SSS-Class Sui**de Hunter - Chapter 6

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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 6. Hunting Heroes (3)
“Hack… ugh, ughhhh……!”
Awakening at the brink of death itself.
For a long time, there had been an old saying in the Hunter community about how to awaken a skill: face the threat of death.
Maybe it wasn’t just a rumor—maybe it was true. At least it sounded more plausible than awakening a skill simply because jealousy burned ugly enough to scream.
So I didn’t hesitate.
Without hesitation, I swung my blade true.
“Hngh……!”
Making certain this psychopath in front of me wouldn’t awaken, not for anything.
“Uck… cough…….”
Die.
“Uh…….”
What had enraged me most wasn’t that this psychopath burned me without hesitation, or even the pain and unfairness that followed—no, there was something else that set my blood on fire.
‘He said his name.’
Before the Regression.
Before he grabbed my head and burned me down to ash, Yu Su-ha smiled and said this:
-But you know I’m Yu Su-ha, don’t you? You saw the Saint die at my hands.
-Then you should die.
-My name is Yu Su-ha. Farewell.
It was the sort of madness that spilled from a lunatic’s mouth. But there was one part—just one part that truly unsettled me. I couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand it.
The very last thing he said.
‘He told me his name.’
Why reveal his own name so suddenly while killing me?
Did he think I didn’t know who Yu Su-ha was?
No. That wasn’t it.
‘He was showing off.’
Yu Su-ha.
That bastard—a murderer, no less—he was showing off.
As if taking part in a sacred duel where warriors revealed their names to each other, Yu Su-ha must have thought this in the moment he killed me:
-I at least kill you openly, revealing who I am.
-So I have my dignity, at least.
How dare he.
“You… you worthless thing…….”
How dare you, a psychopath like you.
“You… you dared to do such a thing……!”
A man who’d merely happened to pass by as a witness, whom he’d killed. A man who’d set a fire and walked away, then brazenly acted as though he’d done nothing wrong. Such a creature—less than human, barely a person. A beast. A demon worse than beasts themselves.
And yet he dared put on airs as if he were noble.
“Don’t make me laugh!”
Thunk!
My blade pierced Yu Su-ha’s throat.
“…….”
Yu Su-ha made no sound. No scream. Not even a groan. In this nameless hunting ground with no other souls around, his body collapsed onto the wild grass, his vacant eyes turned toward the sky.
He was dead.
“Ha… whoo… ha…….”
Perhaps calling it simply ‘dead’ was inadequate. He had been no ordinary Hunter, and his death was anything but ordinary.
The man who would have become Yu Su-ha one day. The legend who would have reached Rank 1 in the world. The one who would have conquered Tower 10th Floor alone, something no one had cleared for years.
He died to me.
“Phew.”
I exhaled slowly.
“Now I can think straight again…….”
Or so I was about to say, when I stopped. Drawn by the scent of blood, perhaps? Wolves. Large wolves prowled the area around me.
-Grrrr…….
They weren’t ordinary wolves. Black fur marked their bodies like tattoos etched by human hands. They were what was called Prairie Wolves—monsters whose strength increased with the complexity of their markings.
The ones before me had simple markings, but… they were no match for an F-rank Hunter like me to be reckless against.
“…….”
First, I retrieved the Wallet I’d taken from Yu Su-ha.
Carefully, I stepped back.
“You want to eat this, don’t you?”
I gestured toward the corpse.
“I don’t need it. Take it.”
And he stepped backward.
A low growl rumbled through the air.
The wolves moved toward the corpse. Rip! The beasts’ fangs tore through the fabric of the dead man’s coat. One wolf seized the body, and the others surged in after it. Tear, shred—the massive forms of the wolves obscured the corpse entirely from view.
“Eat well.”
I retreated hurriedly.
‘Is it over?’
I buried Yu Su-ha’s blood-stained clothes in a shallow pit I’d dug earlier. I washed my entire body with water from the Plastic Water Bottles I’d brought. As I changed into fresh clothes from my backpack, I still couldn’t quite believe it was real.
‘Is it really over?’
Too clean an appearance might invite suspicion. I deliberately rolled myself in the dirt until I looked sufficiently soiled, then made my way back to the city on Tower 1st Floor—to Babylon. A Self-Defense Corps member was standing guard at the entrance. He glanced at me briefly, then yawned and turned away.
‘Right.’
No one knew.
‘It’s finished.’
When I entered a bar and ordered a beer, and again when I drained my glass and ordered another, not a single soul paid attention to me. No one knew what I’d done.
