Solo Leveling- Ragnarok

Until now, the instance dungeons created by Harmakan didn’t require keys, but this time was an exception. While previous instance dungeons unfolded as hidden spaces centered around Harmakan, this time it was a spell that reopened a scar left on the dimensional wall.

Snap!

Suho held the golden key handed to him by Harmakan towards Exit 3 of Hapjeong Station.

Whoosh!

In that moment, the air rippled around the key, and mana surged, forcefully splitting the dimensional wall.

“A… a gate?!”

Seo Jiwoo’s eyes widened in shock at that sight.

“Oh my God! It’s a real gate!”

‘What? Is it really?! Is this even possible?’

She was already stunned several times today to the point that her heart hurt. A gate had suddenly appeared in a previously empty space! Witnessing an unbelievable sight right before her eyes, Seo Jiwoo alternated her gaze between Suho and Harmakan, mouth agape.

“Hunter Seong Suho… you are really…”

“Well, shall we go in?”

Seeing Suho looking at her with a nonchalant face after doing something so outrageous, Seo Jiwoo decided to give up on thinking.

Suho stepped towards the gate, and as his figure half-disappeared in the air, Seo Jiwoo finally came to her senses and urgently shouted.

“W-wait! I didn’t bring any weapons because I didn’t know this would happen…!”

[Just go in. I don’t need your consent anyway.]

Push.

“…!”

At that moment, Harmakan pushed Seo Jiwoo’s back, and she ended up stepping into the gate following Suho in confusion.

Whoosh!

“…!”

With just one step, another world unfolded before Seo Jiwoo’s eyes.

[You have entered the instance dungeon.]

A message popped up in front of Suho, but Seo Jiwoo couldn’t see it. Instead, her vision was filled with the eerie landscape of Hapjeong Station, transformed into a jungle. 1

Whoooo-

“…”

Vines were sprawling over the walls, and the stench of decaying corpses was overpowering. A chilling wind, like the wails of ghosts, blew from afar.

Seo Jiwoo looked back instinctively.

Thud, thud!

“A wall… has appeared?”

She knocked on the invisible wall. It was creepy that beyond the wall, the peaceful outside world, still basked in warm sunlight, was spread out. It seemed that this place and the outside world were different spaces.

She tried to force her way out but it was impossible.

Harmakan, looking at Seo Jiwoo, spoke in a dry, mechanical tone.

[Give up. To leave this dungeon, you must either defeat the boss mob or use a hearthstone.]

He pointed his thumb at himself and grinned meaningfully.

[For the record, the boss mob is me.]

“…”

Amid all the confusion, at least one thing seemed clear.

Not only did this summoned beast look sinister, but it also seemed to have a nasty personality.

No, correction.

[Kiieeek! You sluggish human! Do you intend to make the little lord wait?!]

“…”

This ant summon, though cute in appearance, had an extremely bad personality as well.

[Kiieeek! Can’t you move faster?!]

“Alright, alright.”

Eventually, unable to withstand Beru’s beseeching, Seo Jiwoo carefully followed Suho, who was already descending the stairs ahead.

But no matter how powerful a hunter is, One always fears the unknown.

Gulp.

As they descended the stairs, the eerie landscape of the Hapjeong Station dungeon began in earnest, which made Seo Jiwoo swallow dryly.

Passing through the restroom, they entered the underground shopping center.

The stores were old, broken, and reminiscent of ruins.

Under the dim fluorescent light, the ruined shops and deserted passageway gave off a gloomy feeling.

Flicker, flicker.

Several fluorescent lights were flickering, nearing the end of their lifespan.

Stepping on the weeds growing abundantly over the broken tiles, Seo Jiwoo followed Suho, glancing around with an uneasy expression.

‘…This is my first time in a dungeon like this.’

It seemed that unlike typical dungeons leading to another dimension, the entire Hapjeong Station had become a dungeon.

‘I can’t believe something like this is possible…’

Seo Jiwoo had met many high-ranked hunters before, but Seong Suho was the first of his kind.

The more she learned about him… the more incomprehensible his abilities seemed.

Sticking close to Suho, Seo Jiwoo asked with a worried expression.

“Hunter Seong Suho, what are we going to do here?”

Regardless of age difference, formal speech started to come out naturally.

Suho answered while calmly scanning the surroundings.

“We created the dungeon, so now we’re going to find a double dungeon inside it. Since you said you didn’t conquer the double dungeon previously, there might still be traces of it left somewhere around here .”

“…I see.”

Easier said than done.

To find a double dungeon, they first created a dungeon.

However, that logic was hard to follow with Seo Jiwoo’s common sense.

“But this place is completely different from the dungeon my team and I conquered back then. Do you think the double dungeon I found at that time still exists here?”

“That’s what we’re about to find out.”

Harmakan answered confidently.

[There’s a good chance. Though this place was created differently, it follows the scar on the dimension, so if there are traces of the dimensional gap here, that’s where the double dungeon will be.]

And there was one more reason why Harmakan was so confident.

There was an unfamiliar presence in this dungeon which he created himself.

Shiver!

“…!”

In the silence, suddenly, there came a feeling of being watched from somewhere.

Crash!

At that moment, Seo Jiwoo’s face, expressing frustration and bewilderment until now, was replaced by the sharp gaze of an S-rank hunter.

“There!”

As soon as she caught the presence.

With an afterimage, that made her body look stretched like taffy, Seo Jiwoo shot forward.

Boom!

Even without a weapon, an S-rank hunter’s body is already a war machine in itself.

Boom!

Seo Jiwoo’s fist smashed through a wall, grabbing the ‘thing’ hiding behind it by the neck rather than killing it.

