Solo Leveling- Ragnarok-Chapter 349

Yuri Orloff leaned back on a comfy sofa inside the Kremlin in snowy Moscow. The window beside him provided a view of the broad square below, where flurries of slow danced through the air. His eyes suddenly flew open. Had he dozed off for a moment while drunk? Cold sweat drenched his forehead.

“What...? Was that a dream...?”

As reality dawned on him, a sigh of relief escaped him. At the same time, he ground his teeth in fury.

“It’s been a while... since I’ve dreamed of that time.”

Yes, it was just a dream—a nasty nightmare, nothing more.

Look at me now.

He sat in the heart of Russia, the Kremlin itself, surrounded by every imaginable luxury. This was his reality. Yet no matter how far he’d climbed, no matter how much he’d achieved, certain memories still haunted him.

“Goddamn it!”

Yuri snatched up the crystal bottle resting on the table in annoyance. It was thirty-year-aged Scottish whiskey, each bottle worth several thousand dollars. Just a few years ago, he couldn’t have afforded even a sniff. Now, he tipped the priceless liquor to his lips and drank greedily.

Then, without warning, he hurled the bottle to the floor. The deafening sound of glass shattering echoed through the Kremlin halls. The several-thousand-dollar whiskey now spilled across the marble after taking no more than a few sips. He didn’t care. What did it matter? He was now the prime minister, Yuri Orloff, the dictator of Russia! He gave a harsh, satisfied laugh.

“Yes! Of course it was a dream! See? This is the real me!” he shouted, laughter bursting from his throat. But the cold sweat refused to leave his forehead.

Seconds later, the door opened and one of his ever-present attendants stepped inside, drawn by the noise. Without a trace of surprise, the man scanned the room, then immediately dropped to his knees to begin gathering the shards of glass.

For Yuri’s attendants, this was routine. The prime minister they knew was constantly inebriated and always angry. The most important thing to remember while working for him was to clean up as quickly and carefully as possible, then disappear. The goal was to avoid provoking him at any cost. This unspoken rule was common knowledge among the attendants, who had already been replaced several times.

And above all, they knew very well that Yuri loved to watch them tiptoe in fear around him. Even now, the man cleaning the floor could feel the eager gaze of Russia’s great dictator on his back, and he quickened his pace.

Yuri grinned. The effect was immediate. The irritation and foul mood from the nightmare vanished, replaced by a satisfied smile as if nothing had happened. This time, he spoke in a pleased voice as he picked up a far more expensive bottle of whiskey and issued a command.

“Bring me my medicine.”

The man responded without raising his head, “Yes, sir. But would it be healthy to take psychiatric medication with alcohol—”

“You presume to lecture me?”

Yuri’s tone immediately sharpened.

The man bowed at once.

“My apologies, sir. I’ll bring it right away.”

He rushed over to open a drawer. Yuri let out a harsh laugh.

“Don’t mix medicine with alcohol, you say? That sort of thing only matters to non-hunters like you. I’m an S-rank hunter. Things like that don’t affect me. My body isn’t the same as an ordinary human’s.”

The man was silent as he handed over the medication. In moments like this, quietly doing what one was told was wiser than giving a response.

Yuri quickly lost interest in the man’s boring response. He took the prescribed psychiatric medication and, with his other hand, grabbed the most expensive bottle from his collection before walking toward the window. Leisurely, he took in the snowy Moscow landscape visible beyond the glass. The Red Square of the Kremlin, and the city beyond it, stretched before his eyes. The people walking through it—or rather, the vermin crawling beneath him—moved under his gaze.

“Yes... That’s the real dose of reality right there,” he said, finally able to smile.

A dream was nothing more than a dream. Yet no matter how far he tried to run, the past always followed him. It wasn’t even the distant past—just three years ago. That was when he’d been lucky enough to awaken as an S-rank hunter. Before that point, his life had been nothing more than trash in the gutter.

He was the filth of the back streets, looked down on, kicked, and mocked by everyone in Russia. Since childhood, he had wandered the back alleys, begging for food. He survived day to day with the money he scraped together. Afraid that other beggars might steal even the smallest amount he managed to save, he always used any extra money to buy lottery tickets or alcohol. He’d been an addict. He drank every day, picking fights with other beggars, living like garbage on the streets.

That was his whole life. He was already past middle age, growing older with nothing to show for it, when he abruptly awakened his powers and shot up to where he was now. None of it had come from effort. It was pure luck. His awakening had come suddenly and without warning. Who was to say it wouldn’t vanish just as suddenly?

He felt anxious. It was only natural. After all, he hadn’t put in any effort to get here. Awakening had been nothing more than a stroke of extraordinary luck, like winning the lottery. No one knew that better than he did. That was why he needed the medication—not illicit drugs, but anxiety pills prescribed by his doctor, the finest psychologist in the country.

He swallowed. Perhaps the effect was only placebo, but the moment he did, his worry seemed to melt away. With that, he found the courage to face his nightmare again.

Back when he’d been homeless on the streets, he’d been known among the beggars as the “malen’kiy tsar,” or the “little emperor.” He’d earned that nickname when he was just twelve. Russia’s winters were brutal, and life in the slums under such conditions was even harsher. At only nine years old, Yuri killed his first human. The reason? Simply to steal a piece of bread from a fellow beggar.

