He moved forward in a daze. Today was not a day he wanted to dive into deep anguish. The more he thought about it, the more his mood plummeted.
But thoughts have a funny way of not following your wishes. They kept dragging up memories from the past.
Atra’s childhood wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Back when he barely remembered anything, his parents died.
Though his memories were hazy like a fog, it was likely that they were perished by a monster.
Even in this so-called era of peace, incidents involving monsters occurred steadily. Atra and his parents were caught in one such incident.
Amidst all that chaos, Atra managed to survive, and from the moment he faced death, his memories became vivid.
He could still remember the monster lunging at him. Its body was several times bigger than his, its drool hanging grotesquely from its gaping maw filled with countless sharp teeth.
If it hadn’t been for some heroic intervention, Atra would have been torn to shreds by those pointy teeth.
A dramatic rescue. Atra, left alone after losing his parents, was left with a deep wound in his heart.
He lost his parents. They weren’t the worst parents out there. Even in the blurry memories, they seemed to care for him in their own way. At least they tried to fulfill their roles as parents.
Naturally, it was sad. After being sent to a temporary residence, he wailed for days. His parents, who were like gods to him, were consumed by a monster right before his eyes.
At the same time, he realized something.
If he had power, this wouldn’t have happened.
Such a simple truth was lost on him as a child. The world seemed so bright; he thought the brightness would last forever.
But the world wasn’t that peaceful. It was too late for him to realize that.
They say luck and misfortune come together, and Atra was definitely a case in point.
He awakened his magical power. That was his stroke of luck. He had a chance to become stronger. Even though he hadn’t manifested a unique ability, he had gained magical power—better than nothing!
Since those early days, Atra had entered the Elementary Academy, sweating and toiling hard.
He awakened his magical power. Out of the entire population, only a few met the criteria for awakening. In some ways, he was superior to others.
At that time, as he entered the Elementary Academy, Atra looked around.
Everyone had awakened magical powers. The students before and behind him in line did too, and most of the professors who taught them were also superhumans who had awakened their powers.
There were hardly anyone weaker than Atra. Many had awakened even before him and had been training longer.
There simply wasn’t enough confidence to be found. There were too many people better than him around, and even they were said to be just a breath away from death.
So, he worked hard.
Did others not work hard too? Of course, they did. While there were some who slacked off, most kids were striving to rise high in the future.
Everyone had the same amount of time, and it wasn’t just Atra who was working hard while others were playing around.
So he worked even harder. He reduced his leisure and filled the time with training.
He slept less. They said recovery was important, but being freshly awakened, he had plenty of recovery capacity.
“Fun time?” What’s that? He had none of that. Whenever his eyes were open, he was always trying to get stronger.
Even while eating, he practiced using his magical power. He’d sleep with a magical power meter in hand, closing his eyes just for a bit before waking up at dawn to head to the training room.
His delicate palms would get torn, bleeding, and blisters of all sizes would form on the soles of his feet.
Sometimes he even shed tears of blood. His magical power backfired, causing him minor internal injuries.
As time passed, Atra graduated from the Elementary Academy with decent grades.
The top-tier students were those with unique abilities or had benefitted from familial support, boasting access to precious elixirs and excellent early education.
He went through a similar or even harsher regimen at the Secondary Academy.
Atra graduated with good marks. He still hadn’t manifested a unique ability but could fight on par with those who had.
By then, Atra was regarded as a promising candidate. He even received offers for sponsorship.
At the High Academy, he grew even more. He wasn’t quite at the level to be active on the front lines, but he could hold his own.
After graduating from the High Academy, he hoped to enroll in Shio-ram, but alas, he was rejected.
It was frustrating but understandable.
He had achieved good results, but they were merely from the academy he was in.
There were many superhuman training institutions in the world, and even more who were better than him.
No matter how good Atra was, he still hadn’t manifested a unique power.
He wanted to get stronger. So after graduating from the High Academy, he prepared and headed to the front lines of Africa.
That choice… Honestly, it would be a lie to say he didn’t regret it. He realized he had been sheltered in the confines of the academy.
He thought he had managed to survive due to sheer luck over basic skills.
Few dared come to the front lines with skills as rudimentary as Atra’s, but most of those few didn’t even leave behind remains.
Surviving after having limbs torn off was sheer luck.
At the same time, he began to acquire strength. His skills saw a steep upward trajectory as he faced actual combat.
Whether it was just how things were or if Atra was just fit for real combat, he had definitely grown.
Around that time, his unique ability manifested. It wasn’t something innate; it was a power developed through effort.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have any innate gifts. Atra was nonetheless gifted, and his power belonging to the light attribute became his unique ability.
