Chapter 39
Chapter 39
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: The Path You Chose (2)
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At that very moment, a commotion broke out in front of a computer in one officetel.
"Korea's screwed."
"Yeah. Totally fucked."
In a nearby café, a young couple had their smartphones open on the table, playing a video as they lamented.
"Iron Blood was supposed to be a real powerhouse of a woman, but she got wrecked without landing a single hit? For real?"
"Dead serious. She was the S-Rank Hunter who used to drag regular people off by force just because they weren't Hunters. Check this out. Punching at thin air."
The couple replayed the video.
It captured the confrontation between two S-Rank Hunters that had unfolded just 30 minutes earlier, right in front of the Busan BEXCO A-Rank Tower.
The footage was so impactful that it shocked not just all of Korea, but the entire world—and even now, the view count was—
"What the hell?"
"The video's gone?"
"Holy shit. They took it down because Iron Blood got wrecked?"
They had wanted to check out the skyrocketing real-time views, but every single video had vanished.
"Ugh, seriously. Did you save it offline by any chance?"
"Knew something like this might happen, so I saved it just now. Pretty smart, right?"
"Yeah. Let's upload it as shorts later and rack up some views."
Even as a couple, they talked more to their phones than to each other because they created content about Hunters.
"What should we title it? 'Iron Blood Gets Developed'?"
"I don't even know what to say anymore. Nothing captures this situation better. It's absurd."
Iron Blood had been defeated.
Korea's S-Rank Hunter hadn't landed a proper punch on this cosplay expert of indeterminate nationality—Korean or American?—and lost.
"Wow, it's so shocking I can't even speak. The woman who always shoved warrants in Hunters' faces and dragged them away, looking this flustered."
"Right? But how the hell did she do that? Just vanishing like that out of nowhere."
"Teleport ability maybe? S-Ranks all have some unique power. Like Blue Lightning over there turning his body into electricity."
"But this woman... the cosplayer wields a sword."
"...Yeah."
Not just the couple—the entire world was busy analyzing the battle between the two S-Ranks.
"They called Iron Blood a tactical nuke, so what do you call the cosplayer if she's even stronger? Hydrogen bomb?"
No matter the differences in combat power among S-Rank Hunters, equating it to modern weaponry made each one equivalent to a nuclear bomb.
"If a nuke hit those women, would they die?"
"She'd probably dodge it or teleport away before it detonates."
"Ugh, it's scary as hell. The fact that people like this keep popping up."
From the perspective of ordinary folk, Hunters were monster slayers with incredible powers when excited about the spectacle. But if they turned malicious, they could kill far more people than any nuke.
"...That cosplayer. She's basically the US military, right?"
"US military? Not America?"
"Yeah. US military. A superhuman they're experimenting with, deployed to Korea. Too dangerous to test back home, so they picked an ally nation as a testbed and created a powered individual to operate there."
"...Sigh. Maybe I should save up and emigrate to America."
To modern people, Hunters were like two sides of a coin.
Essential for humanity to fight the threat of the Towers, and the reason a million had awakened was divine judgment that humanity wasn't ready for the trials ahead.
Even if Hunters acted for personal reasons instead of for humanity?
That was fine.
Even if the Towers collapsed and monsters started spilling out one by one, at least they'd hold the line.
S-Rank Hunters would kill more monsters and save more people.
But.
There were places that needed one S-Rank and places that needed a hundred A-Ranks.
Could one S-Rank cover Seoul—no, the entire country?
No one could confidently answer yes to that.
"It's good that S-Rank Hunters are increasing, but I wish they were Korean Hunters."
"Cosplay Maid won't raid any more A-Rank Towers from now on, right? Our A-Ranks need to climb and gain experience to become S-Ranks."
People could only hope.
For more Awakeners.
For more strong Hunters.
And for them to become 'Heroes' who protected them from humanity's threats.
Because they themselves had no powers.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ A day passed.
Morning came, and we welcomed a new day.
I'd fainted once along the way but woke up from sleep and sat at the table to eat the breakfast Elaine had prepared.
Tap tap tap tap.
The third summon was furiously typing on the keyboard, staring at the computer.
She'd filled the monitor—usually just left open with the game window—with unfamiliar programs from who-knows-where, diligently investigating something.
"Hey."
"Listen, Commander."
The moment I called, she spun around to face me.
"So, what are you gonna call me?"
