Overwhelming Skyrocket!
“Four hundred thirty thousand…!”
The number kept climbing in real time.
Just that morning, the subscriber count had barely scraped past ninety thousand.
“See? Told you I was right!”
Before we even got here, my senior had said the number was still sitting in the high two-hundreds of thousands. Yet in that tiny stretch of time it had ballooned this far…?
Is this the power of a live stream?
When I first heard someone had been filming me, I’d clicked my tongue and thought they had a death wish. Turns out that person had been a precious benefactor who’d come all this way just to hand me points.
Senior drove the point home.
“Thanks to that live stream, the whole world probably knows how strong you are now.”
Especially the countries hunting for raw combat power—she said it with absolute certainty that my existence had been seared into their minds.
“Well, this is something…”
I was still reeling from the sudden subscriber explosion when I realized I now had to worry about foreign eyes as well.
“You’re still obsessing over NewTube subs, though. That has something to do with a job quest, right?”
Seeing how ridiculously excited I was over mere subscribers, Senior asked with a look that said she was curious why I was bothering with something so tedious.
“Yeah. It’s related.”
I’d already cleared the class-change quest long ago, but this was still an extension of it, so I didn’t deny it. After all, the whole reason I’d poured everything into gathering subscribers was for that.
And so—
Wow, I still can’t believe it…!
Even though it had happened in the middle of a crisis, the fact that a single live stream had flipped the entire situation left me feeling a little empty. Of course, the thought that I could now spend points without holding back put a smile on my face.
I decided to chalk it up to good deeds bringing good fortune.
Finally tearing my eyes away from the screen and escaping the numbers’ grip, I slowly looked around to take stock of the situation.
“More importantly, why hasn’t the administrator shown up yet?”
I’m sure I heard a helicopter coming down while we were talking just a moment ago.
Senior gave a short laugh and supplied the answer.
“Ah, they’ll take a while. Look at the Association choppers landing right now. They’re hauling the critically wounded first, so the sky’s completely jammed. On the ground the military vehicles are going crazy securing lanes for the ambulances.”
“Then… what about you, Senior?”
“I headed out with the combat team the second the live stream started. Once I saw things wrapping up I told them to leave the cleanup to me so I could come talk to you.”
If the local administrator was already here, there was no need for me to stand around waiting on-site.
“Then, if it’s all right, could I leave this to you and head out first?”
“Why… leaving already? Am I making you uncomfortable by getting too close?”
Senior looked at me with a suddenly dejected expression. I panicked and started explaining.
“I was with my parents and came here in a rush…!”
I insisted hard that if it hadn’t been for her I would’ve left without even looking back. Once she realized it wasn’t because she made me uncomfortable, her face brightened at once.
“Really? Then go on ahead!”
She thumped her own chest and told me to leave the rest to her. The sight made me think once again how important connections were, and I spoke with genuine gratitude.
“If you need any mithril, just say the word.”
I had no use for it myself and was planning to sell it anyway, so I told her she could take as much as she wanted if she needed it.
“Hmm, not really…? I’ll just squeeze every last drop of value out of it for my junior’s sake and get you the highest price possible.”
She declined, then kindly urged me to hurry because my parents would be waiting. I bowed repeatedly and poured out my thanks.
“Thank you so much, Senior!”
“It’s nothing. Oh, and drop by the community more often!”
“Yes. I’ll leave it to you, then.”
“Alright. Take care!”
To think someone this lively had been called the Ice Empress by everyone else. Once again I was reminded that you really can’t judge a person by appearances alone.
Watching Doyeon vanish into the distant sky in the blink of an eye, Kim Haeyeon sat casually atop a pile of utterly wrecked golem remains and thought,
“Already gone that far…”
What an absurd newcomer we’ve gotten…
From the community posts and the already-known display of power in Yeongdeungpo, she had expected an impressive talent to have entered Hard Mode. Today’s performance, however, had blown those expectations out of the water.
The thing she had stood in front of to protect people had been none other than a Mithril Golem. Knowing full well how desperately climbers from every nation had struggled just to take those monsters down inside the Tower, she kept her face carefully blank while inwardly reeling at the rookie’s strength.
“Looks like the newbie’s going to be busy for a while, huh?”
Power this shocking meant the neighboring countries would start poking around sooner or later. She herself had received plenty of offers from nations dangling every kind of benefit, so she could already picture the fierce courtship that was about to unfold.
She had even seen a few acquaintances pack up and leave for other countries.
