Solo Leveling- Ragnarok-Chapter 271

Jinho and Harmakan had an even greater synergy than expected.

“Hmm... VR... So you can stimulate human brains with this?” Harmakan asked.

“Yes. It is a device that manipulates brain waves to allow people to experience new worlds.”

“Hmm.”

The demonic spirit, who had started taking apart a Game Capsule in earnest, wore a curious expression.

“Hmm...”

Jinho looked at him and asked, “Why are you making that face?”

“Did you say these ‘capsules’ worked without mana crystals before the Great Cataclysm?”

“Yes. Mana crystals only appeared on Earth after the Great Cataclysm. Before that, this device was purely a product of human science. Let me explain the basic principles that power it...”

Jinho, who had taken part in the development as the head of the company, answered Harmakan’s various questions with ease.

However, the more Harmakan listened, the more he felt that something was off.

“You humans... really made this without mana?”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“This virtual reality you say you created... Hmm...”

After completely dismantling one of the capsules and assessing its contents, Harmakan suddenly fell silent, lost in deep thought. After a moment, he came to a conclusion.

“Never mind. I will go inside and see for myself. Then I will be able to tell you for certain.”

“You’re saying you want to enter virtual reality? You, a shadow soldier?” Jinho asked, taken aback. “That’s impossible. The Game Capsule functions by reading human brainwaves. You guys are dead souls without physical bodies. There’s no way it would work.”

“I think it will be possible... if my hunch is correct.”

“Huh?”

Jinho had a strange look on his face in response to Harmakan’s confidence.

The connection between brain waves and the soul was something modern science had yet to explain. Anything regarding a “soul” was extremely difficult to prove with science.

Yet some scientists firmly believed that a breakthrough would eventually come. There was a time when people thought lightning was a divine punishment from the gods, but as time passed, science ultimately revealed that this was not the case. Similarly, many scientists believed that one day, even the mysteries of the soul and the afterlife would be explained through science.

Although Jinho himself had approached Harmakan for cooperation, he had also been doubtful of the idea that the shadow fiends could use sorcery through spirits.

In any case, Harmakan was proving far more proactive and cooperative than expected.

“So I put this on my head and lie down?” he asked, opening the capsule and picking up the brainwave helmet inside.

With a slightly reluctant expression, Jinho answered, “Yes. You put that on your head, then set up the muscle calibration—”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Harmakan didn’t even lie down. Instead, he casually sat on the edge of the capsule and attempted to put on the helmet.

The helmet was too small. Since it was designed for humans, it wasn’t close to fitting Harmakan’s head.

“Shall I ask the manufacturing department to make one in your size?” Jinho asked.

“No. That will not be necessary. I have no brain waves anyway.”

He simply slipped his hand into the helmet instead of his head. Then without hesitation, he pressed the power button.

There was a beep and a low hum, and the capsule began to activate.

Normally at this stage, the helmet would scan the user’s brainwaves, syncing them to the virtual reality system. Once the loading process was over, their minds would access the virtual world provided by Beautiful World.

“Accessing.”

Jinho’s eyes flew wide open. Right before his eyes, Harmakan’s massive body was suddenly sucked into the helmet.

“Th-the monitor!”

Panicking, he scrambled to activate the external display that showed what was happening inside the virtual world. As the screen flickered to life, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Hmm. So I was right.”

The shadow demonic spirit appeared, his body wreathed in black mist. Now inside the capsule, Harmakan stood tall in the bright white expanse of virtual reality.

Within the monitor, magic circles appeared in his hands. He studied them for a moment, manipulating them this way and that, then suddenly turned his head.

“Hey. Are you seeing this?”

He looked straight out from the monitor—directly at Jinho, who was observing from outside.

Jinho felt his hair stand on end.

“H-how?!”

This was impossible. Even if Harmakan was a demonic spirit, he shouldn’t be able to perceive the real world from inside the simulation.

Harmakan didn’t seem to think it was so impressive, however.

“I told you, instance dungeons are my specialty.”

“What? I’m not sure I—”

As Harmakan spoke, Jinho’s face gradually hardened.

Inside the monitor, the demonic spirit looked around at the virtual space surrounding him, then nodded in confirmation.

“I’m sure of it. This is no virtual world. It’s an instance dungeon that utilizes the dimensional rift.”

“What?! How is that possible? It’s a virtual world. We made it—”

“Listen, I have no interest in arguing with a mere human over something this obvious. This is an instance dungeon.”

Ignoring Jinho’s reaction, Harmakan stared straight at him through the monitor and got to the point.

“Let me ask again. Did you really make this Game Capsule?”

“Y-yes. Our developers and engineers did everything that was in their power to—”

“No. Wrong answer. Let me ask again. Try to remember. Did you truly design the system? Was there no one who helped you during its development?”

“What do you mean? We were the first in the world to develop anything like it. Of course we didn’t have any help from the outside...”

Naturally, Jinho’s immediate reaction was denial. Beautiful World was the world’s first VR game—of that, there was no doubt. Who could have possibly helped design a system that no one else had ever even thought of?

“Our researchers developed it together... and...”

His voice, however, was slowly losing confidence.

Jinho desperately combed through his memories of the development process. Earth had still been at peace, and it was long before the cataclysm that turned everything upside down. His company, Ahjinsoft, was an ordinary game development company then, releasing only video games.

He recalled the faces of the researchers who had worked with him on the virtual reality development project. Then he froze.

“Huh?”

His face stiffened, and a cold chill ran down his back.

“What... is this?”

