SSS-Class Sui**de Hunter - Chapter 74

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

Chapter 74. The Harvester of Death (3)
“My lord…….”
Agui looked up at me cautiously.
“One hundred and twelve deaths is excessive. Even now, in just these few days, you’ve grown so gaunt it’s hard to tell…….”
“Why. Has your loyalty sprouted so abundantly that you worry over my body?”
Agui hesitated, clearly struggling with how to respond.
Should she flatter me, or lay bare her true heart?
“…If you were to disappear, my lord, then I too would vanish.”
Agui opened her lips.
“I could no longer dwell in my small paradise. My life, my memory, my meaning—all of it would be gone. Everything hinges upon you, my lord. Since I care for myself, I also care for your wellbeing.”
“Honesty suits you.”
I let my lips curl upward.
“How are things these days? Is life treating you well?”
“I beg your pardon……?”
“You’re living in Esther’s Village now. The people you held dearer than your own life have returned. How do you fare?”
After securing the rights to monopolize the 20th Floor, I’d released Agui to the village. Except when I had work for her, I intended to let her remain there indefinitely.
Agui answered with a tense expression.
“I am… faring well, my lord.”
“Nothing unusual?”
“Nothing unusual, you say… Ah.”
Agui blinked.
“There was an occasion when Hunters arrived. They said the secret behind the king’s sudden strength lay here, that the treasure hidden by the Five Major Guilds was concealed in this place… But the witch you brought with you and the Hunters who follow her turned them away, so it never escalated into a serious disturbance.”
The Black Dragon Guild truly knows how to follow up after a job.
“The petty lords of neighboring kingdoms no longer pry. They’re reeling from the nomads they’d enlisted to strike at us, and besides that, both the Empire and the Divine Temple simultaneously declared my village a Holy Ground. From time to time, Lizardmen and Elves come bearing gifts…….”
It seems this other world’s affairs are unfolding as they naturally should.
“Yet… for me, my abilities have ceased to be.”
“Mm.”
“The afflicted who hear of my reputation come seeking aid… and especially since the Holy Ground was proclaimed, pilgrims hoping for miracles also arrive. What should be done with them… For now, the Hunter priests who served under the Heresy Inquisitor you introduced are tending to them…….”
“I’ve already given it thought. Don’t worry.”
Specifically, I was thinking of establishing a new apothecary on the 20th Floor.
‘She said she would take new patients only through my mediation.’
Once this expedition concludes, the apothecary’s position will be secure.
‘I need to organize things properly too.’
With patients arriving ceaselessly, she’ll gain experience treating all manner of ailments.
‘The apothecary alone won’t be able to manage the workload. She’ll take on staff. Assigning Agui as an assistant could work, or recruiting aspiring pharmacist Hunters as disciples might serve well. Before long, the apothecary itself will naturally expand…….’
It won’t take long for the new apothecary to be recognized as a branch of the alchemists’ guild, and for that branch to eventually become the headquarters.
‘I must look after my own people.’
I smiled.
“And besides that?”
“Besides that, there’s nothing much… Oh, Dajena—Dajena is a girl from my village. She seems to have taken a liking to something called Tteokbokki that Hunters brought. And Garchopp is an old man who guards the orchard, and he shares his fruit with the Black Dragon’s Hunters who patrol the village, and in return they bring fruit from your world…….”
A wind stirred.
Snow drifted through the air, and the moonlight dimmed softly beneath the falling flakes. Agui’s voice too flowed like snow. I listened to the entire conversation that unfolded beneath the moon.
Agui lowered her head.
“…That is the situation, my lord.”
“So life is worth living.”
Agui answered carefully.
“Yes. Life is worth living.”
I nodded.
“This world’s people deserve to find life worth living too.”
“…….”
“Now go. Gather the corpses.”
Golden hair cascaded past her shoulders as Agui bowed her head. Her voice emerged from her bowed lips.
“I receive your command.”
3
There is a saying: the right tool in the right place.
