Solo Leveling: Ragnarok - Chapter 140

“Young Monarch…” Beru cautiously called to Suho the moment he set foot in Jisan Prison.

“I know.” Suho nodded, staring ahead. He could sense people in various parts of the prison. It was said that a criminal always returned to the scene of a crime, so Suho wondered if that was the case here—but these were no criminals.

“Another competitor, huh?”

“Are you a summoner?”

The bounty hunters who had arrived at the prison first frowned as soon as they saw Suho. They noticed the small wolf in front of him, sniffing and looking about.

“A summon that specializes in tracking, perhaps?”

“Tsk. Another one vying for our prize.”

As Suho regarded the eyes in the building observing him warily, he was reminded once more of how purely competitive the bounty hunter industry was. However, not every bounty hunter simply took him for a rival. Some of them approached him with a friendly tone.

“Hey, do you belong to a team?”

“That summon doesn’t seem equipped for battle. Why don’t you join up with us?”

“You could team up with me.”

Summoners were not popular in dungeons, where any ability that wasn’t related to combat was useless. But things were different when it came to hunting villains. Summons with a highly developed sense of smell or abilities made for tracking could make a summoner highly sought after.

“Look, Young Monarch! You are massively popular!” Beru said, nodding proudly as if he were celebrating the success of his own son.

Suho, however, had no interest in teaming up with any of these bounty hunters. Every time he firmly refused one, they backed away with a frown.

“Hmph. A summoner can’t handle a villain alone.”

“Maybe he’s too young to understand. Well, the young ‘uns have to learn the hard way.”

“You seem like a beginner. Don’t come to us later crying for help!”

Countless bounty hunters offered wise-sounding advice, but Suho ignored them. Some of them left their business card in his hand, unwilling to give up on recruiting him.

“If you ever change your mind, get in touch with us. We’re bound to run into each other again.”

Miho was right… Suho recalled what she had said about there not being enough people for this type of work. “To be sure, there are too few bounty hunters, considering the size of the job,” he said.

“Not all are represented here, Young Monarch. The incident was a mere two days ago, and more of them will have already inspected this place and moved on.”

Suho nodded at Beru’s words. Just as he had come here first to investigate, most of the other bounty hunters must have thought similarly. By checking out the traces of combat, one could roughly figure out the level of the villains. Checking the prison was a form of reconnaissance.

“Hmm… It seems some are stronger than expected.”

“Why don’t we back off this time? I think it’d be better to do dungeons instead.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

Some hunters had turned away without hesitation, deciding that this hunt would be challenging. They were a far cry from the White Tiger Guild, who had willingly taken on the job of hunting the prisoners for the safety of the citizens.

“The White Tiger Guild is an outlier. This is how most hunters behave. Who would risk their lives on something that isn’t worth any money?” Que whispered to Suho as they watched the bounty hunters leave the prison one by one. “The White Tiger Guild probably behaves the way they do because the guild master was a firefighter before he awakened.”

“A firefighter?” Suho asked.

Apparently, Baek Yoonho, the S-rank hunter, had once saved citizens for a living. As Suho showed interest in this new fact, Que’s eyes gleamed. This was a chance to win some brownie points. “Yes. But the guild can only keep this up for so long.” Having once been the vice guild master of a large guild, Que evaluated the White Tiger Guild in a cold, logical voice. “The guild master will soon change course to avoid things that will not turn a profit. It takes money to run a guild, especially a large one.”

“Not something you should be saying, as you liked to embezzle funds in your previous position,” Suho remarked.

Chastised, Que cleared his throat uncomfortably and faded into the shadows.

Suho grinned. Interesting.The guild master of the White Tiger Guild was a firefighter?My grandfather was one, too. It really was an intriguing coincidence.

They can’t know each other, can they? he began to wonder. But he wrote it off as a silly thought and decided to focus on the investigation at hand. He soon learned something. “Huh… I’m positive now that there are no traces of any forced removal of the anklets.”

“Indeed. No sign of any bombs,” Beru agreed.

The interior of the prison was covered with blood, the results of a battle, and there were traces of various skills having been used. But they couldn’t find any anklets that had been torn off or any sign of explosions from the inhibitors. That could only mean one thing.

“They used some special method to disable the inhibitors…” Suho muttered. The inmates had used mana without removing the inhibitors—it was the only possible conclusion he could arrive at after looking around the site. It was not clear what exactly they had done to achieve this, but it meant that the villains could no longer be controlled by using the inhibitors. Not that this was Suho’s problem, of course. The association would have to handle the fallout—he would focus on the investigation, and nothing else.

“In any case, Gray, remember all the smells here,” Suho said.

The wolf whined and began sniffing even more eagerly. It was difficult to remember the faces of all five hundred villains, and what was more, they were unlikely to have their faces on display. But if Gray could memorize the smells in the prison, tracking would certainly become far easier. That was why the other bounty hunters had tried to recruit Suho.

He had just finished looking around the prison when another bounty hunter smiled and slid up to him. “So, are you done with your little inspection?” the man said. “If you are, why don’t you join me?”

