At Go Gyeol’s cold shout, the commotion in the room died down. Kwon Do-geun had made a fuss, calling him a “precognition Hunter,” but Go Gyeol did not bother denying the misunderstanding and listed the detailed rules of the Preliminaries as if reading from “records of a future that could not be shown.”
“Listen carefully. There are three main rules for the Preliminaries. First, every Hunter moves strictly under a solo system. Party play is prohibited. You have to survive while carrying out the individual tasks assigned to each of you by the Tower.”
“Alone? Then we’ll all be separated?”
When Kang Hoon asked anxiously, Go Gyeol nodded.
“Second, there are no separate lodgings. Most people will gather with those they’re close to and form camps, so we’ll create a camp too. And every place, including that camp, will be broadcast on video 24 hours a day. Viewers can watch all of you together, but if they pay a certain amount, they can also lock the screen onto each of you individually. In other words, your every move will be watched.”
Go Gyeol paused briefly and looked over each of the party members’ eyes one by one.
“Third and last, viewers can support you by pressing the ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’ buttons. But conversely, there is also a ‘Dislike’ button. The moment accumulated Dislikes exceed 100,000, you’ll be expelled from the Preliminaries immediately, regardless of your popularity-vote ranking.”
“……Come on, Hyung.”
After hearing the explanation, Kang Hoon gave a faint laugh as if his tension had eased.
“Isn’t it only Korea’s population watching? 100,000 Dislikes? That’s not as big a deal as I thought.”
Relief also crossed Kang Ji-hyun’s and Kwon Do-geun’s faces, as if they thought that much was manageable. But Go Gyeol twisted up the corner of his mouth as if mocking them.
“Not a big deal? In the ‘image’ I saw through precognition, there was more than one Hunter whose life was ruined by that ‘not a big deal’ button.”
Go Gyeol looked at the Tower outside the window and murmured in a low, cold voice.
“I once saw the future of a female Hunter whose ability alone was incredible. In the early stage of the Preliminaries, she was an overwhelming candidate for first place. But the ‘jealousy’ of another Hunter assigned to the same area became the variable. That Hunter used the camera’s blind spots to manipulate the situation so it looked as if the first-place candidate was bullying her companions or monopolizing rewards. It was malicious editing that happened in an extremely brief instant.”
“And then?”
“In an instant, 100 ‘Dislikes’ were stamped on her. It didn’t even take 3 minutes. She was forcibly expelled from the Tower and thrown back into the world covered in absurd filth. Of course, her Hunter qualification was revoked, and even her daily life collapsed. Protesters gathered in front of her house every day, and in the end, she had to emigrate after changing even her name and face. There was no longer any place for her to breathe on Korean soil.”
Listening to the story, Kang Hoon clicked his tongue and muttered,
“Wow…… women’s jealousy really is scary. Scary.”
Then Go Gyeol looked straight at Kang Hoon and answered coldly.
“Men are worse, brat.”
Go Gyeol’s voice sank another degree.
“In the male zones, more primal dogfights break out. There are plenty of bastards who engage in dominance battles, bragging about how great they are, then trip someone or stab them in the back at a critical moment when monsters rush in. They recklessly charge in to look cool to viewers, drive their companions into death, and in the end, tear each other down until monsters eat them alive…… I can see all of it clearly.”
Kang Hoon’s complexion turned earthy. This was not simply a matter of hunting monsters. It was hell where they had to face the eyes of 7 billion viewers, the blades of their companions, and the ugly nature of humans.
Go Gyeol and Lee Seong-ha looked at each other as if dumbfounded. Thanks to Kwon Do-geun proposing the theory that Go Gyeol was a “precognition Hunter,” suspicion about Regression had been perfectly blocked, but the warnings delivered under the name of precognition seemed to have reached the party members as vivid fear.
“I don’t want to mention more, so let’s make a strategy. For those 3 days, what kind of ‘character’ each of you will appear to be to the viewers.”
At Go Gyeol’s instruction, the party members began planning their respective survival strategies with despairing expressions.
That was when it happened.
“Hey, boss.”
Lee Seong-ha suddenly tapped Go Gyeol on the shoulder and jerked his chin outside.
“Come see me for a second.”
Leaving behind the party members who had no idea what was going on, Go Gyeol followed Lee Seong-ha out into the hallway. The moment the door closed, Lee Seong-ha lowered his voice and asked,
“You’re not a Hunter. That Tower has an Awakened barrier, so ordinary people get bounced away at the entrance. Doesn’t that mean you can’t enter?”
In that instant, Go Gyeol’s eyes shook. Before his Regression, when Go Gyeol had joined, the clear had already begun, so ordinary observers were allowed. But only Hunters could enter the Preliminaries.
