Clearing dungeons at inhuman speed. Leaving behind nothing but dust and confusion. And smiling like that.

  Mu Yichen, silent all this time, stood with his arms crossed and watched the van. His brows were furrowed, jaw tight.

  He had tried.

  He really had.

  He’d brought coffee. Specially brewed from a rare seed that bloomed only under moonlight. Aseok handed it to the dog.

  He’d booked a quiet booth in a mountain teahouse for strategic team bonding. Aseok skipped it to dismantle a rogue dungeon in Peru. Alone.

  He’d even read books on emotionally distant personalities to better understand Aseok's cold aura.

  It did not help.

  Aseok still replied to most things with a blink, a nod, or the emotionally rich statement: “Okay.”

  And when he wasn’t ignoring him, he was feeding the dog with the care of a Michelin chef preparing a feast.

  Mu Yichen clenched his fist as he remembered the day Kang Juwon hand-fed Aseok a sandwich. That haunted him at least once a week.

  “Mu Yichen,” Kang Juwon said casually, stepping next to him. “You’re staring too hard. Jealousy doesn’t suit you.”

  “I’m not jealous,” Mu Yichen said, far too quickly.

  Kang Juwon raised an eyebrow. “Sure.”

  Inside the van, Lee Aseok adjusted the seat, turned on the air conditioning, and pulled out a dog toy for Pudding, who climbed into his lap like royalty.

  Seo MinHyun sighed. “I’m telling you. He’s a dungeon deity in disguise.”

  “Or a cursed dungeon core turned human,” He Ziqin offered.

  “Or the final boss that reincarnated into a hunter’s body and now lives among us.”

  “Could be a clone.”

  “Or a bug in the system.”

  Mu Yichen sighed as he listened to the others spiral into madness.

  He understood. He really did. Every day with Lee Aseok was a logic-defying event.

  But one thing remained clear.

  Mu Yichen wasn’t someone who gave up easily.

  If Lee Aseok was the final boss?

  He’d be the one to tame him.

  Even if it took a thousand dungeon clearances, a hundred gourmet dog treats, and decades of polite small talk.

  He wasn’t giving up.

  Not ever.

  From inside the van, Lee Aseok yawned and leaned back, his arm cradling Pudding while the other rested over his eyes.

  The holy sword flickered in the corner, trying to hum a song of destiny.

  Lee Aseok turned up the radio.

  The hum stopped.

  Outside, the team slowly walked toward the van like soldiers marching into the unknown.

  Seo MinHyun sighed. “You think this is karma?”

  He Ziqin nodded. “Feels personal.”

  Mu Yichen just smiled faintly. “No. It’s fate.”

  Kang Juwon snorted. “It’s pain.”

  And so, the hero team once again followed their unpredictable, possibly villainous, emotionally unavailable, and dog-obsessed leader into another gate.

  They weren’t sure if they were saving the world… or just chasing the end of it.

  Either way, there was no turning back.

  Mu Yichen wasn’t someone who gave up easily.

  Not when it came to Lee Aseok.

  So when the moment came, quiet, late, with the hallway bathed in moonlight, Mu Yichen didn’t hesitate.

  Lee Aseok had just stepped out of his room after a bath, hair damp and skin faintly flushed.

  Dressed in his usual all-black outfit, he looked like a wet cat that had climbed out of hell and didn’t care who knew.

  He had just closed the door when suddenly..

  His wrist was grabbed.

  In a blink, Mu Yichen pulled him back into the room and closed the door with a quiet click.

  “What are you doing,” Lee Aseok asked flatly, more curious than alarmed.

  “You don’t talk to me,” Mu Yichen said, voice low. “You ignore me. You treat me like air.”

  Lee Aseok blinked slowly. “Air is important.”

  Mu Yichen exhaled sharply, then moved, pressing Lee Aseok against the wall, trapping him in place.

  Lee Aseok stared at him calmly, their noses almost touching, eyes locked.

  Mu Yichen's heart was racing, his breath shallow.

  But Lee Aseok’s gaze remained unreadable, no blush, no panic, just an annoying calmness that made Mu Yichen want to shake him.

  Once upon a time, Aseok would have melted under this closeness. Would’ve flushed red, stammered, even looked away. But now...

  Nothing.

  Emotionally, Aseok might as well be a well-programmed microwave.