Summoning Agui and entrusting her with Harvesting Death proved to be an excellent decision indeed.
A Celestial who fell from Heaven. Called the Autumn Rain Demon King, she was once the architect of this world’s annihilation. She knew well how to harvest death.
“I shall begin with towns and cities where administrative offices stand.”
At Agui’s gesture, thousands of skeletons stirred to movement.
“Such places should possess maps in their government buildings. Though crude, they will suffice for cross-referencing geography. By piecing together these fragmented maps, we can trace our way through remote villages and fishing hamlets.”
The search began, and by the fourth day, zombies started arriving. They were not the corpses of martial artists who had learned the Way. They were simply the bodies of ordinary farmers and commoners—people who had lived unremarkable lives.
“Unable to bear watching children starve, I bring you the corpses of mothers who hanged themselves alongside their own children.”
The skeletons’ bones were white. White bones in neat procession bore the bodies forward. In the heart of the Snowy Field, the whiteness of bone and snow became indistinguishable. And so from a distance, it seemed as though the corpses themselves were moving toward me, gathering of their own accord.
“The bodies of children who opened their eyes in the morning to find their mother’s corpse beside them, who wept by her side until they withered like wild grass and perished—these too I bring to you.”
The procession of corpses continued.
Deaths were enumerated.
“The villagers who cursed the dead mothers for failing in their duty as parents—”
“Those who hid beneath wells to escape plague, yet never emerged—”
“Prisoners locked in their cells, denied even the chance to flee, who starved where they were held—”
Agui selected with meticulous care, presenting the poor as though offering the finest tribute to a lord.
Like a vassal presenting only the most precious gifts to his king.
When a week had passed, Agui knelt once more in the snowy expanse.
“I have brought them, my lord.”
I gazed out across the Snowy Field.
-Oooooh……
-Uuuh, aaaah!
-Kiiiii……
Countless deaths lay arrayed before me.
The corpses thrashed, held fast by skeletal limbs. Some faces were aged. Others were young. Hunger respects neither sex nor age.
“…Good.”
I loosened my necktie. I shed my suit, discarded my underclothes. In the dark night, bare-skinned, I commanded the skeletons.
“Release them.”
In that instant.
The moment the skeletal grip loosened, one hundred and twelve zombies surged forward. Driven by instinct. Toward the reek of living flesh.
Toward where I stood.
“Yes.”
I smiled.
“Come, all of you!”
Crunch!
A young corpse lunged and tore into my calf. Terrible agony climbed upward, but before it could fully arrive, the pain was severed—an elderly corpse had seized my thigh and ripped. The agony that had burst in my calf ceased at my thigh, then surged anew, deeper, climbing toward my belly.
“……!”
Perhaps I screamed. But I could not hear my own scream. A corpse had torn away my ears.
My lips were devoured. My tongue was devoured. Unable to hear, unable to speak, I could only watch as countless shadows tore into my body.
[You are dead.]
I looked up at the night sky.
The moon hung pale as though it belonged to a land where snow fell eternally.
[I am recreating the trauma of the enemy who killed you.]
The night sky that an old fisherman had last gazed upon looked much the same as this.
He had spent his life on the river. When a Jiangshi’s teeth fastened upon his finger, the old man did not panic. Calmly, he guided his boat.
-If I die aboard this vessel, I will cause no trouble to anyone in the world.
The old man’s boat rocked gently on the river where the village came into view.
He lay down in the boat. It was as peaceful as resting in a coffin. It would have been fine to die when the waves capsized the boat. It would have been fine to die in sleep…. The old man believed it happiness to be born on the river and to die on the river.
The last moon he gazed upon was serene.
[I am recreating the trauma of the enemy who killed you.]
He could not fathom how the world had changed so.
The young magistrate walked the city walls at night, thinking. Once, he had not been even a village clerk. He was a scholar who had memorized a few lines of classics and kept a small school. But the magistrate died, and the magistrate’s clerks died, and the clerks’ subordinates died.
Death followed death like one searching for its own kind. At the end of that chain stood himself.
