The S-Classes That I Raised

Chapter 521: Channel (2)

“…Is this one fake too?”

It was an unfamiliar face. In barely an hour or so, people claiming they’d broadcast the video had started popping up left and right. Self-proclaimed hackers, terrorist groups, hunters with special skills, even people claiming to have borrowed alien powers—all sorts of nonsense was flooding in.

Among them, the most credible theory was that it was a collaboration between Haeyeon, the breeding facility, and Sesung. Most people were thinking, “It might look realistic, but it must be staged—how could an F-rank actually do that?” I probably would have thought the same way if I were them.

[First, I’d like to apologize to those who were startled by the sudden broadcast.]

The man on screen had green eyes and long white hair hanging down. It looked like hair that had turned white with age, but he appeared to be at most around thirty. Hundreds of nonsense broadcasts had already appeared, but this video seemed to be getting attention because of the man’s appearance. Even now, the viewer count was rapidly climbing.

“A familiar face.”

“Pardon?”

Seong Hyunjae said, looking at the white-haired man.

“A self-proclaimed prophet. From China.”

“Ah… the one you met back then. You mean those cultists who claim dungeons are the will of god.”

I frowned involuntarily. Between the party invitations and this, it was becoming even more certain that those cultists had joined hands with Chatterbox. Chatterbox was probably playing at being a god.

“Didn’t you say they were hostile toward hyung?”

Yuhyun said, looking at the self-proclaimed prophet with a cold gaze. Yerim also looked worried.

“These are the people from that recording who called Mister a demon and an angel, right? The one Guild Leader-nim brought to the hospital for us to hear.”

Seong Hyunjae nodded and gave instructions over his phone to analyze and track the currently broadcasting video.

“It’s just regular streaming now.”

“I guess Chatterbox can only interfere with TV broadcasts. Though even that alone is excessive interference.”

I really needed to go ask the newcomer about this. Wasn’t interfering like this against the rules? Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed prophet introduced himself. When he claimed he could see the future, mocking comments flooded in. I could only read Korean, but the comments in other languages probably had a similar atmosphere.

– Fuuuuuuuuture lolololololol

– If he’s a real prophet he’d just buy lottery tickets and live it up lololol

…I should have memorized lottery numbers too. Who knew I’d regress? In any case, no one was taking the prophet’s words seriously right now. He was being seen as just another random person trying to insert themselves into this commotion. If that were truly the case, it would actually be fortunate.

[The current time is just past 10 PM, New York time.]

The prophet said, looking at something beyond the screen. Then he smiled brightly.

[Although the population decreased a bit after the first Dungeon Shock, it’s still a bustling city. Accordingly, it’s also overflowing with dungeons. Many of you are probably familiar with the C-rank dungeon next to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. During an NBA game, a dungeon break caused most of the players at the time to awaken, and with 80 percent awakening as D-rank or higher, both teams suffered the misfortune of disintegrating.]

There had been a few cases like that. After dungeons appeared, “your whole team awakened” started being used as an insult. People would tell underperforming players to “just awaken already,” or say “that bastard would be F-rank even if he awakened, so we’ll be stuck watching him forever.”

“We went through that too.”

Moon Hyunah said with a nostalgic expression. She had also awakened while gathered with her colleagues.

[One hour from now, this C-rank Barclays Dungeon will break again.]

At the prophet’s words, the chat that had slowed down for a moment started scrolling rapidly again. There was some Korean, but given the location, there was far more English.

“The Barclays Dungeon is currently being cleared.”

Yuhyun read the English and relayed it to me.

“It’s a second-year A-rank guild that supposedly manages dungeons well. There are also posts saying to report him.”

“Spreading false information related to dungeons is considered a serious crime in the United States as well.”

Song Taewon said. Especially if someone claimed a dungeon would break in the city center, it would naturally cause a huge uproar. These days preparations were good, but even so, countless people would need to evacuate and many accidents would occur in the process. The damages from the previous intentional dungeon break had been no joke.

“If it’s false information, that is. I wonder if it really is.”

Seong Hyunjae turned to look at me. I unconsciously swallowed dryly. What if his prediction actually came true?

[I’ll see you again in one hour.]

The prophet ended the broadcast with a farewell.

“If a C-rank dungeon really breaks, the repercussions will be serious.”

“There are two methods. One is to dismiss it as a pre-planned deception. Time is tight, but it’s not impossible. We can claim the prophet recruited the A-rank guild and the accident was prepared in advance.”

As Seong Hyunjae said, we could claim he was just pretending to see the future. Natural disasters aside, a simple accident could be staged through human effort.

“If it’s a case of someone with pre-regression memories, it could actually become more troublesome. And the second method?”

