* * *
“Hey, guys, weren’t we all convinced that not all hunters are kind thanks to Seohwa?”
└ ?? What nonsense is this?
└ └ Didn’t Seohwa cooperate in the sixth dungeon just to chase after the hidden reward? What a scumbag.”
└ └ What are you even saying? ಠ_ಠ He pretended to be a bad guy for smooth cooperation after spending three years stuck in a dungeon.”
└ └ Seohwa’s whole thing was an act of feigned villainy. Are you seriously this out of the loop?”
└ └ Yeah, Seohwa was just putting on an act. You really need to keep up with updates, buddy.”
There’s still a debate going on: Is Seohwa the worst hunter ever, or the best hunter pretending to be the worst?
└No debate. The latter, obviously.”
└It’s basically canon at this point.”
└Seohwa was a hero.”
└Well, honestly, I’m not sure, haha. I feel like people are overcompensating and trying to glorify him because they feel guilty for hating and blaming him too much after the hate effect wore off.”
└ └ Same here.”
└ └ The comment above and the one before it? 99% chance they’re part of the New Human Sect.”
└ └ LOL, just call it 100%.”
└ └ Report these evil humans to 9011.”
Guys, don’t criticize people who still don’t believe Seohwa is a good person. They’re just stuck in the timeline’s rejection phase. Globally, the hate effect removal rate is 60:40, so it’s still almost half-and-half.
└What’s hate effect removal?”
└ └ Removal: People who’ve escaped the side effects of the hate skill. Locked: Those still under its influence. Most adults are in the removal phase, but 95% of those locked are kids. Starts lifting in middle school.”
Honestly, I think some people in the removal phase still criticize Seohwa, LOL.
└Why would they? They all feel ridiculously sorry toward him.
└Because admitting Seohwa was a heroic figure means they also have to admit they criticized and hated a hero. Sure, the hate skill’s side effects caused it, but it makes them feel like they’re the bad guys. Nobody likes that.
└ └ True words…
└ └ People forget we were victims of that skill too.
└ └ Yeah, it wasn’t intentional, but feeling guilty beyond reason is exhausting, honestly…
└ └ That’s exactly it. Seohwa positioned himself as a villain from his very first public appearance. He didn’t even give us a chance to like him.
Still, why is everyone acting so sorry and treating him like a hero? He disappeared after nabbing the hidden reward.
└My point exactly, haha. He vanished to keep the reward all to himself.
└Seohwa didn’t take the hidden reward.
└!!!!!!!!!! He gave it up! Seohwa refused the hidden reward!
Not many know this, but Seohwa turned down the reward. After clearing the dungeon, he disappeared without claiming it.
└What? Then who got the reward?
└ └ Kang Yigeon.”
└ └ Oh… a hunter who actually deserved it, then.”
└ └ Ah…”
Come to think of it, there hasn’t been any news about Kang Yigeon since he fell into a coma.
└What’s going to happen to Yigeon, seriously…”
└Yigeon-nim…ㅠㅠㅠㅠ”
└If Seohwa’s even half-human, he shouldn’t be doing this to Yigeon…ㅠㅠㅠㅠ”
By the way, why did Kang Yigeon end up hospitalized? Was he injured?
└It’s an illness.”
└What’s the diagnosis?”
└ └ Lovesickness… just kidding. No one actually knows. There wasn’t any proper news about it.”
└Judging by his behavior, lovesickness seems likely. T_T”
└ └ What even is love…”
Seohwa paused scrolling.
The shocking news he’d overheard at the store still lingered in his mind.
But instead of finishing his popcorn and watching the documentary commemorating the third anniversary of the sixth dungeon’s clearance, he switched into a thick jumper and left home again.
At the nearest bus terminal, he hopped on the first available express bus.
Two hours later, he transferred to a ferry and crossed the sea to a small island, where night had fallen.
Avoiding the gazes of the villagers, Seohwa climbed a local mountain, straying from the walking trail to an overgrown path untouched by human footsteps.
Clearing cobwebs as he climbed, he finally reached a spot surrounded by nothing but eerie trees and underbrush.
He pulled out a laptop and phone from his inventory—devices issued by the Awakening Safety Department six years ago. He had long missed the timing to return them.
In this remote location, far from home, he powered them on.
The reason?
Both devices had location trackers installed by the department.
Sitting haphazardly on the damp underbrush, Seohwa connected to the internet via the laptop.
Thanks to the countless satellites orbiting Earth, even here, on an unnamed mountain, the connection was surprisingly fast.
First, he searched for Kang Yigeon’s name on a portal site.
[This article has been deleted at the request of the Danbaek Guild.]
[This article has been deleted at the request of the Danbaek Guild.]
[This article has been deleted at the request of the Danbaek Guild.]
Only deleted articles filled the search results.
