The Journey — (Naruto x Solo Leveling Fanfiction)

I don't own solo leveling or Naruto

.

.

"Oh, crap, crap, crap! I'm going be so late!"

Sung Jin Woo, eldest son of the Sung family, rushed through streets as quickly as he could, out of breath as he was. He was pretty sure that he caused an accident a few blocks back, but he was a little too preoccupied to worry about that. Taking a shortcut through a nearby alleyway would be his best bet, he knew these streets like the back of his hand especially considering that his little sister's school is in the area.

Speaking of which, she should be leaving school by now, right? No. He shook his head, she was probably busy with club activities or something like that, always the busy body of the family. He used whatever athleticism his enhanced body gave him to jump on a dumpster and vault over the 2m tall fence, landing in a crouch.

He sprinted to the parking lot of the office building that the dungeon spawned in, stopping to catch his breath once he got to the open gates. Looking around he saw a food truck with a few workers ordering from it. The parking lot was obviously empty because of the dungeon that was in the area, but he couldn't help but feel that the parking lot was a little too empty.

Taking a look at the time on his phone he saw that he wasn't as late as he thought, in fact he was right on time, if not a few minutes early. So, it begged the question as to where everybody was? His grey, analytical gaze deduced that the food truck had probably set up shop very early in the morning, most likely before any of the hunters he would be raiding with would've.

Gripping his bright green on his shoulders, he pressed to ask some questions.

"Hey, there! Can I help you with our special burger and fries?" the friendly truck owner offered.

"Uh, no thanks but I just wanted to ask if you've seen a group of people around? I was supposed to meet up with them in the next 5 minutes to raid this dungeon. So, if you could let me know I'd appreciate it very much," Jin woo said politely, with a sheepish smile.

"Oh, you're a hunter? You don't look like much compared to the other boy."

"Uh hmm, I'm actually 22," he grimaced at the off handed comment on his, frankly, boyish build. He did his best to ignore the evident shock on the man's face after hearing about his age. He was slowly growing used to the belittling of his fellow peers and he really didn't want to deal with it today.

"Oh, sure, I saw them head in 15 minutes ago. You just missed them unfortunately."

Jin Woo was surprised to say the least, but should he really be at this point? Why would a party of competent hunters wait for a weak E-rank hunter like him, the weakest of them all, he'd only drag them down. He quietly thanked the truck merchant and motionlessly wandered to the bright blue portal. He had his head down with a melancholy aura leaking off him in waves.

He gritted his teeth, thinking about how rent on the apartment was due this month, his mother's hospital fees and the fact that Jin-ah's school fees were 2 months behind. He needed the little money he would get from this dungeon to pay off all the bills, hospital fees and debts. He needed this more than he thought he did and thinking about it even more he felt a sense of betrayal deep down at his heart for those guys for going off without him.

It was irrational to think that they would consider the help of the world's weakest hunter as something worth their time but he at least thought they would be professionals and honour their part because he signed up so readily to offer his services, even if to fill out the member count.

"This is a terrible idea, Sung. Your worst one yet," he berated himself, silently. However, he ignored the logical side of his brain and balled his hands into fists and crossed over to the next dimension.

It was stupid, idiotic really, but he figured that they couldn't have gotten that far in 15 minutes, right? If course time here was different and they were likely more than a 2 hours ahead of him but he, naively, thought that maybe he could catch up to them. Show them that they were wrong to dismiss him like they did.

He ran and ran through the creepy, dimly lit tunnels of this dungeon, his instincts on high alert to the dangers posed in a dungeon already above his rank. Why was he this stupid again?

He stopped running. 3 different paths met his gaze each as dimly lit as the previous. One straight ahead of him and the others to his left and right respectively. He took a minute to pause and think about which way the party could have gone. There didn't seem to be any sign of a fight and if there were any tracks, it wasn't bright enough for him to notice them. The lighting was akin to walking through a dense forest with the full moon out. He'd have to take a gamble and pick which way they head since there really wasn't anything to indicate which way they went.

Deciding to go straight ahead he pressed infinitely more nervous than before.

Time in the world of monsters moved drastically faster than the human world, so besides how dangerous the predators in these dimensions were, another aspect was prepping for survival for days to weeks inside of a dungeon. While it has taken time, the practice of dungeon raiding has evolved rapidly in the past years so much so that it's rare to see raids lasting more than 3-4 hours, which is roughly one and half days inside a dungeon. Guilds have better chances of survival compared to freelance hunters like himself because they have resources enough to keep the group from starving, hypothermia, or most extreme conditions thrown their way. Obviously, there are cases of misranked gates, which he was told happened more often than he thought, so it happened that they were underprepared. But the top five guilds usually didn't have many horrific incidents because of how stacked they were in terms of resources and funds, but even they were susceptible to misranking.

