I Awakened as a Dark History - Chapter 9

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 9
[Cooldown]
00:29:57
I’d suspected that skills couldn’t be used indefinitely, but I hadn’t expected a cooldown to exist.
I bit my lower lip hard and examined Geun Dil’s wound.
“Ugh……!”
As Geun Dil groaned in pain, golden light blazed fiercely around the injury.
A recovery of ten points wasn’t much—barely enough to stop the bleeding.
But even that was enough to let me exhale in relief.
Once my mind eased, Leader’s earlier question came back to me, and I lifted my head sharply.
“Oh, this skill is both a buff and a heal. Your attack and defense will each increase by fifty percent. For ten minutes, you’ll also receive gradual healing.”
[Current Synchronization Rate]
56%
The moment I revealed the skill’s effects, the synchronization rate climbed.
Someone clearly thought I was a naive fool.
I learned one more thing then: I didn’t need to explain skill effects in such meticulous detail.
Leader assessed the party members quickly and reached a decision.
“Even with both attack and defense boosted, facing a Durahan while Geun Dil is incapacitated will be difficult. A Durahan is A-rank—we can’t manage it with our current strength. Retreat is possible, but barely.”
Leader’s gaze turned lightly toward Geun Dil.
His eyes were so cold that I reflexively stepped in front of Geun Dil.
“If we retreat with an injured party member, we’ll be caught anyway.”
What Leader meant was unmistakable.
Geun Dil listened to his words with a face twisted in pain, offering no resistance.
Leader pressed forward, emboldened by this compliance, and gave us orders.
“We abandon Geun Dil and retreat. We return after the Durahan moves on.”
“Wait—what if I use that plant skill like before to bind its feet?”
I spoke up before I could think, seized by sudden alarm.
“How would plants, skill-enhanced or not, possibly restrain a Durahan?”
And with that, Leader coldly shut down my objection.
The synchronization rate continued to climb beside me, but I couldn’t bring myself to accept his judgment without reservation.
We call each other by game titles, yes, but this isn’t a game—this is reality.
Geun Dil was still alive. I was a novice on my first Dungeon Conquest, and I didn’t have it in me to abandon someone and walk away.
In the end, I could neither clearly support nor oppose Leader’s decision, just wavering indecisively.
Then support came—for me.
“But if we retreat now, the Durahan will target our backs. It’s a demon beast with intelligence. Once we show our backs, it will already know how to finish us.”
Mage gripped her staff firmly and opposed Leader’s proposal.
Tanker too was visibly troubled, his jaw working with thought.
After surveying the situation briefly, he added his voice to Mage’s argument.
“And there’s no guarantee it’ll move away from the Exit as time passes. It’ll know we came here, after all. I think breaking through from here straight to the Exit is better.”
I simply nodded hard in agreement.
“Besides, there’s no Lace here now. If a Lace joins that pack later, the situation only gets worse. This might be our last chance.”
As we spoke, time continued to pass and Geun Dil’s wound healed slightly more.
But the moment he struggled to his feet using his sword as a crutch, the blood that had barely stopped began dripping again in thick drops.
“No! It’s bleeding again! The blood!”
“Whether I go forward or back, I have to move anyway. Let’s get out and get proper treatment.”
Geun Dil said this while looking at Leader.
In the end, he was the one anchoring this party.
It was right to let him make the final call so no conflict would arise.
Leader surveyed each party member’s face, then swept back his hair.
“Very well. We secure the Exit first for a successful dungeon escape.”
I couldn’t hide the brightness that bloomed across my face.
Tanker and Mage saw my expression and deliberately looked away.
Ah, I know I look ridiculous. I know.
“Healer.”
At Leader’s call, I snapped my head up.
“Use that skill from before to bind the Skeletons’ feet as much as possible.”
“Yes!”
“Tanker, fight alongside me—block the Durahan’s attacks however briefly. Our goal is to push it back, even slightly, from the Exit.”
“Understood.”
“Mage, once we succeed, seize the opening and carve a path to the Exit. Concentrate all your firepower straight through the center.”
Leader glanced at Geun Dil.
He was gauging whether it was wise to issue orders to this man.
Though the constant healing was gradually closing his wounds, they remained in a state where he might collapse at any moment.
“I’ll harass the Durahan together with you two. After the Mage’s attack, I can handle the Skeletons lingering in the passage—is that acceptable?”
