Park Taegun, who had been leaning against the wall watching the drama unfold with crossed arms, looked at Mu Yichen and said calmly, “You hesitated again.”

  “He was holding the puppy,” Yichen muttered.

  “So?”

  “It didn’t feel right to interrupt that.”

  Seo MinHyun, arms thrown up in despair, turned toward them. “We’re being outclassed by a newborn dog! Do you know how humiliating this is?!”

  As if on cue, the tiny clatter of nails against the floor echoed behind them.

  They turned.

  The puppy, freshly fed and satisfied, blinked up at them with bright eyes.

  It had the same dark, pale-tinted irises as Lee Aseok. Quiet. Watchful. A little sleepy.

  For a second, they all thought, Ah, it’s coming to us now. Maybe it wants to play.

  The puppy blinked once.

  Twice.

  Then it turned around, tail wagging gently, and followed after its owner, tiny paws padding diligently behind the closed bedroom door.

  Click.

  “…”

  “…Did we just get ignored again?” MinHyun whispered.

  “This is the third time today,” Yichen said, sounding faintly amazed.

  Taegun simply nodded. “The dog’s learning fast.”

  MinHyun pointed an accusing finger. “That thing’s becoming more like him by the hour! They say pets resemble their owners over time, but this?! It’s been, what, less than two days?”

  “I told you we should’ve asserted dominance early,” Taegun said. “You let it win the tug-of-war.”

  “It’s a twoweek-old puppy!”

  “That’s your excuse?”

  Mu Yichen exhaled through his nose, rubbing his temple with graceful resignation. “He’s already formed an attachment.”

  “To the puppy?” MinHyun asked.

  “No. The puppy’s formed an attachment to him. Aseok probably doesn’t even realize it yet.”

  From the hallway, a small muffled bark echoed through the door.

  Behind the closed door, Lee Aseok placed the sleepy puppy on the blanket in his room. It curled up instantly, making a little whining noise as it tucked its nose beneath its paws.

  He stared at it for a while.

  Silent.

  Still.

  Then he sat beside it, back against the wall, rod resting across his knees.

  His eyes, faintly red in the dim light, didn’t blink for a long time.

  Eventually, his hand reached out.

  Slowly, gently, he placed it near the puppy.

  It nuzzled into his fingers without hesitation.

  “…Don’t die,” he whispered, barely audible.

  The puppy’s tail gave a slow, sleepy thump.

  And Lee Aseok closed his eyes.

  Over the next few days, the contrast between the world outside and the world inside the house couldn’t have been more severe.

  Gate panic was spreading.

  Across the country, reports of dungeons destabilizing before official raids were complete sent every guild scrambling.

  Monsters were breaching earlier than ever before, and speculation flooded the networks: mutated cores, reverse pressure collapse, new class of dungeons.

  Emergency meetings were scheduled.

  Task forces assembled.

  Mu Yichen, Park Taegun, and Seo MinHyun, each ranked among the highest-tier combatants, were neck-deep in strategy reports, travel plans, and damage control.

  But every time they came home…

  Peace.

  Absurd, unshaken peace.

  The living room was always dim with curtains drawn. There was a lingering smell of warm soup and floral shampoo.

  The holy sword leaned in its usual spot on the wall, untouched and ignored like a decorative coat rack.

  And somewhere on the carpet or couch, or, on particularly lazy days, both, lay Lee Aseok and the puppy.

  Sleeping.

  Again.

  Today, they found him lying flat on his stomach, face half-buried in a pillow, with the puppy curled perfectly along the line of his spine.

  Both of them snored. The same rhythm. The same position. The same slightly furrowed brow in sleep.

  MinHyun stood at the door with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, expression frozen in disbelief.

  “Is this… a nap marathon?”

  “I think this is their fourth one today,” Taegun muttered, checking the time.

  “He hasn’t even opened the front door in three days.”

  “I checked the hallway camera,” Yichen added. “Groceries are delivered. The guy scheduled them.”