The television behind the counter aired nothing but stale news.
—Today, the Tower 10th Floor conquest team has met with failure.
—The world’s Hunters ranked second through seventh turned out in full force in an attempt to breach the 10th Floor together, but——
—And in the meantime, criticism of Geom-seong, the world’s number-one ranked Hunter, continues to intensify. Despite holding the top Rank, his refusal to participate in conquest attempts has drawn considerable scrutiny——
No matter how long I waited, I saw no breaking news about a “Hunter Missing in Tower 2nd Floor Hunting Ground.”
That was only natural. Novice Hunters died every day. Just as no one paid attention to me, no one cared about the disappearance of a nameless Hunter.
In other words.
‘It’s done!’
That’s right.
I had succeeded in hunting a monster.
5
“Ah.”
I raised my empty glass high.
“One more draft beer, please!”
“You’re drinking quite a bit today. Did the hunt go well?”
“Yeah, very well indeed. Extremely well!”
My chest had never felt so light.
For two or three hours, I filled the newfound emptiness in my heart with beer. It wasn’t until dusk began to settle outside the bar that I slowly started thinking about reality again.
‘So what do I do now?’
There was plenty I could do.
‘Win the lottery, sell information about upper-floor strategies no one else knows. Oh, my life has finally opened up! Finally!”
I brought up my Ability Window.
The one visible only to the Hunter himself.
+
Name: Kim Gong-ja
Rank: F-rank
Skills (2/4)
1. I Want to Become Like You (S+): Passive
2. Regressor’s Clockwork Watch (EX): Passive
3. None
4. None
+
“Ha, who needs side dishes?”
My Ability Window was the finest delicacy in the world. One S-rank Skill. One EX-rank Skill unlike anything I’d ever heard of. As far as meals go, it was like getting a steak topped with caviar.
‘If I wanted better than this, I’d be nothing but a thief. Right.’
But my pleased smile faded all too quickly.
“…Except I don’t have any combat skills.”
Ah.
Was this simply human nature?
The gaps in my abilities were beginning to weigh on me.
“No matter how much money I earn, a Hunter has to actually be a Hunter. Without power to back up my wealth, I’ll get picked clean eventually…….”
Society within the Tower was far more brutal than the world outside.
Eloquently put, it was the Survival of the Fittest. More bluntly, it was the law of the jungle.
If only I could escape back to the outside world, it wouldn’t matter…….
‘Once someone steps foot in the Tower, they can never leave.’
That was the law.
Even an S-rank Hunter with spatial manipulation abilities couldn’t transport themselves outside the Tower. It was simply impossible.
In Babylon, there was only one human who could communicate with the outside world: the Guild Master of Sang-ryeon, a Hunter known by the epithet “the Count.”
‘They say Sang-ryeon’s leader can send goods in and out, but he himself cannot actually leave for the outside world…’
Literally, it seemed easy enough to enter, but leaving was another matter entirely.
Only those who came prepared to abandon the outside world completely could become Hunters.
Only those who had given up everything—wealth, relationships, status, nationality.
Perhaps even their humanity itself.
“That’s right.”
Of course, I was no different.
“Whether it turns to gruel or rice, I have to succeed in the Tower.”
I muttered the words, emboldened by drink. Success. I wanted it so desperately, so madly.
Why had I idolized Yu Su-ha in the first place? For his character? Did he even have character to speak of? The reason was far simpler than that.
I envied the dazzling achievements he had amassed. His success.
“Let’s succeed, Kim Gong-ja. Yes, a man who’s died 4,090 times—what can possibly stop him? We’ll succeed, we absolutely will……”
Then.
—Ding.
The bell above the tavern door chimed.
6
At first, I didn’t pay attention to who had entered.
How impressive could a Hunter be if they were drinking this early in the evening?
But the other drunks around me began to murmur.
“Hey, that person over there……”
“Wait? It really does look like him, doesn’t it?”
“Why would he come to a place like this……”
Soon the tavern fell into an eerie silence. Everyone held their breath. At that point, curiosity got the better of me, and I couldn’t help but turn my head to look.
There stood an elderly man dressed in a black suit.
“Hmm.”
His outfit was immaculate, as if he were about to head straight to the office.
He wore a plain crimson tie. Staring at him long enough, you might genuinely think, “Wait, when did I make it back to the outside world?” He looked like an ordinary office worker.
Except for one thing—instead of leather shoes, he wore red sneakers.
‘Wow. What kind of fashion sense is that?’
