Solo Leveling: Ragnarok

Exactly when did he recover his memories of his past life? Beru had no knowledge of this, but one thing was for certain. “The memories of a Monarch transcend time itself,” he said, telepathically speaking with Suho.

Suho understood what Beru was trying to say. The Cup of Reincarnation.

“The divine tool which turns back time, the Cup of Reincarnation, cannot affect the consciousness of higher beings such as Rulers and Monarchs,” Beru continued.

The shadow ant cast his mind back. Only a few decades ago, when the war against the Monarchs ended and peace had returned to the earth, Woo Jinchul—who was an ordinary policeman after losing all his memories of his past life—had suddenly recovered the knowledge of his past all at once. The cause was extremely simple—a reunion with Sung Jinwoo. That alone had been enough.

A meeting with Jinwoo, however, was not at all an ordinary thing. After all, Jinwoo reigned over death itself. He was the great Monarch of Shadows who had killed all the other Monarchs and subdued every dimension. Being directly involved with such a great, noble, and superior being would obviously be a very meaningful event in a person’s life. Such a thing could not be written off as ordinary.

“Sung Ilhwan is his father, no less, and lived half his life with him. He even accepted the power of the Rulers inside of him,” Beru said. Ilhwan, who once had the power of the Rulers, had shared a home with his son, a Monarch, for dozens of years. Yoo Jinho had recovered all his memories simply by touching the key to the Shadow Dungeon, so it was now difficult to imagine the impact actually living with Jinwoo would have had on Ilhwan.

So it wouldn’t have been strange at all for him to recover his memories at the slightest opportunity, Suho thought, nodding at Beru’s words. The conclusion, it seemed, was that his grandfather had walked off somewhere with the memories of his past life intact.

Then where in the world did he go?And what does he seek to accomplish? Many questions floated around in Suho’s brain. He decided to focus on the most important part first.

The Itarim.How are they involved in his disappearance?Is he currently safe?I’ll focus on those two things for now. There was a chance that his grandmother might be placed in a situation similar to Suho’s mother. The priority was to find Ilhwan as soon as possible.

Suho turned to Daeseok, who was speaking to his grandmother and his aunt. “So, who was the last person who saw my grandfather?” he asked.

Kyunghye had been contacted by an employee of the association before rushing to the branch. The association had not believed Ilhwan to be missing until that point. Only today had they become certain.

“Uh… We are not actually sure about this yet, but…” began a newly recruited female employee who had brought Kyunghye here herself. She glanced consciously at Daeseok, then continued, “Someone said that they saw him, you see. And it wasn’t at a fishing spot.”

“Somewhere else? Where?” Suho asked.

“He was near the business association…”

“What?!” Daeseok shouted, turning around to face the employee with a very confused look on his face. He quietly reprimanded the woman. “Why are you mentioning them all of a sudden? Are you even sure what you are talking about? Can you take responsibility for your words?”

“W-wait! All I heard was that he was seen walking in that direction! You know that people don’t fish in that area.”

“Of course. That place isn’t… Ahem.” Noticing the gazes of Suho’s family members, Daeseok suddenly cleared his throat and clammed up.

The cat was already out of the bag, however. “The business association, huh?” Suho slowly said.

Daeseok gasped. He slowly turned around, realizing that Suho was giving off the same frightening energy as he had when he first came in.

He was fidgeting with the necklace that he had torn away from Daeseok’s neck. “You mentioned that you got this necklace from the same people,” Suho said. His tone was becoming impolite once more.

Does he have anger issues or something? Daeseok wondered. He felt like he wanted to cry.

Suho looked ready to explode at any moment. “Answer me.”

“Y-yes! The association in question is just a gathering of people who do business in Yangpyeong. This sort of organization is commonplace!”

“Go on.”

“Sure! There is actually a separate body for businessmen in Yangpyeong. The association that I’m talking about is more of a private gathering created by hunters who are active in this area. They are the ones who made the necklaces and distributed them!” Daeseok found himself spilling everything in response to Suho’s questions. ṝÅŊοꞖЁṩ

Suho noticed something strange about the man’s statement. “Why would hunters create an organization like that, instead of a guild? For what reason?” Surely everyone here knew that it was much more profitable to enter a dungeon rather than waste time on such useless activities. Sometimes a guild engaged in business projects, but those were never the focus.

“Well, um…” Daeseok looked extremely anxious as he noticed Suho’s cold gaze, his eyes roving around the room. The other employees also did their best to avoid making eye contact with him. These employees were the ones wearing the necklaces.

