OMH Chapter 5

Okay, My Hero – Episode 5

5. Cha Woojin (4)

Hwayoung and I sat down and ordered beer and french fries. I really liked that they had cream draft beer here. After all, store-bought food is the best.

‘The Center has good meals too, but they don’t have food like this in the Downtown. And no alcohol.’

After gulping down the creamy beer foam, I felt a sense of liberation that was hard to feel inside the Center.

When I put down my glass, I saw Hwayoung looking at me with a serious expression.

“What’s wrong, why are you looking at me like that?”

“I was debating whether to tell you because it’s personal information, but since you’re his guardian and it’s related to the Association, I’ll tell you. Listen carefully.”

“What is it? Is it about Woojin? You’ve already dug up everything about him, why are you hesitating?”

“That person is a Guide. A D-grade Guide.”

“Wow, really? Then Woojin will join the Association and work with us? That’s awesome!”

“The Association makes anyone with abilities join, so that’s true. But I haven’t told the Association yet, I only told him. I asked if he knew he was a D-grade Guide. And he fainted when he heard that.”

“Huh? Maybe you just had bad timing? Like you talked to him when he was sleepy.”

“…Believe what you want to believe. Anyway, after that he woke up and asked to be discharged. I think he doesn’t want to be a Guide affiliated with the Association.”

“But that’s strange. Why wouldn’t he want to be an Association member? Isn’t it much safer than living outside the Center? At least he wouldn’t have to worry about being robbed. And he’s guaranteed a civilized life.”

“That’s what you think because you’re an Esper. Not a Guide.”

Hwayoung said that and chugged her beer.

‘No, you’re an Esper too. Even if you’re a Healing-type, you’re still essentially an Esper, right? Not a Guide.’

Hwayoung ignored my words and said she planned to keep it a secret from the Association for now. I thought that was good for the time being as well. Woojin was still very sick.

I felt bitter as I drank my beer.

*

My daily schedule, which was filled with exercise, training, and meals, now had ‘visiting Woojin’ and ‘playing with Wooreen’ added to it. Though I do both at the same time.

Actually, I didn’t plan to be Wooreen’s playmate. Originally, I just brought Wooreen to see Woojin because he wanted to see her, and then I just took her back.

But Wooreen cried, saying that her brother didn’t play with her and only slept, and that she hated it here, so I started playing with her to calm her down.

Since I’m playing with her, I should do my best.

“What should we play, Wooreen?”

I was expecting something quiet like playing house or origami, so I was a little taken aback when Wooreen asked me to throw her high in the air. But I decided to do my best.

“This big sister is a professional at using her strength. I’ll do it until you’re sick of it!”

But I was the one who got tired first.

‘Huff… Seriously, how can a kid have so much energy?! She’s only six years old! And she’s so skinny! I threw her up in the air 1 meter high and she should be bored after doing it for an hour!’

I suggested that we do something else because I was tired. Wooreen generously accepted the suggestion and said we should play a new game.

The name of this new game that Wooreen and I are playing is Human Gyro Drop. I just came up with the name.

That’s because I’m holding Wooreen’s hands and spinning her around, lifting her into the air. I didn’t know that six-year-olds enjoyed extreme sports so much. Anyway, since we started, we should have fun.

But unfortunately, the end of our playtime wasn’t beautiful.

“Waaaaah!”

Wooreen cried while playing Gyro Drop. I was flustered and looked at Wooreen, and it seemed like her left arm was drooping and a little longer.

…Her shoulder must have popped out.

“I’ve never put a child’s arm back in place before, what should I do?”

As I was panicking, a Medical Bureau employee who was passing by put Wooreen’s arm back in place. It’s a relief that Woojin was sleeping.

After reuniting with Wooreen, Woojin caught a cold. And the cold hasn’t gotten better even after several days. So, from the day Woojin insisted on being discharged until now when I come to play with Wooreen, his condition has been very bad. Wooreen can’t play with her brother even when she comes to see him.

Wooreen seemed depressed because the brother she finally got to meet only slept. And today, her arm even popped out, so she seemed more upset than usual.

“……”

Today, I ended up taking Wooreen back to the Civilian Protection Shelter and coming back to see Woojin alone.

I want to see Woojin awake too, though not as much as Wooreen does. I like his sleeping face, but I want to talk to Woojin. I’m sad that I haven’t heard Woojin’s sweet voice many times.

I waited for Woojin to wake up, who sleeps most of the day, but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen today either. I should just go do some pull-ups.

*

The Great Monster Extermination Team received a mission from the Association to deal with a swarm of giant hornets that appeared in B District. The Great Monster Extermination Team has quite a large number of members, 47 in total, so they are divided into groups and dispatched on helicopters.

The nine helicopters carrying our team flew through the sky towards our destination.

But while we were moving near the district, a sudden gust of wind struck.

This wind isn’t natural. There’s no way a sudden pressure would form in the empty sky. And unfortunately, only the helicopter we were in lost its direction and nosedived due to this unnatural wind.