“Dismissing it as a skill. The ability to see the future is impressive, but in a world where hunters exist, it loses its mystique. A simple skill—a power anyone could obtain through awakening if luck favors them. If we downgrade it like that, we can reduce its influence.”

As he said, if a real prophet appeared in a world without hunters, they would wield tremendous influence. But in a neighborhood where the next-door neighbor flies, the house across the street teleports, the house behind you transforms into a dragon, and the house across the way turns invisible, claiming to see the future doesn’t feel particularly special.

“Can’t hyung-nim do something similar? You regressed, after all.”

“I don’t know much about overseas situations. And things domestically have changed too much. I do know what dungeons will appear in the future, but… if I’d revealed from the start that I knew all that, I wouldn’t be here like this now.”

“True, there wouldn’t have even been any need for overseas kidnapping.”

Moon Hyunah nodded and glanced at Seong Hyunjae. Seong Hyunjae responded nonchalantly.

“It’s fortunate MKC disappeared.”

“No, Seong Hyunjae—I’m talking about you, you. You wouldn’t have even met hyung-nim and Yerim, and the young master probably wouldn’t have survived. Or Seok Gimyeong would have hidden hyung-nim completely. We would’ve just known that the Haeyeon Guild Leader’s older brother went missing.”

If I had rashly acted alone, it would have been the former, and if I’d consulted with Haeyeon, it would have been the latter. Yuhyun would have cooperated with Seok Gimyeong too. At Moon Hyunah’s words, Seong Hyunjae pretended to be wronged.

“I’m not quite that villainous.”

“Look, Seong Hyunjae’s conscience is rolling around on the floor. Someone pick it up for him.”

“It’s too small to even see, unni.”

“You said S-rank hunters accompanied him back then, right? If there were two, there could be even more.”

He was smiling brightly on the broadcast, but that prophet person probably wasn’t ordinary either.

“How did he protect himself while recruiting S-rank hunters?”

“If it was America, he would have had fewer restrictions on his actions compared to you, Han Yujin. Thanks to Chief Song Taewon, Korea has become the country with the best-maintained order in the hunter world.”

Indeed, it was extremely difficult to operate in Korea without registering with the Hunter Association. Black markets did exist, but their scale was much smaller compared to overseas. Before I regressed, after Chief Song’s death… things had changed somewhat.

“The King of Harmless or Chatterbox might have helped. In any case, for now, it seems best to lay the groundwork as Seong Hyunjae suggested. Yuhyun, tell Team Leader Seok to contact Japan and China as well. Will you help too, Hyunah-ssi?”

“Of course. But we’re still small. The main force isn’t guild-affiliated.”

She had mentioned having a team secretly formed directly under the guild leader. It was to continue overseas dealings even after independence. And as for Sesung.

“I can trust you, right?”

“Please leave it to me.”

We began preparing so that if the prophet’s words proved true, articles about a new skill appearing would flood out. At the same time, we planned to mix in a bit of the first method Seong Hyunjae had mentioned. Making it seem that manipulation was entirely possible.

“Since it’s dungeon-related information, it would be good to tie it to Seok Hayan’s team and say prophecy has limited utility.”

Dungeons would become safer anyway. The actual work wasn’t something I could handle myself, so for now I just had to wait for the hour to pass. I sank into the sofa and stared at the screen displaying that the broadcast had ended.

‘What exactly is Chatterbox…’

What was he trying to do? I hadn’t expected him to come out in the open like this at all. I thought it would remain a fight known only to those in the know, like it had been until now.

“There’s still no mention of the prophet anywhere in Korea.”

Yerim sat down next to me and said while busily tapping on her phone.

“My friends, my friends’ unnies, and their friends too. There’s some overlap, but they’re on different platforms, so I can check most major community news—I’m sure of it.”

“Communities? You know your friends’ unnies’ friends too?”

“I don’t know them personally—it’s more like hearing things through the grapevine. First I made a group chat and gathered everyone. Oh, there’s exactly one place where someone posted it was unusual. Something like ‘didn’t he just grow his hair out and bleach it for his concept?'”

Yerim said something more, but it was a bit hard to understand. This must be what they called a generation gap. What even was a forum?

And then an hour passed, and breaking news appeared.

[New York Brooklyn C-Rank Dungeon Break.]

Due to internal guild disputes, the C-rank dungeon clearing team had apparently turned back from in front of the dungeon gate. As an A-rank guild with multiple mid-level clearing teams, they normally would have immediately sent another team, but it seemed the message hadn’t been properly conveyed. The situation was briefly summarized on TV: those above thought the clearing was proceeding as scheduled, while those below had passed it up thinking it would be handled, assuming the upper management knew. Fortunately, since it was a mid-level dungeon, the damage wasn’t severe.

