Chapter 1
“Ah, isn't there any fun gallery around here...?”
I'm a total bum. I live every day like this, just surfing the internet.
It was another string of days spent searching for new dopamine.
“Huh? Hunter Gallery? I've never seen this place before.”
Then I found an unfamiliar gallery on the real-time popular list.
Seeing the name 'Hunter Gallery,' I figured it was probably a gallery where active hunters hung out.
“Hunters, huh... I wish I'd suddenly awaken too. Make a ton of money and coast through life...”
This is a world where towers and monsters have appeared.
A world where the country is reeling and ordinary jobs have dwindled.
Hunters, with money and fame guaranteed, are the most coveted profession.
Of course, just wanting to be one doesn't mean it happens.
Hunter awakening is decided purely by luck.
I got curious about what the lucky guys were talking about.
Like I was possessed, I clicked into the gallery.
[Hunter Gallery]
Gallery intro : A gathering of active hunters in the Republic of Korea.
To get a feel for the gallery's atmosphere, I started by searching the best posts.
Click.
[Title : How to Raise Awakening Odds (No Lie)]
(A picture of a weird-looking frog holding back laughter)
Like hell there is. Go live a decent life.
ㄴ Another fake best post. The gallery's dead.
ㄴ What are the mods even doing?
ㄴ마12법 is open to everyone. 마12법 opens the door when you cleanse your mind, body, and spirit and face yourself. The method is as follows. First, to cleanse the body, eat dirt for 30 days... (more)
Click.
[Title : Warning) Do NOT go to that hunter academy they've been advertising lately. It's a scam]
[I went there today, and it's literally a scam.]
[They brought in some gym trainer and called him a professional instructor. I'm speechless lol.]
[A bunch of guys with no hunter experience are spewing total bullshit about helping with hunter awakening. It's the Hongdae ㅁㅁㅅ academy, so keep that in mind.]
ㄴThe fact is, if you have any brains, you'd weed it out just from the ad.
ㄴ For real, isn't it the sucker's own fault for falling for it?
ㄴ But hunter academies are really popping up everywhere these days. What the hell are these guys?
ㄴ They're all scams. Awakening is just luck.
ㄴ마13법 is open to everyone. 마13법 opens the door when you cleanse your mind, body, and spirit and face yourself. The method is as follows. First, to cleanse the body, eat dirt for 30 days... (more)
Click.
[Title : Top Hunters' Earnings Are Legendary, Damn]
[An A-rank ㅇㅁㄹ posted proof of 1 billion won in earnings this month. Is that real? This is insane. Man, I want to awaken too and live easy.]
ㄴ It's not easy, though lol. If you're a hunter, you end up in life-or-death situations more than once, don't you?
ㄴㄴ That's C- and D-rank hunters, lol. Would an A-rank even be in danger of dying?
ㄴㄴ Yeah, lol. Besides, he's a mage, isn't he? A cushy job. Just click-click from the back and money gets duplicated lol.
ㄴ마14법 is open to everyone. 마14법 opens the door when you cleanse your mind, body, and spirit and face yourself. The method is as follows. First, to cleanse the body, eat dirt for 30 days... (more)
“I think I get it... that's the level you guys are at.”
As a 10-year gallery veteran, I immediately got a read on the atmosphere here.
That there weren't any actual hunters here.
The gallery intro saying it was a gathering of active hunters was laughable.
Whatever. I'm not an active hunter either.
I'm just like these people—someone who just needs a bit of mindless fun to kill time.
I mindlessly spewed out a post.
[Title : Honestly, aren't commoners who still haven't awakened just better off with a quick reset?]
fr lol
ㄴ So then what about you? Are you a hunter?
ㄴㄴ (OP) Me? I'm a hunter. B-rank.
ㄴㄴ What's the name of the Hunter Training Center cafeteria? Tell me. You have 10 seconds.
“Tsk. I got caught right away after all.”
But if a post got exposed, all you had to do was delete it.
Just as I was about to delete it and write a new piece of crap...
A comment notification rang.
As an attention junkie, I rushed back and clicked the post again.
ㄴ마17법 is open to everyone. 마17법 opens the door when you cleanse your mind, body, and spirit and face yourself. The method is as follows. First, to cleanse the body, eat dirt for 30 days... (more)
“Ah, damn. It's just bait...”
Disappointed, I deleted the post right away.
“Hmm... wait a second.”
But that comment from just now kept sticking in my head.
If I'd seen someone like that elsewhere, I'd have brushed it off as a crazy attention-seeking bait post.
But as a 10-year gallery veteran, I could tell this wasn't just ordinary bait.
Trusting my gallery-addict instincts, I checked other posts.
Sure enough, every post had comments about magic and the like on it.
What mattered here was the time the comments were posted.
They were left two to three minutes after the post went up. Sometimes even ten minutes later.
What that clearly meant was this.
This comment wasn't a macro. He was typing it by hand.
“One of two things. Either he's too broke to afford a macro, or he's a top-tier psycho.”
Either way, he's not normal.
Anyway, I got curious about this guy's identity, so I wrote another post.
[Title : Who the hell is the guy always talking about magic in the comments?]
