While there was a commotion in front of a computer in a studio apartment.
“Korea is f*cked.”
“That’s right. It’s really f*cked.”
At a nearby café, a man and a woman placed their smartphones on the table, playing a video while sighing in frustration.
“Even Ironblood is a formidable woman, but she got completely obliterated without even putting up a fight—this is real?”
“For real. She used to be the one forcing non-active S-rank Hunters to join the fight. Look at this—she’s just punching the air.”
The couple played the video.
It captured the confrontation between two S-rank Hunters that had taken place just thirty minutes ago in front of the A-rank Tower at BEXCO, Busan.
The footage had such a massive impact that it shook not just South Korea, but the entire world. Even at that very moment, its real-time views were—
“What the…?”
“The video’s gone?”
“Whoa, no way. They took it down just because Ironblood got destroyed?”
They had planned to track the skyrocketing view count, but the videos had suddenly disappeared.
“Ugh, seriously. Did you save a copy offline?”
“I had a feeling, so I saved it just now. Good call, right?”
“Yeah. Let’s upload it as a short later and farm some views.”
Despite being a couple, they were more focused on their smartphones than looking at each other. After all, their content revolved around Hunters.
“What should we title it? Ironblood Gets Wrecked?”
“I don’t even know how to describe this. But there’s no better phrase to sum up what just happened.”
Ironblood was defeated.
A South Korean S-rank Hunter lost without landing a single clean hit against a cosplay expert whose nationality was uncertain—was she Korean or American?
“Man, this is so shocking I don’t even know what to say. The woman who used to throw arrest warrants at Hunters is now the one panicking.”
“Right? But how did they do it? How did the videos disappear so suddenly?”
“Could be some kind of teleportation ability? S-rank Hunters each have some special power. Even Blue Lightning can turn his body into electricity.”
“But this woman—the cosplayer—uses a sword.”
“…Yeah, that’s true.”
The entire world was busy analyzing the battle between these two S-ranks.
“People call Ironblood a walking tactical nuke, so if the cosplayer is even stronger than that, what should we call her? A hydrogen bomb?”
The power levels of S-rank Hunters varied, but if translated into modern military terms, each one could be considered equivalent to a nuclear warhead.
“You think these women could survive a nuke?”
“They’d probably slice it mid-air or teleport away before it explodes.”
“God, it’s terrifying. The fact that more people like them are appearing.”
To the average person, Hunters were awe-inspiring beings—monsterslayers with extraordinary powers. But if they ever turned against humanity, they could become deadlier than nuclear weapons.
“…That cosplayer, she’s practically U.S. military, isn’t she?” “Military? Not just American?”
“Yeah, U.S. military. She’s an experimental superhuman deployed to South Korea because it’s too dangerous to test her inside the States. They needed a sample test site among their allies.”
“…Damn. Should we just save up and move to the U.S.?”
To modern society, Hunters were a double-edged sword.
They were essential in humanity’s battle against the threat of the Towers. A million people had awakened precisely because the gods had deemed it necessary for humanity to prepare for the trials ahead.
But when Hunters stopped fighting for humanity and acted on personal whims?
That was still acceptable. Even if the Towers collapsed and monsters started pouring out, at least some Hunters would stand their ground.
S-rank Hunters would slay countless creatures and save many lives.
But— There were places where one S-rank Hunter was needed. And places where a hundred A-rank Hunters were needed.
Could a single S-rank protect all of Seoul?
No, an entire nation?
No one could answer that with certainty.
“It’s good that S-rank Hunters are increasing, but I wish there were more South Korean Hunters.”
“You think that cosplayer maid will stop challenging A-rank Towers? Our A-ranks need to climb Towers, gain experience, and advance to S-rank too.”
People could only hope.
For more Awakened. For more powerful Hunters.
And for those Hunters to become the ‘heroes’ who would protect humanity.
Because the powerless could only wish.
* * *
A day passed.
Morning arrived, and we welcomed a new day. I had blacked out at some point and then woken up again.
Now, I was sitting at the table, ready to eat the breakfast Elaine had prepared.
Tap tap tap tap tap—
The third Summon was furiously typing away at the keyboard, staring at the computer screen.
Unlike my usual setup, which only had a game window open, the monitor was now filled with unfamiliar programs running in the background.
I had no idea what she had installed or where she had found them, but she was investigating something with deep concentration.
“Hey.”
“Commander.”
The moment I called out, she turned to look at me.
“So, what are you going to call me?”
“Until I think of a good name, I’ll just call you ‘Agent.’”
“…Are you kidding?”
The Agent puffed up her cheeks in protest.
I had a feeling that if I stuck with this name for too long, she’d start demanding a name change.
Meanwhile, Elaine chuckled softly beside me, unable to hold back her amusement.
“How can you call someone ‘Agent’ as a name?”
