I’m getting frustrated, so I’ll do it myself.
This phrase isn’t just something famous people say—it’s common in various settings, like construction sites or even in broadcast footage of such places.
The same goes for gaming.
When watching streamers play a game, if they play better than you, you admire them. But if they play terribly?
The chat explodes with all sorts of insults through TTS.
Some might even start giving unsolicited advice out of frustration.
And then, sometimes, someone says, “Why don’t you try it yourself?”
In most cases, the backseater shuts up when confronted like that.
Occasionally, strategy videos get uploaded.
Some streamers even upload them to their personal communities.
Most people watching just roll their eyes and think, “Wow, congratulations on making beating a game faster than a streamer your life’s greatest achievement.”
But what if we were talking about a real Tower instead?
And not just any Tower, but the last remaining S-Rank Tower in Korea—the one the government was preparing to raid?
“Everyone seems flustered.”
“Well, of course. We cleared it without even showing ourselves going in.”
Drei, who was scanning internet reactions, raised a hand lightly.
“Want me to give you a real-time summary of what the government officials are saying in panic?”
“I’d rather not listen to them rambling. Just summarize it in three lines.”
“Three lines? Hmm, okay.”
Drei held up three fingers.
“One. The Master said they’d raid it in two weeks—why clear it now? Two. So, are you heading straight to the U.S. now? Three. How much credit do you want to take for this?”
“Drei, let me ask you one thing.”
“What?”
“Did they mention anything about rewards?”
“Hmm? Are you hoping for a reward?”
“No. Honestly, I gave up expecting anything after clearing the Mungyeong Tower.”
I had cleared three S-Rank Towers, and I hadn’t received so much as a medal, let alone a statement like, ‘We’ll do this for you!’
“What I’m curious about is whether they’re thinking something along these lines.”
“What kind of thinking?”
“Well, Kiharu might take offense at this, but… something like, ‘Since they raided it on their own, we have no obligation to reward them.’”
“Wow…”
Drei’s expression hardened at my suspicion.
“I mean, now that Jeju Island’s Tower is gone, there aren’t any more S-Rank Towers left in Korea. Why should they bother rewarding someone who’s leaving for the U.S. anyway? It’s not like you’re planning to live here forever.”
“Did you check any leaked documents?”
“Are people actually saying that?”
“Well… as uncomfortable as it is, I can’t say no.”
“These people are ridiculous.”
It was just a thought that crossed my mind, but the idea was incredibly shortsighted.
“What do they plan to do if another S-Rank Tower appears in Korea?”
“They’d probably say, ‘Even if an S-Rank Tower breaks and overflows with monsters, we won’t bow down to someone who abandoned the country and ran to the U.S.!’ or something.”
Drei let out a low chuckle and switched the TV screen.
The broadcast split into four sections, each showing different national news channels broadcasting live. The footage displayed Jeju Island’s now-cleared Tower site.
At the center of the gathered crowd—
A little away from the masses, Elaine stood with perfect posture, holding a microphone.
[Ah. Ahem.]
One hand held the microphone.
The other, my secondary phone.
[I have watched the Korean S-Rank Hunters’ first raid attempt.]
Elaine, speaking as the Hunter who had cleared the S-Rank Tower while the first raid team was still reorganizing, continued as we had agreed beforehand.
[I was concerned that leaving it alone might lead to casualties, so I cleared it.]
As planned, she was reciting the script we had discussed before entering the Tower.
[Frankly, I was too frustrated to sit still.]
[What exactly do you mean by ‘frustrated’ in this context?]
A field reporter, trying to press for the true meaning behind her ambiguous statement, asked sharply.
This was deliberate.
After all, to some people, the word ‘frustrated’ could trigger a sense of inferiority.
[I watched the raid footage. If Blue Lightning had drawn attention instead of someone else, allowing another Hunter to focus their mana for a concentrated attack, the boss would have been defeated.]
At this point, it might sound like mere backseat gaming.
Malicious reporters would snap their fingers, marking this as the key quote to exaggerate in their articles.
[Had that been done, the Tower would have been cleared sooner, allowing Jeju residents to live in peace.]
But the following statements were too logical to be twisted.
[Now, there are no S-Rank Towers in Jeju. Tourists can visit without worrying about them. Most importantly, Jeju residents can now live free of anxiety.]
The phrasing made Elaine sound like Jeju’s tourism ambassador.
[Seeing the citizens in fear—that was what frustrated me.]
“It might sound ridiculous, but after clearing Mungyeong Tower, Ganghwa Island, and Dokdo, I realized one thing.”
[Most of all.]
It was obvious how the so-called ‘higher-ups’ felt about us.
“As someone who wasn’t an Awakened before, just an ordinary citizen—
Clearing an S-Rank or even an EX-Rank Tower before it could explode is something people should be grateful for.”
[We were able to defeat the boss faster thanks to the efforts of Blue Lightning and other ‘heroes’.]
To ordinary people, there was one emotion they all shared.
“Gratitude.”
[That concludes my statement. Thank you.]
Fwoosh—
Elaine swiftly left the scene.
And only minutes later—
“Mission complete. I’m back, Master.”
She returned to our room in an instant.
“Are we summoning the fourth one now?”
“Yeah. Soon.”
The fourth summon.
It was also our escape plan from Jeju Island.
“When you save a drowning person, most will at least thank you. But if the rescuer looks soft and easy to take advantage of, people will try to milk them for more.”
