I’m Here to End This Fight – Chapter 263

Chapter 263. Reward (4)

As soon as Gunther finished speaking, everyone eagerly nodded as if they shared the same thought.

“That’s a bit…”

“Yeah! That last part was too much!”

“I’m hungry!”

“Well… even though it’s Senior Yuri, isn’t that a bit of a stretch?”

To them, it was hard to believe.

Since they knew Yuri’s abilities, they could somewhat accept the exaggerated stories up to the 8th floor. After all, tales of heroism are always embellished a little.

But the part about Yuri landing a strike on Coco, the Deputy Commander and an officially recognized 9th Dan, was truly hard to believe.

Seeing the reactions around him, Yuri burst out in frustration.

“What? You guys don’t believe me? It’s true!”

Gunther, with his arms crossed, asked in response to Yuri’s outburst.

“Do you even know how many officially recognized 9th Dans exist in the world?”

“No. How many are there?”

“While there are more compared to the Masters, the total number of recognized 9th Dans worldwide doesn’t even reach 100. And since Coco is the Deputy Commander of the Cradle, she must be one of the top.”

“……”

“In other words, if you landed a strike on her, it means your skill reached one of the top 100 experts in the world.”

The reason others found it so hard to believe Yuri’s words.

It was because, aside from those who had transcended into the realm of Masters, an officially recognized 9th Dan was essentially at the pinnacle of human martial ability.

As Yuri listened quietly to Gunther’s explanation, he stroked his chin lightly. Soon, a serious tone flowed from his lips.

“I guess… I’m a better guy than I thought?”

Yuri was already grinning widely.

Watching him, Theresia’s eyes darkened.

‘Is it really true…?’

Rude.

Cunning.

And a master of deception.

Yuri was skilled at pulling cons and tricking others.

However, he only acted that way when it came to something that benefited him. When it wasn’t related to his advantage, he didn’t lie. No, he didn’t have to.

That meant that the story Yuri had just told was likely all true.

If that were the case…

‘How did he even make it out alive?’

If his words were true, the hellish difficulty of the trial wasn’t something designed to be cleared.

The fact that Yuri had even survived was nothing short of a miracle.

And one more thing.

‘If he really did manage to land a strike on the Deputy Commander…’

If that were true, then Yuri’s skill had increased even further. Even more than what Theresia had known recently.

A bitter smile appeared on Theresia’s face.

‘How far ahead do you plan to go…?’

Despite knowing the gap between herself and Yuri, she still hadn’t given up on chasing him. No, she couldn’t.

Theresia had decided that she would never give up, no matter what.

She had tried to follow him, even if it meant chasing the faint traces he left behind.

But now, it seemed like even that was becoming harder and harder to do.

And it wasn’t just Theresia who felt that way.

Gunther’s gaze also reflected a complicated mix of emotions as he looked at Yuri.

He was thinking the exact same thing as Theresia.

While Theresia and Gunther both watched Yuri with similar expressions…

Someone else had quietly risen and was moving stealthily.

“Yuri, what’s this?”

With a face full of curiosity, Arin reached out toward a large sack placed in the corner of the dining hall.

At the sound of Arin’s question, Yuri’s previously grinning face instantly turned cold.

And then—

*Whoosh!*

A chopstick flew from Yuri’s hand, narrowly missing Arin’s outstretched hand and embedding itself into the wall.

*Thud!*

The chopstick had struck with such force that it was almost halfway buried into the wall, trembling.

“Eek!”

Arin, pale and shaken, clutched his hand, which had nearly been pierced by the chopstick, and screamed.

“You… you scared me! What the heck are you doing?”

“How dare you try to put your filthy hand on my treasure… Do you have a death wish?”

“This is really…”

Arin glanced sideways at Yuri, eyeing him carefully.

Then, he shot a peculiar look toward Poppy and Gunther.

The moment Arin gave that signal, both of them immediately sprang into action.

‘Now!’

‘I’m hungry!’

Poppy and Gunther jumped up and charged toward Yuri.

Anyone could see they were trying to pin him down.

At the same time, Arin reached out again toward Yuri’s sack.

Perhaps because they had coordinated their movements countless times in the Tower of Trials, their actions were perfectly synchronized, without any excess motion.

