Hero Academy – One Week After the Summoning*
Gold-trimmed banners flapped in the air as the newly summoned heroes stood before the gleaming marble steps of the Hero Academy. Towering spires, laced with glowing crystal veins, reached for the sky, exuding magic in every breath of the air. It was paradise for most of the students. For others, it was a gilded prison.
Mario adjusted his new crimson armor, glancing at the reflection of his perfectly styled hair in the polished shield strapped to his arm. "Not bad," he muttered to himself. He had already attracted a small group of students around him—mostly the athletic types who used to follow him on the soccer field. They now followed him as part of the Sword Saint path he had been given.
"Did you see the stats the priestess gave me?" he said to one of them, laughing. "I'm practically made to be the next general of this world."
From a short distance away, Leah, the class representative, stood quiet in her ceremonial robes. Her long ash-blonde hair fell like a curtain down her back, and the air shimmered slightly around her—a sign of raw, untapped magical energy. She was the only one with an A-Class rating, and it showed.
She barely listened to Mario's chatter. Her eyes wandered to the side, toward the ceremonial platform where the high priestess now stood again. "Today," the priestess announced, "you will receive your blessings and placements. The realm welcomes its saviors."
Harry stood near the back of the group, arms crossed. Unlike the others, he didn't look thrilled. His thoughts were still stuck on that moment—Andrew's confused face as he disappeared during the summoning. He had shouted. Tried to stop it. And then—darkness.
No one had mentioned Andrew since.
When he brought it up to a knight the day before, the man had stiffened. "Summoning failures are common," the knight had said sharply. "You'd do well to forget them."
But Harry didn't forget.
He stared at the ornate academy with narrowed eyes. Marble didn't erase guilt. And the priestess' voice—so calm, so absolute—did nothing to reassure him.
He glanced at Leah. "Do you remember Andrew?"
Leah's brow furrowed. "Of course. He was… quiet, but smart."
"Don't you think it's weird no one is talking about him?"
She hesitated. "Very."
Before either could say more, the priestess began listing off team assignments. Heroes were to be deployed across training zones within the kingdom. No mention of Andrew.
Harry clenched his jaw.
*Somewhere in the Wastes – The Disposal Zone*
The tower had collapsed behind him like a dying beast, leaving nothing but dust and silence in its wake. Andrew staggered forward, gripping his side where bruises throbbed from the earlier escape.
But his mind was focused. The system had finally activated.
A transparent interface now hovered lightly before his eyes, invisible to all others. "Class: Strategist [Rank: Unknown]. Status: Ascending. World Influence: Suppressed."
Below that, a list of abilities glimmered faintly:
-*Strategic Analysis (Passive):** Real-time probability calculation for success/failure in combat scenarios.
*Battlefield Shift (Locked):** Temporarily alters terrain variables.
*Command Aura (Level 1):** Boosts morale and performance of nearby allies.
*Fog of War (Locked):** Manipulate enemy perception in a set radius.
Andrew's breath caught. This… this was insane. His class wasn't weak. It was misunderstood. Misclassified. Whoever read the summoning chart didn't recognize that his class was meant for something *beyond* brute force.
He noticed something else: a blinking icon labeled [World Event Notification: You have deviated from the divine path].
"Divine path?" he murmured. "So there really is some kind of fate system here…"
He turned to the map that had activated during the tower collapse. It showed several zones etched in ancient runes. One of them pulsed softly in red—"Sanctum Ruins – Forbidden Knowledge."
Andrew squinted. "If they're trying to control fate… then I need to learn how to break it."
He heard a rustle behind him.
Spinning fast, he drew the old dagger he'd salvaged earlier—but it was only a scavenger beast, rooting through what seemed to be the remains of another discarded "hero." The bones were barely covered in rags.
Andrew approached solemnly. "How many others were thrown here before me?"
He took the fallen man's cloak and fashioned it around his shoulder. If fate would not grant him armor, he would build his own. And as for the priestess—who had smiled while banishing him—he would return one day.
Not as a hero. Not as a villain.
As a variable.
"Just wait," he whispered, staring up at the smoky horizon. "You'll see what a mistake you made."
Leah walked in silence later that evening, her boots tapping against the polished marble of the inner academy courtyard. Behind her, the laughter and cheers of the others echoed faintly—many of them too excited by their new powers to question what had happened during the summoning. But Leah wasn't like them.
She made her way to the central archives, where ancient records were said to be kept. A quiet part of her, something instinctive, told her that answers never came from the light of the crowd, but the silence of dusty shelves.
As she entered the dim chamber lit only by floating blue flames, a familiar voice made her pause.
"I thought I wasn't the only one who remembered."
Harry stepped out from behind a column, his hands tucked in the pockets of his academy-issued jacket.
"You're here too," Leah said, surprised.
"I couldn't sleep. I keep thinking about Andrew. No one wants to talk about it. But he didn't vanish by accident."
Leah nodded slowly. "I'm starting to think... we were meant to forget him."
They stood in silence for a moment before Leah turned to an old ledger on a pedestal.
"What are you looking for?" Harry asked.
"Anything the priestess tried to hide."
*Back in the Wastes*
Andrew walked under the shadow of broken stone arches, the smell of ash and blood still thick in the air. The further he went, the more signs he saw—bones of other 'failures,' some freshly picked, others ancient and turned to dust.
He crouched beside one skeleton and found a metal badge half-buried in the dirt. It read: *Hero Candidate: Elias Thorne.* The name meant nothing to him, but the concept chilled him.
"How many others were summoned, misjudged, and cast aside like garbage?"
He tucked the badge into his cloak and moved forward.
At the edge of a cliff, he stopped.
Down below sprawled an abandoned temple complex, crumbling towers encased in thorny vines, but glowing faintly with magical energy. The map in his interface pulsed with renewed urgency.
"That's it," he said aloud. "First step on the path."
A quiet wind stirred around him as if the world itself had taken notice.
Andrew looked up to the sky, where no gods answered.
"I don't need their blessing," he whispered. "I'll take what I need by force."
He turned, cloak fluttering behind him, and descended into the forgotten sanctuary, where fate had no say—and strategy would reign.