With all the blood, gore, and dread of the first two episodes and Jinwoo’s well-structured leveling up since his reawakening, there hasn’t been a ton of time for comedy on Solo Leveling. However, the nurses gossiping about how swole Jinwoo has become, one of said cute nurses asking for his contact info, and Jin-Ah also noticing said swole-ness is all funny as hell. Dude is finally getting some attention. Meanwhile, Hunter Baek Yoon-ho, one of only seven S-Ranks in Japan, gets fluffy TV interviews.
Now that he finally has some strength, Jinwoo is eager to put it to use providing for his family. But he also doesn’t want to have a high profile or draw too much attention to himself. To that end, he takes a menial but well-paying C-Rank dungeon job filling the 8-man quota for a 6-man “strike team” with no healer. His job will be to carry their baggage. The second quota-filler is Yoo Jinho, whose daddy bought him the finest armor and weapons for his very first raid.
The leader of the party, Hwang Dongsuk, seems to have a good head on his shoulders, and while his team lacks a healer, they make up for it with their offensive ability. Upon entering the dungeon they eventually encounter a horde of giant ants, but the team shows excellent training and coordination in handling them with ease.
Even so, the forebodingly dark dungeon promises to have tougher enemies, and Jinho seems like a prime target for the first victim of those enemies. As for Jinwoo, he only kills one ant with his food when no one is watching, so everyone assumes he’s the same old Weakest Hunter, serving as nothing but a porter. But he’s no greenhorn like Jinho; he advises extreme caution.
It’s right around when Jinwoo is questioning why a non-fighting gig is such a good deal when the dungeon’s tunnels are strewn with spider silk and they eventually come upon an absolute bonanza of mana crystals—perhaps a billion yen’s worth. There’s also a giant slumbering spider that Dongsuk is oddly certain won’t wake up.
Jinho asks to take a look at Jinwoo’s contract, and it doesn’t say anything about not giving him a share of mined crystals. Dongsuk seems fine with this, but since the party member responsible for the mining equipment left it back at the starting point, so Dongsuk has everyone but Jinho and Jinwoo head back for it.
Shortly after they leave the spider’s lair, Dongsuk orders the opening sealed, trapping Jinho and Jinwoo inside. Jinwoo now knows what his instinct was telling him: these guys are playing dirty. It’s sadly a common occurrence in such situations where there’s no cameras or witnesses to any crimes that occur in the dungeon.
The thing is, it wasn’t until after it was confirmed Dongsuk was backstabbing Jinwoo and Jinho that I feld like they’d actually be okay. The spider may be a C-rank boss, but it doesn’t seem as frightful a monster as the giant snake Jinwoo destroyed with his bare hands. He’s got this, so it’s just a matter of whether he can keep Jinho safe. If they’re able to get some mana crystals out of it and give Dongsuk’s party some payback, that’s a bonus.
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