A loud bang echoed through the classroom as a man slammed his palm against the wall.
The vibration rattled the desks, and for a split second, I swore the entire room shook.
Silence fell immediately. Every voice, every whisper, every sound just… died.
Dozens of eyes shifted to the front, where the man stood.
No, not just a man. He looked too sharp, too deliberate, too dangerous to be called ordinary. The way he stood carried weight. Authority.
He was tall, dressed in a black suit that shouldn't have worked in a setting like this, but somehow did.
It wasn't the stiff, formal kind of suit you see on businessmen, it was cut just right, fashionable enough to look casual, but still commanding enough that you knew instantly he wasn't someone to mess with. In one hand, he held a sleek black suitcase.
The man let out a sigh, rubbing his forehead as if we were already a disappointment.
"Kids these days," he muttered, his voice rough, deep, and full of irritation. Then, louder: "Can you guys be any less noisy?"
No one dared reply. No one even breathed too loudly.
He let his gaze sweep across the room, pausing on each of us one by one.
It wasn't a simple look, it was the kind that pinned you down, made you sit straighter in your chair even if you didn't want to.
The kind that told you 'I see you. I know exactly what you are.'
For a brief moment, he just stood there, his silence louder than the bang from earlier.
Then he turned, carrying the suitcase toward the teacher's desk at the front.
With an unhurried motion, he set it down, flicked it open, adjusted something inside, and then finally looked back at us.
"Today's the first day," he said, his tone calm but sharp, like steel drawn across stone. "So there won't be any special training… or anything of the sort. But I hope every single one of you has done your private training beforehand."
I blinked.
Private training?
He continued, not waiting for a reaction.
"Because I don't like training weaklings. Or lazy brats."
His words hit the class like a whip. Some students flinched, others straightened. A few tried to look unfazed, but the tension in their shoulders betrayed them.
Meanwhile, I sat there, processing his words.
Private training… oh, right. That was a thing.
I vaguely remembered hearing about it before enrollment.
Dusk Academy's training grounds, one of the largest, most advanced facilities in the world.
It never closed, always open, built for people who wanted to train at whatever godforsaken hour they felt like.
Day or night, students could push themselves until they collapsed.
I hadn't exactly… bothered to even check there out yesterday. Not properly, anyway.
The man at the front clasped his hands behind his back, straightening with a posture too perfect to be casual.
His voice filled the classroom again.
"So, let's start with self-introductions."
A collective groan almost slipped from the room, but no one dared to voice it. He wasn't the kind of man you sighed at.
He smirked faintly, as if he heard it anyway.
"Some of you may know me already. For those who don't… I'm Gari. Instructor in charge of the first-years."
The name stirred something in my memory.
Gari… Gari… why does that sound familiar?
Before I could dig deeper, he continued.
"In the hero world ranking," he said, his tone flat, matter-of-fact, "I am ranked one hundred."
That set the class ablaze.
Eyes widened. Gasps filled the air. The silence that had dominated the room fractured into hushed, excited whispers.
I understood the reaction. There were millions of heroes across the globe.
To stand at rank one hundred meant you weren't just skilled, you were on a level far above almost everyone else.
Someone who had clawed their way past thousands upon thousands to reach that position.
And now he was our instructor?
I leaned back in my seat, arms folded, studying him carefully.
Gari...
Yes, I remembered now. He wasn't just some random ranked hero.
He was infamous for one thing in particular, his weapon of choice.
A stick. Not a staff, not a spear, not a sword. A plain, long stick.
It was taller than him, unassuming in appearance, but in his hands it became something terrifying.
I remembered hearing the stories, back when I still had money and connections to overhear such things.
He wasn't just skilled with it. He was a master.
To me, it always sounded weird. Ridiculous, even. Heroes chose weapons that symbolized power, strength, prestige.
But him? He fought with something so ordinary it was almost laughable. And yet, no one laughed, not once they saw what he could do with it.
And there was another detail. One that stuck out more than anything else.
He is a new 'World Ranked Hero.'