The thing struggled to escape Seo Jiwoo’s grip, but it was futile against her strength.

“Keek, keek…!”

“What the… what is this?”

Its appearance was strange.

Seo Jiwoo’s eyes widened as she saw the monster’s form.

Just then.

Crash!

The shop window behind Suho shattered, and other creatures emerged.

“Keek, keek, keek!”

Hiss!

Sharp thorns gleaming with blue poison attacked Suho’s back at tremendous speed.

[The Queen of Insects, the Plague Monarch, licks her lips.]

Querehsha awakened.

But only reacting to the poison, the creature that lunged wasn’t actually a bug.

“What are these things?”

Instead of confronting the attack, Suho casually raised his hand and grasped the air.

‘Ruler’s Authority’

Freeze!

“Keerk?!”

The unidentified monsters that were attacking Suho struggled in the air as if caught in a snare.

Suho, seeing the creatures caught by his invisible hand, called Harmakan with an intrigued expression.

“Harmakan, what are these?”

[Interesting. They’re not my creations.]

Harmakan replied with a gleam in his eye.

Beru even tried biting them but spat out in disgust.

[They taste awful. They don’t seem to be proper demonic beasts either.]

“Looks demonic though.”

“Keek, keek!”

The monsters that suddenly appeared looked bizarre.

Suho frowned.

“What should we call these?”

“Plants?”

Purple vines entangled like tentacles into a doll.

No, a half-finished doll, perhaps?

Some had octopus-like legs, while others had tentacle-like roots spreading out.

In short, a mess.

At least one common feature was that they had human-like skulls atop their heads, resembling helmets.

[??]

Even the system that usually identified the monsters couldn’t recognize them, displaying question marks above their heads.

“Plants mimicking skeletons? Or sprouts growing from skulls?”

What should he call these?

This was a job for the Dragon Monarch.

[The spirit of ‘Antares’ descends into the priest’s body.]

Ragnar appeared with arms crossed over Suho’s shadow.

“Ask anything.”

“Antares, are these creatures perhaps the Nightmare Buds?”

“No, these are just nameless weeds. Not every weed has a name.”

“So, are they from the Sea of the Afterlife?”

“Probably. These half-formed creatures are not among the residents of the Chaos World.”

‘Residents of the Chaos World’

This term referred to ordinary monsters that had appeared on Earth so far, residents of another dimension ruled by the Monarchs.

But even the Dragon Monarch, who ruled the Chaos World for a long time, had never seen monsters like these.

“These creatures have no special names and look half-finished. We call them ‘Residents of the Rift’ as a whole.”

“Residents of the Rift?”

Suho tilted his head at the unfamiliar term.

Antares shrugged and explained.

“Actually, calling them residents is a compliment. They’re just dimensional trash drifting through the Rift.”

“Dimensional trash?”

“No, residue is a more accurate term. Literally, they are remnants, not the creation of an absolute being but leftovers abandoned by the creator.”

Keek! Keek, keek, keek!

Did they understand Antares’s words?

The weeds held by Suho trembled and screamed.

“They seem angry at your words.”

“Angry? That’s amusing. These things can’t feel emotions.”

Antares snorted at Suho’s words.

He looked at the trembling weeds with utter disdain.

“These things have no intellect, no soul. Being unfinished creations, they drift through the rift driven only by the instinct to devour life.”

Keek! Keek, keek!

The hollow cries of soulless weeds echoed throughout the dungeon created by Harmakan.

Antares looked around with a smirk.

“Anyway, there must be a hole somewhere in this dungeon where these weeds came through, what humans call a double dungeon.”

But finding that place didn’t seem easy.

If these weeds had souls, he could make them shadow soldiers to guide him, but extracting shadows from soulless leftovers was impossible.

However, there was always a way.

“…Why are you all looking at me like that?”

Seo Jiwoo suddenly felt a chill.

Everyone’s gaze was blatantly fixed on her.

Not only Suho, the Dragon Monarch, Harmakan, and Beru but even the captured weeds.

The skull-like heads on the weeds turned towards Seo Jiwoo, staring at her with hollow eye sockets.

Seo Jiwoo instinctively realized what role she was going to play .

“Am I the bait?”

Nod.

The Dragon Monarch Antares, who made eye contact with Seo Jiwoo, nodded solemnly.

“The Nightmare Buds are the greediest of weeds. Any prey they missed would be a mouth-watering bait for the Residents of the gap.”

Harmakan, standing behind the Dragon Monarch, also sneered at Seo Jiwoo.

[That’s why I said from the start. You won’t need to step in willingly.]

“You, damn…!”

Just then.

Keek, keek, keek!

The dungeon of Hapjeong Station started to fill with countless weeds targeting Seo Jiwoo.

Simultaneously, Suho’s fists were enveloped in scorching flames.

Fwoosh!

Boom!

Black flames from the heart of the Dragon Monarch lashed out like a whip, incinerating the weeds in an instant.

In the blaze, Suho’s eyes shone intensely.

“Protect Hunter Seo Jiwoo! Beru, let’s track where these things are coming from!”

[At your command! Kiieeek-!]

Beru, grinning widely, leaped after Suho, who was charging ahead.

And then, suddenly.

“Keek?!”

Harmakan lifted Seo Jiwoo over his shoulder, saying.

[Don’t worry. I will protect you until the end.]

“You… I told you I wanted to bring my weapon…!”

[Ha, no need to bother.]

Harmakan, the war chief of the demon race and master of the instance dungeon, spoke decisively.

[Variables are unacceptable. Just think of it as a kidnapping.]

“…!”

He was a perfectionist.