Conquering the Golden Palace
Jeon Jaewoo entered the Ancient Golden Palace, a Normal-grade ruin, with the singular goal of clearing it.
The moment he stepped past the threshold, he crossed paths with a mob of goblins. Without hesitation, he left the fighting to Myeolgeop and stood back, his jaw hanging slack as he watched the golem go to work.
Shhk! Crack!!
Myeolgeop tore through the palace corridors, butchering every goblin in sight.
He’s literally flashing east, then blazing west. What is he, some legendary folk hero?
It wasn't an exaggeration. For a second, Jaewoo genuinely wondered if the golem possessed a spatial teleportation trait. The moment Jaewoo blinked, dozens of severed goblin heads were already tumbling across the floor, piling up around his feet.
He had come here to assess his golem’s combat capability firsthand, but the construct moved so blindingly fast that his eyes couldn’t even track the motion.
…Still, I should probably collect the goblin remains, right?
Even bottom-tier monster corpses fetched a decent price when turned in to the Korean Hunter Administration. Moving carefully so as not to hinder Myeolgeop’s rampage, Jaewoo began gathering the goblin heads one by one.
Meanwhile, far from mounting a counterattack, the grave-robbing goblins realized the catastrophic disparity in power and broke into a frantic rout.
“Krrk? Kyehhk!”
“Kyehhk! Krrk! Krrk!!”
When three thousand goblins scattered in all directions, tracking down and hunting every last one was usually a massive ordeal. That was precisely why clearing ruins took so long on average, regardless of their difficulty grade.
To Myeolgeop, however, that common sense clearly didn't apply.
The golem sprinted forward at terrifying speed, hunting down the fleeing creatures without letting a single one slip away. In a flash of motion, blades extended from Myeolgeop’s forearms, coated in dense mana that swept out in razor-sharp arcs of sword energy.
Watching the golem butcher the monsters purely with sword aura without utilizing any other combat arts, Jaewoo wondered if that was its primary technique.
Wait, is projecting blades like that what the status window called the Annihilation trait?
It certainly looked formidable, but if simply conjuring blades counted as a Transcendent-grade trait, it felt a little underwhelming. Plenty of hunters with A-grade or even B-grade traits could pull off something similar. Rather than the trait itself being extraordinary, it felt more like Myeolgeop was simply absurdly strong on his own.
Well, he hasn't had a chance to show his real power yet.
Jaewoo resolved to ask Myeolgeop about the specifics of his traits once they left. The fact that the golem could display such overwhelming might with what appeared to be an ordinary ability was testament enough to how incredible he was.
With another casual sweep of Myeolgeop’s arm, more heads rained down.
Exploration Condition: 'Ancient Golden Palace'
Eliminate all goblins looting the palace gold. (2,999 / 3,000)
Far from taking an hour, less than five minutes had elapsed before the final goblin fell limp.
The raid on the Ancient Golden Palace was officially over.
Having finished the slaughter, Myeolgeop walked over to his master.
“Creator. I have executed all of your orders.”
Jaewoo gave a stiff, dazed nod.
“Uh… right. Excellent work.”
Even with the glowing notification hovering right in front of his eyes confirming the clear, the situation felt completely surreal. An entire ruin was now his personal property.
“Holy crap…”
Jaewoo swallowed hard. Possessing a ruin meant that every single resource produced within this golden palace belonged entirely to him. He knelt down and picked up a chunk of gold that Myeolgeop had chipped off a pillar during the battle.
…This isn't a dream.
Without a shadow of a doubt, Jaewoo was set to become filthy rich. Weathly enough that three generations could blow money with reckless abandon and never run dry. He could literally chip away pieces of the palace walls and sell them off as raw bullion.
As he basked in euphoric reverie, Myeolgeop’s voice broke through his thoughts.
“Creator. Do you have any further instructions?”
“Ah, no. The clear is done, so let's head back.”
Vwooom.
The moment he logged out of the Ruin System, space folded, depositing him straight back into his cramped studio apartment. Standing on the familiar linoleum floor, Jaewoo checked his status window once more.
It really, truly is mine.
Jaewoo unlocked his phone with trembling fingers.
Man… who do I even call first?
An overwhelming urge surged through him to share this unbelievable news with someone. His family? His closest childhood friends? Or maybe that older church girl he had a crush on back in elementary school?
No, wait. Calm down. Deep breaths. Inhale, exhale.
Springing news like this required mental preparation.
Now that I think about it, what kind of lunatic calls his childhood church crush over something like this? Get a grip, you idiot.
Going around broadcasting that he was suddenly rich would bring nothing but trouble. It wasn't as though he could hide his awakening or ruin ownership forever, but he could break it to the people around him gradually.
Come to think of it, he hadn't even visited the Legendary-grade ruin that Myeolgeop had cleared first.
The Altar of the Apostle of Death. Just what was waiting inside that place? The name alone sounded ominous enough to send chills down his spine. Surely it couldn't be quite as terrifying as it sounded, right? Then again, ruins were teeming with lethal monsters by default, so none of them were strolls through a park.
Jaewoo turned to Myeolgeop and asked cautiously, “Can I visit the ruin with the altar?”
“Of course. Among the ruins I have conquered, there is no place forbidden to you, Creator.”
“That's good to know, but… what happened to the monsters that were inside it?”
