Free Web NovelIt was a light broadcast—a casual declaration of war. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
It was meant to let him know that even I’ll writhe when stepped on.
Now Kang Han-min himself had come.
Even though there was a screen between us, it meant I could deliver my intent to him directly.
But the impact of that message would depend on the number below.
[Current viewers: 108]
The more people watching, the greater pressure Kang Han-min would feel.
Of course, surpassing the viewership records Kang Han-min once set with such a cheap stunt was impossible. But at the very least, I couldn’t afford to post numbers so low he could ignore them.
I looked at Cheon Young-jae.
He was grinning.
For some reason, he was unusually enthusiastic about this particular job.
I looked beneath the laptop.
There was a handwritten note from Cheon Young-jae.
— (Greeting) Hello hello, everyone! This is your official postwar Vtuber, El-Miris! Can you all hear my voice clearly~~?
“....”
I really didn’t want to do this kind of thing, but online, SKELTON was a master of transformation.
I recalled the mindset I had when I cosplayed as a woman during the RoxanneGirl stint and spoke Cheon Young-jae’s greeting into the mic, word for word.
“Hello hello, everyone! This is your official postwar Vtuber, El-Miris! Can you all hear my voice clearly~?”
“Pfft!”
Woo Min-hee was struggling to hold back laughter.
“Hehehe!”
Same with M9.
Meanwhile, the high-end voice modulation software converted my deep, solemn voice into that of a perky young girl without a hint of bias.
I looked at the screen.
The girl on the monitor was repeating my lines with a remarkably convincing girlish voice.
“Wow~ Hello hello, everyone! This is your official postwar Vtuber, El-Miris! Can you all hear my voice clearly~?”
We included a 5-second delay in case of any broadcast accidents.
It was working perfectly.
The chat exploded in shock.
Anonymous3921: Oh
FriendlyFire: Oh
VillainousNoblewoman (M, 32): Huh
Tawaz: Oh
LookingForPizza: Gasp
RedArchivePurebloodPlat: What
Dead2131: Huhhh
SimpleTissue: Whoa
MonsterMangoFlavor: For real?!
...
...
“As expected. No doubt about it. They’ve been starving for this.”
Cheon Young-jae murmured, grinning with satisfaction.
The response was clearly one of pure shock.
It was like people were seeing a relic whose lineage had been lost since the war.
And soon, new reactions started pouring in.
VillainousNoblewoman (M, 32): Kinda cute?
Shironyang: Oh! It’s real! It’s really real!
MyumMyum: Holy shit, I thought I’d never see this again after the war
Lee Kang-tae: I’m touched 😭
HanaOiTachi: Pretty sure it’s a guy but who cares 😭
Argos: Damn... this slaps...
Naeding: Sub, like, follow—LET’S GO!!
...
...
An explosive response.
This was unimaginable back during the Cheetah and Cowboy days.
Sure, compared to the legendary SKELTON days, this was still nothing—but for now, I’d be satisfied with the present.
At the very least, the environment to speak had been established.
You could tell just from M9’s chat.
mmmmmmmmm: 400... 500.... 700.... 1,000....!!
One thousand.
For the first time, the viewer count hit a meaningful number.
In fact, 1,000 was the minimum benchmark we’d set in the first place.
Maybe that’s why...
Kang Han-nam: Hoh?
Kang Han-min stirred.
Now, I could tell the truth.
I stared at my avatar occupying the bottom left of the screen.
It winked. Smiled brightly. Shook its head side to side. Made all kinds of expressions.
I glanced to the side.
Sure enough, Cheon Young-jae was bouncing off the walls with excitement.
“....”
So this was his kind of thing, huh.
Anyway, maybe because Cheon Young-jae was overdoing the reactions, the screen began to lag.
I wasn’t worried.
Foxgames had taken precautions.
To reduce the load on the laptop, part of the motion capture had been shifted to the phone.
Now, since the phone and laptop shared control, both had to be shut down to completely end the stream—but that was nothing compared to the risk of crashing mid-broadcast.
“All right, then.”
Cheon Young-jae had prepared a script.
— Let me introduce El-Miris real quick~ She’s 2,017 years old, and she’s the princess of the ultra-ancient civilization Atlantis! She was sealed in a forbidden labyrinth, then awakened by a nuclear missile shock, and now she’s here before you all~
“....”
Maybe I should’ve had a drink first.
But I’m SKELTON.
“Let me introduce El-Miris real quick~ She’s 2,017 years old, and she’s the princess of the ultra-ancient civilization El-Hazard! She was sealed in a forbidden labyrinth, then awakened by a nuclear missile shock, and now she’s here before you all~”
There are no limits for SKELTON.
“Ah, come on. This is killing me.”
Woo Min-hee laughed behind me, but I wasn’t about to get swayed by some woman’s opinion.
