4. Consider This a Lesson

The Hunter Gallery, already simmering with bait threads over Cheok Wol's stream, boiled over entirely.

All because of one familiar name.

A D-rank hunter and a Diamond-tier Dive broadcaster. Even playing honest matches on his main account, he was plenty good — but that wasn't what had made Han Jae-min famous.

It was this: he periodically rolled brand-new accounts and dropped down into the beginner brackets. There he would pick one-sided fights against people diving for the very first time or F-rank hunters, then cut the footage of his victims' bewildered faces into videos for upload. That was Han Jae-min's flagship content.

Posts like these were not a once-or-twice occurrence. Even when he could end a fight in a single blow, he would stall on purpose, feigning generosity with openings, then call out each of his opponent's mistakes one by one for maximum humiliation. And if they got angry, he'd clap back: I gave you free promo — why so sensitive?

Plenty of people loathed him for it — and yet, paradoxically, Han Jae-min's stream thrived. Because a great many viewers tuned in waiting to see which newbie would fall into his clutches today, and, someday, whether Han Jae-min might finally hook a real opponent himself.

No one expected any skill from Cheok Wol. True, the returnee angle was certainly fresh — but only because someone had combed through the news articles and dredged up the fact that the most recently returned hunter was F-rank.

However much stronger a returnee might be than the average hunter, F-rank was F-rank. Han Jae-min, by contrast, was a D-rank hunter in real life, and his main Dive account was Diamond. For Cheok Wol, starting virtual training for the very first time today, a win looked flatly impossible.

Just as the gallery reached a fever pitch, the battle began.

A perfectly circular arena. That familiar texture, that familiar air — it was the Corridor. Thank goodness she'd known it was fake; otherwise, pride be damned, she would have plopped down right there and bawled her eyes out.

...Cheok Wol tilted her head with a scowl.

The only mercy was the chat window floating at the edge of her vision, whose steady scroll of messages kept reminding her that this place was not reality. Comforted by that much, she strode boldly forward.

'Still, they've built this thing remarkably well. ...Has the age truly advanced so far?' Even through the hazy memory of several centuries past, she could tell this world had come a long way.

'This is really a simulation?' But the moment she moved, the awareness that this was not real only sharpened. Smell and touch were reproduced to a degree — yet the responses lagged, and her body felt a touch stiff besides.

Cheok Wol stepped forward, arms folded. From the opposing side emerged a man in combat gear stamped with a guild logo. Han Jae-min looked her up and down and let out a snort of laughter.

"Alright, folks — here's today's first opponent. Account created today, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠record of zero wins. Seems they splurged a bit on the avatar, though."

Circling around Cheok Wol as he spoke, Han Jae-min continued his explanation for his stream's viewers. "Rookies like this usually charge the second the match starts. I'll let them swing away first, then show you exactly where the openings pop up."

'What is this creature?' Cheok Wol's eyes drew into a long, narrow glare. She couldn't say exactly what he was, but she knew one thing well enough — he was making a mockery of her.

"Hey, rookie. Weapon first, please. If I take down a newbie bare-handed, I'll get flamed for smurfing again."

"Against a runt such as you, a weapon is unnecessary."

'Lose? Me?' Cheok Wol smirked at the chat window floating in the corner of her view. It wasn't anger, exactly — the very idea was simply adorable. This was Cheok Wol, who had never lost even once in the Infinite Corridor. The notion of losing to a runt like that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was impossible to conceive. But — thanks to that chat, she decided on one rule for this fight. Since it had come to this, she would show her skill in full.

"Bare-handed it is? You'd better not make excuses about gear difference later."

Han Jae-min smiled and leveled his sword forward. "I'll even let you have the first move. Come at me."

When Cheok Wol didn't stir, the corners of his mouth stiffened almost imperceptibly. "Don't tell me you're scared? Fine — I'm coming to you."

The instant Han Jae-min raised his sword and struck — Cheok Wol's blue eyes thinned like a beast's. She stared the blade down until it was a hair's breadth away, then, as though bored, simply tilted her head aside.

Whoosh!

A rush of wind scattered Cheok Wol's hair. She met Han Jae-min's stunned eyes and said, low:

"Slow."