  “Unbelievable…” MinHyun put a hand over his chest. “Meanwhile, I have bruises on my back from rolling away from an ogre’s axe, Taegun has a cracked shield, and Yichen’s been on four calls with the national guild leader….”

  The puppy snorted and kicked its legs in its sleep.

  “..and these two are watching anime and napping?!”

  In the kitchen, hot ramen water was still steaming in a pot. Half a sliced boiled egg floated lazily beside untouched noodles. A can of juice sat half-drunk, condensation slowly trailing down the metal.

  “I think they passed out halfway through eating,” Yichen said, voice tight with disbelief.

  “Who even sleeps while eating ramen?” MinHyun demanded.

  “Aseok,” Taegun answered plainly.

  A few minutes later, they sat in the kitchen, three men physically and emotionally drained, while the living room continued to hum with soft anime soundtracks and occasional puppy yawns.

  Mu Yichen looked toward the hallway. “You know… we should probably talk to him.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  MinHyun rested his chin on the table. “We’ve been saying that for a week.”

  “He keeps ignoring us.”

  “I think that dog’s doing it on purpose now,” MinHyun muttered. “It looks at me like I’m furniture.”

  “Probably learned that from Aseok.”

  “I’m being emotionally destroyed by a furball.”

  Taegun pushed a report toward Yichen. “This gate breach pattern, it’s accelerating. We’ll get dispatched again soon.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  MinHyun exhaled and finally stood. “…You know what? I’m going to walk into that room, look Aseok in the eye, and demand an actual conversation like a proper adult.”

  Yichen blinked. “You sure?”

  “No,” he admitted. “But I’m desperate.”

  He marched down the hall with grim determination, raised his hand, and knocked on the bedroom door.

  No response.

  He knocked again. Louder.

  Still nothing.

  “…I know you’re in there!” he called. “I saw your ankle sticking out from under the blanket!”

  Silence.

  He cracked the door open just slightly.

  Lee Aseok blinked at him from the floor. His head rested against the dog’s plush bed.

  The puppy opened its eyes, looked at MinHyun, and let out a soft pfft before rolling away.

  Aseok didn’t speak.

  He just… reached out and gently pulled the door shut.

  Click.

  MinHyun stared at the door for a long moment. Then turned back toward the others and slumped into his seat.

  “…I got shut out by a nap squad.”

  Yichen patted his back sympathetically. “Next time.”

  “No, you do it next time!”

  While the world edged closer to chaos, Lee Aseok lived like a man on a permanent holiday.

  He and the puppy had perfected the art of synchronized idleness.

  Every morning, if one could call it that, since they rarely woke before noon, Lee Aseok would roll out of bed with the speed of a rusted clock hand.

  The puppy would wake shortly after, yawning in complete sync with its owner, tail flicking as it stretched its legs and slid off the bed like melted mochi.

  Their daily routine was blissfully consistent.

  They’d shuffle to the living room. Aseok would press play on whatever anime he’d left mid-episode the night before, grab a random snack from the kitchen shelf (always carbs, never vegetables), and sink into the couch.

  The puppy would curl up against his thigh or belly and fall asleep before the opening theme ended.

  Then lunch.

  Then another nap.

  Sometimes, they swapped the order.

  There was a brief thirty-minute window in the afternoon where Aseok would stretch or stand on the balcony, staring blankly at the sky like a man trying to remember what day it was.

  The puppy would toddle out and sniff a flower pot, sneeze once, and then retreat back inside.

  Then more anime.

  More snacks.

  Evening naps. Night snacks. Late-night anime marathons.

  It was peaceful. Too peaceful, if one were to ask the three people returning home after grueling field missions.

  Because every single time Mu Yichen, Seo MinHyun, and Park Taegun returned from fending off the latest dungeon break...

  There he was.

  Lee Aseok. On the couch.

  In the exact same position. Same blanket. Same deadpan expression. Same tiny puppy rising and falling on his stomach with every breath.

  Sometimes, he would raise his head and look at them.

