An S-Rank gate had erupted in the heart of Seoul.

Though it was an accident that occurred in a Third gate—a stationary type rather than an invasion-type like a First or Second gate—the mere phrase “S-Rank gate” carried an inherent terror.

Moreover, the man who had entered that disaster zone alone was Jung-woo, hailed as the future of the nation’s hunters. How tightly wound must the brass have been?

Seunghyeoldan, having gathered reporters there of all times, ended up caught in their own trap.

Korea’s strongest hunter, who hadn’t even reached his full potential yet, was going to die.

The public, watching the news in real time, recoiled in horror at the very thought.

The moment the gate turned a crimson hue, hearts plummeted.

But immediately after, the atmosphere flipped entirely.

[No, wait, the Sea Otter is crazy lmaoooooo]

└ Sea Otter uses magic < That’s possible. Sea Otter unleashes a flaming Rider Kick < Impossible not to give a standing ovation.

└ Sea Otter Jet Kick! Sea Otter Jet Kick! Sea Otter Jet Kick!

└ Shin Jung-woo!!! Stop making my heart drop!!!

└ God, it’s so freaking cute lmaoooooo

└ Is it real that it smacked Shin Jung-woo’s hand thinking he was stealing the magic stone TT

[Wow, but what the hell is the mechanism?]

└ Looks like the type of magic changes every time it slots a magic stone into that shell.

└ The firepower isn’t as overwhelming as the Teddy Bear’s, but it seems way better in terms of utility? I mean, it just has so many different spells.

└ So this is how unreasonably S-Rank summons fight lmaooo

└ And that’s not even the end of it, that Domain skill is insane! I watched the video analysis, and the magical beasts turned into dolls and their formation completely collapsed. Just that Domain alone seems to drop the gate difficulty by 0.5 ranks…

[More importantly, this is shocking. Thank god Shin Jung-woo is an out-of-rank monster with his growth rate, or else he would’ve actually died, right?]

└ How the hell are they managing gates? That’s right in front of the National Assembly Building, ffs.

└ They’re just greedy as hell lmaooo What’s the Management Bureau doing? Giving them special treatment? Just bending over backward because they’re a 1st generation guild.

└ Seunghyeoldan always had a lot of rumors. I bet they deliberately put him in there to bury Shin Jung-woo too.

One faction of public opinion cheered at the sight of the gate being spectacularly shattered by magic.

The other faction was steeped in distrust toward the guilds, questioning how things could have been handled so poorly as to reach this point.

Naturally, those who had orchestrated this incident had anticipated the fallout and moved quickly to contain the damage.

[Official statement from the Management Bureau is out. They’re stripping Seunghyeoldan of their authority over the Yeouido Gates, and management executives are being dismissed and facing criminal investigations. Seunghyeoldan also issued a statement saying they humbly accept the decision and will undergo a massive personnel overhaul.]

└ Lmaooo it’s all for show. They probably just gave up cleanly since everything’s been reset and there’s nothing left to leech off.

└ At least they’re responding… If they had played dumb here, they would’ve completely lost any shred of humanity;

It wasn’t a perfect justification, but since it was a plan fraught with risk from the start, they accepted the consequences.

Above all, this was enough to slowly dampen the flames.

Of course, it wasn’t perfectly extinguished.

Once the fire was lit, time was needed to rebuild what had burned to ash.

Rather than launching external offensives, they were now in a far greater rush to pacify their own internal affairs.

That alone was a bitter pill to swallow.

But the biggest problem lay elsewhere.

Namely, the fact that a plan designed to eliminate Shin Jung-woo had failed its objective, leaving them with nothing but losses.

Slaaap—!

Anyone witnessing the scene would have been shocked.

The Mayor of Seoul himself was clutching his cheek, trembling violently—and this was unfolding right inside the mayor’s office at Seoul City Hall.

Mayor Yu Myeong-cheol bit his stinging lip and bowed his head deeply.

He didn’t even dare utter an apology.

The man standing before him had not permitted him to open his mouth.

Of course, who was this man?

The pinnacle of political hunters.

