What kind of headline would that be?

  “Hero Promises to Destroy Humanity If Bothered Too Much.”

  Public morale would collapse.

  So, for now, it would be classified.

  By morning, the final arrangements were made.

  And by noon, Lee Aseok arrived.

  With the puppy and the iron rod in his arms, of course.

  The meeting room was unlike the last one. No yelling. No chaos. No negotiations.

  Just silence and one scroll laid across the silver arcane table.

  It wasn’t made of paper.

  It was a dungeon artifact, sealed in enchanted ink, threaded with mana, and bound by ancient laws.

  Once signed by both parties, it would become an unbreakable covenant. Violation meant death, madness, or worse.

  Lee Aseok stood before it, silent, his bangs shadowing his eyes.

  Mu Yichen stood beside him, calm as ever. Yet, there was a faint tightness at the corners of his eyes, the only hint of what he truly felt.

  Behind him were Seo MinHyun, Park Taegun, Qin Yue, and Haejoon.

  Representatives from all top guilds and global factions flanked the room, dressed in formal robes and suits. Military officers stood rigid like statues. The weight of the world hovered in the air.

  “Any final changes?” asked Kang Juwon, voice silky smooth. He looked the same as always , gentle smile, calm demeanor , but his fingers tapped restlessly at his side.

  Lee Aseok didn’t answer. He stepped forward and examined the contract.

  The room held its breath.

  MinHyun couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. “You really don’t want to change even one condition? Not even a little tweak? A cute little edit?”

  Lee Aseok looked at him.

  Then looked away.

  Taegun muttered under his breath, “That’s a no.”

  MinHyun scowled. “Tch. Rude.”

  Qin Yue pinched her brow.

  Lee Aseok ignored them all.

  He stared down at the document for a long moment.

  Then, without a word, he reached out and placed his hand on the surface.

  The scroll pulsed, absorbing his mana. His energy, so distinct, sharp and ancient, sank into the contract like ink through cloth.

  Golden light bloomed from the center.

  Then, one by one, the rest stepped forward.

  First the Guild Masters. Then the heads of global departments.

  The presidents of major countries. The military commanders. The summoners. The dungeon tech specialists. Even the Beast Tamers Union had a representative.

  They all added their signatures.

  Each touch caused the scroll to hum softly in acknowledgment.

  No turning back now.

  The final person to approach was Lee Aseok.

  Again.

  His name was already there in energy. But the final stroke, the one that would finalize the contract, had to come from his own hand.

  Mu Yichen, standing beside him, murmured quietly, “You don’t have to isolate yourself.”

  Lee Aseok didn’t look at him.

  He picked up the enchanted stylus and scribbled a short, almost lazy-looking signature at the bottom.

  And with that…

  The contract burst into gold.

  Light danced across the room like a small explosion of fireflies, and for a second, everyone blinked at the sudden brilliance.

  Then, just like that.

  It was gone.

  The scroll vanished, consumed into golden particles, and disappeared into thin air.

  Everyone felt it at the same time.

  The binding.

  The weight.

  The lock.

  It was done.

  no one spoke.

  For a heartbeat, Mu Yichen’s hand twitched.

  He felt it first as a small, traitorous impulse, a step forward that tasted of salt and iron.

  For half a breath, he imagined closing the distance, seizing Aseok’s shoulder, even pulling him into a grip he didn’t dare name.

  His fingers curled, the motion dying halfway, bones stiff with restraint. The urge felt obscene and necessary at once, to hold the man who had just shackled the world with the same tenderness he used for a stray puppy.

  But the knowledge of how small, how futile that hold would be filled his throat with grit.

  So instead, he folded his hands neatly in front of him, where the world could see nothing but calm.

  He did not move.

  He only watched.

  No one spoke.

  Until, of course, Seo MinHyun leaned closer to Park Taegun and whispered, “So, uh. If I accidentally walk into the West Zone next month, will the hero really, like, kill me?”

  “Hopefully,” Taegun muttered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You are excused.”

  Lee Aseok stood in place, motionless. His head tilted down, gaze locked on his open hands.

  His fingers twitched slightly, not with nervousness, but with something unreadable.

  Mu Yichen’s eyes narrowed. He watched the smallest details: the slow rise of Lee Aseok’s chest, the way his mouth remained a neutral line, and how his posture was neither defensive nor triumphant.

