The Final Stretch
"...Gasp!"
Clawing her way back from the brink with a ragged gasp, a young girl miraculously opened her eyes inside a sterile hospital room, frantically looking around.
"...Ah?!"
Her eyes went wide with sudden realization.
"P-Patient?!"
"Dear God..."
The attending physician and nurses, who had already been preparing themselves for the worst, stared at her in utter astonishment as she pushed herself up from the bed.
"We were certain she wouldn't make it through the night."
"Did her condition suddenly take a turn for the better?"
"...I can't say for sure until we run a comprehensive examination."
The girl's name was Ariel Everray.
She was one of the precious few survivors of the Seminar Tragedy, having remained comatose for months on end following that horrific disaster.
"E-Excuse me..."
Yet as if by divine intervention, she had finally regained consciousness. Her trembling voice broke through the lingering haze that clouded her mind.
"Is Professor Oh Ji-seok safe?"
"............"
The excited murmurs among the medical staff died away in an instant.
"When I last saw him, he was horribly injured... It was bad enough that he would've died without immediate medical attention..."
In the awkward silence that settled over the room, she pressed on, her voice sounding dazed and fragile.
"B-But we promised to meet again alive..."
Her words began to trail off.
"So..."
As the grogginess faded and her senses fully returned, the scene she had witnessed right before blacking out slowly replayed itself across her mind.
"............"
Professor Oh Ji-seok—the man who had sworn they would survive and meet again—growing cold and lifeless in the arms of the Top-Ranking Hero, Great Order.
And the shredded flesh clinging to Great Order's fingernails as the hero held him with a vacant, hollow stare.
"Please, calm down. Right now, you must rest—"
"What happened to him?"
"...!"
"I asked you what happened to him!"
A violent crimson aura erupted from Ariel's body.
"...Should we administer a sedative?"
"The subject has terrible control over her ability. Given the sheer scale of destruction recorded in the surrounding area when she was recovered..."
"Provoking her right now would be reckless."
While the doctors gathered in the room urgently conferred in hushed tones, Ariel's irises burned blood-red.
"Why isn't anyone answering me...?"
Her body was still in catastrophic shape, yet her consciousness burned with terrifying clarity.
"...Why?"
Seeing her volatile mental state, the doctors traded anxious glances.
Administering a sedative without proper care was practically guaranteed to trigger a violent backlash. Yet leaving her unchecked was impossible. Her aura had already begun superheating the air, drawing beads of cold sweat from the medical staff.
Someone in this room had to step up. Someone had to break the heartbreaking news that had consumed the entire internet regarding the academy instructor, Oh Ji-seok.
"Everyone, step outside. I'll take full responsibility. You all know what I'm capable of."
Stepping forward in the face of the volatile standoff was Ariel's attending physician, a woman with extensive experience in psychological counseling.
"Doctor, but—"
"Hiding it right now might make things easier for us, but we can't keep the truth buried forever. Not when the entire world is screaming about it."
"........"
"If she finds out by accident later on, her rampage will be ten times worse. If she must be told, it has to be right now."
The other doctors nodded at her sound reasoning. While avoiding agitation was paramount, they had no right to strip away her right to the truth. Moreover, the patient possessed an explosive energy-emission ability. If she discovered the deceit after the fact, the resulting casualties would be catastrophic.
"Listen to me carefully, Ariel."
The physician gazed down at the half-crazed student with sorrowful eyes. Once the other staff members had cleared the room to evade any potential blast, a heavy hush descended upon the private ward.
"The academy instructor who saved you... Professor Oh Ji-seok..."
Ariel hung onto every syllable coming from the doctor's mouth.
"...died in the line of duty that day."
The doctor's voice quivered ever so faintly. Ariel froze solid where she sat.
"I am deeply sorry to deliver such news."
In that very instant, the girl's crimson aura surged with tremendous fury.
The atmosphere warped into a shimmering mirage under the blistering heat, right until a sharp chill hissed across the room.
Frost billowed from the physician's body, quenching the suffocating temperature.
"This is a hospital."
Exhaling a weary breath, the Rank 15 Hero, Frozen Queen, spoke with steady composure.
"Please, calm yourself."
"It's... my fault."
At the words of the hero-physician, Ariel barely managed to pull herself back from the edge of losing control. She reined in her aura, her voice cracking with suppressed sobs.
