"I'm refusing."
"Form a group? I refuse."
The other guy hadn't expected to be shot down so cleanly; his face went blank with shock.
"Haha… Black Scythe-nim. I don't know if you're aware, but the boss isn't an easy opponent. You see that cow-looking bastard over there?"
Where the group was pointing, a Minotaur that looked strong at a glance was wandering around.
"That guy is the boss we have to take down, and he's no pushover."
"How do you know that? Did you clash with it once already?"
"That's right. Not us, but another party tried to tackle it alone and got wiped out. After seeing that, we realized it. That even parties need to cooperate with each other."
"Do it among yourselves. Just don't involve us."
"But isn't it better if we help each other? We'll even give you priority and let you land the last hit, so if you'd just consider—"
Before answering, Ryu Min shot him a razor-sharp glare.
"Don't make me say it a third time."
"A-ah, understood. E-excuse us…"
Crushed by his charisma, the group shuddered and backed off.
They went back to where the parties were gathered and started grumbling among themselves.
"We were trying to reel Black Scythe in, but no luck."
"Did you tell him we'd let him get the last hit?"
"I did, but he still said no. Told us to handle it ourselves."
"Why though? Black Scythe needs to kill the boss too, doesn't he?"
"I don't know. Maybe he's scared of the boss, tsk tsk."
"Hmm, looks like we'll just have to challenge it on our own then."
"We were going to do it ourselves anyway, even if Black Scythe refused."
The nodding group finally began to prepare for the Minotaur hunt.
Thud— thud— thud—The hulking thing was so massive its footsteps made the ground resound. Its height alone was six meters.
A bull walking like a human was shambling about with an axe as big as its own head in its hand.
Five parties approached the Minotaur.
Gulp—
They hadn't realized from afar, but up close it looked even bigger than they'd thought.
"W-we can win this, right?"
"O-of course. There are twenty of us."
Their words said one thing, but their faces showed no confidence.
"Gruh?"
Just then, the Minotaur sensed their presence and turned its head.
The players who'd been sneaking up froze in place as if they'd been caught in a game of tag.
"Gwooooaaaar!"
Seeing humans, the thing got excited and charged with heavy thuds.
"Fuck! Hit it!"
"Waaaaaah—!"
Twenty players threw themselves at it like their lives depended on it.
Ryu Min watched the situation coolly.
'I wonder… how many minutes will it take them to bring it down?'
He didn't think they would fail.
The Minotaur wasn't as difficult a boss as it looked.
It wielded a ridiculously huge axe, but its attacks had no real technique, and it wasn't fast either.
Because its movements were rather sluggish, it was easy to predict and dodge.
'With twenty people rushing it, even that thing won't be able to move.'
But the Minotaur's strong point was its toughness, harder than stone.
From its perspective, humans were nothing but flies.
'Even if twenty flies swarm you, it's hard to be scared of them…'
At the very least, they could distract its gaze, and some skill used by chance might just hit a vital point.
Out of dozens of blows, at least one should land, shouldn't it?
'Then the Minotaur is no exception.'
Of course, the fight would turn into a war of attrition.
Sure enough, just as he expected—
"T-this bastard's way too tough!"
"Focus on dodging as much as you can!"
"Hey, you there! Watch out!"
Three minutes into the battle, there was still no sign they were close to killing it.
It felt like a waste of time, but Ryu Min decided to keep watching calmly.
He needed to see the boss die to have a clear justification for devoting himself entirely to farming.
Eventually, after the seven-minute mark passed—
"Gwooooaaark…"
The Minotaur, which had been letting out a pitiful bellow, smashed its head into the ground.
Boom—!
"W-we got it!"
"It finally died!"
The party members rejoiced, but that didn't mean there were no casualties.
'Three out of twenty died.'
There were no injured. No wonder, since even a graze meant instant death.
Even so, killing the boss with only that much damage taken was something they could be proud of.
"Who got the last hit? Doesn't look like it was our team."
"Our team! Our team got it! Hahah!"
While the cries of victory echoed, a pillar of light shone down from the sky.