It was profoundly unbalanced.
But the strangeness wasn’t limited to his clothes.
“Milk.”
“Pardon?”
“Warm milk with just a touch of vodka and sugar mixed in. If you have honey instead of sugar, that would be even better.”
The tavern owner looked bewildered at this absurd order.
“Uh… sir, I’m not a bartender, so……”
“I’ll pay properly. Don’t worry yourself.”
The tavern owner nodded reluctantly. The others still kept stealing glances at the suited elderly man and whispering amongst themselves. He seemed to be quite a famous person.
‘Who is he?’
I narrowed my eyes quietly.
‘That’s strange. I usually know the faces of all the famous Hunters.’
Without any self-aggrandizement, I doubted anyone envied top-tier Hunters as much as I did. Yu Su-ha, of course, and from the world rankings—second through hundredth—I could rattle them all off. They were all objects of my jealousy, after all.
Yet somehow… this oddly dressed elderly man felt unfamiliar.
‘I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere. Where was it? Where?’
It took a while longer for it to come to me.
‘Ah!’
Of all places—my studio apartment.
The newspaper scraps plastered all over the wall.
In just one article among them, this old man’s photograph appeared.
《Geom-seong, Day 22 of Disappearance. Is the Hunter Industry Facing Its Greatest Crisis?》
‘It’s Geom-seong!’
Yes. Before Yu Su-ha rose to fame as the Flame Emperor, he had been the most renowned.
He was a Hunter who had been active so long ago that I’d simply forgotten. Naturally, it wasn’t easy for even someone like me to recognize a Hunter from over a decade past at a glance.
Whatever circumstances had befallen him, he was destined to disappear soon after this anyway.
‘Right… it’s been 11 years in the past now.’
The reality of having truly regressed to the past struck me anew.
‘For the people of this era, he—not the Flame Emperor—must be the strongest in the world….’
It was remarkable.
Despite knowing it was impolite, I found myself constantly stealing glances at Geom-seong’s profile. How should I describe this? It felt like beholding a legendary figure long dead, suddenly present before my eyes. In any case, it was extraordinary.
‘Damn. That old man probably has an S-rank skill too, doesn’t he?’
I smirked and sipped my beer.
‘Not some weird skill like mine—an actual, legitimate combat skill……’
That was the moment.
“Huh?”
My hand froze without my noticing.
Suddenly. Truly suddenly, the S-rank skill I possessed came to mind.
+
[I Want to Become Like You]
Rank: S+
Effect: Activates automatically upon death. Copies one skill from the enemy that killed you and makes it your own. You cannot copy the same target twice. The skill to be copied is determined at random.
※However, you die!
+
‘Wait.’
Lightning struck through my skull, and everything went bright for an instant.
The exact same sensation that swept over me when I’d figured out how to kill Yu Su-ha now consumed my entire body.
[I Want to Become Like You]. A tremendous skill. I could die to any Hunter I chose and copy their skill. The only problem was that dying came with a rather substantial downside.
But.
‘I… don’t have to die anymore, do I?’
Because I’d acquired another skill.
+
[Regressor’s Clockwork Watch]
Rank: EX
Effect: Activates automatically upon death. Returns you to 24 hours before the moment of death. Memory and ability stats are preserved upon Regression.
※However, stronger penalties are incurred as your Hunter Rank increases.
※Skill copied from Hunter Yu Su-ha.
+
‘Then.’
An eerie current crawled up my spine.
‘Could it be… that I can just copy everyone? All I have to do is pick any Hunter and let myself get killed?’
A fact so glaringly obvious that I should have seen it from the start. But the urgency and pressure of needing to kill Yu Su-ha had kept me blind to it until now—and at last, that truth hit me like a revelation.
‘…Even Geom-seong? The current Rank 1?’
I swallowed the last of the beer in my mouth.
Yu Su-ha, who would become Rank 1 in the future, wielded the broken ability of Regression. So what about Geom-seong—this era’s reigning Hunter, before he vanished somewhere? What sort of power did he truly possess?
Might he have a skill as exceptional as Yu Su-ha’s?
‘If I could only copy that……’
I gazed at the old man’s back.
‘That would be jackpot.’
Somehow.
My hunt was nowhere near over.
SSS-rank Hunter: You Die to Live (Serialized)
Author │ Shin Noa
Publisher │ Kim Joo-hyung
Publishing House │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ Room 204, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daelung Post Tower 1st)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Shin Noa 2019
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder and may not be reproduced 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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