«Alright, move it, move it. Start hauling.»

«Yes!»

Dozens of Gabri carcasses lay strewn across the ground.

The goblins scurried around, industriously transporting the bodies.

‘That’s three or four days of food sorted.’

With a moment to spare, Byeonggap put a cigarette in his mouth. Just as he pulled a lighter from his pocket and flicked it on, Turka spoke.

«My Lord. They. Are. Coming. In greater numbers.»

In the distance, twenty or thirty Gabri had been spotted. Chances were a boss monster was mixed in among them.

«Damn it! Of all times, they had to come when I’m lighting a smoke.»

«My Lord. We will handle it.»

«No. I’ll take this. Kiriyan, Turka—you protect the kids here. Don’t let them get in my way.»

«Understood.»

Go Byeonggap scowled and drew his sword.

He blew out a couple of smoke rings, then shot forward without warning.

The world blurred into lines, streaking past his peripheral vision.

In that rushing torrent of motion, he scanned the enemy’s movements.

At the heart of the Gabri herd was one beast nearly one and a half times larger than the rest—the boss monster of this hidden world: a Horn Gabri.

“Hiiii-innng!”

The lead Gabri leaped high, lunging at his head.

‘One hit, one kill!’

That mantra carved into his chest, Byeonggap charged. His raised sword sliced through the Gabri’s belly hide. Guts and blood cascaded like a waterfall.

“Kahp!”

‘One.’

“Hiiii-innng!”

Four maws barreled in from the left. Before their teeth could touch him, he swung his blade clean through a Gabri’s neck.

‘Two.’

His pupils darted in every direction, his mind racing even faster to issue commands.

Thrust. Spin and slash. Roll, then cut diagonally.

‘Thrust, spin and slash, roll, then cut diagonally!’

Byeonggap executed without hesitation. His body moved with precision, scattering a rain of blades. The Gabri caught in that storm collapsed, soaked in its own blood.

“Hiiii-innng!”

“Hup!”

The Horn Gabri stepped up. It rammed him head-on, its skull armored in a helm of bone.

Byeonggap blocked quickly but still got knocked back a step. No surprise—the brute strength of a semi-large D-rank beast was nothing to scoff at.

“You wait your turn!”

It wasn’t time to deal with the boss monster yet. Byeonggap whipped his blade around and carved a deep gash into the Horn Gabri’s ankle.

The Horn Gabri stumbled and fell, still breathing.

‘Eleven! Twelve! Thirteen!’

He moved without pause.

Neck, head, torso, then neck again, then hind leg. Every target he aimed at fell cleanly severed.

“Hiiii-innng!”

“Krak!”

As he felled the twenty-first, he left his back exposed. A Gabri kicked him full force.

Byeonggap flew like he’d been hit by a car. He tumbled a few times before scrambling upright, but he couldn’t stop his face from twisting in pain.

‘Damn. Feels like I got hit by a cannon.’

His back ached. Lucky his body was tougher now—back in the day, he’d have coughed blood and collapsed.

«A few are slipping through! Handle them!»

«Yes sir! Don’t worry!»

Several Gabri charged toward the goblins. At Go Byeonggap’s signal, Turka and Kiriyan snapped into combat stance.

Seven Gabri remained in this spot.

Go Byeonggap pushed himself up by bracing his sword against the ground. The glare he fixed on the enemy was razor-sharp.

“Hiiiiiiing!!!”

The Gabri were vicious. Even as their comrades fell, they didn’t waver or lose their will to fight.

But when it came to viciousness, Go Byeonggap didn’t back down either.

“Hwaaaaaap!”

A sweeping horizontal slash sent two Gabri heads flying. He didn’t stop — he thrust, slashed upward, and chopped down. The whole sequence flowed like water, seamless and smooth.

Three left.

Two left.

One left!

“Kahp!”

He caught a lunging maw with his forearm, then drove his blade into its throat. Blood gushed from the Gabri’s mouth, splattering Go Byeonggap.

With a grimace, he shook his arm, flinging the heavy carcass off.

On the other side, Turka and Kiriyan had already cleanly dispatched their monsters. The only thing still breathing was a Horn Gabri lying face-down with its ankle severed.

“Hoo… Not easy.”

Go Byeonggap flopped down onto the strewn Gabri corpses.

He began breathing circulation, working the stiffness out of his wrists.

‘This won’t do. Struggling against a mere thirty E-rank monsters…’

He recalled the four S-rank Hunters he’d worked with a few days ago. Humans who had sliced through fifty or sixty B-rank monsters like ants.

Let that overwhelming power sear into his mind, he reawakened his resolve. Slow progress was fine, but he couldn’t afford to stop advancing.

