SSS-Class Sui**de Hunter - Chapter 8

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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 8. The Nature of Muttering (2)
Luck.
My dodging of the Constellation of the Sword’s strike was pure chance.
“Hm?”
The Constellation of the Sword widened his eyes. He must have taken me for a master of considerable skill. So he’d prepared for a master to parry or evade the blade, even to counterattack—but he clearly hadn’t anticipated that I would tumble across the ground in such an ungainly fashion.
“W-wait, sir. Please, just hear me out!”
Dying didn’t trouble me. I’d tailed him with the expectation of death, after all. But even if I had to die, I wanted to discover first whether there was any way to clear up his misunderstanding—so that in the next round, I could avoid pointless conflict.
“I’m really just an unremarkable F-rank Hunter….”
“You evaded my blade. You must indeed be a master assassin!”
“Gods, is this old man deaf?”
This was bad. The misunderstanding had only deepened.
As I said, dodging that attack was pure luck. I hadn’t even tracked where the blade came from or how it flew. This old man possessed skill that vastly surpassed my perceptual abilities.
‘If he attacks again, there’s no way I’ll dodge it.’
Was I forced to give up on persuasion, then?
I stood braced for death, watching the Constellation of the Sword draw slowly near.
“…….”
He halted.
The Constellation of the Sword hesitated for a moment. His footsteps ceased.
At first, I thought to myself:
‘Wait—is he actually going to listen to me?’
But that wasn’t it. He wasn’t even looking at me. The white-haired old man was furrowing his brow at empty air. I glanced around too, half-wondering if some insect was flying about, but there was nothing there.
“…didn’t you say you’d handle this yourself?”
The old man spoke words into empty air.
“…it’s noisy. If we’re to capture him for interrogation—should we really leave such a demon alive……?”
More muttering.
‘What?’
The Constellation of the Sword, who’d seemed about to cut me down at any moment, suddenly stilled his blade. Instead, he began to murmur endlessly to himself. The imminent crisis had been granted a brief reprieve.
I narrowed my brow.
‘Could that muttering… be a skill?’
Yes, perhaps it was.
At the tavern, I’d dismissed it as the old man’s mental illness. But watching him mutter right before me like this felt different. It was refined for madness, you might say. He seemed to be genuinely conversing with someone.
‘A Telepathy skill?’
The hypothesis surfaced suddenly. Telepathy, or Sound Transmission—the ability to converse freely with someone at a distance. I knew such a skill actually existed.
‘Then… he’s alerting other people about me?’
My spine went cold.
‘As in, “I’ve found the man who slaughtered 4091 people”?’
A Wanted Order.
The Hunter Management Bureau rarely designates a specific wanted criminal. In name it’s a Wanted Order, but it’s essentially an Execution Order. A wanted man becomes an enemy to all the Major Guilds and is hunted by the highest-ranked hunters.
Until he’s publicly executed in the plaza of Babylon, the city on Tower’s First Floor.
‘That cannot happen.’
I clenched my teeth.
‘I must die immediately.’
To prevent any chance of a Wanted Order being issued. To erase everything that’s happened here by returning twenty-four hours, if necessary. There was no time to waste. I had to die now.
I set my gaze forward.
“…so be it. My resolve is already made. Even if you are my master…….”
The old man continued to murmur into empty air. Whether it was merely the old man’s mental illness or genuine conversation with someone, I couldn’t be one hundred percent certain. But lacking certainty was no excuse to ignore the worst-case scenario. So I opened my mouth.
“How are your grandchildren doing?”
The old man’s muttering stopped abruptly.
And slowly, he turned his head toward me.
“I’ve heard the outside world has grown troublesome lately. If they’re the grandchildren of the Constellation of the Sword, I’m sure they must be precious to you. You must worry terribly.”
“…….”
Eyes of deep blue.
The pupils were still as the scales of light upon a deep ocean.
“They said your family was once thriving in Northern Europe, didn’t they? Don’t families like that make prime targets for terrorists? Who knows—while you weren’t looking, perhaps your grandchildren have already lost their lives to villains…….”
A sharp sound.
‘Huh.’
Like a ripe apple being cut cleanly in half.
‘Wait.’
At first, I couldn’t understand what the sound was. I’d been staring at the old man continuously. He hadn’t moved—not even a twitch. He stood with his lips sealed, silent.
Where had the sound come from?
The strangeness did not end there. Marcus Kallenberg had been standing upright on solid ground. Yet piece by piece, the earth was flipping upside down before my eyes.
The horizon tilted. The half-moon inverted, floating like a ferryman’s boat against the reversed night sky. The heavens lay on their back, the crescent moon transformed into its opposite, and in the center of this toppled world, a single old man hung suspended from the tilted horizon.
……
The old man’s blue eyes held my gaze. Those eyes, pinned to the sky itself, gleamed with starlight—and suddenly I understood why he was called the Constellation of the Sword.
And then I realized.
‘Ah.’
The earth had not flipped.
My head had been severed, and was falling backward through the dark.
One strike.
