If You Don't Take My Backseat Advice, Your S-Rank Party Wipes

I rested my chin on the convenience store counter, scrolled through the gallery's reactions, and snorted.

Everyone's losing their minds. The weak point is right there in plain sight, and instead of hitting it they're flailing around like headless chickens.

On my smartphone screen, Yurina — the S-Rank broadcasting hunter with three million subscribers — was rolling around covered in blood.

"Haa... haa... I'm so sorry, everyone."

Her usually vibrant pink twin-tails were caked in dust and hopelessly tangled. Half of her cat-ear headset had been blown clean off, and her magical-girl hunter outfit hung in tatters. The light of mana flickered precariously at the tip of her staff. Her eyes, desperately searching the camera for help, held unmistakable despair.

Beyond the dungeon's darkness, a monster's silhouette writhed. It was the serpentine boss that filled the entire screen — the Venom Basilisk. A mutant specimen covered head to tail in crimson scales was coiled and waiting to strike.

The chat window had already descended into chaos, a deluge of mournful tributes and panicked pleas for a strategy.

The convenience store at three in the morning was utterly silent, without a single customer. I took a sip of cold canned coffee and clicked my tongue.

Even to me — a Non-Awakened — it's a hopeless situation.

It had been ten years since the Gates first opened, and this was an era where hunter raids were live-broadcast every single day. And yet I was just an ordinary twenty-five-year-old who had failed his awakening, working the night shift at a convenience store. There seemed to be no way at all for me to intervene in the carnage on that screen.

With exactly one strange exception.

I closed my eyes briefly, then opened them and fixed my gaze on the boss monster in the screen. In an instant, a blue holographic window — visible to me and me alone — rose above the smartphone display.

When I looked at something directly, in person, I got nothing. My ability came with a hard restriction: it only activated through recorded or broadcast media — phone screens, television, CCTV monitors. I called it the Eye of the Spectator.

On screen, the Basilisk kept swinging its massive head, threatening the hunters. The surviving members of Yurina's party were flailing away, desperately trying to target its head — because on a standard Basilisk, the weak point was the mana stone embedded in the crown of the skull.

And that's exactly why they're all dying.

The mutant's head was nothing but bait. No matter how hard you hammered it, the thing would just regenerate like a lizard shedding its tail.

With a thoroughly indifferent hand, I opened the Hunter Raid Gallery app on my phone. The familiar handle — Hunsu-duneun-nom — was already logged in. I hit the new-post button without a moment's hesitation and started typing.

Less than a minute after my post went up, the gallery caught fire. And that wildfire spread straight into Yurina's live stream chat.

Whether they believe me or not is on them now.

I let out a huge yawn and switched the window back to the broadcast. On screen, Yurina was gasping for breath, glaring up at the gaping maw of the approaching serpent. Tears of despair had already pooled at the corners of her eyes.

"I only have enough mana... for one more shot."

It was the instant she was about to drop her staff to the ground in resignation that the viewer chat window floating in the corner of the screen began pouring down like a waterfall.

Yurina's gaze darted up to the holographic chat window hanging in the air. Her red eyes swept across the thousands of characters streaming past, reading them at blinding speed.

"Left... armpit?"

If it had been the crown of the head or the lower abdomen — a standard strategy point — she might have understood. But the armpit, out of nowhere? Common sense said it was absurd. Still, there was no time to hesitate. Stop now, and all that remained was a party wipe.

She bit down hard on her lip and snatched the fallen staff off the ground.

"Mister Tanker! Hold on for just three more seconds!"

The mana she wrung out of herself swirled madly at the tip of her pink staff. The colossal Basilisk spread its jaws and lunged to swallow the tank whole. In that gap, Yurina rolled across the dirt floor and burrowed into the creature's left flank. Every time one of its massive forelimbs struck the earth, the ground itself shuddered.

And as the beast moved, the rough hide of its left armpit came into view. To my eyes watching the screen, a vivid target marker appeared there — the third red scale, exactly, blinking ominously like a beating heart.

Yurina seemed to spot that anomalous scale too, her eyes flying wide open.

She screamed the incantation as though squeezing out the last of her life, and unleashed the spell. A pink flash too bright to look at slammed into the Basilisk's armpit.

"KIIIIIEEEEEEEK—!"

A horrific shriek, loud enough to shred eardrums, tore out of the smartphone speaker. The entire screen vanished beneath a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠churning cloud of dust and light; nothing could be seen. Even the chat's scroll seemed to hold its breath, frozen for one long instant.

Then, slowly, the dust settled and revealed the scene. The massive Basilisk lay crumpled on the ground, its entire left ribcage blown away. Its body was already turning ashen gray, dissolving into the dungeon's mana. A system message announcing the raid's success rose as a hologram in the air.

On the broadcast screen, Yurina collapsed where she stood, staring blankly ahead. Tears streamed down her cheeks in rivulets. And the gallery and chat window, which had been as still as the calm before a storm, absolutely exploded.

Notifications came pouring down as if my smartphone screen were about to burst. With a completely blank expression, I pressed the back button and closed the app.

Great, this is a pain. Better stay off the gallery for a while.

Just then, the convenience store's automatic door slid open with a cheerful jingle.

"Welcome."

I greeted the customer out of habit and hid my phone below the counter. A middle-aged man, drunk on soju, staggered over and set two bottles down on the register.

"Beep."

The barcode scanner flashed red and chirped cheerfully. These were the same hands that, mere minutes ago, had deciphered an S-Rank monster's fatal weakness and set millions of hearts ablaze. Now they were just scanning ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the barcodes of 1,800-won bottles of soju.

After the customer left, I leaned back against the counter and stared into space. To kill the boredom, I switched on the tiny TV mounted on the convenience store wall.

The late-night news channel was running a special bulletin about the miraculous subjugation Yurina's party had just pulled off. The anchor's excited voice echoed through the narrow store.

"We have breaking news just now. Hunter Han Seo-yoon — Guild Master of Korea's number one guild, Baekya, and the nation's strongest S-Rank hunter — has issued an emergency statement."

My gaze drifted absently to the TV screen. Standing there was a woman with waist-length black hair streaked with silver. Her cool, icy beauty and crimson eyes stared straight into the camera. The white combat coat trimmed in black that she wore was the unmistakable symbol of the Baekya Guild. As always, her presence alone was suffocating in its sheer weight. Behind her, dozens of microphones stood clustered like a forest.

Han Seo-yoon began to speak, her voice cold as sheet ice.

"I am searching for the anonymous individual who provided the decisive strategy during Hunter Yurina's raid today."

Up to that point, I thought, fair enough. Big guilds poaching brilliant strategists happened all the time. But her next words soared far beyond anything I had imagined.

"Whoever he is, whatever his status may be, it does not matter. The information he provided may be the only key to clearing the 'worst dungeon' our guild currently faces."

Her crimson eyes gave the strange illusion of boring straight through the TV monitor, pinning me with her gaze.

Clatter.

The barcode scanner in my hand slipped limply onto the counter.

"...You're insane."

I scrubbed my face dry and groaned. On screen, Han Seo-yoon kept going, her voice flat and final.

"The same reward is promised to anyone who provides a decisive tip. 'Hunsu-duneun-nom' — if you are watching this broadcast, contact me. I will find you."

The look in Han Seo-yoon's eyes on the screen flashed, chillingly, like a predator that had just spotted its prey. A ferocious obsession, one that seemed ready to leap out of the screen itself, sent a shiver clear down to my bones.

No, listen. I just want to live quietly doing my own job. Who in their right mind would walk straight into the arms of a lunatic woman like that?