Whatever the reason, Atra had become stronger. In just a few years, he wasn’t just a promising academy candidate; he had the skills to perform actively in the field.
Wearing an honorary title of an advanced hero, he was active in the magic realm when he sustained a significant injury.
While subjugating a horde of monsters trying to cross the front lines, he was ambushed by a high-tier monster specialized in stealth.
He barely managed to respond and counterattack, but in the process, he sustained a long gash on his side. He finished off the subjugation, suppressing his innards that were trying to spill out with his magical power.
It was anything but a minor wound. If it were just a regular injury, he would have recovered, but a cursed magic had settled into the wound.
He had no choice but to take a recovery period.
After several years, he returned to a world that looked deceptively peaceful. Having returned to a place commonly referred to as the interior, Atra had nothing special to do.
In his childhood, he ignored the advice to take up hobbies for his mental health and focused solely on training, and after graduating from the High Academy, he had dashed straight to the front lines, leaving him with nothing to do back here.
Moreover, due to his injuries, there wasn’t much he could do, either.
After dawdling away the days in a daze, he finally got a call from someone he had some acquaintance with.
It was a notice that a reunion was taking place among graduates of the High Academy, the very academy Atra hailed from. The timing was just right for Atra, who had come out to the interior.
Though it was annoying, he found himself reluctantly heading to the campus of the High Academy for the reunion after persistent persuasion.
And…
– “Gyaaaah! How am I supposed to realize this…!”
He ran into that kid.
.
.
.
He moved forward in a daze. With each step he took, he trampled on weeds. They weren’t just random scraggly weeds, but ones that showed signs of having been tended to.
The surroundings. Once his eyes were open, he was forced to see.
An open space that looked like flat ground, beautifully managed weeds, mounds of dirt sprouting here and there, and a tall stone laid before them…
It looked like what one might expect from a graveyard. A place to honor the deceased by burying their bodies.
He didn’t want to be there. In his heart, he truly didn’t want to visit. Once he came here once, he would have to spend days with his mind in chaos.
Nevertheless, he visited without fail each year. Before being a bumbling idiot, he needed to visit to be more than just a beast.
Atra didn’t see himself as a good adult. If he had a conscience, he wouldn’t have thought that way.
If he took all the samples of society and averaged them, he might fall into the upper tier.
Atra wouldn’t kill someone just because he was irritated, nor did he indulge in frivolities while slinking around in the shadows.
He didn’t giggle at people killing each other and wasn’t one to stomp on someone dying right in front of him.
But that was a pretty ugly excuse. How could that sort be included in any statistics? Those kinds of bugs shouldn’t be counted.
If he retook the stats, Atra would fall below average.
While he didn’t kill out of annoyance, once someone crossed a line, he wouldn’t hesitate to smack them down. While he didn’t lurk in the shadows like it was his home, he wouldn’t shy away from some herbal recreational use when stress piled up.
He would help someone dying in front of him, but even if he had the luxury, he wouldn’t bother to save someone far away.
A top-tier hero.
To someone, it might be a lifelong goal, and to others, it might be an honorable position for noble heroes.
But to Atra, it was merely a cumbersome title.
She didn’t ascend to this position with pure nobility in her heart. She was simply active out of necessity, and somehow, she ended up in that role.
‘Sigh…’
Atra’s legs, wandering through the graveyard aimlessly, came to a stop.
She held her breath for a moment. Her chest felt tight. An indescribable pressure weighed down on her. If it were an external attack, she could shake it off; but internal ones, there was no way to dispel.
It had been several years since her last visit. She had somewhat gotten used to it. Kneeling down, Atra took out the alcohol she brought.
It was pricey booze, but in Atra’s level of wealth, it wouldn’t be noticeable.
She carefully placed it by the gravestone.
Atra didn’t particularly enjoy drinking. But that cheeky disciple of hers had an odd fondness for it against the grain of propriety.
Next, she took out a towel, wet it, and cleaned the gravestone. Then she dried it again with the dry towel.
This was a procedure she had grown accustomed to over the years.
But the churning in her heart never seemed to grow familiar.
After meticulously wiping her parents’ gravestones, Atra stared vacantly at her disciple’s grave.
Atra wasn’t a good adult, nor was she a good teacher.
When she took on a disciple, Atra was an advanced hero.
There was a significant gap in skills compared to now. She could walk around with her head held high, but viewed from her perspective, it was an incredibly lacking time.
Moreover, her teaching skills were lacking. To put it bluntly, her own strength was due to talent more than effort.
The entirety of her training had consisted of her academy experiences. She had hardly received any education on the front lines and had solely learned by watching and emulating.