‘Beautiful.’
My eyes could not read the old man’s single stroke as it fell. Yet after the blade had passed through, I could see the world it had carved. Watching that division, I thought without hesitation: it was beautiful.
A moment later, something struck me. My mind went white. My ears filled with a dull pressure. Nothing reached them. Only belatedly did I understand that my head had fallen to the ground and collided with it.
By the time that knowledge came to me… my eyes saw nothing more.
[You are dead.]
What kind of skill could possibly—
How many years of cultivation would it take to reach such a height?
[The condition for your skill is met through death.]
I was seized by an emotion entirely different from what I felt when Yeom Je Yusu-ha killed me—its complete opposite. Yeom Je Yusu-ha had filled me with betrayal, with the hunger for revenge.
But this old man was different.
‘I want to become like him.’
Pure envy consumed me.
‘I want that strike. That one, perfect strike.’
The same longing I had felt before learning Yeom Je Yusu-ha’s true nature.
‘I want it too!’
Jealousy. Greed. Yearning.
Endless desire ignited my heart once more.
And there came a voice in answer to my burning.
[Randomly copying the skill of Hunter Marcus Kallenberg.]
Cards materialized in the darkened void.
[Forming Skill Cards.]
Whoosh—
The cards showed only their backs. Perhaps this was to hide which card held which skill.
‘Still, the card colors are clearer than when I died to Yeom Je Yusu-ha.’
Perhaps I had simply grown accustomed to death. Four thousand ninety times—that was what his Kill Count Skill had proven. Like him, I had already experienced thousands of deaths.
No Hunter alive had been acquainted with death as intimately as I.
‘Not that I’m proud of it.’
That was when I wanted to laugh bitterly.
[Please select a Skill Card.]
The cards that had been hovering motionless in the void suddenly began to dart about at frantic speed.
‘Whoa!’
The abruptness caught me off guard. But I quickly gathered my wits and fixed my attention on the flying cards.
‘I don’t need anything else. Gold. I have to draw a gold card. Only gold.’
They moved too fast. It was nearly impossible to track them with conscious thought.
‘My gods.’
Had I really managed to pluck a gold card from this frenzied swarm when Yeom Je Yusu-ha killed me? Me? How did I even do that? Now that I think about it, my luck that time was truly extraordinary.
‘There’s no reason fortune can’t smile on me twice. Come on. Gold. Where are you, gold card?’
But then—
Something felt wrong.
‘Huh?’
No matter how carefully I looked, I couldn’t find it.
‘The gold card… it’s not there?’
Among the cards flashing before my eyes were brown ones and silver ones. But nowhere—not anywhere—did I see a card gleaming gold. I concentrated again and again, wondering if my vision had deceived me, but there was nothing. It simply wasn’t there.
Only one possibility remained.
‘Wait… could it be?’
Horror seized me.
‘Is it really… not here?’
From the very beginning.
Marcus Kallenberg possessed no S-rank Skill.
3
‘This can’t be right!’
I felt like screaming.
‘Here I am, ranked number one among hunters! Before Yeom Je Yusu-ha appeared, I reigned like a legend, and yet—not a single S-rank Skill to my name?’
It was almost impossible to believe. And yet it was true. My own Skill made it abundantly clear: Marcus Kallenberg, the Sword Constellation, had reached the very pinnacle without a single S-rank ability.
Shock and horror, plain and simple.
‘No, no! This can’t be right!’
Faced with shock and horror, my response was nothing more than denial.
‘There has to be some ridiculously broken Skill hidden among those silver cards!’
Whether this counted as pathetic or just pitiful, I couldn’t say.
In any case, I was desperate. With intense longing, I stared at the cards.
‘Three brown cards. Four silver cards.’
Seven cards in total scattered dizzyingly through the air.
‘I’m completely ignoring the brown cards.’
A reasonable choice.
Now the question was: which silver card to pick?
One of these probably contained the Kill Count Skill. And there had to be some unknown overpowered Skill as well.
Naturally, I didn’t want some subtle technique like Kill Count—I wanted something as broken as the Regression Skill itself.
‘One in four. Twenty-five percent.’
In other words, gambling.
I had to rely purely on luck.
‘Please, please come through.’
I reached out my hand.
‘I’m begging you—just this once. Come to me, broken Skill of the Sword Constellation!’
And I snatched up a silver card.
[Selection complete. Skill is being copied.]
[Regressing 24 hours.]
* * *
“-Hah!”
I swallowed a gasp and bolted upright.
A Studio Room.
Two square meters of space—enough to make even poverty feel homey. The bedding, unwashed for too long, reeked of mustiness.
Unfortunately, I had little time to appreciate my cramped quarters.
“Did… did it work?”
I checked my ability window immediately.
I needed to know whether I’d won or lost that one-in-four gamble!
+
Name: Kim Gong-ja
Rank: F-rank Hunter
Skills (3/4)
1. I Want to Become Like You (S+): Passive
2. Regressor’s Pocket Watch (EX): Passive
3. Constellation of the Sword (A+): Passive
4. Empty
+
“Ah…….”
