“None of that matters, Mr.
Edgar, I—”
“Colombian Huila, dark roast.
Since the eighties, it’s been the best-selling coffee in all of America.”
“Of course, the cup I make has a little more character to it.”
Edgar paid no attention to Madelyn’s words, talking on as if to himself, his tone carrying even a touch of cheer.
Faced with Edgar’s words, Madelyn’s expression froze for a moment, then she slowly sat down, silently watching as he brewed her a cup of coffee.
A task that required nothing more than the press of a button and a single word for someone to bring it in.
Yet Edgar wore the look of a man thoroughly enjoying himself.
Soon, a steaming cup of coffee was finished and pushed in front of Madelyn.
“Give it a try—though I’ll admit I have neither the skill nor the talent for this sort of thing.”
With that, Edgar pulled open a drawer to one side, took out a cigar, and began trimming it with a cigar cutter.
Faced with such an attitude from her direct superior, Madelyn had no choice but to force a smile, and after taking a small sip she said,
“It tastes wonderful, Mr.
Edgar.”
Edgar said nothing, busy lighting the cigar with a butane torch.
A long moment passed.
The cigar caught, and Edgar drew on it gently, exhaling a faint wisp of smoke.
“Madelyn, how many years have you been in charge of Homelander?”
“Nineteen years, sir.”
“From the year 2000, all the way to now.”
Madelyn looked at Edgar, shrouded in smoke, and said softly,
“Nineteen years.”
The smoke made Edgar’s expression somewhat difficult to read; she could only hear his calm voice.
“After such a long stretch of time, shouldn’t you have more confidence in yourself?”
Madelyn was silent, then murmured in a low voice,
“I’m sorry, Mr.
Edgar.
I let my emotions get the better of me.”
“Now then, tell me—what exactly happened.”
Edgar said it mildly, and under his gaze Madelyn recounted, in full and exact detail, everything that had just taken place in Homelander’s lounge.
“His reaction today was all wrong.
I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”
“But based on all these years of assessment, even if something like this were to occur, a conservative estimate would put it several more years away…”
From the moment Homelander debuted as a superhero, Madelyn had been the one in charge of it all.
She was the collar Vought had custom-made for Homelander.
Used to restrain and guide his every daily action.
But Homelander’s reaction today had let her glimpse faint signs of him slipping beyond her control—which was exactly why she had reacted so strongly.
Because no one understood better than she did: after so many years of “cultivation” by Vought,
this “giant baby” with his immense power had long since been twisted beyond all recognition.
Once he broke free of control, it would be a dangerous thing for anyone—especially for her, the one closest to him.
“Children grow up, and they always have a rebellious phase, don’t they?”
Edgar said calmly, pale blue smoke curling up from the cigar in his hand.
“As a parent, the most important thing is how you guide them.”
“Mr.
Edgar, it’s not that I disagree with your view.”
“But the way he looked at me today was clearly different from before.”
“You know, I’ve spent so many years with him—I could feel it clearly.
It was as if…
as if he’d become a different person, not as if he were simply sulking at me.”
Madelyn explained earnestly.
If anyone in the entire company understood Homelander best, she certainly had a place among them.
“Is that so?”
Edgar nodded thoughtfully.
“A short while ago I already had someone pull every trace of his activity from this past stretch of time.”
“The psychological evaluators have also been closely watching his every move, including his microexpressions and so on.”
“But everything indicates all is normal—nothing that could account for the way he behaved today.”
It wasn’t that Madelyn lacked composure, nor that she was timid; it was that she understood Homelander’s character all too well.
She knew profoundly that the instant this creature lost control, she would absolutely become the target in his sights.
“I understand.”
“Still, we need to keep observing for now, don’t we?”
As Vought’s flagship, so long as Homelander hadn’t developed some utterly irreparable, catastrophic problem, they would never give him up so easily.
“I understand.”
“I’ll continue to guide him, and figure out what’s going on.”
Madelyn nodded hesitantly, speaking in a low voice.
“Of course, you mustn’t carry too heavy a psychological burden either.
Just keep on as you have before.”
Seemingly perceiving the pressure in Madelyn’s heart, Edgar took a draw on his cigar, savoring the smoke as it swirled through his mouth, then slowly exhaling it.
“After all, it’s not as though we lack the means to keep him in check.”
“What’s more, according to our tests, that child has an enormous likelihood of surpassing the current Homelander.”
“If he truly does lose control, we’ll simply dispose of him and replace him.”
“That child?”
At these words, no surprise showed on Madelyn’s face—only a flash of comprehension in her eyes.
That child?
Alex, still in his own lounge, heard this much, and a giant question mark surfaced in his mind.
Who was this child?
Someone with an enormous likelihood of surpassing him in terms of power?
Alex carefully cast his mind back over the plot of the original work, but the more he thought, the more puzzled he became.
Because as far as his impression went, there simply was no such being capable of standing on par with him in terms of power.
To put it plainly.
In the TV series, Homelander was the strongest existence there was.
Even in that rotten heap of a finale, he was only brought down through scheming, defeated by several people joining forces.
And as for anyone who measured up to him one-on-one, in the entire show there was no one besides Soldier Boy.
And Soldier Boy, obviously, could hardly be described as a child.
‘Could it be Ryan?’
If anything, as the child Homelander had forced upon Butcher’s wife,
Ryan in the original work had, you could say, inherited every one of Homelander’s abilities.
Whether flight, or super strength, or super defense, super hearing, and so on.
And it was precisely because of his existence that, at the finale of the original work, Homelander was at last defeated.
But the Ryan of the present…
If Alex remembered correctly, was still just a clueless little kid who knew nothing.
He hadn’t even begun to awaken his superpowers.
He merely lived under Vought’s surveillance with Becca, Butcher’s wife, kept as insurance to counterbalance Homelander.
But if it wasn’t Ryan, then who could the child Edgar spoke of be?
For a moment, Alex sank into deep contemplation.