The 100th Regression of the Max-Level Player - Chapter 86

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Maxed-Out Player’s 100th Return – Episode 86
86. I Refuse.
“A party? I refuse.”
The man hadn’t expected such a blunt rejection, and his face went blank.
“Ha… Black Scythe. You may not realize it, but the boss is no easy opponent. Do you see that creature that looks like a cow over there?”
A Minotaur that radiated raw power at a glance was ambling about where the group pointed.
“That’s the boss we need to defeat, and it’s far from a pushover.”
“How would you know? Have you fought it before?”
“Not us directly, but we watched another party attempt it alone and get wiped out. That’s when we realized we should cooperate between parties.”
“Do it yourselves. We won’t get involved.”
“But wouldn’t it be better if we helped each other? We’d even give you the honor of landing the final blow, so please consider—”
Ryu Min cut him off with a sharp glare before responding.
“Don’t make me say it three times.”
“Ah, understood. I, I apologize….”
The group, overwhelmed by his charisma, flinched and retreated.
They gathered with their parties and began muttering among themselves.
“We couldn’t get Black Scythe to join us.”
“You offered him the final blow?”
“I did, but he refused. Said he’d rather do it alone.”
“Why? Black Scythe still needs to defeat the boss, doesn’t he?”
“Who knows. Maybe he’s afraid of the boss, tsk.”
“Hmm, looks like we’ll have to challenge it ourselves no matter what.”
“Well, we were planning to do it on our own anyway, even if Black Scythe refused.”
The group nodded and began preparing to hunt the Minotaur.
Thud—thud—thud—the massive creature made noise with every step, standing at least six meters tall.
A bull that walked like a man lumbered about, wielding an axe the size of his own head.
Five parties advanced toward the Minotaur.
Gulp.
It hadn’t seemed so large from a distance, but up close it appeared far more imposing.
“W-we can win this, right?”
“Y-yeah. We have twenty people after all.”
Despite their words, their expressions betrayed no confidence.
“Hrrgh?”
The Minotaur sensed their presence and turned its head.
The players who had been creeping forward froze as if caught by it.
“ROOOOAAARRR!”
Excited by the sight of humans, the creature charged forward with thunderous steps.
“Damn it! Go!”
“AAAHHHHH—!”
Twenty players rushed at it with desperate resolve.
Ryu Min observed the situation with cold clarity.
‘I wonder how many minutes it’ll take to finish it off?’
He didn’t think they would fail.
The Minotaur wasn’t as difficult a boss as it appeared.
Despite wielding an absurdly massive axe, its attacks lacked finesse and speed.
The sluggish movements made it easy to predict and evade.
‘With twenty people rushing it, that creature won’t be able to budge.’
But the Minotaur’s true strength lay in its durability—harder than stone itself.
From its perspective, humans were nothing but gnats.
‘What’s there to fear about twenty gnats swarming it?’
At the very least, they could disrupt its focus, and occasionally a well-placed skill might strike a vital point.
Among dozens of attacks, surely one would connect?
‘Then the Minotaur has no way out.’
Though it would turn into a prolonged battle.
As expected, that’s exactly what happened.
“This bastard is too damn tough!”
“Focus on dodging as much as possible!”
“Hey, over there! Watch out!”
Three minutes into the battle and there was still no sign of finishing it.
Though time was being wasted, Ryu Min decided to continue observing calmly.
He needed to see the boss fall before he could justify focusing on hunting.
When over seven minutes had passed.
“Kwaaaaahhh….”
The Minotaur, which had been emitting mournful cries, crashed its head to the ground.
Boom—!
“We got it!”
“Finally killed it!”
The party members rejoiced, though the cost wasn’t negligible.
‘Three out of twenty died.’
There were no wounded—a grazing blow meant death here.
Still, defeating the boss with relatively light casualties was an achievement worth celebrating.
“Who got the final blow? I don’t think it was our team.”
“Our team! Our team got it! Hahahaha!”
As cheers of victory echoed, a pillar of light descended from the sky.
