EP.5 - Blazie

'This is what it means when a skill gets enhanced!?'

That was a direction I never saw coming…?

The flame that had turned into a fox was staring right at me with big, sparkling eyes. There was no denying it now — a much firmer sense of self had taken shape.

'Well, hey — as long as it got cuter, right?'

Since I was going to be carrying her around anyway, an adorable baby fox beat a drab little wisp of foxfire any day of the week. It'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be way more fun to raise this way, too.

"Seems like she's got a really gentle personality, too."

Hearing my words, she got all excited and started bouncing around me in circles. For some reason, she felt less like a fox and more like a country mutt puppy.

'…I wonder if I could hug her?'

I'd never disliked cute things to begin with, but ever since I'd turned into this body, I'd grown to absolutely love them. I crouched right down and scooped up the little creature circling around my feet with both hands.

'She's so warm….'

I'd only meant to hold her for a second, but before I knew it, I'd pulled her into a full hug.

'She fits perfectly in my arms.'

She squirmed for a moment, but then seemed to decide my arms were cozy enough, curling up with a happy little pyarang! sound.

I seized the chance and immediately started stroking her head.

'So soft!'

Up until now I'd barely felt her fur through my clothes, but just as I'd imagined — incredibly soft. She looked like she'd be burning hot, being a blue flame and all, but her temperature was actually just right.

'At this level, I might forgive her for almost burning down an apartment building….'

…No. No, I wouldn't.

Who told you to try turning me into an arsonist with a debt problem?

Let's be rational about this.

"That's right — should I give her a name or something?"

After all this, I couldn't just keep calling her foxfire. It didn't exactly roll off the tongue.

Giving her a good name would be good for both of us.

"Hmm, she's a flame, so… Blazie?"

Man, if I'd known this would happen, I should've taken a naming class or something.

No, wait — I can't even come up with a decent game nickname in the first place…!

'…But she seems to like it, though.'

Despite my hopeless naming sense, the little fox apparently fell in love with the name Blazie on the spot.

I could tell because she suddenly leaped out of my arms and started hopping around, tracing circles around me all over again.

'Sorry I suck at naming things….'

…Well, she's clearly happy with it, so it's fine, right?

'Yeah, if she likes it, that's what matters.'

Rationalization: successful!

Ahem.

I cleared my throat and asked the little one still bouncing around me.

"Then I'll call you Blazie from now on, okay?"

Blazie bobbed her head over and over.

'Name confirmed: Blazie!'

Still better than calling her foxfire forever. It even had a cute ring to it.

'…Hold on, how long have I been petting her again?'

I came back to my senses and realized that at some point, my hand had been stroking Blazie's head the whole time.

So this is how dangerous the subconscious mind is….

"…Okay, that's enough."

It took me several more minutes of petting her before I could properly pull myself together.

I'll pet her again when I get home, though.

"Oh, right. You said her firepower definitely got stronger, didn't you?"

Blazie was so adorable I'd completely forgotten about the actual performance upgrade.

Shall we run a little experiment?

'Something to burn….'

Found it.

There happened to be a rock of just the right size lying on the ground.

'Ungh, it's heavier than I thought…?'

How is lifting one tiny rock this hard?

Just how weak is my Strength stat, exactly?

After groaning and wheezing my way to lifting the rock, I chucked it with all my might, as far as it would go.

'There we go!'

It arced through the air exactly as planned. Granted, with my pathetic strength it wouldn't fly very far before dropping…

'But this is plenty for now.'

"Alright, Blazie! Go burn it up!"

Blazie, who'd been watching me the whole time, lunged toward the rock the instant the command left my mouth.

'Whoa!?'

Her speed was so blistering I could barely track her with my own eyes. Even more astonishing, Blazie flew dead-on toward the exact center of the rock, without a hair's breadth of error.

And even as the rock fell, she kept pursuing it with steady, unerring precision. Before long the stone hit the ground, and about ten seconds after Blazie made contact—

Fwoooosh.

The rock vanished, reduced to ash in an instant.

'She got faster!?'

Normally it would've melted through slowly from the center outward, right?

'So this is what the firepower boost did!'

I hadn't expected it to be this dramatic. And that auto-targeting feature — tracking the objective without me having to micromanage her directly — was absolutely insane.

'After all, I could always make a mistake.'

What if some tiny monster popped up, or we ended up in the middle of a chaotic battlefield? The odds of me pulling off perfect manual control in situations like those were vanishingly low.

But what if I just gave the foxfire an order and let her handle it?

She'd chase the target down with flawless precision, calculating direction and position exactly the way she'd just done.

'That's completely busted, is what that is.'

