The message from his friend contained a link.
It led to a place where hunters exchanged information about guilds—an anonymous bulletin board connected to Curtain.
***
A-class Hunter's Overthrow!
Since yesterday's incident had occurred in a public place, word of it spread quickly among the hunters.
The problem, however, was the way the story was being told.
Unlike Cho Sangoh, who believed he had managed to land a hit on the S-rank, the witnesses summarized what had happened that day like this.
====================
True Education Legend
How do you get beaten so badly you can't even lift a finger?
After finishing his meeting with the representative, Cho Sangoh returned to his private room and checked the post with trembling hands.
On the linked page, countless hunters were anonymously tearing into him.
Phew, that's what happens when you hire parachute recruits.
Finally, a big accident
This is why you shouldn't join family-run guilds, haha... Whenever a good item drops in a dungeon, they always say giving everything to one person is the most efficient way to develop the team. Of course it doesn't end well. That guild never had any potential for growth~~ haha. Thanks to the hunter who was only an ace in name, it finally died an honorable death this time.
Another Hanshin? They went through the whole Flower Baron mess and still haven't learned their lesson...
Cho Sangoh wasn't particularly bothered by the posts criticizing the guild.
Nor did the word “parachute” bother him much.
He had already grown immune to that sort of criticism after hearing it endlessly during the Flower Baron management fiasco.
So what if people called him a parachute?
In today's world, being born to the right parents was a skill in itself.
Besides, he was a rare A-rank Awakened. At this point, he wasn't some mere parachute recruit—he was practically an elite special forces operative.
Cho Sangoh dismissed most of the insults as nothing more than the envy and jealousy of those less fortunate than himself.
However, there was one humiliating claim near the bottom of the screen that he couldn't simply ignore.
[Witness #3's Story]
Wow, I finally got to see something this entertaining
Actually, I just happened to stop by a convenience store nearby yesterday!
...(omitted)...
From a distance, I saw a hunter in armor rolling around on the ground getting beaten. He was screaming and begging for his life.
At first, when I saw what was happening, I thought, “Did that S-rank go crazy? How can he just beat someone like that?”
But later, after hearing what the people who woke up had to say, apparently the guy in the orange armor was the one who attacked first
A fully geared hunter picking a fight with a colleague in civilian clothes...
Looks like he'll be heading down to the docks to move cargo with a crane soon
A fully geared hunter picking a fight with a colleague in civilian clothes...
Looks like he'll be heading down to the docks to move cargo with a crane soon?
A man crawling along the ground.
Screams ringing out.
And a cold-faced hunter standing over him, unwavering, without the slightest trace of pity or mercy in his expression.
At the time, Kim Giryeo had displayed such brutal violence that, to the inhabitants of this planet, it could easily have appeared outright cruel.
And every witness to the incident said the same thing.
The most shocking part had come afterward, when Cho Sangoh proved completely incapable of fighting back and was utterly dominated.
That became the central point of every eyewitness account. 𝐑Â𐌽ÒＢЁŠ
“No, who says I got beaten without even being able to fight back!”
How could something this unfair happen?
– Still, isn't it impressive that an A-rank managed to injure an S-rank?
Of course, there were people on the forum who tried to defend Sangoh, but...
[A-rank Rebellion Begins! Analyzing the Circumstances Behind Hunter Kim’s Injury....]
【A-rank Rebellion Begins! Analyzing the Circumstances Behind Hunter Kim's Injury....】
Even that argument was soon demolished by another post that appeared only a few minutes later.
(Verified by the Korea Magical Science Research Institute)
If you're an A-rank who rushed in here after seeing the title, just hit the recommend button and leave.
To get straight to the point, what thirty-something Mr. Cho managed to do isn't impressive at all~ It's simply a phenomenon caused by the characteristics of mana.
First of all, awakened individuals possess bodies far tougher than those of ordinary people, and this is the result of a kind of nonspecific physical immune system.
If their awakening value is greatly reduced through something like a curse or an item, that characteristic toughness disappears.
Think of it like taking an immunosuppressant—in other words, that protective barrier can effectively be switched on and off at will.
That's why high-end beauty salons these days carry items made specifically for awakened individuals.
Some people can't control it properly and unconsciously end up protecting even their hair.
Now, deliberately suppressing your own immune system might sound dangerous at first (and yes, it is dangerous).
But once you reach B-rank or higher, it actually becomes fairly manageable.
Why?
Because from that point onward, your reflexes are practically monstrous...
Weakening the barrier doesn't mean your reflexes suddenly disappear.
You can dodge most attacks normally, and if something genuinely dangerous gets through, your immunity automatically activates when necessary (as demonstrated in research papers).
So fatal incidents are extremely unlikely.
Therefore, to summarize yesterday's incident, it essentially went like this.
The victim had a 100% chance of 'self-harming' with the other party's weapon..
Someone earlier said it was impressive for an A-rank to injure an S-rank, but in my opinion, the entire premise doesn't make sense.
Think about it logically.
