3. To Show Them All
The Hunter Gallery. A site for sharing intelligence on all manner of hunters — essential dungeon intel, that sort of thing. In the beginning, it was the real hunters who used it.
But as the years passed, the Gallery's purpose slowly curdled into something else entirely.
It was an anonymous board, which meant it overflowed with information nobody could trust. One by one, the hunters burned by fake intel packed up and built themselves separate real-name platforms instead. The fatigue of wading through lies outweighed even the convenience of posting freely beneath a mask.
And once the hunters had all left—
The Gallery became, quite literally, hell.
Ghosts, the whole lot of them — long divorced from the site's founding purpose, existing only to pit hunters against one another for sport. Honestly, the Gallery's own intro blurb settled the matter—
—with the words "A nationally certified trash can."
Need more be said?
And yet, the so-called Hunter Gallery was well on its way to becoming irreplaceable. Its user count ranked first by a landslide. In a world where hunters were the single hottest topic on the planet, this was the only place left where anyone could speak about them freely.
...Not exactly wholesome reading, granted.
Even so, the Gallery did perform one genuine public service: hyping up the utterly unremarkable F-Rank hunters.
In common parlance, an F-Rank hunter was "an ordinary civilian who happens to be able to enter dungeons." They earned roughly what a day laborer made, and even that work was hard to come by — so most F-Rank hunters turned to streaming. Of course, hunters ranked far above F also streamed, which left the F-Ranks without so much as a foothold in the streaming scene.
But not everyone watched a stream for skill. There was a certain pleasure in watching a hunter even worse off than your ordinary civilian self. Even a dull female cam-streamer became decently entertaining the moment she actually set foot in an F-Rank dungeon.
but it's been ten minutes since the stream went live and she hasn't said a single word.
Just lying on her bed scratching her belly, occasionally glaring at the screen. That's it. That's the whole stream.
Thought her mic was dead, but then I hear her loud and clear, saying to the woman beside her,
"Believer, when do the people show up?"
and THAT comes through perfectly, LMAOOOOO
No clue if it's a gimmick or she genuinely doesn't know she's live, but dropping the link and dipping.
The torrent of comments flooding the thread stopped dead.
Every last one of them stared holes through the little smartphone screen. The blue-eyed girl spared the device a single, irritated flick of the eyes, as though it had asked something beneath her, and said—
It was the moment the Hunter Gallery flipped upside down.
"F-First stream, and I never dreamed this many people would show up..."
Even though she was the one who had recommended it in the first place, Ji-eun had never imagined the fallout would reach this scale, and she was thoroughly flustered. The broadcast hadn't been live for even thirty minutes, and the viewer count had already blown past two hundred.
Worse yet—
'All she's done since we went live is lie on the sofa and scratch her belly...!'
Cheok Wol wasn't even glancing at the streaming phone. She simply lay there, motionless. Even so, she had troubles of her own.
'...What am I meant to do?'
She had done as she was bidden, but the voice beside her kept droning on, and it felt as though she ought to be doing something.
"...Shall I crush some breasts, then?"
"Absolutely NOT!"
"No, not mine. Yours."
"She's a Returnee, folks—!"
"And yet I know not what I am meant to do."
Cheok Wol yawned and hugged a cushion tight against her chest. The chat was now scrolling at least twice as fast as before — not that Cheok Wol could see it.
Convinced this opportunity could not be wasted, Ji-eun blurted out:
"Interact! Interact with the viewers...!"
"Can you not do it in my stead?"
'Are... are they enjoying this? So it's fine, then?'
By this point, Ji-eun was starting to lose her own bearings. And it was right around then—
"You ask the name of this body?"
Up she sprang. Cheok Wol, at the very least, always answered her donations. Rising from the sofa, she fixed the phone with a dead-even stare and declared:
Ji-eun could hardly bear to keep her eyes open. Cheok Wol, one hand planted on her hip, delivered the entire proclamation without so much as a shred of shame. Alone together, Ji-eun had been able to let it slide — but there were a full four hundred viewers watching right now!
She had delivered lines like that in front of four hundred gathered spectators.
And yet, against all expectations, the reaction was explosive.
