Became an American Retro Novelist - Chapter 228



Only Noblemtl

228.

Doofy Kingston’s weight loss has been going smoothly.

As for the meals, they were limited in type as God had said, but not in extreme amounts. Doopi ate three meals a day at set times and in moderate amounts, and he ate freely without being picky, except for the ‘foods that must be absolutely avoided’ as God had said.

That doesn’t mean that dieting wasn’t hard. After a while, the brain of the scalp, which had been soaked in processed foods and sugar, started to demand it fiercely, and irritation and anger surged. In situations where it seemed like it would lose control, the scalp relieved those emotions through exercise.

I would roar while hitting the sandbag (fortunately, my house was quite soundproof), and like that, my scalp gradually changed from a cowboy to a warrior. At some point, waking up in the morning became easier, and I often heard people at work asking me if I exercised these days.

So I started working out in ‘Shin’s style’ and it’s been two months.

As he stepped onto the scale, Kingston stopped hearing the distinctive squeak-squeak-scream. It was a sound he had heard every time he stepped onto the scale his entire life, and just when he thought it was something unusual, his eyes widened in shock when he saw the numbers on the scale.

‘What, what is it?’

I lost a whopping 15 kilograms.

For a while, Doopi sat there blankly on the scale, unable to move.

It’s not that I’ve never tried to lose weight before. But the results were all bad, and of course, it was because I would starve myself and then eat a lot because my appetite would explode. Or I would just run around and then quit because my heart would hurt.

So when God said, “Eat three meals a day and exercise just enough so that it doesn’t interfere with your work,” I couldn’t deny that I was skeptical about whether I would actually lose weight to that extent.

Because I thought that dieting in the scalp’s perception should originally be harsh.

But that wasn’t the case.

It was hard, but it was different from the previous diets. If I had to hold my hungry stomach and suffer before, now I would say it was mentally hard. I felt empty somewhere all the time, and it felt like my stomach was full. However, it wasn’t hard enough to the point of death.

To be exact, ‘Kung-fury’ helped me whenever I was having a hard time.

Doopi looked at himself in the mirror.

0.3 Star Chaser was standing in front of me.

“hmm.”

Pushing up his glasses, his scalp felt a desire he had never felt before.

That’s right, I wanted to feel my heart pounding so hard it felt like it was going to burst.

A sense of overcoming oneself as one lives each day.

A young man on the path from boyhood to manhood named Doofy Kingston learned that from the Star Chaser in ‘Kung-fury’.

He was a superhero who ‘represented America’ in the novel.

That was a heart-pounding experience for Doofy, who was also a black man. In addition, he was different from the typical ‘African-American’ portrayed in the media up to that point. Like Doofy, he was a black man who was not recognized by black people and wandered around. As I read the content, I couldn’t help but be drawn to it.

Because the scalp was like that too.

And just as he was transformed by God, Star Chaser was also transformed little by little by Kung-Fury.

He gradually shook off the fear and inferiority complex that was inside him.

As the full-scale fight against Zero begins, the story that follows continues to give Doofy Kingston the desire and courage for change.

Finally, America’s representative superheroes and the cyborg ninjas who are bent on destroying America face off.

It was about two weeks after Zero began his full-scale activities. Naturally, Star Chaser was chasing Zero, but things had not gone well during that time. Zero, who had access to the entire North American communication system, had been deliberately avoiding Star Chaser to build up his strength, and when he decided that the time had come, he stopped running away.

In the heart of downtown Los Angeles.

Zero, who had already taken away the powers of numerous superheroes, did not run away when Star Chaser arrived, but instead looked back with his red eyes shining.

『The opponent is a cyborg ninja whose abilities are unknown.

And there wasn’t just one.

“You can’t fight carelessly in front of the ‘face of America’.”

Zero’s body seemed to be slowly splitting apart. Other Zeros slowly walked out from the left and right.

In front of him, Star Chaser clenched his fists.

Suddenly, I remembered ‘Kung-Fury’, who survived the fight with him without losing his abilities.

This was the first time since he started his superhero career that an outsider had discovered his identity, and he tried to silence it, but failed. Then Star Chaser felt a terrible sense of self-loathing. No matter how deep his trauma, he thought that his race had been revealed, and tried to kill him.

