will be here now. I won’t go anywhere.”

The two exchanged only those words, hugging each other and sniffling for a long time. And my expectation that an important conversation would follow was off.

Important information had just come to light that a Guide in training was trying to leave of their own will.

But I couldn’t risk ruining things by speaking up and breaking the atmosphere right now, so I just patted Woojin.

I felt sorry for him crying.

When the crying finally stopped, I briefly stopped stroking Woojin’s back and changed the voice recording to real-time recording sharing. It was time to take action myself.

“So, where were you trying to go when you said ‘leave’?”

Woojin’s back stiffened at my question.

I felt sorry for him looking so tense, but I had already put this off as much as possible, so I couldn’t let it go anymore.

“It doesn’t seem like you were simply trying to leave the Guide facility… The Association doesn’t stop Guides from going outside the facility, anyway. Of course, you need the Association’s permission to stay outside the facility overnight.”

At my words, Woojin turned pale and froze.

I was trying my best to ease Woojin’s tension by diligently rubbing his back, but it didn’t seem to be having much effect.

Looking at Woojin trembling and then stiffening, I just wanted to give up on the interrogation and everything else.

But the current situation, even just the audio, is being shared with Oh Joohyuk in its entirety.

I continued speaking, wanting to get it over with quickly.

“Woojin, are you perhaps feeling suffocated by the facility and want to live outside?”

I needed to confirm whether Woojin was directly trying to leave the Association, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

That’s because the EGA Association pretends to be a benevolent organization that saves the world, but it has no mercy for those who don’t cooperate with the Association.

If it’s revealed to the Audit Bureau that Woojin is being uncooperative with the Association right now, it won’t be good for him at all.

A trainee, only on their third day, dreaming of escape? There’s no way the EGA Association would let that go. Especially since he barely received training on the first day, and the next two days were a mess.

Even in my mind, dozens of methods of correction that the Association would come up with to control this hopeless trainee are popping up.

Of course, Woojin isn’t an Esper, he’s a Guide, so he wouldn’t be put in cold storage, but still.

Anyway, it seemed like it would be good to slightly change the flow of the conversation for Woojin’s sake.

“But you wouldn’t have wanted to live as a cat, so how did that happen? Did one of our classmates do that? But they don’t have that kind of ability… Did anyone come by while I was away?”

When I changed the flow from one of interrogation to one where he could appeal to me, Woojin seemed to relax a little.

Woojin, who was being hugged by Wooreen from the front and patted by me from behind, finally opened his mouth.

*

Oh Joohyuk from the Audit Bureau looked happy.

Of course he would be. An incident occurred due to the discovery of an S-grade Esper’s ability, but it was resolved without any damage, so the Audit Bureau would only be praised.

The discovery of an S-grade Esper’s ability, no less, so the Research Department is also happy.

The term ‘ability discovery’ literally means ‘discovery of ability,’ referring to the emergence of a new ability in an Esper.

It’s a term used when a new ability is discovered in an existing Esper, while ‘ability awakening’ refers to when an ordinary person awakens as an Esper. Usually, it’s too bothersome to distinguish, so they’re both called ‘manifestation.’

Usually, an accident occurs when a new ability is discovered.

That’s because newly manifested abilities are often difficult to control.

But despite the fact that an S-grade’s ability was discovered, there were no casualties, let alone property damage, so how excited would the Audit Bureau be?

Anyway, it’s a huge deal that a new discovery has occurred among the eight S-grade Espers of the EGA Association’s Korean branch.

Ability discovery isn’t a common occurrence, either. The Research Department is in a festive mood. They’re thrilled, saying that this is the first time something like this has happened in the history of the Korean branch.

Of course, not everyone is happy about the discovery of an S-grade’s ability. The S-grade Esper who newly discovered the ability is in trouble.

Every Esper knows how annoying, tiring, and painful the process of re-measuring one’s ability is.

And this S-grade Esper was facing an even more troublesome process before the re-measurement process.

That’s because they are suspected of trying to escape the Association, being an Esper, and an S-grade at that.

And the interrogation regarding that took place during my ‘High-Risk Esper Special Education’ time.

Because that S-grade Esper is one of my students.

*

Inside the interrogation room, with its four walls and only a desk and chair in the center, Jang Hana was sitting quietly in the chair with a constipated expression.

In front of Jang Hana were Oh Joohyuk and the head of Jang Hana’s research team.

The gazes of a rebellious teenager and two stern adults met once, and a brief silence lingered in the closed interrogation room.

Within that silence, Oh Joohyuk was the first to speak.

“Esper Jang Hana, is it true that you used your ability on a Guide without permission at approximately 9:20 AM on November 26th?”

A low, weighty voice echoed in the interrogation room.

The baritone voice was clearly transmitted through the speakers to our eardrums beyond the glass window.

Inside the glass window that filled one wall of the interrogation room, two adults were diligently pressuring a lone teenager.

As a person related to the incident, a guardian, and an observer of the S-grade Esper, I was watching the clichéd Esper interrogation process from outside the glass window.

As I stood there, slightly bored, looking into the interrogation room, I glanced down to my side and looked at Woojin, who was sitting next to me.

Woojin was sitting in a chair, looking out at the interrogation taking place beyond the window, and hugging Cha Wooreen.

Cha Wooreen, lacking in morning sleep, was sound asleep in her brother’s arms.

Since Woojin is on the taller side, his embrace was spacious and looked very comfortable. Woojin’s appearance, holding his younger sister, was as benevolent and elegant as a Pietà statue carved by an artist, and his eyes, looking at the interrogation room, were piercing.

But there was surprisingly no fear in Woojin’s eyes as he glared at Jang Hana, who was rudely talking back.

Of course, he’s wary, but how should I put it, he’s not as scared as when he fainted at the sight of me. I don’t know if it’s because Jang Hana is still young and looks easy to handle, or if Espers don’t scare him that much anymore.

Even as I was observing Woojin, the interrogation continued.

As if annoyed by being pressured by adults she didn’t like, a loud voice eventually echoed from beyond the glass window.

“Ugh, I’m telling you! It’s not a newly manifested ability! Look at my hair! I just dyed it like you dye your hair!”

“Jang Hana, we know very well that your ability includes distorting perception to create an image different from reality. But this time, you completely changed the shape! We haven’t observed this phenomenon before! It’s a newly discovered ability, I’m telling you!”

“How many times do I have to say I’m not? Look again! This! This is exactly how I originally changed it! How long are we going to keep talking about this?! You’re not even listening, you’ve already made up your mind!”

It seems that the topic shifted to ability discovery while I wasn’t paying attention. It seemed that Jang Hana had been pushed into a corner, being told that she had newly manifested her ability, for quite some time.

Eventually, Jang Hana, heated up by the continuous one-sided debate, widened her eyes and shook her head wildly, telling them to observe her again. Her long, rainbow-colored hair shook wildly as well, hitting the two people in front of her.

But the two people whose faces were hit by Jang Hana’s antics didn’t change their expressions and continued what they were saying.

Rather, Woojin, who was an audience member of the interrogation, was surprised by their actions.

I’ve seen this kind of situation so often that I was just letting it go, but seeing the reaction of Woojin, who came from the outside, I felt embarrassed for them.

I wish they would hurry up and finish, but those people were so talkative.

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