Air Hero

Finish substituting

The first thing he notices is how organized it was to be in a team. It also increases his motivation to recruit an overseer for his team as he realized how much impact it would be.

From mission briefing to controlling the situation, giving out real-time information, and arranging support. It can be said that the overseer is the brain of the operation. He now understands why Rika’s pay is equal to Ken’s.

He also learned new things like the hero prohibition line and the elemental restraints, which are very useful in this kind of situation. The importance of these items is to make sure that nobody else gets hurt in the confrontation between the heroes and villains.

If there is no prohibition line, a passerby might be implicated. Either if he or she is injured by an attack or even used as a hostage.

If a group of people is in the area, the villain might resort to hurting them and create chaos in order to find a chance to escape. If that kind of situation happened, the hero’s leg might be tied to the spot as he/she needed to save the people first.

That is because a hero needs to put the people’s safety as the first priority. If a hero managed to catch a villain, but tens of innocent citizens are killed in the process, it wasn’t a success at all. The hero should let the villain escape and try to catch him another time, but he managed to save the crowd.

Arriving back at the Rising Star Agency, the squad gathered at Yuna’s office, and this time, Rika is doing the presentation again. Max thought that after catching the villain, their job is finished, but that is not true.

Rika is showing the replay of their battle earlier from the footage that is recorded from the drone and nearby CCTV camera.

“Air, you did a decent job. Your wind bullet managed to stop the Death Doctor, but I believe close-range combat is much more preferable in this situation. If the Death Doctor managed to block your ranged attack, he would have time to plan for his escape.”

Rika made his evaluation of Max’s action. He never thinks of it before as self-introspection could increase his judgment and ability in the future. He learned another thing from Yuna’s team.

“Understood.”

“It’s good if you understand. I’m not dissatisfied with your action, and it’s just a preventive measure. Next up, Joey, the prohibition line that you set up is taking longer than usual, is something wrong?”

“Well, I don’t want to give any excuse, but it’s ‘that’ day for me.”

“Ah. Nevermind then. Finally, Yuna. Your decision to use the flamethrower to end the battle quickly lets the Death Doctor run away. You could have used smaller fire darts and try to work your way around the metal shield. From what he displayed, the metal shield coverage area is limited, so you should be able to wear him down if you used the fire darts move.”

Rika shows the footage and stopped it where she made her analysis and highlighted the area that Yuna could attack.

“Also, when the Death Doctor used his final move, I don’t think that it was necessary for you to do the same. There is a clear difference between your strength, so another flamethrower attack is sufficient to defeat him.”

“Well, I just want to end it quickly.”

“You should know that your special move comes with a setback. Not to mention if the Death Doctor has a backup helping him, you will be the one in danger in a prolonged battle.”

“I know. Can we end this evaluation meeting now? I want to take a bath.”

“*sigh* Okay, that’s it for today. Air, thank you for helping us today. Are you willing to help us for three more days? Ken is on leave for four days, and today is just like an entrance test for you. If you do poorly, we won’t outsource you for four days and stopped today. However, your performance is just so-so so that I couldn’t complain either. How is it?”

“There’s no problem with me.”

Max didn’t hesitate to help out for another three days. Although he could barely handle Rika that keeps on looking down on him, she is indeed good at what she is doing. Not to mention he might learn new knowledge just like today. The salary also isn’t much different from doing a typical mission, so there’s really no reason to refuse it.

Just like that, three days went pass by as he worked with Yuna’s team. While doing the mission, he learned the importance of each team member’s function and how to act as a group. Most of the time, Rika can be said to be the one controlling the mission, while Yuna has the rights to object her since Yuna is the team's real leader.

Joey’s presence is helpful since all the things usually overlooked are being taken care of by her. For example, transport, meal while doing mission, costume check, and do everything you could think of. Max himself mainly supports Yuna by blocking the villain's escape route or clearing the area from passerby.

“Air, thank you for subbing in for me for four days.”

“No problem, Ken. I also learned a lot while helping the team.”

“Well, the payment will be transferred to your account. Once again, thank you, and please don’t refuse it if I asked for your help again.”

“Of course, I won’t refuse. Goodbye, everyone!”

“Hmph, he’s only decent. I haven’t given my approval for him helping out again next time.”

“Oh, come on, Rika. You know that he didn’t make any mistake and listened well to your order.”

Rika keeps on maintaining her haughty front, and Joey teased her for it. Finally, after the team couldn’t see Max’s shadow anymore, the team started to discuss among themselves.

“So, Rika, what do you think of Air?”

“From the ability he showed in this past four days, it seemed that he is hiding his real ability since there isn’t a need to perform it. His overall ability should be at C-rank just like yours, Yuna.”

“Mhm.  If not, it won’t be possible for him to defeat Crawley. To be honest, his track record from the United Heroes database might be normal, and there’s nothing notable since he went on recovery phase after defeating Crawley and started doing a normal D-rank mission. However, there’s a part of his profile that I couldn’t access.”

Joey and Ken are surprised to hear that since it means that Max has information about him, that is purposely blocked by the United Heroes and can only be seen if you have enough permission. Yuna can guess that it was the case regarding Yann and Bonio. Also, the information regarding Lindt and Vanya which is confidential.

After four days working together with him, Yuna still couldn’t see through his real power. It wasn’t even seemed that he tried to hide it, but just like Rika said, there’s no opportunity for him to showcase it.