Chapter 68. This Is Getting Bigger Than Expected, Huh?
Chapter 68. This Is Getting Bigger Than Expected, Huh?
Just as I was about to end the stream, a donation came in.
From a nickname I had never seen before.
[ Anonymous has donated 10,000 Watts! ]
- I'm truly sorry. At first I just went along because everyone else was doing it. I never imagined the post I wrote would blow up like this, and I'm sincerely reflecting. I'm terribly sorry to my family, and as someone looking for a job right now, I'm terrified of how this will affect my life. Please, if you could show leniency, I'll live the rest of my life very carefully. I'm sorry once again. I'm reaching out in sincerity, leaning on your great magnanimity, Hunter.
I felt sick the moment I saw it.
I didn't even bother reading it properly.
[Ah, take your sob story and shove it!!!!!]
[He's scared of being sued so now he says sorry lololol]
[Fuck lol if an apology's enough, what's the law for?]
I opened the private message window of the guy I assumed was the malicious commenter.
"Hey, do you know me?"
[ Anonymous : ... ]
"Did you go to the same school as me?"
[ Anonymous : No... ]
I didn't want to waste any more words.
People like this, even if you forgive them, they'll just do it again anyway.
"I'll contact Pajijik to refund this money, so keep that in mind, and don't do that kind of thing again."
[ Anonymous : Yes, through this incident I'll reflect and I'll never do it again... ]
[???]
[Hero, are you seriously a pushover??]
[You're letting him off the hook?]
[ Anonymous : Hunter, so you're dropping the lawsuit? ]
I ignored it and closed the private message window.
The viewers who had been expecting him to learn a proper lesson were going wild.
"What are you talking about?"
[?]
[I thought you were gonna let him off just now...]
[No, right?]
I immediately submitted a refund inquiry to the Pajijik partner customer center.
And I permanently banned the guy who had just donated.
"An apology is an apology, but if you did wrong, you have to face the punishment, right?"
---
A dark, musty room.
Inside, a woman was biting her nails anxiously.
The situation was taking a strange turn.
"There's no way he'd actually sue, right? He's famous. It's probably just a PR stunt..."
She sneered at the world beyond her monitor, hiding behind anonymity and typing away.
She indulged in the feeling that she was in control of everything.
For fun, out of habit, driven by vague inferiority and the need to vent.
"Fuck... Everyone does it. It's not like I'm the only one... It's just a few posts, is it really that big a sin?"
She had never once considered that her words could hurt someone.
No, she had never even bothered.
It wasn't her wound, so why should she care?
"What do I do...?"
But now, that famous hunter had actually filed a lawsuit.
He'd already hired lawyers and was receiving real-time updates from his viewers.
"Anyway... I definitely deleted them. I even went through every single comment, erased them all just in case..."
But even in her fear, there was no true remorse.
"Fuck, why did I have to be the one to get caught..."
Honestly, the reason she wrote those posts?
Nothing special.
She saw hunters on the news—successful, making headlines for everything they did, raking in money.
So she was just jealous.
People who were more successful than her, people loved by many.
The more successful they were, the harder she dug into them.
"Ha, how much would I have to pay for a settlement?"
Her monitor was already full of browser tabs showing countless precedents and legal provisions.
"Ugh, am I the only one scared here?"
She turned on her phone and opened a messaging app.
Inside, countless 'perpetrators' just like her had gathered.
- Seriously, does it make sense for an S-rank to sue over just a few insults?
- Can't he just be the bigger person and let it go?
- The rich bastard is being a dick;;
To the bitter end, they refused to see their own wrongs, obsessing only over why the world was trying to punish them.
"Th-they definitely said if you report someone, they'd show a little leniency, right?"
The reason they were all gathered in one place.
They'd been offered money to write posts.
And the person who had brought them together responded in the chat.
- Everyone, don't worry. Even celebrities just make empty threats about lawsuits and end up letting it slide. Much less an S-rank filing a suit over something this trivial? Even if he does, he'll drop it soon.
- That's right, isn't it?
- I wrote what you asked for, when will we get paid...?
"I'm not wrong. I wrote it because they said they'd pay. Isn't the one who ordered it the one at fault?"
