The Correlation Between The Myryan King And A Big Score (1)

Occasionally, Myryans come out of their burrows.

The reason? I have no idea.

But don’t catch a Myryan that comes out if you can avoid it. It will lead you back to its nest.

If you enter a burrow found that way, be careful about one thing.

Myryan King.

It doesn’t lay eggs like a queen bee or ant, but if you kill too many Myryans or wipe them out, that thing appears.

So when hunting in a Myryan nest, it’s important to always go ‘moderately.’ Moderately.

And if you run into the Myryan King, run away unless there’s an archmage or a grandmaster present.

From the lecture of monster-hunting expert Beginner: ‘Know the beast, see the money!’

Back where we arrived. The first strike against the still-swarming Myryans was magic from Arun and Simon.

“Water Breath!”

“…Giga Thunder!”

Arun’s Water Breath, with Transmute removed, hit the Myryan swarm and nineteen pairs of antennae all turned toward us at once.

The eerie sight was chilling. Fortunately, our group didn’t freeze and ruin the fight—Simon’s attack followed immediately.

The downpour of lightning struck Myryans drenched in muddy water.

Not only the lightning strikes but also the additional shocks from discharges hit them.

As soon as Giga Thunder ended, Simon dropped to the ground and crawled backwards.

The leading group that confidently charged, seeing a few Myryans turned golden-brown, immediately pulled back—many Myryans had taken less damage than expected.

They kept aiming at the wind-attribute Myryans flying through the air and drawing their bows.

At the same time, Suho linked with Argus’s Eye provided Battlefield Analysis, letting them meticulously check the battle situation.

No more Myryans rose overhead, but the group was busy filling the gap left by Simon.

Hazel, in particular, intervened in the fight more actively than before.

The battlefield echoed with encouragements and cries.

At that moment, the fight—Myryans charging over the bodies of comrades and foes—felt distant, like watching a movie.

It felt like someone else’s story, something far removed from me.

Watching my group’s battle like that, I had to admit I was mistaken.

‘They are not me.’

Yes. They are not me.

They are mostly geniuses and outstanding, but they’re still mere three-year representatives.

They are not like me—someone who came back in time with abundant knowledge and experience of the future.

‘Also, I am different from them.’

I may be a three-year, but the power bestowed on me and the powers I’ve developed are different.

Up to a point it could be training, but going further here would be abuse, not training.

Even in my previous life, this dungeon was one that seven-year veterans barely cleared.

I put my bow in the inventory and grabbed two sickles. Pushing off the ground lightly, I plunged between the Myryans.

‘Owner, 11 hostile entities nearby have revealed their presence. Visual information sharing for hostile entities complete. Sharing to your sight.’

The positions of the Myryans spread across my sight.

I thrust the sickle in my right hand upside-down into the mouth of one charging from behind and yanked it up hard.

I stepped forward, injected the breaker into the sickle in my left hand, and split the Myryan’s head open.

My hands grew rough without me realizing it.

Was it atonement for the despair my mistake caused my companions? Or was it simply irritation, as if the beast’s nickname ‘annoyance-inducing monster’ provoked me? I don’t know.

“Hey, you foolish apprentice. You’re not an artful fighter. I’m not an artful fighter either. Just break it. If it blocks with a shield, break the shield and pull out its heart. If magic blocks, break the magic and cut its throat. If it charges with a sturdy body, tear that body apart! The ‘pa’ in breaker means to smash and shatter.”

Seeing a Myryan charge relying on its toughness, a faint smile involuntarily formed at my lips.

Inex was startled when Mr. Kim Han suddenly passed by him and stepped into the middle of the Myryan horde; he tried to follow if an invisible wall hadn’t appeared in front of him.

Kim Han, who entered the monster ants—Myryans, as the party had started calling them—stood still for a moment as if scouting.

Did Kim Han’s stillness make him look like easy prey to the Myryans? One behind him opened its maw and lunged.

Contrary to the expectation that he’d dodge, he not only stopped the huge charge but split the thick Myryan’s head vertically with a sickle that looked fit for farm work.

That was the beginning. Kim Han’s nearly exorcistic dance had begun.

His whole body was a weapon. It wasn’t limited to the two sickles.

He threw a sickle to impale the body of an approaching Myryan; his legs, fists, shoulders, elbows, and knees were all weapons.

He even hurled a Myryan that must have weighed three to four times an adult man.

Perhaps his momentum was so fierce that the beast Myryans began to retreat slowly—a strange sight.

But Kim Han did not stop. Before long he had a longsword in hand and pursued the Myryans.

In an instant he was atop a red Myryan and plunged his sword halfway into its segment.

