Until just before the event, my condition had been fairly decent, but thanks to Pepe’s antics, I was now completely exhausted.
At this point, I felt a strong urge to just drop everything and take a shower as soon as possible.
However, this wasn’t a situation where I could simply act on impulse.
Since everyone was gathered here, we needed to sort out the incident first.
“You fixed them, and they’re still acting like that?”
“Unbelievable…”
After explaining the whole situation, Ajin and Yuri’s eyes wavered with confusion.
Seeing that made my heart ache a little, but what could I do? Pepe’s personality was too unpredictable, and if we left things alone, they would definitely cause a major incident sooner or later.
That’s why I went through with it after discussing it with Dayoung.
The cause, of course, was the fan café incident.
“I mean… I can’t say it’s unreasonable. If someone made something like that using my voice and spread it online, I’d be furious too.”
At first, Yuri had been concerned that our actions were too harsh, but after hearing about Pepe’s misdeeds, she quickly changed her stance.
A ridiculous audio recording titled “Friede, My Love Call.” I never expected my voice to be manipulated like that.
The café was immediately shut down, and all its data was erased.
Fortunately, that so-called love call had only been shared among the so-called Four Heavenly Kings—an absolutely humiliating title.
At least it hadn’t been recklessly spread to the general public.
I made sure to warn them strictly about deleting and refraining from distributing the file.
And, just in case, I reinforced my message with a bit of a hero’s power.
With that in place, they wouldn’t dare try anything stupid.
After wrapping things up, I knocked Pepe unconscious and proceeded with the procedure.
That’s when the real problem arose.
The procedure performed on Pepe was a clan-wide format operation—a rollback that reset all mental processes to a specific branching point.
Originally, I considered wiping their memory completely, but given that they had fought alongside us as a member of the Hero’s party, helping defeat the Demon King with Dayoung, I deemed it too cruel and decided against it.
Instead of erasing memories, I opted to reset their existing values—a difficult task, even for me as a hero.
The mind, especially that of an intelligent being, is exceptionally delicate and intricate.
It required meticulous effort, like stitching a piece of fine embroidery.
In terms of execution, the procedure was successful.
I flawlessly reset everything in Pepe’s mind that had been negatively influenced by modern times.
In other words, Pepe had been returned to the mindset they had back when they and Dayoung fought against the Demon King.
And yet… even after all that, their way of speaking didn’t change.
“What they said when they woke up was something else.”
With a resigned, dead-eyed expression, Dayoung let out a deep sigh.
Yeah. It was pretty ridiculous.
“Where am I? Dayoung gay-nim.”
Despite the sparkle in their eyes, the words that came out of their mouth were utterly bizarre.
“I find it truly fascinating. Even though Bitch Sehee went through all that effort to fix my mind, this speech pattern refuses to leave my tongue. Perhaps it’s because it carries something so nostalgic… so sorrowful… something that deeply resonates with the soul.”
Pepe, who had been quietly listening, spoke with teary eyes.
“…Yeah, no. That’s definitely not it. If it were, that would mean their way of speaking had been engraved so deeply into their soul that even my procedure couldn’t erase it.”
“Well, at least they promised not to do anything weird. That should be enough, right?”
“Ha, I guess so?”
At Dayoung’s half-hearted confirmation, Pepe spoke up enthusiastically.
“That’s right! Hero gay-nims! I, Pepe, will no longer be an ultra-nationalist conservative like before! These days, the true coin is the nationalist hero!”
“What are you even saying?”
Honestly, if things were to get any worse than this, just erasing Pepe entirely and moving on without them would be the easier option.
But no matter how bizarre they were, I didn’t want it to come to that. I had done everything I could.
Regardless of their speech pattern, at least Pepe’s thought process was no longer corrupted by ideological nonsense.
Plus, while I had left things relatively free, I had put in place enough restraints to ensure they wouldn’t pull off any weird stunts—like creating another fan café or pretending to be a sponsor just to set up some absurd missions.
In conclusion, that was that.
Time to move on.
Even heroes sometimes need to run away from exhausting situations.
I changed my post-recovery plan from shower and rest to drinking.
There was plenty of wine and other drinks gathering dust at home, so I figured it’d be a good idea for everyone to have a drink together.
Ah, but Yuri was a minor, so she’d have to stick to soft drinks.
“Oh, there are ingredients in the fridge. Just wait a moment, I’ll prepare some snacks.”
“We can just eat some chips… You’ve already had a tough time looking after the house alone.”
“It’s fine! I actually enjoy cooking these days… Leave it to me.”
With a gentle, serene smile, Yuri trotted off to the kitchen.
Our gazes naturally followed her retreating figure.
Neither I nor Dayoung nor Ajin could ever hope to exude that kind of perfect homemaker aura.
Whoever ended up with Yuri in the future was going to be one lucky guy.
“She’s nothing like kids these days.”