“I have already eliminated every last one.”
Right, of course. He cleared it, after all.
A small sigh of relief escaped Jaewoo's lips. The mere label of a Legendary-grade ruin had intimidated him before he even set foot inside.
“Alright. Since we’re already on a roll, should we go take a look?”
Having only just stepped out of the golden palace, Jaewoo immediately transitioned straight into the Legendary-grade ruin.
Meanwhile, inside the Korean Hunter Administration headquarters.
The agency’s personnel were moving with far greater urgency than usual. Working at the nation's most powerful executive institution was inherently frantic, but today, an entirely extraordinary matter had driven the staff into overdrive.
The cause was simple.
Two days ago, barely an hour after the month’s new batch of ruins materialized, an unidentified hunter had conquered a Legendary-grade ruin solo.
Having returned from an external briefing, Yoo Jeongtae, Commissioner of the Korean Hunter Administration, sank heavily into his executive chair, his face etched with exhaustion.
“Phew…”
“You worked hard out there, Commissioner,” the Chief of Staff remarked, stepping into the office behind him.
Jeongtae turned to him. “More importantly, have we still not identified the conqueror of that Legendary ruin?”
The Chief of Staff bowed his head in mortification. “My apologies, Commissioner. We are pursuing every possible lead, so please grant us a little more time.”
“No, expecting to track down someone who materialized out of thin air in just two days is unreasonable. I’m just getting ahead of myself.”
The Blue House and the National Assembly had been in an absolute uproar for the past forty-eight hours, barraging him with relentless demands. Have you found the hunter who conquered a Legendary ruin in one hour? When can we secure him? On top of that, public curiosity had reached a fever pitch.
“Please do not worry excessively,” the Chief of Staff asserted with resolve. “No matter what it takes, I will locate him within a week.”
“……”
A week.
The Chief of Staff spoke with steely determination, but Yoo Jeongtae was far from satisfied with that timeline. A week was far too late. He wanted that hunter dragged into his office this very second.
Just three days ago, the Hunter Administration had been operating normally, directing all its administrative bandwidth toward the imminent monthly reveal from the Ruin System. Everyone had gathered around conference tables, wracking their brains over how many ruins would appear and what deployment strategies would secure as many as possible under South Korea's sovereign control.
Right in the middle of those meticulous preparations, a bolt from the blue had struck.
An unidentified South Korean national had soloed one of the roughly twenty Legendary-grade ruins that had appeared across the entire globe—in a mere hour.
Whenever a ruin was cleared, the Ruin System automatically registered and displayed the conqueror's name and official nationality. That meant not only the Korean Hunter Administration, but every major hunter bureau and government agency across the world had witnessed the announcement at the exact same moment.
A domestic hunter claiming a Legendary ruin was hardly a disaster; in fact, having a Korean citizen secure an asset of that caliber was a monumental boon to national strength. The catastrophic issue was that they had no idea who he actually was.
The Korean Hunter Administration had mobilized its full investigative apparatus for the past two days to identify the individual. The results confirmed he was not registered among the agency’s active personnel, nor did the prominent hunter companies that formed the backbone of the domestic industry have any clue regarding his identity.
Whoever he was, he was almost certainly an unverified, newly awakened rookie who possessed absurd, monstrous power.
A Korean securing a Legendary ruin was fantastic in theory, but reality was complicated.
We must be the ones to secure his identity first. At all costs.
This wasn't an ordinary Normal or Rare site. It was a Legendary-grade ruin monopolized by a single individual. Exclusive personal ownership over ruins of Legendary grade or higher was an exceptionally rare phenomenon reserved only for the world's apex sovereigns. In plain terms, if the Hunter Administration wanted to harvest mana resources from that ruin, they now required his explicit authorization.
Furthermore, clearing such an anomaly within an hour proved his personal combat prowess was terrifyingly absolute. That was why they had to do everything in their power to foster an ironclad, favorable relationship between this hunter and the Republic of Korea.
Some might assume that since he was a Korean national, the Hunter Administration could enter the ruin whenever they pleased. But that was a fundamental misunderstanding of the cosmic laws. The Ruin System dictated that access to a conquered ruin was granted solely through the discretion of its original conqueror. Without that clearance, no entity on Earth could breach the barrier.
If that hunter grew disillusioned with South Korea and chose to sign a contract with a foreign power, handing over the ruin’s mining rights…
…As long as I serve as Commissioner, I cannot allow such a disaster to unfold.
Having suffered bitter lessons in past geopolitical ruin disputes, Yoo Jeongtae’s stomach churned with anxiety. Even setting aside the astronomical strategic resources at stake, the man had conquered a Legendary ruin entirely on his own. It was proof of unthinkable martial power from a complete unknown. Bringing him into the national fold would elevate the country's strategic standing overnight.
“We have to find him before anyone else,” Jeongtae ordered sternly. “Above all, we must beat China, Japan, and the United States to the punch.”
“I will keep that in mind, Commissioner.”
Receiving his orders, the Chief of Staff bowed deeply and departed.
Yet no matter how thoroughly the Hunter Administration scoured the country, they wouldn't find a single trace of him anytime soon.
For at that exact moment, Jeon Jaewoo was standing entirely alone with his golem inside his newly conquered Legendary ruin.