The Black Knight's Debut
"This armor is so goddamn coooooool---!!!"
Rai was looking himself over from every angle, admiring the black armor he now wore.
Armor of black metal. Massive plating and pauldrons that wrapped around his entire body. And in his hand, a black greatsword nearly as big as he was.
Rai ran his fingers along the surface of the armor, unable to contain his awe.
"WOOOOOOOOOOOH---!!! THIS IS SO FREAKING AWESOMEEEEEE---!!!"
He was fifteen years old.
Any fifteen-year-old boy who suddenly got to wear armor like this was bound to react exactly this way. Rai was swept up in the feeling that he had become someone incredibly important—like he'd turned into a knight from a dark fantasy overnight.
Then it happened.
"Um...."
"Hm?"
The girl lying on the ground forced her mouth open with difficulty.
"That thing.... it's still alive. Can you actually beat it?"
Rai lifted his head at her words.
And then—
GUWOOOOOOOOOM!!
"Ah, shit."
The giant monster was rising to its feet.
It was clutching the arm Rai had just sliced off, holding it in its other hand. The monster twisted its body around the severed limb, and then—
"GUAAAAAAAAGH----!!!!!"
A monstrous scream erupted, loud enough to shake the entire city.
Rai flinched.
"Why is it screeching like that?"
He turned to look at La Place, who was floating beside him.
"Hey... are you really sure I can beat that thing?"
La Place answered calmly. "Affirmative. Obviously."
"R-really? Even though I'm all pumped up in this armor... I really don't think I can win..."
When Rai suddenly chickened out, La Place looked at him like he was pathetic and said, "You are without a doubt stronger now. The you of this moment is stronger than anyone else who exists in this world."
The instant he heard those words, the corners of Rai's mouth crept upward.
"Stronger than anyone...?!"
"Yep."
"Seriously?"
"Yep."
"Re... really for real?"
"Yep."
Rai looked down at his armor. The black plate. The massive greatsword. And the overwhelming power enveloping him. His grin kept widening.
"Then...."
Rai clenched his fist.
"Doesn't that mean the current me can beat everyone except Noona?"
He was giddy. Completely, hopelessly giddy. A fifteen-year-old boy had just been handed the strongest power in the world—of course he was.
But—
"GUAAAAAAAAGH------!!"
KWAAAAAAAH!!
The monster charged, dragging its enormous bulk behind it. The ground shook.
CRASH---!!! CRASH---!!!
Windows shattered in every building, and massive footprints slammed down one after another across the ruined road.
Rai froze solid.
"Huh?"
The monster was right in front of him.
"Hold on—"
Rai looked desperately at La Place.
"How am I supposed to fight this thing?!"
La Place pointed, without a care in the world, at the greatsword in Rai's hand.
"Swing it."
"...That's it?"
"Yep."
"Really?"
"Yep. Stop asking."
The monster was now mere inches away. Rai raised the greatsword on pure reflex.
Swoosh.
"Why are all your explanations so short?! So I just... seriously, just swing it?!"
And then—he swung.
FWHAAAAAAAH---!!!
In that instant, the world split apart.
A black slash erupted from the greatsword, carving through the earth and surging forward at tremendous speed.
KWAAAAAAAAAAAH----!!
The road split. Buildings were sheared in half. And the black slash that swallowed it all swept clean through the monster's colossal body.
"GRUUUUUUH----!!"
CHWAAAAAAAH!!!!!
The monster's body split in two.
No—it wasn't even possible to perceive it splitting. Where the black slash passed, the monster's flesh simply scattered into fragments.
THRUDUDUDUDUDUDU...!!!!
The colossal monster soon dissolved into black ash and dispersed into the air.
Fsssssssssss...!!!
Silence.
The Black Knight stared blankly at the scene.
"...."
No words came out.
The girl on the ground, meanwhile, was staring at him with wide eyes.
"...Amazing."
And then—the massive Gate that had covered the sky began to tremble.
GUGUGUGUGU....!!
The enormous fissure forming the Gate slowly began to close. At last, the great Gate vanished entirely.
Click.
Rai slowly rested the greatsword on his shoulder. His head was swimming with adrenaline, completely out of his mind—and for no particular reason, he struck a cool pose as he walked over to the girl.
"Ahh... wish someone would take a picture of this..."
The girl looked up at him.
"What's your name....?!"
Rai beamed at her question.
"My name is—"
"WAAAAAAGH--!! MY CAR---!!!"
".........."
Rai turned his head. The car that had been parked there just moments ago had been cleaved cleanly in two.
"Oh no, my shop--!!"
This time it was the shopkeeper nearby, wailing in despair.
Rai looked slowly around. The road. The cars. The buildings. The shops. Everything had been neatly sliced apart by the slash he'd unleashed.