The Party Representative of Hogukdang was this old man, whose bleached white hair was slicked back neatly, resembling an ancient, weathered tree.

The very concept of hunters entering politics was established and sustained solely through him.

He opened his mouth.

“If you have a mouth, speak.”

Only then did Myeong-cheol answer.

“…I apologize, sir.”

“I don’t want an apology. Give me an alternative. Are you going to let your political career end in failure?”

It had been a plan bound for success.

If only the variable of Shin Jung-woo’s growth rate hadn’t existed.

If only they hadn’t been unfortunate enough to lack the time to uncover it.

But now, they were nothing but excuses.

‘Shin Jung-woo, Shin Jung-woo, Shin Jung-woo.’

How could such an irritating name exist?

Since that bastard appeared, not a single thing had gone right.

How could he grab that guy by the leash?

How could he escape this situation?

Myeong-cheol’s thoughts raced endlessly until an idea finally surfaced.

“…His daughter.”

Yes, the daughter he cherished more than his own life.

“I will try targeting his daughter. If I do that…!”

It was closer to a hastily fabricated excuse to persuade the old man by any means necessary.

If permission were granted, he did have the intention of attacking that angle.

Of course, there was no way that would be possible.

Raising his head, Myeong-cheol could see it.

The old man’s aura, expressing profound disappointment, no longer harboring even a sliver of expectation.

“Are you being serious?”

A chill ran down Myeong-cheol’s spine.

His lips flapped wordlessly.

The old man spoke.

Not to him, but to Kim Shin-wook, the Director of the Nowon-gu Management Bureau, who had been assisting him.

To the very Kim Shin-wook that Myeong-cheol had driven out.

“Kim Shin-wook.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you think?”

“To a beast, its young is its leash. It is both a weakness and a means of control. No beast in the world would forgive those who touch its young. They would bite and tear even at the cost of their own life. Given that the wall of a Born S-Rank is already proving to be so high, fighting him would only lead to mutual destruction. It is the worst possible choice.”

“Yes, you know. This man doesn’t know what you know.”

Myeong-cheol panicked and tried to say something, but.

“My eye for talent has truly deteriorated. I thought I took in a wolf cub, but it turns out I’ve been harboring a mutt that doesn’t know its place.”

“Sir…!”

“I have nothing more to say. I trust you won’t do anything foolish.”

The old man patted Myeong-cheol’s shoulder as he walked past.

Shin-wook followed closely behind, assisting him.

Myeong-cheol was left alone like that, and as the old man exited the mayor’s office, he spoke to Shin-wook.

“There are no men of vision. None. They’re all fools who can only see what’s right in front of their noses.”

“That is not true, sir.”

“You are better than the rest. At least you know how to think. Look at the others. The era of swinging fists is over. Gates, hunters—everything is a business now, yet they still think they can act like they did back then.”

The old man clicked his tongue and added a final remark.

“There is no talent. No talent. There is no hero to lead this era.”

Shin-wook had to suppress a scoff that threatened to burst out at those words.

A wave of disgust suddenly surged within him, and he barely managed to speak inwardly.

‘You were the one who killed that hero, sir.’

It was a distant memory now.

During the Millennium Shock, the very value of the national system was on the verge of collapse, teetering on the brink of the apocalypse.

In those times, there was a madman who forgot day and night, forgot time itself, running tirelessly to save citizens from the gates.

One of the first-generation S-Ranks, a hero who established the public hunter system and stabilized the nation.

The First Bureau Chief, the first S-Rank hunter, Chun Jun-ho.

Because of him, South Korea was able to maintain its previous regime.

While China lost the Communist Party’s leadership and fractured into 16 separate nations under hunter warlords.

While Japan lost Tokyo due to their absolute ruler who couldn’t leave Osaka, forcing them to relocate the capital to Osaka.

Among the three East Asian nations, Korea alone was able to preserve its pre-existing society even after the era of superhumans arrived.

It was this very old man who had driven the one who wrought such a miracle to his death.

So his words could only be absurd.

Shin-wook had to admit it.

‘Truly a disgusting bunch.’

