The Day the Sky Tore Open
Fifteen years ago, the sky ripped apart.
It was a global catastrophe known as the Great Rift. As the otherworldly energy called ether poured down, modern firearms and electronic equipment became useless. In their place rose mana-infused cold weapons and magic. To survive the crisis, humanity established academies to train superhumans. Those who graduated and fought against monsters were called Vanguards by the world. They stood at the forefront of humanity—an elite class earning astronomical salaries.
To Kang Do-woon, the word Vanguard meant something far simpler than all the glamorous titles the world gave them.
Hero.
It was a slightly old-fashioned, abstract dream he had cherished deep in his heart for a very long time.
This was three years after the Great Rift. The walls had not yet been properly built. Seven-year-old Do-woon, who lived on the outskirts of the city, faced tragedy.
“Do-woon, keep your eyes closed tight! Whatever you do, don’t open them!”
His parents, who adored their only son more than anything, refused to run even in the face of a beast-shaped monster’s claws. They blocked the thin door with their bodies, trying to protect their child, and lost their lives in vain.
In the suffocating, blood-red terror, just as the monster’s maw drew close to Do-woon’s face—
Shuk—!
A chilling sound of cutting air rang out, and the monster’s head rolled across the floor.
Drenched in blood and frozen stiff, the first thing that entered Do-woon’s vision was the back of an unfamiliar mana awakener.
An unnamed Vanguard.
In the middle of the blood-soaked battlefield, the man knelt and embraced the young boy. Trembling with fear, Do-woon finally burst into tears of relief inside that rough yet steadfast, warm embrace.
The man left soon after. While growing up in an orphanage supported by national disaster relief, Do-woon searched for him, but could never find the stranger again.
Yet an indelible mark had been branded onto the heart of the boy who had become an orphan.
I will become a hero just like him.
Life at the orphanage was not lacking. Thanks to the solid national support for disaster victims. When he received his mana awakening judgment, Do-woon decided without hesitation to enroll in the academy.
In truth, mana awakeners were common in the world. However, few willingly chose the high-risk profession of Vanguard, so the entrance threshold for the academy itself was not despairingly high.
The real problem was surviving inside it.
This world operated under brutal winner-takes-all rules. Only the top one percent of geniuses swept up the money and monopolized the title of “hero” that the media loved to shout about. Everyone else became disposable fodder, dying in nameless low-grade rifts—a red ocean of the fallen.
And Do-woon’s talent was far too ambiguous to become one of those one-percent heroes.
It was the morning exactly one week before the end of the first semester of freshman year. The central bulletin board was packed with students trying to check the final rankings that combined virtual practice and sparring evaluation results.
Do-woon pushed through the crowd, his eyes scanning the numbers written beside his name.
“……This is brutal. Seriously.”
Do-woon let out a dry laugh and rubbed his face. The cutoff line given only to students ranked between the top 4% and 11% out of 200 total students. He had achieved Rank 2 across all ten subjects.
Once summer break ended and the second semester began, students would have to choose their major and focus. From the first semester’s rotation training, everyone poured all their mana and time into a single subject that would become their major, aiming for single-digit rankings (Rank 1), while abandoning the rest of their subjects at the bare minimum needed to avoid failing.
But Do-woon had failed to break through the wall of overwhelming geniuses in any single weapon.
When he hit his limit with the sword, he picked up the spear. When the spear hit a wall, he learned magic. While others focused on just one thing, he had spent the entire first semester desperately rotating through every training hall just to survive. The result was this opportunistic report card.
“Hey, did you see Kang Do-woon’s rankings? Everything’s hovering around the teens.”
“Wow, that’s actually a talent in itself. He’s gonna have to specialize in either sword or spear next semester anyway, so why spread himself so thin? All he’s got is a bunch of half-baked skills.”
“Exactly. No way he’ll ever catch up to the kids who obsess over one thing and take the top two spots in the whole school. Well, I guess he’ll manage to get into some B-rank guild and make a living.”
Behind him, the blatant mockery of his classmates drifted over. Do-woon didn’t bother denying it. They weren’t wrong.
With this ambiguous ranking of being decent at everything, he would probably be able to survive and earn a paycheck. But that was a far cry from the image of a hero he carried in his chest.
Do-woon clenched his fist tightly, then slowly released it and smiled faintly.
“I’m still just a freshman. If I push through the second semester with my body, something will work out.”
The warm memory from that day fifteen years ago still pushed hard against his back, too strong for him to crumble under feelings of inferiority.