The First Joint Mock Battle Simulation
Sweat-soaked and breathing hard, I stopped in the middle of the dormitory hallway. At the edge of my vision, the familiar sign reading Room 313 came into focus. Before grabbing the doorknob, I reached out into empty air and mentally retraced every grueling step of the day’s nonstop training. My fingertips trembled faintly. The calluses on my palm throbbed after I finally set down the sword I’d been gripping for hours. All day long the cold floor of the training grounds and the wild currents of mana had carved their paths across my body.
Mornings spent hammering my body and mana in the corner of the arena with my own crude, stubborn methods. Afternoons split between the swordsmanship and spearmanship halls. Evenings wolfing down a quick meal before returning to physical conditioning until late at night. An insanely brutal routine that only ended with barely an hour left before lights-out.
Click.
The moment I opened the door, Yoon Jung-woo looked up from where he lay on his bed scrolling through his phone. He greeted me with a nod.
“Training done?”
“Yeah. Whew… I’m wiped.”
I rubbed my aching shoulder and let out a groan. Jung-woo set his phone aside and clicked his tongue.
“You really are something else. Not a single day off during break, just training nonstop.”
“A guy as mediocre as me has to hammer down the fundamentals even harder.”
I’d meant it to sound casual, but Jung-woo went quiet. His steady stare made me feel awkward, so I scratched the back of my neck.
“Uh… I’m gonna shower first.”
I fled into the bathroom and let the cold shower water wash away the heat clinging to my skin. After changing, I sat on the bed across from his, towel-drying my wet hair. Jung-woo was still staring at the ceiling in silence.
Yoon Jung-woo. We’d been sharing this dorm room for six months now. We’d naturally gravitated toward each other from the start of the semester and become best friends. Now we even shared the kind of family history most people kept buried.
How I lost my parents to monsters in the aftermath of the Great Rift when I was seven and grew up in an orphanage. The corny, abstract dream of becoming a “hero” that had driven someone with my middling talent to enroll in this dangerous academy anyway. I had told him everything.
He had shown me his own burdens in return. As the eldest of three siblings, he had become the de facto head of the household after his father died. That was why he clung so fiercely to the shield-bearer path. It was a core role in any raid party, but the overwhelming mortality rate meant manpower was always short. Even with slightly lower grades, it guaranteed solid employment and high income. The heavy responsibility of supporting his younger siblings had pushed him toward that high-risk position.
Because we both understood the weight on each other’s shoulders, we had grown close faster and more tightly than most.
While I was lost in thought, Jung-woo suddenly sat up.
“Hey, Do-woon.”
“Yeah…?”
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to say for a while.”
His suddenly serious tone made my hands freeze mid-towel.
“You’re not mediocre.”
“……”
“I’ve watched you grind for the last six months. How can you call yourself that? I’ve never seen anyone as persistent as you. You were probably out there training alone in the arena again today, weren’t you?”
“Well… yeah.”
“Dude, they call it Rank 2, but earning Rank 2 in even one subject at Gaon Academy is brutal. I nearly killed myself just trying to get it in shields, and you pulled it off in ten different fields.”
“……”
“So stop looking so down.”
It was a rough, clumsy consolation, but every word carried genuine sincerity. Meeting his straightforward gaze, I slowly let my stiff lips curve into a smile.
“Thanks…”
It was an embarrassingly heartfelt conversation for two guys to have. We shared an awkward laugh, then turned off the lights. Exhaustion pulled me under almost instantly, and before I knew it, the morning of the second semester’s opening day had arrived.
The morning air on opening day was crisp, yet the wide parade grounds of Gaon Academy crackled with a strange tension. Students’ nervousness and excitement tangled together in the atmosphere.
While we waited in neat rows, I recalled the brutal first-semester curriculum once more. Gaon Academy had two hundred first-year students. We had been split into two large groups, then further divided into ten classes of twenty students each.
The core of the first semester had been survival through “cross-electives.” All ten classes rotated through the academy’s ten foundational weapon courses. Swordsmanship, spearmanship, heavy weapons, shield defense, archery, throwing and assassination, special weapons, combat magic, auxiliary magic, and tactics and mana engineering. Midterms and finals were conducted as group evaluations, and I had thrown myself at every subject like a beast to survive the merciless rotation.
While the geniuses coasted through weeks that didn’t match their primary weapon—just barely avoiding failure—I stubbornly occupied the training grounds. In the end, I had achieved the bizarre result of earning Rank 2—the top four to eleven percent—in all ten subjects.