He had joined this group out of necessity, but no matter how he looked at it, he could never be loyal to them.

Moving past that, since he was associating with them purely for profit, his perspective was gradually shifting.

‘The ship is sinking.’

Shin Jung-woo.

The Management Bureau.

He placed the two on the scale.

In whose hands did the future lie?

Until recently, Shin-wook had been agonizing over how to overcome Jung-woo, but he could feel the scales tipping toward an unexpected side.

After finishing the gate purification, Jung-woo returned to the Countermeasure Bureau and checked the last log that had appeared.

【The Aptitude of Perfect Caregiver (L) increases!】

【Proficiency of [All-Ages Filter] increases!】

【Proficiency of [Sea Otter Grand Mage (S)] increases!】

It was a growth notification like before.

Although exact growth percentages weren’t displayed, leaving him with insufficient data, he could at least tell that he was faithfully progressing to the next step.

Reviewing the battle, a sense of satisfaction surfaced.

‘That was good.’

In terms of raw output, it definitely fell short of the Teddy Bear.

The discrepancy was stark enough to make him realize that the destructive power to obliterate everything in sight with a single blow was the Teddy Bear’s exclusive identity.

But wasn’t the reduced delay encouraging?

It was only weaker than the Teddy Bear; it still displayed combat power fully worthy of an S-Rank.

That compensated for his current weakness where, once he unleashed a burst with the Teddy Bear, he had nothing left to do.

Above all, he loved the versatility of the copy skill.

Switching freely between melee and ranged combat depending on the type of magic stone was just the basics.

It went even beyond that.

‘Weren’t there many unique abilities among the champion magic stones?’

He recalled that aside from simple combat skills, there were many versatile utility skills as well.

He remembered this well because a few of the special hunter equipments that had particularly fierce bidding wars at auctions drew their power from special magic stones.

Being able to use such things without processing equipment, simply by acquiring the magic stones—what a massive advantage that was.

Even the special magic stones he already possessed added huge points in that regard.

If there was one drawback, it was that just like the Teddy Bear, the Sea Otter also had a penalty…

Ppok!

Ppok!

Ppok!

In the corner of the office, the summoned Sea Otter was rubbing a regular magic stone against a clouded special magic stone.

Every time it did, the special magic stone regained its brilliant color.

It was the process of infusing mana.

‘The magic stone’s mana has to be recharged after use.’

Like a battery, perhaps.

Just like using an electronic device, it seemed that whenever the Sea Otter used a magical beast’s ability, it had to recharge the magic stone with the equivalent amount of mana.

In other words, every time it fought, it devoured an astronomical amount of money.

For now, he had money to burn, so it was fine, but he probably needed to keep it in mind.

Just as such thoughts crossed his mind.

“Mr. Jung-woo, so where’s the merch?”

Ho-jong, who had arrived late, asked that the moment he saw the Sea Otter.

Jung-woo shot back.

“Isn’t there something we need to discuss first?”

Ho-jong clicked his tongue and led Jung-woo to the director’s office.

Only then did Jung-woo ask.

“Did you get the documents?”

“Yeah, just like you said, someone had them. Documents related to corruption. How did you find out about this?”

“Just got lucky.”

Answering, Jung-woo drew a smile line on his lips.

‘As expected, it started from this point.’

On the surface, he had shaken the Management Bureau and waged a public opinion war.

He had made attempts to corner them.

As a result, he had triggered today’s incident—the issue of the S-Rank gate eruption.

Public opinion was shifting more proactively.

For now, it was a drop in trust toward hunter corporations, but if he pushed a little more, that public pressure would shift toward the Management Bureau.

The wedge to drive that home was the corruption documents.

‘The internal whistleblower, Lee Cheon-woo.’

He was the person who had been the catalyst for exposing the Management Bureau’s corruption in the original timeline.

Jung-woo had moved externally and asked Ho-jong to handle that side, and fortunately, it seemed he had negotiated well and obtained the data.

‘The most problematic part is resolved.’

Without those documents, everything he had done so far would end up as mere checks and balances.

That was his only worry, but somehow it was resolved, and now the board was set.

