My Assigned Hunters Climb the Tower - Chapter 23

========== CHAPTER 23 ==========

Go Gyeol’s cold, sharp remark silenced the commotion in the room. Kwon Do-geun made a fuss about him being a ‘Prophecy Hunter,’ but Go Gyeol didn’t bother to deny the misunderstanding, instead listing the detailed rules of the preliminary round as if reading from a ‘record of the future that cannot be shown.’

“Listen up. There are three main rules for the preliminary round. First, every hunter operates strictly as a solo unit. Party play is prohibited. You must survive while performing individual tasks assigned by the Tower to each of you.”

“Alone? Then we’re all splitting up?”

Kang Hoon asked anxiously, and Go Gyeol nodded.

“Second, there are no dormitories. Most people gather with those they’re close to and form camps, so we will form a camp too. And every location, including that camp, will be broadcast live 24 hours a day. Viewers can see all of you, but if they pay a certain amount, they can lock their screen onto just one of you. It literally means your every move will be monitored.”

Go Gyeol paused for a moment and scanned the eyes of his party members one by one.

“Lastly, the third rule: Viewers can sponsor you by pressing ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’ buttons. But conversely, there is also a ‘Dislike’ button. The moment your cumulative dislikes exceed 100,000, you are immediately expelled from the preliminary round, regardless of your popularity ranking.”

“……Hey, hyung.”

Kang Hoon, who had been listening to the explanation, laughed with a smirk as if his tension had eased.

“Aren’t only Koreans watching? 100,000 dislikes? That’s not as big a deal as I thought.”

A sense of relief, thinking ‘it’s nothing that serious,’ also flickered across the expressions of Kang Ji-hyun and Kwon Do-geun. However, Go Gyeol twisted the corners of his mouth as if mocking them.

“Not a big deal? In the ‘images’ I saw through my prophecy, there was more than one hunter whose life was ruined because of that ‘not a big deal’ button.”

Go Gyeol looked at the Tower outside the window and murmured in a low, chilling voice.

“I once saw the future of a female hunter who had incredible skill. She was the overwhelming #1 candidate early in the preliminaries. But the ‘jealousy’ of another hunter assigned to the same sector was the variable. That hunter used the blind spots of the cameras to manipulate the situation, making it look like the #1 candidate was bullying her colleagues or hogging rewards. It was a devilish edit that happened in a split second.”

“And then?”

“In an instant, 100 ‘dislikes’ were racked up. It didn’t even take 3 minutes. She was forcibly kicked out of the Tower and thrown back into the world covered in ridiculous filth. Not only was her hunter qualification revoked, but her daily life was also destroyed. Protesters gathered in front of her house every day, and she eventually had to change her name and face and emigrate. There was no place left to breathe on Korean soil.”

Kang Hoon, who was listening to the story, clicked his tongue and muttered.

“Wow…… women’s jealousy is truly scary. Scary.”

Then, Go Gyeol stared straight at Kang Hoon and replied coldly.

“Men are worse, kid.”

Go Gyeol’s voice sank even lower.

“In the male sector, more primitive dogfights happen. They get into pissing contests about who’s better, and there are tons of guys who will trip you or stab you in the back at the critical moment when a monster attacks. They rush in recklessly to look cool for the viewers, drive their colleagues to their deaths, and eventually, while badmouthing each other, they get torn apart and eaten alive by monsters…… I can see it all clearly.”

Kang Hoon’s complexion turned ashen. It wasn’t just a matter of catching monsters. It was hell where they had to deal with the eyes of 7 billion viewers, the blades of their colleagues, and the ugly nature of humans.

Go Gyeol and Lee Seong-ha looked at each other as if they found the situation absurd. Thanks to Kwon Do-geun establishing the hypothesis that he was a ‘Prophecy Hunter,’ the suspicion regarding his regression was completely blocked, but the warning delivered in the name of prophecy seemed to have hit the party members as a realistic terror.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, so let’s make a strategy. On what kind of ‘character’ you will show the viewers over the next 3 days.”

It was when the party members, with desperate expressions, began to devise their respective survival strategies at Go Gyeol’s instruction.

“Hey, Boss.”

Lee Seong-ha suddenly tapped Go Gyeol on the shoulder and gestured toward the outside with his chin.

“You, come see me for a second.”

Leaving behind the confused party members, Go Gyeol followed Lee Seong-ha out into the hallway. As soon as the door closed, Lee Seong-ha lowered his voice and asked.

“You’re not a hunter. The Tower has a barrier for awakened people, so normal people get bounced out at the entrance. Can’t you get in?”

