Sun-bleached asphalt shimmers under the heat as sixteen-year-old recruits shuffle through the gates of the national training compound, suitcases clutched like shields. "Sixteen" isn't their age — it's the codename for a program the Federation never mentions publicly: an elite forge where newly awakened teenagers are hammered into humanity's last-ditch reserve of hunters. The statistics are redacted. The dropout rate is a rumor no one confirms. And into this meat grinder walks Kim Suhyeok, a no-name kid whose file lists no sponsors, no lineage, and a talent that's barely flickering — just grit and a refusal to quit.

Park Sol runs the course. She greets the intake with a smile so calm it feels like the pause before a blade drops. Genius tactician, unforgiving instructor, a woman who allegedly sees every cadet as a line item in a casualty projection — she's the reason the program has a body count and a success rate. Suhyeok grinds through grueling sims, rank duels, and midnight alarms, slowly realizing the compound is less a school and more a pressure cooker with no release valve. Then he stumbles on a box in a locked storage room, crammed with personnel files — all marked "Sixteen," all stamped with a single word: terminated. Park Sol's smile hasn't changed, but the question has: is she forging humanity's saviors, or quietly disposing of loose ends?

Also known as: Sixteen, 식스틴.