‘The Management Bureau is facing a headwind, so they’re in a rush to sever ties with Seunghyeoldan and pacify their internal affairs. If I’m going to strike them down, it’s now.’

Jung-woo felt a deep sense of emotion.

It was two years earlier than in history, but all things considered, it had been a stagnant fight.

‘I can’t drag this out just to take down one Management Bureau.’

Jung-woo hadn’t prepared for this life just to do something like that.

The goal had been clear from the start.

To investigate the Zero Gate and unravel the secrets entwined within it.

And thereby make the disaster that would befall Se-gi as if it had never happened.

He hadn’t even taken the first step toward that goal yet.

So shouldn’t he slowly move past these tedious stages?

Ho-jong said.

“Then, as planned?”

“Yes, as planned.”

“Good.”

Ho-jong, who was swiftly skimming through the documents, spoke in a low voice.

“Let’s pick up the pace. So much that they can’t catch up.”

May of 2032, spring.

The season of full bloom.

Before the flowers fell and the lush summer arrived, the Management Bureau would fade into the back alleys of history.

The gate management guilds in Seoul were going through a rough patch lately.

Of course, the ones taking the brunt of the criticism due to the Countermeasure Bureau’s actions were ultimately the guilds directly tied to gate management.

Of course, a few dinosaur guilds that had maintained standards were actually being praised for the dignity of large corporations, but even they couldn’t possibly like this atmosphere.

The provincial guilds felt the same.

As long as they were grouped under the category of “guilds,” a situation that tarnished the image of the guild collective could not be good for them in the long run.

Thus, resentment-laden public opinion dominated the hunter community.

The target was more the Management Bureau than the Countermeasure Bureau.

[Anonymous: This is fucking bullshit. We all know why this mess happened, right? We all know what’s behind those Seunghyeoldan bastards who blew this up. Why are we the ones taking the heat?]

└ Lonely Wolf Baek Geun-ho: I heard that’s a rumor. Isn’t it a conspiracy theory?

└ Anonymous: Geun-ho… You’re smart when it comes to scheming, but why are you so stupid about this…

└ Lonely Wolf Baek Geun-ho: ???

The vast majority of guilds were taking a beating simply for being guilds.

They were bearing the brunt of the Management Bureau’s sins.

Unlike the general public, they knew this well, which made it even more distasteful.

However, they still lacked the proper means to counter it.

Attacking the Management Bureau inherently carried an enormous risk to public opinion.

[Daegu Seasoned Chicken: Who doesn’t know that? It’s just that there’s no evidence.]

└ Anonymous: Lmao even if you had evidence, it wouldn’t work unless it was massive. The Management Bureau has an iron wall of public opinion to begin with.

└ Busan I Like It: Right? It’s because of the sanctuary called the First Bureau Chief. The public still equates the Management Bureau with the First Bureau Chief. How can you erase that person’s achievements? Even we are people who should bow down and prostrate ourselves to him. So to fight the Management Bureau, the evidence of corruption needs to be big and certain enough to cover his shadow, but there’s no way to get something like that. I don’t even know if it exists.

Along with the complaints, the outcry grew louder, asking if there was any way to land a solid blow against them.

It was the moment when a single strike to shatter the Management Bureau’s iron wall was needed.

Right at that moment, a file with an incredibly large capacity was uploaded to the hunter community.

[Anonymous: A report on the collusive relationship between the Management Bureau and the political sphere]

└ Strongest in Gangbuk: ???

└ Lonely Wolf Baek Geun-ho: Huh? Is this real?

└ Special Grade Chef: There was actual evidence? This is actually blowing up???

└ Anonymous: Lmao what is this? Fuck, were the Seoul bastards really doing this kind of shit???

└ Busan I Like It: As if it’s just Seoul… haha… I don’t know who it is, but they really took the bullet for this, huh? This is amazing. With this volume.

The contents related to the corruption that had been whispered about in secret were now released.

To those who had desperately wanted it the most at this point in time.

It was four days later.

[Breaking News!]

The processed information began to be covered simultaneously across several media outlets, exploding like a bomb without any warning.