Sunday—the day that, legend had it, could turn even someone who’d never held a ladle into a cook. Most people ended up bears in hibernation instead of chefs, but Byeonggap was different. He stirred groggy around six in the morning.

There were reasons for the early rise. He’d taken yesterday off, so work needed doing, and he figured he’d swing by his mom’s hospital for the first time in a while.

…That was just a side reason, really. Byeonggap was buzzing like an elementary kid on field trip day. That was the real reason he hadn’t slept long.

“Heh heh heh.”

He grinned slyly at the three books stacked by his pillow. His purchases from the Ancient Shop last night before sleep.

[Ancient Swordsmanship Manual—Low-Grade]

– Price: 320 Crystals

– Description: A manual covering ‘Swordsmanship—Low-Grade,’ one of the ancient arts. Contains the sword techniques of the ancient knight order.

[Ancient Body Tempering Manual—Low-Grade]

– Price: 320 Crystals

– Description: A manual covering ‘Body Tempering—Low-Grade,’ one of the ancient arts. Contains the body tempering methods of the ancient knight order.

[Ancient Breathing Circulation Manual—Low-Grade]

– Price: 350 Crystals

– Description: A manual covering ‘Breathing Circulation—Low-Grade,’ one of the ancient arts. Contains the unique breathing techniques of the ancient knight order.

Three manuals. He’d shelled out 990 Crystals total for them.

[Crystals Held: 1,307]

After deducting the elixir of Growth and Alchemy Manual he’d bought last night, he was left with 1,307 Crystals. He’d have to be frugal with that—he had other plans for it.

A thick manual bound in parchment. Byeonggap picked it up, forgetting even to wipe the sleep from his eyes.

Byeonggap was, by any measure, a man who kept his distance from books. That’s why learning something new always made him hesitate—then and now. But this time was different.

[Would you like to imprint ‘Ancient Swordsmanship Manual—Low-Grade’?]

When he opened the manual, there was no text—just a hologram floating up. Same as the ‘Ancient Alchemy Manual—Low-Grade’ from the night before.

‘Of course.’

He accepted without hesitation. Then came something he could barely believe. The parchment volume dissolved into his body.

“Ugh…”

Byeonggap staggered, pressing a hand to his forehead. The aftereffect of a tidal wave of knowledge crashing into his skull. If he had to compare, it felt like downing fifty cups of coffee and chain-smoking a hundred cigarettes right after.

He’d suffered the same afterglow yesterday, after absorbing the Ancient Alchemy Manual – Low-Grade. That was why he’d put off the rest until today——if he hadn’t, he’d never have gotten any sleep.

About five minutes passed before the dizziness cleared. Byeonggap pushed through the lingering daze and absorbed the remaining two manuals all at once.

[‘Ancient Swordsmanship Manual – Low-Grade’ has been imprinted.]

[‘Ancient Body Tempering Manual – Low-Grade’ has been imprinted.]

[‘Ancient Breathing Circulation Manual – Low-Grade’ has been imprinted.]

Knowledge that had simply not existed a few dozen minutes ago now settled solidly into one corner of his mind, a weight he could feel.

Honestly, it was almost laughable.

“…If I cram in a few more, I’ll go genuinely crazy. Got to pace myself.”

Byeonggap dismissed the flashing notifications and went to wash his face first. Splashing cold water over his skin finally pulled him back to center.

He savored the knowledge he’d terraformed into his own head. Just that made his heart race. He wanted to test it out right now——to internalize it with muscle memory.

So even as he cooked and ate his meal, he kept staring at his phone with a fixed, hungry gaze. Hunting for the right rift. He looked like a starving hyena.

Finishing his food, Byeonggap quickly gathered his gear. He packed supplies, got into the car, and stomped the accelerator. Today’s destination: Dongducheon.

“Smooth sailing. Nice and smooth.”

On Sundays, rift competition dropped. Hunters were human too——they wanted a day off. Some still worked, but the odds were better.

