「Breaking news! The Black Dragon Guild confidently declared that they’d clear the Tower’s fortieth floor and show everyone the skill of one of the best guilds in the world. Unfortunately, Black Dragons ended up coming back without any achievements once again. Yet the Fire Emperor, the number one ranked Hunter, has singlehandedly taken down another boss monster!」
I blankly watched the television, envious of the man on the screen. I was so jealous of him that I felt like I was going to go nuts.
「Hello, Mr. Fire Emperor!」
「Ah, yeah. Hi… 」 The man on the screen frowned slightly.
Somehow, even his furrowed brow looked cool.
「You set a new record once again! And I must say, you’re the only Hunter who’s made this many feats on your own. How do you feel about it?」
「First of all, I want you to stop calling me that shitty name.」
「I’m sorry?」
「I’m talking about you people calling me “Fire Emperor”. I have a name, you know. What’s with that bullshit nickname? I’d honestly prefer Fucker to that cringe-ass name. I swear I’m going to hunt down the bastard who came up with that someday and bury him alive.」
「U-umm…」 The anchor stammered perplexedly, but he couldn’t say anything to the man. After all, the man was the star of this era and his exploits were the stuff of legends.
In contrast, I was an extra who didn’t even have a name for myself.
“Ah…” I muttered. “I really envy him.”
How good would it feel to be able to say anything I wanted, even on television? I picked up my smartphone and got on an online community about Hunters, wondering how people would react to the Fire Emperor’s interview. As expected, the online communities were already engaged in a fiery dispute as they watched the interview.
—Guys, the Fire Emperor is talking shit again!
—The fire emperor is fire-emperoring again lol
—Would it kill him to watch his words? The whole world is watching this interview
└not like it’s his first time doing this
└^This. TBH it’s the media’s fault. Everyone knows what kind of a person he is.
└True dat… The anchor is doing it on purpose to boost their ratings
└lmao the Fucker’s fanatics are here too gross
└I want to become like the Fire Emperor.
The online communities couldn’t have been more clearly divided.
—Mr. Fire Emperor, I hope you will improve your character and become a Hunter who can represent Korea with both your exemplary personality and skills. As a fellow Korean, I shamed whenever a translated version of your interview goes viral on the internet…
└It’s “I am ashamed,” not “I shamed.” Why don’t you worry about your grammar skills in your mother tongue before you worry about foreigners? Besides, nationality doesn’t matter in the Tower.
└Yet you’re fine with your master swearing in Korean. Don’t embarrass yourself here, Fire Emperor. [1]
└I’m just pointing out their grammar, so why are you insulting me? Get a life.
└Hmph. You’re the one that needs to get a life.
└I want to become like Fire Emperor.
It was chaos. In fact, every online community that was even slightly related to Hunters went crazy.
—WTF?! The Fucker has a girlfriend now! He’s dating the Saintess!
└The Saintess? Seriously?
└my friend is a Hunter and he saw the fire emperor and saintess hanging out together.
└I’m actually friends with the Saintess. She told me they aren’t.
└I want to become like the Fire Emperor.
Some communities were busy talking about who the Fire Emperor was dating. Whoever wrote the post kindly attached a photo, which they claimed was the best photo of the Saintess’s life. Just like the Fire Emperor, the Saintess was one of the most famous Hunters in the world. She was known for her angelic personality as well as her beauty—and this post was saying that the Fire Emperor was dating her.
In the end, I had to put down my smartphone and bury my head between my knees.
“Arghh…”
—I want to become like the Fire Emperor.
I was the one who wrote that comment on the post I had just read. It was my habit to leave those comments on any kind of online post I ran into. People might ask me why I would always make the same comment every time.
“I envy him! I envy him so much! I want to be cool and famous too!”
The reason was that I deeply envied him—but the only reason I could be this candid was that I lived in this studio on my own. If people got a look at my walls, their jaws would drop because the walls were entirely covered with newspaper and magazine clippings about the Fire Emperor, the world’s Rank 1 Hunter.
“The Fire Emperor has cleared the thirty-ninth floor on his own!”
“The Fire Emperor has created another legend by singlehandedly clearing the thirty-eighth floor!”
“Yoo Soo-Ha, the Fire Emperor, has officially become the first Korean to earn the highest place in the Hunter Ranking.”
...
“With the disappearance of the Sword Star, the seat of the world’s Rank 1 Hunter is empty. Who shall inherit his seat?”
“All foreign experts unanimously agree that the most likely candidate is Yoo Soo-Ha from Korea.”
“The unassailable tenth floor has been cleared. Who is this mysterious hero?”
“It has been twenty-two days since the Sword Star went missing. Could this be the start of the greatest chaos the Hunter industry has ever seen?”
Some of the newspaper and magazine clips covering my walls were brand new, but others were tinged yellow with age, reflecting the range of dates they canvassed; from the most recent to over a decade old. It was the Fire Emperor’s history itself—no, the history beginning even before Yoo Soo-Ha earned the title of Fire Emperor.