-My lord governor.
A soldier approached and spoke. He too had once been merely a post at a tavern, not a soldier. Though crude in manner, his mind worked well enough to be useful.
-What is it?
-The granary is empty. In a fortnight, there will not be a handful of millet left in storage. The fishermen occasionally bring in a catch, but it is not enough. What are we to do?
-Begin by reducing rations to the elderly.
The young magistrate spoke thus.
-The Jiangshi plague is countless. We must preserve those still able to fight. Cut the food allotted to the old and the young to one-third.
[I am recreating the trauma of the enemy who killed you.]
The magistrate before me was merciless. At times he seemed colder even than the Jiangshi. The soldier sometimes wondered where that scholar, who once chanted only the classics at the village gate, had learned such resolve.
-There will be considerable resistance, will there not?
-Cut the food for the young by half as well. Let there be those who receive less and those who receive more, but if all suffer the reduction together, it becomes bearable.
-Will that not still stir discontent?
-I will starve first.
Taesu spoke tersely.
I’ll fast entirely. If the leader refuses to eat, the malcontents will lose their strength too.
Are you certain that’s wise?
This place won’t hold out much longer anyway. What difference will a few days of hunger make?
The moon, seen from atop the City Wall, hung serene and still.
[Trauma Recurrence: I am reshowing you the trauma of the enemy who killed you.]
At this rate, we’ll starve to death, all of us!
The little girl cried out in urgency. She was female—a beggar belonging to the Beggars’ Guild, and now that the distinction between rich and poor had vanished, she had become the leader of her peers.
The fortress lord won’t let us eat or live. He wants us dead either way!
Then what do we do, sister?
When we die, we should at least have eaten something. That way we’ll make fine Jiangshi.
The little girl spoke with determination.
I learned a recipe from the Beggars’ Guild. We call it Soil Cake. It’s literally a cake made from mud.
Soil Cake?
You can make as much as you need with nothing but mud.
The little girl’s eyes brightened.
Listen carefully! Children who can swim should keep catching fish. Don’t bring it to the adults—share it only among ourselves. And everyone else should go to the riverbank and gather soft mud.
What are you planning to do with it?
I’ll show you.
[Trauma Recurrence: I am reshowing you the trauma of the enemy who killed you.]
The children scooped up mud from the riverbank. The earth was mixed with sand. They placed the mud in sieves and filtered out the pebbles again and again.
When you knead this mud and spread it on a mat—
The Little Leader worked her hands with enthusiasm. She balled the mud like a stone and tossed it onto the mat with a thud. Then she spread it wide and thin, the way one spreads plaster.
There! That’s it!
That’s it? That’s what?
All you have to do is dry it in the sun. Then it becomes Soil Cake.
The children were baffled.
That’s just baked earth!
How is that a cake!
Quiet. It’s a recipe passed down through the Beggars’ Guild. Watch closely.
The Little Leader pulled out a pouch from her pocket—salt. Salt had always been precious, but now that rations had stopped, each grain was worth its weight in gold. She sprinkled salt bit by bit into the mud mixture.
There we are!
After half a day, the mud had dried completely.
Now it’s ready. Try one each! But be careful when you eat. Don’t bite into it all at once or you’ll lose the flavor. Nibble it slowly, piece by piece.
The children bit into the Soil Cake with doubt.
[Trauma Recurrence: I am reshowing you the trauma of the enemy who killed you.]
It’s… surprisingly edible?
One child gnawed at the Soil Cake with her front teeth like a hamster.
[Trauma Recurrence: I am reshowing you the trauma of the enemy who killed you.]
It has a salty taste. That’s good.
Another child licked the Soil Cake with her tongue, eyes wide open, as if savoring ice cream. Her saliva wet the edges of the cake until they glistened.
[Trauma Recurrence: I am reshowing you the trauma of the enemy who killed you.]
It’s tasteless…
Another child simply made a face.
The Little Leader laughed softly.
