Solo Leveling: Ragnarok

“Now, finally…” It was time to see Harmakan’s third type of ability. “Explain the instance dungeon ability to me,” Suho ordered. That was the ability Harmbakan had used to turn the entirety of Yami Village into something akin to a dungeon. He had learned this ability after chancing upon an artifact left behind by Kandiaru and studying it repeatedly. That was why he liked to call himself a pupil of Kandiaru.

At Suho’s question, Harmakan gathered up his body, which was ragged and scruffy after the soldiers’ attacks. “Yes, Master. This spell twists a dimension to create a mirror world.”

“What’s a mirror world?”

“It’s a copy, if you will. Similar to the surroundings it was based on, but it’s virtual and completely separate. Speaking of which…” Harmakan looked around, gaping as if he’d suddenly come to some major realization. This was none other than the World of Slumber, the Shadow Dungeon that lay beyond Suho’s own shadow. This ruined city in the black-and-white world was, in a way, similar to an instance dungeon—it was like Suho’s Earth, but also completely different.

Harmakan kneeled before Suho, taking his words back. “Ah! Forgive me, Master! I have chosen the wrong analogy. Not a mirror image—a world beyond the shadow!” He had realized where Kandiaru had taken inspiration for the instance dungeon technique and shivered. “I had the sequence wrong from the start! Kandiaru must have developed instance dungeons as a copy of this shadow world! The purpose must have been—”

“Leveling up,” Suho said, nodding. “To allow my father to level up.”

“Yes! That seems to be the case!” Until now, Harmakan had mistakenly believed that the goal of an instance dungeon was to create a world of one’s own. He could reign supreme in such a mirror world. As it turned out, however, he was no king—he was just a boss monster, simply a device meant to give a vast amount of experience points to a player who had come to clear the instance dungeon.

“I noticed this earlier, but the same is true of that pyramid as well.” Harmakan pointed to Ammut’s pyramid. “That pyramid was also full of traces of the repeated experiments Kandiaru performed in order to grow the Monarch of Shadows’ vessel.”

“Of course,” Suho said, nodding. The training ground for the Iron Body Technique, as well as the instance dungeons, had been created after endless rounds of research. The final product was the leveling system that his father had used. Ironically enough, the incomplete traces of Kandiaru’s efforts to complete this system were slowly being drawn to Suho.

“Evil souls? Like villains?” Suho asked.

“Yes. A person can lie, but they cannot disguise their soul. I can guarantee that nothing can beat my sorcery when it comes to the detection of evil souls.” Harmakan, who had a fondness for evil spirits, smiled confidently, his teeth showing. “That means you can use my instance dungeon to draw in villains for easy hunting!”

“Very nice! I thought you were nothing but evil, but it seems you have your uses!” Beru said, bursting into view and nodding in satisfaction. He gave a smile that was even more wicked than Harmakan’s and pressed Suho. “Young Monarch! This is excellent! I’ve been frustrated by the slow leveling speed until now, but we can finally go at a proper pace! From now on, we can kill everything on sight, villains and evil spirits alike, and grow stronger!”

“Arsha,” Suho said, looking up as Beru droned on.

A swarm of bees overhead gathered into the size of a small doll. “Yes, Suho. Did you need me?” Arsha asked.

“What about the task I gave you?”

“I’ve scattered my bees about, but they’ve found nothing so far. I did locate a few villains, thinking they might have something to do with Hwang Dongsoo, but— Eeek!”

“Kieeeek!”

Arsha screamed as Beru suddenly lunged at her with a screech. He snatched the copy’s body out of the air and raised it up like a trophy. He showered her with compliments. “I am proud of you, truly! What a useful honeybee you are! Young Monarch, I believe your soldiers have finally started to learn to work together. Let us go and level up immediately!”

“But why?”

Beru seemed deeply confused by Suho’s reaction. “A-aren’t you going to level up?”

“I am, yes. But our goal was to hunt villains, and we already did that. It’s more efficient to just enter a dungeon if all I want is to level up.”

Suho was right. Just like with all hunters, it had become inefficient for him to work as a bounty hunter. However, that didn’t mean that he had to ignore villains who had already been found. He grinned and continued, “I get the experience points even if the shadow soldiers kill them, right?”

“Yes! Of course, yes!” Beru cried.

“Then we’ll split up into teams. I’ll hunt in the dungeon. As for the villains…” Suho glanced over the shadow soldiers one by one. They tensed, ready for his command. “Que.”

“Yes, Master!” Que, the lancer, jumped forward and kneeled at Suho’s feet.

“I assign the villains to you. Take Harmakan and Kira and clear them out. You can do that, right?”