  There was no joy. No relief. No pride.

  Only… silence.

  The kind that rang louder than words.

  Then…

  "Hey." Seo MinHyun broke it.

  As expected.

  He leaned forward dramatically. “What now? We just signed a humanity-wide deal and you’re… staring at your hands?”

  Lee Aseok blinked.

  Still silent.

  MinHyun kept going, eyebrows rising. “You going to summon the holy sword or something? Do a little glowy thing? Speech? Showmanship? No? Nothing?”

  Park Taegun didn’t even bother sighing. “Let him breathe, idiot.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  MinHyun turned to him. “Excuse me for trying to inject some excitement into the deathly tension you all love so much.”

  "You are the deathly tension,” Taegun said flatly.

  “Flattered. Truly.”

  But their banter dissolved as the center of the room shifted again.

  Because Lee Aseok… laughed.

  A short breath at first.

  Then a chuckle.

  Then..

  Laughter.

  Low, raspy, and unsettling, not loud, not manic, but full-bodied and real.

  Everyone froze.

  It wasn’t the kind of laugh you hear from a hero. Or a man about to save the world.

  It was the laugh of someone who had been holding something in for far too long.

  And now, it was slipping.

  “What…” one of the guild leaders whispered.

  Seo MinHyun looked like he’d just watched a rabbit pull out a bazooka.

  “Did… did he just laugh?” he whispered to Taegun. “He has vocal cords?”

  Lee Aseok finally lifted his head.

  And for the first time, his expression cracked, not with emotion, but with… amusement.

  Dry, quiet amusement.

  He reached behind him, dragging his long black hair to one side. Slowly, he tied it into a loose ponytail with a thin red cord.

  The movement was deliberate.

  Calm.

  Commanding.

  Not a single soul interrupted him.

  Then, with his pale hands now free, Lee Aseok bent down and picked up something lying at his feet.

  Not the holy sword.

  An old, beaten iron rod.

  It looked more like a street pipe than a weapon.

  The room blinked as one.

  “What the hell is that?” Seo MinHyun hissed.

  Qin Yue narrowed her eyes. “That’s not standard issue.”

  “He brought that with him,” Haejoon murmured. “I saw it strapped to his back.”

  Mu Yichen said nothing. His gaze remained fixed, intensely, on Lee Aseok.

  Lee Aseok straightened his back, rod in one hand, ponytail swaying lightly, and gave the gathered leaders, officers, and hunters a slow, half-lidded look.

  He didn’t glow.

  He didn’t draw the holy sword.

  He just smiled.

  “I’ll do whatever I want,” he said simply.

  His voice was soft.

  But the weight behind it cracked like thunder.

  “You,” he added, “can just watch.”

  And then he turned.

  And walked out.

  Just like that.

  No explanation.

  No questions.

  Not even a glance back.

  The puppy in the hallway barked once and happily trotted after him.

  The room remained frozen.

  Until..

  Mu Yichen, standing just behind the rows of high-ranking officers, let out a low chuckle.

  It was short and quiet, yet it cracked the tension like a fine hairline fracture in glass.

  He followed.

  Seo MinHyun gawked at his back. “You’re going after him? Just like that?! What, did that weird laugh hypnotize you?”

  Mu Yichen didn’t answer, only smiled lightly and adjusted his gloves. That same unreadable expression was still on his face, gentle, polite, but his steps were a touch too quick, like someone chasing after a very entertaining storm.

  “I hate that look,” MinHyun muttered and turned to Taegun. “What about you, soldier boy? We going too?”

  Taegun didn’t even blink. “Obviously.”

  “Ugh.” MinHyun threw up his hands. “Fine. I guess we’re all just background extras in the Lee Aseok Movie now.”

  They followed.

  Outside the HQ, Lee Aseok walked toward the parking lot, the wind tousling his black hair that had begun to come loose from the ponytail. The holy sword floated soundlessly behind him like a ghost too loyal to leave.

  He didn’t speak to anyone.

  Didn’t look back.

  Didn’t rush.

  From his coat pocket, he pulled out a slim silver device, taken right off the meeting room table. One of the real-time dungeon tracking tablets.

  No one had noticed him pocketing it. Not that he cared if they did.

  With one tap, the screen lit up, displaying red, yellow, and orange blinking dots across the country. Gates. Threat levels. Instability readings.