After a moment, the Myryan’s body convulsed and collapsed limply, crushed flesh and blood oozing through its shell.

Sometimes he pulled a long spear from his inventory and threw it, or used magic to immobilize a Myryan before attacking.

He leapt into the air and at the apex, filled his leg with divine power and slammed down like a meteor, crushing the beast beneath him.

Kim Han seemed possessed by battle.

Inex felt ashamed he’d only thought of Kim Han as a leader who guided the group.

“Fighting Demon.”

Inex muttered a name without realizing it, but all he heard was Biosis’s mocking laughter.

“Hah, do you compare the apprentice to some Balrog? That kid could grind them down without batting an eye even if Balrogs came in swarms. The apprentice will become the God of Battle, a War God.”

“…War God.”

Murmuring the resonant word repeatedly, Inex watched Kim Han single-handedly decimate the Myryan horde and tidy the field, feeling a thrill sweep through him.

Though he looked young, an irresistible urge welled up in him to emulate and follow the man.

For the brief walk with the others toward the field Kim Han had cleared, no one spoke.

It felt good to relieve stress with a massacre of common enemies for the first time in a while.

The battle wasn’t thrilling, but it was satisfying to hit such tough foes.

We hurried to loot and rifled through a Myryan’s brain, only to find an inexplicable result.

‘Enhancement stones… eight?’

There were far more enhancement stones than before.

A passage contained roughly 60 to 90 Myryans.

Granted, this passage might be twice that, but even so, from so many kills you’d usually find only three to six enhancement stones.

‘What’s the difference… ah….’

It’s me. My luck was about to reach 150; that’s the problem.

When I realized that, I couldn’t help but laugh.

‘Not even a game, really.’

Sensing the group approaching, I put the enhancement stones and loot into my inventory.

Mae Young-ryeong was the first to rush over, fussing about healing wounds that weren’t there.

“Enough. We’ve cleared this, so let’s go. From now on, if a group over ten appears, shrink them into one spot. Deal with them there.”

After that we progressed smoothly about halfway; though the dungeon blocked out the sun, we could feel a lot of time had passed.

While everyone rested as they pleased, Inex was the first to approach me.

“Captain.”

The only one who called me ‘legion captain’ instead of just captain. Even though it’s just me, his familiar voice was enough to pull me from my thoughts.

“Alright. Inex, sit.”

“Yes.”

Then we were silent for a while.

It wasn’t hesitation—this steady man wasn’t the type to hold back words he wanted to say.

He simply sat beside me, sipping the tea I offered and staring into the same dying campfire as time passed.

After tossing a log onto the dwindling fire and some time passed.

As those lost in thought finally began to sleep, Inex stood, bowed politely, returned to his place, and sought sleep.

‘He hasn’t changed. Or rather, has he always been like this?’

The peculiar resting method of the man called Inex: doing nothing and simply letting time pass.

He relaxed every muscle and seemed to feel time passing, speaking and moving not at all—that was his way of resting.

The day we neared the dungeon’s end.

The party tried to reduce each other’s fatigue as much as possible.

They swung their swords one more time and strained to cast one more spell.

When there were many, under Lee Hyo-ju’s orders, they stubbornly cleared Myryans like a silent clamor while I finished them off and advanced.

We then faced the final mid-boss: a Myryan twice the size of a normal one.

We called for a short rest and passed on important instructions.

“This isn’t the end. If we take that one down, the king will appear within thirty minutes.”

“…The king?”

“Yes. The king of this Myryan brood, the Myryan King.”

The representatives turned pale with shock.

They weren’t themselves. They’d been running nonstop, dragging exhausted bodies forward with the thought ‘if we just beat this one…’ and now something worse remained.

Their strength seemed to drain away.

“So that’s it for today. We’ll fall back, move to the spots we scouted, and rest. No need for a watch—transcendents will stand guard for us. Move out.”

The next day, after a full rest and in much better condition, the group—excluding me—handled a monster with four elements; Inex had his left arm severed and Mae Young-ryeong was treating him with potions and holy spells, while Naruan had a chunk torn from her left flank, so I poured a potion and applied emergency treatment with my skills.

Not only that—aside from Hazel and Mae Young-ryeong, everyone else sat on the ground in near exhaustion.

“Good work. Fall back for now. The aftereffects of the fight could still hit us.”

With Inex marveling as he flexed his reattached left arm for the last time, the party retreated to the rear.

After a while, the passage trembled and the wall that had been blocking the way collapsed, sending up a cloud of dust.

I used divine power to blow the dust aside and revealed a colossal King Myryan.

A steady, murderous smile formed on my face as I readied my sword.