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"R-Run for your lives!"
"Aaaah!"
The siren warning of a Non-Standard Grade Calamity shrieked through the air, sending panicked citizens shoving past one another as they fled in a chaotic, receding tide. Under normal circumstances, at least one hero would have been on the scene to guide and direct the evacuation. But in the wake of the seminar catastrophe, hero personnel had been stretched paper-thin, leaving the surrounding streets in utter pandemonium.
Taking the roads is impossible, Ariel thought as she emerged onto the hospital rooftop, a vivid crimson aura billowing from her entire frame. The crowd is far too thick to weave through.
Though she had finally gained some measure of control over the immense power boiling within her for the first time in her life, sheer physical might alone couldn't grant her flight. Even so...
"Hup."
Leaping from rooftop to rooftop across the skyline was another matter entirely.
A thunderous boom tore through the air. With the explosive force coursing through her veins, traversing the heights was well within her reach.
The doctors and nurses who had rushed to the roof to restrain her could only stare in stunned silence as she kicked off the railing and launched into the open sky. Fierce winds whipped around her suspended form. It was a dizzying, precarious height where the slightest slip in balance could send her plummeting, yet despite possessing not a shred of practical combat experience, Ariel glided forward as effortlessly as if she were walking on air.
...It's warm.
A dazed expression drifted across her face as the sunlight bathed her skin. Her chest swelled, her heart hammering with an overwhelming surge of emotion.
"Watch me, Professor."
When everyone else had insisted she could never become a hero, he alone had believed in her, telling her that she could. In her mind's eye, it felt as though he were standing right there, reaching out to take her hand.
"Just watch me..."
And beside him, she envisioned Justia silently extending a hand of her own.
Her boots struck the gravel with a heavy thud, sticking a perfectly balanced landing atop her target rooftop.
"Haah."
Realizing that she was truly capable of doing this, Ariel locked her focus on the horizon and threw herself into another massive leap, rocketing straight toward the pitch-black shadow running amok in the distance.
"Wh-Who is that...?"
"I've never seen that hero before..."
"Doesn't she look familiar, though?"
Through live broadcast feeds, countless spectators watched her traverse the cityscape, their voices overlapping in disbelief.
"...You're right."
"She looks just like Justia."
"Now that you mention it... she's the spitting image of her..."
To the very last person, every single viewer was struck by the exact same thought.
Drawing in a deep breath after bounding across rooftops for what felt like an eternity, Ariel plummeted toward the pavement below. The sheer velocity of her descent struck the earth with a deafening crash, kicking up a colossal shroud of dirt and pulverized asphalt in every direction.
"Cough, cough..."
Ariel coughed as the dust cloud swallowed her. As the haze gradually drifted away, the monstrous silhouette raging in real time revealed its terrifying form before her eyes.
"At least Non-Standard Grade, they said..."
Its scale was overwhelming, capable of leveling adjacent skyscrapers with a single sweep of its limbs. An unidentified magical beast exuded an aura so terrifying that even seasoned top heroes would be paralyzed with dread. Reports had already pegged this cataclysm as several times stronger than the beast Justia had faced on the day she fell—a truly hopeless catastrophe.
"...It's heading for the downtown district."
Yet for some reason, its movements were remarkably sluggish, and by some miracle, there were still zero casualties. But if left unchecked, it would inevitably breach the densely populated residential sectors. In this desperate crisis, the Artificial Island—humanity's final sanctuary—stood on the brink of complete annihilation.
"Can I really win this?" Ariel murmured under her breath, feeling the colossal reservoir of power still coursing through her limbs. "...Can I protect everyone?"
She had sprinted out here driven by nothing more than an impulsive thirst for vengeance. Yet the moment she realized she was the only one present capable of facing the monster before her, the moment she saw the fleeing citizens tripping and tumbling in terror behind her, knowing their survival hung on her shoulders—the raw fury that had consumed her mind gave way to a swelling sense of responsibility and fighting spirit.
Crimson sparks crackled across her skin.
Yet what held her back until the very last was that melancholic, grieving voice of Justia echoing once more through her mind.
Never become a hero.
It felt as though the blood-soaked sister she had seen at the funeral was clinging to her arms, desperately holding her back from charging into battle. For a long moment, Ariel could not bring herself to take a step.
"...I'm sorry, Sis."
At last, forging a decision entirely her own, she took a stride forward.
"I'm going to become Ariel Everray."
