Incarnation of the Malevolent Star - Chapter 28

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 28: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (28)

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At school, Onik grew more popular by the day.

“I saw your Short! Onik, did you really catch an Asian giant hornet with your bare hands?”

“Yeah. I did.”

“How?”

“What do you mean, how? I just caught it.”

“...What? That huge thing?”

“It’s still just a hornet, even if it’s big. If we fought, I’d win.”

“...???”

Every day, Onik served the entire school a fresh feast of dopamine and gave them something new to talk about.

There were not many students, even for a middle school, so not only his classmates but upperclassmen wanted to spend time with Onik too.

It would not have been an exaggeration to say everyone at school was his friend.

The video of Onik catching an Asian giant hornet barehanded was the hunter’s first video uploaded as a Shorts clip. To everyone’s surprise, it reached 1.2 million views, received 60,000 likes, and drew hundreds of comments.

In less than fifteen days, it had spread across countless social media accounts and online communities.

Of course, catching an Asian giant hornet with his hand was not the only interesting or astonishing part.

「Chief! Chief! I’ve got a present!」

「What is it, Uncle? What are you hiding behind your back? What’s making that loud noise? It sounds like a brush cutter.」

「Ta-da! An Asian giant hornet!」

「Aaaah!」

The frightening boy had hidden his still-lively catch behind his back, then suddenly thrust it in the Legal Hunter’s face while he was drinking and chatting with viewers on stream.

Already a little tipsy, the hunter was scared out of his wits. He screamed and crashed backward.

Onik immediately took over the stream, then held the fierce hornet up to the camera that had been set in place.

「Do you all want to see it too? This is an Asian giant hornet! You’ve never seen one up close like this before, right?」

By “like this,” Onik meant holding its body with just three fingers.

When an Asian giant hornet thrashed fiercely while beating its wings, even an adult would struggle to hold it.

Its body was smooth and streamlined, the direction and force of its attempts to escape changed by the moment, and there was always the danger of its jaws or venomous stinger. Anyone would be bound to hesitate.

Yet a mere first-year middle schooler was holding it with only his thumb, index finger, and middle finger. It was only natural for viewers to get goosebumps.

Even the hunter in the video turned pale and shrieked.

「Onik! Onik! Hold it tight! You can’t let that thing get away! No, no, just throw it away! If it stings you, you’ll be in big trouble! Big trouble!」

「Ah, it’s fine! I’m stronger! Even if I let go, I can kill it with one hit!」

「No, no, no...!」

「Hm, should we try that thing? ASMR or whatever! Since I caught it anyway!」

「What kind of ASMR can you do with a hornet?!」

「Put it close to the microphone... like this! Hyap!」

Crunch!

The loud buzzing of its wings abruptly stopped with the crunch of the Asian giant hornet’s hard chitinous shell being crushed.

The viral Shorts clip ended with the frightening boy flashing a V near the camera, his fingers smeared with hornet fluid and pieces of shell.

The short video was quickly reposted everywhere.

It appeared under titles like 「A Superhumanly Strong Middle Schooler From Some Rural Village」, 「Otherworldly ASMR From an Otherworldly Middle Schooler」, 「Korean Middle Schooler vs. Asian Giant Hornet」, 「ASMR of Killing an Asian Giant Hornet」, and 「Who the Hell Is This Bastard?」

「Honestly, isn’t this fake? It makes no sense...」

The controversy over whether it was fake that caught fire as the video spread actually helped them. It brought even more attention.

The animal abuse controversy also helped in the end. Those who first stirred it up were dogpiled by people who knew the circumstances.

「In a rural place like that, hornets and Asian giant hornets are things you have to catch and kill with everything you’ve got. What animal abuse? LOL」

「It only takes one Asian giant hornet getting into an apiary to destroy a hive in no time LOL」

「Animal abuse is your mom.」

It became such a daily topic online that it even received a brief mention on broadcast television news.

「It’s time for ‘Real-Time E Issue,’ where we look at stories that have become hot topics among internet users. Today’s first issue is a middle school YouTuber from a rural village who caught an Asian giant hornet with his bare hands!」

「The scene is so hard to believe even when you see it that people are arguing over whether it was doctored or genuine. We have the video ready, so shall we watch it together?」

A great many viewers who came in through that video stayed and became subscribers.

The videos already uploaded to the channel were quite interesting too.

The editing done by the hunter’s daughter in Seoul was a little rough, but the quality and uniqueness of the content more than made up for it.

That was not the end of it.

The Legal Hunter cheered with delight after being selected for the province’s regional creator support program.

“Onik! We got in! We came first in the whole province! The prize is 150 million won!”

Nearly all local governments classified as high-risk depopulation areas in this country put effort into fostering local media-content creators.

Internet broadcasting was a promising future industry that could be encouraged without major investment in other infrastructure.

The basic evaluation criterion for these support programs was the total views generated over a set period, with increases in subscriber counts, likes, and the like during that period counted as bonus points.

This time, applicants had to meet one of two alternative eligibility criteria.

Either the applicant had to be a creator in the region who had begun broadcasting within a year of the application date.

Or they had to be a creator who had lived in the region continuously for at least three years and had 100,000 or fewer subscribers as of the application date.

Luckily, the Asian giant hornet ASMR video blew up during the evaluation period. Among competitors that were all small fry, they had suddenly grown into something more like a snakehead fish.

The hunter called it prize money, but the 150 million won was actually production funding.