One team that had secured the final blow was surrounded by a translucent column.
“Looks like our team survived!”
“The Quest progress window shows success!”
“Excellent!”
“Damn it, we just made things better for them.”
Those trapped in the column celebrated while those who hadn’t defeated the boss grumbled, but only briefly.
“But… do we really have to stay here like this until time runs out?”
“We’re trapped here for over five hours?”
“Seems like it.”
“I mean, it’s nice to rest early, but it feels like we’re losing out somehow….”
Defeating the boss first had been a good thing, but being trapped in this pillar of light and wasting the remaining time felt deeply unsatisfying.
“Well then, let’s go find another party. We’ll probably need reinforcements.”
“Let’s do that.”
The remaining parties glanced at Black Scythe, but soon shook their heads and left.
They knew he wouldn’t cooperate anyway.
Regardless, Ryu Min murmured his thoughts on the battle.
“Lucky. If we’d defeated the boss early, we’d have wasted all this remaining time.”
“Y-yes, you were right, Black Scythe.”
“Hunting like this and defeating it as late as possible—that was the correct strategy.”
Ryu Min nodded without changing his expression and spoke to his party.
“We’ve rested enough. Let’s move out now.”
‘Keep up with me.’
His party members began running again.
* * *
While Ryu Min hunted centaurs.
Other teams were pooling their strength to focus on boss hunting.
“Are we the fiftieth?”
“I don’t know since the ranking isn’t shown.”
“Who cares! We defeated the boss, so we survived, right?”
“Let’s just lie down and rest for the remaining time.”
The players inside the pillar of light sprawled out on the ground.
Though trapped, they were safe from monsters within this barrier.
Even a minotaur couldn’t touch them.
In fact, it seemed the creatures didn’t even recognize them, treating them as invisible.
“Hey, look at that.”
Then a player spotted Black Scythe moving with a scythe in hand.
Four party members followed relentlessly behind him.
Whoosh—thud! Whoosh—thud!
Each time the scythe passed, a centaur’s head fell.
“That’s Black Scythe?”
“He kills them in one hit?”
“Wow, truly befitting a level 40.”
While it was impressive to kill a centaur in a single stroke, they felt no envy.
They were already victors, having defeated the boss and now resting.
Rather, Black Scythe’s actions simply didn’t make sense.
“Why is he only hunting centaurs and not going for the boss?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to take down the boss quickly and rest?”
“No way. Even if we kill it now, we’d barely crack the top 50. We’ve already lost our shot at the rankings, so we might as well hunt for experience.”
“Ah, I see!”
“It’s a shame. I thought we might actually take first place this time.”
“No matter how skilled Black Scythe is, he can’t stay on top forever.”
“Still, his judgment is sound. Trying to raise his experience level shows he’s thinking ahead.”
They believed themselves superior to Black Scythe since they’d already defeated the boss, but they remained ignorant of a crucial fact.
The 11 minutes and 30 seconds it took them to hunt the boss was the longest record—dead last.
Tap-tap-tap-tap— Slash!
Tap-tap-tap— Slash!
Ryu Min, who had been running ceaselessly and focusing solely on hunting minions, suddenly paused.
‘Hm?’
A message that materialized out of nowhere forced him to brake as if slamming on the pedal.
[Unable to locate target ‘Centaur’.]
A welcome message—there were no more to find.
‘Looks like I’ve finally cleared them all.’
Ryu Min checked his kill count and remaining time.
[Current Kill Count: 1,920/100]
[Time Remaining Until Round End: 00:20:43]
‘So I hunted 1,920 in roughly five hours and forty minutes.’
The total was 2,000, but it seemed the remaining kills belonged to other players.
‘This is far faster than I anticipated.’
Then, hearing heavy breathing from behind, Ryu Min turned his head.
“Huff, huff, Black Scythe. Is it finally time to rest?”
“Yes. The hunt is over now.”
“The hunt is… over?”
“I used the Tracking skill and confirmed there are no Centaurs left in the Field.”