It’s all right. As long as we can eat something, that’s enough. From now on, we have to provide for ourselves. We’ll eat Soil Cake most days, and when we catch fish, we’ll eat that too. Understood?
Yes, sister…
The children soothed their aching bellies with mud.
The human mouth was deceitful. The children’s throats accepted salty earth as if it were rice. The earth had to deceive the tongue with salt before it could be swallowed. So when the children ate Soil Cake, they did not bite it all at once. They licked it with their tongues, tasting the salt.
The more they licked, the more the taste dissolved. So they had to gnaw while licking, savoring the salt with each bite.
Don’t just lick it! You’ll lose all the flavor. You have to gnaw while you lick.
By the riverbank, the children kneaded mud day after day.
Hmm?
The Riverbank.
Look there—a corpse.
It lay at the very edge of the river where an old fisherman had pushed off in his boat and departed.
Born of the river, the old man had died in the river. He had considered it a blessing. To die in his boat as if it were a coffin—he believed this was a way to trouble no one in the world.
There was one thing the old fisherman had not foreseen: that a drowned corpse sometimes washes back to shore.
If dying in the river had been his blessing, then being washed ashore on this bank instead of drifting away was his misfortune.
And the misfortune of them all.
The old man must have drowned.
How pitiful……
A fisherman, perhaps.
The children approached the corpse with equal parts fear and curiosity.
Wait.
It was the dark hour before dawn.
Stop, wait a moment!
What?
It’s a Jiangshi! Not just a corpse!
The corpse stirred at the scent of the children’s tender flesh.
Run!
Some of the children fled.
Ah……
But one did not escape.
[I shall now recollect the trauma of the enemy who slew you.]
It was over.
[I shall now recollect the trauma of the enemy who slew you.]
The Fortress Tower on the riverbank—cut off from the Imperial Capital, severed from the villages around it—fell into annihilation. The old fisherman died. The last garrison commander fell fighting. A soldier tried to slip through the City Gate and perished. The Little Leader shielded her younger sibling and died.
[I shall now recollect the trauma of the enemy who slew you.]
They wanted to live.
[I shall now recollect the trauma of the enemy who slew you.]
They struggled.
[I shall now recollect the trauma of the enemy who slew you.]
Because they wanted to live, they endured the hunger.
[I shall now recollect the trauma of the enemy who slew you.]
Children’s fingers digging for wet earth at the riverbank, clawing mud from the ground. Hands spreading clay paste across a woven mat. Fingertips gripping dried mud cookies.
[I shall now recollect the trauma of the enemy who slew you.]
One hundred twelve deaths.
In every single one—not a gesture unmarked by starvation.
[Trauma recollection complete.]
[Confirming that the subject’s sense of self has been preserved.]
[Ending the penalty.]
I opened my eyes slowly.
“……”
The Snowy Field lay in silence.
The quiet night settled. My words spilled out in barely a whisper.
“I thought I might learn how to boil bark……”
Reality surpassed my imagination. In a world descending toward annihilation, was bark so trivial that it left no trauma at all? Humans, when cornered, could eat even mud.
“Yes, that could be it.”
I stood and began to dig. I wrapped my bare hands in Aura. As I dug deeper and deeper, I reached frozen earth beneath the perpetual snow.
It was the first ground I had seen since falling into this world.
“Let’s see……”
Excavating earth frozen for years was no easy task. I had to use Aura. I scooped up a handful of soil and heated it fiercely with Aura and perpetual snow, as if simmering a broth. After a time, the earth began to soften.
Muddy water, that’s all it was.
I sifted out sand and gravel one by one, following exactly what I’d seen in the dream. I kneaded the mud into a ball. I removed my suit jacket and spread it like a mat, then laid the kneaded earth upon it.
“Hmm.”
Time passed. Morning sunlight and the midday heat baked the mud cake. I carefully lifted the dried mud cake—it looked just like a honeycomb candy—with both hands.
“…I humbly partake of this meal.”
I bit at it with my teeth.
A crunching sound echoed in my mouth.