Even now, the viewer count was rising in real-time.
mmmmmmmmm: 2000... 2500.... 3300!!!!
Cheon Young-jae, who had been shaking his head like crazy, gave me a big thumbs up.
Nodding, I wiped the sweat off my brow with my sleeve and stared at the monitor.
I wasn’t looking at my avatar or the viewers.
I was staring directly at one man—somewhere beyond time and space, beyond fiber-optic cables and Necropolis signals.
Kang Han-min.
It was time to speak to him.
“Kang Han-min!”
With a five-second delay, my avatar repeated my words in a completely different voice.
“Stop dissing SKELTON!”
I had a lot to say, but to the public, the message had to be short and punchy.
Originally, I was going to say something else, but I instinctively changed the script with my name-brand sense.
Honestly, I was also slightly roleplaying as the last surviving princess of the ultra-ancient civilization, El-Miris.
“I said STOP IT!”
Sure enough, the chat began moving the way I wanted.
LoveBug: What the hell?!
VillainousNoblewoman (M, 32): Suddenly calling out Kang Han-min?!
berkut_break: ??? What is this?
RedArchivePurebloodPlat: What
NutritionBarFanatic: What the hell?!
PreWarFXFuturesDebt2.3Bil: What’s going on? Some weird cardboard thing is suddenly flaming Kang Han-min?
Cal_luis: ?
...
...
My fingertips resting on the keyboard felt a burning heat.
I could sense the laptop screaming.
Just a bit more—hang in there, buddy—I thought as I stared at the avatar on screen and continued.
“Kang Han-nam, I mean you. YOU!”
A declaration.
Kang Han-nam reacted instantly.
Kang Han-nam: You think I’m Kang Han-min?
Oh? Playing dumb now?
Fine, I’ll admit it—back then, Kang Han-min got on the internet before I did, and he knew the trends and culture well.
But while he was wrestling with monsters in Jeju, I was out there mastering the internet—on Viva! Apocalypse!, PaleNet, and a dozen other boards.
“You are Kang Han-min!”
What mattered wasn’t the facts—it was the force.
Kang Han-nam: ???
I could see it.
He was flustered, backing off.
mmmmmmmmm: 4000... 5000... 6000!!!!!
It was time to pull out my trump card.
Here it is.
“Huh? What’s this?”
“Oh my god, sunbae. When did you even prep this?”
A screenshot of messages between SKELTON and Foxgames.
Of the two screenshots, the second contained the decisive content.
Message from Foxgames: It’s Kang Han-min. I figured you already knew :)
That Kang Han-nam really was Kang Han-min.
A smoking gun.
Foxgames might hate me for this, but I don’t care. freewebnøvel.coɱ
We hunters don’t retreat.
“If you keep pretending, I’ll show the proof~”
Clunk!
Suddenly, the train door slid open.
“Captain!”
A woman’s voice.
It was Moon Yang-gyeong.
“Looks like it went well! I said sorry, and the kids were the ones apologizing to me instead...”
She sounded unusually cheerful—lighter than usual.
She was walking toward me.
With an almost bouncy step.
Then suddenly, she stopped.
“Captain...?”
“....”
Now’s not the time.
I have a broadcast to finish.
“The Last Survivor of an Ultra-Ancient Civilization, Princess El-Miris, is about to reveal decisive evidence~!”
“...Captain... what are you doing...?”
“......”
I completely ignored Moon Yang-gyeong and uploaded the first screenshot.
SKELTON: (Curious Skeleton) I’ve heard there’s a popular guy called Kang Han-nam lately.
Message from Foxgames: Ah~ Kang Han-nam~?
It was the first of two screenshots.
A kindness for modern people who can’t process more than three lines at ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ once.
Sure enough, as soon as the name SKELTON appeared, the chat descended once again into chaos.
Anonymous3921: SKELTON?!
VillainousNoblewoman (M, 32): No way—SKELTON shows up here?!
Tawaz: What the hell is going on?
Dead2131: ?????
RedArchivePurebloodPlat: What
NutritionBarFanatic: What is this?! Foxgames? That’s the same guy as The Fox, right—the admin of FoxWeb?
PreWarFXFuturesDebt2.3Bil: Wait. Is Kang Han-min fighting SKELTON right now? Don’t tell me El-Miris is SKELTON?!
Anonymous424: ????
...
...
...
I checked the viewer count.
No—there was no need to check.
mmmmmmmmm: 8900... 9200... 9900....!!
SKELTON and Kang Han-min.
The two most powerful elements in play had collided.
“All right, time for the second piece of evidence~ here we go~!”
Climax.
Cheon Young-jae, in charge of the avatar’s expressions, was now headbanging and performing face-changing theatrics with his bare face.
