SSS-Class Sui**de Hunter - Chapter 72

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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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Chapter 72. The Reaper (1)
1
What’s the word in the world that least belongs with “Zombie”?
I know it’s an odd question.
But this world has been overrun by Zombies. Thrown into battle against them and forced to train in martial arts, I couldn’t help but contemplate the nature of Zombies themselves. And just now, I’ve realized what word pairs most poorly with them.
-Ghhhhhhhhhh!
It was Palm Wind.
-Wuhhh, hhhhhhhhh!
A Zombie in a black martial robe drew his hands together and unleashed a Palm Wind at me.
I’m not joking. It’s real.
Let me say it again: a Zombie who had lived as a martial artist in life shrieked, then fired a Palm Wind directly at me.
“Damn it… this is insane.”
Whoooosh!
The Palm Wind struck my body lightly, sending me sprawling backward. I flew through the air like a wooden plank. Everything that had happened up until now was already beyond absurd, utterly disorienting—but unfortunately, it didn’t end there.
-Uoooohhh!
The Zombie’s feet hammered the ground with a sharp tap-tap. A mysterious Footwork technique. Flawless Lightness Skill unfolded before me. As if the Zombie’s body were filled with helium gas, he rocketed skyward. In an instant, he was right in front of my face.
This is insane.
“Hey! Wait, this can’t be real!”
I swung my Holy Sword in desperation. But before I could strike the Zombie down, a voice cut through the air, halting my blade.
“Ho! Don’t swing your sword about so recklessly.”
It was the Heavenly Demon’s voice.
She stood above the pit, watching my fight from above.
“Did I not tell you? Recall the hunger, the agony of death by starvation. Dwell only on that sensation of famine. Mere swinging will make the Macho Divine Art nothing but a hollow shell.”
“But—but!”
The Zombie’s jaws snapped open in my face. Crunch! I twisted my body just in time to evade his teeth, tumbling to the ground without even managing a proper Falling Technique. As I dodged, the Zombie seemed only more enraged. He roared and charged at me again.
“I’m not even hungry right now!”
“Fool.”
The Heavenly Demon’s voice rang out in exasperation.
“If red is not before your eyes, can you not summon the image of red in your mind? Because your belly is not growling now, can you not resurrect the sensation of starvation?”
-Ghhhhhhhh!
While the Heavenly Demon spoke to me, the Zombie raked his claws relentlessly. One scratch from those nails and I’m done for. I’d be infected with the Zombie Virus, truly becoming Kim Zombie in the most literal sense.
Clang! Clang!
The Zombie’s nails struck my blade with terrifying force. I could only defend, mounting no attack of my own. It was torture.
“If you cannot do this, it is because you are not yet accustomed to the sensation of hunger. Your belly is overstuffed. One who would master the Macho Divine Art must be able to conjure any sensation at will!”
The sensation of hunger.
The memory of starvation.
“Recall the longest period you have ever gone without food. Relive that sensation. Where were you then? What did you crave most to eat? How long did you endure without food?”
“The longest I’ve ever gone is three to four days…”
“What? Three to four days?”
The Heavenly Demon looked utterly incredulous.
“You’re telling me the longest fast in your entire life was merely four days? That’s nonsense. The world has long since fallen into chaos, and famine visits with the seasons. How could anyone who isn’t the child of a prominent clan have fasted for only four days?”
“The Saeoe where I lived is far more abundant than the Central Plains…”
Naturally, the Tower was more prosperous than the martial world where Martial Artists roamed. And even so, it was a place where modern civilization thrived. Many Hunters probably hadn’t gone more than two days without food in their entire lives.
“Ah. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
The Heavenly Demon sighed.
“We speak past each other. Hunger is the most urgent sensation of all—a pain one cannot endure for even a day, an agony no one can deny. Man lives fundamentally to satiate his hunger. The hunger felt by the Heavenly Son differs not from that felt by the Lowborn. How can you hope to master the Macho Divine Art without understanding this?”