Thus, teaching her disciple was fraught with tribulations.
She lacked both talent and experience in teaching. As a result, she had no confidence that she had properly taught anything.
‘……’
But it was undeniably a time of happiness. Since losing her parents, she had always lived thinking about strength.
Her once drab-colored life began to brighten with her disciple’s presence.
So she had a tendency to spoil them a bit.
Despite everything being training, how could she bring herself to strike a child, so she took it easy?
She had often indulged the child’s whims during training. Rather than being overly strict, she would play along with the little antics.
She had an unfounded confidence that this child would do well. More talented than herself, the child had a cheerful disposition that brought joy and happiness to those around her.
She thought her disciple would be a better person than her.
Teacher and student… It was perhaps the strongest bond she had ever formed with anyone. Oh, how precious that bond was.
That bond was cut a few years ago. Not by the parties involved, but by outside interference.
The disaster known as the dungeon. That damned thing took not only her parents but also the disciple she had come to consider family.
That child had lost their parents to monsters in their childhood too. And then awakened and continued attending the academy.
Standing before the inaccessible grave, Atra had thought vacantly.
This was not a child who was meant to die. There was no way they should meet such an end.
Atra’s disciple had immeasurable talent. Full of brightness and energy, they brought laughter and happiness around them… they should never have met such a fate.
All for a mere rampage in a Level 4 dungeon. With her disciple’s skills, they should have been able to protect themselves.
But her disciple had left nothing behind except for a severed arm and scattered flesh.
She despaired… and regretted.
She should never have taught like that.
She shouldn’t have indulged in their whims. Not wanting to hurt them, to hope they wouldn’t feel pain, she shouldn’t have taken the easy way out.
To ensure they wouldn’t die to such a catastrophe… she should have instilled her disciple with the ability to preserve their own life against any threat.
It was Atra’s fault. No matter what anyone else might say, Atra herself felt guilty.
She was a horrifyingly bad teacher. She was the ridiculous jerk who got her disciple killed.
Unable to bear those thoughts, she returned to the front lines. She released her feelings of guilt and loathing onto monsters.
She didn’t care about the concerns of those around her. She just wanted to consume her dark feelings.
It was only a few years after that when the Chancellor’s request reached her… just a handful of months ago.
‘Lee Ha-yul…’
Someone she didn’t want to take as a disciple… though she had no choice but to teach, her past memories wouldn’t allow her to cut corners.
This time, she did things differently. She didn’t handle him ambiguously. While it might have been fine for a superhuman, it was difficult for a child who had just awakened.
Harsh lessons, as quickly and surely as possible to have him grow strong.
While training Lee Ha-yul… each time she saw his face scrunching up in pain, her heart felt uneasy, but she didn’t stop to avoid repeating her past mistakes.
She also tried not to get attached. She would give her all in teaching, but one never knew how a person’s future would unfold. She didn’t want to experience the pain of loss again.
– “Ugh…”
…Perhaps she might have given just a little.
“Huuh…”
A deep sigh escaped her. The place was enough to make her thoughts feel jumbled.
– Ding!
It was then that her smart watch alarm went off.
[Lee Ha-yul]
The contact from the kid she had just been thinking about. Atra opened the hologram with a complicated expression.
▶Lee Ha-yul: Professor lmn (now)
An awkwardly interrupted message. Frowning, she opened up Lee Ha-yul’s profile.
[Connection Interrupted]
‘…What?’
Connection interrupted. Such words caught Atra’s eyes.
That was odd. Her smartwatch, connected by the Tower of Harmony, was losing its connection?
Such phenomena only occurred in dungeons and towers.
Lee Ha-yul mentioned he was visiting a dungeon. The cautious Lee Ha-yul had asked if it was alright to go. She had merely nodded in response.
A disconnection… It could happen.
But how did he send such a message in the first place if he was already deep in a dungeon? And how did the connection drop immediately after sending such a message? Why did the message get awkwardly cut off like that?
A sense of unease filled her.
‘…It can’t be.’
Anxiety washed over her.
Today was the anniversary of her late disciple. The day they left this world.
On such a day, Lee Ha-yul was going to a dungeon. What kind of coincidence was this? She nodded her head, her heart heavy with complexity.
On such a day, the same accident occurring to the very child she was teaching… it was absurd.
– Ding! Ding! Ding!
[Currently, an unannounced dungeon rampage has occurred in District 2, Siphynah, Scotland. Confirmation of isolation in the area. The heroes responsible for the protection of the vicinity are urged to head immediately to the site of the rampage.]
That couldn’t be.
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