For a moment, Go Gyeol’s pupils wavered. Before his regression, when Go Gyeol joined, the raid had already begun, so observer access for normal people was possible, but for the preliminary round, only hunters could enter.

Go Gyeol urgently called up the system.

[Notification: Forcing awakening via Administrator Authority.]

[Confirmation: Direct combat is impossible, and you are excluded from preliminary selection targets. Do you accept?]

‘Of course!’

[Confirmed. Starting awakening for entity ‘Go Gyeol’.]

No sooner had he said that than a high fever surged from within Go Gyeol’s body.

“Ugh……!”

Heat like molten iron from a blast furnace surged up from deep within his heart. His body temperature rose in an instant, and he staggered.

“Hey! Go Gyeol! What’s wrong with you!”

A flustered Lee Seong-ha supported Go Gyeol. Go Gyeol’s skin, which he touched, was burning hot. The moment Lee Seong-ha asked in surprise, miraculously, the heat receded like an ebb tide.

“……Haa, haa.”

Go Gyeol lifted his head with a face drenched in sweat. A clear blue system window floated before his eyes.

[Awakening Complete]

[Name: Go Gyeol]

[Class: F-class Space Hunter]

[Trait: Sub-space Storage]

[Warning: No direct combat / Excluded from preliminary voting]

“……F-class Space Hunter.”

Go Gyeol murmured in a daze. His combat power as a hunter was practically zero, but the sub-space ability to put items in and take them out was clearly imprinted.

“What? A hunter? Did you just awaken?”

Lee Seong-ha asked as if he found it absurd. Go Gyeol wiped his sweat and wore a faint smile on his lips.

“Yeah. Now I don’t have to worry about getting bounced out by the barrier. Let’s go, the kids are waiting.”

Go Gyeol opened the office door again. Now, he had infinite storage space in his hands, and a perfect plan to correct the twisted future prepared in his head.

The day of the assembly. The area under the floating ‘Tower of Truth’ was truly a sea of people. Not only the thousands of hunter candidates summoned by the Tower, but also broadcasting station helicopters, drones, and large streamers trying to capture the scene in real-time were tangled up, creating a hellish bustle.

“Wow… look over there. Those are hunters from the #1 ranked guild, Cheonrang. Ah, and over there is an awakened celebrity….”

Kang Hoon grabbed Lee Seong-ha’s sleeve tightly, looking terrified. Even Lee Seong-ha, who would usually bark, ‘Are you not letting go of this, kid?’, was different today.

Lee Seong-ha, dressed neatly in a black cassock, gently stroked Kang Hoon’s head and wore a benevolent smile as if he understood all the pain in the world.

“Brother Hoon, do not be afraid. Since the Lord is with us, no darkness shall swallow you.”

“……Yes?”

Kang Hoon’s eyes widened. Kang Ji-hyun, watching from the side, rubbed her arm as if she had goosebumps, but Kwon Do-geun, who had known Priest Lee Seong-ha as a savior from the beginning, looked at Lee Seong-ha with eyes filled with sublime awe, as if looking at a saint who had descended in a chaotic era.

To Kwon Do-geun, Lee Seong-ha’s gentle smile was not a facade, but proof of a noble faith that he would not lose even on a hellish battlefield.

Lee Seong-ha waved elegantly toward the gathered cameras and approached a citizen who was trembling in anxiety nearby, holding their hand warmly.

“Do not worry. We will surely return as the light of humanity.”

As Lee Seong-ha offered a blessing, Kwon Do-geun swallowed dry saliva without realizing it and quietly made the sign of the cross. The conviction that he could overcome any trial if he were with someone like him heated up his chest.

In an instant, the channel chat windows of the surrounding streamers exploded.

[Wow, who is that priest? His face is insane.]

[His voice is amazing… he looks truly holy.]

[Is he from the Holy Knights sent by the Vatican? This is huge.]

Go Gyeol looked at him as if he were absurd.

Because until just before they left, Lee Seong-ha had been complaining about how uncomfortable the cassock he hadn’t worn in a long time was, and asking if the Pope of the Vatican had lost his mind.

“Can you keep this up until the preliminary round is over?”

When Go Gyeol whispered and asked, Lee Seong-ha replied by moving only his lips at an angle not caught by the camera.

“……Shit! Shut up.”

But when he turned his head and faced the lens again, it was the expression of the most gentle saint in the world.

Vwooooom-!

Along with a massive vibration that shook the ground, brilliant white radiance poured down from the bottom of the Tower.

[Notification: Entering the preliminary zone.]

“Let’s go. It’s the real deal from now on.”

At Go Gyeol’s signal, the five people stepped into the pillar of light.

In an instant, the roar of the crowd that had been pounding their eardrums was cut off in a single stroke.