“For now… it looks like he still needs control training.”
On the day his abilities first awakened, Rion completely devastated one of the training rooms at the education Center.
Power that immense wasn’t something that could be controlled easily. Although his awakening itself had been rapid, that didn’t mean he was immediately sent into active duty.
On top of that, even though they had agreed to keep the emergence of an S-rank Esper under wraps until he officially joined the Center, interview requests started flooding in from all directions just a few days into training, throwing everything into chaos.
“I’ll work hard.”
“First of all, don’t ever think about using your full strength. For now, let’s try using only enough power that you think, ‘Is this really enough?’”
Even so, Rion adapted steadily and with determination. Fortunately, he was a fast learner.
There were some incidents—like completely wrecking a training room when he first arrived, or uprooting several trees, roots and all, during outdoor training—but in less than a month, he reached the point where he could lift light objects without breaking them.
“S-rank Espers usually take a long time to adjust. Especially when their abilities are particularly powerful. But getting your control to this level in just about a month is honestly incredible.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Well, if I had to point out one thing, your simultaneous activation is still a bit clumsy compared to the rest… but your other strengths more than make up for it.”
The training period originally scheduled for three months ended in just one, and Rion officially joined the Center before winter was even over. He didn’t show it, but he was genuinely excited.
I didn’t think I’d be able to do something so quickly. They say the work isn’t easy… but that’s exactly why it should be me. I never planned on living a life doing only easy things.
Now, he thought of it as something he naturally had to do—but back then, he had a bit of a hero complex. He felt like he’d become someone special, and in many ways, it was a time when his self-importance was running rampant.
To the present-day Rion, it was a phase he’d rather erase from his life entirely—a belated case of what people jokingly called “middle-school syndrome.”
“An S-rank Esper rookie? He’s practically a savior.”
“Isn’t he the first S-rank since Hyeon-seo, four years ago?”
“You’re the rookie who blew up an entire training room?”
“Do we even have anything we can teach him? He’s way stronger than us.”
His sunbaes praised him freely. They knew exactly how crucial an S-rank Esper was inside a Gate, so of course they were thrilled.
But those words made Rion’s shoulders rise unconsciously. He wanted to live up to their expectations, to show his power in a way worthy of their praise.
Once we enter the Gate, I’ll be able to handle everything myself. I’ll take care of it all so the others can rest easy.
With that flimsy resolve in mind, he entered his first Gate.
And there, reality hit him hard.
“Not that way—this way!”
“This side is more urgent!”
“What are you doing? If you miss it like that, we’re in real trouble!”
Inside the Center, his seniors had been relaxed and kind—but in a combat situation where not even a single second could be wasted, they couldn’t afford to coddle him.
Less than three hours after entering the Gate, Rion realized just how stupid his thinking had been.
At least I didn’t go around bragging. That would’ve been humiliating.
The one saving grace was that he hadn’t been loudly boasting to everyone.
“Everyone’s like that at first. Still, you were already pulling your weight.”
“Yeah, if this is how he is on day one, he’ll improve really fast.”
“Me? It felt like I just stood around like an idiot.”
“If I think about my first Gate, you weren’t even close to that bad.”
His sunbaes tried to comfort him, but his own disappointment weighed heavier than their reassurances. That was why he trained harder—and even went so far as to personally request frequent Gate deployments from the Center Director, insisting he needed more real combat experience.
“Real-world experience is important, but you don’t even have a Guide with a high matching rate yet… There’s no need to rush. Don’t get so anxious. Think of it as taking things step by step—”
“There’s no better training than real combat. I want to be useful to my sunbaes as soon as possible.”
It was something he could only do because he didn’t yet understand the weight of the Center Director’s position. Rion visited the Director’s office almost daily, pestering him until he got what he wanted.
But real combat sense was harder to develop than he’d expected. Two months after joining the Central Center, spring had fully arrived, yet Rion was still making mistake after mistake, unable to shake his rookie status.