“……”
I licked the edge of the mud cake with my tongue. The texture softened slightly. But as fragments crumbled on my tongue and broke apart, grains of earth stuck to the roof of my mouth. My entire mouth crunched with it.
“……”
After a moment, I understood the technique. This food was not to be chewed with molars. It was meant to be gnawed with the front teeth and swallowed little by little down the throat. The warmth of the sun and the scent of earth—holding only those two things, I slowly devoured the meager sustenance.
Mm.
“…There’s no taste to it.”
I bit down.
“No taste at all.”
I chewed and ate.
“Really, there’s no taste.”
He swallowed.
“…….”
His shoulders trembled.
His heart trembled.
“…….”
An emotion beyond words seized his entire being. Was it rage? Sorrow? Perhaps hatred. Humans were born from the earth, after all—so why couldn’t they consume the ground itself? Why did the scent of soil and the texture of earth feel so utterly degraded?
Why.
“…….”
At some point, his right hand had clenched into a fist. Whether rage or sorrow or hatred, the emotion coalesced there, knotted tight within his grip.
That’s when he understood. What the mouth cannot speak is something the hand must seize.
Not to be spoken—but to be wielded.
Martial arts were nothing but swinging that handful of remnant held within one’s own grasp.
“…….”
Go back.
He drew the Holy Sword. He aimed its point at his own throat.
Go back and show the Demon King my blade. No—not my blade. The blade of the old fisherman who died nameless, the soldier, the fortress lord, the children.
I’ve never read martial arts novels, so I don’t understand the subtle mysteries of yin and yang and the five elements. If there’s any principle in my martial art, it’s only the screams of the dead. If there’s any heavenly truth in my sword, it’s merely the gestures of humans abandoned by heaven itself.
Because it is resentment and hatred—demonic.
Because it is heaven gazed upon only through resentment and hatred—Demon Heaven.
He stabbed the Holy Sword through the center of his neck. Carrying the deaths of one hundred twelve within his heart, he returned. What he needed to do was no different from the previous cycle.
He asked the Demon King to accept him as a disciple.
Just as before, the Demon King deliberated through the night.
After that night had passed, the Demon King presented him with a test.
“What is the test?”
“There.”
The Demon King pointed to the bottom of a pit.
“I’ve thrown a jiangshi down there—a creature once cultivated in our sect, fairly accomplished in its day, and renowned in the martial world as a master at the height of her powers. Defeat that jiangshi. Do so, and I will accept you as a disciple of the inner family.”
But, the Demon King said.
“Fight while starving. As you battle the jiangshi, let only hunger occupy your mind. Let only the torment of hunger dwell there. I forbid any other emotion or thought to penetrate your inner landscape. Can you do this?”
He did not answer.
There was no reason to unfold in words what could not be spoken.
Instead, he quietly leaped into the pit.
—Grraaahhh!
A jiangshi lunged toward him.
He gazed upon it with an unmoved eye.
“…….”
The scent of soil in his mouth.
The texture of earth-clods in his gestures.
Only the hunger of children nested in his heart.
Demon Heaven Divine Art.
First Form.
Starvation Flow Sword.
He swung the blade.
First strike—he severed both legs.
Second strike—he cut away both arms.
Third strike—he severed the jiangshi’s neck.
In each of them, not a single gesture unmarked by hunger.
The master of the demonic cult lay silent at the bottom of the pit.
“…….”
He looked upward.
The Demon King’s mouth hung open. Just as when she first beheld his company—or perhaps with even greater shock—she stared down at him, her gaze trembling. And after the eyes trembled, the heart would follow.
The meaning of life he thought he had lost entirely.
He had witnessed it beginning anew before his very eyes.
He had seen it.
“Demon King.”
He opened his lips slowly.
“What death shall I show you next?”
SSS-Rank: The Hunter Who Lives Only by Dying (Serialized)
Author │ Shin Noah
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyung
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-ah 2019
This work is published by J-Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder. No part of this work may be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and the author.
Violation of this restriction may result in both criminal and civil legal liability.

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