Sung knew this, which is why he prepared beforehand with a small bag full of medical supplies, a day's worth of food, and something to easily start a fire, which there didn't seem to be anything to start such a thing with. The young man knew that he had to keep his guard up but had been walking for hours and his feet were starting to kill him. He wanted to stop and rest somewhere, but it wasn't even remotely safe in the dungeon all by himself. He smacked his head a couple of times and muttered the word stupid repeatedly to himself.

His heart rate started spiking when he heard what sounded like grumbles and groans around the corner of the winding tunnel. He bent his knees and slowly moved along, his back hugging the wall, and peaked slightly to see the sight of a zombie limping in his direction.

It's decaying face and popped out right eye, hanging on some decaying optic nerve. Its ribs visible for the world and worse than what could be called rags still clung to its body.

Sung deduced that there only seemed to be one of them and felt far more confident than previous after hearing the noises. He didn't have a weapon so he'd have to be resourceful to take this thing down and he hoped to whatever god was watching that this wasn't a Terror zombie because those were far more dangerous than a normal one.

"Alright… come on, come on… dead fella," he silently goaded under his breath, wanting the zombie to inch closer to his position and launch a sneak attack. The groans got louder and louder until he swiftly sprung from the shadows and bashed in the zombie's skull with a chunk of rock he broke off the wall. He rolled off the fallen body and got to his feet to absolutely stomp out the remainder of its cracked skull with feverish aggression.

When it was all said and done black blood dripped off his right denim sneaker and bits of his dark blue joggers.

"Huh, see… Not so bad, ay, Sung?" he chuckled to himself, calming down from his adrenaline rush.

First monster down and hopefully not so many to come. He really didn't need all the stress right now, but at least it stopped his uneasiness for a moment knowing there was a visible enemy to focus on. He took a breath and then turned to advance further into the tunnel. The zombie encounter was a good thing because it meant there were enemies down this tunnel, if that was the case then it was probable that the group did go down this tunnel. He'd have to see more carnage as evidence of course but a guy's gotta start somewhere, right? If he didn't see anything afterwards to indicate they were here then he'd just turn back and head down a different tunnel.

"But all in all at least there's progress being made," he smiled.

.

.

.

"Well, that was easy!" Kimura said a very carefree smile as they stepped out of the dungeon.

"It would have been easier if the brat didn't break formation!" Sang Shik replied, striking an annoyed glance at the stoic teenager.

"Hn. I got the job done quicker, in fact, I knocked the boss out. Your formation would have forced us to kill it rather than subdue." Sasuke retorted, much to the annoyance of the party leader because he knew how beneficial a subdued but not dead boss meant. The ability to mine resources from the dungeon without fear of the gate collapsing within an hour.

"Still doesn't change the fact that you deliberately disregarded my chain of command! You could have gotten someone killed with your reckless antics! There is a reason I came up with the formations in the first place."

"That doesn't matter if you're too weak to execute them. I'm leagues ahead of anyone here so I made the call to act on my own and take down the boss. It saved you, me and the rest of your party from a lot more trouble and injuries. You're welcome," Sasuke coldly responded leaving Sang Shik speechless and bitter, probably because the words came from a teenager more than anything else. He didn't like that, children not respecting their elders.

"Okay, so, um, let's get the mining equipment shall we?" Joo-hee broke the silence attempting to salvage any semblance of peace between the two. They both responded with annoyed grunts and walked away.

The party quickly pulled out all the equipment from Kim Sang Shik van and set out for another trip into the gate for resources.

"Hey! Wait up everyone!"

The party turned to the food truck owner rushing towards them wondering what he wanted.

"Look, friend, we're not really interested about any special you got at the moment," Kim brushed him off with disinterest.

"Says you, I'm actually pretty hungry… right now," the archer was quickly shut up by a simple glare from Sang Shik, "I'll shut up now. Yeah, I'll… I'll shut up." he stammered under his breath.

Kim turned away from the archer and raised a brow at the merchant prompting him to explain himself.

"It's not about that I promise. It's just that earlier I saw this young man looking for you guys. Told him you were already inside so he followed in after you. I didn't see him amongst you when you guys came out, so I'm wondering where he is?"

