Solo Leveling: Ragnarok

Suho’s Woojin Guild chose dungeons for one clear purpose—leveling. Dungeons with a high rank or those with lots of magic beasts were the best for earning experience points. Naturally, such dungeons were popular with other hunters as well. The stronger the magic beasts, the more expensive their products would be, and the more of them there were, the greater the number of products one could acquire.

Given this, it was natural that entry into such dungeons was expensive. Suho’s guild, however, currently possessed a billion won. It was a matter of perspective whether that was a big or small amount. The guild had to make a choice on whether they would split it up to do multiple low to medium-ranked dungeons or make one purchase of a very expensive ticket into a higher-ranked dungeon.

Both choices would have been fine for an ordinary guild that aimed to generate profit, but Suho’s main goal was leveling up, so neither was very satisfying. He was past level fifty now, and he couldn’t get any experience points from low or medium-ranked dungeons, much less level up—and if he was limited to just one high-ranked dungeon, it would probably do little more than give him a single level up, if any at all.

The situation would be handled the following month, of course, when the Scavenger Guild paid him even more. But that didn’t mean he could simply sit in his office doing nothing until then.

So Suho chose neither of these paths. Even if it would seem a little inefficient from the point of view of a guild seeking profit, there was another way if one really wanted only to level up—entering dungeons that other guilds had taken for themselves.

Again, there were two ways of going about this. One was to become a mercenary, providing aid upon another guild’s request. If a guild had bid for a dungeon and realized it was harder than expected, they would sometimes request help from other guilds or hunters. Such cases were very rare, however, since most guilds simply purchased dungeon tickets that suited their level.

That left only one remaining method—purchasing a ticket from another guild. In such a scenario, the sellers usually tacked a fee onto the price of the original bid. That was a difficult scenario to manage for the Woojin Guild, which had limited funds at the moment, so Suho had thought of a workaround—relying on family connections. That’s why I wanted Dogyoon to buy a ticket from the Fiend Guild…

The Field Guild had been suffering from a lack of manpower ever since the Lee Minsung incident. Naturally, they did not have the capacity to use up all the dungeon tickets that they owned. If only for the sake of keeping funds flowing, they might have to urgently sell off the tickets they had. Suho supposed that the guild master’s son might be able to get a good price for them. It was a perfect plan. There was one thing he’d failed to take into account, however.

I didn’t know the guild’s finances were so poor. It was true—Lim Taegyu was broke. The Fiend Guild, once considered the greatest guild in South Korea, had gone rapidly down the path of decline ever since the Lee Minsung incident. Thanks to the secret funds Que had set aside while he was alive and then handed over to Lim Taegyu, the guild had at least avoided complete bankruptcy. Even so, the hunters who had canceled their contracts with the guild and left weren’t coming back. The guild’s reputation was already lost.

In order to return to his roots, as it were, Lim Taegyu had decided to take a bold approach. Instead of picking new guild members, he had used the guild’s remaining funds to give the faithful members who had stayed a larger salary. It was now a smaller sized elite guild, just like Suho’s Woojin Guild.

In any case, Taegyu was in a similar boat to Suho. His guild would be a mercenary band for a while, which would allow them to operate as frugally as possible.

Despite the Fiend Guild’s greatly tarnished public image, they were immediately welcomed by the industry. Mercenary bands that included S-rank hunters were rare. And it was the Yeongnam region’s biggest guild, the Knights Guild, which had invited them to work before anyone else.

“As you know, the Knights Guild currently has the greatest number of A-rank hunters of any guild in the country,” B-rank hunter Lee Joohee said. She was giving them a rundown on her guild on the way to the office. “But we don’t have any S-rank hunters at all. We’ll run into difficult situations like this one every now and then. That’s why we’re so grateful to have Mr. Lim as a mercenary.”

Dogyoon, walking beside Suho, flinched every time Joohee mentioned this father. Suho grinned and patted him on the back. “Relax, Dogyoon. We’re not going there to fight, are we?” Suho said.

“R-right. Of course.” Dogyoon was already feeling very out of place.

It was time for the meeting. “This is the office. As it happens, they must be having a strategy conference right now,” Joohee said.

Joohee knocked on the office door and walked inside, and Suho and Dogyoon followed. The hunters who’d been engaged in intense discussion all turned around.

“What?”

“Why’d they come in all of a sudden? We were in the middle of a meeting…”

The Knights Guild hunters were about to complain when they recognized Joohee standing next to Suho. The B-rank healer of the Knights Guild had a certain grace about her and was highly regarded within her guild for her cheerful and kind nature. A healer with a great personality was welcome just about everywhere. The citizens of Busan who Joohee had helped, even if no more than just once, had even dubbed her the “Angel in White.”

