Hunter
In the past, back when the city lay in ruins and I prowled its shattered streets like a ghost.
Everywhere around me was drenched in danger. I had nearly lost my head far too many times because I let my guard down.
Everything that wasn’t an ally was a potential enemy, and the majority of them turned out to be real ones.
Yet after spending so many years there, the categories of threat slowly split into something almost manageable—those who were comparatively safer and those who should never, ever be faced alone.
Recalling it now, the Hunters stood out among them.
EMP DETECTED.
They were the exact type of enemy I had always been warned never to engage alone.
These were the countermeasure, the ultimate arch-nemesis built solely to kill Icarus operators efficiently. Hundreds of agents had died in the northeast under their hands alone.
Command had set the rules for fighting them from the final, desperate messages the dead agents had left behind. The words were literally carved into my mind in blood.
And the first line of that manual was a recommendation for a minimum 2-to-1 engagement.
Of course, Dagger Team and I had never bothered with such formalities—we had simply slaughtered them.
Well, whatever.
I yanked the grenade pin and hurled it hard at the jagged concrete wall just ahead, where fresh bullet holes had torn the surface to pieces.
The Hunter was already moving, of course. As if it had read my mind, it burst out of cover and vanished into the next shadow.
Any direct hits I landed in the scramble were pure skill and luck.
Yet it hadn’t taken even a scratch.
Probably the only thing it felt was a faint jolt where the grenade fragment had grazed it.
It wasn’t even ordinary gambling.
It was the kind of insane, heart-stopping game where two people bet their lives on who could dance longer on the edge of a blade.
Since I already suspected my betrayed teammate’s plan, I had to break through the Hunter fast.
I barked orders into the failing intercom.
“Can you draw even one of them away?”
-...A-ah, y-yes...! Right now, the... signal... is kinda bad... s-so... try your best!
“Don’t let them get close to you. Got it?”
It was more hope than strategy.
To turn that hope into reality, I would have to push myself into even greater danger than I already was...
If I hadn’t been willing to risk everything, I would have died the moment I left my old home behind and never come back.
I lowered my gun and waited.
These things were clever. The moment they took enough damage, they would immediately drop into cover nearby to heal and recover.
If I tried to force a close-quarters fight, though, these massive brutes moved with a speed that didn’t match their size—slamming me with electric shocks or swinging those brutal tomahawks.
Two choices, both of which ended in death. No real difference.
So I exploited that.
───KABOOM!
They were dangerous, and they possessed the aggressive nature to match it.
In other words, when they couldn’t avoid combat, they rushed in to close the distance aggressively.
I could hear the footstep amplification from their skills growing steadily closer.
Because of the EMP, their skills were sealed—I had no idea where they were.
So I trusted the razor-sharp instincts I’d honed over years and waited.
Then.
“...!”
“Guh...!”
CRACK.
They rounded the corner at the same time their tomahawk swung down.
But it wasn’t the axe that grabbed me—it was their arm.
The opposite side grabbed my arm just as hard.
The axe in their left hand and the classic high-voltage emitter in their right.
The latter looked exactly like a taser gun. One touch and it would rip all control over my body away.
I locked eyes with bloodshot eyes through the ballistic mask.
Through those blue irises burned pure, thick malice as the Hunter twisted my right arm hard.
Bones creaked and flesh tore with a grotesque sound.
The emitter that had been spitting arcs of death suddenly met its owner’s own body.
BZZZT—CRACKLE—
My vision flashed white with overwhelming light.
“A-A-A-AHHH!”
“...Augh...!”
Intense pain like being torn apart raced through every inch of my body.
But I clenched my teeth and endured.
Then, after just a few seconds, the Icarus gear I had already rebooted reclaimed control of my body’s motor functions and forced my muscles to move.
The next instant, the Hunter collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud.
It couldn’t take it anymore.
“...Hah.”
I felt the taste of blood in my breath.
I forced the agony down and pulled the tactical tomahawk from my belt.
My target was the spine—something that would end its life in one strike.
With the fear of death I could feel through the mask, I loaded the recoil and brought the blade down toward the ground.
WHUMP.
One Hunter down, hunted and dead.
───TUDUDUDU!
Meanwhile, shots rang out from far away.
They were close enough to tell me Harmony was still in the middle of a fight.
By simple numbers, we had perfect parity.
But those were murder weapons built specifically to kill operators, and she had only been in the game for a few short days.
She was forcing her body to move despite how badly it was damaged.
Another Hunter had already closed the distance.
This time I didn’t expect the same luck as before.
But I had to do something, so I would grab it.
I hadn’t even drawn my gun yet.
“Ugh, this is gonna kill me. Damn, those guys are scary...”
-Nickname: lillliillililll
-“Came all the way here just to snipe the first thing I see. How pretentious lol”
-“Why are you even shooting? I should have shot you the second I saw you.”
-“Chat is such a mess lol. This was literally made for this kind of thing.”
-“If you’re going to snipe, at least don’t betray. Did you even watch the trailer?”
