The Burden of the Gifted
"Those who possess power must use it for the sake of society and humanity."
Arin had grown up hearing those words for as long as she could remember. Since both of her parents were supernatural ability users who had spent half their lives fighting monsters on the front lines, the weight of those words carried a profound significance for her.
Just because parents possessed supernatural abilities did not mean their children would inherit them. Supernatural abilities were not passed down through bloodlines. Yet, Arin was a natural-born supernatural ability user. Her parents always told her: with great power comes great responsibility.
Arin found it difficult to accept those words so easily. What did having power have to do with responsibility? Power was just power. She hadn't asked for it; she was simply born with it. Why did she have to carry such a burden?
Back then, when she was still young, Arin had grown sick of her parents' constant lecturing. It felt like a broken record playing on loop. Hearing it over and over again to the point of exhaustion only bred resentment. Sometimes, she would deliberately act contrary to her parents' wishes.
Arin was a supernatural ability user, but she didn't understand the weight of the term in the slightest. To her, it just meant being stronger than average. Nothing more, nothing less.
It was the year she turned twelve when she finally realized its true weight.
It had been a day like any other. After school, she walked home with her friends, eating ice cream. They waved goodbye at the intersection, promising to see each other tomorrow. Since they had met yesterday and today, she took it for granted that they would meet tomorrow as well.
Humans are foolishly complacent, always assuming their peaceful daily lives will continue forever. Without any concrete reason or evidence, they never doubt that tomorrow will be exactly like today—completely unaware that the peace they enjoy is a fragile illusion that can shatter at any moment.
The first to notice the anomaly was her supernatural ability. Arin's ability was Crisis Detection. It allowed her to sense anything that posed a threat to her. The twelve-year-old Arin froze in her tracks and looked up at the sky. Her ability was screaming a warning signal of unprecedented intensity.
CRITICAL THREAT DETECTED
An unprecedented disaster is imminent. Escape immediately.
Why? How? What was happening? She didn't know, but Arin trusted her instincts. She ran. She ran with everything she had. She poured every ounce of her strength into escaping the range of the impending crisis. But even as her lungs burned and her breath caught in her throat, her ability refused to quiet down. When she realized that no matter how far she ran, she could never escape the radius of danger, her heavy legs finally ground to a halt.
The entire city was in danger. The warning alarms blaring inside her mind grew louder and louder. The internal noise became so deafening that she could no longer hear anything from the outside world. Terrified by the ear-splitting dissonance, Arin covered her ears. And then, the moment the warning reached its absolute peak—
A crack formed in the sky.
Shatter.
Like glass fracturing, a void opened in the heavens. Arin still remembered the soft gasp that escaped her lips.
Like a sudden downpour, monsters began to rain down.
How could she ever forget that day? The carnage. The disaster. The catastrophe.
Screams echoed. Blood splattered. People died. People were devoured. People were torn apart. Walls crumbled. Buildings collapsed. Utility poles toppled. People fell. People were shredded to pieces.
People died.
People died.
People died.
For the first time, Arin truly felt the weight of being a "supernatural ability user." For the first time, she understood the meaning behind her parents' constant reminders.
She had survived. Arin had survived that living hell.
And she finally knew. She knew why her parents had always spoken those words. Why responsibility accompanied supernatural power. Why she had to shoulder that burden. The young supernatural ability user had finally realized the weight of her gift. Once she understood that, Arin could never go back to who she was before.
The eighth and final chimera golem crumbled.
Arin let out a ragged breath and adjusted her grip on her spear. Using Crisis Detection, she predicted the golem's movements and stayed one step ahead to press her offensive. There were no openings in her combat style. She might lack explosive destructive power, but her defense was rock-solid. The enemy's actions fell entirely within her predictions, and the flow of battle remained firmly in the palm of her hand.
Having defeated eight golems simultaneously without sustaining a single scratch, Arin felt more regret than achievement. She instinctively knew this was her limit. No matter how perfectly she predicted and countered the enemy's attacks, there was no bypassing the physical limits of her stamina. She could probably take down a few more golems if she pushed herself, but doing so would compromise her safety.
"Stop. That's enough. Good work, Arin."
At Angelica's declaration, Arin gave a polite nod and returned to her spot. It was a slightly disappointing result.
Thirteen golems like that boy... I guess that really was impossible for me.
