My Scumbag System Chapter 171: Everyone Has an Opinion on the Stray Dog

The first video went live at 8:47 PM, exactly six hours after the draft ceremony concluded.

HUNTER HOT TAKES - LIVE NOW

Mila Chen’s face filled the screen, her platinum blonde hair styled in twin buns that had cost more than most people’s monthly rent. The split-screen showed Chloe Park on the right, her cat-ear headband blinking with neon LEDs.

"Okay Hunters and Hunties!" Mila’s voice hit that specific pitch that made teenage girls grab their phones and middle-aged men complain about kids these day. "Before we even START, I need everyone to sit down because what I’m about to tell you is going to make you lose your MIND."

Chloe bounced in her chair, the camera shaking. "Mila, I’m already sitting and I can’t handle this. The NVA Draft just happened and the entire SYSTEM is in shambles. We’re talking full institutional meltdown!"

"Full meltdown is too SOFT a word!" Mila slammed her hand on the desk. A graphic exploded across the screen, red hair and sharp eyes frozen in that moment from the Gala. "The number one ranked prospect, the mystery man himself, Satori Nakano, just publicly REJECTED all four elite guilds to join—"

A record scratch sound effect. The Onyx Hounds crest appeared, that three-headed dog with broken collars looking somehow both pathetic and defiant.

"THE ONYX HOUNDS!" both girls shrieked in unison.

"The ONYX. HOUNDS." Chloe grabbed her face. "The guild that literally everyone makes fun of. The guild that hasn’t placed above fifth in TWELVE YEARS. The guild where problem cases go to die!"

"And he didn’t go alone!" Mila was reading from her tablet, scrolling frantically. "Number three Natalia Kuzmina followed him. Number five Juan Navarro, that gorgeous sloth man who looks like he’s never been awake a day in his life. Number nine Pan Soomin, who according to my sources completely lost control of her transformation during combat trials and went full feral fox mode—"

"Which is SO hot by the way—"

"SO hot, agreed. THEN we have the Miyamoto twins at thirty and thirty-one, Jacob Williams at thirty-eight, and like six other top-fifty prospects just STAMPEDING to join this dumpster fire of a guild." Mila paused for effect. "That’s half the top twenty prospects choosing the LAST PLACE guild."

The camera zoomed in on Chloe’s face. "The forums are calling it The Onyx Uprising. HeroNet crashed TWICE from traffic. SnapGram engagement metrics are showing a four-hundred-percent spike in NVA-related content. This is THE story."

"Okay but let’s talk about what EVERYONE is thinking." Mila pulled up another photo, this one from the Gala. Satori in that charcoal suit, sharp jaw, those eyes that seemed to see through the camera. "Is this man building a HAREM? Because if you look at the roster, he’s got the ice princess Natalia Kuzmina who is STUNNING—"

"Stunning is underselling it—"

"The feral fox girl who apparently goes into heat during combat—"

"Mila, that’s not how transformations work—"

"BOTH Miyamoto twins who are known for sharing everything, and I mean EVERYTHING—"

Chloe was cackling. "Stop, stop, we can’t say that on air—"

"I’m just asking questions!" Mila held up her hands in mock innocence. "Is the Stray Dog collecting the baddest hunters at NVA for his own personal super-team? Is this a romance? A rebellion? A genius power play? All I know is that boy has ENERGY and I would let him—"

"ANYWAY," Chloe cut in, tears of laughter in her eyes. "If you want to follow this story, use the hashtags OnyxUprising, StrayDogSaga, and NVADraft. We’ll be streaming live coverage all night as more details emerge. This is Hunter Hot Takes, reminding you to stay dangerous, stay gorgeous, and stay SUBSCRIBED!"

The video ended with both girls making heart shapes with their hands.

Within an hour, it had eight million views.

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GATE BREAK - VBN LIVE BROADCAST

The studio lighting was cold and professional. Park Hyun-Jae sat between Sterling Weaver and Isaiah Foster, her posture perfect, her expression neutral. The opening credits rolled.