Those selected for the program had to create and upload at least the specified number of pieces of content based on local culture within the next year.

“That’s nothing!”

The hunter could not stop smiling.

What was so difficult about making videos? He had the greatest broadcasting genius in history, Onik Uncle, at his side, a genius who even blasphemed God (in fact, he really had blasphemed Mr. God).

And content based on local culture?

That condition could mean anything.

If they insisted it was local-culture content because it had been filmed in the region, who could argue with them?

As far as the hunter could tell, there were no detailed provisions to settle such matters.

The actual production costs would not be high, either. Most of their content was filled with Onik’s special talents and the hunter making a big fuss.

So the 150 million won was simply theirs to divide at a reasonable ratio.

Overjoyed, the Legal Hunter came all the way to Onik’s school and treated everyone to a feast.

“Bring forth chicken and pizza! It is time for the heroes who have brought home the nation’s money!”

“Waaaaah!”

That was not all. He even put up banners at the village entrance and all over town.

「Congratulations to Jo Onik and Jo Cheol-sang on winning first place in the regional creator support program!」

It was so excessive that Onik felt embarrassed just looking at it.

When someone’s child from a nearby village or town got into a prestigious university, was hired by one of the country’s major corporations, or earned a qualification for one of the prestigious licensed professions whose Korean titles end in “-sa,” banners would naturally go up around town.

But coming first in a creator support program was not that great an achievement, was it?

The excited hunter would not hear it.

“Onik, success and fame mean nothing if you can’t show them off to the people around you! Enjoy it while you can!”

“How am I supposed to enjoy this...?”

“Why can’t you? We came first, and it’s 150 million won! It’s production funding on paper, so unlike other prize money, they don’t even take miscellaneous income tax from it! How wonderful is that?”

“Ah, yes...”

Then the hunter changed the name of the channel.

Originally, it had been the somewhat plain 「Chief Jo TV」.

But a channel’s name was its identity, and if they wanted to strike while the iron was hot, they needed to put the heart and personality of their content front and center.

So he gave it a new name: 「Onik Uncle and the Hapless Chief」.

“Is that okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said it yourself at first. You wanted to become known as the greatest master hunter in the province. You said you would line up the other hunters in the region beneath you. You said reputation was important.”

“I did.”

“But if the channel is called the Hapless Chief from the start, it doesn’t really look impressive. How should I put it... it doesn’t have any style.”

“Oh, Onik. Is that what I should be worrying about right now? At this rate, becoming a million-subscriber YouTuber is no longer just a dream!”

The hunter laughed heartily.

“No matter how much I play up this hapless image, no one will look down on a million-subscriber YouTuber! The people with fewer than a thousand subscribers are the truly hapless ones!”

“Is that how it is?”

“That’s how it is! Hahaha!”

There were surprisingly many hunters who ran personal YouTube channels.

In other words, the ranking the Legal Hunter had wanted was already taking shape.

The same was true in terms of making money. After all, a man’s rank was determined first by his wealth and earning power.

With things going this way, Onik became an object of admiration not only for his classmates but also for upperclassmen one or two grades above him.

For one thing, students this age tended to view being a YouTuber more favorably than other generations did.

In surveys of elementary school students’ dream jobs over the past few years, YouTuber had always ranked near the top.

The results were quite different in surveys of middle school students, of course.

That was only because they had reached the age where they realized how difficult it was to succeed as a YouTuber. Their longing for the job itself remained largely unchanged.

Compared with other jobs, it looked like an easy and comfortable way to make money doing what you liked.

Yet Onik was rapidly achieving that distant dream, even though he was only a first-year middle schooler.

Naturally, the other students could not help seeing him with admiration and envy.

Eventually, Onik received his first confession of love.

It happened in early July, not long before summer vacation.

“Onik! I really like you! Would you, w-would you go out with me?!”

The person was a pretty third-year girl who was not quite the prettiest girl in town, but perhaps the second prettiest.

(Do you know how impressive that is? It meant she was the second prettiest among thirteen girls in the surrounding age groups!)

Onik received a pale-pink summons telling him to come to a certain place on a certain day at a certain time. He answered it wondering if it could really be what he thought, then could not hide his confusion when it turned out to be exactly that.

Onik had developed a habit of scattering his attention whenever he dealt with people, so that his murderous impulse would dissipate.

Flustered, his attention scattered, and a strange thought arose.

‘It would’ve been easier if that letter had been a challenge instead.’

It was escapism. There was no way anyone would send him a challenge.

Though the girl was two years older than Onik, he was about a handspan taller.

Her height was already around half a handspan above the average for her grade, yet the difference between them was still that large.

Beyond his three daily meals, the frightening boy fed on the deaths of living things as well, and he was more physically developed than other children his age.

It had always been that way, but after his first murder, his growth had accelerated as though some blocked channel had opened inside him.

The pretty upperclassman looked up at Onik.

She clasped both hands tightly together and waited nervously for his answer, trembling.

Onik had put in a great deal of effort, but it was still difficult for him to hold eye contact with others for long.

It was even harder when he needed to put aside all distraction and give a serious answer.

Keeping his gaze just above the upperclassman’s shoulder, Onik answered calmly.

“I’m sorry, noona. I’m really grateful for how you feel, but I don’t think I can accept it.”

“...Why? Do you dislike me?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“I’m not thinking about dating anyone yet. I’m really sorry.”

It was a well-meaning lie.