  Sometimes, not even that.

  MinHyun snapped one day.

  “This is psychological warfare,” he said, flinging his jacket across the room. “We’re breaking our backs out there while he’s bonding with his dog over rice crackers?!”

  “It’s not rice crackers today,” Mu Yichen observed, calm as always. “It’s mochi ice cream.”

  “That makes it worse!”

  Taegun placed his weapons down methodically. “You’re focusing on the wrong issue.”

  MinHyun stared at him. “The wrong.? He’s hibernating through a global emergency!”

  “Exactly. And the public noticed.”

  The rising number of dungeon breaks began subtly. A C-rank gate that collapsed a week before it was scheduled to. Then a B-rank in a city center that leaked before clearance.

  No S-rank gates yet. No mass casualties. But the pattern was strange. Unnatural.

  People watched with growing unease as emergency broadcasts interrupted late-night television, and low-ranking guilds posted apology statements with trembling fonts.

  The real tipping point came when a D-rank gate burst mid-morning in a sleepy coastal town, and Lee Aseok, who happened to be walking back from a convenience store, went into the gate and came back in a few minutes.

  Witnesses uploaded footage.

  It went viral within hours.

  A young man in sweats and homely clothes. Holding a popsicle. Staring at the collapsing gate like it was a mild inconvenience. No dramatic swordplay. No glowing auras. Just silence.

  Then the gate blinked out of existence. Gone.

  The popsicle dripped. Aseok licked it. Then walked away.

  The headlines the next morning were merciless:

  “Who Needs Guilds? One Man, One Popsicle, One Disappeared Gate.”

  “Lee Aseok: The Savior Who Doesn’t Care to Save?”

  “Government Leaders Under Fire: Why Did the Only Reliable Hunter Quit?”

  It didn’t matter that they had no proof of what skill he used. It didn’t matter that the footage barely lasted thirty seconds.

  What mattered was that people saw something. They felt something. Hope.

  And when hope was ignored, the only thing left was outrage.

  The backlash against the guilds came fast.

  “He clearly has the power to stop this. Why is no one asking him to lead the response?”

  “Why didn't he want to be a hero? What did you do to him?!”

  “He saved my cousin’s town while holding a popsicle! What excuse do you have?!”

  The government tried to shift the narrative.

  They called Aseok’s actions “unstable,” “unverified,” “unmeasured.”

  But it backfired.

  In one viral comment, someone wrote:

  “You mean the guy who saved five towns is the problem, not the fifty people who failed to stop one gate?”

  That comment alone had five million likes.

  Even Mu Yichen, Seo MinHyun, and Park Taegun weren’t spared. As prominent figures, the public expected them to “do something” about Aseok’s absence from duty.

  “They must’ve offended him.”

  “They’re probably jealous.”

  “Did they bully him into quitting?”

  MinHyun nearly popped a vein reading that last one.

  “I’m the one being bullied! I get ignored ten times a day! The dog doesn’t even bark at me!”

  Yichen rubbed his temple, eyes closed. “Let’s not read the comments anymore.”

  “You’re on page four of a fanfic titled ‘Please Notice Me, Aseok-senpai.’”

  “…It’s surprisingly well written.”

  Taegun, as usual, didn’t comment. But the way he massaged the bridge of his nose said more than words ever could.

  Back inside the apartment, Lee Aseok paused his anime, not because he heard them yelling, but because the puppy sneezed.

  He tilted his head slightly and reached over, grabbing a tissue to wipe its nose. Then pulled the blanket over both of them and shifted into a more comfortable position.

  The world could fall apart.

  But he hadn’t been asked.

  And until someone did, he had no intention of moving.

  It started with silence.

  Lee Aseok never made a statement, never posted on any platform, never clarified a single thing about his past or powers.

  But silence has a way of being louder than words, especially when people are desperate to assign meaning.

  The public already viewed him as a reluctant hero.

  Someone who, for reasons unknown, had walked away from the world’s greatest weapon, his own power, and left the world to tremble in his absence.

