Prologue - The Academy's Constellations Are Out of Control
I'd have more fun if I streamed this myself. That was the comment I posted after slipping into some random personal broadcast.
The total viewer count was exactly one. I was watching what people called a "dead stream"—a painfully small-scale broadcast with almost no audience.
It sat at the very bottom of the scroll, a textbook example of a failed channel that couldn't draw a single glance. But the title was strong enough to hook me instantly.
Out of every web novel genre, I loved constellation stories the most. The reason probably overlapped with why I got hooked on internet broadcasts in the first place.
They were only called constellations, but it had nothing to do with actual stars. It was the feeling of becoming a god—handing out missions to the streamer, typing chat messages just to watch them react. That was the indirect thrill viewers got from the genre.
Anyway, the reason I’m mentioning this is simple. These days, the hottest broadcasting trend wasn’t cooking shows or gaming streams. It was hunter broadcasts. Normal people could never imitate them, the content was intensely stimulating, and above all, it delivered easy vicarious satisfaction.
The best part had to be mission sponsorships. Was there a single streamer nowadays who didn’t use the system? Sure, going overboard could create social problems, but nothing else generated such addictive content so easily.
Cooking streamers were forced to make five-hundred-kilogram hamburgers. Gaming streamers cleared titles without sleeping for seventy-two straight hours. As for the trash streamers… yeah, let’s not go there.
In any case, people actively used the mission sponsorship system to meddle in hunters’ lives—choosing their weapons, tricking them into wasting items, or pointing which fork in the dungeon to take.
I loved that kind of thing. It was exactly why I had clicked into this particular stream….
But this streamer was swimming against the current. His content was just quiet, first-person communication with a single viewer whose face he never showed. He had even disabled mission sponsorships entirely. That was why he stayed stuck in the lower ranks despite claiming to aim for the number one spot.
Still, there was one clear reason I kept watching. His words and behavior were too convincing to dismiss as simple bluffing.
That was when the streamer’s voice came through.
I typed back.
Of course. The man shamelessly spouted stories no one in their right mind would believe. The screen only showed a first-person view of a campfire flickering in the dark.
I typed again.
The streamer was a man of few words. It almost felt like he was deliberately holding back. Once before, I had asked him about these so-called imaginary missions. He stayed silent for a long time, then finally answered much later. He claimed he was running a solo broadcast for the constellations. That the gods watched internet streams just like humans and handed down mission sponsorships for stronger stimulation. Something like that.
Right after, he said a new mission had arrived and spent the entire day swinging his sword at empty air.
Hah. Of course I still didn’t believe him. But as a hunter cadet myself, his streams felt far more interesting than anyone else’s. Because the story was about a nobody completing the missions of the gods and earning every desire he ever wanted as a reward.
The quiet streamer spoke again.
I typed back immediately.
The sudden retirement announcement made the first-person camera tilt upward.
What the screen finally captured was a literal mountain of corpses and sea of blood left by countless monsters.
For a brief moment I saw it clearly—the flawless figure faintly reflected in the crystal cave wall. And that silhouette looked exactly like the future version of myself I had always dreamed about….
Right then, the man’s lips filled the entire screen.
"Anyway, thank you for watching my broadcast until now. Good luck, Ha Yeonjun!"
"Huh…? What?"
I sat there stunned, blankly rubbing the now-black smartphone screen.
How the hell did he know my name?
That was when someone tapped my shoulder.
"Hey! Ha Yeonjun! How long are you gonna stare at your phone?"
"Hm?"
"Don’t you see the professors coming out? Sit up straight already."
When I looked up, my friend Cheol-i was shooting me a pointed look.
Ah, had that much time already passed?
With no other choice, I quickly powered off my phone and straightened my posture.
I had no idea back then.
I had no idea that the broadcast I had been watching would become the greatest turning point of my life.