I quickly went to the control panel and tried to resolve the situation with manual controls, but it was no use. The wings must have been damaged by the strong wind, because the direction couldn’t be changed.

This damn wind didn’t end with just one gust, but stubbornly smashed the wings. It seemed like one of the hornet monsters was using an ability.

What was just a brief gust of strong wind continued to blow and trap us.

“Damn it…!”

The helicopter we were in was helplessly caught in the strong wind and spun around. The windows couldn’t withstand the pressure and shattered, and the helicopter doors were torn off by the wind. We just held onto our seatbelts tightly and waited for the wind to pass.

Fortunately, we landed safely.

That’s because Song Jooha, the Psychokinetic, did his best to protect the helicopter. As an S-grade Esper, Jooha had the Yu Yu to safely protect everyone in that chaos.

But even an S-grade Psychokinetic couldn’t do anything about being blown away by the wind, so we were separated from the other team members.

Still, there’s no need to worry too much.

The members of each helicopter were composed of attack members, search members, medical members, and a Guide. This was the optimal composition to be able to move properly even if we were separated like this.

Crackle- Static.

We tried to use the radio to let them know that we were safe, but the radio wasn’t working.

The wind still hadn’t calmed down in the sky. The ground we were standing on was safe, but seeing that the sky 5-6 meters away was dangerous, it must be the monster’s ability. Even if we can’t see them now, there must be monsters hiding ahead.

So, we decided to go around to get to our destination. We can’t go forward into a place where hundreds of hornet monsters might be hiding.

Although we are made up of the minimum number of members to operate effectively, our resources are limited. Most of our supplies are in the supply helicopter, and since we are a minimal activity group, we only packed the bare minimum of supplies.

It consists of three Espers: me, who is a search member, Kim Junseo, who is a medical member, and Song Jooha, who is an attack member, and Seo Rea, who is Song Jooha’s Guide. It’s a viable composition for activity, but it’s a composition with not enough Guides for a long-term battle. The ratio of assigned Guides is usually 1:1 with Espers.

Besides, Jooha is an S-grade, but Rea is an A-grade. The Matching Rate is fortunately high at 68%, but Rea’s Matching Rate with us, not Jooha, is low. I think it was in the 40s? I remember Junseo was around 16%. It’s hard enough to Guide Jooha, so she can’t take care of us, and in the first place, Guiding is difficult unless it’s Jooha.

So, I wanted to conserve my abilities as much as possible and join up with the others, but Jooha seemed to think differently. As soon as the discussion about the route was over, Jooha lifted us up with his Psychokinesis.

To move quickly, Song Jooha lifted us up with his Psychokinesis and flew through the air.

I wanted to conserve my abilities and tried to dissuade Jooha, but Jooha insisted that we had to join up as soon as possible. Since I was already flying in the sky while being held by Jooha’s Psychokinesis, I just followed Jooha’s opinion.

We entrusted ourselves to Jooha’s abilities and flew. We were flying through the air, facing the strong wind with our bare bodies, when we heard the sound of a huge drone propeller from somewhere.

I had a slight expectation that it might be a drone sent by the team. And the source of the sound soon revealed itself.

“!!”

The source of the sound was the hornet monster we came to defeat.

Unfortunately, even though we found out what it was, we were surrounded by hornet monsters. Giant hornets, about 150 centimeters tall, flew in all at once to attack us.

Being in the air like this, and not by our own will, there was nothing we could do. We could only helplessly watch as the monsters with exoskeletons made of yellow and black, like dangerous signposts, came rushing at us.

Since I don’t get external injuries, I wasn’t too afraid of the monsters’ attacks themselves.

‘But what about the other team members?’

But those worries were overshadowed because the monsters couldn’t reach us.

Jooha, who was the only one in a state where he could attack, deployed a Magnetic Field to protect us. Jooha went further than that and attacked the monsters with his Psychokinesis.

The hornet monsters’ outer shells are thick and hard, so they couldn’t be crushed by ordinary pressure.

Jooha, an S-grade Esper, could have destroyed the monsters’ outer shells with the pressure of his Psychokinesis alone, but he didn’t. That’s because he would have to use a lot of ability output.

It’s best to save abilities as much as possible. So, instead of bursting the outer shells with pressure, Jooha twisted and tore off the soft spots between the outer shells, the monsters’ joints, with a weaker output.

Crack.

Tearing the hornet monsters apart with Psychokinesis itself wasn’t difficult, but there were too many of them. Still, as an S-grade, Jooha got rid of all the swarms of monsters that looked like black clouds without suffering a single injury.

“Wow, as expected of Song Jooha.”

Seeing him quickly deal with swarms of monsters that seemed to be hundreds of them without suffering a single injury, it seems that S-grades are amazing.

But perhaps he used too much ability, Jooha lost consciousness without even seeing the hornet monsters’ corpses fall to the ground.

“…Huh?”

At the same time, the Psychokinesis stopped, and we fell down.

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