Something was wrong. Among the researchers he remembered, there was a face that appeared blurred, almost as if the memory had intentionally been erased. It was as though someone had overlaid it with meaningless noise.

When it came to this researcher, he could not clearly remember their face, try as he might. In fact, there were a few such people.

“Huh? No!”

It wasn’t just their faces that seemed strange. They were wearing the same uniforms as the other researchers, but their silhouettes, as he remembered them, were clearly not human.

They’re almost like...

“Demonic spirits?!”

“Yes. That is the answer,” Harmakan said, finally nodding.

Jinho had finally recovered the gap in his memory. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Before, Suho had handed him the Key to the Shadow Dungeon, which had allowed him to recall memories from a timeline that no longer existed. Perhaps as a result, a simple conversation with Harmakan had been enough to bring back a memory that someone had purposefully erased from his mind.

That memory had revealed a shocking truth.

“This is not an ability that a human should be capable of. It’s magic used by demonic spirits, who manipulate souls.”

“Souls...?”

“Yes. Souls, not brain waves.” Harmakan nodded on the screen. “This device temporarily removes the soul from a living body. It is a magic device which allows users to indirectly experience an instance dungeon.”

Jinho’s jaw dropped open in shock.

“You mean... Their souls literally leave their bodies?”

“Yes, indeed. But this is a much safer way. The dimensional coordinates are anchored firmly in the Game Capsule so the soul can return to its body again. I would describe it more as a lucid dream than a true out-of-body experience.”

“A lucid dream...” Jinho muttered in a daze.

A lucid dream was a state in which one realized they were dreaming while still within the dream—that was what Harmakan claimed the “virtual reality” of Beautiful World truly was. From the very start, Ahjinsoft’s VR game had been designed not to simulate reality, but to draw out the soul, allowing it to experience a lucid dream. That was made possible through the aid of demonic spirits, ones that Jinho initially had no memory of.

“But why?”

This was the question that burned hottest in Jinho’s mind.

“How was it that demonic spirits were among my researchers? It was long before the Great Cataclysm ever happened.”

They had been hiding among the many researchers, escaping everyone’s notice. What reason did they have to help Jinho and his company? What were they after?

“Hmm. Do you really not know the reason? I think I can guess.”

Harmakan, who had been strolling and looking about in the empty world without a thought to Jinho’s shock, smiled lazily. He muttered, recalling a distant memory, “Long ago, in the war against the Rulers, the arcane world in which we demonic spirits lived was destroyed. We had lost. Most of us died. Some of us scattered, escaping with our lives. I was in that category.”

He raised his hand, thick black vapor swirling from his palm.

“But after I died, I realized something. For demonic spirits, who deal in souls, death is a blessing. The moment I became a shadow soldier, it became possible for me to research far better magic.”

His wizened hand formed a fist, and a new magic circle flared to life above it. As he casually manipulated it back and forth, his glowing eyes flicked toward Jinho.

“Don’t you see it? If there were demonic spirits who helped you in secret... Who do you think got them to do it?”

Eventually, Jinho arrived at the answer on his own. A brief fragment of memory surfaced.

“So you’re working on a VR game?”

“Yes, Jinwoo! It’s almost done! We are having a bit of trouble with the final step of realizing the world itself, but once we deal with that, the world’s first VR game will be born!”

“Jinwoo...” Jinho said quietly, almost as a sigh.

He remembered that had been sharing a quiet drink. He was sitting across from Jinwoo and confidently gulping down a soda as he spoke with pride about his ambitions.

“Whew! Amazing, don’t you think? I’ll let you be the first person to play it when I’m done!”

“What? Me? Wouldn’t it be dangerous?”

“What do you mean, dangerous? I’ll be going in with you!”

“You too?”

“Of course! We will be the world’s first people to enter the virtual world!”

Jinwoo grinned as they spoke. When Jinho shouted his resolution triumphantly, Jinwoo chuckled in response.

“Just trust me, all right? I’ll protect you, Jinwoo!”

“Well... That does sound interesting, I suppose.”

The precise expression Jinwoo had worn that day was lost to Jinho’s memory, but he had a feeling that there had been a kind of longing in his eyes.

“All right. Do your best. I’ll be rooting for you.”

Jinwoo, the Monarch of Shadows, had encouraged him. Perhaps that encouragement had taken the form of more than words.

Now that Jinho had regained his memories from a time that no longer existed, he could speculate. There was one thing he was sure of: His sudden desire to create a virtual reality game was probably born from a subconscious longing for memories he didn’t even realize were missing.

And perhaps I missed Jinwoo too...

***

At that same moment, Suho surged northward with his shadow army, cutting down every enemy that stood in his way.

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

He was gaining levels like there was no tomorrow.

Coming to North Korea was definitely the right call.

This was immensely satisfying. Here, he didn’t have to worry about hunter laws or trivial considerations like other guilds. He could simply focus on killing everything he saw. This was probably the first time since long ago that he’d been able to fight so endlessly.

The last time was in my level-up dream.

That was the dream his father had crafted specifically to test him. It was an extremely difficult experience at the time, but in hindsight, it was an escape from his boring routines, something that allowed him to feel truly alive.

“That’s another one down.”

With a deafening crash, the ninth Elvenwood fell to the ground in front of him.

Localization Credits

Kiwi Vine

Translator Gom

Editor Heather Powers

Linguist Sara Liddell

Head Linguist Hannah Shin

Kakao Entertainment

Head of Language Quality Letitia Wells

Head of Localization Jaewon Lee