Chapter 1: Legendary Jealousy

「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.

Ah... I want to be successful like the Fire Emperor... I wish I could thrive in life so that other people would envy me instead. When I’m successful, I’ll be able to teach those people a lesson for looking down on me. After that, I’ll forgive them and pat them on the shoulders and telling them to be kind to others from now on. I want people to think I’m a big-hearted man...

Yes, I was jealous of the hero on the screen.

「Mr. Fire Emperor.」

「For god’s sake. Didn’t I tell you to call me by my real name, not “Fire Emperor”? I thought you media jackals’ brains went rotten because of your tabloid shit, but I guess they rotted your ears, too?」

「I-I’m sorry. But before we finish the interview, can you say something to our viewers out there?」

The Fire Emperor scratched the back of his head in annoyance. 「Phew. What am I supposed to say?」

「Many aspiring Hunters look up to you and try to follow in your footsteps, Mr. Fire Emperor. You entered the Tower in your early twenties, but you Awakened right away! Less than a month after your Awakening, you killed a boss monster! You’re writing legends as Yoo Soo-Ha the Fire Emperor! So can you give all the aspiring Hunters out there one piece of advice?」n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

「I’m sure that if they can succeed with just one piece of advice from me, then they never needed it to begin with.」 The Fire Emperor chuckled dryly.

「Still, can you give them one?」

「Ha... you people from the media are seriously... Tsk. Fine, but I’ll make it short.」 The Fire Emperor scratched the back of his head irately, his black ponytail swaying from side to side. He glared straight into the camera. 「Those who are destined to succeed will be successful no matter what. But don’t get cocky with me even if you do. I’ll crush you.」

「Pardon?」

「That’s it. I have nothing else to say, so don’t follow me.」 The Fire Emperor just stood up from his seat and walked away from the camera, unceremoniously ending the interview.

「Mr. Fire Emperor! Mr. Fire Emperor! What is that supposed to mean?!」the anchor shouted after him, bewildered.

The anchor was completely ignored.

I blankly stared at the Fire Emperor’s back and let out a sigh. I was angry. The anchor was the one who was insulted, but for some reason, it felt like the Fire Emperor had disrespected me. It made me furious.

“Only if I had one decent Skill...” I trailed off.

The reality was, I was just a lowly Class F Hunter, and my life was far from successful. My interview wouldn’t go viral in real-time, and no one cared about my private life. The last thing that was going to happen in my life was me becoming rich and successful with my own abilities...

“I want to win in life... I wish I had a Class S Skill... Arghhh... I just want to be successful even if I don’t get to be rich. How cool would it be to have the Fire Emperor’s Skills...?”

If anyone saw me right now, they would think I was crazy for voicing my wildest fantasies aloud—but again, the only reason I could do it was that I was living alone in my studio. I relieved my stress by talking to myself when no one was around. I knew it was absolutely pathetic, but who cared? It was better than going outside and screaming into people’s ears. No one was listening anyway.

“...Huh?”

It looked like I was wrong. A golden light appeared in front of me as if someone had heard me.

“C-can it be...?”

The only time I saw this kind of light was in videos online; it signified the moment a Hunter Awakened a Skill. I had pressed the play button thousands of times every morning after I woke up, letting my jealousy consume me.

“It’s golden!”

The golden light indicated that the Skill was Class S or higher! My heart pounded so hard that it hurt. Before long, the golden light pool coalesced.

[It would be extremely difficult to find something as ugly as your jealousy!]

[The Tower, appalled by your ugly jealousy, has decided to get you a Skill and be done with it!]

Huh? The voice is a little different from what I heard about...

It was said that when a Hunter received a Skill, they usually heard a majestic voice lavishing them with praise. It varied from “The Tower is touched by your resolve,” or “The Tower has rewarded your upright yet challenging cultivation,” or “The Tower compliments your accomplishments.”

But the voice I heard just now was telling me that my ugly jealousy was what made the Tower toss me a Skill. It was like the Tower was throwing a coin to a beggar, hoping to get rid of him.

N-no. It doesn’t matter. I got a Class S Skill.

I had an uneasy premonition, but I ignored it. I had been waiting for this moment forever, so I shouldn’t jinx it.

[Creating a Skill Card.]

The golden light flashed and turned into a card of the same color. I grabbed the card with shaking hands.

I Want To Be Like You

Class: S+

Effects: It will automatically activate after an enemy kills you. You will be able to copy and turn one of their Skills into yours. The Skill you copy will be chosen at random, but you can’t copy your enemies’ Skills more than once.

※ However, you will die!

“Whoaa! W-wh-whoa... Huh?” My voice died out. I blinked. “Huhhh?”

At first, I thought I misread something, so I slowly reread the description on the card from top to bottom. However, it really said that I was going to die after using this Class S Skill, so the only thing I could do was stare blankly at it.

A breeze entered through my window, fluttering the newspaper and magazine clips that covered my walls.

“What the fuck! How am I supposed to use this Skill!”

After a long silence, my scream rattled my studio. No one in history has ever gotten a shittier Skill than the one I got today.

1. The raw is ???, ???. This is a Korean meme. People are embarrassed to reveal their real identities and defend themselves, so they pretend to be a third party. But they often get caught, so Koreans jokingly say this when an advocate defends someone in a rather awkward way. ☜