Replaying the moment she had reclaimed the Potion Truck sent a thrilling jolt through her entire body.
Whether it would work or not, she had decided to just go for it, and thanks to that mad scientist being more flustered than expected, things had gone smoothly.
Seeing both monsters and people utterly thrown off their guard, it was clear the skill was truly terrifying.
At this rate, it wouldn’t be surprising if it was officially classified as having a function to confuse enemies.
‘Heh heh, their stunned faces with mouths agape were priceless… Hoo, it’s okay. This is a good thing, it really is.’
She was grateful to have survived, but the image of Abellus’s shocked face brought a wave of shame crashing over her.
Iris kept reassuring herself to stave off the sudden wave of self-doubt. She focused on recalling only the positive parts.
She pictured the moment they teleported along with the truck.
The factory staff at the Potion Storage were stunned, their jaws dropping, when the truck—thought to have been completely taken by the Villains—arrived at its destination.
After paying their respects to the Heroes who had died during the mission, the staff praised Iris and Rainbow Girl for retrieving the two trucks stolen by the Villains.
They promised to double their payment as a reward.
Iris, overjoyed, hesitated for a moment before mentioning the destination the Potion Truck had headed toward: Abellus’s laboratory.
She carefully avoided directly saying it was connected to J Corporation, instead describing the mark on the building and the people wearing lab coats.
Yet the staff only tilted their heads, doubtful they had seen correctly.
Back home, after researching J Corporation’s laboratory, Iris understood why their reaction had been strange.
Ostensibly, J Corporation’s lab was focused on weapon research, even posting their results on their official website.
They brazenly flaunted awards from the International Peace Organization right on the homepage. A shameless disguise, indeed.
‘There’s no one to trust, these guys included. I can’t just say it outright.’
Continuing to browse J Corporation’s website, Iris found a job posting in the announcements. It was a simple recruitment notice for general labor. Applying there would be the way to meet Abellus.
Since Iris was not in her full righteous-hero guise, Laika wouldn’t recognize her, and there was no way Abellus would either.
She thought about it briefly but shook her head. Laika’s issues alone were enough to give her headaches. There was no need to deliberately walk into the tiger’s den—at least not for now.
As she prepared herself, Iris checked her Hero Phone. A message from Rainbow Girl had arrived.
「I didn’t really do anything… I’m not sure if I deserve this reward. Angel Girl actually saved my life once more. If you give me your account, I’ll return the money. I’m so sorry.」
「No, not at all. It’s thanks to Rainbow Girl’s buff skill that we succeeded. Without it, we might have been attacked! If you insist, next time we meet, I’ll treat you to something delicious.」
「Are you sure that’s okay…? Thank you so much. Angel Girl truly has a heart as angelic as her hero name!」
“Really…”
Iris scratched her head as she read the reply. It wasn’t empty flattery—today’s success was practically all thanks to Rainbow Girl’s buff skill.
<Blessing of the Cat> had pulled them through the first crisis, and the various buff skills had empowered their usual abilities, helping them escape the Villains.
‘Angel-like, huh? That feels nice. Heh heh.’
Lying down with a pleased expression, her smile gradually faded as the deaths of the Heroes came back to mind.
Though it was shocking that those she had just met—and who had even picked a fight with her—were now dead, that wasn’t the worst part.
It was that their deaths felt personal. She had survived today, but what if she ended up in the same fate someday?
And then there was Laika’s Doppelganger, who killed Heroes without hesitation, and the versatile Abellus, who could even cobble together a makeshift Teleportation Device despite its imperfections.
Could a single Hero possibly defeat such Villains? That question weighed heavily on her throughout the day.
Among the Villains she had to defeat, two had abilities so overwhelming she could barely believe it. Both, to varying degrees, seemed utterly insane.
The remaining one—the still unknown Enraka Sect Leader’s Son—was the only one she hoped was somewhat sane. Iris sighed, knowing full well how unlikely that was.
But compared to the other two, she hoped he was at least relatively normal.
It was a sleepless night filled with worry about facing such madmen.
***
“Ear….”
At the same time, Johannes stood leaning against a dimly lit streetlamp in a gloomy alleyway, grimacing as he scratched his ear.
With a light kick, he sent a man sprawling on the ground coughing up blood. The man’s face was swollen and battered from a severe beating.
Johannes squatted before the battered figure and spat out in a cold voice,
“Still alive?”
“Ugh… Please, spare me… ugh!”
A smooth hand, unaccustomed to dirty work, grabbed the man’s collar and lifted him up. The man flailed his legs in midair, eyes wide with terror.
The Enraka Sect Leader’s Son was said to be a mental-type ability user.
Johannes had accepted the assassination contract after hearing he had no combat ability at all—but that information was completely wrong.
He would have to return and confront the client!
Despite hoisting a man nearly his own size with one hand, Johannes showed no sign of strain; no frown even creased his brow.
His expression was calm, as if lifting a lightweight puppy.
He muttered with an expressionless face,
“You plan to tell them what powers I have when I get back.”
“That’s… a misunderstanding. Please, just spare my life…!”
Fear of death shone in the assassin’s eyes as he swayed midair.
Johannes had once scoffed at mind reading, thinking it exaggerated—just the sort of deification common in cults. Yet it was real. The assassin was an ability user too.
Johannes’s shallow knowledge held that mental-type skills mostly involved light manipulation or confusion. But truly reading others’ thoughts? That kind of ability? Impossible!
Blinking wearily, Johannes exhaled softly,
“Yeah. It’s real. And you have nothing to say. Because you won’t be going back.”
“Ugh… Argh…”
As Johannes’s face twitched slightly, the assassin’s neck was twisted in an unnatural way.
Despite the force used, no veins bulged on the white back of Johannes’s hand.
He stared coldly at the now corpse-like body before tossing it aside. With just a light snap of his wrist, the large corpse flew far away and crashed into a corner.
“Hoo, tiring.”
Yawning in boredom, Johannes stretched his neck side to side.
It had been three days since he sent his first message to Iris.
In those days, his swelling hope turned to disappointment, then anger, and finally plummeted into endless self-loathing.
James, who had helped him send the message, was restless on the first day without a reply, then became listless like a zombie.
Eventually, unable to endure the icy atmosphere, he took his accumulated annual leave yesterday.
He had read Johannes’s murderous gaze well—someone who had been a chauffeur and personal secretary for so long looked ready to kill at any moment.
James’s intuition was uncannily accurate.
Today, Johannes took the trouble to kill an assassin he would normally have avoided out of annoyance. It wasn’t his first time killing a person, but it had been a while.
Killing a detestable person with his own hands temporarily eased his anxiety and disgust with the world.
Since Iris had started working at the bakery, he’d been in better spirits and hadn’t soiled his hands with blood for a while.
Even after Iris quit the bakery, he’d occasionally run into her, which lifted his mood.
But the shock of the unread message incident a few days ago had plunged him back into a pit of self-hatred and cynicism.
Johannes wiped the blood splattered on his face with the back of his hand as he walked the night streets.
On the outskirts of Gyodam City, this place was more like countryside than a satellite city, pleasantly deserted at night.
His Mind Reading skill had solidified the Enraka Sect’s foothold in Gyodam City.
But the downside was that many sought to eliminate Johannes.
Those harmed by his Mind Reading skill were obvious enemies, but even some who had benefited from it had tried assassination.
They feared his ability, wanted to conceal their own betrayal of collaborators by underhanded means, or simply didn’t want others to wield his power.
This was why he was relentlessly targeted by assassins at all hours.