And now the second semester was truly beginning. According to the brief notice posted beforehand and the rumors circulating, the curriculum would shift entirely to practical, compressed training. Strategy and tactics theory would run alongside extreme physical and mana conditioning, but the backbone of it all was undoubtedly “joint combat training.” Students would form five-person teams and undergo periodic team-based evaluations throughout the semester.
Rumors said the faculty planned to hammer home the importance of “strategy and coordination” to first-years who had spent the entire previous semester obsessed with individual power. They would throw everyone into virtual combat training right from the first day.
The real question was how the teams would be formed. By grades? Lottery? Professor’s discretion? With no announcement yet, the faces of my waiting classmates were etched with deep anxiety and restlessness. Yoon Jung-woo, standing beside me and aiming for the shield-bearer role, kept licking his dry lips, tension written all over him.
I was busy calculating every possible scenario in my head when a voice cut through the noise.
“All students, attention.”
The buzzing parade grounds fell silent as if doused with ice water. Two hundred pairs of eyes snapped forward. The person who stepped onto the platform was first-year head professor Ma Jin-tae. As a first-generation Vanguard who had held the front lines since the early days of the Great Rift, the pressure radiating from his tightly pressed lips and the thick scar slashing across his face dominated the entire field.
Without a microphone, he projected his heavy, mana-infused voice across the grounds.
“I hope you all enjoyed your break. During the first semester you sampled various weapons and magic and discovered your aptitudes. But remember this: Vanguards do not fight alone. The battlefield beyond the rift is full of variables, and an arrogant lone wolf becomes the first meal for the monsters.”
His piercing gaze slowly swept across all two hundred students. I heard Jung-woo swallow nervously beside me.
“Therefore, the first class of the second semester will be ‘joint combat training’ to evaluate your tactical insight and cooperation. From now on, those whose names I call will step forward to the platform.”
Professor Ma lifted a tablet.
“Han Seol-ah, Min Se-hee, Go Jin-ho, Hwang Seong-jae, Cha Yu-na, Song Tae-min, Seo Tae-oh, Kang Min-jae, Kwon Ha-eun, Han Jun-woo…”
With every name, the parade grounds grew noticeably louder. These were the names that had been drilled into our ears all throughout the first semester.
“Wow, they’re really only calling the top ranks?” I muttered, eyes wide.
The absolute best—the Rank 1 students in each subject. When the roll call ended, exactly forty people stood in formation on the platform. From where we remained below, we could only see their backs, but the aura of mana and their upright postures alone marked them as reliable elites.
Swordsmanship top student Han Seol-ah and spearmanship top student Min Se-hee, radiating an icy chill, stood out first. Beside them were special weapons top student Cha Yu-na, yawning as if bored, and auxiliary magic top student Kwon Ha-eun, wearing a gentle smile.
“Wow… what a lineup.”
While I stared in blank admiration, Professor Ma Jin-tae spoke again in that same heavy voice.
“These forty students will serve as the ‘party leaders’ for today’s virtual raid. Training will be conducted in five-person teams. Team composition is entirely up to the party leaders. Starting now, each leader will use their nomination rights to select the necessary teammates from the one hundred sixty remaining students in the parade grounds, one by one.”
The parade grounds erupted.
It wasn’t by grades or lottery. The party leaders would personally draft their own teams. Amid the anxious buzzing of my classmates, I swallowed hard and fidgeted with my uniform.
When will they call me? Will I even be picked early?
I had no clear Rank 1 specialty. Being mediocre Rank 2 across ten different subjects meant no one would rush to claim me. What if my name isn’t called until the very end and I get stuck with whatever scraps are left?
As my thoughts spiraled, Professor Ma continued.
“I will give the party leaders a moment to consider their choices. Afterward, they will select their teams in the order their names were called.”
The grounds immediately filled with a roar of nervous energy and anticipation. Some students desperately tried to highlight their strengths while others stared at the ground in despair. Every time a party leader’s gaze swept across the field, my heart sank.
Would they see me as just another “mediocre Rank 2,” or as a “useful supporter”? The nightmare of being left until the very end felt like it was about to become reality.
Then it happened.
The very first name on the list—the top student in basic swordsmanship, Han Seol-ah. Standing with her back to the platform, she turned around with cold eyes. After slowly scanning the crowd below, she folded her arms, expression resolute, as if her decision had already been made. She waited for the draft to begin.