The Monster Aspires to Be a Hero!

This was the place where examinees gathered to take the hero ability certification exam.
Yet among those many examinees, no one approached the crying child.
With the exam drawing near, it seemed everyone failed to notice the child.

You want to go?
I should go.
If I don’t lend a hand to someone genuinely in trouble, what kind of hero would I be?
Faust said acting presumptuously is the very essence of being a hero.

I hurried over to the crying child.
“Hey kid, what’s wrong? Where’s your mom?”
“Mo…mommmyyyyyyyy!”
At the word ‘mom’ I had uttered, the child, who couldn’t be even 10 years old yet, poured out all the sorrows of his young life and started wailing.
His body was so tiny, yet he could produce such a loud cry.
I lowered myself, kneeling in front of the kid, and placed my hand on his head.
After stroking his head for a bit, the kid slowly looked up at me.
“Did you get separated from your mom? Um… what’s your name?”
“Hic, Min, Minsu.”
“Okay, Minsu? We need to find your mom who got separated, right?”
“Mommy got lost?”
“Yeah. So we need to find her. Do you like heroes?”
“Yes! I really like heroes!”
“Oh yeah? Who do you like?”
“Faust!”

Unexpectedly, the kid was pretty coherent, and as we chatted, communication gradually became possible.
My experience volunteering at orphanages and kindergartens didn’t seem to go completely to waste.
I asked Minsu where he had gotten separated from his mom.
“The bathroom.”
“The bathroom?”
“Yeah! I told mommy I needed to use the bathroom. But then…”
Recalling that situation, Minsu started tearing up again.
I quickly asked him which bathroom area his mom had gotten lost in.
But Minsu didn’t seem to remember clearly, only vaguely pointing in a direction and saying “Over there!”
I turned my back to him.
“Get on my back.”
“Huh?”
“Quickly.”
Finding Minsu’s mom was important, but so was the exam.
With my legs, it would be possible.
Minsu hesitated briefly before climbing onto my back.
“Hold on tight!”
With Minsu on my back, I started running.
Minsu was still a very young child, probably around 1st grade elementary school age.
He couldn’t have come from too far away.
So I would just run and check.
I circled back repeatedly in the direction Minsu had pointed, asking “Is it here?” multiple times.
Minsu shouted “Here!” and I was able to find a woman anxiously looking around that area.
“Are you Minsu’s mother?”
“Huh? Min, Minsu!”
She did seem to be Minsu’s mother.
“Mommyyyyyy!”
As soon as Minsu got off my back, he clung to his mother.
“Where did you go… I found you, didn’t I?”
Only then did Minsu’s mother let out a brief sigh of relief and patted his back.
“Thank you so much for your help.”
“No, I have an urgent matter, so I’ll be going.”
“Thank you, Hero Brother!”
I waved goodbye to the kid named Minsu and hurried to the exam venue.
It was already past 10 AM, so I didn’t know what would happen, but I had no intention of giving up.

Upon entering the venue, lines had been formed, and it seemed those arriving after 10 AM were being directed to the left side.
Ah, I screwed up, it seemed.

Do you not regret it? If you hadn’t helped that kid, you wouldn’t have been late.
I don’t regret it.
I may regret it, but I think I would have regretted it more if I had just left that kid alone.
There’s always the next exam in June anyway.
I’ll just have more time to train.

My eyes met a few of the examinees lined up on the right side.
Their expressions seemed to be about 20% annoyance, 50% a strange sense of superiority, and 30% looking down on me.
But I can’t really blame them for that.
It’s callous, but that’s reality.
Even the once-a-year college entrance exam doesn’t allow entry if you’re a few minutes late.
So how could the hero ability certification exam held quarterly be any different?

A staff member appeared and led away the people lined up on the right.
After a while, a new staff member came and divided those on the left into groups of 5.
Then they started leading each group of 5 away in order.
With a sense of resignation, I blankly watched it all.
The expressions of those lined up on the left were uniformly consistent.
Just like cattle being led to the slaughterhouse.
In that quiet hallway, I somehow felt I could hear the lowing of cows.
Since I was at the very back, it took quite a while before it was my turn.
“Enter.”
At the staff’s words, the group I was part of filed into the room.
Inside were supervisors who looked rather displeased at first glance.
“Take a seat.”
One of the three supervisors in the center spoke with a rather firm tone.
Though apprehensive, we took our seats.
“You all are disqualified from being heroes.”
He outright gave us the death sentence.
It couldn’t be helped, I suppose.
This kind of feeling is normal for entrance exams too.
“However, I believe you should be given at least a minimum chance. Perhaps there was someone among you who was late for the sake of hero activities.”

Was there really such a person?
At the supervisor’s words, the tension of the 4 examinees besides me seemed to ease slightly.
Sensing that, the supervisor stiffened his expression again.