One of the four teams that had contended for the last hit was surrounded by a translucent pillar.
"Looks like our team survived!"
"My quest progress window says we succeeded!"
"Nice!"
"Damn it, we just made things easy for someone else."
The ones trapped in the pillar rejoiced, while those who hadn't killed the boss grumbled—but only for a moment.
"By the way… do we have to just sit here like this until the time runs out?"
"We're going to be stuck in here for over five hours?"
"Seems like it."
"Resting early is nice and all, but this feels like we're losing out on something…"
It was good that they'd killed the boss first, but the idea of being stuck in a pillar of light, forced to idly wait out the remaining time, left them uneasy.
"Well then, let's go rescue some other parties. Looks like they'll need reinforcements."
"Let's do that."
The remaining parties glanced at Black Scythe, then shook their heads and walked off.
They knew that even if they talked to him, he wouldn't cooperate.
Whether they did or not, Ryu Min simply murmured his thoughts on the battle.
"Good. If we'd killed the boss early, we would've wasted the rest of the time stuck there."
"R-right. Just like you predicted, Black Scythe-nim."
"The right answer was to keep hunting like now and kill it as late as possible."
Without changing his expression even once, Ryu Min nodded toward his party.
"We've rested enough. Let's move out."
'Try your best to keep up.'
Once again, his party members took off running.
While Ryu Min was hunting Centaurs—
The other teams were pooling their strength and focusing on hunting bosses.
"Are we the fiftieth?"
"There's no rank indicator, so I've no idea."
"Who cares! We killed the boss, which means we survived, right?"
"Let's lie down and get some rest while we've got time left."
The players inside the pillar of light sprawled out on their backs.
They might be stuck, but as long as they were in here, they were safe from monsters.
Even if a Minotaur came by, it couldn't touch them.
In fact, it didn't even seem to recognize them and treated them like invisible men.
"Huh? Look at that, over there."
At that moment, one of the players spotted Black Scythe moving with his scythe in hand.
And the four party members following him without rest as well.
Slice— thud! Slice— thud!
Each time the scythe swept past, a Centaur's head tumbled off.
"That's Black Scythe, isn't it?"
"He's killing those things in one hit?"
"Man, that's what you expect from level 40."
One-shotting Centaurs was amazing, but they didn't envy him.
After all, they'd already killed the boss and were enjoying a well-earned break as winners.
If anything, they simply didn't understand what Black Scythe was doing.
"Why isn't he killing the boss and just farming Centaurs?"
"Wouldn't it be better to kill the boss quickly and relax?"
"No, you're thinking about it wrong. Even if he kills it now, he'll be below 50th place. He's already missed the rankings, so he's probably just farming while he can."
"Ah! That makes sense."
"Too bad, though. I thought he might get first place again this round."
"No matter how strong Black Scythe is, he can't be first forever."
"Still, good judgment. He's at least grinding EXP."
They thought they stood above Black Scythe now that they'd killed the boss.
But they didn't yet know.
That the 11 minutes 30 seconds they'd taken to hunt the boss was actually the slowest time—and dead last.
Tak-tak-tak-tak— slice!
Tak-tak-tak— slice!
Ryu Min, who'd been sprinting nonstop as he focused purely on grinding trash mobs—
'Hm?'
Had to come to a dead stop as if he'd hit the brakes when a sudden message popped up.
[Cannot locate target 'Centaur'.]
It was a welcome message, saying there were no more targets to be found.
'So I finally cleared them all out.'
Ryu Min checked his kill count and the remaining time limit.
[Current kill count: 1,920/100]
[Time remaining until Round ends: 00:20:43]
'Roughly five hours and forty minutes to kill 1,920 of them, huh.'
There were 2,000 in total, but it seemed other players had killed the rest.
'That's much faster than I'd expected.'
Just then, he heard panting behind him and turned his head.
"Haa, huff… Black Scythe-nim. Is it finally break time?"
"Yeah. The hunting is over."
"H-hunting is… over?"
"I tried using the Tracking skill, and there aren't any Centaurs left in the field."