“You sound like an old lady when you say that.”
“Call it mature instead.”
“Pfft!”
Dayoung stuck out her tongue teasingly.
A reaction like that was best met with a simple smile.
Anyway, with Pepe’s matter settled, I decided to change the topic.
“By the way, I saw you already uploaded the video. You feeling okay?”
“Yeah, no problem. Staying in this house lets me recover my strength thanks to your buff, so I can manage.”
“More importantly, how the hell do you edit so fast? Do you have some kind of trick? If you do, share it with me—I need it.”
“I am using a trick.”
At Ajin’s words, she snapped her fingers, and behind her, another Ajin appeared—Ajin Mk2.
“I just use my clones to work around the clock. All I have to do is check the final edits.”
Ah, that makes sense.
She had so little presence, I completely forgot about them.
I had never learned video editing, so I didn’t know the details, but from what I had heard, it was considered a high-level skill.
Apparently, some people spent days on a single video.
That made sense—’wouldn’t that be the case for everyone?’
“If a task that normally took several days was completed in less than 24 hours and split into three beautifully edited vlogs, anyone would be shocked.”
“Wow, that’s so unfair. This is like an invasive species completely wrecking the ecosystem.”
“I-Invasive species?! That’s way too harsh!”
“Harsh? Tell me, how many of these clones can you normally summon?”
“…Ugh!”
Like someone hit at their weakest spot, Ajin shrank back timidly, glancing around before mumbling as if trying to let it slip past us unnoticed.
“…A hundred.”
“A hundred?”
“I-I can make at least a thousand!”
“Wow! Ajin gay-nim, you’re just like a real hero! A one-person army!”
Hearing Pepe’s usual exaggerated admiration, I found myself nodding unconsciously.
“Right now, I can’t use my full power, so I can only manage a few, but editing doesn’t require anything too grand. Since I got here, I’ve just been working non-stop to get things done quickly.”
Ajin spoke while fidgeting with her fingers, looking a little embarrassed.
Still, it was an interesting trade secret—being able to use a hero’s power like this when sealed.
If her abilities weren’t restrained, and if I hadn’t secured my own resources beforehand, she might have been living better than any other hero who had returned to this world.
‘Was this what they called theoretically overpowered?’
“Wait, weren’t you supposed to be a psychic? Isn’t cloning more of a ninja thing?”
“T-That’s just a stereotype!”
Fair point.
Now that I thought about it, her main ability was supposed to be that of a psyker.
‘Since when did psykers start using shadow clones? If she had enough computers, manipulating recommendation algorithms would be ridiculously easy…’
‘Wait. Computers?’
“Ajin, how many clones can you currently use here? Specifically, for labor-intensive tasks like editing.”
“Uh… hmm. The longer I stay here, the more I can create, but right now, I’d say about ten.”
“Really?”
I started putting a few ideas together in my head.
A mass production of videos, all edited by Ajin.
Just like how I had donated to Dayoung’s stream before, if Ajin created a ton of videos and I infused them with my power, wouldn’t it make it easier for another hero out there to pick up on our presence?
It wouldn’t have to be just my stream.
‘If we gathered videos from multiple streamers and edited them with traces of my power, it would be completely feasible.’
And Ajin was the perfect editor to handle that kind of volume.
‘Dayoung would definitely agree to it.’
Maybe I’d need to reach out to other streamers, or possibly even STK Gaming…
At this point, I couldn’t afford to leave Ajin to her own devices.
She was the exact kind of talent I needed right now.
Suppressing my eagerness, I casually turned to her and asked, “By the way, I’d like to sort out your situation too. When do you want to move in?”
“Hmm, the sooner I move in, the sooner my curse will lift, right?”
Exactly. The key was that she needed to stay here for a certain period of time.
When I nodded to confirm, Ajin’s eyes lit up as she immediately responded, “I’ll talk to my landlord and wrap things up quickly. My place doesn’t have a deposit or anything, so I can leave right away.”
“Got it. Let me know once you have a date set. There’s not much to prepare, but I do have a small gift for you.”
“A gift?”
Both Ajin and Dayoung tilted their heads in curiosity.
Well, it was meant to be a surprise, after all.
‘I guess I’d better get ten computers ready in advance.’
***
Just then, an irresistible aroma wafted in from the kitchen.
A clean yet rich scent of oil, a hint of spice, and the savory fragrance of shrimp…
“Gambas?”
“Oh? Now that you mention it, it smells amazing.”
The scent was so mouthwatering it made my stomach growl.
That’s when I realized—I hadn’t eaten properly since before the event.
Neither had Dayoung or Ajin.
We had all pushed ourselves too hard.
“Sorry for the wait!”
Peeking out from the kitchen, Yuri emerged carrying a large bowl of gambas and a plate of baguette slices.
Right. Food first, worries later.
A whole day had already passed, but whatever.
At long last, we could finally have a proper celebration for surviving the event.
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