Streaming (2)
Unlike Seong Ju-ah's anxieties, the conditions Lee Tae-hyun proposed were approved without a fuss.
[Live broadcast of a B-Rank gate raid]
The deal did come with one condition — that he never breathe a word about his negotiations with the Hunter Bureau. But weighing everything, the Bureau had judged that broadcasting Tae-hyun's abilities to the public outright beat trying to hush things up.
As if public trust in the Hunter Bureau wasn't already in the gutter after the C-Rank gate incident.
Better to seize this chance, show the world Lee Tae-hyun's real strength without any varnish, and repair their reputation in the process. It was a decision the Hunter Bureau had rackled its brains over, in its own way.
The rooftop of a building in Pangyo.
"That guy. I'm telling you, it's all hot air."
A man chewing the life out of a disposable paper cup furrowed his brow. The topic of conversation was, naturally, Lee Tae-hyun.
"Ever since that live stunt, I kept wondering what he'd pull next. And then he goes dark for almost a whole month."
"Honestly, I figured he'd never set foot in a gate again. What's a chaebol brat like that even risking his neck for……"
The coworker who'd picked up the thread exhaled a long plume of cigarette smoke.
"Even if that record was impressive, it was all gear-carry and elixir-carry, wasn't it?"
"You know how Cheonseong is. Of course they dumped a fortune on him. And now Lee Tae-hyun thinks that's actually his skill."
"Tsk tsk… That's exactly the kind of delusion that gets people killed young."
Opinions of Lee Tae-hyun had improved considerably since that day. He was still a scoundrel all the same. The karma he'd piled up over the years wasn't the kind of debt that got wiped clean by a single stunt. Worse still, since setting the C-Rank gate record he hadn't just gone quiet on hunter work — he hadn't shown his face in public at all.
"F-Rank is still F-Rank, whatever you say."
It was more than enough time for every manner of rumor to spawn and fatten.
Ring!
Then it happened. The man's pocket buzzed with a notification.
"Huh?"
He pulled out his phone, and his eyes went round as saucers.
"What is it?"
"What's got you so spooked?"
"No, no… look at this."
The man held the notification up in front of his coworker's face.
A live stream has started!
"…Why is this popping up out of nowhere?"
Link. The world's largest internet streaming platform, home to countless broadcasters. These days it was so widespread that more people watched hunter tournaments through Link than on terrestrial TV.
"It's just a Link notification, what's the big deal——"
"No, look at the stream title!"
At the man's urging, his coworker's gaze slid down the screen.
"……Whaaat?"
His mouth tripled in size.
"Oh, here come the people."
Barely any time had passed since the stream went live.
199 → 1,413 → 2,012 → 4,213…
The viewer count was climbing at a geometric rate, and a monstrous flood of chat came crashing in right behind it.
????????????
Wait, is this actually real?
My alarm just went off and I came running, what is happening
It really is Lee Tae-hyun, holy crap
Legendary
Why is this guy debuting as a streamer all of a sudden?
Whoa lmaooooo
Well, it was the world's biggest streaming platform. Even for an unannounced first broadcast, the firepower was no joke.
"Chat's moving so fast I can't read a single word."
Every time he tried to read something, fresh messages shoved it up and out of view. He fiddled with the settings, set chat to slow mode at one message per minute, and only then did it become half readable. Still absurdly fast, mind you.
"Ahem — hello, everyone. It's me."
Who exactly did you think we'd mistake you for
Out of nowhere, a celebrity streamer lmaooo
But why did I get the alarm?
I don't even follow him and I got a stream notification
How did you do that?
"Ah, that."
The method was simple.
"I just asked Link, and they said sure."
?
??
What did you just say
You asked them?
"Link is Cheonseong-owned, you see."
Most people had no idea. Who owned which company, whose property it was. There was no particular need to know, and no reason either. Before my regression, I hadn't known which corporation was chugging along under which subsidiary either — which, for someone who'd declared himself an heir, was frankly a little embarrassing.
