Nothing But a Pesky Fly

Yu Haeri was what people commonly called a Star Hunter.

A Star Hunter was a Hunter who prized buzz and fame — someone who appeared on official broadcasts or personal streams like this one. The category had its roots in the early days, back when people still eyed the superhumans who had appeared alongside the Kaiju with open suspicion. To soften the public's wariness, the Hunter Association had created promotional Hunters for PR purposes. But those promotionally elevated Hunters turned out to be an unexpected smash hit, and other Hunters, watching closely, scrambled to copy them one after another — and so the category of "Star Hunter" was born.

Haeri's reason ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for becoming a Star Hunter was simple. There was nothing to lose from being famous, and she was genuinely interested in making money off that fame. Hunters could earn fortunes for slaying Kaiju, but Kaiju didn't conveniently show up whenever they felt like it. This was her scheme to put food on the table in the meantime.

And so Star Hunter Yu Haeri hit it big far beyond her expectations. In her early twenties, she was quite the beauty: black hair tied into a lively ponytail, a cute face, fair skin, and a slender, well-proportioned figure. With looks like hers, the moment she started her personal stream, viewers flooded in.

Averaging around ten thousand viewers — and at that volume, the money flowing in through them was nothing to sneeze at.

"Today, here in this park, we're doing 'If You Think I'm Cute, One Hundred Won, Please'~!"

Honestly, streaming made her more money than hunting Kaiju ever did. To satisfy her big-spending viewers, Haeri had devised all sorts of content, and one of them was grabbing random passersby and asking whether they'd give her a hundred won if they thought she was cute.

Even she knew it was a public nuisance, but this kind of absurdity went over great with the audience. It wasn't exactly a crime. She'd swallowed her embarrassment and was about to start in a nearby park when—

"A Kaiju!"

A sudden sense of dread, and a shriek tore through the air.

"A Kaiju?"

Haeri was dumbfounded at first. Of all times, it had to show up mid-broadcast. But then her thinking took a different turn. Wait — could this be an opportunity? If she spectacularly defeated a Kaiju that appeared at just the right moment, wouldn't it do wonders for her fame? With that hope in her heart—

"I'll handle this one myself!"

Some Star Hunters ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠made Kaiju hunting itself into content. This time, she'd give it a try herself, she'd thought, taking the field with breezy confidence. The result:

She'd landed herself in a situation where dying on the spot would have been perfectly understandable.

"Come ON, just work!!"

Haeri was in full panic, her face practically in tears. Screaming, she hefted an enormous firearm in her hands — a gatling-style weapon capable of unleashing a storm of fifty-caliber rounds. Conventional modern weapons didn't work on Kaiju, but this gun was different. Haeri's unique ability was Weapon Materialization — exactly what it sounded like, conjuring a wide array of armaments out of nothing. This gun, too, was born of that ability, so unlike ordinary firearms its attacks actually connected.

High-caliber rounds capable of cleaving a human in half, sprayed indiscriminately forward through the multi-barreled muzzle — rounds that could hurt even a Kaiju. But—

It's not working!

The enemy before her didn't so much as flinch.

"Th-then how about this!"

Desperately hiding her inner despair, Haeri materialized a different weapon. In an instant, several rockets appeared at her flanks — the kind of ordnance that would smash a tank's hull apart on impact and leave a gaping, unmistakable scar. BOOOM!! Bombs packed with staggering destructive force slammed into the enemy at her command. The thunderous detonation shook the area in every direction — but once again, the result was the same. The enemy stood there completely unscathed.

"...That doesn't work either?"

Haeri's voice was hollow with disbelief. It had been like this from the very start. She'd thrown everything at the Kaiju and not one attack had made a dent.

The small streaming device tucked into the pocket at her chest — a phone-sized gadget with a camera capturing the view ahead and viewer reactions displayed holographically in the corner of her vision — was erupting with worried criticism. I-is it really B-Rank? With fear creeping into her eyes, Haeri stared at the Kaiju ahead.

The Kaiju that had appeared in the park was the same Red Kong that showed up everywhere else — but its size was in a different league. A monstrosity that must have weighed several tons. It wasn't always true, but common sense said the bigger the Kaiju, the higher its rank. That was why, when Haeri had first squared off against the giant Red Kong, her viewers had urged caution. Plenty of them had told her to run; she'd ignored them, and this was where it got her.

"I figured I could handle it well enough somehow..."

Realizing her mistake, Haeri muttered a hollow lament. Her Hunter rank was C — a fairly high-tier Hunter, one of only a few dozen in all of Korea. Her rank was high, and thanks to the nature of her ability, she could deploy modern weaponry all on her own. She'd trusted that power and gotten cocky. It had been a colossal miscalculation.

Running... isn't an option, is it?

She regretted it now, but fleeing was no longer on the table. All that remained was to fight to the end, so Haeri decided to try her last resort.

"Take THIS, then!"

