Chapter 48: The World Waiting for Doomsday

[Anonymous Hunter Forum: “Hey WTF, something’s seriously wrong”]

The title looks like bait, but I swear I’m dead serious.

Is the X-Gate about to break open?

It feels insane right now.

The other Gates are acting weird too.
Maybe that rumor about every Korean Gate being rooted in the X-Gate wasn’t bullshit after all.

Is our country actually going to explode;;;;;;;;;

I just hope Yoo Hee-ro doesn’t go any deeper…
They’re predicting he’s already around the 80th floor.
But every time he goes deeper, we get earthquakes, tsunamis, all this shit—
how are we supposed to live like this?

The US, China—everyone’s losing their minds.
Diplomacy is a joke right now.
Every country wants to interfere so badly it shows.
Meanwhile our government looks like it’s doing nothing.

It’s moments like this you realize how insane a Hunter’s influence is.
Hunters practically rule the country lol.
No wonder the Hunter Association kept trying to regulate them so hard.

Because once Hunters slip out of their hands, this happens!

I just ordered emergency supplies.
Anyone here got a personal bunker? Didn’t think so.
We’re all f***ed.

Some videos say Korea will get wiped clean as soon as the X-Gate collapses.
I know YouTube fear-mongering and all, but I keep watching it.

I’m not the only one, right?
Do I have to run away from the country to survive??

Comments

– People have been saying this for months and I thought it was BS,
but now it feels too real and I’m losing it.
└ 222222
└ 33333 can’t believe I’m believing superstition with zero evidence;

– All these emergency meetings in Korea are freaking me out.
Even the International Hunter Association is panicking.

– Honestly I think this was bound to happen someday.
└ Yeah you can’t live forever with a ticking bomb called the X-Gate.
└ Forget the X-Gate—Yoo Hee-ro is the new bomb now.
└ Bro that’s crossing the line, stop treating ability users like monsters.

Today’s Issue: “So do we just wait with cups of water now?”

Yoo Hee-ro, please….

Comments

– I think I’m getting religious starting today.
– Is this okay??
└ He went in ALONE?? How the hell is a single 22-year-old supposed to handle a Gate core??
└ He’s twenty-two???? What was I doing then?
└ Lying in bed scratching my stomach scrolling online probably.
└ lmao that hurt.

– They say he broke through the 100th floor. The Hunter Association has stationed troops at the Gate entrance now.
└ But if they mess with the core wrong it’ll explode and we all die, right?
└ Exactly. It’s just a performance. They’re embarrassed they can’t do anything.

– I heard he has a handler assigned now?
└ Yeah, true. Since he passed the 50th floor.
The handler is literally the regional branch director lmao.
Promoted at the youngest age ever, only to babysit a kid.
└ He’s basically a celebrity lol
└ No, a national VVIP.

– What if Yoo Hee-ro suddenly goes “I don’t wanna do this anymore” and comes back out?
└ How do you even think of that lol
└ Is he a brat?? The entire nation’s survival depends on him
└ The nation’s doom, you mean
└ Yeah but if he says he doesn’t wanna, what can they do? lol
└ The people in power must be sweating so hard right now.
Honestly I kinda want to see it. Popcorn time?
└ 22-year-old kid vs. The Government (feat. Korean Hunter Association)
└ Someone write this scenario

– Hunters who last saw him around the 50th floor said he looked like someone who’d never give up.
– At this point it’s up to fate
– There’s probably no one on Earth who doesn’t know his name
└ Even Americans love him because his name sounds like HERO lmao
└ The International Hunter Association said if he returns alive, they’ll invite him to the Morgan Awards
└ That’s the one where they give awards for Hunter achievements right?
Basically the Hunter Nobel Prize?
└ That’s huge. Only one Korean ever won that—50 years ago, the first Guildmaster who broke the 60th floor.

Secret Government–Association Meeting

The government and the Hunter Association met in secret to discuss the situation.
To them, Yoo Hee-ro wasn’t a blessing—he was a disaster.

They couldn’t let some kid who wasn’t even an official Hunter yet clear the X-Gate.
It wasn’t their raid party, their plan, their achievement.

The Hunter Association felt the same.
There was no way they’d let some nobody steal the greatest accomplishment in history.
They had poured endless resources into stabilizing the X-Gate for years.
All the top researchers said the same thing every year:
Clearing the X-Gate is impossible in this generation.

They hid that fact to avoid mass panic.

But everything fell apart.

The Prime Minister spoke first.

“Who is that brat? He comes out of nowhere and throws the entire nation into chaos!”

The Association President pressed his trembling lips together.
He had recently received the full file on Yoo Hee-ro—
and it was full of things he couldn’t say, not even to the government.

“We’re investigating. We’ve contacted the special school he last attended,
and reviewed all academic records.”

The President asked:

“He was that gifted, yet no one reported anything earlier?”

“…Until his second year he was nothing special,” the Association head admitted nervously.
“Then he suddenly went wild in third year.
Even then, no one expected this level of potential.”

He worried they’d catch the strangeness in his wording.
The President sighed heavily.