Remembering the performance of the first student, Yujin, she lightly bit her lower lip.
She had trained herself under her parents' guidance since childhood. Arin flushed with embarrassment at her own past arrogance, remembering how she had secretly believed she might be the strongest in Class 1-A. Where had that confidence even come from? Everyone else must have trained just as hard as she had. Had she really been that narrow-minded? She had never voiced these thoughts to anyone, yet her face burned with shame.
Whew. She let out a soft sigh and fanned her face. This was indeed the academy. She realized all over again that she had been a big fish in a small pond.
Yujin, who sliced a chimera golem to pieces in just two strikes.
Leo, who unleashed a flurry of punches at speeds too fast for the eye to follow.
Anastasia, who multiplied herself into dozens of clones.
Aris, who destroyed five golems in a single blow with her terrifying heat ray.
Every single one of them was an outstanding student. None of them fell short compared to her. In fact, they might even be superior.
Arin closely observed the other students' ability measurements. These were the classmates she would study with for the next year. Furthermore, after graduation, they would be comrades-in-arms fighting monsters from the rifts together. It was best to gauge their abilities beforehand. As she watched each of them with keen interest, before she knew it, only the last student remained.
The cute, blonde girl faced the wolf golem wielding a weapon that did not match her delicate appearance. Her movements were large and full of openings, yet every strike she delivered carried immense weight. Her skill wasn't particularly eye-catching; at that level, she was comparable to or only slightly better than the other average students. But it was too early to judge. Arin focused on her every micro-movement.
The girl defeated the wolf, brought down the gargoyle, and even crushed the knight. Then, she reached the chimera—an opponent only a handful of students had managed to face—and that was when the accident happened.
Crunch.
Arin's vision stained red.
"...Huh?"
Blood splattered. Despite the distance between them, Arin felt as if the droplets of blood were drenching her own body. Reflexively, she bent over and covered her mouth. She saw the girl's face twist in agony. Arin knew that face. She had seen it so many times. On that day. At that moment. In that city where monsters rained down. The sight of a massive beast chewing and devouring a human.
Crunch. Crunch.
She could hear the sound. No, it was an auditory hallucination. She forced her mouth shut to suppress a dry heave.
Don't panic. It's different from back then. I'm strong now. Don't be afraid. Why did I enter the academy in the first place?
With great effort, she lifted her head. The chimera golem had vanished, and Angelica was checking on the girl. Fortunately, the girl was uninjured.
Super Regeneration. That was the girl's supernatural ability.
The measurement was over. Yet, the image of the girl's shoulder shattering refused to leave Arin's mind.
Regeneration-type supernatural abilities could heal any injury. They allowed the body to always maintain a perfect state. However, fast healing did not mean an absence of pain. Getting hurt still hurt. Wounds still caused suffering. Especially when a shoulder was snapped in that manner, the pain one had to endure was beyond imagination.
The girl, Lucia, broke out in a cold sweat throughout the entire class. She kept pressing her now-healed shoulder, her breathing ragged. Was she experiencing phantom pain? Arin, filled with worry, stole glances at Lucia again and again. She couldn't forget the sight of her collapsing in a pool of blood. That expression painted with agony was burned into her mind. It must have hurt so much. It had to. She knew how it felt.
As an academy student, one had to be prepared to get hurt at any moment. If you feared injury while learning to fight monsters from the rifts, you could never become a great hero. But resolve didn't always translate to reality. After all, everyone hated pain.
Arin let out a sigh. Deep down, she was aware. Her concern for Lucia wasn't entirely pure. She was merely groaning under the weight of her own past trauma, triggered by the sight of Lucia getting hurt. Yet, that didn't mean her worry was entirely hypocritical or fake.
As soon as class ended, Lucia, looking pale, practically fled the classroom. Arin had offered to walk home together, but she was rejected. Watching her retreating figure, Arin wore a bitter expression.
"I hope she's okay..."
It wasn't something easily shaken off. Even if the wound healed, the pain lingered, clinging stubbornly to the mind. Arin knew this from experience. Overcoming it was up to the individual. There was nothing Arin could do to help. At best, she could offer a listening ear.
"Then again... I'm hardly one to talk."
Arin shook her head.
Crunch.
She thought she heard that sound again from somewhere.
It was just an hallucination.