VSP 48

[Yes, if you cancel the summon Hoya will recover his injuries and stamina while he sleeps. But if the summon is forcefully cancelled, you will also take damage and it will not be good for Hoya either. Cancel it now.]

“Y-Yes.”

Sejun immediately gave the command to cancel Hoya’s summon. As Hoya’s form quickly faded, Sejun spoke in a low voice.

“Hoya, I am sorry.”

「……」

Hoya gave no reply.

Hoya didn’t hesitate at the critical moment to sacrifice himself for Sejun. And when Sejun thought Hoya would be attacked, he too had not hesitated to act. But in the end, Sejun suffered little while Hoya was badly injured.

Sejun felt so guilty he did not know what to do. Hoya looked at him for a moment, then stuck out his rough tongue and licked Sejun’s face before vanishing.

Even though Sejun knew it was not permanent disappearance, his heart still dropped, and he closed his eyes. At that moment the twins rushed toward him.

“Sejun-oppa!”

“Sejun-hyung!”

“Are you okay?” The words came out of both their mouths at the same time, like copy and paste. The boss was still crackling as it burned, with thick smoke and the stench of cooked flesh filling the air, so Choi Hangyeol kicked the boss’s huge body away in annoyance to get it farther from them.

Choi Yerin checked that Seo Sejun looked only dazed and not seriously harmed, healed him, then turned her cold face toward the man still holding on to his camera in the middle of all this.

“You are filming right now? Did you not hear the order to evacuate? Are you really doing this because you want to die?”

She said bluntly, not caring that it was being live-streamed.

Even if the camera was on, there was nothing she said that she would not have said. The fact that she had not cursed him out already was her showing the greatest patience she could manage.

But the man was even more insane than expected.

“Wow, amazing, it’s Choi Yerin…”

Instead of panicking, he mumbled with a look of ecstasy as if he was enchanted by her anger. Choi Yerin’s face twisted with genuine disgust, but the man did not care. He raised his hand like a student in class asking a question.

“I have something I am curious about!”

Then, like a student who stood and asked without being called on, he began to throw out questions.

“Hunter Choi Yerin, do you not hate Seo Sejun? Do you not find him disgusting?”

And the topic was, of all things, that.

The uncomfortable subject that Seo Sejun and Choi Yerin had both avoided mentioning whenever possible.

“Hunter Choi Yerin, you almost died in the past because of Seo Sejun!”

Sejun’s body trembled.

That was their reverse scale.

It was why Sejun always tried to treat Choi Yerin well, why he was cautious, why he could not help but feel anxious around her.

Because she had nearly died from his mistake.

Among all the accidents that had branded Seo Sejun the weakest S-rank and a troublesome villain, that incident was among the worst. It was the core of why Sejun could not help but feel uncomfortable with her.

“What bullshit?”

But Choi Yerin flatly denied it.

“If it were not for Seo Sejun, I would not even be alive right now.”

Her words flowed without pause. It wasn’t calculated but she truly believed it.

“Know what you are talking about before you speak.”

She responded angrily, then tapped her twin brother Hangyeol on the side, signaling him to clean this up. But Hangyeol did not move.

“Ah.”

Only then did she realize her twin was wearing an expression much colder and darker than usual.

He hadn’t just touched Sejun and Yerin’s reverse scale, but also his.

“Your true thoughts are disgusting.”

Yerin felt anxious and thought to herself “This is bad” as Hangyeol spoke without even smiling.

Unlike others, Hangyeol’s specialty was reading people’s thoughts. Because of that ability, he had been shunned by people, and in turn he also shunned others.

How many people’s are different on the outside and inside ?

How many harbored ugly thoughts inside? Even as twins, Yerin did not fully understand him, but she knew why he kept people at a distance.

And she knew how merciless he could be when he was furious.

Hangyeol casually snatched the camera from the man’s hands. Ignoring his startled “Huh?” he threw the camera straight to the ground and stomped on it.

Crack.

He did not just step on it, he smashed it with S-rank strength so it would shatter. The camera, which should have been sturdy, was completely destroyed.

“My cam!”

The man’s eyes bulged in shock, and he screamed.

“Fuck, do you know how much that cost…!”

He lifted his head to protest, but froze instantly when his eyes met Hangyeol’s, who was smiling faintly with a murderous face.

“Hunter Seo Sejun!”

When it looked like the situation was settling, Kim Jinyoung, who had been running over after spreading word of what happened, also froze at the sight. An S-rank hunter truly enraged was nothing like the first impression he had felt.

He felt goosebumps crawling all over his skin, what stood before him now was more frightening than the dungeon monsters he had faced more often because of his job.

‘Looked ordinary?’

In less than a few hours, he had to retract what he thought when he first saw the S-rank hunters.

These bastards were worse than monsters.

Otherwise, why would it feel like he had shoved his head into the gaping jaws of a beast right now?

“Go on, talk. Ask me whatever you want.”

Whether Jinyoung froze mid-run or not, Choi Hangyeol kept his smiling face as he ground his foot harder and harder into the crushed camera, until the already smashed camera was nearly reduced to powder.

“But before that.”

He grabbed the shoulder of the man sitting on the ground and pulled him to his feet. Even though the streamer’s body was not exactly slim, he was lifted like a rag doll. A strange squeak slipped from his throat.

“You and I need to have a little talk.”

When the talk is done, I will pay you back for the camera. Got it?

He spoke with a smile, but the man’s face had gone pale, as if he already knew his fate.

It was Choi Hangyeol’s specialty, psychological torture that squeezed a person’s brain to the extreme.

There was no one who could stop him.

•••

Title: (Best)

[“Streamer A faces dungeon boss during livestream… rescued by S-rank hunters, video goes viral”

[Busan = News&Health]

During the recent B-rank dungeon overflow across Busan, a streamer’s live video has become a huge topic online.

Streamer A, on the 6th, ignored the association’s emergency evacuation warning and wandered throughout the city of Busan, broadcasting live. The risky footage, streamed in real time, drew the attention of viewers.

However, during the stream, A unexpectedly encountered a dungeon boss and was thrown into danger in an instant. The broadcast showed the giant monster appearing, the camera shaking, and A’s panicked voice, heightening the tension.

Fortunately, S-rank hunters stationed nearby immediately rushed in and rescued A, bringing the incident to a close. The scene was broadcast live, spread quickly across SNS and online communities, and was met with reactions such as “real-time hunter action,” “a disaster movie in real life,” and “the reckless streamer’s brush with death.”

Meanwhile, an official from the Association said, “The streamer’s actions were extremely dangerous, and precautions are needed to prevent similar cases. We are currently reviewing whether to investigate A.”]

[Comments 1193]

-Who the hell looked at that video and wrote “real-time hunter action”?

└ A netizen inside the reporter’s imagination

-“Reviewing whether to investigate”? Ha! How much administrative power was wasted because of that bastard, and an S-rank summon nearly got destroyed, fuck lolololol

└ For real, why isn’t he in custody? (image gif)

└ The angle is art

└ Choi Hangyeol snatching the camera and tossing it before the screen cuts out was fucking art

└ An S-rank hunter mad as hell, the intimidation must have been insane

└ That’s the first time I’ve seen him smile like that. He must have really been pissed

└ Did you see Choi Yerin shaking her head next to him? Hahah

-I keep replaying the part where Hoya protected Seo Sejun

└ Wasn’t that today’s tear-jerker?

└ Yeah, it was! Totally today’s tear-jerker!

└Tear-jerker?