SSS-Class Sui**de Hunter - Chapter 11

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 11. The Beginning of Solo (2)
3
—Do you know what’s most important if you want to take private lessons, Zombie?
“I’d really appreciate it if you’d stop calling me Zombie.”
—Tuition, that’s what.
We’d finished everything we had to do at Sangryeon Headquarters and stepped outside.
Midday. As lunchtime approached, the streets came alive. Retired Hunters had opened restaurants and sundry shops, calling out to passersby with practiced enthusiasm.
Of course, plenty of them had nothing but flies for company. In those shops, the owners invariably sat at the entrance with blank, slack-jawed expressions. Those meant for success and those meant for failure. Harsh, but a truth that held true in the outside world and in Babylon alike.
—And you’ve just secured the tuition. So then, what else do you need?
“A skilled tutor, I suppose?”
—Ah-ha. That’s already standing right in front of you.
Bae Hu-ryeong spoke with shameless confidence, not a flicker of expression crossing his face.
—A good reference book! You need textbooks to accelerate your growth.
“Textbooks…?”
—That’s right. Secret manuals, Spirit Elixirs, things like that. But there’s no way you could understand a secret manual at your current level, so really the only answer is to scrape together a bunch of expensive Spirit Elixirs.
This man always managed to make even the most sensible advice sound utterly infuriating.
—By the way, I don’t deal with cheap elixirs. There’s this guild for physicians and pharmacists—the Alchemist Guild, I think they call it? Get your hands on Spirit Elixirs manufactured only by their finest craftsmen.
“Ugh.”
—Don’t worry about where the shop is; I know the location. And Marcus himself drops by there fairly often, so once you clean out their stock of elixirs……
“Wait, hold on a second.”
—Hmm? What is it?
I lowered my voice. Pedestrians were passing nearby.
“…Those kinds of elixirs aren’t truly outrageously expensive, are they?”
—Of course they’re outrageously expensive. It’s whatever they decide to charge. When you hear the price, you’ll definitely gasp.
Bae Hu-ryeong grinned wickedly.
—Want me to give you a rough idea?
“…Go ahead and tell me.”
Bae Hu-ryeong leaned in and whispered the figure in my ear. When I heard it, my eyes went wide. The price exceeded anything I could have imagined.
“Even if I dump all my remaining money into this, I can only buy about four of them!”
—Heh-heh. If you order them all at once, you might wrangle a discount and get about five. They know how to make a sale, those merchants. That’s why doctors who’ve tasted money are the scariest people in the world.
“This is, this is way too expensive……”
Lord. Looks like I’m about to be poor again. I’d thought that winning first place would let me live comfortably for once.
—Well, I suppose it stings a bit watching the money you’ve earned slip away so easily, but what can you do? This is the tragedy of your insufficient talent. Just accept it as your fate… Urgh!
Bae Hu-ryeong’s face went rigid.
—Kong-ja. Hide.
“What?”
—Now.
His voice was deadly serious. Without thinking, I ducked behind a nearby galvanized metal trash bin. The stench was putrid and stale—the kind used by restaurants to dump food scraps. I wrinkled my nose.
“What’s going on? Why are we hiding all of a sudden?”
—Be careful. It’s Marcus.
“……”
I held my breath. Carefully, I peeked around the edge of the trash bin at the street. An elderly man with white hair tied back. Current Ranking 1, the one called Marcus who possessed Detective’s Insight, was walking past in the distance.
‘Getting spotted would be a headache.’
My heart hammered. Perhaps sensing my tension, Bae Hu-ryeong abandoned his incessant chatter and fell silent. Together we crouched behind the trash bin, tracking Marcus’s figure with our eyes.
“…And, noisy……”
Fortunately, Marcus seemed not to have noticed us. The old man muttered to himself as usual and headed somewhere.
—Damn it.
Watching Marcus disappear into a building, Bae Hu-ryeong’s expression twisted.
—Tsk! That’s the place. That’s the best shop.
“The best shop?”
—Spirit Elixirs, that is. There’s a pharmacist there who makes the finest of them. Honestly, everyone else is a hack. You really should buy there, but…!”
