Hero? I've Long Stopped Being One

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Volume 1 – Chapter 2: Conspiracies

Looking at the job application's information on the electronic screen, Lin Jie couldn't help but let out a sigh: "Sure enough, I really don't want to work! Whatever, I'll just go to buy the newest game before heading home."

Recently, Lin Jie has started going on his computer to play games; the reason for this was simple, the monsters inside games were much harder for him to cut down than they were in real life.

"Right, when I go back I can just tell my little sister that I got lost on life's path and couldn't get to any of the job interviews in time." While thinking of this, Lin Jie was walking through the commercial trade street and saw a group of pretty boys holding a performance in the street.

"Oh? It's the newest and most popular superhero band The DeciNoble!^[1]" Lin Jie looked at the boy band in front of him before saying, "The lead singer, a guitar player, a keyboardist, a drummer and a bassist… adding them all up, there's only five of them in total. Why do they call themselves The Family of Ten? Calling them the PentaGod would fit much better."

……

"Lord God!! Lord God!! Lord God!!" ^[2] Wave after wave of cheers resounded from young girls as the performance went on.

"Thank you all for supporting our band." The lead singer said to the young girls standing below the stage.

"In our minds, The DeciNoble are gods!!" A young girl loudly shouted out.

"We are not gods, we are simply a group seeking to eradicate evil people." The DeciNoble told the young girls below the stage. Immediately, a burst of girlish shrieks burst through the crowd.

"Thank you, everyone! That's right, we have been promoted to C-Level Heroes, after only a month of being D-Level Heroes; we wish for everyone to support us even more, that way we will have the momentum needed to attain B-Level Hero status quickly…"

"Ah, so the lead singer is called DeciNoble." Lin Jie finished watching the performance couldn't help but to reminiscing, "They say that back when I also said those words, it was in front of a crowd of a 100,000. So why didn't I get fangirling screams from the young girls, huh? Not to

Lin Jie couldn't help but remember the time he had also said: "I am not god," he'd had his back turned to the 100,000 people all kneeling on the ground. When he'd said it, Lin Jie had originally thought he had looked cool, and that a wave of gasps would come from the crowd. However, the reality of the situation was unexpectedly complete and utter silence, the only sounds to be heard was the chirping of crickets and grasshoppers. It was the appearance of true, dead silence. This became a stain in Lin Jie's life. When all was said and done, the words he said in front of those 100,000, the words he had thought would sound good, was actually greeted by awkward silence…

The shame urged Lin Jie to use his fastest speed to retreat from the scene of the crime. How would he have the time to do anything with the Holy Maiden that fainted?

"Do I really need to depend on my face?" Lin Jie looked at indubitably cool DeciNoble on the stage: "At the time, should I have revealed myself? Whatever, if I had revealed my face and still been given the same cold treatment, wouldn't that have let the 100,000 or so people know what the idiot who said such an unfathomably mysterious speech looked like?"

On the stage, the performance was entering its closing act; Lin Jie finally managed to squeeze out a path from the throng of people and force his way into a store he came to quite often.

"To begin with, since they're so popular, why didn't they perform in a bigger place instead of such a small area as Zhongyang Street and cause all the traffic to clog up in this one small area, are they stupid or something?" Lin Jie complained while he browsed for his desired goods.

"Not necessarily!" the game shop owner standing in front of the counter said then pointed towards the rows of seats, which were practically filled with fanatical female fans: "You just have to go and squeeze in there a few times before you understand it for yourself, hehehe!"

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Letting a vulgar smile cover his face, the shop owner once again looked at the teeming crowd of enamored female fans. Lin Jie couldn't help but swallow a mouthful of saliva.

“How ’bout it? There’s still some time, so why doncha go in and try it out?” The shop owner asked.

At this time, Lin Jie was having an internal debate, about whether he should stay within his 2D dream world or go outside and become a pervert.

"I am definitely not that type of person! I have already become a 2D man! I have no attraction to 3D girls at all!" Lin Jie said to the shop owner in an upright and righteous manner. "But to be honest, people immersed into the 2D world are actually all perverts at heart….."

