1. The Forbidden Job
The Hero Union at midnight was eerily quiet.
Only flickering vending machines and the hum of the bounty board filled the air.
Raon stood before the holographic listings, her face half-lit by blue light. Rows of missions scrolled past — monster hunts, escort jobs, urban cleanups. Then one entry pulsed red at the bottom of the screen:
> [⚠️ CLASSIFIED: DO NOT ENGAGE]
Target: Discordia Beatmare
Status: Presumed destroyed.
Reward: 100,000₩ + permanent S-Rank certification
Risk: Catastrophic
Raon's eyes widened.
"Wait. That's the techno-centaur chick I already kicked into next week."
Shion blinked. "Then technically, you already finished it."
Raon cracked her knuckles. "Then technically, I'm rich."
She tapped ACCEPT QUEST.
The board screamed — literally screamed — as red sirens flashed. Every hero in the building turned their heads.
Manager Kimchi burst through the hallway, holding a half-eaten sandwich.
> "WHO ACCEPTED THE FORBIDDEN CONTRACT!?"
Raon raised her hand slowly.
> "...Hi."
He dropped the sandwich.
"You absolute lunatic! That bounty isn't open! Beatmare's signal reappeared last week — she's rebuilding herself out of resonance scrap!"
Raon tilted her head. "So... she's like a remix?"
"NO! SHE'S A WALKING FEEDBACK LOOP OF DEATH!"
Shion adjusted her glasses. "Statistically speaking, that sounds bad."
Raon smirked. "Statistically speaking, I've got two legs."
---
2. Night Drive
They rode Shion's hover scooter through the neon underbelly of Metrosonic.
Billboards glitched overhead — flickers of Beatmare's old face flashing in static patterns.
"Her signal's coming from the abandoned concert district," Shion said, checking her tablet. "It was shut down after your last fight flattened half the subwoofers."
Raon leaned back. "You say that like it's my fault."
"It is your fault."
Raon shrugged. "Fair."
As they neared the zone, the air changed.
Music — or something pretending to be music — pulsed faintly in the fog.
The rhythm didn't sound human. It sounded angry.
---
3. Beatmare Rebooted
They found her in the ruins of an amphitheater.
The stage was shattered, but her form stood in the center — rebuilt from shimmering metal shards and glowing bass cables.
Her voice was no longer mechanical — it was layered, as if ten versions of her were speaking at once.
> "ONE KICK GIRL… YOU INTERRUPTED MY FINAL SET."
Raon cracked her neck. "Yeah. Sorry. Thought it was over."
Beatmare's eyes glowed pink.
> "Nothing ends. It only repeats."
Her speakers ignited, unleashing a blast of pure resonance that shattered every piece of glass in a five-block radius.
Shion dove behind cover.
Raon didn't move.
> "Oh good," Raon muttered. "I was getting bored again."
---
4. One Kick… Interrupted
Raon charged —
Her kick sliced through the distortion like lightning —
—but the impact froze halfway through.
Her leg stopped.
The soundwave caught her midair, reversing her force.
Raon hit the wall so hard it left a crater.
Shion's eyes went wide. "She's countering your frequency again!"
Raon stood slowly, her hoodie torn, a faint scorch mark on her cheek.
"Okay," she said calmly, dusting herself off.
"Now I'm mad."
---
5. Double Tempo
Beatmare's rhythm accelerated — each pulse syncing with Raon's heartbeat.
Every step Raon took echoed twice.
Every move she made reverberated seconds later, like the world itself was lagging behind her strength.
Shion screamed through comms, "She's using your kick resonance as a carrier wave! She's learning!"
Raon grinned.
"Good. Then class is in session."
She closed her eyes.
Her breath steadied.
And for once, she didn't charge.
Instead, she waited — listening to the rhythm of Beatmare's distorted tempo.
Then, quietly — she stepped off-beat.
The air cracked.
Beatmare's timing faltered for just a millisecond —
—and Raon's foot connected.
The kick didn't explode.
It imploded.
Silence, pure and sharp, swallowed the amphitheater whole.
When sound returned, Beatmare's body dissolved into shimmering dust, her voice fading like the tail of a dying note.
> "Every echo… leaves another behind…"
---
6. Aftermath
Raon fell back, breathing hard.
Shion rushed to her side. "You did it. Again."
Raon laughed weakly. "No. She did it. I just followed the beat."
Her comm buzzed.
> [MISSION COMPLETE: Reward pending review.]
Shion blinked. "Pending review?"
Raon groaned. "They're not paying me again, are they?"
---
7. Post-Credit Scene
Inside the Hero Union's database, the forbidden mission entry flickered.
The words "Target: Discordia Beatmare" glitched, rewriting themselves.
> Target: ECHO-2 — ONLINE.
A distorted recording of Raon's second kick played softly in the dark — looping endlessly.
---
[End of Chapter 9 — "The Bounty Nobody Dared Take"]
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✅ Summary of Tone Shift:
Still packed with One Punch Man parody energy — dry humor, absurd bureaucracy, deadpan Raon logic.
But the chapter subtly deepens the world: introducing the danger of resonance feedback and Raon's first real injury.