[Ancient Swordsmanship Manual — Low-Grade Mastery Rate: 18.71%]

[Ancient Body Tempering Manual — Low-Grade Mastery Rate: 32.25%]

[Ancient Breathing Circulation Manual — Low-Grade Mastery Rate: 9.2%]

‘Still a long way to go. I have to cut down more enemies and take more hits.’

«My Lord! Our work here is done.»

«Ah, right.»

The moment Kiriyan spoke, Go Byeonggap finished off the Horn Gabri. Soon, the collapse of the hidden world began.

«Alright! Move these too, and let’s head back!»

* * *

Asvillam’s family had grown to 190.

150 normal goblins.

38 hob goblins.

1 giant goblin.

1 albino goblin.

The rocky mountain bustled as if it had never been any other way.

The goblins didn’t shy away from newcomers or act territorial. Even fresh arrivals were welcomed as warmly as if they’d always been family.

Affinity and adaptability — maybe it was a trait of the goblin species. Whatever it was, it was rare in human society.

‘I wish we had more hob goblins.’

Go Byeonggap gathered his toiletries and headed for the river, thinking. The normal goblins did their work as told, sure, but the hob goblins were clearly more efficient — starting with the sheer size difference, wasn’t it?

Well, if you only measured by raw strength, the giant goblins were the best.

‘If I had about 150 giant goblins, food supply would be a real headache.’

Lost in idle thoughts, he reached the riverbank.

Byeonggap yanked off his clothes, tossing them aside, and sank into the water.

“Ahh! Cold!”

The water was crystal clear — top-grade first-class if you wanted to nitpick.

He’d been drenched in Gabri blood earlier that day, and the stench clung to his skin. He scrubbed himself with soap almost obsessively.

“…Can’t shake the feeling.”

Byeonggap glanced to the side. Toward the mist zone. It was late now, the night too dark to see far. Yet he felt like someone was watching him.

It’d been like this ever since ‘that day,’ whenever he came to the river.

Unable to bear it, he lit the lantern he’d brought and shone it toward the mist. But the silhouette he’d seen before wasn’t there.

‘Damn it. What the hell was that?’

The first day he’d pitched a tent in Asvillam. Byeonggap had seen it clearly — ‘something’ peeking at him from beyond the mist.

The problem was he had no way of knowing what that something was.

Its shape was unmistakably human… Was it a goblin? Or some third kind of thing?

“What a headache.”

If there really was something beyond the mist, that itself was trouble.

He couldn’t tell if those ‘bastards’ beyond the mist were friendly or threatening.

Friendly would be great, of course, but if they were hostile, he might have to risk war.

Whenever curiosity struck, he missed the goblin shaman, Oddick.

Byeonggap needed the goblin shaman’s knowledge.

Having killed him with his own hands, regretting it now was like crying over spilled milk…

“Tch, forget it. I’ve still got a long way to go before I can buy that Explorer’s Flag or whatever.”

Byeonggap shook off the distracting thoughts and finished his bath.

After washing up, Byeonggap returned to his personal tent.

He lay down on the bed made of two sofas pushed together. With the cheap blanket he’d bought from the village bedding shop thrown over him, it was pretty decent.

“Tomorrow, let’s try going into a C-rank rift once.”

And so his third night in Asvillam passed.

The next day dawned.

As soon as Byeonggap opened his eyes, he visited the farmland. It had been just a few days since he and the goblins had planted potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Of course, no sprouts had come up yet.

“Grow well, please. So I can make potato pancakes and candied sweet potatoes.”

Humming a tune, Byeonggap watered the soil.

After that, he dropped by the cave. Inside, the noticeably wider cavern was filled with goblins industriously swinging their pickaxes.

«Ah! My Lord. You’ve come?»

Gobungi, who was mining near the entrance, caught Go Byeonggap’s presence. The bastard had a knack for sensing movement, no question about it.

«No, no, don’t come out. Don’t mind me, just keep at what you’re doing.»

«Ah! Understood!»

«Good. Any issues with the work?»

«Yes! None. At all.»

«Alright. Don’t push yourself too hard—take it easy. Come out once in a while and breathe some fresh air.»

«Yep!»

«Good work.»

He turned his steps toward his personal tent.

On the way, he spotted a group of goblins. They were butchering the Gabri carcass brought in yesterday.

‘Once today’s work is done, I should squeeze in some alchemy practice too.’

Go Byeonggap eyed the pile of Gabri hides and thought to himself.

—Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

Near the campsite, the sound of axe swings rang out in full swing.

They were in the middle of constructing a road between the camp and the river.

Turka, gripping an axe in both hands, was felling a tree. Go Byeonggap watched with a satisfied smile.