“Th-that’s… Of course, Master! I will deal with them perfectly! I will also get every bit of information out of them before I kill them so we can locate Hwang Dongsoo!” Que quivered with extreme gratification. He was only a knight-grade shadow soldier, but he had been told to use Harmakan as a subordinate. He looked extremely proud of himself as he looked down at Harmakan, the rookie who was stronger than he was. “Hehehe! Did you hear that? I am Que, Master’s first knight!”

“I-I don’t believe it…” Harmakan felt incredibly humiliated at the blatantly gloating stare.

As Que and Harmakan were seized by different emotions, Kira simply stood by and smiled quietly to himself. “More killing…”

***

Immediately after this, amid the public still buzzing about the Jisan Prison incident, a dark cloud was looming over the villains who had been hiding from the association throughout the country.

“So… the area around the capital is dangerous after all, eh?”

“Exactly.”

“All hunters are bound to move to Seoul once they make enough money. The headquarters of the Hunters Association is in Gangnam, too.”

“For us villains, it’s safest to travel across the countryside like we’re doing now.”

Somewhere in a remote region far from Seoul, some villains were relaxing and chatting at one of the food stalls in the middle of a market that catered to travelers.

“Well, well. The weather certainly seems pleasant today.” One villain brought over an apple from a nearby stall and took a big bite, staring lazily up at the sky. The sun was warm, and the breeze pleasantly tickled their faces. This was bliss.

Of course, all would have been perfect if it hadn’t been for the stench of blood that the breeze carried. The market was covered with blood and gruesome corpses. This place had been peaceful enough this morning, but a group of villains had turned up and transformed it into a hellscape. The perpetrators themselves, however, were sitting serenely and engaging in chit-chat.

“Gah! You… demons…!”

“Huh? I thought they were all dead. You’re a survivor, aren’t you?” The villain grinned as he noticed a man crawling along the ground, struggling to breathe.

Squelch.

“There we go. Now you can rest.” Having killed the man off, the villain gave a refreshed smile and took another bite of his apple. “I’m telling you, they’re idiots for being caught at all. All you gotta do is kill the witnesses, and nobody can identify—”

The villain suddenly jumped to his feet, looking around. He’d felt a chill. Something had changed—the breeze was gone, and there was something odd about the sunlight. “Wh-what the hell…?”

“Why the sudden fuss?”

The villain’s companions turned to him, puzzled. At least on the outside, nothing had changed. The smell of blood was everywhere, as were the bodies. Everybody in the group that been working together for months now was still here. And yet, something was different.

“F-f*ck! What the hell is that?!” the apple-munching villain shouted.

“What? What’s the matter with you, man?” Another villain, who hadn’t noticed anything, seemed unable to understand this reaction. Then, as he sat there defenseless, his head slid right off his shoulders. It rolled across the ground.

“Th-the f*ck?!”

“Oh god!”

The villains, finally alerted that something was wrong, stood up at once and began to watch their surroundings. A voice seemed to whisper in their ears. “One.”

“Wh-wh-who’s there?!” One of the villains spun around, shocked, but his head fell off, too.

“That’s two now,” came the breezy whisper again, laughing in satisfaction.

“What the hell? Everyone watch out! It’s an assassin-type hunter!”

“Use a detection skill!”

“Ahh! What the f*ck are those?”

The villains were aghast. They had spotted spirits rising from the bodies of those they’d killed, like so many dark ripples.

“Hehehe. There are a lot of souls here who’d like a word with you.” It was phantom manipulation. A nasty laugh from Harmakan echoed around them as countless spirits gripped the villains’ ankles and wrapped around their necks, choking them.

“G-ghosts?!”

“How in the hell— Whatever! We need to get out of here right—”

“Not so fast.” Que appeared out of nowhere, shoving his spear into the thigh of the villain who’d turned to escape. He grabbed the terrified man’s hair and raised him up to eye level. “I like talkative types.”

“Eeek!” The blood drained from the villain’s face as he took in Que’s narrowed eyes and malicious smile.

Que had the fearsome gaze of Lee Minsung, the man who was once the vice guild master of the Fiend Guild and also an A-rank villain. He grinned and said, “Now, tell me everything you know. Absolutely everything. The moment you stop talking, I will pull your tongue out.”

Harmakan was not about to lose. He gripped the soul of a dead villain in his evil hand. “Hehe. Knight-grades… Tsk… You could always kill them before asking questions.”

Que clenched his teeth.

At that moment, Suho got a notification.

[Level up!]

“Huh? Already?” He had leveled up out of the blue while he was going through the documents required to found a guild with Yoo Jinho’s secretarial staff. He scratched his head, confused. “How many of these villains are they killing, exactly?”

Whether it was intended or otherwise, South Korea was becoming a very crime-free country indeed.

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