An A-rank can deflect bullets.
So how could someone ranked even higher get hit first while facing his opponent head-on?
It had been his one and only accomplishment.
Cho Sangoh had believed that landing even that single blow would earn him praise from the public.
Yet now even that tiny scratch was being dismissed as something his opponent had deliberately allowed him to inflict.
As the posts made painfully clear, nobody even considered the possibility that Giryeo might actually be a fake S-rank and had simply failed to avoid the attack.
Not even Cho Sangoh himself could entertain such a possibility.
Because that man was an S-rank hunter whose status had been announced on national television.
He had already proven himself several times over.
Guys, I heard from a friend who works at the Association that Kim Giryeo has been sparring with Jung Haseong at the public gym every weekend lately. Is that true?
Inevitable Malice. Siren.
Even if some of it had happened intentionally, the path Giryeo had taken through life had repeatedly caused him to become entangled with formidable sorcerers by sheer accident.
Among those he could call acquaintances was A-rank Ahn Yoonseung.
Then there was B-rank Seonwoo Yeon.
He had also maintained a consistently friendly relationship with the Master [N O V E L I G H T] of the Magic Tower, and recently, he had even begun meeting Jung Haseong on a regular basis.
Public opinion gradually settled in one direction.
That's cool! I always wondered who would ever buy something like the Screaming Stake, but apparently that's how you're supposed to use it.
Wait, so it's basically, because I'm S-class and don't want to hurt people, if you think about it~~
Even though the pain status doesn't leave any marks, strictly speaking it's still assault... But this time there was the first strike + the injury was on the neck, a vital area + the guy was wearing full-body armor. That's too much. Self-defense should apply, so there shouldn't be any prosecution...
(Breaking News) Market Screaming Stake Offer Up 388%
However, there was still one lingering question, which made it too early to neatly conclude the discussion about yesterday's conflict.
Giryeo had used a magical tool called the 'Surprise Box' to subdue Cho Sangoh.
And in the process, several bystanders had collapsed as well.
'Come to think of it, what exactly did I get hit by back then?'
The spectators had all regained consciousness by now.
Even so, nobody could figure out exactly what Kim Giryeo had done to them.
No matter how one looked at it, what they had experienced was a kind of forced unconsciousness—an effect that simply cut off awareness.
But in reality, there were no awakened individuals in this world known to possess such magic.
Am I remembering wrong? Only monsters can use stun abilities, right?
Of course, as that comment suggested, stun effects were normally something only dungeon monsters could use.
But that wasn't the whole story.
There were other possibilities.
For example, with an item like [Surprise Box!], even a human could wield stun-related magic.
Strangely enough, however, not a single person on the anonymous forum mentioned the red cube.
The most representative stun item of all wasn't even brought up!
Yet for people who didn't know the cause-and-effect behind the incident, that was only natural.
Surprise Box.
The item had one enormous flaw.
“Its owner” was included among its attack targets...
It was like watching an alien pick up a syringe and immediately use it as a knitting needle simply because the shape felt right.
Worse still, the alien then somehow managed to knit a magnificent scarf with it.
But who would ever believe that such a scarf had been made using a syringe?
It's not sleeping powder, right? There weren't any foreign substances on the bodies of the people who fainted.
If it's an item that inflicts a fainting effect over an area, could it be the [Electric Eel Skin]?
Hey, that's a 1.4-meter-long dark blue outer garment. If he used that, you'd be able to spot it from outside Seoul.
Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen Hunter Kim wearing proper defensive gear. Can you really enter high-level dungeons dressed in a formal suit?
Opinions flew back and forth.
For quite some time, Curtain was consumed by a heated debate over exactly how Kim Giryeo had knocked out the pedestrians.
But no matter how long the discussion continued, no item emerged as an obvious candidate.
Eventually, people began speculating that it might have been Kim Giryeo's awakening skill.
Until now, there had been no recorded cases of awakened individuals wielding that kind of status abnormality.
But there was nothing strange about someone with such an ability finally appearing...
Tiring!
It happened then.
The phones of several people browsing Curtain suddenly lit up.
It was a notification from an app called YT ube, informing them that a subscribed channel had uploaded something new.
[The first person to be knocked out twice by an S-class]
When they pulled down the notification bar on their phones, a small preview appeared.
The thumbnail, packed with several exaggerated elements mashed together, naturally drew their attention.
[(Bold caption) I'm the spectator number 2 who was taken away in an ambulance.]
Interestingly enough, the video that had triggered the notification dealt with the exact topic currently dominating the forum.
The owner of the channel revealed himself as one of the people directly involved in the incident and began explaining what had happened.
[...So, there's been a lot of discussion on the bulletin board about whether it was some electric-eel item or something else. Viewers, let me tell you exactly what happened. The reason we passed out at the time was...]
However, there was one thing people had to remember in this age of media.
[It was because the hunter suddenly revealed the magic he'd been hiding. The moment that hunter exerted pressure with his awakening power, we passed out.]
Right.
There was quite a lot of fabrication.