Ch.86The Man is a Rookie? (1)

It hurts.

I’m scared.

It’s painful.

None of those sensations reached Marna, who had already lost her reason.

The girl was simply burning.

Consuming herself, as if expelling something dwelling within.

“Marna Strana! Examination terminated! The test is over!”

Despite Blanche’s shouts echoing through the hall, the girl showed no reaction.

The massive fireball that had been pulsing like a heart was now exhaling like a living creature, scattering heat in all directions.

The special heat-resistant walls inside the testing area were gradually turning red and melting.

“This isn’t an exam site anymore—it’s a battlefield…”

Blanche, who had been evacuating the failed candidates, broke into a cold sweat.

But she knew better than anyone.

That only one person could calm this situation.

“Zero.”

The moment she whispered that name.

The silhouette of an artificial life form shot up into the air.

Holding a cold blade, she rose toward the sky beyond the flames.

She had only one objective.

To cut off the ‘source’ of this maddened testing ground.

“Commencing elimination.”

Drawing her sword, Zero lunged toward the massive fireball.

With her blade aimed at Marna’s core, just as she was about to deliver a strike—

Whoosh.

“?!”

Something within the flames ‘opened its eyes.’

From within the fire, two horns emerged.

It wasn’t a familiar form.

A grotesquely twisted shape, a being incomprehensible to human senses.

“…Blood Beast.”

Zero’s pupils contracted.

The silhouette of that alien form, manifested in an incomplete state, pressed down on her body by its mere existence.

Her body froze in an instant.

A suffocating pressure, pure ‘killing intent.’

At that moment, Marna’s flames completely changed.

A different dimension from the previous residual heat—unrefined flames of pure instinct.

BOOM!

From that explosion, Zero was thrown back from the sky.

She landed on one knee, thrusting her sword into the ground.

Burn marks like cracks streaked across her white skin.

“…It seems we’re past the point of a clean resolution.”

As she gripped her sword again, Zero’s stance changed.

It wasn’t just a simple ‘stance.’

It was an overwhelming intent to hold her breath, cut the flow, and cleave the entire space.

This time, not to cut but to erase.

To slice away everything.

Not a sword, but ‘finality’ and ‘severance’ itself.

“…One of them is going to die.”

Blanche’s hand unconsciously covered her mouth.

Now no words, no measures had any meaning.

What unfolded before them was no longer a ‘test.’

It was like a ritual walking toward an execution.

And then.

“Sword technique…?!”

That’s when it happened.

Just as Zero’s blade was about to cut through Marna again.

Another silhouette shot up into the sky, cutting through the explosion.

At first, no one could tell who it was.

A mask with black horns.

Dark energy faintly rose from beyond the shoulders.

The skin at the arm’s end was slightly cracked, and traces like scales faintly appeared at the fingertips.

A form still too incomplete to be called beastification.

But strangely, the surrounding air changed.

It felt as if something alien was slowly breathing, wearing a human shell.

With his appearance alone, even Marna’s rampaging heat seemed to pause for a moment.

Tap.

As the sword tip was about to graze the girl’s shin, that being ‘caught’ Zero’s blade with his bare hand.

CRACK!

A sound like space itself splitting.

In that brief contact, Zero instinctively realized.

‘This is… the power of a Beast?!’

The being slowly raised his head.

The gaze beyond the mask pierced through her eyes at once.

And a familiar voice flowed out, very quietly.

“I’m sorry.”

That voice, with exactly the same manner and tone as before.

“Just let me intervene for a moment.”

Zero’s eyes narrowed.

“Could it be… Mr. Janghoon?”

With those words, black energy extended like it was stirring the air, blocking between Marna and Zero.

In the midst of the swirling heat, he stood like the very ‘boundary between beast and human.’

This was the appearance of Kang Janghoon, who had succeeded in partial beastification.

Simultaneously.

Swish!

He merely turned his head toward the flames rushing to attack Zero from behind.

“Stay still.”

A short, low command.

At that moment, as if startled by that single word, the flames extinguished.

The testing ground held its breath for a moment.

Not missing that gap, Janghoon leaped into the flames.

Into the heart of the fading rampage.

He embraced Marna.

“That’s enough. This is where it ends.”

In the red heat, the horned-masked man quietly descended.

