All-Out War
"Just what on earth were you hiding in here...?"
"Ah...!"
Kang Haneul, currently disguised as Oh Ji-seok, narrowed his eyes as he pulled out the mask cradled so protectively against Lumia’s stomach.
A heavy silence fell over the sparring ring.
"P-Professor... That's..."
As Ji-seok stared down blankly at the mask and began softly snapping his fingers, an utterly flustered Lumia rushed forward.
"Halt."
His cold voice cut through the air, sharp as a blade, punctuated by the rhythmic snap of his fingers.
"What is this, Cadet Lumia?"
"...It's a mask, sir."
"I don't believe that is what I asked."
Lumia froze in her tracks, cold sweat beading on her forehead. As Ji-seok resumed snapping his fingers, his voice dropped into an icy whisper.
"Cease the wordplay."
"......"
"The A-Class villain, Trauma. The most heinous supervillain to emerge in recent memory. Isn't this the very mask he wears?"
Ji-seok glared down at Lumia as he spoke, causing what little color remained in her face to drain away entirely.
"Where did you obtain this?"
"Well, that is..."
"Do you, by any chance, have ties to Trauma?" Ji-seok leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a low, accusatory murmur.
"No, sir!"
"Then why are you carrying it on your person?"
Her breathing turned ragged. Staring at the mask with an agonizingly mournful gaze, Lumia answered, "...I found it on the Academy grounds a few days ago."
She could hardly admit that she had invested the last ten thousand won in her wallet to buy it from the campus store.
"Save the excuses and tell me the truth." Ji-seok curled the corner of his lip into a mocking smirk, turning the mask over in his hands as he leisurely snapped his fingers, steadily tightening the pressure. "Does it make any sense to claim you casually picked up a mask worn by an A-Class villain off the street?"
"C-Could it have fallen off during the incident at the Academy, and... the cleanup crew simply missed it?"
"Plausible enough. But why keep it in your possession without reporting it to anyone?"
Naturally, Lumia had no answer for that.
"The mask is confiscated."
"...!"
A merciless sentence fell upon her ears.
"This is more than enough grounds to refer you to the disciplinary committee, but given that it is your first day, I shall let it slide."
"Ah..."
"Separately, however, you are hereby penalized twenty demerit points."
Even after being hit with the catastrophic penalty of twenty demerits on day one, Lumia's eyes remained completely fixated on the mask.
I just got that baby, too... she muttered inwardly, watching the mask depart from her life forever with a hollow, devastated expression. I spent every penny on that... Now I don't even have enough mobile data left to search your name online...
The warmth that had enveloped her stomach suddenly vanished, leaving behind an empty void—and with it, the pangs of hunger she had forgotten came rushing back with a vengeance.
"Cadet Lumia?"
"Ah, yes!" Shaken from her stupor by Ji-seok's voice, she hastily gathered her wits and straightened her posture.
"Shall we begin our sparring match?"
The sorrow of parting with an SSS-rank collector's item faded in a heartbeat. Hearing his words, a faint smile blossomed on Lumia's lips.
"...Of course, Professor."
As the top recruit of her class and the number-one ranked prospect, she possessed absolute confidence.
"Let us begin immediately."
Absolute confidence that she would lose flawlessly.
"Who do you think's gonna win?"
"I mean, obviously the white-haired girl."
Frankly speaking, very few students among the audience expected Professor Oh Ji-seok to triumph over Lumia.
"She's never taken a single clean hit up until now."
"...Yeah, it was like that during the entrance exams, too."
It was all due to Lumia's ability, which remained shrouded in complete mystery.
"Attacks literally don't work on her. How are you supposed to beat that?"
Across every mock battle and live-combat trial to date, Lumia had not suffered a single defeat. Every strike directed at her had mysteriously veered off course or missed entirely.
If the former Rank 1 Hero, Justia, was hailed as the "Invincible Hero" due to an overwhelming offensive might that crushed anyone in her path, then Lumia, the Child of Prophecy, bore that very same title because of an untouchable defense that no one could ever reach.
In contrast, Professor Oh Ji-seok's registered ability, 'Barrier'—while a respectable defensive tool—was strictly an inferior trick when compared to Lumia's absurd protection.
CRUNCH!
Yet all of the students' preconceptions shattered into dust the very moment Ji-seok drove his fist with everything he had straight into Lumia's lower abdomen.
"...Hk?!"
Lumia shivered violently as the fist sank deep into her gut. Letting out a choked gasp, she collapsed directly onto her knees.
"Ugh, ngh..." Trembling all over, she slowly forced her head up to look at Ji-seok. "M-My ability... didn't work?"
As Lumia muttered those terrified words, an instant wave of murmurs rippled through the watching cadets.
"She got taken down that brutally?"
"Holy crap. Who the hell is this guy?"
"Did he fake his ability?"
"...Just what kind of place is the Secret Intelligence Bureau?"
Amid the spiraling chaos, Oh Ji-seok—or rather, Kang Haneul—looked down at Lumia trembling prostrate before his feet.
What on earth is she doing? He fought with all his might to mask his sheer bewilderment behind an impassive poker face. I haven't even started what I planned to do yet!
A few minutes later.
"I concede, Professor." Kneeling at my feet while clutching her battered stomach, Lumia spoke in a wavering voice. "For the first time in my life, I have suffered complete and utter defeat... at your hands."
With that, she bowed flat to the floor, formally surrendering the match.