  Mu Yichen clenched his jaw and took Aseok’s hand, guiding it up to his chest, pressing his palm over his heart.

  “Can you feel it?”

  Lee Aseok’s breath caught.

  Because yes, he could.

  “Budum… Budum… Budum…”

  The rhythm was fast, erratic, and strong.

  Lee Aseok’s eyes widened for a second, an unguarded second of surprise breaking through his normally frozen exterior.

  But then, like mist dissipating, the emotion faded from his expression, and his gaze lowered.

  Still, his hand remained on Mu Yichen’s chest. Still, the warmth of the beating heart pulsed against his palm.

  Mu Yichen leaned closer. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

  His voice was raw. Not desperate, but close. As if he already knew the answer and hated that he was still asking.

  Lee Aseok didn’t answer right away. Instead, he slowly removed his hand, only to bring Mu Yichen’s hand to his own chest.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  They rested there, over his heart, unmoving.

  It was… steady.

  Too steady.

  Mu Yichen’s eyes flickered.

  Aseok said nothing, but the silence spoke volumes.

  There was no panic. No tension. No racing pulse.

  Only that eerie calm, like the center of a long-dead storm.

  The contrast was jarring.

  Mu Yichen’s heart pounded like it might break through his ribs. Lee Aseok’s beat was like he was standing in an elevator lobby.

  Aseok looked up at him at last, gaze distant. “It’s not the same.”

  Mu Yichen’s lips parted in disbelief. For a second, he just stood there, stunned.

  Then he let out a short laugh, humorless, but not bitter. “I figured.”

  He didn’t move back. If anything, he stepped in just a little closer, his voice dropping lower.

  “But I’m not going to give up just because your heart’s slower than mine.”

  Then, slowly, deliberately, he lifted Aseok’s hand again, and pressed a kiss to the back of it.

  It was warm. Gentle. Not demanding, not pleading.

  Just... real.

  Lee Aseok didn’t pull away.

  But he didn’t say anything either.

  Mu Yichen looked at him one last time, eyes soft, but determined.

  Then he turned around and walked out of the room.

  The door shut quietly behind him.

  Lee Aseok remained frozen in place, his damp hair slowly drying, his hand still tingling from the kiss.

  He stared at the door for a long time.

  A minute passed.

  Then another.

  And finally, he whispered to the empty room, “You betrayed me.”

  His voice was barely audible. Barely human.

  His hand curled into a fist, pressing lightly against his chest where Mu Yichen’s hand had been moments ago.

  Before his rebirth, before everything, he had longed for a moment like this.

  Mu Yichen, choosing him.

  Touching him.

  Looking at him like that.

  But that was then.

  For a moment, the urge to grab him by the collar surged up like a reflex. He wanted to pull him close, shove him against the wall, and ask..

  “Why did you betray me?”

  But Lee Aseok didn’t move.

  This wasn’t the past life.

  This Mu Yichen knew nothing.

  His heart was still na?ve, still warm, still desperately pounding for a man who no longer responded. Asking now would be like scolding a dog for a crime it hadn’t committed yet.

  Now, Mu Yichen didn’t know any of it.

  He didn’t remember the way he hesitated that day. The way his voice never called out Aseok’s name. The way his back looked as he walked away toward someone else.

  This Mu Yichen was clean.

  Untainted by betrayal.

  So what was the point?

  What was the point of asking, Why?

  Lee Aseok sighed, dragging a hand through his hair in frustration.

  Pudding barked faintly outside the door, sensing something strange inside.

  He didn’t like this situation.

  He didn’t like being looked at like that.

  Didn’t like being dragged back into something he’d spent years trying to bury.

  Didn’t like the heat of someone’s heart bleeding into his hand when his own heart had gone cold long ago.

  Lee Aseok stared at his hand again, the one Mu Yichen had kissed.

  And slowly, methodically, he wiped it on his pants.

  Then, he picked up the iron rod resting beside his bed, opened the door, and stepped out, expression once again blank, his presence once again quiet.

  Another month passed like that.

  Quietly, swiftly, terrifyingly.

  Lee Aseok cleared dungeons like he was harvesting potatoes from his backyard.

  In that single month, the world’s high-ranking guilds began doing something they’d never done before: fighting like rabid hyenas for dungeon clearance rights.