Reading about it in the skill description, I hadn't thought much of it, but seeing Blazie move on her own in person — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that's overwhelmingly cheating.

It's like being the only player in the game running aimbot.

'Heh heh, I bet I'd wipe the floor with that rock golem if I fought it again now.'

Don't get me wrong — I'd managed to kill it last time too, but the golem's material was so dense that there'd been a real delay while it melted down.

If the rock golem had been made of just a slightly sturdier substance…

'I'd probably ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no longer be a person of this world.'

But with the foxfire enhanced like it was now, everything was different. A foxfire several times more powerful could vaporize a rock golem in one go. And since I wouldn't even need to issue commands like last time, I could stay far away and let her do the work.

No idea what the second floor would throw at me, but this should be more than enough, shouldn't it?

'Not that I'm planning to tackle it right now, of course.'

First, I needed to go home and rest.

After dismissing Blazie's summon, I hummed a little tune on my way home and opened my status window — and the moment I did—

'What the—?'

A cascade of personal messages shot up my screen all at once, flooding the window top to bottom.

"Urk…?"

There had to be well over a hundred of them. All from different people.

'What on earth is going on here?'

As a test, I opened the message sitting at the very top.

Ah.

Now that I think about it, I'm currently first place in first-floor clear time, aren't I? With the Tower broadcasting its rankings in real time, there was no way I wouldn't draw massive aggro. And on top of that, I'd cleared the Insane difficulty — practically considered impossible — in a mere thirty-one seconds?

Even if I were them, I'd have lost my mind too.

'Ah, right — last time I dove straight into my stats window right after clearing, so the messages never popped up.'

While I was leisurely checking my skills and playing around with Blazie, everyone else had been furiously hammering out messages.

'What do I do!?'

Every working hunter out there — no, forget working hunters — people were just messaging me out of sheer curiosity. Reply and you win, ignore and who cares, that kind of vibe. The actual messages ran the gamut: guild recruitment, greetings, duel challenges…?

'This is cyberbullying, isn't it….'

Even at this very moment, the messages kept piling up.

'There are big names mixed in here too!?'

But why on earth would that person deliberately write in awkward translated-prose style on a community that auto-translates anyway?

'Whoops, that's not the point right now.'

Should I reply to at least some of them?

All of this?

'When would I ever get through them all….'

I decided to reconnect to the Status Window Gallery first and take the temperature of the community.

Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will win a hundred battles — or so they say. Something's bound to come to me.

Whoa.

The moment I entered the Gallery, it was nothing but me, me, and more me.

'I did roughly predict this after seeing the messages….'

Whether they're community posters or message-spammers, they're all hunters in the end.

I never imagined I'd end up becoming the community's hot topic of the day, though.

'Hmm, shall I take a look at the posts themselves?'

'THIS was written by the Sword Saint!?'

I rubbed my eyes, wondering if I was reading it wrong.

'The Sword Saint — that's the S-rank hunter ranked first in Korea and eighth in the world, isn't it?'

And that hunter mentioned me? And gushed over me to the point where my whole body was practically coiled up in praise?

His tone is a bit different from what I imagined… but according to the comments, it's definitely the real Sword Saint. His username alone is one that no one but a Korean would ever understand.

'Now it's getting to the point where I'm actually scared.'

All I did was casually roast things to a crisp with foxfire, that's it.

'Isn't this going to blow up into something?'

Sure enough, the Sword Saint's post was racking up views by the minute, the reaction swelling like a gathering storm.

Even the people who'd seemed totally indifferent earlier were now excitedly speculating about my true identity.

'What's this "alien theory" nonsense?'

People must be bored out of their minds.

'Wait — what about the Hunter Gallery!?'

I fished my phone out of my pocket.

Thankfully, the Wi-Fi worked even inside the Tower.

I went straight to the Hunter Gallery to gauge the atmosphere.

'It's the same over here too!?'

Almost everyone was busy writing post after post about the new rank-one hunter.

How do these people even know, without a status window of their own?

'A hunter working as a journalist posted a news article about it?'

What a shameless vulture. Since my identity hadn't been exposed yet, he figured he'd turn it into article material right away, huh?

Who's going to guarantee my basic human rights?

'If my identity gets out like this…'

Just imagining it gives me a headache….

Yes, making lots of money and getting famous would be nice, but this is a level of attention that would make normal daily life impossible!

'I'll have to keep it tightly hidden for the foreseeable future.'

In the end, I resolved not to reply to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠any of the messages. Sending replies on a whim could end up leaking my personal information.

'How on earth did things turn out this way…?'

Haah. Making a living is hard.