"This body has never once taken a human life!"
But there was nothing to be done about it. Five hundred years spent alone had certainly left room for such imaginings — yet she had never once actually encountered a human inside the Infinite Corridor. It was the same as how no sparrow can fly where the heights begin: the floors she walked were simply beyond humanity's reach.
She was fun to watch, but impossible to talk to — so in the end, the viewers decided to borrow Ji-eun instead. Ji-eun nodded and stepped into frame without a moment's hesitation. ...Honestly, she wasn't thrilled about showing her face in front of strangers, but standing Cheok Wol out front while she herself hid behind her felt a touch too pathetic.
"Yes. She is indeed a Returnee. I can't go into details — it's classified national information — but..."
"National Hunter Intelligence Service."
Without a flicker of hesitation, Ji-eun held up her civil servant ID.
"She spent an exceptionally long time in the Corridor, so I must ask for your generous understanding, everyone."
'Okay, yes, that pricks my conscience a little — but it's for an Awakened's sake!'
And she hadn't lied. Cheok Wol really was someone who had spent an awfully long time in the Corridor — of that much, Ji-eun could vouch from the three months they had lived together. Granted, those three months had probably amounted to nothing more than Floor 1, but still...
Ji-eun read the chat, clamped her mouth shut, and stepped back out of frame.
But just then, Cheok Wol — who had been listening in silence all the while — deigned to show interest.
"Dive?"
"Oh... it's a kind of simulation. Full-VR recreates a space identical to the real Corridor, and once you're matched, you fight one-on-one."
"...What manner of thing is that?"
The concept was difficult for Cheok Wol to grasp. Only after Ji-eun layered on further explanation did comprehension finally arrive.
"Imaginary battle, you say. I decline. This body has fought so very much that it has grown weary. I would rest a while now."
"What is this 'scared'?"
"Uh, it means people think the Returnee got spooked."
"WHAT!"
Cheok Wol flew into an instant fury.
"Bring me this Dive or whatever it is, at once! I shall show them my strength!"
'...Is a person really allowed to be this easy to bait?'
Ji-eun was thrown off balance, but quickly decided this might not be such a bad turn after all. For the moment, sheer looks were carrying the stream even with Cheok Wol doing absolutely nothing — but a pretty face only stretches so far, and what else did Cheok Wol have to offer?
Whatever the case, a Returnee was a Returnee. She had to be stronger than your average F-Rank hunter, at the very least. Floor 1 or not, the Corridor was the Corridor. She had cleared Floor 1 and come back alive — that much was fact.
"One moment, please. Stay right there — I'll go fetch it."
Ji-eun went looking for Cheok Wol's VR machine, but no matter where she searched, it was nowhere to be seen, and she asked in a fluster:
"Returnee! Where did the machine go?"
"Machine?"
"The one I gave you when you first settled in!"
By national policy, every Returnee was issued a VR machine as a matter of obligation. That machine trained its user closer to true combat than anything else on the market — and since its introduction, it had saved the lives of countless hunters. Granted, it was a standard-issue model, nothing extravagant — but then, hunters earned more than enough to afford a VR machine of that caliber with ease. And yet the machine had vanished. Even as a budget unit, it had been worth a solid twenty million won.
"Mmh? That thing? 'Tis over yonder."
"Yonder...?"
Ji-eun followed the line of Cheok Wol's pointing finger.
There, crushed flat beneath the television, the expensive full-VR machine was screaming.
"AAAAHH! NO!"
Ji-eun scrambled over and hauled the device free. The headset-shaped thing dangled limply. It was... a little broken. She hastily looped it over her neck and tried booting it up. The power came on — a green light. By all appearances, the unit still ran. Breathing a sigh of relief, Ji-eun settled the machine over Cheok Wol's head.
"This suffices?"
"Yes. It will transfer you any second now."
"When, exact—"
Before the words had even left her mouth—
"...!"
Cheok Wol's pupils blew wide open. It was precisely the sensation of that moment — clearing the Infinite Corridor and being carried away to this world. The instant she moved to rip the headset off—
Ding—.
You have been matched with Han Jae-min.
She was already standing in the Corridor.