"Until a good name pops up, 'Agent'."
"...Joking?"
Agent puffed out her cheeks.
If I kept calling her Agent, I'd probably get a "Please change the name" notification, but I couldn't hold back laughter seeing Elaine chuckling softly beside me.
"How can a person's name be Agent?"
"It's not the word 'agent'; there's actually a Korean name Yo-won. All the Yo-wons across the country would be pissed."
"Oh, really? ...You're not that Yo-won, right?"
"Nope."
"Hearing 'Agent' now that the idea's stuck feels so awkward. Kim Yo-won sounds like a real name, but Agent Kim doesn't. Hmm... how about this."
Agent patted her chest with her hand.
"Until you pick a new name, call me Drai."
"Drai?"
"Yeah. You know what it means?"
"You're not a German doll or something?"
"Pretty much."
Drai.
German for three.
"The sound itself isn't bad."
"I looked it up, Master. Drai typically refers to males."
"That's not the point. It's the meaning in the number that matters, right?"
Even at Elaine's words, Drai grinned, holding up three fingers toward herself.
"Better than 'Stone Three' or 'Third' or 'San', right? More cohesive."
"Cohesive?"
"Elaine, Kiharu, Drai. All kinda foreign-sounding names, so they match. Global vibe."
"Not wrong."
If it ends up on a passport later, Dr. Rai or something might make her mad.
"Or call me 'Ein'?"
"...If anyone's taking 'Ein', it'll be me."
"Oh? Fantasy world girl already searched that up? Sneaky. What do you think, Goddess?"
"Not Ein, call this one Zwei."
"Sneakily claiming second place, huh? Fine, fine. Drai it is."
Drai waved her hand, turned back to the monitor, closed all her work windows, and shut down the computer.
"What? All done? Servers hacked?"
"Everything's in here."
Drai patted the high-end computer.
"Elaine's, Kiharu's, and mine."
Overnight.
While I slept, Drai had hacked the game companies for all three of us through their computers.
I didn't know much about hacking, but she'd ripped apart the clients or something.
"Even if the game companies go bust or the server rooms get destroyed, the games themselves are fully backed up on our PC here, so no worries. The games won't just vanish."
At the same time, while logging into Elaine's game Granada Impact: Redive as a sample, she'd built a separate private server—not Korean, Japanese, or global—and connected to it, tampering with the data.
"One minor issue: internal data."
Assume Elaine's current attack power is 3000.
If you tweak the client and alter data on the private server to make it 4500, does she get 1.5 times stronger?
Possible.
Tampering with data on a private server was feasible, linking a backup server to one-shot weekly bosses in-game was possible, and importing that back into the original game was possible too!
But.
"Master. How's your body holding up?"
"Fine. Fainted once, slept it off, healing with breakfast now."
"And your mana? Recovered?"
"...No."
An unexpected but welcome variable had emerged.
My mana.
Even if you converted and tampered with in-game data, manifesting that altered power in reality—beyond the original stats—burdened me accordingly.
Yes.
No matter how much Drai hacked and buffed, to actually make them stronger in the real world required my mana.
In other words.
Elaine could only grow as strong as my surplus mana allowed.
Even if Drai boosted Elaine's attack to 4500, if my max mana was 7, it'd only go up to 3007.
The buffs from hacking and tampering forced mana consumption from me.
Summoning the three and keeping them manifested in reality hadn't cost any mana before, but this tampering felt like it was ripping the life out of my body.
That's why I fainted.
The moment buffed Elaine swung her sword, leaking mana, I collapsed from total exhaustion.
We'd tried various experiments overnight, but they ended in half-success.
'Nothing's free, huh.'
It'd be great if mana ballooned like a black card.
But unlike this tampering, legit updates were different.
Strengthening Elaine's gear made her stronger without costing my mana, and walking the straight path on live servers actually leveled them up faster.
So, choices emerged.
One: the path where I get stronger.
Climb the Tower myself, grow, and buff them.
Two.
"Elaine."
"Yes, Master."
"Go to NPia and talk to them. Ask for some buffs for Elaine."
"......."
"Meanwhile, Drai and I will hack to secure funds to acquire the game company."
"Funds? From where...?"
"Coins."
In other words, dirty money.
"Contact President Luigi. Talk about hacking to recover tax evasion slush funds and asking for a finder's fee."
The second method?
Free lunch.