A brick was not enough to kill in the hands of a tiny child, but that didn’t matter. The freezing temperatures worsened the wound, and in a few days, his victim was found cold and lifeless. The moment he woke up and saw the body, Yuri couldn’t help but laugh. He’d learned a critical lesson.

So... This is how easy it is.

Human life was far more fragile than he’d thought. Learning that truth made him see the world in a different light.

Look at them.

He watched the citizens who tossed him coins out of pity, and the rich who had far more. No matter how much they pretended they were superior, it didn’t matter.

They’re all just one brick away from dying.

That was all it took—a single brick. From that moment on, even at a young age, Yuri began wandering the back streets, threatening other beggars like him with a brick in hand. The brutal Russian cold was already enough of a danger. A single injury in that environment could easily become fatal for a beggar.

As a result, his age never posed a problem. At first, he targeted only those smaller and weaker than him. Then, as he slowly gained confidence, he expanded to those who were older and bigger. It didn’t matter who it was. He just had to catch them while they were sleeping. In just three years, Yuri ruled over all the beggars in the back alleys as the Little Emperor. He taught them the true meaning of fear. He ensured they knew that defying him would not lead to a slow death by starvation, but a violent one, beaten and bloodied.

However, that same fear applied just as much to Yuri himself. He could call himself all the fancy names he wanted, but in the end, he was still alone. If even a few beggars attacked him at once, he could easily wind up dead overnight. To fight this, he imposed a hierarchy among the beggars who bent to his will. He forced every beggar to send out those who were weaker and younger to beg on the streets and set up a structure to take their earnings—a vicious pyramid scheme.

This formed a small ecosystem in the back streets. It was a system where everyone watched one another, where the strong took from the weak. Naturally, Yuri sat at the very top as emperor. He did not let down his guard for a moment, however. He knew he was never safe. What was stopping someone from turning up in the night with a brick, like he’d done so many times himself? The throne he had built was one anyone could claim.

That was when he came up with his next idea: cruel acts meant to test loyalty.

“Lock Mikhail up. Don’t feed him anything.”

Little Mikhail was just a boy. Yuri picked the rebellious child as an example, shutting him in the basement of an abandoned building, and left him to starve for days. He also forced the other beggars to periodically watch Mikhail as he sat crying in that dark space. However, there was one startling detail. The basement door had never been locked. Still, Mikhail never took a single step outside.

“You’re dead if you leave.”

He didn’t have the courage.

For a small child like Mikhail, defying the Little Emperor’s command was far more terrifying than starvation. The effect was dramatic. Every beggar feared the Little Emperor and no longer dared to defy him. He repeated this method regularly to ensure the fear never faded. After a few times, he didn’t even need to close the basement door.

“You cross this line, and your life is forfeit.”

He left the door wide open and used his brick to draw a line on the floor. He gave a command to all the beggars.

“This line is an invisible wall. Cross it, and I will kill you.”

Soon, there was no beggar in the back streets who dared to disobey that absurd order. Yuri wasn’t just another vagrant anymore. He’d killed enough times with his own hands for his threats to carry genuine menace, engraving true fear into those living a meaningless existence in the alleys. Even something as simple as drawing a line across the floor created a perfect prison from which no one could escape. It was now a wall only beggars could see. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Looking back, that prison had been the first “barrier” Yuri had ever used. This story from Russia’s alleyways was one no one knew about, one that took place long before the Great Cataclysm came to Earth. Even so, it was only a matter of time.

His nickname was always meant to be temporary. Russians grew quickly, and even beggars there had strongly built bodies. In only a few years, Mikhail, that little boy, was bigger than Yuri himself. Then, one night, it happened.

“All right. Here goes.”

Mikhail inhaled the biting Siberian air, lit a cigarette, and picked up a brick from the ground. There was no need to sneak up from behind. The difference in size made it obvious who was stronger. The fear imprinted on him since childhood made his hand tremble, but he only gripped the brick even tighter.

That day, Yuri’s title as the Little Emperor came to an end. That was also the day his real nightmare began.

“Mikhail, that bastard! I’ll find him no matter what!”

Snapping out of his thoughts, Yuri hurled the bottle he had been holding. An attendant quickly opened the door and entered, falling to the floor to clean up the shattered glass, just like before. This time, a secretary entered alongside him, approaching Yuri with a frown.

“Prime Minister, there is something you need to see.”

“I’m already looking at it!” Yuri shouted.

The secretary flinched and quickly stepped back. There was no need for a report. The massive TV hanging on the wall was already broadcasting breaking news from around the world.

“This just in!”

“The unidentified creatures who attacked all major cities have been defeated!”

“American S-rank hunter Thomas Andre fought in front of the Statue of Liberty in New York...!”

“A former national athlete, Cha Haein, revealed recently to be an S-rank hunter, defeated all—”

“The Chinese government has decided, after his recent activity, to acknowledge Liu Zhigang officially as a seven-star hunter! This is an unprecedented move...”

“Tsk. These Apostles are all bark and no bite.”

Yuri clicked his tongue. The alcohol buzz vanished as he listened to the reports of the confident Apostle of Domination being wiped out. Across the screen were countless corpses of the Apostle, exterminated like bugs.

“In the end, the only person I can trust is myself.”

Yuri’s eyes glinted with dangerous intent as he watched.