So what’s the difference between this and a supervillain?

While trying to console him in his panic, Kung-Fury asked him why he didn’t want to reveal his race. In front of him, Star Chaser revealed a part of his past that he had never told anyone before.

He originally started his career under the name ‘Fly High’.

However, some people did not like him because he was a ‘black man’ who imitated an airplane pilot and wore only goggles without covering his face.

Then one day, the incident happened while rescuing a group of drunken rednecks.

Star Chaser, who was leading the escape in a critical situation, saw people running in the opposite direction being caught in the explosion and dying horribly while giggling, “I won’t listen to black people.” And the black community treated him as a traitor, asking why he tried to save racists.

Disillusioned, ‘Fly High’ changed his name.

And ‘Star Chaser’ was born.

Star Chaser had never before revealed his race to anyone around him. Due to the record-clearing process initiated by his superiors, only a few people within the agency knew that he was black, and if it weren’t for Kung-Fury, he would have continued to hide it in the future.

The hero representing America is black.

Star Chaser’s insides were constantly festering due to his self-created inferiority complex and the neglect of those around him.

To such a star chaser, Kung-Fury revealed his past.

I thought that there was something similar between myself and the superheroes of today who were used as heroes in the Vietnam War. They are messengers. But the message they are trying to convey may not be theirs. That caused me a lot of pain. But not now.

Because I learned a lesson.

‘So I’m okay with being Kung-Fury. Now I can proudly tell people to learn Kung Fu.’

My heart changed a little as I watched him speak playfully.

Okay. After this is over, let’s take off our masks and reveal our identities.

With that thought in mind, Star Chaser rushed towards Zero, breaking the speed of sound.

But there was one thing he was overlooking.

“······Slow.”

That was the ‘power’ that Zero had.

He was no longer a being in the realm of the ordinary, having even been stripped of the superpower of the superhero ‘Sixth Sense’, which could increase reaction speed to the extreme.

***

‘Kung-fury: Novel’ meticulously builds up the situations and psychology of each superhero up to the ‘skyscraper’ part, which can be called the climax.

Zero’s psychology, which can be said to be not a superhero, was kept a complete secret, but the novel’s fun was not lost.

The consensus among DC Comics editors was that each section could be published as a separate comic issue. The title was “Kung-fury,” but the characters that appeared in it, like Sodapop and Star Chaser, were also really attractive characters.

And it definitely shows the charm of Kung-Fury by never putting them in the ‘main’ part.

He is the protagonist of this novel.

So, in the end, it was the law that I had to be the most active at the very end.

Star Chaser ended up having his powers stolen by Zero.

Zero’s ability to drain superpowers allowed him to create a cyborg ninja army and recruit those who shared his ideology to lead a private army. He was no longer a simple supervillain or terrorist.

The United States, too, is in greater turmoil.

That was Zero’s goal.

It causes chaos in American society, revealing the true face of the so-called ‘superhero’ who has been treated as a hero until now. The government and the superhero. For unknown reasons, the hatred towards both sides is expressed through violence, creating fear and anxiety among the citizens.

The US government tried to somehow minimize and cover up the situation, but it was no longer working as planned. Zero continued to hack the news broadcasts to broadcast his broadcasts, terrifying the citizens and angering the US government.

Kung-Fury had a feeling that he would come back someday. Or rather, that he would call him out first. And when that time came, he definitely planned to step forward, but he needed to be prepared.

Joe continued to learn martial arts from his master.

He tried to train himself to the extreme of Wing Chun. Although Shifu grumbled, saying, “In a world like today, messages are useless,” he did not deny his efforts.

After completing his preparations, he went to find Star Chaser, who was isolated in the ‘Institution’ facility in Los Angeles. Seeing him soon ‘on a plane’ back home after his recovery and experiments, Kung-Fury said that he would definitely help him regain his powers.

I will fight Zero.

Star Chaser, hearing that determination, asked cautiously.

“Can I ask you just one thing?”

“what?”

“What are the lessons learned from the Vietnam War?”

“······It’s simple.”

Kung-Fury turned around, adjusting his red belt.