"Welcome back to Gate Break. I’m Park Hyun-Jae, and gentlemen, I’ve covered this industry for fifteen years and I’ve never seen the data streams this chaotic." She turned to Sterling. "Your initial reaction to the Onyx Hounds’ unprecedented recruitment."

Sterling Weaver looked like a man trying very hard not to explode. His face had gone red, the veins in his neck visible. When he spoke, his voice vibrated with barely controlled fury.

"It’s a disgrace." Each word came out clipped, violent. "An absolute disgrace. That boy stood on that stage and spit in the face of every tradition, every protocol, every PRINCIPLE that makes this system work. The Argent Sentinels offered him a future. The Scarlet Phantoms offered him POWER. And he chose to play king of the trash heap?"

He leaned forward, jabbing a finger at the camera. "I don’t care what his scores were. I don’t care about his pretty speech. This is either supreme arrogance or dangerous anarchism, and frankly I’m not sure which scares me more."

"Isaiah?" Park Hyun-Jae’s tone remained perfectly level.

Isaiah Foster hadn’t looked up from his tablet. His fingers moved across the screen, pulling up graphs and data streams. When he finally spoke, his voice had that particular quality of a man stating mathematical facts.

"I disagree completely." He glanced at Sterling. "This isn’t anarchy. It’s a market correction."

"A MARKET—" Sterling sputtered.

"Let me finish." Isaiah pulled up a holographic display. "Look at the data. Twelve prospects. Nine of them ranked in the top fifty. Three of them in the top ten. The Onyx Hounds just acquired, in a single afternoon, what amounts to the most dangerous concentration of unorthodox high-potential assets in academy history."

The hologram shifted, showing probability matrices. "The guild system has operated on a simple premise: elite guilds get elite prospects. Safe bet. Predictable returns. But predictable returns cap at a certain level. What Nakano did was consolidate all the statistical outliers, the unpredictable variables, the high-risk high-reward prospects that make traditional guilds nervous."

"That’s insane—"

Isaiah’s smile was thin. "From a pure investment standpoint, it’s the boldest play I’ve ever seen. The question isn’t whether it’s legitimate. The question is why."

Park Hyun-Jae leaned in slightly. "Are you suggesting this was planned?"

"I’m suggesting it’s statistically improbable to be spontaneous." Isaiah pulled up another screen. "Public records show that B-Rank Hunter Luka Kuzmina and Onyx Hounds instructor Braxton Miller attended NVA together. They were teammates for three years. Close friends. Kuzmina’s stepson happens to be Satori Nakano."

The studio went quiet.

"There’s a seventy-eight-percent probability this was orchestrated months in advance. A backroom deal to stack a single guild with hand-picked talent, using family connections to subvert the entire draft process."

Sterling’s fist hit the desk. "I KNEW IT! It’s a fix! An absolute fix! Kuzmina should be investigated, Miller should be investigated, and that Nakano kid should be disqualified for—"

"Sterling." Park Hyun-Jae cut him off smoothly. "We’re speculating. Do you have evidence?"

"I have PATTERN RECOGNITION—"

"Which isn’t evidence." She turned back to the camera. "We’ll continue this discussion after a brief break. Coming up: what does this mean for the other guilds? And later, we’ll discuss the VHC’s official response to what many are calling the most dramatic draft in NVA history."

The commercial break graphic appeared.

Off camera, Sterling was still muttering about investigations and disgrace.

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VHC OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE - DOCUMENT ID: VHC-PR-NVA-001

SUBJECT: NVA First-Year Guild Composition

ISSUED: 9:23 PM, Draft Day

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

-END TRANSMISSION-

THE BLACK GATE FILES - ENCRYPTED BLOG POST

TITLE: Forget the Backroom Deal. You’re Not Asking the Right Questions About Anomaly-01.

POSTED: 10:47 PM, Draft Day

AUTHOR: [REDACTED]