ister.
It was a word used to describe soone who had reached the pinnacle of a certain field.
Before monsters took over this world, that word didn’t belong to just one person.
However, in this era, when soone said “ister,” it referred to only one person.
The out-of-standard hero of A-City, ister.
She, who bore the peculiar na Namgyeong, had created countless things for the sake of humanity.
Autonomous construction drones, equipnt for the fortification of cities, underground factories for food production, monster alarms, countless suppressant drugs to safely imprison villains, healing solutions to assist treatnt, various new materials, high-performance prosthetic arms and legs...
A living embodint of over-technology—no one doubted she was a genius.
At least, not until it was revealed that she possessed a special psychic ability.
“She’s here.”
“ister really ca.”
“She really did? I’ve never seen ister in person...”
“Not surprising. These days, even photos of ister are restricted, so no one knows what she looks like.”
A top-secret detail undisclosed to the citizens of W-City.
When a train arrived at W-City Station carrying not a single civilian, every hero—except those out patrolling—straightened their posture.
The ones to disembark first were Electrice and three heroes from A-City.
Following them were about a hundred soldiers carrying shock weapons designed not for monsters, but for suppressing humans.
It was an excessive escort for just one individual—yet even this felt insufficient to the heroes of W-City.
The one aboard that train was a woman who, in this era, was truly untouchable.
A scientist, an inventor—called the hope of the monster age, and even its savior.
To the hypersensitive senses of the superhumans, she gave off a faint scent like a corpse nearing death.
Monts later, a woman with a sunken face staggered out of the train.
“Uweeeeegh...”
“Whoa!”
“A-Are you all right?”
ister vomited the mont she got off the train in W-City.
As the heroes moved to approach her in concern, the soldiers and A-City heroes simultaneously flared their abilities.
“Do not approach ister.”
“What? But she’s throwing up.”
“No. Let her settle herself.”
The restriction on proximity seed to apply even to the A-City heroes and soldiers—everyone flinched back as ister moved.
She pulled a large water canister—far too big for her small bag—from her hip.
The canister was sealed with both a plastic pouch and a sealing sticker.
Still not enough, apparently, as she waited for Electrice to take out a long wand-shaped scanning device from her belt and sweep it over the canister before opening the seal.
“Ugh... Puwehhk... Gulp... Gulp... Gulp... Phaaah...”
After rinsing her mouth with difficulty and downing the water, ister pressed her forehead and staggered.
“Haah... Haah... S-sorry... It’s just, it’s been so long since I last took a train...”
“You wouldn’t normally have any reason to leave A-City.”
“Ah~ Anna-ssi, long ti no see... How long has it been...? I can’t rember.”
ister took out a rod with a hand-shaped model at the end from her bag, and Yu Anna hesitated before grasping the fake hand and shaking it.
A thoroughly bizarre handshake—but Yu Anna had long since grown used to this kind of thing.
“Th-then... I’m sorry to ask right after we’ve t, but should we go over the schedule first?”
“I’ll brief you on the W-City schedule. Observation of brain culture and implant transplant surgery, factory inspection, server connection check, and if possible, contact with Black Cat. That’s all.”
“Shall we start with the transplant surgery then...? Is that all right with you, Anna-ssi?”
“Yes. The excision of the parasite-infected brain is already finished. The transplant will begin shortly.”
“All right, then... Excuse ee...”
With a feeble voice, ister took out a long rod, wheels, a footrest, and several devices from her bag and assembled them into a motorized two-wheeler.
It resembled the Segway, a well-known device from before the monster age.
As she mounted and began to move, soldiers quickly ford a periter and busied themselves with protective maneuvers.
“Kinda feels over-the-top.”
“No, well... that’s actually the standard.”
“It’s ister.”
“But doesn’t that stand out even more? I an, if the entire hero corps has to be mobilized for her...”
“She’s ister.”
At the boundary between Zones 0 and 1—both prohibited to civilian residence—and deep inside the train station, ister entered an underground roadway.
She took the direct passage toward the Hero Headquarters.
Calling it “riding” was generous; it was about as fast as a civilian walking briskly, and the heroes and soldiers followed without trouble.
“Anna-ssi, sohow your skin looks so much better... I’m jealous... Is it thanks to Black Cat?”
“To be honest... yeah.”
“I’m jealous... I saw a photo of Black Cat, he looked so cute... I wish I could borrow even a cat’s paw...”
Leaning against the handlebars with a tired voice, ister nodded off slightly, then suddenly lifted her head and pulled out a sealed single-use pill case and a food pack from her bag.
Electrice scanned both the food and the pills, and ister began sucking down a thick, porridge-like energy paste.
“Ah... sorry, everyone’s working and here I am eating, but if I don’t now I’ll pass out...”
“...I’m sorry too, in many ways.”
“No no, I was curious anywayyy...”
What ister just ate was essentially a stimulant combined with a nutrient-dense biofuel—an energy pack in all but na.
Yu Anna, who knew the penalty attached to ister’s special psychic ability, apologized, and ister offered an awkward smile.
“The parts replaced by the parasite include the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and segnts of the temporal lobe... all heavily tied to psychic ability. I wonder how Baal was able to extract powers from an infected ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ body? That’s sothing I’m curious about, but if we can regenerate the brain, it’ll be a big help to the governnt’s research tooo... right?”
“You an that research?”
“Yes, the artificial psychic project. It’s been difficult since human experintation was banned, you kno”
Research launched after the collapse of the monster weaponization plan—inhuman and cruel.
