Ares was taken aback after hearing about a player with a frying pan on his back. However, this matter completely left his mind after he found something interesting from the Secret Guild’s information. Ares quickly flipped through the pages to find the information that he needed.

[Rovan, a ranker in Versal, has created an account in Athenae and is leveling up at a rapid pace. He has a legendary class and is presumed to be a part of the Legend Guild.]

Ares nodded after reading the information again. It was something that was entirely possible. As he continued to look at Rovan’s information, he thought, ‘We can try to lure Rovan away from Legend Guild and turn him into a spy... If that’s impossible, then it’s also worthwhile to just hunt and kill him.’

If that happened, then that would start a full-fledged Guild War with Legend Guild but it did not matter to Ares. No matter how elite the members of their guild were, Ares Guild was still a large guild that could not be easily touched and provoked by Legend Guild.

[Guild Master Ares: Where are you?]

[Guild Chat | Ruby: I’m at Shrieking Hills.]

‘Perfect.’

Ares’ mouth widened in a ruthless grin. He had just created a dummy account not too long ago and its level is still low. Of course, this did not mean that he was looking down or underestimating Rovan. Then, he saw Ruby saying something more in the guild chat.

[Guild Chat | Ruby: Rovan was a very famous player in Versal so I have been watching his movements ever since he received the quest from Kemil, the kingdom’s representative. He even took the chef that no one wanted to his party.]

Ares shook his head in disagreement. It might have been true that he picked up a useless player, but he was acting in the exact same way like back in Versal. He always took someone that would not hinder him while continuing to hunt in places with limitations in the number of people that could enter.

‘We don’t have to worry about that chef player,’ Ares thought. After all, that player was just some weird-looking, strange player. 

[Guild Master Ares: Is the Ninth Attack Team online?]

[Guild Chat | Hilton: Yes, GM. I’m online.]

[Guild Master Ares: Go to the Shrieking Hills right now and offer Rovan the best possible treatment we can offer him.]

[Guild Chat | Hilton: The best possible treatment we can offer...?]

[Guild Master Ares: Gold, Ares’ hunting grounds and artifacts that could support a player in the game. The best of the best. In addition, offer him a billion as a salary per year.]

[Guild Chat | Hilton: Gasp... a billion gold?]

Hilton did not seem to be aware about the value of the player named Rovan.

[Guild Master Ares: A billion in cash.]

[Guild Chat | Hilton: ...]

Right now, rankers were treated much better than celebrities. In fact, Ares alone had hundreds of millions as his monthly profit. Currently, Rovan was just a budding player in Athenae.

[Guild Chat | Hilton: What if he refuses?]

[Guild Master Ares: Slaughter him. ^^]

Ares sent a smiling emoticon, but anyone who saw it would definitely feel a chill coming down their spines. Hilton, along with 25 other members of the guild, made up the Ninth Attack Team. They were low-leveled players, but they had been receiving unlimited support from Ares Guild. In the future, once they developed, they would definitely be among the top 1,000 players in the country.

[Guild Chat | Hilton: I have seven people online right now. Should I go with this number for now?]

[Guild Master Ares: Yeah. Seven should be enough for now. Just in case, tell the others to log in and proceed to Shrieking Hills. Rovan is a player who should never be underestimated.]

[Guild Chat | Hilton: Yes, I understand.]

Ares leisurely leaned back on his chair after closing the guild chat.

***

“Quaaaaaack!”

“Run...! It’s extremely strong!”

“Crazy...!”

The players inside Shrieking Hills were all scrambling to run away. They had quickly moved to find where the boss mob was when they heard the notifications, trying to raid it, but it was to no avail. In fact, countless players were in the vicinity of the boss mob when it appeared, but it was still too much for them. All of them were slaughtered. In the middle of these scrambling players was a giant monster the size of a horse. It was none other than a giant Magic Duck with golden feathers down its neck.

Flap, flap, flap!

The moment the duck flapped its wings…

[Fire Rain]

[A direct hit will cause damage.]

Crackle, fwoosh!

Huge fireballs fell down from the sky and targeted the fleeing players!

Fwoosh!

Fwoosh!

“Kwaaaa!”

“Aaaaack!”