Go Gyeol urgently called the System.
[Notice: Forced Awakening proposed under administrator authority.]
[Confirm: Direct combat actions are entirely unavailable, and you will also be excluded from Preliminaries selection. Accept?]
“Of course!”
[Confirmed. Beginning Awakening of individual ‘Go Gyeol.’]
No sooner had the words fallen than intense heat surged inside Go Gyeol’s body.
“Ugh……!”
Heat like molten metal from a furnace rose from deep within his heart. His body temperature climbed in an instant, and his body staggered.
“Hey! Go Gyeol! What’s wrong with you!”
Lee Seong-ha, panicking, supported Go Gyeol. Go Gyeol’s skin against his hand was hot enough to burn. Just as Lee Seong-ha asked in shock, the heat mysteriously drained away in an instant like the ebbing tide.
“……Haa, haa.”
Go Gyeol raised his head with his face soaked in sweat. A clear blue System window appeared before his eyes.
[Awakening complete]
[Name: Go Gyeol]
[Class: F-Grade Spatial Hunter]
[Trait: Subspace Inventory]
[Warning: Direct combat unavailable / excluded from Preliminaries voting]
“……F-Grade Spatial Hunter.”
Go Gyeol murmured hollowly. His combat ability as a Hunter was effectively 0, but the subspace ability that allowed him to put items in and take them out had been clearly engraved into him.
“What? A Hunter? Did you just Awaken?”
Lee Seong-ha asked as if he could not believe it. Go Gyeol wiped away his sweat and smiled faintly.
“Yeah. Now I don’t have to worry about being bounced away by the barrier. Let’s go. The kids are waiting.”
Go Gyeol opened the office door again. Now, in his hand was an infinite storage space, and in his mind was the perfect plan to correct the twisted future.
The day of the assembly.
Beneath the floating “Tower of Truth,” there was truly a sea of people. Not only the thousands of Hunter candidates summoned by the Tower, but also broadcasting station helicopters and drones trying to capture the scene in real time, as well as major streamers, were all tangled together in a hellish commotion.
“Wow… look over there. Those are Hunters from Cheonrang, the rank-one guild. Ah, over there is an Awakened former celebrity….”
Kang Hoon, looking frightened, gripped Lee Seong-ha’s sleeve tightly. Normally, Lee Seong-ha would have snapped, “Let go of me, brat,” but today was different.
Dressed neatly in a black cassock, Lee Seong-ha gently stroked Kang Hoon’s head and showed him a benevolent smile, as though he understood every suffering in the world.
“Brother Hoon, do not be afraid. The Lord is with us, so no darkness will be able to swallow you.”
“……What?”
Kang Hoon’s eyes grew round. Kang Ji-hyun, watching from the side, rubbed her forearms as if goosebumps had risen, but Kwon Do-geun, who had met Father Lee Seong-ha from the beginning as a savior, looked at him with sublime awe, as if seeing a saint descending in a chaotic age.
To Kwon Do-geun, Lee Seong-ha’s gentle smile was not pretense, but proof of noble faith that was not lost even on a hellish battlefield.
Lee Seong-ha gracefully waved toward the gathered cameras, then approached a citizen trembling nearby with anxiety and warmly held their hand.
“Do not worry. We will surely return as humanity’s light.”
When Lee Seong-ha gave his blessing, Kwon Do-geun swallowed dryly without realizing it and quietly made the sign of the cross. The conviction that he could overcome any Trial if he was with someone like that heated his chest.
In that instant, the chat windows of nearby streamers’ channels exploded.
[Wow, who’s that priest? His face is insane.]
[His voice is amazing… He really looks holy.]
[Is he from an order of holy knights sent by the Vatican? Seriously incredible.]
Go Gyeol looked at him as if he could not believe what he was seeing.
That was because until they had left, Lee Seong-ha had complained endlessly about how uncomfortable the cassock felt after wearing it for the first time in a while, and whether the Pope of the Vatican had gone senile.
“Can you keep that up until the Preliminaries end?”
When Go Gyeol whispered the question, Lee Seong-ha answered by moving only his lips at an angle where the camera would not catch him.
“……Fuck! Shut up.”
But when he turned his head and faced the lens again, he wore the expression of the gentlest saint in the world.
Woooooong—!
With a massive vibration shaking the ground, brilliant white radiance poured down from the bottom of the Tower.
[Notice: Entering preliminary area.]
“Let’s go. From here on, it’s real combat.”
At Go Gyeol’s signal, the five of them stepped into the pillar of light.
In that instant, the roar of the crowd striking their eardrums was cut away in a single stroke.