Chapter 35: The Chat Window Amplifies the Killing Intent
The Hunter Gallery, the largest hunter community in the first district, erupted into chaos from the very first light of morning.
[Breaking News] S-class analyst Baek Sihyun, one of the nation's top hunters, joins F-class porter Kang Minsu in his dungeon.
The moment the article hit the portal's front page, the entrance to the D-class dungeon "Ashen Ravine" that I had been assigned to turned into a battlefield. Reporters, scouts, and onlookers swarmed behind hastily erected barricades.
I had already been drained dry just pushing through the crowd to reach the gate.
The ground in front of the gate was damp, like wet soil after a night of rain. The moment my shoe sole touched it, a slippery sensation rose up, and I unconsciously tensed my ankles.
"Kang Minsu. Just proceed with the dungeon as usual today. I'll be observing strictly as a spectator."
Baek Sihyun stood beside me in her black combat suit, speaking in her usual dry tone. The D-class party members froze as if their mouths had been zipped shut the moment she appeared.
Ever since last night's alley incident, she had begun openly displaying her obsession with observing me.
At that moment, the viewer count began skyrocketing like mad.
Current Viewers: 184,210
The number racing toward two hundred thousand stole my breath first.
I couldn't breathe. Not metaphorically. Literally.
The moment we stepped into the dungeon gate, a sharp ringing tore through my ears. The air thickened into a sticky swamp that pressed down on my entire body.
Carrying the heavy supply bag, I swallowed dryly. I shouldn't have come. The thought surged up to my throat, but I knew the moment it left my mouth it would only create a bigger misunderstanding.
The chat window was already running wild on its own. The text scrolled so fast that the blue window flashed blindingly white.
In proportion to that frenzied reaction, the gaze pressure radiating from me swelled madly toward the A-class upper limit. Even before Baek Sihyun, those numbers were driving me forward.
Every time camera flashes went off, my vision whitened for a moment. The back of my head throbbed, and I unconsciously hunched my shoulders.
"Minsu-nim. Would you please take the lead?"
The party leader asked with a respectful bow.
His voice trembled ever so slightly.
He was clearly feeling the suffocating pressure filling the dungeon interior.
"I-I'll just carry the luggage from the back."
I answered in a shrinking voice and took a step backward.
The leader nodded quietly after hearing my reply.
"Ah. So you intend to control the overall battle situation from the rear. Understood. We will take the front, then."
No. Please stop with that brain-dead interpretation.
I screamed inside, but the party members were already wearing grim expressions as they raised their weapons and advanced deeper into the ravine. Baek Sihyun stood silently at my diagonal rear, simply watching me.
The deeper we went into the ravine, the more grotesquely the situation unfolded. A pack of gray wolves, D-class monsters, appeared, but the moment they saw us they didn't attack. Instead they flattened themselves to the ground and whimpered.
Crushed by the overwhelming gaze pressure surrounding me, they had completely lost their will to fight. The party members didn't even need to swing their swords. They simply walked forward, casually ending the lives of the prostrate monsters.
"Incredible. With Minsu-nim releasing his aura, there's hardly any combat to speak of."
The tanker wiped his sweat and marveled. On the surface, it was a perfect success.
The dungeon was being cleared at an unprecedentedly peaceful pace. But I felt no refreshment whatsoever.
No, I felt like dying. I didn't even have the strength left to laugh.
The ringing in my ears grew louder and sharper. The edges of my vision began to darken and narrow like burning paper.
My chest felt tight. No matter how deeply I inhaled, oxygen refused to reach my lungs properly.
Until now, I had thought the gaze pressure created by viewers was merely a weapon directed at monsters or other people.
But when it overheated near two hundred thousand, that pressure became a boomerang and crushed the weakest vessel—my own body—from the inside.
"Huk, haa."
I clutched the bag strap tightly and staggered. My head felt like it would split open, and every step felt like moving through lead.
