Solo Leveling- Ragnarok-Chapter 330

“Live TV Broadcast– ‘The Tower of Tribulation: What Do We Know?’”

“Hello, viewers! Today we’re joined by a very special guest. He’s none other than the director of Ahjinsoft and the vice guild master of the Woojin Guild, Lim Dogyoon!”

The camera shifted to Lim Dogyoon, who was dressed neatly in a suit. Although he still looked a bit stiff, he carried himself with confidence.

“So, Mr. Lim! Could you give us a rundown on Solo Leveling: Ragnarok? It seems everyone and their dog is eager to know more about it! Many people are especially curious about the Towers of Tribulation which formed all over the world recently.”

Dogyoon cleared his throat.

“Of course. Officially titled ‘Tutorial: Tower of Tribulation,’ these are global training facilities designed to help humanity realize its potential. It is a combination of Ahjinsoft’s VR tech and a special avatar system that allows non-hunters to take part in virtual battles. Through these virtual words, they can achieve growth.”

As he continued to explain, journalists watching from around the world felt chills run down their spines and began typing furiously.

“The special abilities that an avatar can gain in the tower... Can they really be used in a person’s actual body, back in the real world?”

“Hmm. Not entirely,” Dogyoon replied. “The physical traits of the avatar don’t carry over to the actual body. But the skills and mana? Those transfer perfectly.”

“That’s... incredible. Rune stones that let someone learn a single skill are incredibly expensive. And you’re saying we can learn them just by playing a game?”

“Yes. But gaining skills is just the beginning. Two hunters with identical mana levels and skills can vary significantly in performance depending on their proficiency and control. Even after learning a skill, continuous training is essential if you want to use what you’ve learned effectively.”

“Well, that seems more than fair! This sounds like an amazing opportunity for ordinary people who’ve dreamed of becoming hunters. If they can gain more mana and even learn skills, I imagine even existing hunters would be desperate to join.”

That much was true. Hunters were locked into their mana capacity once awakened. But if the game allowed that limit to grow, this was nothing short of a revolution in the hunter world.

“In that vein,” the anchor said, “I have another question. There are plenty of ways to train one’s body in the real world. But how do you increase your mana capacity?”

“Good question,” Dogyoon said. “That’s actually why I’m here today.”

“Fantastic! I’m sure that’s what everyone watching at home wants to know most. So how does increasing mana capacity work?”

As the conversation continued, the host’s tone grew more and more excited. After all, he’d once dreamed of becoming a hunter himself. However, Dogyoon’s face took on a strange, haunted look as he began to answer.

“Hmm...”

An empty look entered his eyes, as if he was accessing a place in his mind that was dark and riddled with trauma.

“You suffer. A lot. Enough to kill you.”

“I’m... sorry?”

“Actually,” he added, “I’d recommend really dying. Avatars can come back to life as many times as needed.”

“What...? I’m not sure I follow, sir.”

The anchor blinked, visibly thrown off. Still baffled, the host quickly flipped through notes prepared by the writers.

“When we look through the cases of those who reawakened, we can find that most of them anecdotally experienced a phenomenon akin to death, called ‘Eternal Slumber.’ All of them were put on life support in the form of the game capsules developed by your company before they woke back up. Does this... have anything to do with it?”

“I don’t know much about the deeper technical mechanisms behind it,” Dogyoon replied evenly. “But there’s one thing I know for sure.”

He turned his gaze directly toward the camera.

“Always being close to death. That’s the key.”

“I’m... sorry?”

“In my experience... when humans cross the boundary between life and death, that’s when they get a shot at increasing their mana capacity.”

“Huh...?”

He delivered the line with absolute seriousness, but at the same time, his eyes looked utterly exhausted, like someone who’d barely survived endless brushes with death.

The host, shaken by the intensity of his gaze, hurriedly returned to the script.

“Ahem. I suppose that falls under personal experience. Those who want to find out will have to try it for themselves. Last question, then. How does someone gain access to the Tower of Tribulation?”

“We are taking early applications on the Ahjinsoft official website starting today,” Dogyoon said. “At the moment, the executives of the various hunters associations as well as various S-rank hunters are serving as beta testers. We’ve already done all our internal safety testing, but once those testers verify everything, we’ll begin gradually expanding access.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Lim. I imagine the public will be paying very close attention from here on out.”

Sure enough, as soon as the segment aired, the Ahjinsoft servers crashed from the sheer volume of traffic. Online communities erupted in a frenzy.

— This is nuts! Who could have believed it?

— They made a game that makes re-awakening possible!

— Is this for real? So all you have to do is play and you might awaken?

— How is that even possible?

— I am so playing. As soon as the servers are open, I’m quitting my job. This game is going to be my entire life.

Considering the vast amounts of money that hunters made, this game was no longer just a game. It was far more practical than any lottery ticket, and a real opportunity to turn one’s life around. Dogyoon’s final message quickly went viral, circulating endlessly in screenshot form across every platform.

— So what does that mean? Always being close to death?

— Do you get more mana by dying?

— So we just have to kill ourselves repeatedly as soon as we log in?

— That’s probably not how it’s done. The terms of service state that inhumane actions like that have been blocked by the system.