‘Everything’s running smoothly without idle hands. Perfect.’

Right now, Asvillam felt like a well-oiled gear. All the cogs were meshing properly, none spinning uselessly.

‘Should I start getting ready too?’

He couldn’t just make the goblins do all the hard work.

Go Byeonggap hurriedly prepared for his routine. Today, as planned yesterday, he intended to visit a C-rank rift.

He stepped out of Asvillam.

The car parked at the foot of the mountain was just as he’d left it. This place was on the national highway connecting Cheongju to Daejeon.

“Alright, where’s another bastard rift spawned this time?”

With a serious demeanor, he scanned the rift map.

There were a few rifts nearby. Unfortunately, though, they were all ones that had gone uncleared for eleven or twelve days.

Better not to poke a hornet’s nest.

Go Byeonggap skimmed again, focusing on relatively fresh rifts.

“Oh. This one’s not bad.”

He found a suitable one not long after. It was a C-rank rift, three days old.

The spawn point was a village called Simok-ri. It sat at the junction leading into Daejeon.

Go Byeonggap hurriedly drove.

It was barely a fifteen-minute trip. Go Byeonggap reached the destination in no time.

Like any rural village, Simok-ri was dominated by sprawling paddies and fields. The rift had opened in a secluded vineyard, far from any houses.

Go Byeonggap parked near the field and checked his gear. Just then, someone approached from a distance.

It was a woman in her mid-fifties, wearing a straw hat.

“Oh my, young man! Oh my! Are you, uh, that thing? A h-hunter, right?”

The woman’s complexion was poor. Her face was marked with both fury and sorrow.

“Ah, yes, that’s right. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, young man! Please, do something about that thing down there! I swear, it’s driving me out of my mind!”

The middle-aged woman was nearly in tears.

“Harvest season’s right around the corner, and that goddamn thing has blighted all my trees! This year’s crop is completely ruined because of it!”

“Ah … yes. But ma’am, you really shouldn’t be this close. Exposure to the rift’s repulsion field could …”

“No, I don’t care! Every time I come here I feel sickly, but seeing that cursed thing squatting in my field makes my blood boil! How can I just sit at home?”

“ … Still, it’s best you don’t come around here.”

“Oh, young man. Please, just treat it like you’re saving someone’s life and do something about that wretched thing! Ah! Wait right here!”

The middle-aged woman hurried off at a sprint. She returned moments later, carrying a bundle in her arms.

Bread, drinks. Things like that.

“This is juice pressed from our vineyard grapes—please, have some and do something about that accursed thing. And here’s some bread too.”

She thrust the snacks at him. Likely provisions she’d stashed for a break during fieldwork.

Go Byeonggap took them, caught off guard.

A heavy weight settled in his chest.

‘Haah …’

He hadn’t come here to hunt. He’d only come to check if there were goblins in the rift.

But this woman was putting all her faith in him. If he just turned around and left, how heartbroken would she be?

Of course, Byeonggap had no obligation to ease the woman’s worries. So naturally, he had no reason to feel guilty.

But relationships between people never play out purely by logic and reason.

“Please, I’m begging you! Please!”

“ … For now, go back to your house. Staying here is dangerous.”

Having said that, Go Byeonggap walked right up to the edge of the rift.

A rift had opened in the middle of the vineyard. The trees were already wilting. The still-unripe grapes were shriveled and shrunken.

Go Byeonggap thought he understood how that woman felt.

“Whew … fuck.”

Standing before the rift, Byeonggap chain-smoked cigarettes. Glancing back, he saw the middle-aged woman still standing in the distance.

‘Why isn’t that ajumma leaving and standing there?’

The back of his neck prickled hot, then ached.

‘A C-rank rift … Would it be possible with the goblins?’

Go Byeonggap ran a simulation in his head.

Probably possible. But the odds of taking heavy losses were high. Likely a dozen goblins would die.

Go Byeonggap wasn’t cold-blooded, but he wasn’t a hero armed with righteousness either.

Lighting his second cigarette, he steeled his resolve.

‘Forget it. Don’t worry about it. I feel bad for the ajumma, but… what can you do? It’s not like she’s the one feeding me.’

Go Byeonggap shoved the nagging guilt aside and threw himself into the rift.

The world flared white, then sank back into darkness.

The heavy, gloomy hidden world welcomed him.

Every muscle wired tight, Byeonggap swept his gaze across the hidden world. His eyes darted up, down, left, right.

One second later.

A tangle of emotions crashed through him.

“Ha… haha…”

Byeonggap felt like collapsing right there.

No—he actually did collapse.

He forced his mouth open.

«Thank you. Fucking thank you, guys. Seriously. I mean it.»