Solo Leveling: Ragnarok - Chapter 138

The mass escape from Jisan Prison had a significant negative impact on the public perception of the Hunters Association.

—Those dangerous villains shouldn’t have been gathered in a single location in the first place.

—That place was a ticking time bomb.

—Villains deserve the death penalty. They shouldn’t be incarcerated!

—Where are the f*cking bastards who demanded rights for villains? Show yourselves!

—Security must have been lax. How could so many of them escape all at once?I thought Jisan had the greatest security of any prison.

—Did the villains buy out their guards?

—Don’t tell me the guards are villains, too.

—Wow.How can this happen? Just because Woo Jinchul is away for a short while…

—Just fire all the hunters in the association! Except for the president!

—I think it’s Woo who needs to step down.

—Then who will be the next president?

—Choi Jongin can do it.He’s S-rank.

—Woo Jinchul’s only A-rank, so he wasn’t qualified anyway.

—But you have to admit that it was Woo Jinchul who made our country livable again.

—But this whole sh*tshow is because of Jisan Prison, which HE built!

—Do you think it can be fixed?

—Goddamn, I can’t even leave the house because I’m scared I’ll run into a villain.

—Isn’t this basically the same thing as a dungeon break?

In a sense, “dungeon break” was precisely the right word to use in this situation. No less than five hundred villains had escaped from Jisan Prison at the same time. Most of them were middle- to low-ranked, but even a single low-ranked villain was a danger to civilians’ safety. Indeed, a hunter-turned-criminal was no different from a magic beast.

There was another thing, however, making the situation even more dire. A huge number of villains had escaped, but there weren’t many hunters who had volunteered to help capture them. The reason was the same as it had been with the Lee Minsung incident—there was no money in it. Hunters could make far more from another dungeon run rather than traipse around looking for villains that might or might not be out there. In that sense, the Hunters Association had real trouble on its hands.

“We don’t care what people online are saying. What matters right now is ensuring public safety by hunting down the escaped villains as quickly as possible,” Jaehyuk said gravely after describing the current situation to Suho. “We have sent out cooperation requests to hunters all over the country, but as expected, only the White Tiger Guild is willing to join us.”

This time, the danger was far, far greater. Back then, it was only one villain, Lee Minsung—but now there were five hundred of them. The association didn’t have nearly enough manpower to bring all those villains in. “That’s why we plan to assign you temporary Association Bounty Hunter status,” Jaehyuk continued.

“Does that come with any privileges?”

“Yes. A bounty hunter officially authorized by the association does not need to seek permission to enter zones that belong to other guilds.”

Suho’s eyes widened. “You mean, I’ll be able to access dungeons that other guilds have exclusive rights to?”

“Yes. But you won’t be able to hunt magic beasts inside.”

“Even if I run into them in the course of chasing a villain?”

“Oh, my apologies. Perhaps my wording was vague. To be more precise, it’s illegal to remove any magic beast parts or mana crystals from such a dungeon.”

“So all that’s allowed is entering and leaving.”

“Yes. Your belongings will be checked on the way out of the gate. I hope you understand.”

“Well, it can’t be helped.” Suho nodded in acceptance, but he was hiding a victorious smile.

This is amazing! he thought. He’d just been trying to capture a few villains, but he’d lucked out. I can enter any dungeon I want and hunt all the magic beasts I want, as long as I tell people I’m after villains! They would check him for stolen goods on the way out, but that hardly mattered to Suho, since they couldn’t check his inventory or the Shadow Dungeon. If he was really set on hiding the byproducts of his hunt, nobody would notice. Of course, he couldn’t hide the traces of the violence he’d wreak, and repeatedly doing it would invite suspicion. But magic beast remains were not all that important to him—what mattered was the hunt itself.

I can level up wherever I want! If he left the magic beasts’ bodies behind after hunting, the guild that owned the dungeon would have nothing to complain about. Unlike him, they didn’t get any experience points for killing the magic beasts, but they would appreciate the easy access to the bodies without any extra effort.

Too bad the permit is only temporary, Suho thought in dismay. He wished it would last forever.

***

Suho began hunting villains in earnest. He started the same way all bounty hunters did, by gathering information. In order to locate the villains who were hiding from the hunters, gathering and analyzing information was key. Jaehyuk had already given him some basic intel from the association, mostly personal data regarding the villains who had escaped and which ones had already been caught.

The team leader had promised to share any new information right away, but Suho decided to take a more active approach. The first step was to use the White Tiger Guild. Since they were also eager to help hunt the villains down, they probably knew a lot about them, and as it happened, Suho had access to someone quite high up—Miho, the vice guild master. He gave her a call right away, and they met exactly an hour later.

“Are you kidding me? So you finally have the time to meet me, is that it?” Miho stood in front of Suho, crossing her arms and looking decidedly miffed. She had plenty of justification for this. “You ignored my calls until now, and now you call me and expect me to share information?”

