It Exploded
Time flowed on without pause.
Before anyone knew it, the novel had surpassed one hundred forty chapters, and its cumulative views on Sirius were closing in on ten million.
Cumulative views: ten million.
"Unprecedented" didn't even begin to cover it. This was a figure bordering on the miraculous.
No matter how massive a promotional campaign Sirius had poured into it—the largest in the company's history—generating this kind of explosive influx on a single platform in such a short span of time was nearly impossible.
In terms of growth rate alone, it was the highest record of all time.
By now, no one in the web novel industry disputed the success of The Regressed Hunter is Merciless.
Even executives from rival platforms would shake their heads in private and mutter that a monster had arrived.
And at last—
As the webtoon adaptation became a tangible reality, Sirius played its final trump card.
SNS Short-Form / YouTube Ads / Subway Outdoor Advertising — Full Rollout
This wasn't just rotating banners inside the platform.
Main platform banners, YouTube in-stream ads, Instagram sponsored posts, and even the screen doors at Gangnam Station and Hongik University Station—the two busiest transit hubs in the country.
Anyone in South Korea who carried a smartphone was going to see it at least once. A full-scale media blitz.
The Sirius marketing team was brimming with confidence.
The webtoon manuscripts they'd received were nothing short of overwhelming.
If they showed the public artwork of this caliber, they were certain it would not only silence any anxiety about a fledgling production studio—it would plant explosive anticipation.
The ads themselves were simple but powerful.
A thrill beyond the novel.
The Regressed Hunter is Merciless.
Webtoon Launching Soon.
And behind those words, the highlight cuts from the webtoon that I had drawn myself.
The cold smile on protagonist Kang Cheol-min's blood-soaked face. The three-dimensional spray of blood as he severed a monster's neck. The meticulously detailed ruins of a collapsed city in the background.
But—
Their predictions missed the mark completely. More precisely, the reaction veered off in a completely unexpected direction.
It backfired.
Readers didn't believe it. They couldn't believe it.
Too many web novel adaptations had lured readers in with dazzling promotional videos, only to open the lid and reveal mass-produced quality that fell far short of expectations—leaving nothing but disappointment in their wake. The precedents were endless.
To them, the art in those ads wasn't a webtoon. It was nothing more than a meticulously crafted illustration made for marketing.
Community sentiment was ice-cold.
No one even dreamed that the scenes in the ads were actual panels from the webtoon itself. Instead, they started pushing back, calling it pure overpackaging.
And yet, inside Sirius, that reaction was strangely understandable.
"Honestly… even I wouldn't believe it."
The marketing team lead shook his head with a bitter smile.
"We received the manuscripts ourselves and still couldn't trust our own eyes. A human being is producing this on a weekly serialization schedule? Impossible. The readers' reaction is completely natural."
But paradoxically, that very distrust became enormous noise marketing and spread like wildfire.
Across every community—even humor sites with zero connection to web novels or webtoons—the screenshots started circulating.
Mockery and ridicule.
But everyone who clicked that post ended up clicking their tongues in awe.
When a single frame of absurd quality started circulating as a meme, attention was inevitable. Positive or negative—every eye in Korea's subculture scene was turning toward Sirius.
At ToonMix headquarters, after confirming Sirius's massive advertising campaign, the Webtoon Division Team 1 lead let out a long sigh of relief as he stared at his monitor.
"Hoo… thank god."
He leaned deep into his chair and wore a thin, crooked smile.
"They're walking themselves straight down the path to self-destruction."
"Right? That's pure poison, isn't it?"
A team member beside him chimed in.
"Obviously. That's a poisoned chalice. Sure, they can pull temporary traffic—they definitely got the aggro. But the problem is, the expectations are way too high now."
The team lead tapped his fingers on the desk.
"The second the quality gap between the ads and the actual series shows, readers' disappointment will turn into rage. Betrayal, even. That's exactly when we make our move."
When public opinion hit rock bottom and the original author was thrashing around with a shattered mental state—that was the scenario where ToonMix would appear like a relief pitcher, extending a hand and offering to remake it properly with a real system.
The team lead was certain.
"Honestly, does it even make sense to run a webtoon at that quality?"
In that short a timeframe, no less?
When they'd met with them, the fact was that webtoon production hadn't even started. Which meant they'd supposedly built up a buffer of finished manuscripts in less than a month.
"At least three chapters? At that quality? Impossible."
This wasn't just their own wishful thinking.
Every industry insider was having the same reaction.
