But It Works, Doesn't It? (2)
The virtual combat training room fell into momentary silence.
The cause was obvious—no one needed to point it out. It was all because of Kim Joo-hyuk.
Including Lilya, the labyrinth monster instructor, even the other students who had been watching with keen interest now had their mouths agape.
Especially Yoo So-yeon, who stood there with her mouth hanging open in a dazed expression of utter disbelief.
Choi Ah-rin, on the other hand, gazed at Kim Joo-hyuk with a strangely serene yet oddly proud look on her face.
A brief silence.
“Uh… how?”
Hearing Lilya’s stammering voice laced with incredulity, Kim Joo-hyuk smirked and replied.
“Done, right?”
“……!”
Lilya flinched at his smile.
She quickly furrowed her brow and shot back.
“N-no! Not yet!”
“Why not? I did everything.”
“Again! Do it one more time!”
Despite Kim Joo-hyuk’s words, Lilya stubbornly manipulated the remote in her hand, summoning a stone goblin right in front of him.
But.
Puuk!
Defying Lilya’s expectations, the stone goblin’s belly was instantly pierced by Kim Joo-hyuk’s sword, meeting its end in a flash.
“Done, right?”
“How the hell did you do that!?”
Lilya shouted in exasperation.
Kim Joo-hyuk, still wearing that unflappable smile, explained.
“Just stab it and it dies, like I said.”
“Ugh……!”
Lilya scowled at his laid-back tone.
She opened her mouth again.
“Don’t get cocky just because you handled one of these!”
In truth, what Kim Joo-hyuk had just demonstrated was so shocking it was worth rewriting his labyrinth monster thesis and resubmitting it to the academic conference.
But right now, more than that revelation, she wanted to knock the smug look off the face of the relaxed guy standing before her. She immediately fiddled with the remote.
With that, the scenery in the training room began to shift.
More precisely, the environment around Kim Joo-hyuk started transforming, causing the students’ eyes to widen.
Keruk, kehruruk—!
Lilya had summoned eight jungle goblins in front of Kim Joo-hyuk, who now stood in a narrow, straight corridor of the labyrinth.
‘Let’s see you handle this……!’
Their official name was jungle goblins.
But in the contractor world, they were infamously known as “rage-disorder goblins” for their foul tempers.
Of course, if that were all, Lilya’s confidence in placing just three of them would’ve been laughable. But the real terror of jungle goblins lay elsewhere.
‘If you don’t kill at least three in one go……’
Jungle goblins would instantly howl, summoning every jungle goblin in the labyrinth.
And if that happened?
The contractor who failed to wipe them out would be swarmed from front and back by fearless, furious goblins, beaten to death in brutal fashion.
Thus, the standard countermeasures in a labyrinth were to avoid engaging, run away, or use a constellation’s magic to kill them all at once.
Of course, stronger contractors could dispatch them before they even screamed, but he was just a first-year who hadn’t even contracted with a constellation yet.
Plus, from what she’d heard, even when he took down the orcs, he’d eliminated them all—but not at lightning speed.
So Kim Joo-hyuk, holding just a sword—
Puuk!
—couldn’t possibly—
Kii— drrrk!
“……”
Kwajik!
“It works, doesn’t it?”
……handle it?
Lilya unwittingly flashed those words in her mind before blurting out in disbelief.
“Uh… how?”
“Just like it said on the test.”
At Kim Joo-hyuk’s words, Lilya blankly looked down at his feet.
There lay the jungle goblins, all neatly dispatched with sword thrusts to their heads, vanishing one by one.
Seeing this, Kim Joo-hyuk shrugged.
‘Monsters here are all a bit off, as expected.’
Kim Joo-hyuk had hunted plenty of monsters.
Not just plenty—tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, all by himself.
How?
Three hundred years ago, that was the world.
No monsters in cities, but step just outside, and they ruled—making you question if Earth belonged to humans or beasts.
Having survived by endlessly slaying monsters in that world, Kim Joo-hyuk had countermeasures for most memorized not in his head, but in his instincts.
That’s why, seeing the instructor and students’ dumbfounded faces, he clicked his tongue.
‘They rely so much on constellation power they can’t even handle stone goblins?’
As he recalled, stone goblins were tricky, but far from unkillable by sword.
‘Just stab the weak spot in the belly, and a sword does the trick.’
The jungle goblins? Pure physical overpowering.
“S-something else!”
Lilya’s voice rang out as Kim Joo-hyuk pondered.
“What?”
“Try something else!”
“Again?”
“Not ‘again’! You got a zero on my test, Kim Joo-hyuk! Prove the rest! Show me you can do everything on that paper you submitted!”