A sigh escaped me. Half relief, half disappointment.
“At least I managed to pull an A+ Rank Skill…….”
First, the relief.
Though it didn’t reach S-rank, I’d made the best choice available. Avoiding something subtle like the Kill Count Skill had been lucky in its own right.
“…Another passive Skill, though.”
And the disappointment.
What I’d originally aimed for was a combat Skill. Something rare—a martial technique, a sword art, or perhaps an ability to awaken Aura. Most skills of that caliber were active abilities.
In other words, I’d failed to obtain a top-tier combat Skill.
“Sigh.”
Another breath escaped.
“But really, this is just ingratitude on my part….”
If countless low-rank hunters heard me complaining now, they’d go mad with envy. How dare I whine about obtaining an A+ Rank Skill?
That was true.
I decided to look at it differently. For now, I’d focus on the Skill in front of me.
“Skill Card, open.”
A soft rustling.
Cards that only a hunter could see floated into his mind.
[I Want to Become Like You (S+)]
[Regressor’s Pocket Watch (EX)]
[Constellation of the Sword (A+)]
Constellation of the Sword. The name alone gave him no sense of what the skill did.
“True enough. ‘I Want to Become Like You’ is a pretty strange name too.”
It was hard to judge from the name alone whether a skill was worthless or invaluable.
Perhaps it was something extraordinary.
Consoling himself with that thought, he reached for the silver card.
—Ah. What’s all this racket?
A voice came from nowhere he could place.
—Grandfather, haven’t I told you again and again? If you’re going out to train at night, at least be quiet about it.
“…….”
—When you move around, I just naturally end up drifting along after you. There’s no need to wake me up. Come on, let’s show each other a little courtesy, shall we?
Slowly.
Gradually, almost sluggishly, he turned toward the source of the voice.
The bedding on the studio room floor. Where even he alone could barely fit. There, something existed—hazy but unmistakably present. It lay like an ox, its back turned toward him.
“Excuse me?”
Goosebumps rose on his skin.
“Who are you?”
—Huh?
And then their eyes met.
A ghost. A specter.
Something that no living human being could ever resemble.
—Enh?
The specter’s face was harsh and forbidding. Had it not been clothed, he might have mistaken it for a gorilla. With its broad shoulders and furrowed brows, the spirit cut the figure of a horror film’s lead actor.
—Hey, who are you?
“…I was about to ask you the same thing. Who are you?”
—Can you see me?
He nodded reluctantly.
“Yes.”
—You can hear my voice too?
“Well, yes—I mean, judging by the fact that we’re communicating right now, wouldn’t you say that’s the reasonable conclusion?”
What on earth. Was he really having a conversation with a ghost?
He’d always assumed that ordinary ghosts, consumed by hatred from their earthly lives, would wander about like monsters. But this specter was different. Aside from its translucent torso, it spoke with all the humanity of a living person.
—Hmm, strange. This shouldn’t be possible.
The specter tilted its head. It seemed he was not the only one bewildered by the situation.
—Where am I? This place is cramped like a hovel. Where did that old codger Marcus go, and why is some greenhorn like you standing in front of me?
Finally, words he could understand came from the specter’s mouth.
“Oh, Marcus? You mean Marcus Kallenberg? Are you talking about the Sword Star?”
—Tsk. Well, calling some novice like that by such a grand title is rather undeserved.
The specter clicked its tongue, plainly displeased.
—Anyway, yes, that old man is referred to by such a name. Where did he go? He should be around here somewhere.
He stared in blank astonishment.
‘The Sword Star called a novice?’
The current number-one ranked hunter. Yeom Je Yusu-ha, fated to be slain by him, would presumably reign at the pinnacle for many years to come.
What could this specter before him possibly be, calling such a titan merely a novice? And why had ghosts suddenly become visible to him?
“…….”
To unravel the mystery, he flipped over the silver card.
And read the skill description.
+
[Constellation of the Sword]
Rank: A+
Effect: A being from Another World. Cleared the Tower of the Other World up to the 99th floor, only to falter with the 100th floor in sight. Unable to achieve enlightenment due to lingering resentment, this spirit became a Bound Spirit instead. It cannot physically intervene in this world, but it may meddle with the mind of its owner.
Seek counsel from this spirit’s rich experience and remarkable prowess!
※Only the owner can perceive the Bound Spirit.
※This skill was copied from hunter Marcus Kallenberg.
+
He found himself at a loss for words.
—Hey, where did that old geezer go? Are you ignoring me right now? Tch. Look, I may look like this now, but I was no slouch in my day! Warriors used to tremble at the mere blink of my eye, and now here you are, treating me like I’m nothing!
Good heavens.
It seems I’ve managed to copy Marcus Kallenberg’s Vengeful Spirit.
SSS-Rank Hunter: Live to Die (Serialized)
Author | Shin No-ah
Publisher | Kim Joo-hyung
Published by | 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 No-ah 2019
※This work has been published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder, and its contents may not be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.
Violation of this restriction may result in both 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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