  When minor dungeon breaks began to stack, panic was inevitable.

  Then, someone dug into his past.

  It began with a single comment on a trending post:

  “Did you know he was raised by his aunt? His parents died in a dungeon collapse when he was just a child.”

  At first, people thought it was just internet noise. Until an old insurance document surfaced. Then a property deed. Then leaked court reports.

  The orphan boy who no one cared about, who had been publicly ridiculed when the holy sword chose him, had quietly suffered much more than anyone realized.

  His inheritance, land, money, a downtown apartment, gone. Signed away under his aunt’s name for “management.”

  The truth spread like wildfire.

  “They used him.”

  “He was bullied and robbed. And you wonder why he doesn’t want to help?”

  “We failed him when he needed the world. And now the world needs him, and he’s gone.”

  The public turned on the aunt’s family with a vengeance.

  Photos of their lavish vacations, luxury bags, and smug social media posts were circulated with captions like ‘Funded by orphan tears.’

  By the third day, the family issued a panicked statement claiming misunderstanding and legal innocence. No one believed them.

  They tried contacting Lee Aseok.

  They called. They emailed. They messaged every account that might possibly belong to him, even sent direct letters to the Hunter Association’s front desk.

  Nothing.

  Then they showed up in person.

  But they never even made it past the apartment lobby.

  Lee Aseok, meanwhile, sat on his couch, holding a treat above the puppy’s head, watching as it made the tiniest hop to reach it.

  He smiled slightly.

  Not that anyone would notice, it was more of a blink-slow contentment than an actual expression. But it was enough to make the puppy wag its tail in celebration.

  In another part of the city, the atmosphere was significantly less peaceful.

  A closed-door meeting between high-ranking guild leaders and government officials had devolved into shouting.

  “The gates are breaking pattern, don’t you get that?!”

  “We need him.”

  “We don’t even know how he’s doing it!”

  “We don’t need to know how. We just need him to do it again.”

  They came to one conclusion.

  The world needed the one chosen by the holy sword, even if he had no intention of being that hero anymore.

  Three days later, they arrived.

  In person.

  The most powerful guild leaders. The highest chairs of the Hunter Management Bureau. Dressed in tailored suits and expressions too serious for their own good.

  They stood awkwardly outside Lee Aseok’s apartment door, clutching thick files and pre-prepared talking points.

  The door was opened, not by Aseok, but by Mu Yichen.

  Yichen blinked slowly at them, calm as ever. “He’s busy.”

  One of the men forced a smile. “We won’t take long. We’ve come to..”

  “Did you bring snacks for the puppy?”

  “…Excuse me?”

  “If you want a chance to be heard,” Yichen said with a gentle smile, “you need to bribe the decision-maker. And right now, the puppy is more receptive to negotiations than Aseok.”

  They stared at him.

  Taegun stepped into view from the hallway behind. “They didn’t bring snacks.”

  Yichen sighed. “Then I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.”

  Inside the apartment, Seo MinHyun was leaning over the back of the couch, watching Lee Aseok balance a small biscuit on the puppy’s head. It was part of some made-up training ritual.

  The puppy wobbled, looking up at Aseok with complete trust.

  Aseok, expression blank as usual, nodded once. “Good.”

  The puppy sneezed and the biscuit fell. Aseok gave it to him anyway.

  MinHyun, who’d been watching this whole exchange with mild disbelief, turned his head toward the window.

  “They brought a whole entourage,” he said, grinning. “I can hear the desperation from here.”

  Lee Aseok didn’t respond.

  Didn’t even glance at the window.

  MinHyun kept grinning. “What are the odds you open the door?”

  Aseok reached out and wiped a bit of drool from the puppy’s mouth.

  “…Zero,” he said.

  Outside, the guild leaders and government agents were still standing in the hallway, awkwardly holding their folders. One of them cleared his throat.

  “Perhaps we can reschedule?”

  Yichen smiled. “Perhaps.”

  every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Yes, every week!

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