No.
I was an F-Class Hunter for over ten years. I was hungry plenty of times.
When I’d buy tteokbokki in the outside world, I’d count how many rice cakes came in a serving, and I’d only buy from shops that gave four extra pieces.
“Enough.”
The Heavenly Demon turned away.
“This is my mistake. I dared hope for a moment, but you were just talk all along.”
I was at the bottom of a massive pit. That’s why the Heavenly Demon’s back quickly vanished from sight. Clang! Clang! Barely parrying the Zombie’s teeth and claws, I reached out desperately toward the receding Heavenly Demon.
“Heavenly Demon!”
No answer came.
“Heavenly Demon?”
Still nothing.
The Heavenly Demon was a martial artist who never looked back.
“Wait just a moment! Come on, hunger isn’t a rank or position! You can’t expect me to master martial arts just because of that! Please!”
The Zombie with the Palm Wind opened his jaws wide with a harsh creak.
Ah.
“This damned….”
Crack!
[You have died.]
[Regressing twenty-four hours.]
“…Hell!”
I stomped back one day, my feet thundering against the ground. Regression had brought me the Palm Wind Zombie’s Skill Card, a dose of trauma, and even system confirmation that the target’s sense of self remained intact—but none of that mattered now.
“And here I thought I’d suffered enough in my life!”
I seethed.
Rage. Competitive hunger.
Only two emotions burned in my chest as crimson and azure flames, blazing far beyond mere burning—they seethed and writhed.
-Wow.
The Backhoe Spirit remained unbothered at my side.
-Teaching him the old-fashioned way. Well, passing down the one secret technique is the right approach. Zombie, it’s said that when a human tries to take the easy path, he becomes raw himself….
“Fine. So that’s how it goes!”
I ignored the Backhoe Spirit and left the Hot Spring Cave.
“You think I’d surrender out of fear if you came at me like that? Not a chance. I’ve burned to death before! I’ve had my head roasted in flames and died! So what makes you think a little hunger will stop me from trying?”
-Uh….
The Backhoe Spirit wore a rare expression of shock.
-Zombie? What’s gotten into you? Listen, don’t be like this—forget about that Heavenly Demon woman or whatever, and just learn the sword from me. At least I’d be a far more lenient teacher….
“Hunger? Let me taste it!”
-Damn.
The Backhoe Spirit muttered.
-This is bad. The bastard’s lost it completely. And when he gets like this, he’s the kind of maniac who can’t see anything in front of his face…. Another few dozen days are just going to slip away….
From that day on, I entered the Hell Path.
I told my companions I was going to search for items needed to clear this Stage—a lie, and then I left.
I traveled as far from the Hot Spring Cave as I could alone and locked myself away on the Snow Mountain.
I did nothing. I simply withdrew.
-You madman….
The Backhoe Spirit seemed to understand what I was attempting.
He regarded me with eyes gone cold and bitter.
-You’re just going to stay here until you starve to death, aren’t you? That’s it, isn’t it?
“Yes, that’s right.”
-Good grief.
The Backhoe Spirit sighed.
-Everyone in the neighborhood ought to know how insane you are besides just me. Good grief! Only I know this, good grief. It’s my regret that I died and became a ghost, my regret.
Be quiet.
-Zombie. Or rather, Gongja. Please, I’m begging you. I don’t mind if you throw yourself into training out of sheer anger, but what did I do wrong to have to stand here watching you day after day? Tell me?
“Be quiet, I said.”
-Just answer one thing. How many days are you planning to last?
I sat in a small cave on the Snow Mountain. It was nothing like the cave where the Heavenly Demon and her group sheltered. There was no hot spring here, no Grain-Avoiding Pills—only darkness and bitter cold.
“I don’t know. But I need to make it past one hundred and twelve days.”
-What?