"Ah…"
Only then did his party members check the time limit.
"There are only twenty minutes left?"
The last time they'd checked was three hours ago; they hadn't realized how much time had passed.
They'd been too busy chasing after him to spare a glance.
"Gasp? E-everyone, check your levels."
"Why? Oh?"
At An Sang-cheol's words, the party members opened their status windows—and froze.
"O-our levels…"
"They went up this much…?"
Honestly, they'd been so exhausted from chasing him that they hadn't had the mental space to look at their status windows.
Ryu Min had been hunting with virtually no rest time at all.
Of course, they'd occasionally seen messages saying their level had gone up.
They just hadn't been able to count them one by one.
Later on, they'd been so frantic just keeping up with him that they couldn't even spare attention for messages, so their shock was only natural.
"How many levels did you gain to be that surprised?"
"I-I was 20 at the start, and now I'm 34."
"M-me too, same here."
An Sang-cheol and Seo Arin had gone from 20 to 34.
"What about Min Juri?"
"I was 21 and now I'm 35."
"I-I started at 23, and now I'm 36…"
When Heo Tae-seok finished answering, Ryu Min nodded.
They'd all gone up by thirteen to fourteen levels.
'Well, going from the 20s to the 30s is a big jump. No wonder they're shocked.'
Ryu Min's tens digit had changed as well.
His level had been 40; at some point, it had climbed to 54.
Thanks to the triple EXP Round buff and his 1.5x EXP title.
He'd killed over 1,900 monsters, so he'd picked up a lot of items too.
Nineteen magic stones, nine normal equipment items, assorted junk drops, and…
'Even the materials I need for the God-grade combination.'
Ryu Min checked the item info again.
[Glossy Horse Tail]
Category: Miscellaneous
Description: Just as the name says, a horse tail that gleams with sheen. You can feel a faint trace of magic in it.
'This is the real prize more than anything else.'
In the end, the God-grade crafting material was the key.
Maybe it was because he'd secured the material he'd been aiming for, but the corners of Ryu Min's mouth curled up on their own.
Hard work really did pay off.
'Just two more materials to find now…'
At that moment, another round of gasps came from his teammates.
"Everyone, check this out! O-our gold really piled up."
"M-mine too."
"One hundred and fifteen thousand gold…"
Most of them would have similar amounts.
Since they were in a party, the gold had been split evenly.
'Though there'll be some variance depending on each person's Luck stat.'
Unlike the others, Ryu Min had 150,000 gold in his pocket.
With his Luck stat over 350, his chance of getting bonus gold was high.
"W-what do we even do with all this?"
"Getting a huge sum all at once is kinda overwhelming, haha…"
Since his teammates didn't know what to spend it on, Ryu Min casually offered some advice.
"If you don't have anything to spend money on, buy common skills from the Shop. Detection, Enhanced Dynamic Vision, and Basic Resistance are must-haves. Save whatever's left and pick up anything useful you see in Today's Items."
"Ah…"
"Right. We should follow your advice, Black Scythe-nim."
"Got it."
Nodding, the group accepted Ryu Min's suggestion.
With his high insight and experience, there was no reason not to.
While his teammates were suddenly engrossed in shopping, Ryu Min opened his quest progress window.
[Current Zone C-ESKS007]
└ Participants: 1,010
└ Clearers: 455/505
From the number of clearers, fifty people were left.
'Which means there are only ten Minotaurs remaining.'
He immediately used Tracking to locate the Minotaurs.
[You have discovered the location of target 'Minotaur'.]
[Current distance: 198 m.]
Seeing that one was fairly close, Ryu Min took the lead.
"Follow me. Time to kill the last boss."
"Y-yes, sir!"
After a few sprints, a Minotaur came into view.
But near it, three other teams were already waiting.
"Oh, it's Black Scythe-nim."
"Black Scythe-nim! Party up with us!"
"Let's kill it together!"
Ryu Min shook his head without a moment's hesitation.
"No. I have no intention of sharing contribution points with you."
"Huh? In that case…"
Ryu Min spoke casually.
"I'm going to kill the boss by myself."