"............"
Cold sweat ran down Rai's face. He turned, slowly, to La Place.
"...Um."
"Yeah."
"What's the name of this armor...?"
The moment Rai asked, La Place spoke first.
Rai was silent for a moment. Then he nodded.
"Right, then...."
Rai turned back to the girl and smiled brightly.
"My name is Akra Minus."
He paused for a beat.
"Just Akra's fine."
The girl quietly murmured the name to herself.
"...Akra."
After that day, the world erupted.
For the first time in history, a human—no demonkin—had single-handedly slain a monster. And not just any monster, but an LV70 creature, one of the highest extermination difficulty ratings a nation could designate.
Here, "LV" was the grading unit created by governments to systematically classify monster threat levels—a numeric measurement of extermination difficulty, calculated by comprehensively analyzing a monster's physical capabilities, magic power, intelligence, attack range, regeneration, and the scale of damage it could inflict.
The higher the number, the more dangerous the monster. In other words, the gap between LV10 and LV20 was far more than a simple doubling of the figures. The force required to subdue a monster grew exponentially with every step up the ladder. Beyond LV50, conventional military power could no longer handle extermination—and anything above LV70 was rated as requiring a national-scale response.
And that monster had been annihilated by a single person. With a single attack.
Based on the testimony of one young girl, people gave the mysterious Black Knight a name: 【Akra Minus】
And that name spread across the world in an instant.
The whole world was abuzz with talk of Akra. And that fervor spread all the way to Rai's school.
"Hey, did you see that Black Knight's armor?"
"Yeah! It looked so damn cool!"
"That sword was no joke either, right?"
"Ahh, I want one so bad~~~!!"
While the students chattered excitedly, Rai lay slumped over his desk, quietly chuckling to himself.
"...."
Nobody knew that he was Akra himself. He snickered quietly into his desk, all alone.
But then—
"KYAAAAAH---!!"
"What the—?!"
"What is that thing?!"
Suddenly, the entire classroom was drowned in screams. Rai jerked his head up, startled.
"What's going on?"
And then—Rai's eyes went wide too.
Something was floating in front of the students.
A translucent window glowing blue.
All individuals touched by the light will be granted their due.
The moment Rai saw it, he recognized it.
"...This thing."
He'd seen it before—right before he became Akra. The thing he had pressed.
The students, one by one, began reaching out to touch the blue window. And then—
"Whoa!"
"Fire's coming out of my hand!"
Flames flickered to life at the tip of one student's fingers.
"What is this?!"
A powerful wind whirled around another student.
"Eek!"
"I got something too!"
Different abilities began manifesting all across the classroom—a student conjuring fire, a student summoning wind, a student whose physical strength had suddenly surged. Students gaining strange new powers.
Confusion and elation swept over the classroom all at once. Rai watched the whole scene, unable to say a word.
The blue status window he had been the first to see. It was no longer his alone. All across the world, people were encountering the same window.
Ordinary humans were beginning to gain power. And people began calling them by a new name: 【Awakeners】
From that day forward, the history of humanity changed completely.
The age of the demonkin and their monsters—the age in which humans could do nothing but survive helplessly—was over. A new era was beginning. The age of Awakeners.
"Rai~!"
"..............."
Ragna stood in front of her cafe, staring at Rai. Arms crossed, she grinned.
"Sooo let me get this straight~ You wanna become an Awakener too and make some moneeeeey~~??"
Rai nodded, sweating.
"Th-that is.... so could you maybe give me permission now....?"
The corners of Ragna's mouth curled up.
"And why would I do that?"
"Uh... because."
"Hmmmm...."
Ragna pretended to think it over for a moment. And then—
POW!!
She drove her fist straight into his face.
"GUHAK?!"
"LIKE HELL YOU WILL---!!!"
KABOOMTATATAT---!!!
Rai's body went flying backward.
THUD--!!!
He rolled across the ground several times before his head slammed into the pavement.
"Aw, why noooot--!!!"
Rai looked up at Ragna, clutching his nose.
"What are you even gonna do as an Awakener?!"
"Make money...."
"THAT'S THE PROBLEM, YOU IDIOT!!"
"I got a really strong ability too--!!!"
"You couldn't beat me in a fight if you tried, and you're talking about abilities?!"
While the two of them bickered back and forth, La Place slowly walked out from inside the cafe. She looked between the two of them, then spoke quietly.
"In a way...."
She paused, gazing at Ragna.
"...perhaps that woman should have been the one chosen as Akra."
And so, three years passed since Rai had been chosen as Akra.
The world had already entered an era where Awakeners held back the Gates. But Rai himself... still hadn't been granted Ragna's approval to work as an Awakener.