“The examinee who came in last.”
“Yes.”
“You were 10 minutes late. Are you aware?”
“…Yes.”
“There was an emergency fire call. If you had arrived just 10 minutes earlier, you may have been able to save a civilian suffering cardiac arrest.”
Ah, this is a pressure interview, I see.
His words were valid.
Heroes are always involved in incidents and accidents.
A mere 10 minutes could mean the difference between saving or losing numerous lives.
I had nothing to say in response.
“Any objections?”
“No.”
It seems I may have failed this exam.
The supervisor continued berating us relentlessly.
That even the once-a-year entrance exam doesn’t allow entry if you’re 1 minute late.
Yet the hero ability certification exam still grants the qualification to take the exam even if you’re a whopping 10 minutes late.
But remember, in an actual situation, the villain would have escaped, the monster would have demolished a building, and the patient would have died – he kept pressuring us like that.
With nothing to say in response, the hero examinees gradually lowered their heads.

“I’ll give you one last chance for an excuse. If you have none, be prepared for severe penalties. Then let’s start with you.”
Among our group of 5, the man who had arrived slightly earlier opened his mouth with a pale expression.
If there are 100 people, there are 100 stories, and just as many excuses.
Though all pale-faced, each gave their own reasons in turn.
The most plausible excuse was from the prospective hero who lived alone with his elderly mother.
That he had been late because his mother was ill and he had to take her to the hospital.
And of course, I was next in line after the most plausible excuse.
“Um, Jinwoo Lee?”
“Yes.”
“Uh… um… Tell me. Why were you late?”
The supervisor looked at me, exchanged whispers with the person next to him, then asked with a slightly flustered air.
It seems I’ll likely fail this exam.
At that thought, my rapidly beating heart gradually calmed.
I did have an excuse of sorts.
But I had no evidence to support it.
Still, thinking I had nothing to lose, I decided to share it.

“There was a crying child. So I asked about their situation, and it seemed they had gotten separated, so I helped find the child’s mother together.”
“Oh, that’s quite an admirable deed you did. Do you have any way to prove it?”
“No, I have nothing in particular.”
“Then should I assume you’re lying to get through this moment?”
“It’s not a lie, but without evidence, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Hmm…”
He stared intently at me before whispering with the nearby supervisor.
Then he looked at me again with a slightly sterner expression.
“Let’s assume the guidelines stated that anyone arriving after 10 AM would be automatically disqualified. Regardless of where you were or what you did, you would definitely be disqualified. But you still helped that child, didn’t you?”
I didn’t understand why he was suddenly asking only me this.
Still, I nodded.
“To be honest, the moment I met that child, I thought I had failed this exam.”
“Then why?”
“But I couldn’t just abandon a crying child. Being presumptuous is the essence of a hero, after all.”

With those final words from me, the interview ended.
A staff member came to escort us out, and we were gathered in an auditorium filled with slaughtered cattle.
It seemed there would be penalties, but we could still take the exam.
As I sat waiting in the prepared seats, the hero Iron serving as this exam’s supervisor came up onto the stage.
After briefly tapping the microphone to check if it was working, he slowly opened his mouth.

All the examinees here are entirely disqualified from being heroes!
He outright shouted those words.

At the scene, a single minute or second can mean the difference between saving or losing a life. Those of you here couldn’t even uphold that basic principle!
He kept pressuring us relentlessly.

But things in this world are unpredictable. Your only remaining family member could fall ill, or someone in dire need of help could suddenly appear before your eyes.
For some reason, it felt like our eyes had met.

So I’ve decided to give you a chance. But the test will be quite strict compared to other examinees.
At those words, the other examinees’ faces brightened.
It was understandable since it meant they wouldn’t be disqualified outright.
I too let out a sigh of relief.
Though things had gotten complicated, it seemed I could still somehow get through this.

After descending from the stage, Iron let out a sigh as he recalled the examinee named Jinwoo Lee.
As much as he aspired to be a hero himself, he had high expectations for this examinee Jinwoo Lee.
So he felt an unbearable sense of betrayal that such a person was here.
If 10 minutes pass after cardiac arrest, brain death is declared.
If a hero had arrived on time to perform CPR, they could have saved lives instead of letting them die.
For a hero, that’s what time represents.
So Iron could not forgive this examinee Jinwoo Lee.
The greater his expectations, the deeper his disappointment stung.

Sighing as he pondered how to handle this, he headed to where the other supervisors were waiting.
For some reason, those supervisors were emanating a rather heartwarming vibe.
“What’s going on, everyone?”
“Good work, Iron. It’s nothing much, but…”
That supervisor briefly covered his mouth as he chuckled.
“Take a look at this.”
On the screen the supervisor pointed to, a CCTV footage was playing.
It showed a child starting to cry in front of this building, and a man approaching the child.
That face was quite familiar.
“Examinee Jinwoo Lee?”
“Yes.”
With a sense that something was off, Iron looked at the supervisor.
What was this situation?
“Apparently some civilian came here with that child. An examinee it seems, who helped, so they were grateful.”
So they checked the CCTV and found footage of examinee Jinwoo Lee.
In urgent moments, one’s true nature emerges.
Someone who can still lend a hand to others despite personal detriment.
Perhaps that person is the true embodiment of a hero, they seemed to be saying.

Iron felt a strange sense of relief, as if a weight had been lifted.
He had presumed and felt disappointed, but… if there was a story like this, it couldn’t be helped.
Rather, he felt an increased fondness for Jinwoo Lee.
Despite facing such an important exam, that spirit of trying to help others was truly admirable.
In fact, those who had noticed the child but just ignored it and entered the building irked him.
Once this exam concluded, he would make sure to scout Jinwoo Lee.
Iron resolved himself to that.