Stay-at-Home Summoner

At that moment, there was a commotion in front of a computer in an office apartment.

“Korea is screwed.”

“Yeah, it’s really screwed.”

In a nearby café, a couple lamented while playing a video on their smartphones.

“Ironblood was supposedly a strong woman, but she lost without even landing a punch? Is that for real?”

“Seriously. She was the one who used to pick up people who didn’t even hunt with an S-rank hunter card. Look at this. She’s throwing punches in thin air.”

The couple played the video.

About 30 minutes earlier, the confrontation between two S-rank hunters in front of the Busan BEXCO A-Rank Tower.

That video was impactful enough to shock all of South Korea, or even the entire world, and even the real-time views were skyrocketing—

“What the hell?”

“The video has been taken down?”

“Wow, damn. Did they take it down because Ironblood got wrecked?”

They tried to check the real-time view count, but all the videos had vanished.

“Ah, seriously. Did you happen to save it offline?”

“I saved it just in case. How about that? I did good, right?”

“Yeah. Let’s upload it later as a short and try to boost our views.”

Even though they were a couple, they were talking about their smartphones rather than facing each other because they created content related to hunters.

“What should we title it? Ironblood Gets Wrecked?”

“I honestly have no idea what to say, but there’s nothing else that describes this situation so clearly, it’s ridiculous.”

Ironblood got wrecked.

A South Korean S-rank hunter lost to a cosplayer who could be either Korean or American without being able to land a single proper punch.

“Wow, seriously. It’s so shocking I can’t even speak. Seeing a woman who used to go around capturing hunters looking puzzled like this.”

“Right? But how did this happen? How did she disappear all of a sudden?”

“Does she have some teleportation ability? S-rank hunters usually have some special ability. Just look at Blue Lightning, who can turn his body into electricity.”

“But this woman, the cosplayer, handles a sword.”

“…That’s true.”

Not just the couple, but the entire world was busy analyzing the battle between the two S-rank hunters.

“Ironblood was said to be tactical nuclear, but if the cosplayer is even stronger, what should we call her? A hydrogen bomb?”

While there might be differences in combat power for each S-rank hunter, if one were to equate that combat power to modern weaponry, each one could be considered a nuclear weapon.

“Would these women die if a nuke hit?”

“Before the nuke goes off, I think they would either cut it down or teleport away.”

“Ugh, it’s truly terrifying. The thought of more people like this continuing to increase.”

To ordinary people, they seemed like powerful monster hunters with incredible abilities, but if they ever decided to go rogue, they could become beings capable of killing more than a nuke.

“…The cosplayer, she’s essentially part of the US military, right?”

“The US military? Not American?”

“Yeah. The US military. She’s a superhuman being tested in South Korea because it’s too dangerous to experiment in their own country. They’ve turned one of their allies into a sample to operate.”

“…Ha. Seriously. Should I save up money and immigrate to the US?”

To modern people, hunters are like two sides of a coin.

They are essential beings needed to fight against the threat of the towers, and the reason why a million people awakened is due to God’s judgment indicating mankind is not prepared to face the trials coming.

However, for a hunter not to act for humanity but for personal reasons?

That’s fine up to a point.

Even if the tower collapses and the monsters start to spill out, at least they should be there to stop them.

If it’s an S-rank hunter, they should kill more monsters and save more people.

But.

There are places where one S-rank hunter is needed, and places where a hundred A-rank hunters are needed.

Can one S-rank hunter cover Seoul, or even an entire country?

No one was able to answer that question definitively.

“It’s good that the number of S-rank hunters is increasing, but I wish more Korean hunters would emerge.”

“Coser maid, are they going to stop challenging the A-Rank Towers from now on? Our A-ranks should climb the tower and gain experience to become S-ranks.”

People could only wish for that.

For more abilities.

For more strong hunters.

And they hoped that they would become the ‘heroes’ who protect them from threats to humanity.

Because they are people with no abilities.

***

A day passed.

Morning came, and we greeted a new day.

I fainted once during the night and awoke to find myself seated at the table to eat the breakfast that Elaine prepared.

Tatatatadak.

The third summoned being was eagerly typing on the keyboard, staring at the computer.

She was filling the screen with unfamiliar programs, seemingly trying to figure out where to download and play from, on the monitor where I usually had only a game window open.

“Hey.”

“Yes, Commander.”

As soon as I called her, she turned to look at me.

“So how are you going to call me?”

“I’ll call you ‘Agent’ until a good name comes to mind.”

“…Are you joking?”

The agent puffed out her cheeks.

If I kept thinking of her as ‘Agent,’ I felt like I’d hear ‘please revise the name,’ but I couldn’t hold back my laughter seeing Elaine chuckling softly next to her.