  Not to challenge Lee Aseok, of course, no one was that suicidal.

  But rather, they were scrambling to clear the dungeon on their own so they can get even a little profit.

  Lee Aseok didn’t care. He didn’t even bother to look at the offers. He simply pointed to the closest red dot on the map and walked.

  No plane tickets. No special teams. No official paperwork.

  He just teleported.

  Across borders, across oceans, across scorched battlefields.

  People stopped asking when he’d stop. Some tried to say he was overdoing it.

  Until one B-rank hunter accidentally said it loud enough for Lee Aseok to hear.

  That was the day Lee Aseok raised the iron rod without looking up.

  The hunter barely dodged. Barely.

  From that moment on, no one asked.

  Word spread fast.

  The hero of the holy sword had no patience.

  He didn’t distinguish between monsters and humans when it came to dungeon interference.

  If someone so much as coughed too close to the gate he was eyeing, the iron rod would rise. That rod, no one knew where he got it, but it had sent at least three people flying.

  They lived.

  Mostly.

  “Monster?” people whispered.

  “No. Worse. It’s Lee Aseok.”

  Governments tried to hold meetings. Tried.

  Journalists wanted interviews. Tried.

  Guild masters wanted contracts. Tried.

  Every single time, Lee Aseok just walked past them with a puppy in one hand and a dungeon core pulsing quietly in his pocket.

  Even the holy sword, once radiating divine light, was now sulking in the corner of the team van like a cat ignored by its owner.

  “Why does he keep ignoring me…?” the sword would’ve sobbed if it had vocal cords.

  On paper, they were called The Chosen Party.

  The elite team blessed by the holy sword.

  The finest heroes of this generation, handpicked by fate, bonded by trust, fueled by courage, moving as one.

  At least… that’s what the public believed.

  Reality?

  Mu Yichen, Park Taegun, Seo MinHyun, and Kang Juwon stared across the briefing room table, all of them in various stages of stress-related breakdown.

  Coffee cups trembled in their hands. Park Taegun hadn’t blinked in ten minutes.

  Seo MinHyun was muttering into his iced latte.

  Kang Juwon was staring at the ceiling like it had wronged him.

  And Lee Aseok?

  Lee Aseok was missing.

  Again.

  As always.

  Probably clearing another S-rank gate alone or lounging in the van brushing his husky’s tail.

  Who knew?

  Who dared to ask?

  “Just once,” Seo MinHyun croaked. “Just once I want to enter a gate with him. Not five minutes after he already killed everything.”

  “That would require him to acknowledge our existence,” Kang Juwon replied without looking down.

  Mu Yichen sighed and massaged his temples. “We are literally called his ‘teammates.’ We are named.”

  “We are props,” Park Taegun said blankly. “powerfull, exhausted, underpaid props.”

  “I’m not underpaid,” Kang Juwon added.

  “Shut up, Kang.”

  Meanwhile, outside the room, and more importantly, outside reality, the world was on fire with Lee Aseok mania.

  The internet was a shrine. The fan forums updated faster than satellites. Art, memes, slow-motion battle edits. Even conspiracy theories.

  [LEE ASEOK IS A DRAGON THEORY]

  [LEE ASEOK’S PUPPY IS ACTUALLY A DISGUISED SPIRIT BEAST]

  [IRON ROD SECRETLY MADE OF A GOD’S SPINE?]

  The world couldn't get enough of him.

  And perhaps the most baffling part?

  He never did interviews.

  He never waved at crowds.

  He never smiled on camera.

  The most interaction anyone ever got was a blurry photo of him stepping over a destroyed wyvern corpse with his husky in one arm and a bag of beef jerky in the other. His expression: deadpan. Eyebrows? Unmoved. Aura? Murder.

  Yet people loved him.

  Especially the children.

  Toy stores had begun selling miniature “Iron Rod of Justice” toys. Kindergarteners could be seen running around playgrounds, swinging their foam rods while yelling, “I’ll clear this dungeon by myself!”

  There was even a new anime where the main character wielded a magical rod and glared silently at everything until the villain spontaneously combusted.

  Merchandise exploded.

  T-shirts with “I ? Aseok” slogans.

  Pudding-shaped backpacks. A phone app where fans could “raise their own stoic dungeon hero.”

  Meanwhile, Lee Aseok, hero of the world, was nowhere to be found.