  He scrolled through the list like someone scrolling through a lunch menu.

  Then he found one.

  [A-Rank Gate. Western District. Active. Stable – but nearing fluctuation.]

  Perfect.

  He grabbed the puppy and got into a black car in the HQ’s lot, one that had clearly belonged to someone important, and started the engine like it was his own.

  It wasn’t.

  Didn’t matter.

  By the time Mu Yichen, MinHyun, and Taegun stepped out of the building, all they saw was the back of the car disappearing down the long road, sunlight glinting off the holy sword lazily trailing after it.

  “…Did he just steal a car?” MinHyun asked, voice dangerously high.

  “He commandeered it,” Taegun corrected.

  “That’s the military term for grand theft auto, genius!”

  Mu Yichen hummed thoughtfully. “It had diplomatic plates.”

  “Oh, great,” MinHyun said. “Now we’re committing international crimes, too.”

  Ten minutes later, in a separate vehicle.

  “Faster,” Mu Yichen said calmly from the backseat.

  “I am going fast,” the driver replied.

  “Faster.”

  Mu Yichen took over the wheel five seconds later.

  The A-Rank gate shimmered like blue fire in the middle of the Western District’s containment zone. Barriers surrounded it. Staff in orange jackets stood by with clipboards and mana detectors, calmly taking readings and inputting data.

  Until they saw him.

  “Is that…?”

  “Is that the guy from the summit?!”

  “The holy sword, look, it’s floating behind him!”

  Lee Aseok walked straight toward the gate, ignoring every call, wave, and warning directed at him.

  “Sir! Sir, that gate hasn’t been cleared yet!”

  “You’re not on the raid list..!”

  “P-please present identification before entering…”

  Nothing.

  He didn’t even blink.

  He walked like a ghost, like he wasn’t walking toward danger but toward a bathroom break he’d delayed too long.

  The staff watched helplessly as he crossed the threshold—and vanished into the gate.

  “…What just happened?” one of them said, stunned.

  Before anyone could recover, another commotion followed.

  A second car screeched to a halt, and three more figures stepped out.

  Mu Yichen.

  Seo MinHyun.

  Park Taegun.

  The staff recognized them instantly.

  “Wait—wait! You three too?! That’s an A-Rank gate..!”

  MinHyun raised a single finger, smiling brilliantly. “We’re with the emotionally constipated protagonist. You saw him. Tall. Quiet. Possibly haunted.”

  “I…what?”

  Mu Yichen was already walking past them.

  Taegun followed, eyes scanning the perimeter as if mentally calculating something. Probably already assessing threats inside the gate.

  “Sir!” a staff member ran after them. “We don’t have clearance for this! The system hasn’t updated the entries.!”

  MinHyun patted the man’s shoulder. “Between you and me? The system can bite me.”

  He walked into the gate after them.

  The staff could only watch as Mu Yichen, Seo MinHyun, and Park Taegun entered the gate without hesitation. No forms signed. No authorizations granted.

  “...Are we just letting them go?” a junior officer whispered.

  The senior sighed deeply, as if aging five years in ten seconds. “Who’s going to stop them?”

  That was fair.

  Inside the gate, the world warped.

  They stepped into a vast cavern lit by veins of glowing red ore along the walls. Heat shimmered in the air like rising steam.

  From above, stalactites of obsidian dripped molten mana, and below, the rocky terrain stretched like a coiled snake’s spine—twisting, narrow, and ready to bite.

  Literally.

  Because the snakes were already dead.

  “…What the hell,” Seo MinHyun whispered, staring at the massive, bisected corpse lying at their feet.

  The smallest of the monsters was twenty meters long. Its body, black scales reinforced by something that looked like iron, was slashed cleanly in two.

  No burn marks. No visible weapon residue. Just a perfect, surgical cut through living muscle and bone.

  They moved further.

  Another snake. Dead. This one had two heads and a spiked tail. Cut through the necks.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Until finally, they stepped into the heart of the dungeon.

  The boss room.

  It was vast, like a coliseum carved into the earth. The ground was layered in black stone that pulsed faintly with magic.

  At the center lay the boss monster, what should have been the apex predator of the gate. A serpent of nearly 100 meters, glowing blue fangs still dripping with venom.

  Its body was now in chunks.