Not that he expected anything different.
As the deputy guild leader of Danbaek and the first hunter in history to surpass S-rank and achieve EX-rank, Kang Yigeon was too closely tied to South Korea’s national strength.
News about his health would be deleted as quickly as it appeared.
Next, Seohwa turned to a community site.
Since accessing reputable, real-name-verified forums was challenging, he logged into HunterNet—a site accessible to non-awakened individuals and without membership requirements.
Its posts weren’t the most credible, but it was his only option.
Searching Kang Yigeon’s name yielded no results, suggesting the posts had also been wiped.
Instead, the only thing he found was people crying out for Kang Yigeon in the live commentary of a documentary.
“Could Kang Yigeon really be gravely injured…?”
He found it hard to believe.
When he first heard about it at the store, he was ready to rush to the center immediately.
But on his way home, he’d realized something: for Kang Yigeon, the world’s first and only EX-rank hunter, to fall into a coma, a 7th-grade dungeon must have been involved.
And yet, current dungeons were nowhere near that level.
“Kang Yigeon isn’t the type to let his guard down, even in lower-grade dungeons.”
It would take at least a 7th-grade monster to harm him.
And such a dungeon only existed in theory, predicted to appear centuries from now.
Of course, predictions weren’t absolute—there was always a chance.
Earlier this year, rumors of a 7th-grade dungeon shook the world, sparked by none other than South Korea’s Awakening Safety Department’s disaster alert.
Emergency Alert:
[Awakening Safety Department] 11:00 AM, Jan. 9. Daedejeon, 7th-grade dungeon Alpha-N sighted. Pack your emergency kits and await further instructions.
Emergency Alert:
[Awakening Safety Department] 7th-grade dungeon in Daedejeon. All domestic S-rank hunters are summoned immediately. Hunter Seohwa, report to the department immediately.
Seohwa had been lounging on his sofa, watching a nature documentary about snakes with his pet snake, Kobami.
Just as he thought, “My Kobami is the cutest,” the screen abruptly switched to breaking news about the 7th-grade dungeon.
He had jumped to his feet.
For a moment, he’d almost revealed himself to the world.
If not for the binding oath, he would’ve rushed to the Awakening Safety Department without hesitation.
But instead, he left the TV on and waited for updates.
About ten minutes later, the news ticker reappeared.
“Breaking news just in from the Awakening Safety Department. The evacuation order for the Level 7 dungeon in Daejeon issued earlier was a false alarm caused by an error in the dungeon prediction AI, AlphaN. Citizens are advised to return to their daily lives. Once again, we confirm that no Level 7 dungeon has emerged. The emergency disaster alert sent at 11:04 AM was a system error, and we apologize for the confusion…”
Hearing the correction, Seohwa sprawled across the living room floor.
It seemed that these incidents were bound to happen with AlphaN, an AI notorious for its excessive talk and frequent mishaps.
But two days later, follow-up news revealed a shocking truth.
It was reported that EX-rank hunter Kang Yigeon had deliberately accessed AlphaN and caused the error.
All for one reason: to find Seohwa.
Kang Yigeon had gone to outrageous lengths to locate Seohwa.
Offering a bounty, gathering trackers, or even appearing on the 9 o’clock news to plead, “Hunter Seohwa, please come back to us.”
Once, during a live broadcast about snakes, he had said, “The Yeast Snake, commonly found in Korea alongside the Eastern Racer, has distinctive reddish spots on its dark brown body. Hunter Seohwa, if you’re watching this, please come meet me.”
Of course, it was an unscripted comment.
Even so, Seohwa had never imagined that the composed and logical Kang Yigeon would stoop to fabricating a Level 7 dungeon alert just to find him.
“That’s when Kang Yigeon was cursed out by the entire world…”
Occasionally, when Seohwa ventured out, he would overhear people criticizing Kang Yigeon.
Still, not all the remarks were purely negative.
“How desperate must he have been to pull off such a stunt?”
“They said he believed Seohwa would come back if he proved his sincerity. Didn’t they make a promise or something? Hearing that made me feel bad for him…”
“He needs to move on. Seohwa’s gone now; Kang Yigeon has to accept it.”
Thanks to the goodwill Kang Yigeon had built up over the years, people dismissed his grand deception with a sentiment of ‘he must have had his reasons.’
* * *
Due to the skill effect, Yigeon must’ve hurt Seowa so much and now he’s grovelling.. And about the speech where Seowa said that after they conquered the grade 6 dungeon, he would disappear and never show himself again must’ve played a part, too..
Also, could it be he’s remembering the previous regressions while in a coma.. Just funny because he previously criticized Seowa for wasting time with AlphaN in previous regressions.. 😭😭🤧🤧
😭😭
Oh my god I was so locked into the previous few chapters that I forgot it was all a flashback