Suho was unapologetic. “You called me? I had no idea. I was overseas.”

“Overseas? No wonder your phone was turned off… But why didn’t you use roaming services? What kind of person travels overseas without their phone nowadays?” she grumbled. The excuse seemed to work, however, since her anger appeared to subside quite a bit. “In any case, I’m a busy woman. Let’s get to the point. You need information about the villains from Jisan Prison?”

“Yes. I was made an official bounty hunter of the association.”

“Well… All right. It’s good work that you’re doing. The more people that can help, the better.” Miho’s tense eyes slowly relaxed as their conversation continued.

Jisan Prison was the reason that she was so terribly busy these days. If it hadn’t been Suho who’d called, she probably wouldn’t have come out herself at all. The vice guild master of the White Tiger Guild wasn’t someone just anybody could meet on demand. But Miho had worked with Suho once before and knew how well he could fight, which was why she’d been contacting him so consistently, bending her pride in an effort to recruit him. Though he ignored all of my calls… she grumbled to herself.

“As I said, I was overseas,” Suho reminded her. “So I didn’t know what happened.”

“Well, I guess that’s a good enough reason.” Miho, whose mood had been about to sour again, grinned at his interruption. “So, what kind of information do you need?”

“Anything you have. I just got back to South Korea, and I know very little.”

“I guess you really have been traveling, then.” Miho finally lowered her arms.

Suho, however, was feeling rather intrigued by her reaction. I did hear that the association kept the fact that I’d followed Thomas Andre a secret, but I didn’t expect them to have done such a good job. From what Jaehyuk had told him, the association had been keeping a very tight lid on information about Suho. They feared that more hunters might leave the country in the long run if news got out that South Korean hunters were being scouted by foreign guilds. Suho hadn’t actually been hired by the Scavenger Guild, but the association had been forced to be careful for the sake of the country’s security.

“So, where should I start? Do you want names? Locations? If you’re hunting them anyway, why not work with us?”

“The White Tiger Guild hunters are all scattered about anyway. I know the places to look into. Jisan Prison is in Pocheon, so I assumed they spread out from there.”

“So it’s names, then.” Miho laid out the documents she’d brought and said, “First of all, you know who caused this entire mess, right? Hwang Dongsuk, a C-rank villain.”

“Yes, it was on the news. There’s one thing I’m curious about… How did a C-rank villain become the instigator?” Suho was trying to answer the question that had been on his mind since he’d parted ways with Jaehyuk. There were A-rank and B-rank villains in Jisan Prison as well, so how did a C-rank villain lead the riot and escape?

“Well, to explain that, I’ll first have to tell you how the villains in the prison were being controlled.” Miho went on to explain how the villain-specific prison had one peculiarity as the highest-security prison in South Korea—all prisoners wore an electronic anklet on each ankle.

“You mean like the ones that sex offenders wear?”

“Yes, but these are at least two tiers more advanced. They’re equipped with tiny bombs.” Miho shrugged and continued, “They’re designed to explode when shock is applied to the anklet or if the wearer uses mana.”

This dangerous invention, also referred to as a “mana inhibitor,” was developed under the supervision of Woo Jinchul. “Mr. Woo initially wanted it to go on the neck, not the ankles.” He believed that the threat of losing their heads in a very literal sense was the only way to keep the villains under control. “He was voted down, unfortunately, and it was made into an anklet instead. The reason, of course, being—”

“Villains are people, too, and have the potential for rehabilitation? So they must be treated with respect as human beings?”

“Yes. A few civil rights organizations staged a protest in front of the court. Their claims were accepted.” Having to live with a bomb strapped to one’s neck was a terribly inhumane punishment, to be sure. If there was a single error with the device, one’s head would be separated from one’s body. “Still, it worked all right. The devices still kept the villains from using mana.”

“What if they regenerate their limbs after the bombs go off?” Suho asked.

She nodded. “Sharp observation. Right, some of the villains are actually healers. Mr. Woo separated them and placed them in a different prison.” This was the best that Jinchul had been capable of doing at the time. “In any case, with their mana sealed away, a hierarchy irrespective of mana formed among the villains. Jisan became more like an ordinary prison, rather than one populated by hunters.”

“So that’s how a C-rank took control.” Suho could finally picture what happened in his head. His eyes traveled over the documents about Hwang Dongsuk. “Hwang Dongsuk… Also known as the ‘Hairy Old Man’?”

“It was only the guards who called him that. He was the de facto king of Jisan Prison, and nobody was brave enough to use that nickname with him.”

“He must have been a good fighter.”

“No. Actually, he owed his rank to his younger brother.”

“His brother?” Suho’s eyes moved down to the family section of the profile, which had a checkmark next to it. He stared at the “siblings” list in shock. “He’s an S-rank villain?”

“Yes. Hwang Dongsoo, the S-rank villain, is Hwang Dongsuk’s little brother.”

“Eh?” Beru’s head shot up from the shadows at the mention of the familiar name.