“The true identity of Kang Han-nam is—”
Just as I took a deep breath to reveal the fateful screenshot—
Pop—
The laptop shut off.
*
“We’re approaching Gyeongju soon. As you probably guessed, Captain, the reason our journey’s been so smooth is that all the Tunnel Cities that should’ve been along the way have vanished. Whether hostile or friendly—it’s all the same.”
Pyo Won-sang exhaled a sigh as he hit his vape.
“Whoever’s behind it, there’s some group systematically wiping out Tunnel Cities. It’s outright annihilation warfare. We don’t know whether it’s the person we’re heading to meet, or someone else entirely—but you’d best prepare yourself mentally.”
It hadn’t even been a full month since the train started moving, but Pyo Won-sang already looked like he’d aged several years.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I had nothing more to say.
At the very least, he’d been more diligent than me on this train.
As I walked down the corridor, I spotted Moon Yang-gyeong’s group.
They were seated in the dining car eating something. They greeted me as I passed—but for some reason, Moon Yang-gyeong alone turned her head away, pretending not to see me.
“....”
Was it really that shocking?
I wanted to ask her if she hadn’t lived far too under-stimulated a life.
“Oh, SKELTON.”
As I entered our train car, M9, who had been standing by the door, greeted me with a mischievous smile.
“Sunbae, anything new?”
Woo Min-hee, who’d been reading in the corner, put her claw-like fingers down on the desk and approached me.
“...Nothing much. Just that we should be ready for anything.”
“I see.”
She exhaled lightly and sat back down, picking up her book again.
Watching her hollow eyes scan the lines, I returned to my seat and looked at my laptop.
The forum was as peaceful as ever.
The world was dying more with each passing day, yet the people on the board were too busy chasing their petty desires to notice.
I sighed and closed the laptop.
“Hello~ everyone~!”
A grotesque voice mimicking a girl’s came from behind me.
To cut to the point, the broadcast that day... didn’t end.
Yes, the laptop had shut off. But the FoxTV stream was still running, and the motion capture program filming Cheon Young-jae was still live.
Only the magic that transformed Cheon Young-jae’s face into a 2D anime girl was gone—leaving “the face of a raving middle-aged man” revealed to nearly ten thousand viewers.
And then—
“I’m the ancient fairy El-Miris! Nice to meetcha~!”
That mysterious uncle was still broadcasting.
It was a horrifying experience, but I did gain something from it.
Message from Anonymous68: I don’t even remember how many years it’s been.
Message from Anonymous68: It’s been so long since I laughed like that, sincerely. LOL
I’d been given a chance.
SKELTON: Why did you do that?
I could finally ask him.
Message from Anonymous68: You mean why I did that broadcast as Kang Han-nam?
SKELTON: Yeah.
Message from Anonymous68: Just ‘cause.
SKELTON: ?
Message from Anonymous68: Woo Min-hee said you felt inferior to me—that’s why you retired and holed up in your bunker.
Message from Anonymous68: It’s been a while, huh?
Message from Anonymous68: But I think I lived with my inferiority complex toward you for even longer.
Message from Anonymous68: lol
Message from Anonymous68: Then I got lucky, gained power, and lived being treated like a savior.
Message from Anonymous68: But as you know—people can forget the past, but they can’t erase it.
Message from Anonymous68: It doesn’t disappear.
...Was that really his honest truth?
Message from Anonymous68: Seeing people online praising you like a hero brought it all back. Reminded me of the pathetic version of myself back when I was small, worthless, and ignored.
Message from Anonymous68: So I acted on impulse. lol
Honestly, it was such a stupidly simple reason.
But we humans are like that—we ruin and create things over raw, primitive thoughts like those.
I replied to him.
SKELTON: Hm... that’s it?
Message from Anonymous68: That’s it. And—
Message from Anonymous68: If we assume memories are scars left on the soul...
Message from Anonymous68: Then you’ll probably be the deepest scar in mine.
SKELTON: ?
That was the last of our exchange.
I showed the messages to Woo Min-hee.
I felt she had a right to know.
Kang Han-min was tied not only to me, but to her fate as well.
“...As expected.”
Woo Min-hee sighed.
“He’s still shackled to the past. Still locking himself inside the inferiority complex left by those long, dark years. It’s laughable, really.”
It didn’t take long for hollow pity to turn into contempt.
“Someone who can’t even save himself—what’s he gonna save, exactly...?”
And that contempt faded again, replaced by a pure, soft smile—one that reminded me of a girl in her school years.
“But then again, I guess I can see why he’d feel inferior.”
She looked straight at me.
“Because it’s true. You shined brighter than anyone.”
“...Was it really that much?”
I chuckled quietly and looked away.
“Yeah. I liked you, too.”
Still gazing at me, Woo Min-hee smiled mischievously.
“...You didn’t know, did you?”
I knew.