“Ah…”
Only then did the party members check the remaining time.
“We only have twenty minutes left?”
The last time they’d checked was three hours ago—they hadn’t realized so much time had passed.
They’d been too preoccupied following him to keep track.
“Wait? Everyone, check your levels!”
“Why? What?”
At An Sang-chul’s words, the party members opened their status windows and froze in shock.
“Our levels have…”
“Risen so much…”
Honestly, they’d been too exhausted from chasing after him to even open their status windows.
Ryu Min had hunted with almost no breaks at all.
Of course, they’d caught glimpses of level-up notifications here and there.
I simply hadn’t counted them one by one.
Later, I was too busy chasing after them to even notice the messages, so my bewilderment was only natural.
“How much did your levels go up?”
“W-well, it was 20 at first, but now it’s 34.”
“I-I’m the same.”
An Sang-chul and Seo A-rin had risen from 20 to 34.
“What about you, Min-ju?”
“I went from 21 to 35.”
“I-I was 23, but now I’m 36….”
With Heo Tae-sik’s answer, I let out a low whistle.
Everyone had leveled up 13 to 14 levels.
‘Well, the first digit changed from 2 to 3, so it’s understandable to be shocked.’
My first digit had changed too.
My level, which had been 40, had somehow become 54.
It was thanks to the 3x experience round buff and the 1.5x experience title.
Since I’d defeated over 1,900 monsters, I’d obtained plenty of items as well.
19 magic stones, 9 normal equipment items, various miscellaneous loot, and….
‘Even materials needed for a God-tier combination.’
I checked the Item Information once more.
[Lustrous Horse Tail]
-Classification: Possession
-Description: A horse tail with a lustrous sheen flowing through it, just as the name suggests. A faint magical aura can be felt.
‘This is the key more than anything else.’
In the end, the God-tier combination material was the crucial piece.
Perhaps because I’d obtained the target material, my lips naturally curved upward.
All that hard work had been worth it.
‘Now I just need to find two more materials….’
Then, exclamations burst from my teammates’ mouths once again.
“Everyone, check it out! W-we’ve accumulated so much gold!”
“I-I did too.”
“115,000 gold….”
Most of them were probably similar.
Since we were a party, the gold was distributed equally.
‘Of course, there would be some variation depending on the Luck stat.’
Unlike my other teammates, I had 150,000 gold in my possession.
With a Luck stat exceeding 350, the probability of obtaining bonus gold was high.
“W-what do we do with this?”
“It’s overwhelming to suddenly have so much money, you know? Haha….”
Since my teammates said they didn’t know what to use it for, I offered some subtle advice.
“If you have no use for the money, buy common skills from the shop. Definitely get Presence Detection, Enhanced Dynamic Vision, and Basic Resistance at minimum. Save the remaining gold and buy whatever you need from today’s item corner if you spot something useful.”
“Ah….”
“It does seem wise to follow Black Scythe’s advice, doesn’t it?”
“Understood.”
The party members nodded and accepted Ryu Min’s counsel.
There was no reason to ignore the words of someone with both keen insight and experience.
While his teammates were absorbed in their unexpected shopping spree, Ryu Min opened the Quest progress window.
[C-ESKS007 Zone]
└Participants: 1,010
└Completers: 455/505
Looking at the number of completers, fifty remained.
‘That means only ten Minotaurs are left.’
I immediately activated tracking to locate the Minotaur.
[You have discovered the location of the target ‘Minotaur’.]
[It is currently 198 meters away.]
Seeing it was quite close, Ryu Min took the lead.
“Follow me. We need to take down the final boss.”
“Ah, yes!”
After a few bounds, the Minotaur came into view.
But three other teams were already waiting in the vicinity.
“Oh, isn’t that Black Scythe?”
“Black Scythe! Would you form a party with us?”
“Let’s hunt it together!”
Ryu Min shook his head without hesitation.
“No. I have no intention of splitting the contribution with you.”
“Huh? Then….”
Ryu Min spoke coldly.
“I’ll take down the boss alone.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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