Come to think of it, Si-hyun was actually better suited to that side of things.
Unlike me, he'd been brilliant at his studies and had a real head for business. It was Si-hyun who'd predicted Link's meteoric rise while still a kid and advised Father to acquire it.
Wasn't Link an American company?
Just looked it up and there's literally an acquisition article from 5 years ago…
Holy shit, so Link is a Korean company??
*waves flag~*
Dammit, Cheonseong again
Ceonseong-owned or not, the staff was still heavily American. Still, it had bought him one gloriously lavish ad campaign for his very first stream.
"Hmm."
I glanced sideways at the viewer count.
[Viewers: 12,592]
Less than ten minutes into the stream, and the audience had already blown past ten thousand. It was about time to get to the real business.
"First time greeting you all from here. It's been almost a month, hasn't it?"
Where have you BEEN?
Weren't you going back to hunter work?
"Yes, that's right. I'll be continuing my hunter activities, don't worry. And for the record, I'll keep soloing. There's no guarantee another pack of those rabid dogs won't show up, after all."
The memory was old enough now that the emotion had mostly dulled — but the sensation of that blow cracking across my skull was still vivid.
Still, someone literally died…
Did he die though?
If anything the guy almost got HIMSELF killed; not cursing him out makes you a saint
Lee Tae-hyun, a saint lmaooo I'm crying
As the crowd swelled, the chat accelerated in turn. Just when reading it was getting impossible again—
A donation had landed. The amount didn't particularly matter, but donation messages stayed pinned, which made them easy to read.
"Do I need a reason? Maybe I just got bored and turned it on for a chat."
Bullshit lol
Just here for a casual chat, and that triggers a platform-wide alarm for everyone? lmaooo
What's he going to say this time
Enough stalling, spit it out
"Tch."
No fun at all, this lot. The whole point of a major announcement is savoring the buildup before you drop it.
"Something like that, yes."
I flashed a grin and stared dead into the camera.
????????
A B-RANK GATE? Alone?
His gall has straight-up left his body
THIS time he's definitely going to die
The Merry Rebellion of an F-Rank Hunter, Season 2!
The chat's reaction ran even hotter than I'd expected. Which was only natural — when I'd declared I'd solo a C-Rank gate, it had been splashed across the news in banner headlines.
And this time it's B-Rank, no less.
The media was probably sounding alarms already.
My declaration set off a cascade of donations, and the viewer count quietly crept past fifty thousand.
"No special reason. It's just……"
I looked dead ahead and curled my eyes into a derisive smile.
"Turns out quite a lot of people have doubts about my abilities?"
And not just the general public. Over the past month, everyone who'd never thought much of me had crawled out of the woodwork to tear into me with relish. And that wasn't all.
Lee Tae-hyun's C-Rank gate record? Nothing but crude propaganda.
Professor Jeon Su-cheol of the Korean Hunter Academy: "Tae-hyun's C-Rank gate was one grand commercial for Cheonseong's new product line."
Five reasons the Daegu C-Rank gate incident never happened
They hadn't hesitated to spread outright fabrications as if they were established fact.
"I was going to let it slide, but the more I chewed on it, the more it pissed me off. And I've got exactly zero reasons to put up with it."
So this time, I intended to shut every last one of them up.
"The entire process of this B-Rank gate raid will be broadcast live."
What is he on about now…?
??
Live?
A live broadcast?
You can stream from INSIDE a gate?
Wait, where even is Lee Tae-hyun right now?
"Oh, did I not mention?"
I rose from my seat, my sales-pitch smile already in place. And then—
"KYAAAAAHK!"
The monsters that had spotted me from far off came charging all at once.
"We're inside a gate right now. A D-Rank one, granted."
I readjusted my grip on the spear and swept it toward them.
Chaotic Thrust.
Deflect, then pierce.
Crunch!