“Are you saying the government is trying to restrain you?”
“There’s always someone willing to pull crazy stunts.”
It was an irrational fear, but some people were desperate for attention and willing to do insane things to get it.
“Before some lunatic tries to climb the hotel walls to assassinate me, let’s take the helicopter and leave. Luckily, the rooftop is just barely big enough for one to land.”
“That’ll take time. Are you going to release that to buy us some?”
“Hmm, Elaine. What do you think?”
“I will follow Master’s wishes. However, personally, I’d rather show the raid at Ganghwa Island instead of this one…”
Click.
With that small sound, Elaine removed a headband-like accessory from her hair.
“If it’s just to buy time, I don’t mind sharing a video like this. Or should we just upload it as a ‘Second Raid Video’?”
“That works too.”
Not through the Korean government’s channel, of course.
“Should we ask if we can upload it to the U.S. military’s channel?”
* * *
[30 minutes later, at a training center in Jeju Island.]
Screeeeech!!
A black sedan screeched to a stop at the entrance of the training center.
Before his secretary could even open the door, a middle-aged man threw the door open himself, storming out of the diplomatic car. His face was red with fury as he pushed through the entrance.
“Hunters!!”
Who was he addressing?
The Hunters gathered in the training center’s lobby glanced at him briefly before turning back to the large screen in front of them.
“Sir, please calm down…!”
“How can I stay calm right now?!”
His aide tried to stop him, but this man wasn’t just anyone—he was the Vice Minister.
He had been sent down to Jeju Island as a direct representative of the President, in place of the Minister who remained in Seoul.
“You’re just sitting here watching someone else’s raid footage?!”
He was the Vice Minister of the Disaster Countermeasures Department, sent by direct order of the President himself. Yet to the Hunters, he was nothing more than an annoying interruption—like a salesman barging into a movie theater.
“Hey!”
“Ugh, can you be quiet?”
One of the Hunters, a man as old as the Vice Minister himself, stood up and waved him off as if shooing away a pest.
“We’re analyzing an EX-rank’s battle footage right now.”
“And you think this is the time for that?!”
“We don’t know when the video will be taken down, or if the downloaded copies will get hacked and erased. If we don’t watch it now, then when?”
The middle-aged Hunter pointed at someone beside him, a person recording the screen with a camcorder.
It seemed ridiculous to record a screen with a camcorder in this day and age, but that was how valuable this footage was—especially for A-rank Hunters.
“Did you see that? Kicked off the air with mana before the sword even touched. Is that a way to counter shockwaves?”
“Feels like a boost. Kind of like an aerial step technique.”
“The way they channel aura into the sword—it’s almost exactly like Elaine’s style, don’t you think?”
“That’s all mental conditioning. Like how game devs program character animations, she’s trained herself to activate mana in a set pattern.”
“I’m telling you, this isn’t the time for—!”
“Quiet down.”
The person sitting at the very front spoke softly.
But the moment the Vice Minister heard his voice, a shiver ran down his spine, as if he had been electrocuted.
“The S-Rank Tower hasn’t broken, nor has a new one appeared. What’s the rush?”
“B-Blue Lightning…!”
“Can’t you see we’re watching a boss fight for reference?”
Even as a Vice Minister, he couldn’t just yell at an S-rank Hunter who was already irritated.
Not even the Minister or the President would dare.
The video continued, showing the moment the boss was defeated.
[Hoo.]
A low exhale from the EX-rank Hunter who had taken down the boss—without a single scratch.
[Thanks to the first raid attempt, we were able to clear it faster than expected.]
The maid’s words.
The fact that this was in the video meant it was going to be broadcast worldwide.
[Thank you to the Hunters who participated in the first raid. Though things are as they are now… One day, when an even greater crisis arises, let us fight together then. For humanity—]
Click.
The video abruptly cut off.
For a moment, it seemed like someone had forcibly taken it down.
But then, they realized—it wasn’t the video that had been removed. The screen had simply been turned off.
“What the hell?!”
“That last part—what was she about to say?!”
“Hey! Who did that?!”
The Hunters raised their voices, turning toward the one who had cut the power.
“Ironblood, you?!”
“If you have time to watch this, you should be moving now.”
Without the slightest change in expression, Ironblood pulled out her smartphone.
“We can’t let someone like that go to another country.”
“…You couldn’t even put up a fight against the boss. Do you think you can handle the maid?”
“The boss was a bad match for me. This is different.”
As Ironblood raised her head—
“Oh, really?”
BZZZT!
With a blinding flash of blue lightning, an explosion erupted.
“?!?!?!”
Was it an attack?
Yes. It was an attack.
“You’ve got to be f***ing kidding me.”
“D-Da-ram…?”
Ironblood was sent flying out of the training center.
She landed outside, coughing up blood from her nose and mouth as she lay sprawled on the ground.
“Bl-Blue Lightning! What do you think you’re doing?!”
“I’m doing what I should’ve done a long time ago.”
Blue Lightning cracked his knuckles, electricity dancing across his fists as he stepped toward Ironblood.
“Someone clears every single Tower without asking for a damn thing, and this is how you treat them? You’re nothing but a bunch of human garbage!!!”
* * *
“Wow.”
I was stunned.
“I was wondering how to deal with Ironblood… but I never expected the guy they called ‘Squirrel’ to land a lightning punch right in her face.”
