Title: Solo Leveling Vol. 5
Author: Dubu (Redice Studio), Chugong (Original Story)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Genre: Fantasy, Action
Publication Date: September 20, 2022
The Story
Volume five of Solo Leveling sees Jinwoo take on a rather unusual role. He tags along with The Hunter’s, the strongest guild in all of Korea while keeping his identity hidden as much as possible. He does this by tagging along as part of their Excavation Squad. When the Strike Team is done killing magic beasts, the Collection Squad gathers the corpses and the Excavation Squad harvests their core as well as any minerals found along the walls, etc. It’s a highly-organized system that maximizes profit when clearing a dungeon.
After Jinwoo goes beast mode on gathering materials, he’s invited back to another A-Rank dungeon. His primary goal was to see an A-Rank dungeon first-hand so he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see another. When he reports, it’s The Hunter’s B-Team on the job this time because the dungeon was evaluated to be on the lower side of A-Rank. Turns out, the strike squad is down a member as their luggage carrier didn’t show up. Jinwoo volunteers and gets laughed at since he’s still E-Rank.
Once inside, they realize that the evaluation was incorrect. The dungeon is WAY more powerful than originally thought. High Orcs, each one as strong as an A-Rank hunter and possessing superior intelligence, attack. The squad is facing annihilation until Jinwoo uses Stealth and secretly helps them out. This draws suspicions but after they decide to retreat, the Dungeon Boss ends up sealing the entrance with magic and summons them where he plans to kill them one by one for his underlings’ entertainment.
Jinwoo can’t hide his powers anymore and goes beast mode, killing everything and reraising the dungeon boss as his shadow! After this incident, the day of Jinwoo’s re-evaluation arrives. I would without the results but the chapter title gave it away… Jinwoo becomes the tenth known S-Rank hunter in the world; however, through a conversation, it appears S-Rank isn’t the strongest out there. There is a rank called the National Hunter rank and those who achieve this are far stronger than S-Ranks. It is said that some National Hunter-ranked people are rulers of their own lands in other countries!
Once all the smoke clears, Jinho is faced with a decision… to become the leader of his father’s Yoojin guild… or to join Jinwoo’s guild as its Vice President. We all know what Jinho is going to choose. His man-crush for Jinwoo is just too strong! On the way to possibly securing a base for the guild, Jinwoo stops and re-enters the system where he looks to climb the Demon’s Castle. Things are going great until… we find out what happens next volume!
Characters
There wasn’t much in the way of character development here. The focus was placed all on Jinwoo as he wanted to see what an A-Rank dungeon was like. Even though it wasn’t stated, he’s probably doing it to compare it to the strength of the dungeons he faced in The System and… more importantly, the Demon’s Castle. Afterward, he ascended to become the tenth known S-Rank hunter which gained him the attention of The Hunter’s Guild as well as the White Tiger Guild… two guilds that were competing for him before (and still are.).
Besides this, there really wasn’t much to Jinwoo from a character growth position.
We did get a new character, though… Minsung Lee. He’s an actor who has already been re-evaluated as an A-Rank Hunter. He is staging a re-evaluation as a publicity stunt in order to grow his popularity. To say that the guy is full of himself is quite an understatement! I loved seeing all of his plans go up in smoke because Jinwoo was getting his re-evaluation done on the same day and ended up stealing all of the attention away from Minsung! Either Minsung is going to join Jinwoo’s guild as a way to become his rival or he’s going to try to use his fame to start his own to compete. Either way, I think Minsung sees Jinwoo as a thorn in his side and now has a bit of a score to settle with him!
Final Thoughts
Another great edition of Solo Leveling! Jinwoo going into dungeons and hiding his true powers was getting a bit on the stale side. Now that he has been announced as an S-Rank Hunter, he no longer needs to do that. In fact, he doesn’t even have to tag along on dungeon runs with other guilds since the logical next step is to make his own. Even Younhoo Baek, the leader of the White Tiger guild, realized that Jinwoo’s special ability is to continuously level up. He acknowledged that Jinwoo is stronger than any S-Rank hunter he’s ever known, including himself. In addition, he believes that it doesn’t matter who the #1 or #2 guild in Korea is… if Jinwoo makes his own, it will automatically secure the #1 spot.
Jongin Choi, the leader of The Hunter’s Guild, also believed this, too when he was asked if he, at his current level, could solo an A-Rank dungeon. Choi admitted that he couldn’t and yet Jinwoo was able to do just that. That was Choi’s way of silently admitting that Jinwoo’s power far exceeded his own.
Next volume, it looks like we will see Jinwoo clear the Demon’s Castle. Whether he finds what he needs for the Life Elixir or not remains to be seen but, either way, it looks as if he’ll be getting, yet, another unique class skill for his troubles. Maybe we’ll also see the formation of his guild? We’ll see! Bring on volume 6!
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