On the flip side, weekend hobby-hunters were more rabid than ever. Byeonggap prayed silently that no disaster like last time would strike.

About an hour and a half later, he reached the destination: an abandoned school in a rural village, another forty minutes from the nearest city.

– NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS! RIFT DANGER ZONE!

Banners hung here and there, warning everyone back.

That was how it worked——like cancer recurring in the same spot, rifts often reopened where they’d once appeared.

This school had likely shut down for that very reason. No way to keep running it when rifts kept popping out every other day.

The weed-choked schoolyard stood empty. A good omen.

Byeonggap parked nearby and walked toward the rift, right in the center of the yard.

As always, every rift hunt began with a cigarette. He lit one up, checking his gear as the smoke curled.

“Okay. All clear.”

Today, unlike usual, he hadn’t brought much ammunition. About half his standard load.

The main event today wasn’t a gun——it was the blade.

After finishing his preparations, Byeonggap stepped into the rift without an ounce of hesitation.

* * *

The rift he’d entered today was E-rank. He’d successfully cleared a D-rank before, sure——but not on his own. That victory had come with goblin help. Solo, he couldn’t have done it.

Today’s hunt was an experiment. A test.

Could he subdue an E-rank rift armed with nothing but a single sword?

And if he could, would it actually be better than using a gun?

Would it still work above D-rank? Could he really break through the lower-tier wall?

Once inside the hidden world, Go Byeonggap drew his blade. The sword’s condition was far from ideal—years of neglect without maintenance, compounded by the recent spate of use.

The longsword he now carried was another item Kim Ajin had strong-armed him into buying. Its quality was crap, but the price was steep. Only later did he learn it wasn’t even fit for standard-issue gear.

The weapons high-rank hunters used started at tens of millions of won baseline. The expensive ones could run into the hundreds of millions. For Byeonggap, even thinking about buying something like that was out of the question. Besides, as a low-rank hunter, he had little need for such gear to begin with.

“Grrrrr…!”

From the small copse connected to the school fence, a monster emerged. A horned wolf. True to form as the usual riffraff of an E-rank rift.

Byeonggap cinched his gun’s suspenders tight to keep them from hindering his movements. Then, for show, he spat into his palm and gripped his sword firmly.

“Come on, you mangy mutt.”

“Grrrrr! Kyaaaah!”

Nine horned wolves charged at once. Byeonggap’s eyes tracked their movements swiftly.

His mind issued the command, and Byeonggap obeyed without a shred of hesitation.

The blade flashed and shot out like an arrow. The first wolf’s head flew clean off; the second was split vertically. A single stroke sent the third and fourth to their deaths, and he planted his foot hard on the ground.

His body moved as fluidly as incorporeal wind. Before the airborne carcasses even hit the ground, his second assault was already underway.

Horizontal slash, vertical slash, thrust. Clean, successive strikes followed. Three more horned wolves died.

Every time the blade passed, blood bloomed as if by some natural law.

Two left.

“Kraaaah―kkye-keng!”

He stomped down on the wolf aiming for his leg instead and crushed its skull. Just then, a sharp pain flared in his arm. The last horned wolf had clamped onto his forearm, dangling there.

Byeonggap calmly slammed his arm down. The wolf crashed to the ground. Before it could recover, his chipped blade sliced in and cleaved its torso open.

One minute.

No. Barely forty or fifty seconds.

The time it took to annihilate nine horned wolves was less than it took to boil water for instant noodles.

“Ha! Haha… Pfff! Puhihih!”

An uncontrollable sneer escaped Byeonggap’s lips.

My god!

This was nothing short of a revolution.

‘This is seriously unbelievable, isn’t it?’

The manual settled in his mind—its utility was truly immense.

‘I’ve barely internalized this thing, and it’s already this effective?’

The manual’s knowledge had only been ‘imprinted’ onto Go Byeonggap.

To use math as an analogy, he’d just grasped the principle of addition — and here he was, a grade-schooler fresh off learning sums, breezing through triple-digit addition.

There were a few supporting factors.