Lilya yelled, her face flushed with frustration, practically screaming I’m so wronged!
Kim Joo-hyuk nodded as if he got it and replied.
“If I prove everything on that test, you’ll bump my score up—”
“Just do it already!”
With a sigh, Kim Joo-hyuk nodded, and that day, the students didn’t learn standard labyrinth monster countermeasures.
“Cut!”
Puuk!
“Head cut!”
Kwajik!
“Back leg cut!”
Kwaduduk!
Instead, they witnessed Kim Joo-hyuk’s bizarre, unorthodox methods that defied conventional tactics.
“Hmm… full score, nice and easy.”
After demonstrating every point on the test paper in front of her, Kim Joo-hyuk flashed a refreshing smile at his exam sheet—now upgraded from zero to 100—and Lilya, who stared blankly into space.
And then.
“Um… Joo-hyuk? How exactly did you take down that troll boar earlier…?”
After class, as Kim Joo-hyuk was leaving the training room, Lilya grabbed him, her voice oddly calm now.
He looked at her staring expectantly.
Sneer.
“Not telling.”
With that, he headed back to the classroom.
The large dormitory where Rockdil Ventrek stayed.
Unlike before, when he’d smashed the furniture, the place was now neatly tidied. Rockdil gazed at Reric sitting across from him.
A second-year at Valhalla and heir to the Sunrise family, Reric possessed a decent guardian constellation. Yet he sat there with a consistently uncomfortable expression, continuing the conversation.
“So you’re saying… you want me to go stab that guy in the administrative office?”
“Not ‘stab.’ I’m merely suggesting you speak the truth. Isn’t that right?”
Rockdil replied with an uncharacteristically feigned expression.
But Reric scowled and said.
“I told you last time. I’m out of this.”
“……If you do this, we’ll handle all the aftermath on the Ventrek side. As you know, when my family moves, supporting you is—”
“Ventrek support won’t restore our family’s lost honor.”
Reric stood, as if there was nothing more to say.
“I’m done with anything involving Kim Joo-hyuk.”
With that, Reric shuddered involuntarily at some memory, then left Rockdil’s room without hesitation.
“That fucking retard… tucking tail after just one hit……”
As soon as Reric was gone, Rockdil gritted his teeth and muttered.
‘What the hell happened to make him like this……?’
Rockdil didn’t know the details between Reric and Kim Joo-hyuk.
He’d only asked Reric to bully Kim Joo-hyuk, promising rewards if successful.
And those rewards were, in Rockdil’s mind, generous enough for Reric.
On top of that, he’d even leaked info via a Ventrek-aligned instructor that Kim Joo-hyuk was heading to the Constellation Room.
So Rockdil could guess they’d clashed that day—and that Reric got thoroughly wrecked.
But as a family heir, Reric’s pride was ironclad.
Rockdil had assumed even if beaten, Reric’s ego would keep him opposing Kim Joo-hyuk.
Yet Reric had quit.
The conclusion?
‘What the fuck is this guy?’
Kim Joo-hyuk had the overwhelming power to crush Reric—and worse, his gang.
Rockdil knew Kim Joo-hyuk was strong to some degree.
But a fresh first-year making prideful Reric tremble in fear? From Rockdil’s perspective, that defied common sense.
“Tch.”
He scowled and clicked his tongue.
This incident had taught him Kim Joo-hyuk was stronger than he’d thought.
But that didn’t mean he’d give up.
‘Back off after that humiliation? No fucking way.’
His mind still burned with rage toward Kim Joo-hyuk. He vowed to crush him, no matter what.
Thus.
“Yuria.”
“……Yes.”
“Did you contact Disera?”
“Yes, I’ve informed her that you wish to meet.”
“Where is she?”
“Lady Disera is currently passing time at Arpia Academy in Mexico—”
Rockdil cut in.
“Tell her to fly to Korea immediately. Say there’s urgent business.”
“Understood.”
Yuria bowed and left the room.
Staring at her back, a flicker of lust crossed his face, but Rockdil soon smiled, imagining her arriving in Korea.
A short while later.
Arpia Academy, outskirts of Mexico City.
“So?”
[That’s the gist—come to Korea, and it’s done.]
Crack—
“Well, if my little bro wants it, I gotta help, right? Compensation’s solid?”
[……She says she’ll pay handsomely once it’s handled.]
“Yeah, yeah. Got kicked out of the family lately, no one to leech off. Perfect timing.”
In a room splattered with blood everywhere, a man sat atop a pile of battered students, covered in gore himself.
“Alright, see you soon.”
Giggle.
Disera Ventrek smiled as she stepped down from her perch.