"It's no different than if I killed him myself..."
"............"
"I refused to listen... I just had to be stubborn..."
Her head hung low, and tears began to splash against the hospital sheets.
"I have no right to be a hero..."
"Ariel, that's—"
"If it weren't for me, my sister would have been healthy back then, too..."
Frozen Queen opened her mouth to object, only to fall silent. Offering empty platitudes would accomplish nothing for the girl before her; it was better to simply let her grieve. Allowing her to release the unmanageable storm inside was the only viable path.
...Why is she this strong?
Even while pushing her cryokinetic ability, Frozen Queen had struggled to suppress the girl's searing heat.
"...If only I could turn back time."
As Frozen Queen endured Ariel's grief and suppressed fury with sweat beading on her brow, the girl began to murmur softly.
"If only I could go back to that moment..."
"If I were given just one more chance..."
Finally, the searing heat radiating from her skin began to die down.
"...No matter what price I have to pay, I would take it."
"Phew."
Only then did Frozen Queen breathe a sigh of relief, beginning to withdraw her power.
"L-Lady Frozen!"
Without warning, the ward door was kicked wide open. Her sidekick, who doubled as a resident physician, came barging into the room.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Frozen Queen scowled, a sharp frost prickling the air around her.
"I explicitly ordered everyone to stay out. Are you trying to agitate the patient—"
"That's not what's important right now!!"
Yet her sidekick stamped her feet in pure panic, ignoring the freezing aura radiating from her superior.
"The news... Turn on the news, quickly!"
Struck by the sheer terror in the girl's voice, Frozen Queen grabbed the remote from the bedside table and clicked on the television. Her eyes widened in horror.
"What...?"
Barely any time had passed since the seminar massacre, and now this? With the Top-Ranking Heroes already decimated, the surviving forces had no hope of stopping a Non-Standard Grade Calamity.
"C-Calm down. We need to prepare for deployment—"
Yet that was merely the tip of the iceberg.
The details flashing across the broadcast were so despair-inducing that even a seasoned veteran like Frozen Queen stood paralyzed.
"Lady Frozen..."
"............"
"Do we... do we really have to go...?"
Even her usually cheerful sidekick uttered words that no hero should ever dare speak.
"Get out of the way!!"
"Aaaagh!"
Beep! Beeeeep—!!
Outside the window, a frantic ocean of screaming citizens was already shoving one another, fleeing in a desperate stampede for survival.
"...It's finally crumbling."
Gazing out at the madness with a hollow stare, Frozen Queen squeezed her eyes shut and whispered.
"The era of heroes."
"No."
It was at that exact moment.
"It's too early to call it."
Fixing her glare upon the image of Great Order displayed on the screen, Ariel rose from the bed, reigniting the dying embers within her into a ferocious inferno.
"Ariel, stop! You can't!"
"People have always told me I couldn't."
Aware of the ruined state of the girl's body, Frozen Queen lunged forward in a panic to restrain her.
"Even my sister said so when she was drunk."
Yet Ariel brushed off the hero's grasp with astonishing ease, stepping forward without hesitation.
"But he told me I could become a hero."
Radiating an aura thicker and darker than ever before, tears streaming freely down her cheeks, Ariel's eyes burned with unyielding resolve.
"It's time to become the first Ariel Everray."
Barely a few seconds later, she burst through the hospital doors and charged straight toward the scene of the catastrophe.
Meanwhile, at the Dominating Hands Headquarters.
"............"
The handful of villains remaining in the base stared at the central monitor with taut expressions.
Standing at the very front with an impassive expression, Dice received the timid text message from Pandora's drone.
".........."
Glancing aside at the screen, Dice whispered in a low, chillingly calm voice.
"No. As long as you follow my lead, it will work."
"...And that's precisely the point."
Pandora's floating drone tilted in confusion.
"The original owner of the ability I borrowed will grant us as many chances as we need."
"...?"
"We keep doing it until it works."
On their briefing monitor, Ariel Everray was closing in on the epicenter of the catastrophe at unfathomable speed.
"Get ready, Pandora."
Watching the feed, Dice spoke with a faint tremor of tension beneath her steady voice.
"It's time to hack the system of the gods."
The end of the worst regression cycle was drawing near.