Superstar From Age 0

Chapter 725

Someone.

Was sitting there.

William raised his voice as soon as he realized that.

“Mac…!”

But his wet cry was cut short. Because it was someone else. A woman.

“Ah…”

William closed his eyes briefly, feeling a surge of despair. 

He wished it was all a dream. His mind was filled with that thought.

Pat pat.

He opened his eyes and looked down. He saw Jay tapping his feet. William forced a smile.

Yeah.

It had only been a day.

Shadowman might have been rescued and treated somewhere.

If it was First… If it was the superheroes, they would surely save Shadowman…

“William Lee.”

He lifted his head at the voice calling his name.

‘William Lee?’ It was not a tone of asking if it was him. It was a voice that sounded confident that it was him.

The person who called William was the woman who had been sitting on the bench until a moment ago. She had walked over and stood in front of William.

“I’m sorry to meet you like this.”

She opened her mouth. Her voice was stiff but gentle. William felt a bit of familiarity with her for some reason.

“I’m Taylor Warren, the director of First, the Earth Defense Agency.”

William’s eyes widened again.

***

“Cut! Okay!”

The full shot was over.

The staff started to move at the shout. To capture the emotions of ‘William Lee’ and ‘Taylor Warren’ in a close-up shot, they had to move the camera and the light that had been shooting from a distance into the set.

Meanwhile, Seo Jun Lee and Sophia Kelly drank water and moistened their throats.

“I’m glad to be shooting with you.”

“Me too. Evan and Rachel were bragging so much…”

Sophia Kelly shook her head as if she was fed up, and Seo Jun laughed.

“I can imagine Rachel, but Evan too?”

Rachel Hill, who would shout ‘Our Jun!’ and happily talk about him, was easy to imagine, but Evan Block, who was calm, was hard to imagine bragging about him.

“Evan wasn’t jumping around like Rachel, but whenever he talked about acting or shooting, he always mentioned you. And when Davis and Wyatt joined in…”

Seo Jun burst out laughing at Sophia Kelly’s words, who shrugged her shoulders.

Davis Garrett, who played ‘Raymond Wish’ in ‘Redbone’ and [Survivors].

Wyatt Carter, who played ‘Conman’ in ‘Greenwing’ and [Over the Rainbow1].

He felt embarrassed that the two actors he had worked with were praising him so much.

“Now I can join them too. I’ll praise you a lot.”

“…Please don’t. Sophia.”

Seo Jun, who was covering his red face and feeling embarrassed, made Sophia Kelly and the stylists who came to fix the makeup laugh.

***

“…First director…you?”

“Yes.”

William blinked, not understanding for a moment.

“Shadowman! What happened to Shadowman? You saved him, right? The other heroes saved him, right? And he’s being treated at First now, right? Right? …That’s right?”

He looked at her with a desperate expression, begging her to say so. But Taylor Warren couldn’t hide the pity in her faint eyes. But she couldn’t hide the truth forever.

“Shadowman…didn’t make it back.”

“…What?”

William thought he had heard wrong. He felt a ringing in his ears.

“No vital signs were detected on the ship where the battle took place last night.”

Taylor Warren calmly continued her explanation.

Her voice was filled with respect for the hero who had tried to save the Earth and familiarity with the colleagues who had died besides Shadowman.

“The ship sank and is being salvaged by First. We have to sift through the pile of garbage to find the intact body, so it will take some time.”

“…Body…”

It was a shocking word.

No.

That can’t be.

“Shadowman, Shadowman can’t die like this…!”

But even as he said that, William remembered vividly.

The cooling body temperature in his arms.

The red blood that flowed out without a gap.

The weak,

Shadowman, Mac, who handed him something.

“…No…”

William clenched his trembling hands. And then he looked at Taylor Warren with a pleading look.

Taylor Warren sighed as she looked at William Lee, who was panting and begging her to say it wasn’t true. But she couldn’t hide the truth.

“I’m sorry, Lee.”

Ah…

He didn’t come to the park today to hear this.

He came to see Mac, who always welcomed him, to see Mac alive.

Wobble-

He staggered, feeling as if the sky had collapsed. He had never experienced such a loss. Taylor Warren, who was a top agent of First before becoming the director, reflexively reached out to support him, but a shadow stretched out and held up William’s body.

It was his shadow friend, Jay.

His expression twisted even more. He looked like he was about to burst into tears. 

He closed his eyes tightly, thinking of Shadowman and his partner.

They were the two beings who had been his support and strength, even though it was a short time.

“Shadowman… Mac… partner…”

Taylor Warren looked at him with a pitying expression for a moment, then composed herself. She still had the main point to tell him as the director of First.

“William Lee.”

She said in a firm voice.

“I need your help.”

He slowly lifted his head.

***

The next shoot was at First.

“This is the Bizjet!”

Seo Jun said with an excited face.

“I’ve seen Natra’s spaceship a lot, but this is the first time I’ve seen First’s jet.”