“Ugh!”

Fire Rain was a third tier magic spell, and for the players that had just entered Level 100, something of this caliber was something that they could not handle.

“This is a motherf*cking balance breaker!”

“But, it’s an epic monster, you know. And, I heard that epic mobs are really hard to kill.”

Another wave of magic attacks followed and attacked the fleeing players.

“Quaaaaack!”

[Fire Breath]

[A direct hit will cause severe damage.]

Puhaaaaaaaaaa!

Blazing and raging flames shot out from the Golden Duck’s mouth. The players that received the attack directly had their health instantly grayed out and were forced to log out.

“What epic items?! Just run away!”

“Wow... It’s really strong...”

Among the fleeing players, Elroe turned around only to see two men rushing. However, instead of fleeing from the Golden Duck, the two of them were rushing straight towards where the monster was. Elroe thought, ‘Earlier… Those guys...!’

The player with a frying pan on his back and the player with the sword on his back.

“Frying Pan Killer!”

“Frying Pan Killer!”

The two of them had become famous in Shrieking Hills with their crazy mob hunting style. Elroe watched the Frying Pan Killer suddenly stop in front of the Golden Duck and say,  “Wow... It’s an extremely big duck... It looks yummy.”

“Mi…Minhyuk-ah. Th…this is not the time for you to drool...”

Elroe saw the player with the greatsword beside the Frying Pan Killer looking a bit panicked. Meanwhile, Minhyuk was still busy drooling over how big and delicious the Golden Duck looked, as he took the frying pan off of his back.

Minhyuk needed to get the delicious ingredients from this giant duck! After eating the Sweet Potato Warrior and the Minotaurus, Minhyuk was already sure of the capabilities of his Eccentric Food God. The monsters that he could eat with the Eccentric Food God would be much more delicious than regular ingredients! So, Minhyuk quickly dashed to where the duck was.

“This crazy ba...” The man with the greatsword said helplessly. All Rovan could do was a facepalm. Then, he thought, ‘That monster is using third tier magic freely...’

Rovan knew that they should not take the boss monster lightly. It was not similar to the Magic Ducks or Mini Trolls at all. The Golden Duck was a monster that was on an entirely different level in terms of magic abilities, compared to normal Magic Ducks. The Golden Duck saw Minhyuk rushing forward and used its Fire Breath to attack.

“Quaaaaaack!”

[Fire Breath]

[A direct hit will cause severe damage.]

Puhaaaaaaa!

A fierce and raging flame spewed out of the Golden Duck’s mouth.

[The Battlefield's Ruler] 

[You will receive a +10 increase in all 5 of your basic stats and a 10% increase in your critical hit damage.] 

This title effect had been useful to Minhyuk whenever he fought against monsters that were stronger than him. At the same time…

[Frying Pan Gigantification.]

[You can adjust the size of your frying pan depending on the mana that you will input.]

Minhyuk enlarged his frying pan until it was big enough to cover his entire body. The moment the Fire Breath met with the frying pan…

Fwoooooosh!

…the Fire Breath was easily deflected, scattering it in all directions. It was unable to overcome the enormous magical defense of the frying pan. Minhyuk slowly took one step forward, then another.

Puhaaaaaaa!

Minhyuk slowly inched forward with his frying pan blocking the raging flames from the Golden Duck’s Fire Breath.

“Am…amazing...” 

“I also want to have a frying pan like that.”

The fleeing players suddenly stopped to watch this scene. Rovan also took advantage of the gap to quickly narrow down the distance between him and the Golden Duck.

“Quaack!”

As soon as the Golden Duck realized that its Fire Breath was not working, it quickly switched to a different magic and used Fire Field.

[Fire Field]

[The ground will be covered in fire, it will cause severe damage.]

Crackle! Vwooooom!

The ground was covered in raging flames with Minhyuk at the center of it all.

“That player is going to be grayed out now,” one of the players said. However, contrary to that player’s prediction, Minhyuk was not really receiving much damage. His magical defense was at 380, so he could ignore even a fourth tier magic spell and strut wherever he wanted.

Rovan, on the other hand, saw his HP plummet the moment he arrived in the vicinity of the Golden Duck and the Fire Field. So, he quickly launched an attack and ran away.

