NOVEL WEB [9] : Compound V: A Global Gamble
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Roger had forgotten one important thing all this time.
Besides the assassinations, Homelander had done something else.
He had taken the company's Compound V and had A-Train deliver it around the world, injecting it into adults to awaken their superpowers.
Homelander's reason for doing this wasn't to throw the world into chaos. He was still doing it for Madelyn.
He knew Madelyn wanted superheroes to enter national defense, but the Department of Defense didn't want superhumans in their ranks.
Normally, this issue would take a long time to resolve, if it ever did. But what if superhumans appeared in other parts of the world?
If there were superheroes, it wouldn't be surprising if supervillains appeared too, right?
If supervillains that the Department of Defense couldn't handle appeared in other parts of the world, then to deal with these supervillains, the Department would have no choice but to agree to let superheroes into national defense.
So Homelander had A-Train deliver Compound V everywhere to create supervillains.
However, this plan was still in the experimental stage. Currently, the only relatively successful test subject was a woman named Kimiko. She had been captured by mercenaries sent by Homelander and was now in a basement somewhere in the US, watched over by a gang.
Of course, besides Kimiko, Vought had also built a facility similar to a mental hospital to conduct these human experiments to turn people into superhumans.
Lamplighter, a former member of The Seven, was responsible for guarding this laboratory.
However, since this wasn't related to Roger, he didn't plan to deal with it now. Currently, Kimiko's situation was more pressing.
Due to an overdose of Compound V, Kimiko had memory problems, causing her to forget her identity. But if she remembered, all the clues would lead back to Vought and Homelander.
Roger didn't want to take the blame for what Homelander had done. Although he was Homelander now, if he played it carefully, he could distance himself from this.
After all, he and Homelander were essentially two different people now. Whether explaining it as a doppelganger or someone else becoming Homelander, Roger had many ways to clear his name.
"This f***ed up life."
Even though it was Homelander who had done these things, Roger had to clean up the mess. He was filled with anger.
He rarely wore casual clothes, but now he put on casual wear and a pair of glasses, even letting his hair down without gel.
Just like how Superman wasn't recognized when he wore glasses, Roger thought that with glasses on, unless someone observed his face closely, no one would recognize him...
"Homelander?"
"...?"
Just as Roger was thinking this, he was immediately proven wrong. As he was about to take the elevator down, he ran into Starlight, who was also heading down. She looked at Roger, studied him for a moment, and then called out in surprise.
Roger's mouth twitched involuntarily. He stared at Starlight and asked:
"You... recognized me?"
"Uh, I didn't at first, but... this is the floor with The Seven's dormitories..."
"Damn it..."
Roger wanted to slap himself. He had forgotten such a simple thing.
Fortunately, there was no one else around except Starlight. Roger took a deep breath and said:
"Alright, Starlight... no, Annie. I hope you can pretend you didn't see anything and just treat me like a normal person, okay?"
"But..." Starlight was about to say something, but noticing Roger's expression, she quickly changed her words:
"Okay, Homelander..."
"John. You can call me John, or you can call me Roger. I prefer Roger."
Roger said to Starlight.
Starlight pressed the button for the first floor and then asked, "John... Roger? I don't understand why you have two names."
"Because I didn't choose the first one. Sorry... I don't want to talk about it."
Roger sighed.
John was Homelander's real name.
But apart from Vought's top executives, no one knew Homelander's name, and even Vought's executives didn't know how much Homelander hated this name.
The name John came from the first part of "John Doe," meaning an unnamed person. It wasn't a name a normal person would choose.
After all, Homelander had been Vought's test subject since childhood. What good name could you expect from those heartless capitalists?
So not only did Homelander dislike this name, Roger didn't like it either. He preferred his name from his previous life.
"Alright, Roger..."
Starlight keenly noticed that Roger didn't want to mention the name John, and smartly chose to call Homelander by the name Roger.
Then, as the elevator was running, Starlight suddenly said:
"By the way, about Deep's situation, I haven't thanked you yet."
"What? Oh, that." Roger, lost in thought, was momentarily confused before remembering what Starlight was referring to. He replied, "It's nothing. Deep did something wrong, so he should apologize. Actually, if you were willing to use the power of public opinion, you could probably even get Deep kicked out of The Seven."
"Public opinion... you mean fans?"
"Yeah, fans are a simple group but with incredibly strong fighting power. They'll do anything for their idols, and attacking others their idols don't like is what they do best. It's almost... like a religion."
Roger said with a sigh.
Whether in the world before his transmigration or in the world of The Boys, fans - or more accurately, irrational fanatics - were a group easily incited.
They might not know what their idols have done or how shady they are behind the scenes, but as soon as something happens to their idol, they become like uncontrolled beasts, biting everything in sight.
Even Roger, who now had a large fan base, felt a bit of fear towards these 'beasts'.
Hearing Roger's words, Starlight looked at him and asked, "From what you're saying, it seems... you don't like these fans very much?"
"What? No, that's not possible."
Roger's mouth twitched, and then he glanced at the camera in the elevator and said to Starlight:
"Although fans' behavior can sometimes be troublesome for their idols, don't you think they can be quite adorable at times?"
After saying this, Roger coughed dryly to change the subject. He looked over Starlight, who was also in casual clothes, and asked:
"By the way, where are you going now? I thought the public opinion about you had turned around? Where's your hero costume?"
After finishing her team-up mission with Deep, Starlight had encountered two men trying to assault a young girl while she was heading home in casual clothes.
With her sense of justice, Starlight had dealt with the two young men and saved the girl.
But what Starlight hadn't expected was that someone had filmed her saving the girl. However, the person filming hadn't captured the victim, only filming Starlight attacking the men.
Encountering such an incident on her first day out was understandably infuriating for Vought.
Ashley had simply cancelled all of Starlight's activities, forcing Starlight to change out of her hero costume for the past few days.
However, Roger remembered that yesterday, the victim had publicly told the truth online. Starlight should have resumed her activities by now, so why was she still in casual clothes?