Lisan Al-Gaia: Tales of the First SSS Human

"Welcome back to the academy."

Carlos stood atop a small stage in the academy’s vast garden, the same place where the first-year students had been welcomed only weeks ago. Back then, the air had been filled with excitement and anticipation. Today, silence weighed over the gathering like a funeral shroud.

His gaze swept across the fewer than one hundred students standing before him, drawing an inward sigh.

Frontier Academy had always been infamous for its ruthless training methods and unusually high casualty rate, yet even by its standards, what had happened during this mission was a catastrophe.

Seventy-two students had died, while more than a hundred returned wounded, and none of it had been part of the academy’s design. Those losses had achieved nothing but needless suffering, leaving behind scars that would never truly heal.

That alone was enough to ignite Carlos’ anger.

What made it worse was that the man responsible belonged to a clan even the academy could not confront directly.

"It was a difficult mission, and events unfolded far beyond our expectations. Even so, you have witnessed the true face of the outside world. Beyond these walls, mercy does not exist. Only the strong survive, and humanity is far from the strongest race in Eldrune. If anything, we are among the weakest."

His words carried little comfort, but none of the students expected any. They had spent days trapped inside a nightmare while a dragon roamed the mine, reducing outposts to ruins and slaughtering anyone unfortunate enough to cross its path. They had watched comrades perish beneath claws and dragonfire, and whatever innocence they had carried into the academy had vanished alongside those lives.

If there was a single silver lining, it was that the survivors had returned different. The fear remained, but so did a maturity few first-year students should ever have possessed.

Carlos’ eyes eventually settled on one particular group.

Silas stood as calmly as ever, seemingly indifferent to the countless gazes fixed upon him. Unlike his first day at the academy, when he had stood alone while everyone kept their distance, he was no longer ignored.

Now he was the centre of attention.

Silas felt every stare. For a brief moment, it reminded him of the day his identity as Lisan Al-Gaia had been exposed, yet the atmosphere was nothing alike. The hostility had all but disappeared, replaced by admiration. To many, he had become someone worth looking up to, a student who had faced a dragon, survived, and returned with barely a scratch.

He cared little for any of it.

Not even the venomous stares coming from two familiar directions.

Unlike the admission ceremony, Leopard now stood completely alone. None of the G-grade students surrounded him anymore, and not a single surviving member of his former team remained at his side.

His eyes never left Silas, and that was for good reason.

During the day the students had spent waiting for the academy to secure the mine and settle the aftermath, Leopard had remained anything but idle. He had held two private meetings, both of which had gone far better than expected. More importantly, one of them had revealed a truth so shocking that it completely changed his ambitions, giving him a new purpose that would shape his future from this day forward.

Unlike Leopard, Rachel looked as if she gained a lot from this mission. When she joined the academy, she was surrounded by a few students who got lured using her family’s name and influence.

And now she stood at the centre of a force nearly five times larger than the one she had commanded when she first entered the academy. Once the wounded students returned, that number would easily double again.

Yet her eyes never left Silas.

The past day had been a relentless storm of revelations. Until her father contacted her, she had believed there was nothing left to worry about. Instead, she learned of the elders’ fury, heard about the punishment awaiting her if she failed to accomplish something extraordinary before the end of her first year, and finally understood just how desperate her position within the clan had become.

Unable to accept the reality before her, she instinctively blamed Silas. Had he not interfered, had he not escaped the flawless trap she had prepared, she would have returned as the one who defeated Cher Avaron and earned the clan’s praise instead of its wrath.

Everything traced back to that ambush.

She had overlooked it at first, but as the pressure mounted, she replayed every moment of the battle until she finally found the mistake that had ruined everything.

It had begun the moment Silas displayed abilities no Buffer should ever possess.

She had accounted for every variable. Alfred arriving unexpectedly had been outside her calculations, but she expected Cher rushing to support Silas. So Alfred’s intervention didn’t matter. What she had never considered, not even for an instant, was that Silas himself possessed enough strength to overturn everything.

At some point, the team had stopped revolving around Cher. It had become exactly what everyone called it: Silas’ team.

Yet the man himself never spared her a single glance, nor did he acknowledge Leopard.

"We’re attracting more attention than anyone despite performing terribly during the mission."

Alfred’s quiet voice broke the silence.

Something about him had changed since the dragon blood quest ended.

During the day they spent waiting, he had reflected on everything that had happened and finally understood what had haunted him all this time. He had been afraid to grow close to people, afraid of losing them once he became attached, afraid of reliving the endless cycle of loss that had followed him since the laboratory.

Then he looked back on what his teammates had accomplished.

They had faced dangers that even B-Enhancers would hesitate to confront, stood before a dragon without turning their backs, and kept moving forward without once dwelling on the consequences of failure.

That realisation eased the fear gripping his heart.

