Solo Leveling: Ragnarok - Chapter 137

“At one point, the Facade Republic was once at risk of being turned into a giant gate. Imagine that! Our entire island!”

The president of Facade was giving a speech on the news. His words traveled to his people, who had once been evacuated from the island and were now scattered across the world.

“But people of Facade!You may now rest easy.Our Ice Age is over!”

As this speech implied, as soon as the follower of Itarim was destroyed, the countless gates that covered the island like holes in Swiss cheese began to rapidly close. The terrible cold that once flowed out of them dissipated, and the field-type dungeon’s area of influence, drenched with mana, diminished rapidly.

“Our Ice Age is over!”

The president was right. Facade was now safe to return to.

This didn’t mean all the gates were closed, however. One gate to the Glacier Dungeon remained open even after the dimensional instability subsided. Closing it required the dungeon’s magic beasts to be cleared out, but because Suho had recently bought the exclusive rights to it, nobody would be able to enter without his approval. In other words, the Glacier Dungeon would become an autonomous region controlled by the ice elves, and it would stay that way.

Of course, this meant that the people of Facade couldn’t be completely at ease. The dungeon was a time bomb that could potentially explode into a dungeon break at any point. This was where the Scavenger Guild came in. The greatest guild in the United States had declared that it would guard the entrance and work on extracting the dungeon’s resources. The people of Facade who had evacuated would be able to return with their peace of mind restored.

“On behalf of my people, I hereby thank the Scavenger Guild for saving our country.”

“Kieeek! Disgusting! Those ignorant fools!” The entire trip to the airport, Beru ground his ant teeth, apparently unhappy with the speech they were watching. “It is a disgrace!”

“He’s right, Master. They have no idea who really saved them… Who do they think they’re thanking, anyway?”

“That was the deal,” Suho said. “And this is better for us.”

Beru and Que seemed to be in full agreement with each other, despite knowing the terms of the contract thoroughly. Suho grinned at the sight.

The Scavenger Guild immediately announced that they had officially cleared the Glacier Dungeon. From now on, they would enjoy the sweet, sweet intangible benefits of arrangement. In return for taking on various menial tasks relating to the dungeon, the guild’s brand value had gone up, just as Laura had anticipated.

Meanwhile, Haein, who had played a critical role in resolving matters in the dungeon, and Suho, who had the actual rights to it, were never brought to light. This was only because they had requested that things be handled this way. Neither of them enjoyed attention, and at the moment, they really needed less of it.

“Don’t complain too much. If there is another Itarim follower out there somewhere, they will be focused on the Scavenger Guild,” Thomas said, assuring Beru and Que with a grin. He had come to the airport to see Suho off. He pointed at the hunter with his thumb. “Leave it to me. I’ll be this little boy’s shield until he’s as strong as his father. This time around, I was more of a liability than anything else, much to my embarrassment. But I once used to be the greatest tanker humanity had.” Indeed, Thomas had even withstood the Dragon’s Breath attack of the red dragon Kamish, the greatest magic beast of all time, with his bare body. If anyone had a claim to the title, it was him.

“The greatest? That’s rich.”

“Try not to get possessed again.”

“Well, look at you two! Are you trying to embarrass me? Haven’t you learned to be polite to your elders?” Thomas cackled at Beru and Que’s unperturbed retorts. He then held out his huge hand to Suho. “Suho… Thank you,” he said.

Suho recognized the emotions packed into that simple phrase. He looked up at Thomas. The muscular old man, his white hair smoothed back, had a refreshed look on his face. It was the look of a man who’d overcome a long-standing obstacle and saw a clear path ahead of him.

Suho smiled and grasped his hand. “Yes. Thank you, too.” He was a little taken aback by how hard the man’s hand was. It was covered with callouses, a testament to the harsh training that he had put himself through all this time, like medals of honor. At the same time, his hands were weapons, specialized to latch on to an opponent in battle and never let go.

But this was not why Suho was surprised. My father’s hands… They were like this, too. They might have been worse, actually—certainly not softer. Suho gazed down at his hands, which were still relatively smooth.

Laura nudged up her glasses. “Sung Suho… We ask that you establish a guild as soon as you return to South Korea.”

“Ah, right.”

“Please don’t forget. As you know, our contract is one established between guilds. In order for it to take effect, you must establish your own.” As a rule, exclusivity rights over a dungeon could not be owned by an individual. The Scavenger Guild had made temporary arrangements, but things would be troublesome unless Suho created his own official guild. “I heard that one must first have cleared twenty or more dungeons to start a guild. If there is something we can help you with in this regard—”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. I’ve thought of a way,” Suho said.

Laura seemed puzzled for a moment, then some information rose to her mind. She remembered that the South Korean requirements for guild foundation could be met by other means, though such methods were rarely used. “Don’t tell me you mean to hunt villains instead?”

“That’s right.”

This only stumped Laura more. “But won’t that take longer? The street isn’t littered with villains who have high enough prices on their heads to be meaningful contributions to your career—”

“Actually, it is. At least, it is nowadays.”