Even rival platform Macao Page—who had initially tensed up, treating it as a competitor to Level Up—had reportedly snorted with laughter the moment they saw the ads.
It was only a rumor, of course, but they figured it was probably true.
"No matter how successful a web novel is, you ultimately need a successful webtoon to crack the global market… Looking at how they're advertising, they must think this is just for domestic consumption."
"The more worried you are, the more you tend to exaggerate."
That dazzling campaign looked like a desperate flail—an attempt by Sirius and the production studio to paper over their own anxiety. All flashy shell, hollow center. A puffed-up empty bun.
"Get the popcorn ready."
The ToonMix team lead chuckled.
"The day chapter one-fifty drops, we're in for one hell of a show. Sirius's servers will crash, all right—from all the people flooding in to trash it."
And time marched on.
The long-awaited D-Day.
The night of chapter 150's release. 9:30 p.m.
The offices of Muse Co., Ltd. hummed with a tension unlike any ordinary evening.
This time it wasn't just me, my brother, and Representative Kang Suk-woo.
Every staff member of the webtoon team my brother had hastily hired was gathered here.
And so were the Sirius personnel—including the head of their web novel division. Every core member short of the server management team had assembled in the Muse office.
They had gathered because they were that certain of success.
Not simply to monitor—but to fire off the celebratory cannons.
On the table sat unopened champagne and chicken already going cold. No one could bring themselves to touch the food. The tension wouldn't allow it.
"Nine-fifty."
My brother checked the time.
I leaned deep into my chair and stared at the monitor.
"Hoo."
A short breath.
There was no trembling. If anything, I was calm—like a warrior finally drawing a blade he had spent a lifetime honing, ready to show it to the world.
Ten o'clock sharp.
"It's going up."
Enter.
Click.
First, novel chapter 150 was released to the world.
Tens of thousands of readers across the country. They had been clutching their smartphones, waiting for the clock to hit ten.
Refresh.
Chapter 150. The King's Return (5) — End.
Readers scrolled without even breathing.
This chapter was the climax of Part One—the scene where protagonist Kang Cheol-min beheaded Choi Mu-jin, the S-rank hunter and traitor who had driven him to his death before the regression.
The moment every bit of buildup detonated at once.
Every single character on the page seemed to come alive and move.
The protagonist's chilling line. And the merciless, beautiful revenge that followed.
Readers trembled.
Praise poured in. But mixed into that praise was a strange resignation—and worry.
Readers were lowering their own expectations. The novel was so perfect that they had folded their hopes for the webtoon entirely.
Steeling themselves like that, they comforted one another in the comment section.
And exactly one hour later.
Eleven p.m.
Webtoon launch time arrived.
On the screens of readers still hammering refresh, a new banner appeared.
The Regressed Hunter is Merciless
Chapters 1–3 Released Simultaneously
Readers clicked—half doubtful, half out of obligation.
I'll at least give it a look.
Please just hit average.
Everyone was so worried—let's see how badly it flopped.
Still, the original story is solid, so the baseline should be fine.
With that mindset, they pressed chapter one.
And then—
The Muse office went dead silent.
"…"
No one spoke. Not Representative Kang Suk-woo. Not the Sirius division head. Not my brother.
Everyone sat with their phones and tablets, refreshing communities and comment sections.
Something was wrong.
There was no reaction.
When novel chapter 150 had gone up, hundreds of comments had flooded in within a minute. Ten minutes after the webtoon dropped, the boards were still quiet.
"What the hell? Did the servers crash?"
My brother muttered, uneasy.
"No. Servers are normal."
The Sirius division head wiped cold sweat from his brow as he answered.
"Traffic is… hitting all-time highs. But for some reason, no posts are going up."
That was when I opened my mouth.
"They're reading."
"What?"
"When you're overwhelmed, you can't even think about writing a comment."
I smiled, completely at ease.
They weren't reading. They were seeing. They were experiencing it.
The world I had drawn—the world Muse had brought to life—seized a reader's optic nerves the instant they scrolled and refused to let go. Direction that gave no room to breathe.
Until they finished and came back to their senses, they wouldn't even dare think about leaving a comment.
And then—
The first post went up.
There was no body text. Just dozens of periods dotted across the page.
And beneath it, the comments began to flood in.
So fast it was hard to believe there had been ten full minutes of silence.
As if they were out for revenge.
It exploded.
So they could share the thrill they had just felt with everyone else who had lived through the same experience.