In that instant, the ghostly hands of everyone who had ever told her she could never be a hero released their grip on her limbs. And from behind, an ethereal presence gently urged her forward.
Am I dreaming right now?
Straddling the blurred line between reality and illusion, Ariel hesitated for only a second before quietly gritting her teeth, narrowing her focus onto the looming shadow.
No. Even if this is a dream, it doesn't matter.
She kicked off the pavement and rocketed into the fray.
Because this... is what I truly want to do.
And so began a legendary clash—the opening act of the original story, its course subtly altered by destiny.
"Cough, hack..."
Wiping away the blood pooling at the corner of her mouth with her forearm, Ariel steadied her staggering footing. The shadow, which had thrashed about with seemingly boundless stamina, was finally subsiding after being slammed into the earth under her relentless onslaught.
Above Ariel and the beast, news helicopters hovered, their rotors thumping rhythmically through the smog. The eyes of the entire world were riveted upon her. As her flickering crimson aura flared back to life with a crackle, cheers erupted from all directions in the distance. The global news broadcasts and online forums were undoubtedly exploding with fervor over her heroics.
It was only natural. This was a magical beast so terrifying that even a resurrected Justia might not have guaranteed victory against it, yet a young girl bearing an uncanny resemblance to the fallen legend was subjugating it before their eyes. The dawn of a new era once this battle ended was already an indisputable certainty—and that era would surely bear the name Ariel Everray.
Yet the hero of the hour, Ariel herself, could only stare blankly at the woman who had collapsed before her.
"You're..."
As the shadow peeled away, the figure of the woman Ariel had glimpsed just before losing consciousness earlier was revealed.
"...It's you. The girl from back then."
Great Order. Former Hero Rank 13. A woman who had now been reduced to the host of an Unclassifiable shadow beast.
"I suppose... this is fate."
Throughout their life-and-death struggle, Ariel had come to understand the truth: that not a single civilian had perished despite such cataclysmic devastation, and that a novice hero like herself, who had only just learned to control her power, had managed to overwhelm an Unclassifiable shadow beast solely because this woman had been violently fighting it from within.
"Kill me."
That was the plea she pressed upon Ariel.
"I am a hideous monster."
"........."
"A monster who stole your hope over an absurd misunderstanding..."
Even as Great Order spoke, the shadows began to simmer across her flesh once more.
"...And one of the monsters destined to destroy this world."
As the miasma twisted into the shape of a mounted horseman, Ariel realized with chilling clarity what was coming.
"So please... kill me."
This fleeting breath was the only chance to stop her.
"I beg of you..."
Tears trailed down Great Order's cheeks.
A blinding blast of crimson lightning tore through the air.
A mere second later, Ariel's strike pierced straight through Great Order's heart.
"...Kh-urk."
Her body staggered, slumping forward as a torrent of blood spilled from her lips. Great Order—Kang Maru—looked up at Ariel gazing down at her.
The shadows shrieked in agony, disintegrating into thin air.
"...Thank you."
Watching the darkness scatter, Maru began to mutter in a faint, dying voice.
"Haneul-ah..."
Her mind had already drifted far beyond coherence.
"I'm so sorry... for being such an idiot of an older sister..."
Seeing the visage of the young Kang Haneul superimposed over Ariel's face, Kang Maru weakly reached out her trembling hand.
"I'm sorry..."
She gently brushed her fingers against the cheek of the girl whose hand pierced her heart.
"If there is a next life..."
Her arm dropped limply to the ground.
"...Then I will, to you..."
Without ever finishing the disjointed sentence, Kang Maru drew her final breath.
A heavy, suffocating silence settled over the ruined street.
"...Haaah."
With an expression devoid of emotion, Ariel drew her hand from the dead woman's chest and collapsed onto the pavement.
The pride of saving lives as a hero for the first time. The guilt of taking a human life for the first time. It was a dilemma that every top hero was destined to confront, yet neither emotion stirred within her now. Despite having finally become the hero she had so desperately yearned to be, Ariel's heart was hollow, consumed entirely by an echoing void.
"...Did I really do the right thing, Professor?"
And that emptiness felt as though it would never be filled again.
The Lone Hero
"...?"
It was at that exact moment that the translucent window, one she had seen somewhere once before, materialized before her eyes.
"What... is this...?"
She recoiled in shock, stumbling backward, only for her eyes to widen in bewilderment as another message surfaced beneath it.
Would you like to load the auto-saved file?
[ Y / N ]
Hovering in the air before her was a save file timestamped several months prior.