[The strongest cadets of Lair in history, at last leave their nest.]
[President Yun Gujoon, “This year’s Korea’s newborn superhumans will in the future be one of the world’s powerhouses.”]
[The overwhelming 1st place of Lair’s competition record, Yu Yeorum takes a step to the outer world.]
[(Superhuman Reviews) Team Mochi? A king and its servants?]
[Yu Kaeul. Enters Team Lair as its last member. With Tyr Brzenk, Yong Taeha and Ling Ling… A gathering of young geniuses]
[Manager of Team Lair states, “A newborn superhuman team whose contenders won’t be seen for the next 30 years.”]
[(Column) Summer may be long, but it surely ends in Fall…]
Countless media broadcasts poured out articles. At the centre of all that was Yeorum and Kaeul; Team Mochi and Team Lair.
***
The long rainy season finally came to an end. There would be a refreshing breeze in the morning – a weather perfect for a light jacket to be put on top.
Under the especially tall skies and cleaner sunlight of a certain countryside village, ‘Team Mochi’ was waiting to be sent in for the first mission they received from the Association.
Sitting on the middle of the mountain, they had to keep on waiting so in the meantime, Sophia kept on fidgeting with her watch.
“Oi, Sophia,” Yeorum called her.
“Huh?”
“Stop looking at your watch.”
“Why. There’s an article about me. Do you wanna have a look?”
“Like I said, just stop looking at it. It’s gonna distract you.”
“No. It’s my first time getting so much attention.”
“Ey.”
Yeorum tried to snatch the watch off her hand. “Okay, I won’t. I won’t. So damn strict,” Sophia said irritatedly before finally turning off the hologram of her watch.
“Are you guys alright?”
“Huh? Uhh… fuu, a bit nervous.”
“…Just so-so.”
Soujiro and Kim Ji-in both touched their respective weapons – the bow and the musket. The metal feeling colder than usual was probably due to the climate of early Autumn. The chill touching their fingers made their hearts colder as well.
Blankly sitting in silence, the four of them turned quiet. Before long, Kim Ji-in broke the silence.
“……Do you think, we can do well.”
Her words represented the thoughts of everyone else.
“I know right, f*ck. People were so freaking expectant. My guardian was cheering me up like crazy as well. Tch…”
“I got a call from my mum as well. Haha… Apparently there’s another placard at the entrance of my village. Do you want a look?”
“No.”
“Ah okay… sorry Sophia.” Soujiro apologised.
“Kim Ji-in, what about you?”
“My mum was expecting a lot. It’s probably all because I’m with Yeorum though.”
Her words reminded them of the core focus of the team.
They were here thanks to Yu Yeorum and without Yeorum, they would have never gotten this much attention.
But that worried them even more. The three of them knew better than anyone else that they were too lacking for a treatment this special, and also knew that people might point fingers at them later on.
Although they reached a high place thanks to Yu Yeorum,
They had to do way better because of her.
To the young kids who had only been competing with cadets their age, the burdensome feeling of an actual fight was definitely not small.
Can we, do well?
That was a thought that was on all their minds. And that thought created tension that suffocated them despite this being a simple monster subjugation mission. Soujiro felt stifled and had to take deep breaths in.
With both silence and that doubt covering the area, Yeorum finally opened her mouth.
“Let’s try our best…”
Yeorum murmured.
“At least let’s be as desperate as we can until we get our first ranks…
“Let’s try our hardest…
“Even if we can’t be the best…
“If people were to give ranks based on hard work, let’s be the one at the very top…”
In Kim Ji-in’s eyes, it seemed like Yeorum was saying those words to herself. After saying that, Yeorum raised her red gaze and looked at the three of them before adding more words.
“There’s something I think about these days. Before, I thought most of the people in the world were retards.”
Sophia giggled in response, “Sounds just like you.”
“But no. I realised living just like other people was also quite incredible.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought there was no point in their lives since they were weaker than me, but that wasn’t the case. Everyone’s trying their freaking best. Living like everyone else is actually already quite hard…”
Everyone was fiercely running forward in their own way. In a place like that, in order to be ahead of everyone else, what should they do as people without any talents?
“So what else can we do. Just try harder.”