  Perfectly sliced.

  Neatly arranged like ingredients on a butcher’s table.

  And there, standing calmly atop the corpse’s remains, was Lee Aseok.

  No special weapon in sight.

  Just the same iron rod.

  His long black ponytail swayed slightly as he moved, stepping off the dead beast like it had only mildly inconvenienced him.

  No blood stained his clothes.

  No visible exertion showed on his face.

  Then, they saw it, the dungeon core.

  It floated like a heart carved from crystal, hovering within a circular pedestal at the edge of the arena. The magic surrounding it pulsed faintly, signaling that the dungeon still hadn’t technically collapsed. That core was the last piece.

  Lee Aseok didn’t hesitate.

  He walked up to it and calmly grabbed it with one hand.

  And then..

  Crack.

  He crushed it in his palm like it was glass.

  A faint shimmer flickered around him as he absorbed the energy inside the core.

  Mu Yichen’s eyes narrowed.

  Nothing came from the core. No surge of light. No final roar. No wave of energy.

  Just silence.

  To anyone else, it looked like a man coldly destroying a priceless magical artifact.

  But Mu Yichen wasn’t just anyone.

  He stepped forward slightly, his fingers twitching like they were reading the mana in the air.

  “…That wasn’t normal,” he murmured.

  Park Taegun scanned the surrounding area. “I felt nothing.”

  “Exactly,” Mu Yichen said.

  Seo MinHyun raised a brow. “So what, he broke it too fast?”

  “Not fast,” Mu Yichen said softly. “ but something felt different.”

  Lee Aseok didn’t look at them.

  Didn’t acknowledge them.

  He walked past the three like they were just part of the dungeon terrain, stepping casually over a massive fang lodged in the ground.

  Mu Yichen turned as Lee Aseok passed him. “Why the rod?”

  Lee Aseok didn’t stop. “Convenient.”

  That was all.

  He walked out.

  The three of them stood in silence, surrounded by what should’ve been two weeks' worth of elite hunter work.

  Seo MinHyun broke it.

  “…I hate him.”

  Taegun said nothing.

  Mu Yichen smiled faintly.

  Outside, the gate had begun to shimmer.

  The field of energy around it flickered, destabilized, and then, like a light blinking out, the portal vanished completely with a hollow thump.

  Gone.

  Destroyed.

  The staff monitoring it stared in stunned silence.

  “That was… that was supposed to take at least five days,” one of them croaked.

  Another was frantically refreshing their terminal. “How?! The instability rates weren’t even at 80%! It wasn’t even close to a collapse! Someone has to be messing with the logs!”

  Yet no alarms sounded.

  No irregularities.

  No readings of mass mana expenditure or large-scale skill deployment.

  Just one entry on the log.

  [Gate Cleared.]

  The moment the dungeon gate dissolved into golden dust, the world seemed to still.

  One second it loomed in the air like a scar in space—pulsing, dark, dangerous.

  The next, it was gone.

  A-rank dungeons didn’t just end. Not like that.

  Seo MinHyun stood frozen with his mouth slightly open, blinking like he was trying to reset his brain.

  Mu Yichen tilted his head, arms crossed loosely as if he was deep in thought.

  Park Taegun said nothing.

  Then, like a ghost brushing past them, Lee Aseok calmly walked out.

  His clothes were perfectly intact. His expression is unreadable. Not a single drop of blood anywhere on him.

  The same iron rod rested loosely in his right hand, and his long black ponytail flowed behind him like a shadow given life.

  He didn’t look at them.

  Didn’t slow down.

  Didn’t say a word.

  He just walked toward the car waiting outside the gate’s cordoned zone.

  It was the same car he’d come in.

  Still parked crookedly, like he hadn’t cared enough to reverse it properly.

  Still the same dinged-up government vehicle most hunters avoided using because of its cheap shocks.

  Seo MinHyun snapped out of it first.

  “Wait—WAIT!!”

  He bolted.

  In the blink of an eye, he dashed toward Lee Aseok and planted himself right in front of the car door, arms outstretched like he was stopping a criminal from escaping justice.

  Lee Aseok paused.

  He stared at Seo MinHyun.

  His eyes were heavy-lidded and hollow, like they hadn’t held interest in a human being in years.

  Seo MinHyun tried to look brave. “Okay, listen here, you mad bastard.”

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