Haeri released Aura — the energy Hunters wielded. A substantial amount poured out all at once, taking shape in the empty air: the form of a colossal cannon barrel and shell, the kind that belonged mounted on a battleship. Anti-Aircraft Cannon Materialization. Just as the name implied, it conjured a cannon barrel and shell as devastating as any anti-air gun — Haeri's ultimate trump card. Fired at a line of a hundred men, it would burst every last one of them apart without a trace. It had the power to punch clean through a tank's hull and keep going. A finishing move no one had ever withstood.

Pouring every last hope into it, Haeri took aim at the giant Red Kong's head. This would kill it — and even if it didn't, it would surely leave a grievous wound. Believing that, she fired.

The shell struck true, and the giant Red Kong's head snapped around. "Krruh?" A moment later — it turned back to normal.

"Uh...."

Haeri stared, eyes glazed, at the giant Red Kong rubbing the spot on its forehead where she'd hit it. That her ultimate attack had landed and done nothing more than feel like a flick on the head was beyond belief.

The chat was in utter chaos, but by now nothing anyone did could change anything. Because the giant Red Kong, which had been rubbing its forehead for only a moment, was already closing in on Haeri at high speed.

"What the—!"

To Haeri's eyes it was fast enough to feel like teleportation. She hastily threw up thick armor plating around herself to protect her body — special alloy stronger than ordinary steel, every plate of it. It didn't help in the slightest. The Red Kong slapped at it with an irritated palm, and the whole thing crumpled and shattered in one blow.

Y-you — you were toying with me this whole time!

Rolling desperately across the ground to dodge, Haeri finally understood. Why had something this fast held back from attacking and absorbed her attacks instead? It had all been for its own amusement — and now even that interest seemed to have evaporated.

"Ah, aaah...."

Bored of playing, the giant Red Kong began seething with killing intent — the look of a child about to dispose of a worn-out toy. Haeri, seeing that, couldn't so much as speak. The terror of death had seized her soul. I'm going to die. Just as that thought swallowed everything else—

By a stroke of truly remarkable fortune, "Seyul" arrived.

"Krek!"

"Who's that?"

A tiny puppet of unknown origin had appeared out of nowhere. Haeri and the giant Red Kong — who had been seconds away from killing and being killed — both turned to look at the intruder. And Seyul trudged up to them and said:

"You're in my way. Move."

Telling a Kaiju that had just utterly overwhelmed a C-Rank Hunter to step aside.

"..."

Haeri and her viewers alike were struck speechless — not merely by the audacity, but by how completely unhinged it was.

"Krrrrr!!!"

The giant Red Kong growled in annoyance. Kaiju might lack the intelligence to understand words, but they could read a provocation well enough from the atmosphere alone. How dare this tiny female pick a fight with me? It had caught Seyul's scent and realized she was a woman, and its pride took the insult hard.

"Get out of—!"

Feeling the mood shift, Haeri tried to shout a warning, but the giant Red Kong was faster. It swatted Seyul away with its hand.

One hundred and forty centimeters. A tiny body weighing perhaps thirty kilograms went sailing high into the sky. Seyul came down twenty meters away — but the giant Red Kong wasn't satisfied. "KROOOH!!" Still hungry, it chased after her fallen form. When it brought its interlocked hands hammering down, the whole park shook. A commotion like an earthquake erupted, and where the blow landed, a crater big enough to swallow dozens of people had been born.

She's dead!

Seeing that, Haeri — and every one of her viewers — believed Seyul must have been obliterated without a trace. But—

"So this is about as much as it's got, huh?"

A voice echoed out of the crater, perfectly calm. Then the giant Red Kong suddenly began clutching and unclutching its own hand, over and over.

"K-krreh?"

The giant Red Kong stared down at the crater it had made, eyes wide with disbelief. Because the insolent female who should have been dead was standing down there, perfectly fine. On top of that, its hand ached as though it had hammered down on something so hard no creature could possibly bear it.

"I mostly expected this much from the Aura I could feel, but better safe than sorry. So I took the hit with my body."

Seyul said this matter-of-factly as she walked out of the crater. The giant Red Kong felt a chill of foreboding at the sight and found itself backing away without meaning to — backing directly into the entrance of the park, no less.

I'll deal with this one first.

Seyul thought, regarding the giant Red Kong with a frosty gaze. Even to finish it off, she couldn't use magic or martial arts. There was a woman nearby who was almost certainly a Hunter, and using techniques from another world right in front of her could turn into a headache later. So after a brief moment of consideration, Seyul resolved to simply use a little of her raw physical ability and smash this one apart too.

"Coming through."

As she advanced toward the park entrance, the giant Red Kong went berserk. Seyul caught the fist it flailed at her and tore the whole arm off — as easily as peeling paper off a wall. Then, swinging the torn arm into its body, she left the creature in absolute ruins. It wasn't even made of styrofoam or sorghum stalks. With movements as light as knocking down a house built of tofu, she had killed it.

"..."

Thanks to that, Haeri had narrowly escaped death — but there was no room for joy. Not just Haeri; every one of the ten thousand viewers in the chat had gone completely brain-dead at once.

Finally, I made it!

In the silent park, one person alone — Seyul — rejoiced at having arrived at her destination.