“Honestly, I’m sick of that word,” said Sophia.
“Trying harder?”
“Yeah yeah, f*ck. Trying ‘harder’.”
“But what else can you do? You just have to try even harder.”
“What more can I do from here? I already feel like dying so lashing at me to try harder is too cruel isn’t it?”
“Then should we kill our desires? No, right? If I’m not cruel to myself, won’t the world be cruel to me?”
“…”
“Maybe you’re right if you don’t have any desires. But we do, don’t we? When I suggested we form a team together, you guys told me yourselves that you wanted to become a world ranker.”
Kim Ji-in and Soujiro nodded. Soon, Sophia also reluctantly gave a nod.
World ranker. Being given a higher number was the dream of every superhuman in the world.
However, things that everyone desired were precious because not everyone could earn them. Anyone could have desires. Even a small baby bug might want to soar through the skies, but as always, it was just the reality that didn’t support them.
“But haven’t we been doing fine till now?”
Yeorum opened her mouth while the rest of the kids were looking depressed.
“People don’t change easily, they say, but we’ve changed a lot of things till now right?”
“…”
“Let’s be honest. Other cadets look at you and they’re jealous right? About being fu*king carried by Yu Yeorum.”
“Nn.”
“Y, yeah…”
“But those bastards don’t know. They don’t know how you’ve been training behind their backs. They don’t know all the blood and sweat you’re shedding.”
They have endured through hardships. There were things they achieved by sacrificing their bodies.
Each and every one of the four in this place was a living proof of possibility.
“Dude. How hard was it when we were training huh?”
Soujiro with drooping fat was no longer there.
Now, Soujiro had a well-trained body of a superhuman that couldn’t be hidden by his short height. He had that presence.
“We almost felt like dying, didn’t we? Fainting, vomiting, bleeding and our skins breaking apart…”
The always-gloomy Kim Ji-in was longer there.
She did not try to erase nor hide the scar reaching all the way from her chin to her neck. Kim Ji-in was now a person who knew how to fight when necessary.
“We’ve come this far because we changed.”
There was no longer a child who threw everything down and cried from a sense of defeat. The hunting dog of RIL, who could stand back up with a weapon in hand no matter what was ahead, was here.
“Even if we’re trash, we can have desires. But for people like us to be greedy, we need to try harder.”
Even caterpillars had dreams.
“I really want to become stronger. I want to learn more, and I want to get higher ranks. Don’t you guys feel the same?”
That one day, they would spread their wings apart,
“So let’s be more cruel to ourselves.”
And soar through the skies.
“Let’s push ourselves a bit more.”
The kids had a dream.
The words Yeorum shared to everyone including herself, pushed away the anxiety that was crawling up their hearts.
Her words were mysteriously consoling and encouraging. After a long silence, Soujiro started wiping his tears with his wrist.
Not fond of that warm atmosphere, Sophia suddenly laughed out loud and opened her mouth.
“But the other teams will probably have the same thing on their minds right? Try harder and get good rankings, yeah? With a future plan in mind so that they could live great just like how they have been till now?”
“Of course. We’re not the only ones.”
“Shame they would be wasting their time then.”
“What?”
“Bi*ches that only look at tomorrow will be held back by me.”
“…You bi*ch. What are you even on about?”
Thinking she was about to say nonsense again, Yeorum was about to smile but the following words erased the smile from her lips.
“I’m serious. I’m a b*tch that only lives the present.”
***
“We have to look far ahead,” said Tyr Brzenk, the team leader of Team Lair.
A gloomy voice and a dispirited gaze. He spoke at a slow pace in a strange rhythm.
“I’ll say it one more time. There’s no need for us to overdo it. Safety is the best.”
Team Lair was also waiting for the sign of the Association, preparing themselves for the fissure raid. In front of the black crack in the air, the geniuses shared a conversation.
“Ah, uun uun.”
“I mean it’s fine to do what you want to, but excessive greed is prohibited. It’s best that we don’t injure ourselves. We should look far ahead and look at the long run.”
“Uun.”
Kaeul replied, while Ling Ling asked.
“Thenn, umm, what after thatt…?”