Bae Hu-ryeong tapped his feet impatiently. This was the first time I’d seen genuine frustration from the spirit. Beside him, I fell into deep thought.
‘Using the same shop as Marcus carries too much risk. But still—a pharmacist who can craft quality elixirs….’
I pulled out my smartphone and searched for the top-ranked Hunters.
The list loaded, starting from 1st place.
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1st. Marcus / Affiliation: None.
2nd. Black Witch / Affiliation: Black Dragon (Guild Master).
3rd. Count / Affiliation: Merchant’s Guild (Guild Master).
4th. Inquisitor / Affiliation: Manshin Temple (Guild Master).
5th Rank: Viper / Affiliation: Heavenly Martial Sect (Guild Master).
6th Rank: Babel’s Linguist / Affiliation: Manwhak (Vice Guild Master).
7th Rank: Broadcast Operator / Affiliation: Hwanmun News (Vice Guild Master).
8th Rank: Holy Knight / Affiliation: Self-Defense Corps (Vice Guild Master).
.
.
.
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“It’s not there.”
I muttered the words carelessly, almost to myself.
Bae Hu-ryeong, who had been tapping her feet restlessly this whole time, responded to my murmur.
-Huh? What’s not there? Your luck?
“No. If anything, it’s the exact opposite.”
I wasn’t lacking in luck—I had too much of it.
“I might not need to spend as much money as I thought.”
-What?
“I think I can acquire top-grade Spirit Elixir without breaking the bank.”
I let out a short laugh.
“I happen to know an excellent pharmacist.”
We left the Commercial District and slipped into a dim alleyway.
A poor neighborhood. The kind of place where people with no other means had to scrape by in crumbling buildings. In a word—something like the Harlem District. The Hunters watching us from the shadows of the narrow alley had unsettling eyes.
-…You’re telling me a genuinely skilled pharmacist actually lives here?
Bae Hu-ryeong’s disbelief was written all over her face.
“Not just ordinarily skilled—a pharmacist with exceptional, extraordinary talent.”
-Stop making stuff up. Why would someone with that kind of talent stay in a dump like this?
“Well, if you don’t want to believe me, suit yourself.”
From deeper in the alley came the sharp sound of someone clicking their tongue. The Hunters who’d been watching us looked away.
They must have taken me for a lunatic, talking to myself like that. Even in a neighborhood like Harlem, where security was at its worst, people generally didn’t bother with the mentally ill.
I let out a silent chuckle.
‘What would they do if they knew my wallet was stuffed with gold coins?’
It was obvious. Their eyes would go wild and they’d come at me like beasts.
Of course, I had no intention of kindly informing them of my financial situation. Breathing in the stench of rotting corpses from somewhere nearby, I ventured deeper into the maze of alleys.
That’s when I heard a voice—torn and desperate.
“P-Please! Don’t touch my experimental equipment!”
A young person’s voice.
Followed by rough, threatening tones.
“How many times is this now, and you’re still spouting that nonsense!”
“The deadline passed half a year ago. Now you’ve got to pay the price.”
I headed toward the voices. At the intersection where alleys crossed like the center of a web, there stood a ramshackle shop.
That’s where the commotion was.
“N-No! If you take the equipment too… I won’t be able to… to make a living……”
“That’s enough. Nothing left to see here. Take it all!”
Burly thugs began loading machinery onto a handcart with practiced efficiency. A woman who appeared to be the shop owner—somewhere in her late twenties—desperately grabbed at the cart, pleading.
“One week! Just give me one more week. Or five days, even……”
“One week became a month, and a month became half a year, didn’t it!”
Thud. As the thugs shoved the cart aside, the shop owner crashed to the ground without resistance. Her knees scraped raw, yet she still reached out toward the departing cart.
“No… the Medicinal Potion I haven’t finished yet……!”
“Ugh. Saddled with some crazy pharmacist. Listen, young lady—I’m giving you genuine advice: never, ever dabble in potion-making again!”
The cart rattled away into the alley and vanished.