“It’s not just the word ‘Agent.’ There are actual Korean names like ‘Yo-won’ that sound similar. If I say ‘Agent Kim’, people might think it’s just a normal name.”
“Oh, really? …You’re not just messing with me?”
“Of course not.”
“Still, now that the name ‘Agent’ is stuck in my head, it feels weird hearing it as a name. If I say ‘Kim Yo-won,’ it sounds fine, but if I separate it like ‘Kim, Agent,’ it feels odd. Hmm… In that case—”
The Agent tapped her chest with her hand.
“Until I get a proper name, call me [Drei].”
“Drei?”
“Yeah. You know what it means, right?”
“You’re not some German-made doll, are you?”
“Not exactly.”
Drei.
A word that meant “three” in German.
“The way it sounds isn’t bad, right?”
“I looked it up, Master. Drei is typically used to refer to males.”
“That’s not the point. It’s about the meaning behind the number, isn’t it?”
Despite Elaine’s comment, Drei simply smiled and held up three fingers toward herself.
“It’s more consistent than names like Seok-sam, Third, or San, right?”
“Consistent?”
“Elaine, Kiharu, Drei. They all sound like foreign names. We should keep it globally uniform.”
“Well… you’re not wrong.”
I wondered if she’d get mad if the name in her passport ended up being Drei as the given name and Deu as the surname.
“Or do you want me to call you Eins instead?”
“…If someone is going to take the name Eins, that should be me.”
“Oh? A fantasy-worlder already looking that up? Impressive. What do you think, Goddess?”
“I don’t care about Eins, but I shall be Zwei.”
“Slipping in as the second one, huh? Fine, fine. Then it’s Drei.”
Drei waved her hand before turning back to the monitor.
She closed all the windows she had been working on and shut down the computer.
“What the hell? You finished everything? Did you crack the servers?”
“It’s all in here.”
Drei tapped on the cutting-edge computer.
“Elaine’s, Kiharu’s, and mine.”
During the night— While I had been asleep, Drei had hacked into the game company that housed all three of them.
I wasn’t exactly an expert in hacking, but she had apparently extracted the game client’s data.
“Even if the company goes bankrupt or their server rooms get destroyed, all the game data is stored safely in our PC. So you don’t have to worry—the game won’t just vanish.”
At the same time, while connecting to Elaine’s game, Granade Impact: Redive, she had set up a private server independent of the Korean, Japanese, or global servers.
From there, she tampered with the data.
“The only minor issue is with the internal data.”
For example— Say Elaine’s current attack power was 3,000.
If she modified the client and altered the private server data to increase it to 4,500, would she actually become 1.5 times stronger?
Possible.
Not only was she able to alter the data in the private server, but she could also sync it back to the live game. She could one-shot weekly bosses and then reintegrate those buffs into the main game.
However—
“Master, are you feeling alright?”
“Yeah. I passed out once, but after a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast, I’m fine.”
“And your mana—do you feel it recovering?”
“…No.”
Something unexpected happened. But at the same time, it was a valuable discovery.
My mana.
Even if the game data was altered and modified, making it work in reality required an equivalent energy cost. In other words—
Drei could hack and apply buffs all she wanted, but to actually bring those enhanced stats into reality, it consumed my mana.
Simply put—
Elaine could only get stronger in proportion to my excess mana.
Even if Drei’s manipulation increased Elaine’s attack power to 4,500, if my maximum mana was only 7, then her actual attack power would only reach 3,007.
The buffed stats from hacking and data manipulation forced my mana to deplete.
Until now, I had never felt any mana drain when summoning or maintaining my Summons in reality.
But this time, it felt like my very life force was being siphoned away.
That was why I passed out. The moment buffed Elaine swung her sword with enhanced mana, I felt a wave of exhaustion crash over me, and I collapsed.
We had wanted to run more experiments overnight, but our testing ended with only partial success.
‘So nothing comes for free, huh.’
If only mana could be recharged endlessly, like a black card with no spending limit.
But unlike these hacked modifications, a legitimate upgrade was a different story.
When Elaine’s gear was strengthened, she grew stronger without draining my mana.
It was clear that progressing through the game the right way would be a faster path to growth.
Thus, I had two options.
The first— To grow stronger myself.
I could climb the Towers and level up, boosting my own power so that I could provide better buffs to my Summons.
The second—
“Elaine.”
“Yes, Master?”
“Go talk to NPia and see if they can buff you.”
“…”
“Meanwhile, Drei and I are going to gather funds to acquire the game company through… alternative means.”
“What do you mean by ‘fundraising’? Where exactly—?”
“Coins.”
In other words, dirty money.
“I’m going to contact President Luigi and suggest recovering tax-evaded funds through hacking in exchange for a generous bounty.”
The second method—
Feed me.