“Well, it was the first time you saw First’s headquarters last time, too.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Wow, but it looks like it can really move, Tae Woo hyung?”

“Right. Hollywood is amazing.”

Seo Jun and Choi Tae Woo exclaimed as they looked at First’s jet.

The actors who played First’s agents looked at Seo Jun Lee, who was exploring everywhere with an excited expression like a child who came to an amusement park, with a curious face.

“Hmm. According to the script, the scene we’re going to shoot now, it’s a pretty serious scene, isn’t it?”

“Will he be able to immerse himself when he’s so excited?”

“Right. The shoot is soon, shouldn’t he get his emotions ready?”

They had seen actors who immersed themselves in serious or emotional scenes before the shoot in many works, so they wondered about Seo Jun Lee’s behavior.

Then Sophia Kelly opened her mouth with a chuckle.

“Don’t worry, he’ll change completely when the shoot starts. Be careful not to forget your lines while admiring Jun’s acting.”

Now Sophia Kelly could brag about Jun like Evan Block, Rachel Hill, Davis Garrett, or Wyatt Carter.

And shortly after.

As Sophia Kelly said, Seo Jun Lee acted as ‘William Lee’ perfectly when the director shouted ‘Action!’.

***

The jet that was flying in the sky slowly landed on the ground.

From the open entrance of the jet, the director of First, Taylor Warren, and a boy who looked like a civilian came out. It was William Lee.

“This… It looks similar to the plane that crashed at the baseball stadium, is that right?”

William looked back at the jet he had gotten off and asked. He was too surprised to look closely at it then, but it seemed like a similar plane.

“Yes. It’s the same jet. It’s First’s jet, called Bizjet.”

He asked in surprise.

“Why did First’s jet crash?”

“Let’s go inside and explain.”

William nodded at Taylor Warren’s words.

First headquarters.

Among the First agents in uniform, Taylor Warren and William walked.

He should have been curious about the First headquarters and agents he saw for the first time, but William didn’t care and followed Taylor Warren with a stiff face. 

He thought the reason she asked for his help had something to do with the villain who fought Shadowman.

Revenge.

His black eyes flashed, then

-Even if not that, he wanted to help a little.

They softened again.

Taylor Warren glanced at ‘William Lee’ and turned her head.

‘Shadowman. Why did you pass it on to…’

She had a headache from the fragment of ‘The Forgotten Villain, Jin Natra’ that she saw from William Lee, but she didn’t show it.

There was something more urgent than that.

Taylor Warren and William entered the situation room, the center of First headquarters.

He couldn’t help but marvel at the huge central monitor with a map of the United States, dozens of monitors, First agents who were busy in front of them, and the meteorite sealed in a transparent case in the middle of the situation room.

Taylor Warren pointed to the meteorite sealed in the transparent case.

“Do you know the meteorite that fell in Nevada? William?”

“Yes. I saw on the news that it was moving to NASA.”

“This is that meteorite.”

Taylor Warren calmly explained to William, who looked at the meteorite with a surprised expression.

“This meteorite fell in Nevada a few weeks before it was reported on the news. First, our organization, detected a strange energy in the atmosphere and conducted a few weeks of testing to find out the cause. And then, we decided to move the meteorite to NASA after concluding that there was nothing unusual and announced it to the public.”

Sigh-

Someone among the agents seemed to let out a sigh. Taylor Warren felt the same way.

“That was the problem. The jet that was in charge of moving it was the one that crashed into the baseball stadium.”

William’s eyes widened.

“While moving it? Why?”

“There was an alien parasite hidden inside the meteorite that started to activate when it touched a living being.”

“But you said the test results were fine.”

“The tests were very thorough and mechanical. We made sure that no living being touched the meteorite.”

That was the problem.

The alien parasite that did not contact any living being did not activate, and it did not show up in the tests.

“And then, First and NASA, who judged it as a normal meteorite, lowered the security level, thinking that it was no different from a rock. That’s when the parasite, ‘Arodo’, came into contact with a living being… and started to activate.”

As Taylor Warren gestured, a hologram appeared on the table.

It was information about the alien parasite.

“This is the information that the alien expert gave us this morning.”

It was the information that Bell Natra, who had heard about the incidents and accidents in the US, had passed on.

Taylor Warren, who had not yet told Bell Natra about Shadowman’s situation (he had considered the possibility of Shadowman’s survival until dawn), swallowed a sigh and continued.

“Its name is Arodo. It’s an alien parasite that grows by absorbing the negative energy of the living being it parasitizes.”

A picture of a mineral that looked like a dark green gem appeared.

“This is what it looks like before it activates, and this is what it looks like when it activates.”

Another picture appeared along with Taylor Warren’s words.

William’s black eyes darkened as he looked at the new picture.

The thing that looked like a slime or an amoeba, with a color that seemed to mix black and green, was something that William knew too well.