Even so, a junior this selfless wouldn’t just abandon everything and leave.
The ones who left were usually chasing shiny items or quick cash. This junior had thrown herself into a death zone with zero reward simply to save people—an entirely different breed. Haeyeon was certain of it.
I’m looking forward to it.
She imagined the girl would refuse foreign offers the same way she herself had, then rise to stand tall not only within the country but across the entire world.
Come to think of it, she was dazzlingly beautiful.
Unlike her usual videos or the way she had looked in Yeongdeungpo, today she had been dressed up. Just looking at her had been enough to leave someone entranced.
“At this rate the domestic Top Three Beauties ranking might get shaky.”
Either she would drop a spot, or the list would simply expand to four. Anticipating the fun days ahead, a faint smile found its way onto Kim Haeyeon’s lips.
Across the Pacific, still calling itself the center of the world, stood the United States Federal Climber Bureau—the FCB.
In the top-floor director’s office that commanded a sweeping view of glittering Manhattan at night, a massive screen endlessly looped the recorded live stream of the Gate Break that had erupted in Korea.
“…Unbelievable.”
On the screen, a beauty with fluttering pink hair was tearing the gauntlet off a mithril-armored golem with her bare hands.
The man watching felt his brow furrow. He was John Sullivan, Director of the U.S. Climber Bureau. Dressed in a custom suit worth tens of thousands of dollars and adjusting a pair of intelligent glasses, he was easily one of the five strongest climbers in America and the man who held the entire American climbing industry in his grip.
While he drummed the desk with fingers that had begun to tremble as he drank in that overwhelming power, his secretary Rachel approached clutching a file folder.
“Director. Shall we send an official verification letter to the Korean government regarding this climber? Failing to share power of this caliber in advance is a clear violation of international accords.”
She brought up the treaties signed between nations and asked whether they should lodge a protest. John Sullivan simply raised a hand and cut her off. His gaze never left the image of Doyeon ripping through the golem.
“No. Protest is meaningless. Do you not see that absurd strength?”
“Sir…?”
“Power of that magnitude is clearly off the charts even for them. Korea will start bending over backward to keep her happy from this moment on. Rather than stirring up pointless trouble, we will simply slip into the gaps.”
John Sullivan’s blue eyes settled into a cold, rational light. He was the man who had most aggressively poached high-ranking climbers from other nations within the United States. After years of dissecting every notable climber on the planet, his eye told him that the newcomer who had appeared in Korea was no mere individual—she was a monster rewriting the limits of humanity itself.
Therefore the order he needed to give right now was obvious.
Leaning back into his chair, John Sullivan issued instructions in a voice that had gone icy and still.
“Contact the Korean branch immediately. Tell them we will cover the settlement costs on the American side right away—secure every last scrap of mithril byproduct by any means necessary. And mobilize Intelligence. I want her entire history and personal details stripped bare. For someone of that caliber to remain in any country other than the United States is pure nonsense.”
In order to make America great again after the Tower’s appearance had steadily eroded its influence, John Sullivan’s ambition-filled eyes locked onto her.
He began laying out, step by step, the plan to bring her under American control.
But America was far from the only nation making moves.
Beneath the surface, countless countries had already begun stirring to claim Doyeon for themselves.
In the days after the incident was resolved, the headlines exploded.
And the real-time community posts piled up just as fast.
I’m in an ambulance heading to the hospital right now.
I couldn’t even run far when the gate blew and just hid nearby.
I was inside a building when it suddenly started collapsing with a roar.
Barely managed to crawl under a steel desk and was still alive by a thread.
Honestly you just accept there’s no hope left, y’know?
Outside it sounded like bombs going off.
The half-destroyed building shook like an earthquake.
I was bawling my eyes out under the rubble thinking this was how I die, completely giving up.
Then all of a sudden it got quiet outside.
Thump, thump—then the debris got shoved aside and Heavenly Demon-nim herself came to rescue me.
The halo around her face when I caught a glimpse…
I genuinely thought I’d died and reached heaven.
It was like getting hit by a hypnosis app—nothing but pure faith left in my head.
And I’m over 90 kg but she just yanked me out like nothing and slung me around her waist.
Oh man…
For real…
That’s all I’m saying here.
So don’t take this as some survivor testimony. Just know this:
Heavenly Demon-nim is a god and invincible. Just worship.
Riding the fame that had exploded both at home and abroad, the domestic frenzy surrounding Doyeon began spreading like wildfire in the blink of an eye.