There is something fishy here, Suho realized instinctively. Suddenly, a corner of Daeseok’s desk was crushed by Suho’s grip.

Beru whispered evilly in Suho’s ear, “Shall I kill him? I will eat his brains and read his memories.”

Perhaps Daeseok had overheard the threat, or Beru’s sincerity had somehow made itself felt. The moment his desk was damaged, the branch head shuddered and immediately said, “I-it’s a black market— Yikes!” He immediately clamped a hand over his mouth.

“A black market?” Suho asked, his eyes growing even more fierce.

Daeseok grew paler as he rushed to make an excuse. “W-well, you see… Let me be clear about something. I have nothing to do with it. I’ve been told that it isn’t ready yet, and I don’t really know—”

“What is a black market for?” Jinah asked.

Daeseok sighed deeply. “Uh… It’s not surprising that non-hunters are not aware of what it is. A black market is a market for direct transactions between hunters.”

“A market…”

“Yes. To be more precise, deals and auctions are held there to evade taxes.”

With the mention of tax evasion, Sung Jinah understood right away. Even hunters, with their superhuman abilities, feared taxes. Because they were categorized as very high-income earners, they paid a tax rate of no less than fifty percent of their income. Half the money that they had earned by risking their lives to fight magic beasts was taken by the government. All such taxes were used to help citizens who had become victims of dungeon accidents or rebuild cities that had been destroyed by dungeons. It was the Hunters Association that oversaw the precise usage of those taxes.

“And you mean to say that the association is allowing the operation of a black market, which has a primary goal of tax evasion?” Jinah asked.

“N-no! The black market was an ongoing project before I even started working here. I opposed it at first—”

At that moment, Daeseok’s desk began to crumble like a piece of tofu under slow, successive blows from Suho’s fist.

“Eeek!” The branch head was suddenly seized by the fear that a similar fate might await him. His breath stuck in his throat.

Daeseok was not the only one who was terrified, however. Suho stood up and ran his cold eyes over all the association employees in the office. The employees, who had been wearing the same necklaces as their boss, blanched and trembled. Woo Jinchul would deal with the legal issues involving these people at a later point.

Suho asked, “So where can I find this black market?”

***

Yangpyeong was a big region, almost as big as Jeju Island. Yangpyeong had one major difference from Jeju Island—there were many obstacles to development, such as water source and nature conservation zones. Because of this, the district contained mountains, forests, and valleys in all directions, and there were countless fishing spots. Given the rugged terrain, people often went missing, just like Sung Ilhwan had.

“That’s a very thick, wet fog,” Suho muttered to himself.

“Yangpyeong has a lot of humidity because of its many dams,” Que remarked, appearing out of the blue and sharing what he knew. Suho walked along through the fog as he listened.

“I get it now, Young Monarch,” Beru said. He had just realized what seemed so strange about the region when they first set foot in it. “It seems that blue mist has mixed with this fog.”

“Don’t tell me there’s a dungeon somewhere inside, too?” Suho said.

“It seems to be the case. Perhaps the association wasn’t able to notice thus far because the blue mist did not flow out of the fog,” Que said. Having been a villain in the past, as well as the vice guild master of the Fiend Guild, he recognized the value of the place right away. “I think I would’ve wanted to make a black market here myself if I had known of it.” It was capable of even hiding a gate, which meant they could hide basically anything.

“Que, head on the ground,” Suho ordered.

“Right.” Having been a villain himself, Que was obviously very empathetic to the thought processes of criminals.

“Okay. I’m starting to sense it now,” Suho said, halting. The mana from the gate, which had seemed faint because it had mixed with the fog, had begun to become more noticeable. “In fact, I think this entire region is a field-type dungeon.”

Esil, who had been walking beside him, also looked around with glowing eyes. Then she discovered something. “It’s a demon totem.”

“Can you tell what it’s for?” Suho asked.

“It’s a barrier that alerts the demons of any non-demon who tries to approach.”

“Non-demon?” Suho said with a slight grin. “Then I will become a demon.”

He took out the crow mask, which had laid unused in his inventory for a while. It was something that the demons who worked in Stardust factories wore. Naturally, this was not enough to deceive the barrier.

“Esil?”

“All right.”

[Item: “Vulcan’s Horns” have been equipped.]

Their teamwork had matured greatly. Esil immediately used spirit transfer to attach the Vulcan’s Horns to Suho’s head. He was now wearing the mask and the horns of a demon, so it was hard not to think of him as a demon.

“This should be enough to deceive the barrier,” Esil whispered.

Suho walked confidently through the barrier. The scene before him changed, and the black market Daeseok had mentioned appeared.

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