“What kind of person’s name is Agent?”

“It’s not ‘agent’; there actually is a name ‘Yoweon’ in Korea. All the Yoweons across the country would be angry.”

“Oh, really? …You’re not talking about that kind of Agent, right?”

“Of course not.”

“It feels odd listening to a name like Agent when the perception of Agent is already ingrained. ‘Kim Yoweon’ sounds definitely like a name, but ‘Kim Agent’ is just weird. Hmm… How about this.”

The agent tapped her chest with her hand.

“Until my name is officially assigned, call me [Dry].”

“Dry?”

“Yeah. You know what it means?”

“You’re not a German doll, right?”

“That’s true.”

Dry.

It means three in German.

“The sound itself isn’t bad, right?”

“I checked, Master. Dry is typically a term referring to males.”

“That’s not important. What matters is the meaning behind the number, isn’t it?”

Even after Elaine’s comment, Dry smiled while holding up three fingers towards herself.

“Then it’s more consistent than names like ‘Suksam,’ ‘Third,’ or ‘San.'”

“Consistency?”

“Elaine, Kiharu, Dry. They all have foreign-sounding names, so we should align them somewhat. Globally.”

“That’s not an incorrect statement.”

If there’s a name stamped on a passport later, would they get angry if the surname is ‘Dry’ and the first name is ‘Lai’?

“How about calling me ‘Ein’ instead?”

“…If someone uses the name Ein, it would be me.”

“Oh? Did a being from a fantasy world search that already? That’s impressive. What do you think, Goddess?”

“I don’t know about Ein, but call me Zweiyi.”

“You’re subtly insisting not to miss the second one, huh? Alright, alright. So, Dry it is.”

Dry waved her hand, turned back to the monitor, closed all the open windows she was working on, and shut down the computer.

“What’s this? Is your work done? Did you hack the server?”

“It’s all here.”

Dry tapped on the newest model of the computer.

“It includes Elaine’s, Kiharu’s, and mine.”

Throughout the night.

While I was sleeping, Dry hacked a game company featuring the three of us.

I don’t know the specifics about hacking, but I heard it involved disassembling the client.

“Even if the game company goes bankrupt or the server room gets destroyed, the game contents are all safe here on our PC, so you can rest easy. This way, the game isn’t going to vanish suddenly.”

At the same time, in accessing Elaine’s game, [Granado Impact: Redive], she built a separate personal server that is neither the Korean server, Japanese server, nor the global server, accessed it, and modified the data there.

“The minor issue is the internal data.”

Assuming Elaine’s current attack power is 3000.

If I modify the client and change the attack power to 4500 on the private server, does that mean she becomes 1.5 times stronger?

Yes.

It was possible to modify the data separately on a private server, and it was also possible to link the game to a backup server to defeat the weekly boss in a single hit and bring that back into the original game!

But.

“Master, are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah. I’m okay. I fainted once and woke up well-rested, and I’m healing having breakfast.”

“What about your mana? Is it feeling recovered?”

“…No.”

It was an unexpected but pleasant variable that has appeared.

My mana.

Even when converting and modifying the game data, for it to exert that amount of power differently from the existing values in reality, it required proportional burdens on me.

Yes.

Even if Dry manipulated the data through hacking to implement buffs, for those buffed stats to actually strengthen me in reality, it required my mana.

In other words.

Even if Elaine becomes stronger, she would only become as strong as my surplus mana would allow.

So even if Elaine tried to raise her attack power to 4500 through Dry’s manipulation, if my maximum mana is 7, her effective power would only rise to 3007.

The buffs generated through hacking and manipulation demanded mana from me.

While summoning the three beings didn’t make me feel any mana consumption when they were left existing in reality, this manipulation made me feel like my very vitality was being drained.

That’s why I fainted.

The moment buffed Elaine swung her sword while expending mana, I collapsed in a feeling of total weakness.

I had intended to experiment with various things throughout the night, but my tests ended up being a half-success.

“Is there nothing free in this world?”

If only mana could be increased like a black card.

But unlike this manipulation, a pure update tells a different story.

When Elaine’s equipment gets enhanced, she becomes stronger without consuming my mana, just like how walking on the proper route in the live server could make for faster growth.

Thus, I found myself with choices.

One was the path of my own strength.

Climbing the tower myself and growing personally to provide buffs to them.

The second.

“Elaine.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Could you go discuss it over there at the NPC? Ask for some buffs for Elaine.”

“…….”

“In the meantime, Dry and I will secure some funds through hacking to take over the game company.”

“Funding? Where from…?”

“Coins.”

In other words, black money.

“I’m thinking of contacting President Louis to hack and recover the money that people concealed through tax evasion and then ask for a reward.”

The second method is clearly a freebee.

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