The PM continued:

“Shouldn’t we restrain him? ‘Historic record’ my ass—
if something goes wrong, the whole country blows up!
Deploy the raid force immediately—”

“Impossible. Not even top international rankers could catch up to him now.”
No one could stop or even chase Yoo Hee-ro.

He was a monster.

“Then what do you expect us to do? Sit and wait?!”

“We’re doing our best—”

The PM clicked his tongue.
The Association head clenched a fist under the table.
The President made his decision.

“Prepare emergency briefings starting today.
Any sign of instability in the X-Gate—report immediately.
Broadcast emergency news.”

“…Yes, sir.”

“And notify the International Hunter Association. Request cooperation.”

Officials rushed to carry out orders.

Anonymous Forum: “Holy shit the ground is shaking”

I can’t even go home to see my family before dying please please someone do somethingㅠㅠ

Comments

– I’m hugging my dog and crying so hard
└ My cat crawled under the bed hissing and shaking I’m losing itㅠ

– Is this what the end of the world feels like?
– Which god do we pray to?? Buddha? Jesus? Allah?
└ As a Buddhist—Buddha’s not a godㅠ

– He’s at the 120th floor right? That’s why??
└ Based on the reports, yeah. This feels like the final floor.
└ Please please please save us Hee-roㅠㅠ

– Why did this have to happen in my lifetime
– If I die at least I’ll die holding my bias’s photo

– Mom I love youㅠㅠ
└ I love my mom too and my cat

– Mom I’m sorry I miss you so much
└ I’m finally going to see you, Mom… you were lonely for 10 years, right?
Let’s be together in heaven now.
└ Why are you excluding your dadㅠ

– Guess we’re meeting in hell guys
└ Yeah we agreed on a group meetup in hell

– We suffered a lot, didn’t we.
Humanity’s been postponing extinction for so long.
Hunters, thank you for giving us these extra years.

– Should’ve followed that crazy guy who wanted to build housing on the moon.
└ Is he living well on the moon??
└ idkㅠㅠㅠ

Another Government Outburst

The Minister of National Security finally exploded.

“How do we STILL not have a countermeasure!?”

His staff hadn’t gone home in days.
The raid force they sent in hadn’t even reached the 30th floor.

“Our entire national power is a joke!
30 floors?? After sending in elite Hunters?!”

“…They didn’t go in to clear the Gate, sir.
Top hunters won’t risk their lives just to catch a kid.
Guilds aren’t helping—say it’s not their business.
If only we had forced all Hunters under the Association years ago—”

“No country in the world does that!
You want human rights riots?!
The Association fails and now blames the system—shame on you!”

The Association head gritted his teeth.
Stress had his hair falling out.

“He’s not human.”

“We know he’s a superpowered ability user—”

“No, I mean literally. Yoo Hee-ro is a subject from a discontinued Association experiment.”

The Minister froze.

“A failed experiment. We don’t know why he got so strong.
The old records were damaged so we can’t investigate…”

The truth poured out like vomit.

After a long silence, the Minister said:

“So all this happened because the Association failed to dispose of one piece of trash?”

“D-don’t put it like that…”

“You’ll be audited. And once this is over,
you’d better dispose of your experimental waste properly.
Unless you want to rot in prison in your old age.”

Breaking News: “X-Gate Instability Continues; 120th Floor Breached”

“Three years have passed since Hunter HERO entered the X-Gate.
Korea has been facing abnormal phenomena for the past year.
The government still has no solution as the X-Gate shows further signs of runaway activation…”

Scenes showed soldiers surrounding the Gate, reporters crowding, protesters screaming.

“Earthquakes, storms, and tsunamis persist for a week straight.
Neighboring countries are also affected.
Intervention by the International Hunter Association is now unavoidable.
The fate of the world rests on a single young Hunter from Korea.”

“We will continue nonstop news coverage until the incident is resolved.”

Best Comments Board: “Leave your last words here”

The time has come.

I’ll write mine first:

I love my family so much.
Sorry for being such a useless son.

Comments

– Goodbye, world
– I spent my life studying for civil service exams… this is bullshit
– Please let me reincarnate in another world
– Mom, Dad, I love you
– You idiots aren’t dying, stop writing wills
– I didn’t accomplish anything… weirdly not sad
– I didn’t accomplish anything and it’s killing me inside

– My baby won’t even get to be born.
Please be my child again in the next life.
└ Bro I’m crying

– Finally going to see my friend again.
Let’s have a drink up there.

– Just got hired and now I die lol
– Should’ve lived life recklessly at least once

– At least we’re all dying together, makes it less unfair
– What will happen to Earth after? Will it disappear forever?

– Professor, I’m sorry. I didn’t finish the assignment.
But you can’t expect me to spend my last moments doing homework.

– I hope the assholes who bullied me fall straight into hell
└ same
└ 333 suffer eternally please

– I hope we wake up and it’s all a dream
– I lived the best I could
└ I should’ve lived better
└ I should’ve lived less anxiously

– It’s terrifying that humanity will disappear from history
└ Maybe aliens somewhere will know we existed
└ But no one will remember me

– Please let it be painless