Although he had contributed the least, none of them had ever treated him differently. Unlike the laboratory where usefulness alone determined a person’s worth, these people still accepted him, trusted him, and fought beside him despite everything.

"I’m still worried about our team ranking."

Lara nervously glanced around as countless eyes remained fixed on them.

She knew, just like everyone else, that they had failed almost every objective of the mission. They had not defended their outpost, gathered monster cores, or helped the other teams. If anything, they had dragged the dragon across the battlefield, bringing disaster wherever they went.

If the teachers pieced together the full story from the surviving students, punishment seemed inevitable.

That possibility had occupied her thoughts throughout the entire day. Strangely enough, no one else appeared concerned, not even Cher.

"Our ranking doesn’t matter," Cher said once again, repeating the same words she had told Lara countless times. "This is only our starting point. From here onward, no team will be able to compete with us."

Lara wanted to believe her.

Yet every time she looked around and saw the different factions gathering together, her unease only deepened.

"I just hope we don’t end up getting punished."

Her murmur drew no response.

Cher merely smiled, hoping to reassure her. Alfred shook his head, convinced Lara was worrying far more than necessary. Silas remained as calm as ever, his gaze fixed ahead.

As for Darius, he simply rolled his eyes without saying a word.

Ever since their small celebration ended, he had withdrawn into himself. Claiming he needed rest, he locked himself inside his room and barely spoke until they arrived at the academy.

It wasn’t exhaustion that kept him silent. His mind was simply in turmoil.

’It seems my cursed fate is sticking its tongue out at me again.’

He silently looked around the garden.

Unlike Silas, who paid no attention to the crowd, or Lara, whose anxious gaze kept drifting toward the countless eyes fixed on them, Darius watched everyone with quiet hesitation.

His unique ability had already revealed enough.

As he had once admitted to Alfred, it always showed him the worst possible future, and that vision had dictated every decision he had made throughout his life.

He saw disasters before they happened, searched for the path that could avoid them, and shaped his life around surviving whatever catastrophe lay ahead. Sometimes, he even wondered whether he attracted calamity wherever he went, or if he had simply been born under a curse.

Either way, another dilemma now stood before him.

Every time his ability showed him disaster, it also pointed toward the safest solution. Ironically, that path almost always required abandoning his friends... or betraying them altogether.

Survival had demanded countless choices he despised. And after surviving this far, he had finally encountered a future he couldn’t accept.

If he wanted to live through what was coming, he would have to do the same thing he had always done. He would have to betray Silas, abandon everyone else, and secure his own survival.

Yet this time... Something was different.

He couldn’t explain why, but Silas had become the longest-lasting friend he had ever had.

After everything they had experienced together, Darius had begun seeing him differently, in a way he had never viewed anyone before.

If he was the one who attracted disasters... Then Silas was the one who crushed them.

Darius had spent the whole night replaying every event since the academy’s admission test.

He knew exactly how that trial would have ended had he not remained beside Silas. Only now did he realise that Silas hadn’t merely survived through clever escapes, nor luck.

He had created a miracle.

He had faced enemies far beyond his level, been hopelessly outnumbered, betrayed by everyone around him, and still defeated C-Enhancers.

Then came the dragon.

According to every future Darius had seen, surviving that catastrophe required one of three choices: never entering the mine, fleeing the moment the dragon appeared, or remaining at Silas’ side until the bitter end.

He had chosen the last.

Together, they had faced not only an A-grade dragon, but countless enemies pursuing them, including an A-Enhancer determined to hunt Silas down.

Yet somehow...

’He created another miracle.’

’Twice.’

’It wasn’t luck.’

’It wasn’t overwhelming strength.’

’He simply possessed the ability to create miracles where hope no longer existed.’

Darius looked at his friend once more. Silas stood exactly as he had on the day they first entered the academy, calm despite everything surrounding him.

At that moment, Darius made his decision.

’Even if this choice leads to my death...’

’I’d rather fight beside him than survive by stabbing him in the back.’

He knew how difficult that decision was. Yet, strangely enough, he felt lighter than ever before. For the first time in his life, he realised that he had misunderstood his gift.

’Perhaps this ability was never meant to help me survive.’

’Perhaps it wasn’t meant to teach me when to run.’

’Perhaps it was never meant to show me who to betray.’

The relief inside him only deepened as that thought settled in his heart.

’Perhaps Gaia gave me these visions so I could see the obstacles...’

’...and help others overcome them.’

The realisation was subtle, almost impossible to notice. Yet something deep within him quietly clicked into place. The feeling lasted only an instant before his expression darkened once more.

’It won’t be that easy this time.’

He let out a quiet sigh as countless fragments of the future flooded his mind.

’If I stay beside him...’

’My chances of surviving are almost nonexistent.’

His eyes found Silas again, and a faint smile slowly appeared on his lips.

’Perhaps... I don’t care about surviving anymore.’

’Perhaps... this is the end I deserve for everything I’ve done.’