[There was apparently someone who predicted the Barclays Dungeon break.]

The internet broadcast had finally made it onto TV. And to the whole world at that. It’s a coincidence, it’s manipulation, it’s a special skill. All sorts of claims were mixed together. If he had simply prophesied about the Barclays Dungeon break, it probably wouldn’t have blown up this much. But.

[This is footage from ABC.]

It was Noah. The bright blond young man lightly leaped up a steep mountain path. Beside him appeared Kang Soyeong with her hair tied up high. We’d paired support-class Noah with A-rank Kang Soyeong to make the opposing team let down their guard. They said an A-rank had beaten an S-rank with Noah’s help, but that had been two against one.

The scene changed and Noah jumped off a cliff without hesitation. His body spun swiftly through the air, and the S-rank hunters who had been cleverly hiding below the cliff to avoid gunfire were shown. Originally, attacking would have required going down and approaching from below the cliff. Once the distance closed, Noah and Kang Soyeong’s team would inevitably be at a physical disadvantage. But taking advantage of the fact that they wouldn’t actually die, Noah fired his gun from mid-air. Gunshots rang out along with the S-rank hunters’ flustered faces. After the victory, Noah had died from the fall, and Soyeong had gotten three gold coins and given two to Noah.

And next, Liette appeared. Liette’s legs wrapped around a hunter’s neck and snapped it with a crack. The screen went dark at the scene of her wrapping around the neck, but you could imagine it well enough. Liette had entered with me and dealt with the opposing team barehanded without receiving firearms. Although she’d suffered serious injuries from the opposing team’s weapons, she’d still broken the limbs of the last person. In the end, Liette had also died from excessive bleeding, and I’d received three gold coins and handed them to her.

[According to the ‘Prophet,’ this footage is from the ‘Chatterbox’s Party’ preliminaries.]

…That wasn’t wrong.

[Invitations to Chatterbox’s Party have reportedly already been delivered to hunters from various countries.]

Really, in this way.

[Tremendous rewards will be given to the party participants.]

I hadn’t expected it to come out like this.

[This party, which numerous S-rank hunters will attend, will reportedly be broadcast live on Channel Chatterbox.]

The announcer tried to speak calmly, but an unavoidable excitement could be felt. A party of S-rank hunters, battles, a live broadcast. I felt like cursing would just slip out.

This crazy bastard, calling it a funeral. He seemed intent on enjoying a noisy and spectacular funeral together with people all over the world. Was this what funeral culture was like in your neighborhood?

The first S-rank ranking matches before my regression came to mind. It hadn’t even been broadcast live and the filming quality wasn’t great, but it had been conducted with enthusiasm rivaling the Olympics. But this—a transcendent would be providing a live broadcast. Of course, since it was a party, it might not be simple combat. But still.

‘It’s basically a program gathering world-famous people to compete.’

Just gathering the top celebrities from each country in one place would be huge, but these were S-rank hunters who could be considered even more than that. Just having them all gather together to eat would make ratings explode.

“The prophecy has been reduced to a mere attention-grabber.”

Seong Hyunjae muttered. While higher-ups might be more interested in the prophet, ordinary people would have their eyes glued to the party. He’d only prophesied about a dungeon accident, something that was predictable if you knew the internal circumstances, so it wasn’t particularly trustworthy.

“The prophecy was probably to gain cooperation from American high-level officials.”

They’d make ordinary people feel it was just some jester’s performance before the party while making contact with important figures behind the scenes. In the end, we’d ended up helping too, but this was better.

“…Mister, I really think you shouldn’t go on the internet for a while.”

Yerim said with a troubled expression.

“What are they saying—no, Yerim, you shouldn’t look at it either. Hyunah-ssi.”

At my call, Moon Hyunah frowned slightly and answered.

“They’re asking why Han Yujin is attending. Telling you to hand the invitation over to an S-rank.”

It was obvious without even looking. They’d be saying it wasn’t a place for an F-rank to participate.

“They’re probably saying I passed the preliminaries by clinging to the S-ranks around me.”

“Mm, probably. Right now they’re saying they deliberately lost. We need to make an announcement quickly. People are saying the guild leaders can’t attend because of hyung-nim.”

Since they’d called them preliminaries. If they thought Yuhyun, Seong Hyunjae, or Chief Song couldn’t participate in things like ranking matches because they lost to me… even I would curse at myself.

“After announcing the situation, I’ll need to go to the dungeon.”

I needed to move right away, but I had no energy. Yuhyun quickly contacted Seok Gimyeong to announce that Haeyeon Guild Leader and Hunter Park Yerim would also be attending. Seong Hyunjae and Moon Hyunah did the same.

Interview requests flooded in, but we decided to visit the newcomer first.