Everyone in the world already knew Lee Aseok never talked unless it was absolutely necessary.

  It was part of his legend. And it never seemed to stop people from liking him.

  There was something in his beauty, a kind of unreachable clarity, sharpened by quiet and power, that made people admire him from afar.

  Cold reddish-brown eyes. A handsome face that would have looked divine carved in marble. And the presence of someone who had already decided what mattered in the world, and it wasn’t you.

  People didn’t need his attention to worship him.

  The holy sword, of course, hovered faithfully at his back, gleaming faintly like a knight in silent service.

  And in his hand? Still that battered iron rod.

  Outside the gate, He Ziqin remained standing where he’d appeared.

  His role was over for now.

  Teleportation in, teleportation out—that was his rhythm.

  He didn’t follow them inside.

  Instead, he calmly reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a mana potion, and uncorked it with a dull click.

  The faint blue glow reflected in his eyes as he drank it slowly, gaze blank, as if processing nothing and everything at once.

  The world could be ending inside that gate, and it wouldn’t change the fact that his job, for now, was to wait.

  He swallowed, lowered the bottle, and stared at the empty air in front of him.

  Somewhere deep in his soul, he sighed.

  Inside the dungeon, light flared for a moment, then steadied.

  They stood in a vast stone hallway, the air cool and stale. The walls rose up into darkness, and in front of them loomed an enormous iron-bound door.

  Carved into its surface were twisting, looping lines of script—runes arranged in such a way that even looking at them made your head ache.

  The riddle.

  Beyond it, faint sounds—chains dragging, something breathing, the low groan of ancient wood shifting.

  It was obvious what this place was.

  A maze-type dungeon.

  The kind where brute force wasn’t the main challenge.

  The kind where hunters had to think.

  Most hated these.

  If you failed to solve the puzzle, the penalty wasn’t just losing your way.

  It was traps. Ambushes. Magic curses. Instant death.

  Sometimes all of them at once.

  Mu Yichen’s expression shifted ever so slightly—one part mild annoyance, one part deep resignation.

  Beside him, Seo MinHyun made a small, theatrical groan.

  “Oh great. Another one of these.”

  It wasn’t their first maze. Not by a long shot.

  Which meant they all knew exactly what was going to happen next.

  Lee Aseok stepped forward.

  He didn’t read the riddle.

  He didn’t even glance at it.

  The great stone door loomed ahead, carved with winding runes and etched with a riddle in ancient script.

  It was the kind of door meant to make hunters pause. Think. Debate. Maybe even panic.

  For most hunting parties, this was the moment to gather in a circle, argue about possible answers, maybe draw diagrams in the dirt.

  However… Lee Aseok’s team was different.

  Very different.

  Mu Yichen’s eyes skimmed the riddle once, then he didn’t bother reading the rest. He exhaled through his nose and glanced sideways at the others.

  Seo MinHyun was already rolling his shoulders like a man preparing to throw the first punch in a bar fight.

  Park Taegun was loosening his wrists.

  Kang Juwon was spinning a coin between his fingers with that unsettling smile that could mean I’m ready or I’m bored.

  They all exchanged one silent, weary glance.

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  And then they sighed.

  This wasn’t their first maze. Or their fifth. Or even their tenth.

  They knew exactly what was going to happen next.

  Seo MinHyun’s hands lit up with swirling rings of magic, the destructive power gathering with the kind of ominous glow that made bystanders consider moving to another country. His most destructive S-rank magic skill was seconds from release.

  Mu Yichen drew his sword with a soft shhhk, and a pale, deadly light ran down its edge. The SSS-rank skill hummed faintly in the air, promising the kind of precision cuts that could take the wings off a fly from fifty paces.

  Park Taegun’s armor shimmered into existence around him in a ripple of blue light, enchantments locking into place like plates of steel. His S-rank defense skill wrapped around him until he looked like a walking fortress.

  Kang Juwon flicked the coin up, caught it, and then—just like that—it vanished. The air warped faintly around him, his illusions primed and waiting.

  If other hunters were watching, they were definitely filled with question marks above their head.

  Why were they activating combat skills for a puzzle door?

  It wasn’t like the door was going to stab them.

  The answer, for those unfamiliar with the Lee Aseok Method, was simple.

  After they joined Lee Aseok, they didn’t waste time solving puzzles.

  Ever.

  Why?

  Because Lee Aseok never solved puzzles.

  He destroyed them.

  It didn’t matter if it was a riddle door, a magical barrier, a curse, or even a penalty trap set by the dungeon itself—if it stood in his way, he would simply walk up to it with that old iron rod of his and break it until it stopped existing.

  At first, they’d been shocked by such a barbaric method.

  Mu Yichen, raised in the finest traditions of swordsmanship, had nearly had an aneurysm the first time he saw Aseok bash a supposedly “unbreakable” ancient door into splinters in three swings.

  Seo MinHyun had actually tried to read the puzzle once, only for Aseok to stroll past him and knock it clean off its hinges mid-sentence.