My F-class body was far too frail to withstand that pressure.
Tap.
Suddenly the tip of my nose grew hot, and a drop of red blood fell onto the concrete floor. I reflexively brought the back of my hand to my nose.
Sticky red blood stained my hand. A nosebleed.
The moment I saw the blood drop, my stomach turned cold. This wasn't something I could hide anymore.
"Huh?"
When I stopped in surprise, Baek Sihyun's eyes sharpened instantly. She looked at my face before even glancing at the bloodstain on the ground.
The brief silence grew heavier, and I instinctively averted my gaze.
The atmosphere in the chat flipped in an instant. Amid the festival-like brainrot memes, texts mixed with bewilderment and concern began to rise.
I had to desperately hold back the nausea twisting in my stomach.
"Kang Minsu."
Baek Sihyun strode forward and grabbed my shoulder. Her unique skill, Absolute Analysis, scanned my body thoroughly.
She looked at my eyes before my hand.
The moment her hardened gaze locked onto me, I couldn't breathe anymore.
The biometric data floating in Baek Sihyun's vision was devastating. Rapid rise in blood pressure, ruptured capillaries, decreased oxygen saturation, extreme physical overload.
This was not the reaction of a powerful being hiding their strength. It was the body of a weakling collapsing after hitting its physiological limit.
"Your condition is bad. We need to get you out right now."
Baek Sihyun's voice carried a faint urgency instead of her usual dryness.
"I-I'm really fine. I must be tired from overworking at the convenience store part-time job lately."
I stammered while roughly wiping the nosebleed with my sleeve. I couldn't collapse here. If I admitted I was sick, the party would stop, and that would only draw more attention to me.
"This isn't the level of nosebleed caused by simple fatigue. Your blood vessels are screaming all over your body."
Baek Sihyun gripped my wrist tightly.
Her cold eyes pierced into my pale face.
The party members belatedly noticed my condition and approached with murmurs.
"Minsu-nim! Are you all right?"
"You must have suffered internal injuries from suppressing such vast power! It's our fault!"
The leader knelt and sobbed. I was going insane.
Internal injuries my ass. I was about to be crushed to death because you people kept staring at me.
"Kang Minsu. Sit."
Baek Sihyun forced me down onto a rock. She took a recovery potion from her bag and pressed it to my lips.
As the sweet liquid slid down my throat, my racing heartbeat calmed ever so slightly. But the ringing in my ears and the heavy pressure crushing my vision refused to disappear.
The dungeon raid ended in futility.
Before we even reached the boss room, the boss—the Ashen Golem—couldn't withstand the pressure and slammed its head into the wall, knocking itself unconscious.
The party members praised even this as my merciful suppression, achieved while bleeding.
Only after exiting the dungeon and breathing fresh air did the blue window's numbers begin to slowly decrease.
The viewers had thought the stream was over and were leaving like the tide going out.
Only then did proper oxygen finally rush into my lungs.
I leaned against the building wall, gasping for breath. My nose was a mess of dried blood, and my back was soaked with cold sweat.
I felt no refreshment at all. In that moment, I painfully realized that this misunderstanding and misconception was not a convenient tool that would always turn me into a hero.
This was a time bomb that could explode at any moment.
Just then, Baek Sihyun, who had stepped in front of me, quietly opened her mouth.
"The data kept screaming until the very end that you were a weakling who had reached your limit."
"If it were truly your own power, your body wouldn't collapse just from releasing it. That physiological rejection only appears when crushed by terrible external pressure."
I stiffened in shock.
Unlike the others, she did not mistake my actions for the leisure of the strong or the control of power. Through data, she had accurately identified that I had truly suffered and been crushed.
"If it's not something you yourself are emitting,"
Baek Sihyun's lips parted slowly.
Her voice carried the chilling obsession unique to analysts.
"Then where exactly is this overwhelming pressure coming from?"