Not only that, but they had both become much faster.

Watching them, Mucci thought that Yuri would surely be caught by Poppy and Gunther, and Arin would get his hands on the sack.

But that was Mucci’s misjudgment.

*Smack!*

A crisp sound of impact.

“Ugh!”

Accompanied by a groan.

“I… I’m hungry?”

“……?!”

And then there were Gunther and Poppy, blinking in confusion, grasping at thin air.

“What?!”

When Mucci frantically looked around for Yuri, he saw him standing in front of Arin, who was clutching his forehead and crouched down.

Not only that, but Yuri was holding the large sack on his shoulder.

“You rookies.”

Yuri sneered down at them, his eyes filled with mockery, as Theresia could only stare in a daze.

‘When…?’

She had no idea when or how Yuri had moved.

Gunther and Poppy were no different.

While the two of them stood there dumbfounded, Yuri waved his hand dismissively.

“I’m leaving!”

And with light, gleeful steps, he disappeared from the dining hall.

Theresia, who had been staring blankly at the exit where Yuri had just vanished, suddenly let out a small chuckle.

“He’s back.”

The master of the Demon King’s Castle, who had been absent for a while, had returned.

Stronger than ever.

* * *

Yuri entered his residence.

He firmly locked the door and started searching everywhere.

Even though it was his own place, he tiptoed around, meticulously inspecting every nook and cranny.

‘That old man… he’s snuck in so many times before.’

Although Johan hadn’t shown up since last time, when had Johan ever given a warning before showing up?

What Yuri was about to do was very important, so it was only natural for him to check for any sign that Johan might be hiding.

After thoroughly confirming several times that no one was there, Yuri finally stood in the center of the room and tipped over the large sack.

Out spilled a pile of black boxes.

*Clatter—*

The black boxes piled up one after another.

Each was a 20 cm cube made of thin wood, and there were exactly thirty of them.

On one side of the boxes, mysterious white numbers were written.

These were the reward boxes from the hell difficulty trial.

Yuri looked down at the boxes with a tinge of regret.

‘Tch, what a waste.’

With his mastery of domains and magic flow, Yuri could have roughly discerned the contents of the boxes, even if not with complete accuracy.

He could’ve at least been able to tell if an item inside contained mana or not.

‘Then I could’ve just picked out all the elixirs and potions.’

But as if they had anticipated Yuri’s trickery—

“Pick thirty numbers between 1 and 100.”

Before leaving the Tower of Trials, when Yuri requested his reward, the administrator didn’t show him the boxes and just asked him to choose the numbers.

Afterward, the administrator handed him the thirty boxes corresponding to the numbers Yuri had chosen.

The boxes before him now were the result.

‘Well, at this point… I’ll just have to trust my luck.’

If skill wasn’t enough, then luck had to come into play.

After all, maybe luck was a skill in its own right?

It was time to see how good his luck was.

‘Alright!’

Yuri picked up the closest box.

But his face soon hardened.

‘It’s light?’

The wooden box was so light that it barely weighed anything.

When he shook it gently, there was barely any sound.

‘Is it paper?’

Yuri tilted his head in confusion and opened the box.

Though the wooden box was tightly sealed, it opened easily in Yuri’s hands.

*Creak—*

As expected, inside was a single sheet of paper.

A thick, high-quality sheet of paper.

On it were some numbers and a seal.

A smile spread across Yuri’s face.

“20 million points?”

Not bad at all!

He had only opened one box, and already, it was worth 20 million points!

As Yuri’s excitement grew, Coco’s words flashed through his mind.

[The Heavenly Fruit. It’s the ultimate reward for those who conquer hell and touch the sky.]

The quality of rewards depended on the difficulty of the quest.

Coco had referred to the hell-difficulty rewards as “Heavenly Fruits.”

The rewards for the hell difficulty were as sweet as could be.

And from the first box he opened, Yuri already knew that Coco’s words weren’t wrong.

His hands moved even faster.

After opening three more boxes in quick succession, he found three more pieces of paper.

One worth 10 million points.

One worth 30 million points.

And—

“What’s this?”

A vacation pass for eight days and nine nights.

“Damn, what a piece

of junk.”

To others, a vacation pass might have been worth more than tens of millions of points, but to Yuri, it was just a useless scrap of paper.