— Yeah, I read that too. So how are we supposed to die?

— Maybe that was just his way of saying we should be serious about the game.

— Don’t make it more complicated than it has to be. It’s normal to die a few times in any game.

— That’s true.

Dying in a video game wasn’t anything unusual. It had been a social talking point back in the day, when VR games had first been released. But nowadays, almost no one claimed to have trauma just because their avatar died in a VR game. The general sentiment was that if someone had a hard time with that, their mental resilience probably wasn’t great to begin with.

Ahjinsoft had already implemented multiple safety features to account for such concerns, and a slew of academic papers had been published in response. Nobody took the issue seriously anymore. Not even after seeing the haunted look in Dogyoon’s eyes, or the screen captures of him talking about death. No one truly considered the weight of his words. This was true even of the top-class S-rank beta testers that had entered the tower first.

Thomas Andre was no exception.

***

[Tutorial: Tower of Tribulation]

“Time goes by so fast...”

Thomas Andre let out a quiet sigh.

“It’s already been four years...”

Astonishingly, he’d already “lived” in the Tower of Tribulation for over four years now. His avatar’s face was still unremarkable when he looked in the mirror, but now it looked a little older. He had kept up his workouts, so he’d at least managed to put on a bit of muscle compared to the beginning.

Still, he was far from satisfied. This body wasn’t one that developed muscles easily. It made him keenly aware of how blessed he had been in the real world, born with a body that grew muscle as naturally as breathing. No matter how experienced he was at physical training, there were obvious limits to what he could do with such a scrawny frame.

But this was still just a game. Although four years had passed in his mind, it hadn’t been four years in the real world. The game’s story flowed straight into his brain, interacting with his nervous system. The trivial incidents passed by swiftly, like fragments of memory in his mind, and it was only the major incidents that he actually “played” actively. That was how time passed here. Four years.

He was still here, still playing the role of the one and only older brother of Sung Jinah. Of course, Thomas Andre knew logically that this was all just a game. If he wanted to, he could log out at any moment.

However... He simply couldn’t bring himself to do it. If he left, his “sister” would be well and truly alone. Their father had gone missing in a dungeon, and their mother was unconscious, affected by Eternal Slumber.

If I also disappear, she’ll have no one left. She’d cry again.

There was a bitter taste on his tongue when he thought of his sister. At least she had one good thing going for her.

She’s doing great in school. That’s a relief, at least.

He felt genuine pride when he looked over her latest report card. He had never been the type to do well in school, but Jinah had always been sharp. She liked to brag that she had a great brain, but Thomas already knew what it was that made her excel.

It’s... effort. Tremendous effort.

As a result of that determination, her grades had steadily risen over the past four years. In fact, she was on track to apply for medical school.

People say intelligence matters, but if you push yourself that hard, the results are bound to follow.

Thomas had given up on going to college, opting to make money instead. He’d jumped straight into the workforce, taking jobs to pay their mother’s hospital bills and keep food on the table. He also wanted to support Jinah, so she could chase her dream of becoming a doctor.

And Jinah knew it. She was fully aware her brother was sacrificing his own future for her sake. That was why she had chosen to focus on her studies—because studying was the only thing she could do to repay him.

“You little brat... You grew up way too fast.”

Thomas let out a bitter chuckle as he pictured her face. He suddenly recalled the moment from four years ago, when his sister had collapsed in front of him, sobbing uncontrollably. He could still picture her fragile shoulders trembling like a candle’s flickering flame. She still cried at night sometimes, muffling herself under a blanket so no one would hear. But Thomas’ hearing was too good for that.

You idiot. I may only be an E-rank hunter... but I can still hear you cry.

Indeed, Thomas—or rather, his avatar—had awakened as an E-rank hunter. An E-rank’s power barely surpassed that of an average person. His senses and physical abilities were slightly enhanced, but that was about it. Despite all the money top hunters earned, that didn’t apply to someone at the bottom. If anything, trying to fight with that little power would just rack up hospital bills. Still, even that slight ability was enough to catch the sound of his sister quietly crying every night.

That’s why...

“All right, Jinah. You’ve staked your life on getting into a good college. Well, I’ll put my life on the line too. My life is no big deal.”

So today, Thomas Andre, Sung Jinah’s older brother, headed out as usual to bring back some money for her and his mother. As always, he stepped into a dungeon. He died multiple times, over and over again, in those places.

Goblins that the real Thomas could’ve crushed with a flick of the finger were now genuine threats to his life. Even in the lowest-grade dungeons, the physical strength and mana of an E-rank hunter were far from a guarantee of survival. Thankfully, in this world, his avatar revived each time he died.

Still, death hurt. No matter how often it happened, he never got used to it. Still, he pushed forward, gritting his teeth and fighting magic beasts again and again.

Interestingly, no matter how hard he fought, no matter how many times he risked his life, no one in the world seemed to even know his name. After all, this was only the tutorial. He hadn’t even set a name for his avatar yet, so it made sense. Besides, who would care about the name of some E-rank Hunter?

Still, even if the whole world forgot his name, in another sense, he had become fairly well-known among the hunter community. These days, they liked to call him “humanity’s weakest specimen.”

A name that was... downright humiliating.