[Rampage]

[Your HP will drop by 20% while your attack power will increase by 30%.]

Rovan wanted to use all of his MP in this single attack to show off the Berserker class’ ultimate skill!

[Greatsword’s Lethal Strike]

[You will be able to swing your greatsword at an extremely high speed eight times in a row.]

Rovan swung his sword eight times in a row. He looked like he was swinging a rapier instead of a greatsword with the speed at which he swung his weapon.

Slaaaash!

Clang!

Clang!

Slash!

Clang!

Slash!

Clang!

Slash!

However, whenever Rovan’s attack reached the Golden Duck, a black shield would be created, protecting it from harm. The shield blocked Rovan’s greatsword, only allowing two out of the eight strikes to reach its body. Thankfully, the two strikes were strong enough to cut through the solid shield and deal damage on the Golden Duck’s body.

“Quaaaaaack!”

Bang!

The duck quickly flapped its wings and kicked the ground with its foot. Rovan immediately pulled back when he saw the duck move. He thought, ‘How can this duck bastard be so broken?! Why are its attack and defense so high?!’

Rovan could see that his HP had already fallen down to less than 30%. Before he could even register what was happening, he saw Minhyuk arrive right in front of the Golden Duck. Minhyuk knew that epic monsters that had appeared in the country’s server could be counted on one hand. Most of these types of monsters were clearly difficult to hunt for the current players. To hunt these monsters, plenty of high-leveled players needed to team up.

Hwaaaack!

Once the Golden Duck saw that Minhyuk had narrowed the distance between them, it quickly fired a fireball towards Minhyuk. Several fireballs flew at him at a furious speed. Just before the fireball reached him…

[Step.]

[You can instantly travel a distance of one meter allowing you to quickly narrow or widen your distance from your target.]

…Minhyuk dodged in the nick of time. Thankfully, the fireballs only exploded after they reached the ground.

Bang!

Some of the debris flew towards him, but Minhyuk did not receive much damage from it.

[Ellie’s Swordsmanship.]

[All stats will have a 15% increase for 5 minutes.]

[Your Evasion Rate has increased by +30%.]

[Your Critical Hit Rate has increased by +30%.]

Minhyuk thought that he needed to finish this all at once. He placed the frying pan behind his back and drew Ellie’s Sword out of his waist. This was the first time Rovan had seen him pull the sword out of his waist, and he could see that there was vast difference when Minhyuk used the frying pan compared to when he was using Ellie’s Sword. He could tell that the Rampant Sword worked much better compared to when he used the skill with his frying pan.

[Rampant Sword.]

[A flurry of rampant swords with additional 30% attack power will be created for 5 seconds.]

Shwaaa!

Shwaaaaa!

Shwaaaaaa!

The flurry of swords harshly attacked the Golden Duck.

Rustle!

The duck tried to create a shield to block the attacks. However, the moment the rampant swords hit the shield...

Slash!

Crack━

…The shield was destroyed in a single hit and his attacks directly landed all over the body of the Golden Duck.

Spurt!

Slash!

Slaaaaash!

The sword attacks continued to strike the Golden Duck indiscriminately for five straight seconds. It was even moving at a speed that was much faster compared to normal attacks. The Golden Duck could not do anything during those five seconds.

“Quaaaack!”

In the end, the Golden Duck fell down with a shriek. A series of notifications suddenly rang in Minhyuk and Rovan’s heads.

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[...leveled up.]

Minhyuk listened to a total of eight leveling up notifications while he used Ingredient Acquisition to gather the ingredients and materials that he could use. The meat of the Golden Duck was immediately sucked into his inventory. This was acquired by his own skill, so it was not shared with Rovan. As he was acquiring the ingredients and looking at the materials that dropped, Minhyuk found an old-looking ‘radish’. An idea flashed through Minhyuk’s mind and he immediately picked the material up.

[Party: Rovan has acquired a Thousand-Year-Old Tuber Fleeceflower[1].]

1. 하수오: scientifically known as Fallopia multiflora and is more commonly known as tuber fleeceflower or Chinese knotweed, an ingredient mainly used for traditional Chinese medicine ☜