Lin Jie let out a sigh, the shop owner looked at him with an expression as if he had found a kindred spirit, and he unhesitantly turned towards the crowd of people. This type of situation only comes once in a lifetime, but in his heart, he knew that he could always go to buy games later.

Just like this, Lin Jie yelled out "I love DeciNoble!" while squeezing through the crowd to where all of the young girls were.

Feeling the tactile sensation all around him, Lin Jie thought in his heart: "So this is heaven!"

"Pew! Bang! Pew!" A series of gunshots ran out from the middle of the crowd, within that second, the girls around Lin Jie chaotically dispersed in all directions. In the wake of the fleeing crowd, several men wearing black combat suits appeared in the midst of the crowd. Every single one of them was holding a gun in their hands.

"It's the Black Hand!" From amidst the crowd, someone shouted.

The Black Hand was pretty infamous in H-city since they were terrorists that were frequently illustrated in the newspaper and news channels.

After recognizing the identity of the people who appeared, the crowd began to flee in all directions.

"DeciNoble, you had the audacity to defeat our underlings. So today, we will show you something to be afraid of!" The leader of the Black Hand declared.

After saying that, several of the terrorists behind him lifted their muzzles to point at the handsome guys on stage.

At this moment, from the DeciNobles' keyboardist's side, the electrical lights suddenly flashed and then several of the Black Hands' guns were sucked out of their hands and thrown next to him. The drummer took out a drumming stick, beautifully barrel rolled in the air before landing next to a youth and striking out with the stick at his stomach, causing the misfortunate bro to fly away

The guitarist and keyboardist also beautifully flipped down the stage, one went left the other went right, causing yet another two youths to go flying.

The motions of these guys could only be described as "suave". At the same time, it drew out the countless shrieks from the young girls all around them.

The three youths of the Black Hand got up and fled, scared witless.

"That's right, this kind of 'suave' jump down the stage, how come I didn't think of it before?" Looking at the DeciNobles' performance, he couldn't help but exclaim. "Ah, I remember that time, for the sake of convenience, my jumps were always extremely straightforward. No wonder that every time I jumped down from a high altitude, everyone that saw me had disbelieving expressions on their face and not a single one of them yelled out. It must be because my actions at the time weren't 'suave' enough, right? Now that I think about it, the way I jumped up and down probably look like I was jumping off a building so that I could meet my maker! My decision to wear a mask had been the right one after all."

"Today I will exterminate you!" After saying that, DeciNoble rushed towards the leader of the Black Hand. The other members of the band all posed behind him, looking very handsome while DeciNoble was in close combat with the enemy.

"The bandmates aren't going to help? Don't tell me they believe their leader won’t lose?" Lin Jie couldn't help but curiously look at the bandmates lined up in a row, and posing like models for a photoshoot: "Actually, even if they don't go catch the youths who've already run away, why did they just let them go like that? What's going on here? Don't tell me… superheroes these days let the criminals off after defeating them? How benevolent of them! They must be reforming their sins just like how Zhuge Liang had also captured Meng Huo 7 times during the era of three kingdoms."

While Lin Jie was standing at the side and daydreaming, the close combat was starting to look unfavorable for DeciNoble, even the fans couldn't help but want to wipe a handful of sweat before DeciNoble suddenly exploded with potential.

"I have to defeat you, and use you to prove that I have a B-Level Hero's strength." Saying this, Highborn Denary used a flying karate kick to knock down the Black Hand boss. His actions were as graceful as a flowing river and so handsome that it made all of his fans want to drop their panties.

After knocking down the Black Hand's leader, DeciNoble also adopted a very handsome pose, preparing for the fans' pictures and group pictures. At the same time, they started walking towards the fallen Black Hand leader who was still shooting off with his mouth.

Dazed, the Black Hand's leader shakily got up from the ground. Furthermore, as soon he did, he fiercely escaped towards the middle of the crowd, however, after taking just 2 steps, he slipped and fell flat on the ground.