“I saw it in the Heavenly Demon’s trauma. She survived one hundred and eleven days eating nothing, sustaining herself on Qi Cycling Breathing alone. So I’ll make it to one hundred and twelve.”
-What kind of insane rival logic is this, you damned piece of….
The Backhoe Spirit unleashed a torrent of curses that lasted a full minute. But it was meaningless. No oath could touch my mind. I had already crossed my legs in meditation.
-You won’t even make it a hundred days!
The Backhoe Spirit shouted.
-Look at the weather out there. It’s freezing! Frozen solid! If you don’t wrap yourself in Aura, you’ll freeze to death on the spot. How are you going to maintain your Aura for a hundred straight days? No matter how hard you push, twenty days is the limit.
The Backhoe Spirit, realizing curses would not work, began to reason with me.
-Besides, Gongja, lasting more than a hundred days isn’t about hunger anymore. You’ve never gone that long without food, have you? If you haven’t, don’t speak.
“And have you?”
-Yeah. I did fasting practice with some vagrant monks back in the day, so I know. For a few days you feel like you’re dying of hunger, but after that, hunger stops being a sensation at all! That’s not fasting—that’s just spiritual discipline! Spiritual discipline!
“Then the answer’s clear.”
I spoke flatly.
“I fast for fifteen days, then I keep repeating just the fifteenth day over and over.”
-…….
The Backhoe Spirit’s mouth fell open.
-What did you just say?
“I don’t eat for fifteen days. I endure only until the hunger reaches its peak. Then I kill myself and stay on the fifteenth day. The hunger never changes.”
I looked at the Backhoe Spirit.
“That repeats until 112 days have passed. What do you think? The Aura doesn’t deplete. The hunger keeps coming. A perfect solution, wouldn’t you say?”
-You… absolute madman…….
The Backhoe Spirit recoiled in shock.
-Just learn from me… don’t take that strange cult master as your teacher. My martial arts are superior, aren’t they? If you absolutely need a master, learn from me. What in the world is driving you to commit such madness……!
“I’m going to master the Macho Divine Art perfectly.”
My heart blazed.
“Do you know why the Heavenly Demon despaired of the world? Why this world, why the Heavenly Demon Records came to an end? Because she felt there was no meaning in living any longer.”
When the Master of the Martial Alliance lay dying in bed.
The Heavenly Demon muttered to herself.
“All under heaven has become void.”
And that was the end. If we were to regard the world as a single work, that would be the final sentence written on the last page.
Meaninglessness.
No matter what the characters say anymore, it carries no meaning. Whether they move, wherever they go, whatever they feel—nothing has meaning. Hundreds of lines of dialogue stretch out. Thousands of descriptions teem across the page. To no avail.
It becomes nothing but a blank page.
Then the work dies, and the world dies with it.
It is annihilated.
The Librarian’s mention of Serialization Discontinuation must mean something like that.
-…….
I do not wish for this world to perish in such a manner.
I will never accept the Heavenly Demon ending like that.
“…It would be easy to live like Yeom-je.”
I gazed out of the cave. A white expanse of snow stretched before me.
“There’s a rogue’s art for it too. I’m the best, when I win it’s all through my own skill, and if others are worse than me it’s because they’re incompetent, so I don’t need to care about incompetents—I pick only the easy stages to clear, mock everything, sneer at it all…….”
I sat motionless in lotus position, circulating Aura throughout my body.
“It does look cool, I’ll admit.”
And I began.
“But sneer as one might, those who live sneering are petty.”
I went hungry.
“Righteous words are petty, but those who live by them—they are not.”
One day without food.
“I too am human. I must live.”
Two days without food.
“So how to live is an obvious answer.”
Four days without food.
Hungry, and hungry still.
S-Rank: To Live, One Must Die (Serialized)
Author │ Shin No-ah
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyung
Publishing House │ J-Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 204, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daelung Post Tower 1st Building)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Shin No-ah 2019
※This work is published by J-Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder, and the content cannot be used in any form or manner without the permission of the company and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal 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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