The Yultika Ruin was like a wide, complicated maze, but Kang Yoon-Soo walked as if he knew the way. He navigated through the traps and dead ends with ease.

“How do you know the way so well? You even knew where the traps were… No, never mind… You won’t tell me even if I asked you, right?” Shaneth asked.

“Yeah.” Kang Yoon-Soo gave his usual short reply.

“I knew it…” Shaneth pouted while sulking.

When they reached the end of the ruins, a large door that gave off a bright white glow as if it had been carved from ivory came into view. The treasures of the ruins were right behind that door, but a large monster was standing in front of the door to guard it.

“Grrrrrrr…! Ronok!”

It was the leader of the werewolves—the beasts who sought the moonlight.

A werewolf possessed terrifying strength that could easily crush a bull’s head with one hand, but the monster in front of them looked much more terrifying than a normal werewolf. It was larger than a normal werewolf, and its long nails were razor-sharp like sawblades.

[Silver Beast of the Wild (Boss, Level 104) has appeared.]

The boss monster was unlike anything they had faced until then; it was a monster over Level 100 that was over three meters tall and covered in muscle, but it was also far more agile than it looked.

“Ritiek! Urnokra!” the beast roared as it prowled. Its razor-sharp claws appeared in front of Kang Yoon-Soo’s face in a split second as it swiped down.

Clang!

Kang Yoon-Soo drew his greatsword and parried the beast’s attack, but there was no way he could be a match for it. His wrist bent backward as if it were about to break, then his greatsword flew out of his hand—the difference in strength was clear.

“Watch out!” Shaneth shouted as she prepared to fight as well, but Kang Yoon-Soo waved his hand as if telling her not to come close.

“Grrrrrrrr…! Urnokra…!”  the beast roared as it swiped with both claws.

Swipe!

The beast swiped its claws in a cross-shaped motion and let out a deafening wind blast, but Kang Yoon-Soo avoided all of its attacks.

“Urnokra!” the beast roared, gritting its fangs. It seemed irritated by the fact that Kang Yoon-Soo had managed to avoid all of its attacks.

Kang Yoon-Soo’s movements were not fast; rather, they were precise. He knew the trajectory of the beast’s attacks, and he avoided them all with minimal movement. The beast’s claws only managed to graze the ends of his clothes and his hair, and it didn’t manage to land any blows to him. He didn’t even make the mistake of letting himself be driven into a corner, and he did not trip once while avoiding the continuous attacks.

Shaneth watched the fight unfold before her, unable to believe her eyes. There was a clear difference in the physical capability of the two combatants, but Kang Yoon-Soo avoided every attack as if he had already expected it seconds before the beast attacked.

“Rakildrag!” the beast roared, staring Kang Yoon-Soo down. It had to acknowledge the human in front of it. It could not land any attacks against this human!

Then, it slowly turned its gaze away from the human and looked toward Shaneth. “Grrrrrrr…!”

If it could not hit Kang Yoon-Soo, it clearly needed to find another target. Shaneth jumped up and held her scythe up as if she were ready to fight at any moment.

“Rakro.”

The beast suddenly stopped moving and looked in the direction of the voice. ‘Rakro’ meant ‘look here’ in the language of the werewolves. It turned its gaze toward Kang Yoon-Soo.

Kang Yoon-Soo took out a bright stone from his backpack. It was the moonstone he had created in the smithy at Kerlin. He remarked, “Werewolves are obsessed with the moonlight.”

The moonstone let out a glow similar to moonlight, and the surroundings were covered in the warm glow of the moon. However, the moonlight awakened the werewolf’s aggressive instincts, and the beast started rampaging.

[The boss monster, Silver Beast of the Wild, has started to rampage.]

“Karikradi! Urnokra!” the beast roared and charged toward Kang Yoon-Soo.

Kang Yoon-Soo easily avoided the beast’s aggressive charge. He calmly avoided more claw strikes by ducking and took out the Black Iron Dagger. He threw all the daggers he had toward the beast, but they only managed to shallowly embed themselves in its body.

