Chapter 2

I did not attack the app's server. That would have been like lighting a bonfire in the dark. It would only expose me.

My battlefield lay somewhere else.

I spent the entire night writing an automation script.

It had only one function, to mimic real users.

I hosted it on an overseas server through proxies and set the launch time.

The next morning, when the users of "Goddess Hunter" woke up ready for another day of "hunting," they found that the app had changed.

The script I wrote instantly disguised itself as thousands upon thousands of "new users," flooding into the app at the same time.

These "users" began giving every woman on the board the highest score.

Within minutes, the board, which had originally featured only a few high-scoring targets, became meaningless. Every woman's score had been pushed to the full, making it impossible to tell anyone apart.

Right after that, these "users" began posting huge amounts of garbled comments made up of random characters under every woman's photo.

[*Ufsd#HBqwFeeU*HEQ#$]

[%P*(&Ui%#JIFNe45Norg9@($*]

The comment sections that had once been full of filth were instantly buried under meaningless junk data. In no time, the app's database was overloaded, and the entire rating system and comment section crashed.

The board stopped working.

The Quest tab went blank.

The "Hunt" Quest would not load.

This "Hunting Game" targeting me had been forced to stop by the most effective method I had.

The next day, the campus mostly returned to normal just as I had expected. The malicious stares disappeared, and no one whistled at me anymore.

Because the app could not be used, it quickly lost its popularity and the hype around it collapsed.

I gained a precious chance to breathe.

When I returned to the dorm, my dorm mate Lily Lowe was holding her phone and looking at me with admiration.

"Sinead, you're amazing! That awful app finally stopped working! How did you do it?!"

I smiled and did not explain. "Maybe they got bored with it themselves."

I leaned back in my chair and looked at the bright sunlight outside the window. My nerves that were tense for days, finally relaxed.

I thought everything would end there.

But that night, when I opened the app again, my heart sank. Not only had it been fixed, it had also been updated.

After the update, the app's interface was cleaner and even more vicious.

On the pink home page, all the other women's photos had disappeared.

Only my photo remained, hanging alone in the center, locked onto by a huge, bloody red "Hunting" icon.

Below it was a new line in bold black text.

[Exclusive Hunting Mode activated.]

The target of the new Quest was simple and crude.

[At the public lecture three days from now, get Sinead soaked in front of everyone.]

[Quest Reward, two thousand dollars.]

The words "soaked" had been written in red, loaded with insult and innuendo.

In the app's announcement section, the developer wrote in a mocking tone: [Looks like our little prey knows how to fight back. The game just got more interesting. Time to raise the stakes!]

My phone began vibrating wildly with all kinds of anonymous texts.

[Hey, stop struggling. Two thousand dollars is enough to pay for a month's living expenses.]

[I'll be waiting for you in the lecture hall tonight with a water gun.]

[Getting soaked in front of everyone must be exciting, right? Hahahaha!]

I had just reached my dorm room when the sharp smell of paint hit me directly. Someone had sprayed a huge word in blood red paint on my dorm room's door.

[Thot.]

The stroke was so thick it looked like it might drip, and it was terrifying. Lily went pale with fear and picked up a rag to try to wipe it off.

I stopped her. "Don't."

My voice was very calm.

I didn't clean off those letters, nor did I look at them again.