'Just a fluke.' Swallowing his bewilderment, Han Jae-min swept his blade in from the side. Cheok Wol ducked beneath it, and he ground his teeth and hammered swing after swing down at her.

And yet—

"...!"

Cheok Wol slipped past every one. Whatever angle he swung from, however he thrust, it made no difference. He could not clip so much as a single strand of her hair.

"Wh-why is this..."

Han Jae-min was Diamond. Worse, this account was a brand-new one created today, and this was its very first match. The matchmaking was supposed to hand him people greener than green — folks who had only just become hunters and come to Dive for the first time. No — ordinary civilians who weren't even hunters, people who'd bought a rig on a lark and were stepping into their first match ever. And yet nothing about the way Cheok Wol moved belonged to a first-time Diver.

"Haah... hah—"

Dive was virtual reality, but it reproduced real physical exhaustion to a considerable degree. Han Jae-min was a D-rank hunter, yet he had scorned his opponent and kept swinging a fully weighted sword at empty air, and now his breathing was starting to unravel.

"Truly a pitiful creature."

Cheok Wol spoke with eyes glazed in boredom. "To go on living with skill this meager — that alone must be a sin. Very well. I, the Slaughter Emperor, shall deign to grant you mercy myself—"

In that instant, her eyes changed yet again. Killing intent — enough to make skin crawl. It was a sensation Han Jae-min had never once experienced. However close to reality, this was still virtual reality; he had never felt genuine killing intent in his life.

KRAK!

Cheok Wol seized him by the throat. Han Jae-min felt pure, animal terror — he flung his arm toward the power switch, the so-called emergency logout, and in that very instant—

KRAK!

Cheok Wol took hold of him and drove him straight into the floor. A massive crater tore open in the Corridor's floor, debris blasting skyward.

"Guhk—!"

Every scrap of air left his chest. He had cranked the rig's sensitivity to eighty percent for the sake of his craft — and so the pain came through, undiluted. And Cheok Wol clenched her fist without a moment's hesitation.

"Atone for the sin of weakness with your death."

Then she simply let loose a brutal pounding.

"——!"

Han Jae-min felt agony beyond the reach of words — bad enough that he wondered if something had gone wrong with the system itself. With every blow, it felt as though his soul was being knocked loose from his body. Through his clouding vision, the only thing he could see was Cheok Wol's smiling face.

At first, he had taken her for nothing more than a cute rookie streamer. The plan had been to play with her a while, clip her panic and her outburst, and spin it into another video. But now, in Han Jae-min's eyes, Cheok Wol was nothing — nothing at all — but a demon.

And so Han Jae-min was force-disconnected — in precisely the opposite manner from the one he'd intended.

Watching her opponent blur and vanish mid-fight, Cheok Wol's brow twitched. "Hmph. A fake is a fake after all. The feel of combat is utterly lackluster — I have no wish to return here."

Just as she rose to her feet, face crumpled in dissatisfaction—

The chat window streamed upward faster than any human could read.

"R-Returnee, ma'am..." Ji-eun ventured, watching her warily as she poured Cheok Wol a cola.

Pout.

Cheok Wol had been wearing that exact expression, without so much as a word, since earlier. Truly, no one on Earth could sulk with that much commitment.

"C-come on, please calm down. I'm sorry, okay...? Okay?"

"My believer lied to me. You assured me it would be fun."

Cheok Wol hated the Corridor. Well, naturally — it had treated her like shit for five hundred years. And then, without warning, she'd been made to feel as if she'd been right back there. Naturally, her mood had curdled completely.

"B-but... I explained everything beforehand. You're the one who got so riled over being called a coward that you insisted on doing it anyway."

"..."

Of course, Cheok Wol made a habit of never answering when the other party happened to be right. This time she turned her back entirely, and Ji-eun smiled awkwardly, racking her brains for some way to make it up to her.

"No, no, I'm the one who's sorry. Please, don't be angry... Oh! A teddy bear. Should we ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠go buy a teddy bear?"

"Teddy bear!"

At that single word, Cheok Wol's face bloomed into a bright, guileless smile. "Then we must make haste and procure one at once!"

...Watching Cheok Wol switch gears that transparently, Ji-eun stood there for a long moment, genuinely unsure whether to be glad about it or worried.