“After that? With safety in check, next priority is the pursuit for our own individuality. You wouldn’t want to be the same as every other superhuman right. Think about what our own roads are. Ling Ling, what kind of superhuman did you want to be again?”
“Someone that protects people…?”
“More specifically?”
“If our China gets attacked, I want to be the one standing in the most dangerous placee…”
“That is quite a romantic goal. Yong Taeha, what about you.”
“Well, I want to become a superhuman with no equal,” Yong Taeha replied.
“Like 5 Transcendents of Chaliovan?”
“Similar. Fighting is of course important, but a symbolic superhuman that could keep peace before the fight even happens. That’s why image-making is very important.”
Black hair, black eyes, and a face full of dignity and leisure. Yong Taeha, whose appearance was often voted in fashion magazines as the most suitable appearance for a hero, shared his goal.
“I want to be a superhuman that can break threats ahead of time before they even appear,” said Tyr Brzenk, as Ling Ling and Kaeul nodded.
The concerns and plans of the four of them were in a different league compared to the worries of other superhumans. Ever since they were born, they were ahead of other people and knew themselves that their starting points were different.
They ran ahead and suddenly realised that the ones behind them were very far behind. Therefore, their concerns and plans for the future cannot be the same as those who got exhausted from simply running.
In fact, they already knew that they would eventually be at the top. Rather than the question of how far they would go, they were more concerned with where they should be and how.
That was when Yong Taeha asked.
“But Brzenk. You’re saying something different than yesterday.”
“On what?”
“You said thinking about our future was more important yesterday.”
“Well that’s because I wasn’t expecting us to be greedy in the first place.”
“Greedy about what.”
“Now we might unknowingly get quite greedy during our missions, you know? Even if you were the team leader that is.”
“What do you even mean.”
“Think about it. If we only had a knife in hand, we would run away from bears and kill rabbits but now we have a missile launcher in our hands. Wouldn’t you get greedy?”
Ling Ling and Yong Taeha seemed to be in agreement with his words. Despite knowing that they were talking about herself, Kaeul didn’t know how she was supposed to react so simply blinked her eyes.
Facing her, Brzenk asked.
“What about you.”
“Uun? M, me?”
“Yes you. Missile launcher. What kind of superhuman do you want to be?”
“Ah, I, uuumm…”
Kaeul pondered before asking with a foolish smile on her mouth.
“What can I become?”
“Who knows. I don’t know what a missile launcher’s future dream might be.”
“Hmm, how about a nuclear weaponnn…?”
Yong Taeha and Ling Ling joked with a smile as Kaeul chuckled out loud in response. It was the first time she laughed wholeheartedly with them and it was such a pretty smile that the three of them were caught off guard regardless of their gender and age. They had to intentionally cough out loud to wake themselves up.
“I think I will slowly think about it as time goes…!”
“Yeah, alright. Just listen to the orders until you think of it then. We’re all going to be in for some hard work so it’s best that we don’t interrupt each other.”
Tyr Brzenk ended the conversation there.
“Uun uun.”
***
“No, you stupid fool.”
Yeorum slapped Sophia on the back of her head.
“What, you f*ck.”
“I was told to look far ahead without being in a rush.”
Yeorum using someone else’s words was a rare sight, considering how she was a massive cluster of ego. Doubtfully, Sophia asked.
“Who told you that?”
“The dildo in our house.”
Sophia giggled.
“Does the dildo in your house know how to speak?”
“Even makes some jokes these days.”
“What does that even mean. That’s hilarious. So what was the last thing it talked about then?”
“To rely on him if it’s tough.”
Sophia blankly wondered what this was about, but after remembering that there was only one man inside Unit 301, she bursted into laughter.
“Kyahahaha! You crazy b*tch!”
Kim Ji-in and Soujiro also threw glances with faint chuckles. After smiling, they realised the pressure suffocating them easing up a little.
That was when the Association’s call for them to enter the operation was relayed.
When Yeorum stood up on the spot with her sword, the cadets also belatedly rose up with their weapons in hand and lined up.
They were in for the most advanced task they could get for their first mission. In order to become stronger through extreme and authentic battles, they would struggle and perfectly finish the operation to soar into the skies.
With tension building up again like an elastic band, Yeorum opened her mouth.
“Team Mochi. Operation start.”