The W-City heroes involuntarily flinched as they recalled the reports of that study, which had dissected countless low-level psychics in grotesque fashion.
“...I can’t say I support that kind of research.”
“But it’s necessaryyy... Even if we increase the birthrate, the human population keeps dropping due to monster casualties, and the number of psychics drops proportionally. Ah, sorry... I made another tactless comnt in front of actual psychics againnn...”
Even Electrice narrowed her eyes sharply at the emotionless tone, causing ister to laugh awkwardly and apologize.
Then one of the soldiers guarding her straightened and spoke in her defense.
“It is a sacrifice for humanity. What ister proposed was rely the dissection of low-grade psychics, and thanks to that, humanity gained significant understanding of psychic abilities. I’m sure even the dissected psychics are grateful to ister.”
“I’d really like it if talentless failures without powers would just shut the fuck up?”
As electricity crackled around Electrice, the soldier who had been speaking went rigid and closed his mouth.
In the strained silence, ister entered the hero building and followed Yu Anna’s lead toward the treatnt room.
Today, this room—filled with advanced equipnt normally reserved for injured heroes—was packed with civilian patients.
“ister, we’ve arrived.”
[ister... I’m sorry, but we’ll postpone greetings for now. We’re currently checking the compatibility of the cultured brain.]
[All cultured brains: no abnormalities found.]
The observation room offered a full view of the operating theater. When Starlight handed her a microphone, ister pulled out a sealed spray can from her bag and gave it a few spritzes—disinfectant.
Gripping the sterilized mic, ister issued instructions to the operating room in a tired voice.
“Please confirm the surgical sequence one more ti. The order is hippocampus, temporal, then prefrontal cortex. The cultured fluid soaking the brain will rapidly regenerate tissue, so don’t ss up the excision... Don’t ruin the samples.”
[Beginning surgery on the patient.]
[Comncing procedure.]
Doctors from W-City and dical robots began the brain transplant operation in sync, and ister, now collapsed in front of the large window in the observation room, cracked open a drink and sipped while watching.
“Surgical skill looks solid. I almost want to bring a few of them back to A-City...”
“I’ll file a request to W-City.”
“ister, W-City’s already short on doctors.”
“Ah, is that sooo... Then I guess I can’t take any.”
Even ister’s offhand mutterings triggered reactions from the soldiers.
To prevent trouble, Starlight quickly intervened, and ister let out a disappointed sigh.
[Unit 1, hippocampus installed.]
[Unit 2, hippocampus stabilized.]
[Unit 4, no anomalies.]
“If I’d known the implant success rate would be this high, I wouldn’t have bothered manufacturing enough for every patient...”
This surgery aid primarily at implanting the cultured brains.
If the implantation failed, chanical implants ant to externally assist cognition were the backup plan.
Just as everyone thought they might get through without needing any implants, problems arose in so patients.
[Unit 6, temporal lobe unstable.]
[Unit 3, prefrontal cortex is not attaching properly.]
“Hm... Prepare implant for Unit 6. For Unit 3, administer 3 nanograms of culture fluid—is that possibleee?”
[Did you say nanograms?]
“Ah... I forgot, you don’t have that kind of equipnt here... Oh wellll. Just use that needle to poke gently between the brain folds like you’re stitching it closed.”
ister offered the solution, and the doctors acted quickly to resolve the issue.
Yu Anna watched with a tangled expression.
There was no doubt—ister was useful.
Just... unpleasant to deal with.
[Operation complete. Thank you for your work.]
[Well done, everyone.]
“Twelve hours until first-stage recovery... Yaaawn... Good work, I enjoyed watching.”
As the surgery concluded, ister yawned and pulled out a cart-like mobile drone from her bag, handing the remote control to Electrice.
Electrice accepted it with a conflicted look, while ister curled up onto the drone—more like a tiny bed than a transport—and lay down with a tired expression.
“Then I’ll be napping... Please wake when we get to the production plant, okayyy...”
“Thank you for your efforts, ister-nim.”
“Yaaawn...”
At the soldier’s polite farewell, ister drifted off to sleep, and Electrice used the remote to guide the drone forward.
As the drone hovered just above the ground and followed her movents, Electrice walked beside Yu Anna and muttered,
“Hmph. What an annoying woman.”
Behind them, W-City’s heroes followed the drone carrying ister, murmuring to one another.
“That’s her ability?”
“That’s... a seriously weird power...”
Wuuuuuung—
From ister’s sleeping body, psychic waves continually rippled out from her heart.
Right now, even asleep, she was using her ability.
The psychic wave output was barely C-Class—or even less.
Not long after, ister’s drone reached the underground production plant facility in W-City. She stretched with a yawn and rose.
“Mmm... The accessible intel on artificial psychics has increased.”
“Congratulations, ister-nim!”
“...Hah.”
The soldier and Electrice reacted in completely opposite ways to that statent.
ister’s ability—what she personally referred to as Dinsional Archive—
A vague and hard-to-define power: while asleep, she sohow searched sothing unknown with what she’d observed and received interpretations of that information.
“But... I have no idea what that even ans... Sorryyy...”
“You can take your ti learning! ister-nim, you can do it!”
This clumsy, hole-ridden ability—
It had once been humanity’s last flicker of hope against annihilation by monsters.
And now, it was sothing like the faint smoke trailing from that extinguished fla.
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