Left behind was the shop owner, kneeling in despair. And the neighbors like me who’d crawled out to gawk at the disaster. The onlookers whispered among themselves.
“Tsk, tsk. I said that shop looked doomed a while back.”
“Medicinal Potions are expensive, sure, but forty Gold for one Health Potion?”
“She’s just a kid who didn’t take business seriously……”
Perhaps the shop owner heard the spectators’ murmurs.
Her vacant stare at the ground snapped upright in an instant.
“E-Expensive?! I barely charge above cost!”
Her appearance was quite pitiful. Her long hair was matted from days without washing. The glasses perched on her face looked like ancient relics, worn thin by age. Even her voice was hoarse and grating—less like jade rolling smoothly and more like jade shattering.
“There isn’t another shop in all of Babylon that sells Medicinal Potions of this quality at these prices! I-I should be thanked for even opening a shop in such a miserable neighborhood! Yes!”
“Good grief, she still hasn’t come to her senses.”
“My word. For someone in her situation, she sure talks big……”
The onlookers shook their heads and dispersed.
Not good.
No matter how you looked at it, there was no way to develop any fondness for the shop owner standing there.
“Oh… wait, just a moment, everyone. Since you’ve all gathered here anyway, how about a Health Potion? One dose of my special formula and even a Hunter on death’s door will be gasping and kicking!”
“No, no thanks!”
The shop owner tried belatedly to catch the departing crowd, but it was useless. Spilled water under the bridge. The onlookers vanished in moments, cursing as they went.
“It really does work… I’m not lying……”
In the end, the shop owner simply collapsed onto his haunches.
-Ah.
Having watched the whole sorry spectacle unfold before him, Bae Hu-ryeong muttered.
-Don’t tell me this ‘alchemist of the ages’ you mentioned is… that loser?
“What if he is?”
-I’d genuinely start worrying about your mental state. After dying over four thousand times, I guess it’s affected your brain too. Then I’d introduce you to the finest therapist in Babylon.
I let out a dry laugh.
“Once you can see ghosts, mental health is already something to worry about. This owner really is an alchemist of the ages, so don’t fret.”
-An alchemist of the ages my ass! He’s a total loser, you lunatic!
Bae Hu-ryeong made a fuss, but I ignored him. I strode toward the shop owner, who remained crumpled on the ground.
“Excuse me.”
“Uh……?”
The shop owner looked up at me. From close up, his appearance was even more pitiful. Judging from the clothes—clearly salvaged from somewhere—both his shirt and pants hung far too long on him. He was only barely recognizable as an alchemist rather than a beggar because of the white coat draped over everything.
“Are you still taking business, sir?”
Of course, this man was no beggar.
He was far more than just an ordinary alchemist.
“If you’re still accepting orders, I’d like to commission some Medicinal Potions.”
Yeon Geum-seong-ju.
An alchemist who would one day rise to Ranking 5.
At this present moment he was unranked, but he was someone destined for greatness.
“These would be rather expensive potions—would that be acceptable?”
“Oh, yes! Yes, of course! I can make anything for you!”
Color returned to the alchemist’s face. Just moments ago his shop seemed headed for ruin, but fortunately a customer had arrived wanting expensive potions. He must have felt like he’d been given a second chance.
“Um, but if they’re expensive… how expensive are we talking?”
“Well.”
In the future, this alchemist would become someone from whom even the wealthiest wouldn’t dare order anything, but now was different.
“I’m looking to purchase roughly twenty thousand Gold worth.”
“……”
The alchemist’s mouth fell open.
What did his shabby appearance matter? To me, the alchemist before my eyes shone like a goose that laid golden eggs. Pure gold eggs at that!
I smiled.
“Why are you hesitating? You should be taking my order, sir.”
I would become his most loyal customer through and through.
SSS-Rank Must-Die Hunter (Serialized)
Author | Shin No-a
Publisher | Kim Ju-hyeong
Published by | J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing | Han Jae-hyeok
Address | 204, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daelung Post Tower 1st)
Email | [email protected]
Website | www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Shin No-a 2019
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder, and the contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil liability.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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