  Because currently, he was sleeping in the back of the van.

  On a beanbag.

  With a husky curled up on his chest.

  As usual.

  The others found him there an hour later.

  Seo MinHyun peeked in first, froze, and hissed back, “He's napping.”

  “What, again?” He Ziqin said, leaning over. “We’re carrying the weight of half the continent’s press coverage and he’s just... curled up?”

  Mu Yichen stood behind them, expression unreadable. “He must’ve cleared the Siberian dungeon this morning.”

  “And came back in time for a nap?” MinHyun gaped. “That gate had three boss-tier beasts!”

  “Yeah,” Taegun muttered. “And?”

  “…Right.”

  They climbed into the van like tired interns visiting their boss’ office. Quiet. Careful. Scared.

  Lee Aseok cracked one eye open as they entered. He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just raised a brow. Barely.

  That alone made all four of them sit straighter.

  “I brought you coffee,” Mu Yichen said, holding out a cup like an offering to a picky god.

  Lee Aseok blinked slowly and turned his head away.

  Pudding wagged her tail.

  “…That’s a no,” Kang Juwon said.

  “I knew that,” Mu Yichen muttered, setting the cup down anyway.

  They all sat in silence for a while.

  Then Seo MinHyun snapped.

  “I can’t do this anymore! The world thinks we’re a party! They keep calling us the ‘Holy Five’ or the ‘Hero Crew’! They think we coordinate!”

  “We don’t?” Taegun said.

  “NO! We don’t! You saw what happened last week! I tried to shout out a formation plan and he just, just walked in alone! Killed the entire dungeon before we finished putting on our gloves!”

  “It was efficient,” Kang Juwon added unhelpfully.

  “You’re not helping, Kang!”

  They turned to Mu Yichen, who was watching Lee Aseok in contemplative silence.

  “…Say something,” MinHyun whispered.

  Mu Yichen took a long breath. “I think... I think we’re in a relationship.”

  Everyone blinked.

  “What?”

  “With a war god,” Mu Yichen clarified.

  “Okay,” said MinHyun, standing up. “I’m quitting.”

  “No, you’re not,” Taegun said.

  “…True.”

  Outside the van, a group of fans gathered by the gate’s protective fence, waving signs and screaming slogans.

  “Aseok-oppa, please look this way!”

  “Oppa, take me to your dungeon!”

  “Raise your rod again!!”

  One even tossed a plush iron rod into the air.

  Seo MinHyun rubbed his eyes. “We’re living in a post-logic world.”

  Mu Yichen looked out the window at the adoring crowd.

  Then at Lee Aseok, who hadn’t blinked in five minutes.

  “…They think he cares about them,” he said.

  “He doesn’t even care about us,” Kang said, sipping his coffee.

  Pudding rolled over, demanding belly rubs. Lee Aseok obligingly complied.

  MinHyun groaned. “You know what hurts most? He has the biggest responsibility out of all of us. He’s the actual chosen hero. But he acts like we’re the ones managing world peace.”

  “He doesn’t act,” Taegun corrected. “He is carefree. He just happens to be god-tier while doing it.”

  “…And no one can say anything,” Kang added.

  “No one dares,” Mu Yichen agreed.

  The van door slammed shut.

  Lee Aseok stood up, adjusting his coat, Pudding leaping down with practiced ease.

  “Where are you going?” Mu Yichen asked instinctively.

  Aseok tilted his head toward the new dungeon blinking on the monitor.

  And just like that, he walked.

  No briefing. No plan. No goodbyes.

  Just movement.

  The rest stared after him.

  “…Are we following?” MinHyun asked.

  “We always follow,” Park Taegun said, already grabbing his gear.

  Behind them, a new fan chant broke out:

  “The Hero Party, Hero Party!”

  Mu Yichen sighed and whispered under his breath.

  “There is no party.”

  Author Note:

  Thank you for reading and for screaming in the comments—your suffering is my fuel.

  Every “OH MY GOD ASEOK STOP” gives me the strength to write the next disaster.

  Mon ? Wed ? Fri

  (Yes, I too question my life choices.)

  If you want early chapters, extra chaos, or just want to support my addiction to writing unhinged characters:

  ??

  And if you enjoy this story even a little,

  please leave a review or rating—it helps summon new victims readers. ??