— taptaptap...
Hiding behind anonymity, she was sending something to Song Hoon's email.
But everyone else was thinking the same.
---
Change begins with the smallest things.
The closed conference room in the Seoul Government Complex.
Key figures in important government positions sat in silence.
Their eyes gleamed sharply.
"...This isn't just a simple malicious comment case."
He spoke cautiously as he placed a thick dossier on the table.
The reason they were so on edge was that someone had already been here.
"This is not trivial mockery on some community forum. It is an organized spread of false information and defamation against an S-rank hunter—a person managed as a national strategic asset."
The data on the screen showed a massive volume of distorted posts targeting Song Hoon, with the structure clearly indicating a systematic spread.
"If he becomes mentally cornered by the false rumors and chooses emigration, or halts his activities from extreme stress?"
Everyone fell silent.
It was not a simple case.
Each and every S-rank represented the national power of the country.
"Song Hoon, his lover Laila, and his mother Geum Hye-jeong."
Three S-ranks were linked to one incident.
"It's unprecedented. An S-rank hunter losing his public function due to malicious rumors? This is the first time since the establishment of Korea's hunter system."
"Leniency? A fine? Probation?"
Everyone shook their heads in unison.
"Not this time. If we hand down a wishy-washy, let-it-slide sentence..."
They imagined what would happen if they did.
Public support would inevitably plummet.
And if the worst-case scenario occurred, creating a vacuum of three S-ranks?
"We must make an example of this."
After running the numbers in their heads, they reached a decision.
"Then the malicious commenters who got sued this time..."
"Yes, regrettably, they must serve as an example."
The conference room fell silent as someone downed a glass of water.
Then they spoke coldly.
"People who commit such acts cannot even compare in value to an S-rank hunter."
The posts written for fun, venting, or money were coming back like a massive boomerang.
"Since we've already been warned by that person... we must handle it thoroughly."
---
I was acting as the temporary representative to facilitate communication with the lawyers.
I visited the lawyer's office periodically to hear how things were progressing.
"Wow... there are quite a lot, huh?"
"Yes, well, since you are a public figure..."
"There are still more, right?"
"Yes, we're also receiving tips from people claiming to be insiders. But we've noticed some peculiar circumstances..."
"Peculiar circumstances?"
Specifically, reports that people had been paid to write the posts.
If it were just one or two, we'd have brushed it off, but quite a few people had made the same claim.
"Most of them are the ones who wrote the posts themselves?"
"Yes, so we speculate... that perhaps they wrote those posts in an organized manner after receiving payment."
"People with enough malice toward me to spend money..."
It was a feeling I couldn't quite put into words.
Not a terrorist plot to kill me, not a scheme to bury me with fabricated evidence.
It was something much pettier: just a smear campaign.
'If they had tried to kill me, I would've suspected remnants of the cartel. If it had been a scheme to bury me, I'd have suspected China.'
"We also tried investigating with extra help... but perhaps to avoid leaving a trace, everyone was paid in cash."
"They're thorough."
"Yes, so we plan to meet the insiders in person for interviews. And..."
Though we were alone in the office for a private conversation, he leaned forward and spoke carefully.
"Hunter, what I'm about to tell you... must never leave this room."
What was he about to say with such gravity?
When I nodded, the lawyer let out a short breath and lowered his head even more.
"Inside the judiciary of this country... they say they'll unofficially provide you with information."
The country was intervening in a simple malicious comment case?
"This is getting bigger than I thought, isn't it?"
When I tilted my head in question, the lawyer let out a relieved sigh and explained.
"Because malicious comments can become much deeper wounds than you'd think. If, for no good reason, Hunter were to be deeply hurt and stop your activities or emigrate... it would be a huge loss for the country."
I wasn't really hurt that much.
My mental strength was far too solid to be wounded by something like this.
"It'd be nice to have their cooperation."
— Ding!
"Oh, it just arrived."
The lawyer opened his laptop and slowly examined it.
"Huh?"
The lawyer tilted his head while reading the data, then looked up at me and asked,
"Have you ever had any issues with a civic group?"
"Huh? A group?"
It wasn't just a small fish; it was a big catch.