Holding Marna in one arm, with the other he slowly shook off the black energy as if removing it.

Beneath his feet, the flames disappeared.

And.

Kang Janghoon, wearing the black horned mask, stood quietly in the middle of the collapsed testing ground.

In a form that no one could ever again call a weak male candidate.

***

Hero Association upper level, Test Management Room.

Thousands of screens and dozens of agents moved without rest.

Through the tangled monitor cables and speakers, real-time situations from each testing site were transmitted like war coverage.

This place, flowing with the warmth of tension, was now handling a test of unprecedented scale in hero history.

This was no simple control room.

It was the heart of the chaos where nearly a million candidates plunged simultaneously, monitoring and judging the disorder, the frontline that filtered humanity’s future.

“First testing site concluded. Passing candidates… 25.”

“Second testing site also concluded. Confirmed survivors, 54.”

“49 from the third site. 90 from the fourth. Fifth site… 32 confirmed!”

The agents’ voices were all urgent, and the numbers were devastating.

It was different from expectations.

Not a single testing site had proceeded according to simulation.

Out of nearly one million candidates, those who passed didn’t even reach 1,000.

A pass rate below 0.1%.

No, this wasn’t a pass rate—it was closer to a survival rate.

Yet amid all this, one person seemed satisfied with the results, quietly nodding.

“…Indeed, you were right. Only the real ones remain.”

It was Arcana Spear, the Association Chairwoman, monitoring all testing sites in real-time.

The figure sitting beside her smiled quietly, crossing their legs.

“Isn’t that right? A well-made dish only reveals its true flavor after filtering out impurities.”

The figure in the black suit was Avanka, the representative of the Progressive Party of Hero City.

With neatly arranged hair and uncluttered attire, a human perfected under the sole purpose of ‘politics.’

Her mere presence changed the room’s temperature, exuding restrained authority and cold charisma.

“Sigh… I’ve been hearing that for years now.”

“That’s because I’ve been preparing for just as long. Well, isn’t the fruit that much sweeter for it?”

Just then.

“Janghoon! Where’s Janghoon?!”

“Why isn’t he on screen?! Wasn’t he in the seventh testing site?!”

The control room door burst open as two women’s sharp cries erupted.

One was Carmilla, a hero with golden twin-drills bouncing.

The other was Okami Hoshino, a wolf-eared beastkin in a black kimono.

Neither of them retained even a speck of heroic dignity now.

Hands sweeping across screens, rushed breaths from running barefoot, they were focused on just one thing.

Kang Janghoon!!

“P-please calm down! There seems to be a problem with the seventh testing site’s CCTV…!”

A flustered staff member waved their hands urgently, but—

“You said that testing site was tested with even A-rank heroes! How could the CCTV suddenly…!”

“Janghoon was already collapsed on the ground! He should have been disqualified from that moment!”

Hoshino glared at the monitor with sharp eyes, growling.

Carmilla wiped tears with the back of her hand, looking ready to grab the staff member by the collar.

“Even if it’s a test, he’s a male candidate! The only one!”

“If anything happens to that boy, I won’t let any of you off…!”

“Eeeek?!”

The room had become chaotic.

Yet amid the commotion, only one person remained completely composed.

A woman sitting in her chair, quietly folding her hands.

Avanka, the Progressive Party representative of Hero City.

After silently observing the two heroes’ sharp cries and angry gazes, she finally slowly raised her head.

“Regarding Kang Janghoon, there’s no need to worry.”

A brief, calm statement.

Yet her voice carried a strangely certain conviction.

“…What?”

“What did you just say?”

Carmilla and Hoshino turned their gazes simultaneously.

“He’s probably already passed and is on his way out.”

“Passed…?”

“Who? Surely not Janghoon?”

She smiled gently.

“If there were a door he couldn’t cross… then the threshold of this test wouldn’t have existed in the first place.”

“???”

In that moment, the air in the room changed.

It was an incomprehensible statement, but the strange confidence and composure it carried struck deeper than anyone else’s words.

Carmilla bit her lip and held her breath, while Hoshino couldn’t take her eyes off that gaze.

A look as if she had known everything from the beginning.

And beyond that gaze, even at this moment, a single ‘variable’ awakening from the flames.

Only one person in this room knew that truth.