Suho stopped and watched the man without a word. Gray bared his teeth viciously and growled.

“Hehe! What an adorable little mutt. Quite vicious for a tracking summon.”

“Young Monarch, this person is a rather suspicious one,” Beru warned. Suho nodded as the shadow ant continued, “He reeks of blood—human blood. He’s killed masses of people.”

“Ah, you can detect that? Interesting summons you have there. You’ll be useful, all right.” The man simply shrugged instead of being taken aback by Beru’s words. He then produced a badge from his pocket and showed it to Suho.

—Licensed Bounty Hunter of the Hunter’s Association

Name: Kang Taeshik

Rank: B

Suho’s eyes gleamed when he saw the association’s license.

“Now, I may not look like much, but I’m one of the few professional villain hunters. I’m not like those other half-assed idiots. You’ll find it advantageous to join me.” Taeshik introduced himself officially, but it was hardly an introduction of the common sort. “Did your summon say that I stink of blood? Of course, I do. I’ve killed more people than I have magic beasts.”

Suho eyed him cautiously.

“Hey, don’t stare. It’s rude. You’ll hurt my feelings, however unlikely that may seem. Do you think I killed civilians under a Korean Hunters Association license? Nope, only villains.”

Oddly enough, Taeshik was a true bounty hunter who only went after villains, rather than clearing dungeons. Seeing the guarded expression still on Suho’s face, he shrugged and made a friendly gesture. “How about this, then? I’ll give you the information I’ve gathered so far. You can decide whether to join me after you’ve heard it.”

“Information?”

“That’s right. I’m probably the single most well-informed person out of all the bounty hunters here.”

“Let’s hear it first.” If the man told him first, Suho had no reason to refuse. He nodded calmly.

Taeshik smiled as if he’d expected this. He didn’t seem to want his intel to be heard by others, since he checked his surroundings before starting to speak slowly. “You do know that Hwang Dongsuk, the instigator of the riot, has the support of Hwang Dongsoo?”

Suho nodded. Dongsoo, the S-rank villain, was said to have been the shadow soldier Greed in a different timeline.

“Well, Dongsoo actually cut ties with his brother a long time ago.”

“Cut… ties?”

“Yes. To be more precise, it was Dongsuk who cut Dongsoo out of his life.” Taeshik began telling the story that he knew.

***

Before the Great Cataclysm, Hwang Dongsuk and Hwang Dongsoo were known as the Con Brothers. They had always been greedy for money, and their hunger only grew more insatiable as they got older. The very day they’d finished serving their first prison sentences and returned to society, they went right back to crime. Their lives were hopeless, a string of one sentence after another.

The brothers, however, were quite pleased with their lives. If they both committed the same crime, received the same punishment, and ended up in the same prison, prison life wasn’t so bad. The brothers would still be together.

Right after the Great Cataclysm, however, their lives were turned completely around.

“Wh-what’s going on?”

“Hey, don’t tell me you awakened, Dongsuk!”

It was the older brother who awakened first. The moment he felt the immense power rising within him, he understood that he no longer had to live like a coward and depend on swindling. Only those who couldn’t fight turned to fraud to make money. Right after the Cataclysm, when the chaos in the world was at its peak, Dongsuk became a villain. Instead of a fraudster, he turned into an armed thief, looting convenience stores and restaurants.

“Hahaha! Money! You see that? Money! Who knew it would be so easy?”

He felt that he had been such a fool, trying so hard at his clever little schemes to make such tiny sums.

“Tsk… You still haven’t awakened? Maybe you have no talent?”

He began to think that his brother, who was still incapable of using even the slightest bit of mana, was a fool as well.

“I heard that many people awaken when they least expect it, Dongsuk. Just give me a little more time and—”

“A little? How long is that? You’re useless.”

Dongsoo, the younger brother, could say little in response to Dongsuk’s open criticism. It was true that he hadn’t awakened, and mana was not something one could gain just because they wanted it. And not too long after that, Dongsuk parted ways with his brother.

“You can get lost.”

“Dongsuk? What do you mean—”

“Get out of here, you worthless son of a b*tch!”

A partner was an asset when committing fraud, but Dongsuk no longer had a reason to share his money.

Having mercilessly sent his brother away, Dongsuk continued his thievery all across the country. He could work much faster now that he didn’t have his brother around to slow him down. And because he didn’t need to share the proceeds with Dongsoo, he never seemed to run out of money, either.

The good days did not last long, however. The Hunters Association was established out of the blue, and Woo Jinchul declared war on the villains.

It was almost too easy for the association hunters to arrest Dongsuk. He tried fighting back, but he was captured before he could try anything at all. Having been drunk on his power until then, he finally realized something after his capture—he was a big fish in a small pond. When the mana measurement devices developed overseas were finally adopted in Korea, Dongsuk realized that he was no greater than a C-rank villain.

Naturally, he was sent to the infamous Jisan Prison, where villains from all over the country were being contained. There, he heard a certain bit of news—after they parted, his brother had become an S-rank villain.