“Interviews are kind of a burden… The seniors are the ones doing all the real work, but the interviews make it sound like I handled everything.”
“We want to turn them down as much as possible too, but if we keep refusing, people might take a dislike to you and start nitpicking over the smallest things. From a positive angle, though, these interviews do help give the Center a good image.”
Even so, all the attention inevitably focused on Rion simply because he was an S-rank Esper. Unlike his initial excitement, he grew exhausted faster than he’d expected.
He never thought about quitting—but his confidence had taken a serious hit. He started wondering whether this confidence of his was actually helping anyone at all, and even that became a burden.
Everyone lifts me up because I’m an S-rank Esper. I’ve gotten so famous that people recognize me just walking down the street… but do I really deserve that kind of attention? At first, I thought I’d solve everything perfectly, like in a movie.
The prolonged lack of sufficient guiding surely played a role—but at the time, he didn’t know that. All he felt was self-loathing.
As those emotions piled up, small mistakes became more frequent. The worst of them was the day the Gate dragged on too long, ultimately exceeding the time limit.
“Rion, get out first!”
“Get out? But the boss is still—”
“We can handle the boss ourselves now. The monster that flew toward the entrance—we can’t reach it. You’re the fastest one here, so you deal with it. Go, now!”
“Y-Yes!”
Because Rion was an S-rank Esper, the system rarely assigned many high-ranked Espers to any Gate he entered unless it was A-rank or higher.
Even though he was technically S-rank, he was still a rookie—worse than a seasoned B-rank Esper. He thought it was an inefficient system, but there was nothing he could do. The Center Director was trying to look out for him, but with the manpower shortage, there was no room to coddle a rookie’s adjustment period.
Among the team members in that Gate, Rion was the only one with high-speed mobility. Naturally, he was tasked with intercepting the stray monsters heading toward the Gate.
“Damn it… it got out.”
He fought hard, but there were simply too many to handle alone. For Rion—who was especially bad at attacking multiple directions at once back then—it was the worst possible scenario.
In the end, one monster slipped past and escaped the Gate. After taking down the last nearby monster, Rion immediately rushed outside.
The Gate was located right in the middle of a middle school’s athletic field. Classes had been suspended as soon as the Gate appeared, but if there were anyone wandering nearby, it could still turn into a disaster.
“Where did it go…?”
Rion entered the school grounds, planning to quickly sweep the area.
“Aah!”
A boy’s scream pierced Rion’s ears. He flew toward the sound without hesitation.
Through a window, he saw a monster that had escaped the Gate facing off against a middle schooler who looked like a straight-A student type.
The boy looked terrified, but he didn’t seem to be seriously injured. Relieved, Rion launched an attack at the monster.
“Kieeek!”
“Phew…”
After confirming the hit, Rion checked on the boy. At first glance, he seemed fine—but up close, that wasn’t entirely true.
“Are you okay? Hey—your side is injured…”
If I’d been more capable, the Gate clear wouldn’t have taken so long. He wouldn’t have gotten hurt.
Rion bit his lip, blaming his own incompetence. But then he realized the monster hadn’t been fully dealt with yet and immediately chased it through the shattered window.
“Damn it… how did they handle perimeter control? No—this is on me, isn’t it? I’m still not used to using my abilities…”
It was just a minor monster, so it didn’t take long to finish it off. When Rion returned to the boy, he felt awkward—first blaming the site control, then circling back to blame himself.
Scolding the boy for being there might only sound cruel, especially when he was already hurt.
He probably knows better than anyone that he was in the wrong… there’s no need for me to lecture him. I’m at fault too.
“Um… excuse me. A-Are you an Esper…?”
Rion felt trembling through the hand he was lightly holding. Behind the boy’s glasses, his wide eyes were filled with relief as he looked up at him.
And strangely enough, the moment their eyes met, the frantic pounding of Rion’s heart finally began to settle.
