Solo Leveling: Ragnarok

Chapter 28

“Wait.”

At that moment, Sunho felt a strange sensation.

Looking back, all the recent events seemed to be connected.

Gwanak Mountain Field.

Hyena Guild.

Seoul Station Field.

And they all had one thing in common.

“…they all appeared one year ago.”

“Hmm? Come to think of it! It seems like those outsiders have been hiding on Earth for a year now!”

“A year ago…,” Sunho thought. “Then let’s try looking backwards. If we search for dungeons, fields, and guilds that were created a year ago, we might find something else.”

If they found the demon, they could strengthen Vulcan’s horn, and if they discovered any other trace of the outsiders, that would be good as well.

“Oh! Our lord is certainly intelligent! He taught us addition and subtraction just the other day…,” Ver, who was trying to curry favor, was ignored for a moment.

Then something came to Sunho’s mind.

“Yes. There it was.”

The most famous area in Korea one year ago.

The site of a gruesome tragedy.

“Magok.”

Sunho’s eyes flickered.

Hunter Association Surveillance Division.

“…No matter how much we investigate, more and more keeps coming out.”

As Team Leader Han Jae-hyuk continued to investigate the headquarters of the Hyena Guild, he became increasingly frustrated.

The list of crimes committed by the Hyena Guild was so long that even a hundred reports couldn’t cover it all.

All the crimes related to law enforcement were transferred to the police hunter department.

The Association’s focus was on investigating things beyond the boundaries of the law, such as “star powder.”

…Actually, strictly speaking, star powder wasn’t a drug.

So using it wasn’t really illegal.

But they couldn’t just leave an unknown substance like that alone.

The Hunter Association has been investigating how stardust is made and who created it, and finally obtained a clue at the headquarters of the Hyena Guild.

A transaction ledger.

They discovered a ledger that recorded when and how much stardust the Hyena Guild purchased, and to whom they sold it.

This confirmed that the Hyena Guild was one of the distributors of stardust.

They might be able to find out who actually makes stardust by following the trail.

“But there were people who went into debt just to buy stardust.”

“Well, you can think of it as a type of investment. If you use stardust to go to higher-level dungeons, you can quickly repay the debt.”

“So they probably came back to the Hyena Guild with the money they earned and bought stardust again?”

“In the end, the Hyena Guild kept taking the money in the middle. There’s really no separate creative economy.”

But the real problem was that most of the hunters listed in the ledger were “missing for the past year.”

Most of them were probably the prey of boss monsters controlled by the Hyena Guild from behind.

But as they continued to investigate the ledger, they found one strange thing.

Some of the missing people were marked with a red line.

Among them were a considerable number of non-hunter debtors.

“What’s with these people? Is there something else going on?”

“Oh? Boss! Look here!”

An employee showed something to their team leader, Han Jae-hyuk.

“If you look here, the day that a large amount of stardust was delivered to the Hyena Guild and the day these missing people were marked as missing are the same day. Without exception.”

“……I see.”

“Is there some kind of connection?”

“Hmm.”

There was only one thing that immediately came to mind.

“……Did they exchange people for stardust?”

“People and stardust?”

Han Jae-hyuk went back and searched the ledger again.

And finally, he discovered one fact and his eyes widened.

“I’m sure. There is no record of how much money the Hyena Guild paid for the stardust they purchased in any of the ledgers. It means they didn’t pay any money.”

“What, really? Did they pay people instead of money for stardust? Why?”

“We’ll have to look into that now. If the Hyena Guild didn’t directly make the stardust, then whoever made it…”

It was then that an urgent call came in to the surveillance department.

“Team leader! We received a report!”

“What report? I’m busy right now…”

“Somebody discovered a stardust factory…”

“Change it immediately!”

When Team Leader Han Jae-hyuk received the report and arrived at the field in front of Seoul Station, everything was already over.

“What on earth happened here?”

The survivors who had been held captive in the factory and the hunters who had rescued them were exhausted and collapsed.

“It’s a long story…”

The squad leader explained everything that had happened up until now.

“A factory? They were making stardust in there? Who was it? The devil?”

As he listened to the explanation, the puzzle pieces of the case they had been investigating recently began to fit together in his head.

But he didn’t have time to sit down calmly and think about it now.

“What? Is that true? Is someone still down there fighting demons alone?”

“Yes. They said they would buy us some time to escape…and told us to go first…sob! Please hurry and save them!”

Assistant Lim had been worried about their safety, rolling his feet back and forth. In his eyes, even the demon that Su-ho had first encountered had barely won.

But there were 10 of those demons in the factory.

“Su-ho said not to worry, that he’ll find a way out on his own, but he was probably just trying to reassure us. That guy…he’s trying to sacrifice himself for us again, like he did in the Korean dungeon.”

After hearing all the explanations, Team Leader Han Jae-hyuk grabbed the weapon he had brought with him and his expression turned grim.

“Okay. We’ll go in now.”

Thump!

The weapon in Han Jae-hyuk’s hand was two giant steel shields that could cover half of his body.

As soon as he lifted the two shields, a transparent aura covered his whole body.

“Iron Wall Projection?!”

When Assistant Lim saw this, he realized too late who Han Jae-hyuk really was.