At that exact moment, Harmony’s chat had turned into the filthiest thing imaginable.
When I said “chaotic” as a single word to describe the wall of comments, it was accurate—yet the direction of the anger was strangely clear.
On one side were users who exploded in fury over the teammate who had betrayed their favorite streamer and dropped her into danger.
On the other were those who insisted betrayal wasn’t actually wrong and tried to justify it.
Of course the truth lay somewhere in the middle.
What was certain was that the most popular opinion—asking how you could even report that user—was practically impossible in reality.
That was because Survival mode and combat in the Contaminated Zone had been designed from the ground up to allow and even encourage exactly this kind of situation.
Dark Zone didn’t lack a report function.
In fact, it had one of the best ones in any game.
But the needle between “game allowance” and “actual betrayal” was far too blurry to judge instantly.
Still, that meant if there was clear evidence, it could be treated as betrayal.
Regardless, for Harmony—who had somehow run into the absolute worst kind of opponent—it was already too late.
It wasn’t quite “body-eating,” but Harmony, with years of streaming experience, knew that speaking up at such a moment was suicidal.
Whether she lived or died didn’t matter.
She would speak up only after the situation was settled and every puzzle piece had fallen into place.
Those streamers who forgot that fact... had mostly been wiped out.
Whatever it was, Eugene had given her the trigger too.
So somehow she would make it through.
───PEW!
“Ugh, hey! Who the hell are those guys? I don’t know, but they look way too strong—do something! Support me! Ding-ding-ding!”
-lololol
-“Inu isn’t even angry? Real streamer right there”
-“You know you’re wasting your time getting angry over that.”
-“Veteran streamers who slipped and fell into the abyss—how do they still survive?”
-“But calling those guys Hunters and getting roasted like that... are you sure you’re okay?”
Unlike the recoil of the shots, the sound of bullets whistling by felt like a whip cracking.
Spent casings and concrete shards flew everywhere while she fought in a razor-thin margin.
Hiding in a spot where the entire parking lot was visible had been smart.
But there was nowhere to run.
The fight was 1-on-1, yet the enemy was a Hunter that could erase even veteran players in an instant.
Logically Eugene should have been fighting two at once.
Was that okay?
No, that thought was luxury she couldn’t afford right now.
Her breathing was growing ragged and her mouth was turning dry.
Even though the game suppressed real pain, it still felt this bad.
FRAGMENT GRENADE DETECTED.
The glitchy text had returned to normal UI after a one-time event.
Some flickering and shaking remained, but it was nothing compared to before.
Countless meaningless exchanges dragged on.
Damage slowly piled up on both sides.
Even against the same user, the pressure never felt this heavy.
“No way... there are really every kind of crazy person in this mad game...!”
Even as she fought, countless other viewers sent far more tips than usual to refresh the toxic chat.
Advice like “throw a grenade to shift position” and “concentrate fire while they’re exposed,” “use every type of status grenade you’ve eaten before,” “pulse to locate them.”
All things she had completely forgotten in the middle of the emergency fight.
Like an invisible hand guiding her, countless tips poured in and entered her body one after another.
Normally impossible information from Eugene was somehow transformed into usable commands by their time together.
Harmony clumsily followed them.
She used her skill to locate the enemy first, then readied the grenades she carried in her pouch.
The next moment, the grenade launched with an electric pulse exploded into a massive field.
The Hunter, caught perfectly, convulsed and dropped to the ground.
Harmony switched to full-auto, yanked the trigger with raw desperation, and the roar of bullets reached 800 rounds per minute.
“Spetz-nim, thank you... hehe, hey! Don’t laugh at a time like this!”
-lol
-Holy shit lmao
-There’s no way...!
-You changed clothes to go fix the circuit breaker? lol
-“The final lesson was to surpass the teacher, right?”
The fight calmed once more.
The Hunter, nearly at death’s door, hid behind a container and focused entirely on self-healing without even a twitch of movement.
Harmony reloaded and ducked behind the wall.
Another EMP exploded with a crackle.
Her intercom glitched again.
Eugene’s response was absent, probably still deep in combat.
The only thing that reminded her life still existed was the occasional gunfire.
The chat had always forgotten the past and, now that she had driven the Hunter to the brink, flooded with the idea of finishing it off.
But then.
───TUDUDUDU!
“Augh!”
Out of nowhere, a barrage of bullets slammed into her body from behind.
It was far too familiar a sight.
Of course it was.
Because every piece of equipment the person was holding had been made by Eugene and me from the materials we looted together during our fights.
A disgusting grin and the weapon-grade warning tone that never left her ears.
TRAITOR OPERATOR IDENTIFIED.
OPERATOR HEALTH LOW.
“You should have checked what was behind you.
If you just climb up like that, you get your head blown off.”
The user who had once been called Barcode kicked the shock absorbers on the ground and pressed the barrel against Harmony, who was already at the edge of death.
Flash.
Before she could even react, the gunshot rang out.
OPERATOR DOWN.