It took a moment to register in his mind but once it did Kim put a palm to his face.

"Shit, it's probably Hunter Sung. I forgot he registered for this gate!" he sighed.

"Wait, you let that guy join the party?"

"Hey, he actually went in by himself? That weakling got balls, I'll give him that."

"Yeah, that's just suicide especially given his rank."

Joo-hee heard the flippant remarks on this Sung person with confusion by the group. She leaned to Sasuke and asked if he knew who they were talking about and he just responded with a shrug, not bothered much at all.

Still, it bothered her how rude they were being, the guy was probably cold, alone, and scared. She knew she would be if she was by herself in a dungeon. Her blood ran cold just thinking about it.

"Old man, we can't just leave him to die," Kimura expressed to Sang Shik rubbing his temples.

"Yeah I know. Um… how long has it been since he walked in?" he asked.

"Around an hour and 15, give or take."

A chorus of oh and ah rang out through the group.

"That guy's cooked!"

"No way he's alive anymore, boss!"

"With his level, no way! Probably finding a corpse if we go looking, boss."

"You're probably right, but I was the one that said he could join so I've got to take responsibility. Now, I'm not asking for you to join me or anything-"

"Great! Cuz we weren't, right guys?" Daehyun cut him off before he could finish. His statement was met with a chorus of yeahs and cheers. Joo-hee was appalled at his blatant disregard for a fellow hunter's life.

"Do you have any idea what you just said! That's a man's life in there and you just brushed it off like gum on your shoe. Have some shame! You guys roped him into this so take responsibility and get him out!"

Her passionate words made a few others look remorseful but none of that was present on the face of Daehyun, one of the front line fighters of the party.

"Look Joo-hee, was it? First of all, I didn't ask boy man Sung to join us, that was Captain Kim over here. Second, you're clearly new to this so Imma lay out for you bright as day. Once you cross that portal, it's every man for himself, survival of the fittest. Sure you can go a long way with a team but at the end of the day when it's life or death, it's your life that matters. So, I'm not going to risk my own skin to save a weakling like Sung who's already dead."

"What makes you so sure he's dead," Sasuke interjected.

Daehyun just laughed much to the Uchiha's irritation.

"Just answer me," he growled.

"Ah, you clearly don't know what Sung Jin Woo is known as, do you?"

"So what if I don't?"

"Captain, how about it? Care to enlighten our youthful comrade, hmm?"

Sasuke glanced at Sang Shik who looked like he wanted to do anything but that.

"Sung Jin Woo is known as humanity's weakest hunter. So weak that he struggles with completing the lowest of E-rank dungeons without an injury."

"So, you guys speak for all of humanity? Good to know," Sasuke replied, sarcastically. He walked off to the gate ignoring Kimura calling out to him.

Sang Shik stopped Kimura from rushing forward to stop Sasuke's advance and Kimura turned to him furiously.

"What is it now, old man? Gonna tell me to forget about the kid next?"

"No! God, no! I'm just asking you to keep an eye on Daehyun and the group, okay." he whispered to him so that the others couldn't hear.

"Why would I don't that?" he exploded.

"Could you calm down. I'm asking you this cause you're the strongest fighter after the kid, alright. I don't need them boys killing the boss before we find Sung or his corpse, okay!" he whispered back furiously.

The behemoth of man relented at that logic, brushing off the hand on his shoulder. He'd only ran with this party a few times and knew that Daehyun was not a team player, heck most of them weren't, but they could play nice with a strong force around to keep them in check like the old man and himself.

"I'll keep an eye, but you make sure to find that Sung guy, okay! You owe him that much."

"Of course, I know that!"

He turned to Lee Joo-hee and told her to come follow him because knowing Sung Jin Woo, that guy would probably injured when they found him, hopefully.

.

.

.

The two of Joo-hee and Sang Shik saw Sasuke standing at the end of the tunnel leading to the chamber with multiple paths to choose from. They went right the first time and didn't run into Sung Jin Woo on the way back so that eliminated that path from the equation. Sasuke peered over his shoulder and spotted the two from the corner of his disinterested eyes.

"Here to clean up your mess, old man?"

"Yeah, it's called taking responsibility. I have a feeling you need a few lessons in that, brat." Kim retorted with hostility to the teen's calculating calm.

"Enough you two! We're here looking for someone. I don't need you to at each other's necks for that." Joo-hee played mediater between the two generations.

Both grunted and grumbled, respectively at her forceful words.

"So, any guesses as to which way he went?"

.

.

.

Thanks for reading and review pls!