No one noticed when his foot had gotten cuffed, the other end of it was fastened to the protective railings.

"Sure enough, it's still best that they don't let these kinds of criminals run away." While talking to himself, Lin Jie also took out another set of manacles: "If I add a set of locks on his feet, and wait for special forces to come then it should be alright.

It was at this moment that the Black Hand's leader's body began to expand and grow larger.

"Bastard! You dare to deceive me!" While the Black Hand's leader roared out, he continuously grew larger and larger. The three-centimeter thick alloy manacles were easily torn apart and shaken off. It was at this moment, that a team of riot-shield bearing armed police officers arrived.

"Today is the day that all of you will die!" When he saw the armed police that was rushing over, t5-meterter tall giant faced towards DeciNoble and yelled: "You have the audacity to try and deceive me! Today I will destroy you until nothing is left!"

The Black Hand's leader said then bull-rushed towards the DeciNoble even while being shot at.

……

Hello everyone, I am the leader of Black Hand. I am a supervillain, and a C-level wanted criminal.

My main job is to cause trouble and always get beaten up by heroes.

Because people desire fame, I give them fame. People want to do good deeds, so I let them beat me up. They pay me to cause trouble and we pretend to fight. Like kids would fight, you know. They give me money, I give them fame.

Because of doing this, I have long since achieved B-level strength yet am still listed as a C-level wanted criminal.

At the same time, there won't be that much importance attached to me by the heroes, and those heroes who carry out transactions with us would look for opportunities for us to run. And so the average fight would usually end before the military arrived, the conclusion of the fights usually came when I was defeated.

This time, the deal was with a idol group organization called the DeciNoble, there wasn't supposed to be much fighting involved, just mostly trying to hype up the momentum they've already built. In order to achieve the greatest result, they decided to hold an open air concert at Zhongyang Street, which would've helped with our part of the deal. Truth be told, most performing places have much, much better security and defenses.

—And so, everything must be planned out in advance before any action is taken.

I was defeated, so I prepared to run away, that was the plan. However my foot was suddenly cuffed.

—The one who cuffed me was a completely ordinary-looking young man, and I originally thought to slap him to death, but I soon realized what had taken place just then.

How could a completely normal looking youth use such high grade police handcuffs?

This is definitely a conspiracy, they have long since conspired together with the police to capture me, that has to be it!

Thinking up to this point, I was indignant and furious. Fortunately, I am a low-priority criminal. The Hero Organization seems to think that I'm only at the C-level so they only assigned a team of armed police officers to apprehend me.

In order to avoid being captured, I decided to reveal my B-level strength. And get rid of those devious little punks.

These armed police have no way of stopping me, I had more than enough time to get rid of them and to run before reinforcements arrived.

……

"I didn't think that he could still transform his body, so delaying him with the manacles was the right decision! Such a big body, if he ever goes crazy someplace else, the situation could be very bad." Lin Jie looked at the man rushing towards the DeciNoble: "Speaking of, the manacles I still have from back when I was a hero finally have a chance to be used."

At this time, Lin Jie was completely unaware of the troubles he had brought onto others.

At the same time, the DeciNoble, who had originally been posing for pictures looked at the figure rushing towards them, and their legs started to tremble.

Footnotes:

[1]Thanks to ArmoreredRaven for the great name suggestions 😀 The name 十神世家 is a lazy pun on 士绅世家 which means Aristocratic Family. The best Vexed could come up with was The DeciNoble

[2]In Chinese it is 神大人 which literally translates to: 'Lord God' (sorta title of respect for older generations). I'm new to Chinese so I thought it meant something along the lines of: 'yes, command me, my god!' But I wasn't sure, so I googled it.

Found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmIeytahmPo Learnt that if you add a 上 to 神大人, it refers to Hestia from Dungeon ni Deai wo Dotomeru/Is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon?/Danmachi.

Thanks to NZPIEFACE and ![Dan] shadowys(whatever he's called) for the suggestions. *thumbs up* Especially Vexed though.

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