Laura stared at Suho in perplexed silence.

***

Suho noticed a change in the air as soon as he got off Jinho’s private jet in South Korea.

“Our next story is an update on Jisan Prison.” On screens throughout the airport, news anchors were delivering breaking news with serious looks on their faces. “Jisan Prison was established two years ago by the Hunters Association for the specific purpose of incarcerating villains. The project was driven by Woo Jinchul, the president of the association…”

“Ugh. That news has taken South Korea by storm, you know.” Jinho, walking beside Suho, tutted as he looked at the screens.

South Korea had long had a global reputation for its excellent public security, largely thanks to Woo Jinchul’s focus on counter-villain policy since establishing the Hunters Association. One of the policy’s biggest projects was Jisan Prison.

“Suho, you probably don’t know much about this sort of thing, since I doubt you were interested. Jisan Prison wasn’t originally intended for villains.” Jinho, as the CEO of a great corporation, had no choice but to be in tune with world events. Given that, he was well-informed on the early days of Jinchul’s Jisan Prison. “Our nation’s prisons are classified from S1 and S5, depending on their security level. Jisan Prison was for the S5 prisoners, those with the longest sentences.”

“So it wasn’t specifically for villains, but rather for high-risk prisoners?” Suho asked.

“That’s right. But oddly enough, the criminals that Jinchul threw into that prison began to awaken one by one,” Jinho explained. At first, everyone wrote it off as coincidence, since there was nothing preventing criminals from also awakening to their abilities. But the phenomenon had occurred time and time again until most of the inmates in the prison had become hunters.

“At the time, it was a hot topic. Some blamed the site of the prison, while others thought there was some secret in there that could turn a civilian into a hunter…” In fact, some criminals who wished to become hunters even begged to be sent to Jisan Prison. But the first batch of inmates, who were initially imprisoned and awakened shortly after the Great Cataclysm, ended up being anomalies. The next batch of prisoners and other subsequent batches failed to awaken, no matter how long they waited. They found themselves regretting their choice, spending their incarceration in fear of the frightening villains that were their cell neighbors.

People began to think that Woo Jinchul had the ability to detect people who could become hunters in the future. “It seemed like he had a strange sixth sense about this sort of thing. But of course, he already knew,” Jinho said with a grin.

A little bit of cross-checking was more than enough for Jinchul to see that whoever became a hunter in the past timeline would awaken again in the present. Those who had been S-rank hunters before became S-rank hunters again. It was the same case for E-rank hunters, and so on. That information was easy enough to confirm, which was why Jinchul had identified criminals who would become hunters and put them all in Jisan Prison. Whenever they awakened, they would all be contained in the same place.

“The problem was that he couldn’t detect their abilities in detail.” And the results of that issue were being broadcast on the news as they spoke.

“Two days ago, the hunter inmates of the prison staged a riot and escaped. These inmates have yet to be found.”

“The association has officially designated the escapees as villains and requested that all hunters in the country provide assistance…”

“I had no idea all the villains in Jisan Prison would escape, though,” Jinho remarked.

“Maybe there was an information leak, and they found out that Mr. Woo was going to North Korea. The S-rank hunters of the association went with him, so they probably thought this was their chance,” Suho said.

Information exchange was probably tightly controlled in a prison for dangerous villains, but there might have been holes in the security. Nobody knew what abilities the villains might have gained. But whether they were fed information or not, the villains had somehow figured out that Woo Jinchul and the association’s S-rank hunters were absent. It was highly likely that they decided this was the perfect time to make a break for it.

“That’s also what we believe, Sung Suho,” said a familiar voice from behind him.

Suho and Jinho turned around to find that Jaehyuk, a team leader from the association, had come to welcome them.

“I’m so glad to see you back safe.” Jaehyuk sighed with relief as soon as he saw Suho. Large overseas guilds had been stealing away talented Korean hunters quite frequently lately. He had witnessed first-hand Suho’s kidnapping—if that was the right word—at the hands of Thomas Andre, and he had wondered if Suho was going to end up joining the Scavenger Guild. It would have left a bitter taste in Jaehyuk’s mouth indeed. He had seen Suho facing off against Thomas on equal terms, so he naturally would have been disappointed to see such a hunter poached by the United States.

The Scavenger Guild must have offered him an incredible deal… and to think, he came back despite that! Jaehyuk mistakenly told himself, silently saluting Suho’s patriotic heart.

“Oh, good. You’re right on time,” Suho said.

“Of course. I had to be when you, of all people, offered to help us as a bounty hunter during this difficult situation.” Jaehyuk looked greatly relieved.

As it so happened, the news continued to provide reports on Jisan Prison.“The inmate responsible for organizing the riot and jailbreak was C-rank villain, Hwang Dongsuk. He is currently…”

“So…” Suho gazed at the screen behind Jaehyuk, then focused on the team leader. The young hunter’s eyes looked like a predator hungry to hunt. “How many do I need to capture to become a guild master?”