Such popularity was not simply the result of a good personality, of course. Joohee had previously been a nurse. Not only had she worked at a hospital for a long time prior to her awakening, but she was also skilled at various first-aid procedures in addition to her healing skills. That meant that even if she ran out of mana during a battle, she could stay calm and care for the patients, making her quite the professional healer.

“Ahem… So who is it you brought with you, Ms. Lee?” one of the Knights Guild hunters asked.

“This is Mr. Sung Suho, who promised to visit today. He leads the Woojin Guild.”

“Oh! The additional mercenary!”

The hunters seemed to welcome this news. At the same time, they ran their eyes quickly over Suho and Dogyoon. These hunters were the leaders of the Knights Guild, and they had gathered here to deal with an emergency that had befallen Haeundae, a coastal district of Busan. Any skilled hunters were welcome, though that was not so much the case if a hunter’s skill had not been proven for certain.

The Woojin Guild… one Knights Guild hunter thought. I heard they’re a newly created guild.And they’re small, too…. They only have three members, including the guild master. Such unproven guilds would never be accepted as mercenaries under the usual circumstances. In emergencies like this one, unskilled individuals would only get in the way and even cause huge accidents.

The issue was that it was none other than Lim Taegyu who had recommended the Woojin Guild. Though he was a mercenary, he was also an S-rank hunter, something that the Knights Guild didn’t have. Taegyu was the core member and de facto leader of this emergency operation, and his influence was massive.

“Even so, if Lim Taegyu recommended them, there must be more to them than meets the eye.”

“They have so few members. Maybe they focus more on buffs or healers.”

Various thoughts passed through the Knights Guild leaders’ heads, but in the end, they couldn’t help but take Suho lightly. His companion, Dogyoon, was obviously extremely nervous.

“Uh, I… I don’t…” Dogyoon stammered.

The hunters tutted.

“Tsk… They are just kids.”

“I’m not sure about them… I hope they don’t get in the way.”

Dogyoon had frozen up, looking exactly the way he had when he’d first come in, and he hardly seemed able to breathe. They all glanced at Taegyu, who was on an elevated platform, heading the meeting.

“At this rate, we might have to turn them down even if Mr. Lim recommended— Huh?”

“What is Lim Taegyu thinking by— Wait, what?”

Something odd was going on. Taegyu, who’d been drafting up a strategy with gusto at the podium, seemed just as off-kilter as Dogyoon.

“Uh…” Taegyu muttered.

Dogyoon wrung his hands. “Um…”

“What in the world…?”

The Knights Guild hunters looked puzzled as the two men stared at each other, rooted to the spot with the same expression on their faces.

***

Thanks to Suho—if it could be put that way—the father and son had been reunited for the first time in a long while. The encounter was a terribly stifling one, however. Neither of them seemed up to the task of starting a conversation, and even the leadership of the Knights Guild was growing nervous. After realizing that Dogyoon was Taegyu’s son, the sad story they had heard about Taegyu’s past had come back to them.

“His wife turned into a mist burn on the day that he awakened, I hear.”

“And that mist burn attacked the son.”

“Mr. Lim was forced to kill the monster that was once his wife to save his son…”

This had occurred on the day that Taegyu had become an S-rank hunter, and it was a very famous story.

“The son left home after that, if I recall correctly.”

“Not surprising.Regardless of the reason, he was forced to watch his father kill his mother.”

Since they knew what had happened, they could understand the awkwardness in the air.

“Whydo they have to do this now?”

“I wish they’d just find themselves a room to sort this out.”

It was just too stifling. “We’re busy enough as it is,” the hunters’ expression seemed to be saying.

Suho and Park Jongsoo, the guild master of the Knights Guild, shook hands and did their best to ignore the mood.

“Welcome. I’m Park Jongsoo, A-rank hunter. I lead this guild.”

“I’m Sung Suho of the Woojin Guild.”

Jongsoo was quite well-mannered and gentle. He had no choice but to behave that way. Unlike the other members of his guild, he had heard information about Suho from Taegyu beforehand.

He was the one with Lim Taegyu in the photo from the Lee Minsung incident, Jongsoo recalled. The drone image had been too grainy to make out the face of the mysterious individual, but many guilds had been eager to discover the identity of the new, promising hunter they had heard of. However, it seemed that he’d shown up at the Knights Guild of his own accord. This was an opportunity. If Taegyu was right, and he really would grow into an incredibly talented hunter later on, there was nothing to lose from starting off on the right foot now.

Park Jongsoo smiled pleasantly and pulled out a chair for Suho. “Now, Mr. Sung. Please have a seat. We have an urgent situation, so we can converse a little more in-depth after the meeting is over.”

The meeting soon resumed. In the end, Taegyu didn’t even get to speak properly with Dogyoon before going back up to the podium. Meanwhile, Dogyoon sat down beside Suho, watching his father as his eyes slowly grew calmer.

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