The body strengthened by the elixir of Growth, and the synergy between the manuals themselves.

‘Now that I know swordsmanship, the way I used to swing a blade feels like a joke.’

Before he’d learned swordsmanship, Byeonggap’s movements weren’t much different from a kid gripping a baseball bat and smashing sandcastles on the beach.

He’d thought holding a sword and flailing it around would make everything click. That had been a massive miscalculation.

From the crown of his head to the tips of his toes — every part of the body had a system dictating when and how to move. If he wanted to overstate it, there was even a rule for when to clench his sphincter.

The fantastical part was how perfectly the Body Forging Technique and the swordsmanship interacted. Just by wielding the blade, his body automatically tempered itself.

So the more he worked his body, the tougher and denser his muscles and bones became.

“Heh heh.”

Byeonggap smiled in satisfaction as he looked down at his arm, bitten by the horned wolf. The skin was only slightly gouged.

‘Normally, I’d be missing a chunk or two of flesh. Must be the elixir of Growth and the Body Forging Technique.’

“Haaaaah! Hooooooh!”

He kept up the breathing method from the Ancient Breathing Circulation Manual without pause. A hot energy spread from his lower abdomen through his entire body.

Soon, the wound on his arm healed rapidly. It was surprising, but frankly, it didn’t seem like it could handle major injuries.

‘Guess it’s still worse than a potion.’

That was disappointing, but asking for too much would be greedy.

«Come on out, a few of you.»

Byeonggap opened the door to Asvillam as he spoke. A few normal goblins emerged.

«Lord. You called?»

«Take these and disassemble them. Leather separately, teeth separately, magic stones separately. Got it?»

«Uh-huh. Under. —stood.»

«Good. Store the meat and eat it later.»

The normal goblins nodded, then carried the horned wolf corpses into Asvillam.

‘I can’t believe I only just learned how convenient this is.’

There’s no need to bother with magic stone extraction inside the rift. Just toss everything into Asvillam and let the goblins handle it.

That’d drastically speed up the subjugation rate too.

‘Since it’s quiet, monsters aren’t swarming in.’

Despite the fierce skirmish, the surroundings were calm. If he’d been firing a gun, the noise would’ve drawn more monsters.

This was one of the few advantages of cold steel. It was also why higher-rank hunters didn’t bother with firearms.

Go Byeonggap walked unhurriedly, searching for the hidden monster.

* * *

“Kiiyaaaark! Kiiyaaaah!”

The Claw Wolf was in full fury—teeth, forelegs, and those two razor-sharp tails all lashing out in a relentless barrage.

Byeonggap faced it down with a posture of easy calm.

The bladed tail dropped straight down. Byeonggap swung his sword upward with all his strength. Crack! The Claw Wolf went flying.

Byeonggap didn’t waste the opening—he lunged and drove the blade into its throat.

“Kiiyaaahk—ghk! Ggeu-ggeu-geuk!”

The Claw Wolf thrashed a few times, then went limp. Blood welled and burst from the gaping wound.

‘F-rank or E-rank, no real difference.’

Easy.

In that final moment — when all eighteen monsters including the claw wolves came at him at once — he’d thought, Maybe this is actually a little dangerous.

But looking at the result, every last one of them died by Go Byeonggap’s hand.

He glanced down at himself. A few minor nicks here and there, but mostly fine. Didn’t even look like he’d need a potion.

He’d chucked all the monster carcasses into Asvillam, then stepped back out through the rift.

—Tick!

The stopwatch on his wrist told him the elapsed time.

Fifty-seven minutes, forty-eight seconds.

Not even an hour. He was keeping pace with when he hunted alongside the goblins.

‘Back in the day, even fast was four hours.’

Compared to before he became the Goblin Lord, it was a massive time cut.

To celebrate the successful subjugation, Go Byeonggap lit up a cigarette. And while he smoked, he got ready to head home.

‘Alright, got the materials. Now what to make.’

The corner of his mouth, with the cigarette dangling from it, crept upward.