“The messenger may be corrupted, but the message cannot.”

“······.”

Star Chaser blankly stares at her back.

Kung-Fury advanced towards the battlefield.

A supervillain with ‘unknown abilities’.

But Kung-Fury had to fight it. That’s what a superhero is.

He died countless times in the Vietnam War, but he survived and watched everything. He was treated as a hero and was in a position to encourage others to fight, but he suffered from deep PTSD and was tied to it for a long time.

And now, it seemed, there was a chance to ‘get it right’.

As if if you die you can come back to life and ‘fix it’.

It didn’t take long for Kung-Fury to meet Zero.

The superheroes were reluctant to act when they heard that their superpowers were being taken away, and they did not intervene even when he carried out terrorist activities. In such a situation, it was only natural that he and Kung-Fury, who took it upon themselves to take down Zero, would quickly come face to face.

By the time Kung-Fury received the order to deploy, the city was already engulfed in flames.

Zero combined his flamethrower and explosive abilities to rain down fireballs. The citizens panicked and corpses littered the city. It was reminiscent of war scenes from the past.

Feeling his mind spinning with rage, Kung-Fury advanced towards the forest of buildings engulfed in flames, hoping to prevent further damage.

“Ah, it’s you.”

Zero seemed to have changed a lot in the meantime.

He wore ninja armor, with spikes on top. He gradually transformed as he gained powers, just like a demon from a myth. He looked like something that would make ordinary citizens, and even superheroes, tremble in fear, but perhaps because he had seen so much hell, Kung-Fury was not frightened.

He straightened his posture as he recalled the teachings of his ‘Master’.

“Let’s have a go. Zero.”

“······If the fight can be successful.”

And then the fight between the two men began.

◇

The fight between Kung-Fury and Zero has just begun.

The man was running down the street.

“help!”

“Please save me!!”

Frightened screams were heard from all over. The man who followed them rescued a person who was trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building. He shouted as he saw healthy, ordinary people like himself.

“Come on, save the people! We can do it!”

Not everyone heeded that request.

But the man silently continued to rescue people.

There were firefighters who were deployed for rescue operations and police officers who were in charge of evacuating citizens, but even that was not enough, and the terrorism of Zero was so serious. Nevertheless, the man faced the disaster of terrorism without any concern. His actions felt like a holy fire that wanted to protect the nobility of humanity.

In the meantime, he found a family of four isolated in the flames, and immediately brought a fire extinguisher nearby, put out the fire, and pulled them out of the heat. The mother and the child came out first and greeted him.

“Go, thank you!”

“Run away! Quickly!”

“······Honey. Please take care of the kids.”

“What?! You?!”

“I will help this person. Let’s join forces and save at least one more person.”

And for the first time, a person appeared who was touched by the man’s heart.

The man bit his lip at the sound of his voice. For some reason, he felt like he was going to cry.

Run as fast as you can to rescue people, evacuate them to a safe place, and help others evacuate if they can still move.

And so, the man began to shine brighter than anyone else in this chaos. He was a star. The man who had become the star itself, not someone who chased after stars, was named······ ‘Mark’, an ordinary black man.

The man took off the mask in his heart that had been covering his cloudy eyes.

Skin color didn’t matter in the blazing fire. Mark, exhausted like everyone else in the ongoing rescue, chuckled as a funny thought came to mind.

‘I’m already tanned, so maybe they don’t care about my skin color.’

Maybe I’ve come to resemble Kung Fury in some way, even his black humor.

A man with a smile on his face, thinking something he could never say out loud, ran forward to save people. And numerous ‘Star Chasers’ followed him.

“That scene was really good.”

“······Yes. It was a very touching scene.”

An emergency meeting of team leaders.

Robert, the editor-in-chief, predicted that ‘Kung-Fury’ would be able to be used well in the future business because it had such a great drama. In fact, ‘Sodapop’ and ‘Star Chaser’ were as popular as the main character ‘Kung-Fury’.

But even so, the ‘proposal’ that came this time was, frankly, difficult to accept because I didn’t know what the intention was behind it.

“So, why do you want to make this into a movie?”

Everyone seemed to agree with that question.