“Shaneth,” Kang Yoon-Soo called out.

“Yes?” Shaneth replied tensely.

“I’m hungry. Cook me some soup,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied simply.

“…”

What kind of nonsense was he saying while fighting against a boss monster…?

***

Shaneth had never dreamed of such a thing happening in her life. She never imagined that she would be cooking potato soup in a ruin filled with monsters, and in front of an aggressive boss monster on top of that. 

“The soup is ready,” she soon informed Kang Yoon-Soo.

“Bring out the alcohol too,” Kang Yoon-Soo said.

“There’s no more alcohol,” Shaneth replied.

“In the front pocket of the backpack,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied nonchalantly.

“Oh, this is mead. Has it been here all along?” Shaneth asked.

“I stole it,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied.

“From where…?” Shaneth asked, dumbfounded. In response, Kang Yoon-Soo said nothing.

Shaneth scooped up a bowl of potato soup and grabbed the mead bottle.

“You stole it from Lady Hermia’s storage, didn’t you? I can tell from the packaging,” Shaneth said accusingly.

Kang Yoon-Soo silently nodded as if to say she was correct, and only then did Shaneth give the bowl of soup and bottle of mead to him.

“Don’t do that again…” Shaneth warned him, seemingly having gotten used to Kang Yoon-Soo. Then, she poured a scoop of the potato soup into her bowl.

“Should I give him some as well?” she asked, sighing and looking toward something.

“No,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied.

“Grrrrrr…” The beast growled helplessly, panting as it lay on the floor. It was feeling the backlash from accelerating and pushing its muscles to the limit, and now its body would not listen to it.

Kang Yoon-Soo, on the other hand, did not seem to have even broken a sweat, and his breathing was calm as well. He had avoided all the beast’s aggressive attacks with minimal movement, but the beast had gone all out and its stamina was depleted. In addition, the daggers thrown by Kang Yoon-Soo could not dig deep into the beast’s hide, but he had precisely targeted the points between its muscles, causing immense pain.

“Urnokra!” the beast roared, failing to get up.

A moonstone had been embedded high up in the ruin’s pillar by Kang Yoon-Soo, and the eyes of the beast on the floor were fixated only on it.

The beast roared again as if to express its anger. “Urnokra!”

“What does ‘urnokra’ mean?” Shaneth asked curiously as she looked at the beast.

“It means ‘You look like your father’s cock’,” Kang Yoon-Soo said emotionlessly.

“…” Shaneth just stared at him as if she’d had enough. She eventually said, “I thought it meant something cool like ‘I’ll rip you apart!’ since he kept shouting it.”

“That isn’t this guy’s personality,” Kang Yoon-Soo said, as if he knew the beast very well.

The two got up after finishing their soup, and Kang Yoon-Soo walked toward the big white door.

“Karikradi! Urnokra!” The beast started roaring even more loudly, but Kang Yoon-Soo did not pay it any attention as he opened the door.

Creak…

The door slowly opened as soon as Kang Yoon-Soo lightly pushed it open.

Ordinarily, a ruin would not be so easy to conquer. The boss monster would usually attack with its minions wave after wave, and the door leading to the ruin's treasure would usually be shut tightly, only opening after the boss monster had been defeated. However, the Yultika Ruin, which had the lowest difficulty among the ruins in the continent, only had one boss monster, and the door leading to the treasure could be opened even without killing it. That was how low its difficulty was.

A bright light escaped as the door opened, and Shaneth could not help but exclaim, “So that’s the treasure of the ruin!”

There was an altar in the middle of a large and majestic room, shining with a bright luster. The bright light was blinding, but Kang Yoon-Soo walked toward the altar without averting his eyes. As he walked up the final steps toward the altar, he saw an item placed on it as if it were some sort of offering.

Kang Yoon-Soo had obtained the treasure of the Yultika Ruin.