He was hand-posting it on every thread. What the hell is this guy doing?
But this time, no comment appeared.
I kept refreshing, waiting for a comment.
“Huh? What the hell? Where'd my post go?”
That's when I found out my post had been deleted.
Something I couldn't stand more than anything else.
I immediately started writing a protest post.
[Title : Seriously, why was my post deleted?]
Why delete a post that was just asking about magic and stuff?
That was when I hit Enter after writing the post.
[ Your IP has been blocked. Reason : ㅁㅂ. Block duration : 30 days.]
“What the fuck is this.”
My head started burning.
Post deletion? I could tolerate that.
But a block? For 30 days?
This was basically a declaration of war.
I immediately turned on my VPN and wrote the same post again.
[Title : Seriously, what the hell is ㅁㅂ that you're deleting it for? Are the mods insane?]
[This post has been deleted.]
[ Your IP has been blocked. Reason : ㅁㅂ. Block duration : 30 days.]
“Oh, really?”
As expected, this post was deleted right away too.
But that was expected.
I immediately used a macro and VPN to start spamming the gallery.
[Title : Seriously, what the hell is ㅁㅂ that you're deleting it for? Are the mods insane?]
[Title : Seriously, what the hell is ㅁㅂ that you're deleting it for? Are the mods insane?]
[Title : Seriously, what the hell is ㅁㅂ that you're deleting it for? Are the mods insane?]
[Title : Another lunatic has shown up.]
[Title : Seriously, what the hell is ㅁㅂ that you're deleting it for? Are the mods insane?]
[Title : Seriously, what the hell is ㅁㅂ that you're deleting it for? Are the mods insane?]
[Title : The gallery's dead.]
[Title : Seriously, what the hell is ㅁㅂ that you're deleting it for? Are the mods insane?]
[Title : Seriously, what the hell is ㅁㅂ that you're deleting it for? Are the mods insane?]
Watching the gallery get plastered with my posts in no time made me feel satisfied.
Of course my speed was faster than theirs, since they had to check each title and delete them one by one.
[Title : Seriously, what the hell is ㅁㅂ that you're deleting it for? Are the mods insane?]
[Title : ㅁㅂ is the magic villain. Read the notice.]
[Title : Seriously, what the hell is ㅁㅂ that you're deleting it for? Are the mods insane?]
[Title : Seriously, what the hell is ㅁㅂ that you're deleting it for? Are the mods insane?]
[Posting has been temporarily restricted in this gallery.]
“Huh?”
Seeing the familiar message, I stopped posting.
The mods had raised the white flag.
They had frozen the gallery for a while.
Not just me—they had blocked everyone from using the gallery for a bit.
In other words, I won.
High on victory, I popped open a can of cola and chugged it in one shot.
“More than that, a magic villain, huh....”
For the first time since coming to this gallery, I read the notice post.
Reading the gallery rules only after getting suspended was basically standard practice.
Sure enough, I found a related note at the very end of the usage rules.
[Rule added) Block mentions of ㅁㅂ, 마빌, 마법빌런. Ban the word magic. 마.법, 마,법, and 마1법 are all banned. ]
“Hmm, he was more impressive than I expected.”
I paid him a sort of tribute as a fellow gallery villain.
To go beyond merely banning mentions and actually ban the word magic itself in the gallery.
This guy was the worst of the worst.
He's no ordinary guy.
I read the comment he had left once more.
- Magic is open to everyone. Magic opens the door when you cleanse your mind, body, and spirit and face yourself. The method is as follows. First, to cleanse the body, eat dirt for 30 days... (more)
“Hmm... should I try following it once?”
All of a sudden, that impulse took over my body.
One thing was certain.
If I followed this exactly, I would be able to make it to the best posts.
“If things go well, maybe I can get onto the monthly best posts...”
Yeah, I can't pass this up.
All right. Let's do it right now.
I immediately copied and printed the comment.
Once I printed it out, the amount was quite substantial.
I didn't know who this guy was, but he seemed seriously committed to his lore.
“There are five attributes that awakening magic can have. Of those, the only one beginners can safely attempt is earth-attribute magic....”
To awaken earth-attribute magic, all you had to do was shovel down a handful of dirt with every meal for 30 days.
“Fire magic means 30 days of burns, lightning means electrocution.... Wow, there's no way I can follow the rest of this.”
Compared to that, eating dirt? Totally doable.
Because I'm a man crazy about trolling. Because I love attention too much.
Besides, eating dirt is great for taking proof photos.
“What the hell, let's give it a try.”
From that day on, I ate dirt every day.
No matter how you looked at it, chewing raw dirt was hard.
So at first, I mostly gulped sand mixed with misutgaru in water or baked mud cookies and chewed on those to get my dirt intake.
I didn't think much of it back then.
Aside from the feeling that my constipation was getting worse.
I was just a machine, wandering from gallery to gallery and writing garbage posts.
[...If this kind of practice goes beyond 15 days, a god takes residence inside the body and the body's energy begins to change.]
Week three of the regimen began. Day 15.
Something was wrong with my body.
The tips of my fingers began to crumble like sand.