A heavy hush washed over the crowd.
Witnessing her miserable state, the students fell into a solemn, stunned silence.
This wasn't what I had in mind at all.
Of course, beating Lumia half to death had indeed been my goal if given the chance. But I had never expected her to take the hit so obediently.
That was why I had been weaving psychological suggestions throughout our conversation from the start. Ordering her to halt when she reached for the mask while snapping my fingers, and snapping them again when telling her to drop the wordplay and excuses—all of it had been deliberate groundwork for a subconscious trigger.
My hypnosis wasn't limited to the Hypnosis App. Even if I couldn't plunge someone into a deep trance without it, inducing a light hypnotic suggestion through verbal conditioning was trivial. As long as the target was focused on me, anchoring the command to "halt" to the sound of a finger snap was child's play.
Strange...
If the conditioning had taken hold properly, snapping my fingers the instant she activated her power should have interrupted and suppressed it. For some reason, my hypnosis never worked well on her, but it seemed to hold sway for at least a split second.
"Haaah... haah..."
And yet, Lumia hadn't activated her ability at all until my fist sank clean into her gut. She had taken my full-force strike completely defenseless. Naturally, the outcome was the very first defeat of her life, just as she had acknowledged.
Why does she look so thrilled, though?
Something felt profoundly uncomfortable. Was it just my imagination, or was that a faint blush creeping across her face as she drooled and clutched her battered stomach?
"I guess... something like this doesn't change the route after all..."
"...?"
"Still, he attacked me for the first time... There really is hope..."
As I stood quietly looking down at her, she glanced up, scanning me up and down before murmuring something under her breath and dropping her head once more.
...Well, whatever the reason, did it turn out for the best?
I had no idea what was running through her head, but for now, the situation wasn't half bad. Because I had crushed Lumia far more decisively than anyone had anticipated, the dissatisfied, skeptical glares the students had been giving me had vanished without a trace. In all likelihood, I wouldn't find a single cadet daring to object to my curriculum from here on out.
Though seeing pure dread etched into those children's eyes did sting my conscience just a bit. If possible, I had wanted to be a kind instructor. A real shame.
"Before we commence our proper lesson, there is something I wish to impart to all of you."
Turning those thoughts over in my mind, I stepped behind the lectern and addressed the cadets, who remained seated in solemn quiet.
If ever the day came where I stood to teach someone...
"My father once told me never to become a hero."
...these were the words I had always longed to share.
"My mother said the same. As did my colleagues, and my friends. Not a single person in my life ever told me to become a hero."
It was the absolute truth.
The Concept of Hypnosis—a power whose past wielders, without exception, had all been villains. Treated as top-tier even among psychic abilities, it was precisely for that reason a curse destined to be shunned by everyone. Burdened with numerous other defects on top of that, being a hero had been nothing more than an unreachable star in the night sky.
"Except for one single person."
Quietly reminiscing on days long past, a faint smile touched my lips as I looked across the room. "Why did all of you choose to become heroes?"
Surely, these thirteen cadets before me each had a moment when they resolved to walk this path.
"I ask that you never forget that reason."
Never forget that moment, and keep moving forward.
"As long as you remember it, you will surely become the greatest heroes."
That was what I wanted to convey to them—and to Ariel.
"Now then, shall we begin our lesson?"
By the time I finished saying my piece, half the class period had already slipped away.
"What I am about to teach you from this moment on..." Time had grown tight, but it would suffice. "...concerns the humanoid magical beasts that have been sighted with alarming frequency of late."
It was high time these future seedlings learned the truth of this world.
"Tell me, cadets."
An all-out war against the kaijin had already begun.
"Did you know that a human being can turn into a magical beast?"
Starting from this very moment.
Meanwhile, around that same time.
"...I have a report, Chairman."
Beijing, once the capital of the People's Republic of China, was now classified as a Grade 1 Calamity Beast occupied zone.
"What is it?"
"It is the chemical analysis of the drug Dominating Hands recently developed."
Walking through an underground facility nestled within the ruins, the Chairman of the Hero Association accepted the dossier from his secretary and furrowed his brow.
"This is..."
"Yes. As you can see, when administered to a human harboring the 'Truth,' the drug induces an excessive awakening process, causing..."
"...them to lose the ability to maintain human form any longer."
Murmuring under his breath, the Chairman handed the file back to his secretary and quickened his pace. "If this drug is commercialized, we are finished."
"Precisely, sir."
"Has mass production begun?"
"Our intelligence is insufficient to confirm, but we speculate it has just gotten underway."
"We must stop them at all costs." With a chilling edge to his voice, he barked an order to his secretary. "Convene every Top Hero."
"Understood, sir."
"...Excluding Rank 2 and Rank 3."
Before them stretched an enormous, cavernous laboratory.
"And summon the Child of Prophecy, Lumia. Bring her as well."
Gazing intently at the colossal cultivation vat standing in the center of the chamber, the Chairman glanced back at his secretary as if an afterthought had just struck him. "By the way, how are the efforts to establish contact with Trauma progressing?"
"We are mobilizing all available personnel to track him down."
"Good. As well you should."
The Chairman nodded in quiet satisfaction upon hearing her response.
"A few days ago, the Child of Prophecy told me so herself."
"......"
"'He will undoubtedly become our most steadfast ally,' she said."
Convinced that everything would proceed without a hitch as long as the Child of Prophecy was by their side, a deeply gratified smile spread across the Chairman's face.