The spearpoint flashed once, and the monsters surrounding me were reduced to a fistful of bloody mist.
W-wait, what just happened…?
My eyes couldn't even follow that
There was a flash and suddenly all the monsters were dead
He's REALLY inside a gate? Streaming from inside a gate??
"I'm telling you, it's real."
I gave the gore clinging to the spear a rough shake, then raised my thumb to the camera.
"Ladies and gentlemen — Cheonseong's newest technology. Let me introduce you to Dungeon Streaming!"
And so the second masterpiece — forged by our proud researcher Gong Gi-hyun, with his very soul hammered into every circuit — revealed itself to the world.
"And… that's the finish!"
The gleaming blade punched into the heart of the enormous bear.
"Gruooaaah……"
Mortally wounded, the bear crashed to the ground where it stood.
The boss of an A-Rank gate — the War Bear. After a ferocious, grinding battle, they'd finally hammered enough attacks through that notoriously stubborn hide to bring it down.
"Phew~ Now THAT's a kill. That feeling's why I'm a hunter, I swear."
The owner of the sword that had delivered the killing blow — a man with idol-grade looks and a voice to match. The prodigy of the moment, Yoo Sung-wook.
"Great work, everyone~ I'll put in a good word upstairs for you."
"Th-thank you."
He rolled his shoulders casually and flashed a pearly grin.
Perfect.
An A-Rank gate clear just one year after awakening. The moment he stepped out of this gate, the whole world would have eyes only for him. Never mind that his entire contribution had been a single sword thrust into a boss that his teammates had already bled dry of health and defense.
Not that the idiots out there would ever know.
Even his "teammates" were nothing but third-string hunters who'd joined the guild drowning in debt.
"Ugh……"
"Khh……"
The hunters, their faces gone a sickly gray, were grimacing and doubling over. Every last one of them had muscles and veins swollen to a grotesque degree.
Pathetic excuses for hunters.
Yoo Sung-wook swept them with a contemptuous look. The side effects of the illegal elixirs he'd fed them for this raid were apparently starting to kick in.
What was it the guild called them? Unlicensed elixirs?
Whatever they were, the drugs had made those wretches worth something, at least for a while. And now even that was ruined, all of them groaning under the side effects.
They're spent. No second use in them.
He clicked his tongue. Whether they lived or died was none of his concern. For the sake of his ascent, they could be used up and discarded as needed. That was simply how the world worked — for one man to shine, countless others had to bleed and become corpses.
How grateful should I be, really, that they're willing to sacrifice themselves for me?
So thinking, Yoo Sung-wook peeled off his blood-spattered coat. Wearing the stuff for this long had put him in a foul mood.
"Hey. You there."
"Y-yes! Yessir… were you, were you talking to me?"
"Lose the jacket."
"Sir?"
"Ugh, come on. The reporters will be swarming with cameras the second we're out. You want to be photographed in blood-soaked rags?"
He was to be the future face of the Republic of Korea. Every last detail, down to the smallest, demanded attention. In the end, the man was forced to change clothes, and Yoo Sung-wook strode toward the gate's exit.
"Whew! This expedition was grueling, but we've gained so much——"
He stepped out through the shimmering blue veil, wearing an expression carefully blended of exhaustion and hard-won satisfaction — and what greeted him was a storm of camera flashes and a scrum of reporters clamoring for interviews…
…which was to say, nothing of the sort.
"……Huh?"
Silence. Dead stillness. Nothing but utter, absolute indifference.
"Wh-wh-wh… what is this?!"
Yoo Sung-wook's face burned scarlet. He had just accomplished the monumental feat of clearing an A-Rank gate. Was THIS the treatment for the man of the hour?
"There has to be some kind of mistake!"
Swallowing a rage laced with bewilderment, he fumbled out his phone. And what he saw was—
"Lee Tae-hyun…?"
Nothing but the name of a single man who had seized the entire media by the throat.