With a look of annoyance, he tossed the vacation pass aside and reached for the next box.

*Rattle—*

There was a rolling sound from inside.

Just from that, Yuri could tell that the box didn’t contain paper.

His expression hardened as he quickly opened the box and pulled out its contents.

‘This is…?’

Inside were two items: a small vial of liquid and a note.

Yuri unfolded the note.

The words written on it read:

[Top-Grade Mana Enhancement Elixir]

As soon as he saw the words, Yuri’s face lit up.

“Yes! This is it!”

Could anything be sweeter?

The appearance of such a highly sought-after elixir, which would cost at least billions to purchase, had Yuri so thrilled that he hurried to open the remaining boxes.

A little while later—

After opening all the boxes, Yuri had a contented smile on his face.

“I’m rich.”

The total number of points he obtained from the boxes.

The lowest amount was 10 million, and the highest was 50 million.

There wasn’t a single box with less than 1 million points.

In total, he had accumulated 520 million points.

Yuri was certain.

‘I’ll never run out of points again.’

With this many points, achieving first place in the monthly rankings would be a piece of cake.

Of course, he would still need more to surpass Johan’s final graduation score of 999,999,999 points, but even that wouldn’t take long now.

“Hehehe.”

Yuri fanned out the point certificates in his hand like a deck of cards.

“Mmm! So this is what wealth smells like?”

As he grinned and sniffed the air, his eyes fell on the three pieces of paper he had set aside, and his expression quickly soured.

“Tch, why do they always include useless stuff like this?”

The three pieces of paper he had set aside were all 8-day, 9-night vacation passes.

Annoyed by the increase in useless scraps of paper, Yuri’s expression brightened again when he looked at the few items he had set aside next to him.

‘Well, considering three out of thirty were duds… it’s not a bad outcome.’

In fact, wasn’t it a great result?

Yuri glanced at the real treasures he had drawn.

Two top-grade elixirs.

Three superior-grade elixirs.

A chunk of Baekgang Steel, larger than his fist.

An unknown armor called *Sujeong Gap*.

A Mana Crystal.

A thumb-sized stone called *Baekya*.

And finally, a red pill named *Elion*.

For thirty boxes, the amount of items wasn’t much, but each one was far from ordinary.

And that wasn’t all that Yuri had gained.

*Swish—*

Yuri rolled up his pants.

Revealed on his shins were blue guards, strapped tightly around both legs.

Made of solid metal, the thin shin guards were covered in strange, yellow markings and wrapped snugly around Yuri’s legs like bracelets.

Yuri sent mana into the guards.

*Slide—*

The guards, which had been tightly gripping his shins, loosened as if alive and then fell to the ground.

But the sound they made when they hit the floor was eerie.

*Thud!*

It was like the thud of a heavy stone dropping.

Yuri, who had taken off the guards, clicked his tongue with a relieved expression.

“Tsk, I don’t know if this is a gift or a burden.”

The bizarrely heavy shin guards.

They were none other than Coco’s “gift” to him for amusing her.

When she had casually handed them over, Yuri had nearly dislocated his arm just from trying to catch them.

Coco had snickered when she saw that.

[Can’t even lift a measly 50 kg? What kind of man are you?]

50 kilograms.

Of course, that was just the weight of one guard.

Together, they weighed 100 kg.

Yuri had been astonished by how Coco had moved so swiftly while wearing these heavy things on both legs.

He had also pouted when he realized that Coco had given him such a heavy and seemingly useless gift.

Seeing his sulking face, Coco had looked at him with displeasure.

In her eyes, Yuri could read the thought: “Should I just take it back since I’m reluctant to give it away?”

Not wanting to lose the guards, Yuri had immediately zipped his lips and stashed them away.

After all, if someone as powerful as Coco was reluctant to part with them, they must be valuable.

Coco had laughed at his quick change in attitude.

[You sure are quick to catch on.]

Then she had added a few more words.

[Those are called *Punggak* (Wind Leg Guards). To use them properly, you’ll need something called *Pungdokyeol* (Wind Path Secret). It should be somewhere in the Cradle, so you’ll have to find it.]

Coco’s eyes had gleamed with a trace of regret as she said those words.