  Park Taegun had thought it was a one-time thing. It wasn’t.

  And Kang Juwon? He just smiled wider every time.

  The shock had faded quickly. Now, they didn’t even question it.

  When Lee Aseok’s indifferent gaze passed over them—flat, unblinking, the kind of look that seemed to say You can either stand there or make yourself useful—who could say no?

  No one.

  So they joined him.

  And somewhere along the line, they stopped being hunters who solved dungeons.

  Now they were experts in destroying them.

  Lee Aseok stepped forward.

  His iron rod tapped against the stone once, twice.

  The runes on the door flared faintly in response, as if warning him: “This is a puzzle. You can’t—”

  The third tap silenced them forever.

  With a short, brutal swing, he struck the center of the door. The impact cracked the stone and warped the frame. Runes bled light for a moment before shattering like glass.

  Seo MinHyun’s magic hit next, a burst of raw power that turned the cracks into rubble.

  Mu Yichen’s blade sliced through what was left with surgical precision.

  Kang Juwon’s illusions wrapped around the explosion of debris, disguising the blast so nothing inside the dungeon could see exactly what had just happened.

  Park Taegun stepped in at the last moment, raising his shield to block any chunks of flying rock from hitting them in the face.

  When the dust cleared, the “maze entrance” was now just a hole. A perfectly unpuzzled hole.

  They stepped through.

  The air inside was damp and smelled faintly of mold and something else—old blood, maybe.

  From deep within the maze, a distant roar echoed. It sounded furious.

  Seo MinHyun grinned.

  “I think we woke something up.”

  Mu Yichen adjusted his grip on his sword. “Then we’ll put it back to sleep.”

  Lee Aseok didn’t say anything.

  He just walked forward, iron rod in hand, with the same calm pace he’d use to fetch groceries.

  And behind him, his team followed—hunters who, once upon a time, might have tried to solve dungeons.

  The dungeon gate shimmered ahead of them, its surface rippling like water. A chilling wind blew through, carrying the faint scent of rot and something metallic.

  Lee Aseok stood in front of it, iron rod casually resting on his shoulder. He gave them one glance, the bare minimum of acknowledgment, and said:

  “Don’t slack off.”

  And then—he was gone.

  Vanished into the gate like a ghost, leaving behind a trail of broken ground and faint echoes of his footsteps.

  Seo MinHyun stared at the empty space where Aseok had been.

  “‘Don’t slack off’?” he scoffed, his voice dripping with indignation. “The one who slacks off the most is obviously him.”

  Grumbling under his breath, he summoned his S-rank magic. Rings of violent energy swirled around his hands, crackling with the kind of power that made walls tremble.

  The first obstacle—a thick stone wall decorated with glowing runes—barely had time to register its own existence before Seo MinHyun blew it apart.

  The resulting explosion rattled the entire hallway. Pebbles clinked off the floor. Somewhere in the distance, a monster let out an offended growl.

  “The S-rank skills are no joke, huh?” MinHyun muttered to himself, smirking… until he turned around to make a snarky comment to Mu Yichen.

  But Mu Yichen was already gone.

  It didn’t take a genius to guess where he’d gone.

  Straight after Lee Aseok, of course.

  “Unbelievable…” Seo MinHyun muttered, his shoulders slumping. “Those two treat this like some… some race. And who’s stuck here with the mess? Me.”

  He turned to Kang Juwon, who stood in the middle of the corridor with his usual calm expression, eyes lazily scanning the shadows.

  Kang Juwon smirked. “I’m an illusion-type hunter. I can’t fight in direct combat.”

  Seo MinHyun’s expression twisted into one of long-suffering disbelief. “Oh, sure. Convenient excuse, as always.”

  He spun to complain to Park Taegun—because surely the military man would at least share in his frustration.

  Except Park Taegun just gave him a silent glance, drew his weapon, and began methodically dealing with a cluster of monsters that had just poured out of a triggered dungeon trap.

  “…Great. Ignore me. That’s fine. Totally fine,” MinHyun muttered to himself.

  With no one listening to him, Seo MinHyun’s irritation only grew.

  And when Seo MinHyun got irritated… things tended to explode more violently.

  Every monster that crossed his path was incinerated with excessive force.

  Every wall that dared to have even a slight crack in it was blasted open.

  Every trap, whether armed or not, was obliterated before it could even activate.

  It wasn’t efficiency, it was pure pettiness, wrapped in firepower.

  The boss’s scream echoed through the corridors like the howl of something that had just realized its existence was about to end very, very painfully.

  The castle shook with it. Stones rattled in their ancient foundations. Loose rubble slid from the ceiling and pattered against the floor.

  Park Taegun didn’t even look up. Seo MinHyun, however, froze mid-swing and let out a long, exasperated sigh.

  Author Note:

  Every “OH MY GOD ASEOK STOP” gives me the strength to write the next disaster.

  Mon ? Wed ? Fri

  (Yes, I too question my life choices.)

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