Catching the hesitation in Leader’s silence, Geun Dil spat out blood-tinged saliva and raised his blade.
Leader gave Geun Dil the signal to go ahead, then gripped his Shield properly.
“Let’s move!”
Leader, Tanker, and Geun Dil rushed forward together. Taking that cue, I pressed my hands to the ground.
“Little flowers, hold fast to our enemies!”
There was no room for gentle whispers.
As I chanted the incantation with full force, plants surged up from the earth, glowing with pale light.
Following my command, they seized the ankles of both Skeleton and Durahan.
They coiled around the hollow spaces between bone, fouling the ground beneath their feet to hinder movement.
Even as the plants were severed and snapped, new growth surged up to keep the Skeleton bound.
Only one enemy was immune: the Durahan.
The Durahan trampled the vines as though it felt nothing and swung its blade toward Tanker.
Tanker knocked the sword upward with his Shield, opening a window for Geun Dil.
But Geun Dil’s body had grown sluggish from injury, and he couldn’t capitalize on the gap.
Instead, Leader was quicker—he drove his Shield into that opening and knocked the Durahan back.
Bang!!
The Durahan’s armor and Shield collided with a sound like an explosion.
The impact sent the Durahan sliding backward, and Leader’s Shield shattered into fragments.
Exactly as planned.
The Mage raised both hands high. Flame rippled around him, warping the air itself.
“Flame Overflow!”
Fire erupted and washed over the Skeletons like a wave.
The moment the Skeletons and plants touched the inferno, they were consumed in an instant, leaving not even bone behind.
Even if a core had remained, it was too charred to regenerate.
“The path is clear! Securing the Exit!”
The Mage called out and seized my hand, running along the path the flames had carved.
The distance to the Exit was short, so the Mage and I shoved past the remaining Skeletons and secured the Exit without difficulty.
“Exit secured! Done!”
At my cry, the Party members contending with the Durahan broke free and retreated.
Clang—
The Durahan pursued the retreating Party members, slashing at them with its blade.
Tanker stopped his withdrawal and defended against the strike.
In the same motion, he slid his Shield along the blade and struck the Durahan’s solar plexus.
It was a remarkably swift technique.
Yet even that wasn’t enough to pierce the Durahan’s armor.
The Durahan simply took the blow on its body and seized Tanker’s Shield in both hands.
Crack—screech—
Under the Durahan’s grip, Tanker’s Shield buckled and warped.
Tanker hastily wrenched his hands free and fell back.
The Durahan didn’t waste the opening—it hurled the mangled Shield straight at Geun Dil.
“Ugh!”
Geun Dil raised his blade and frantically batted the Shield aside, but couldn’t fully absorb the impact.
The wound that had just stopped bleeding reopened, drops falling to stain the ground anew.
The problem was that injury was no longer confined to him alone.
As they harassed the Durahan, Tanker and Leader accumulated cuts both large and small across their bodies.
“Huff, hah…….”
“Damn these Skeletons—they’re swarming again.”
The Skeletons were beginning to block the path once more.
“This is insane…….”
“We’re done for.”
Curses spilled from their lips, grinding and bitter.
It wasn’t easy to fall back, so it was only natural they’d despair.
I quickly turned my gaze toward the Mage.
“Mage, is there no way to harass the Durahan from a distance? If you keep it at bay from range—!”
“I’m out of Mana. I poured every last drop into that last skill. I need time to recover even a fragment!”
At that, Geun Dil planted himself in front of Tanker and Leader.
“I’ll block this one. Fall back!”
Tanker and Leader’s eyes widened in alarm, but they quickly nodded in understanding.
I didn’t even have time to say another word. The two of them spun around and bolted toward the Exit.
Durahan charged after them, but Geun Dil raised his blade to intercept the blow.
Of course, even he wasn’t the Tanker—he couldn’t possibly withstand Durahan’s strike.
I watched in slow motion as Durahan’s sword shattered Geun Dil’s blade.
Crack—
That’s strange.
A thin, membrane-like sound rippled past my ear in rapid flutters.
Even though there was nothing there.
“Gasp—!”
“Healer!”
My hand had already seized Geun Dil by the back of the neck, yanking him backward.
I don’t even know how I got there. Only that the world had slowed to a crawl.
In that slowed world, I caught a glimpse of something—thin, translucent wings fluttering just beside me.
Their movement must have caught Durahan’s eye.
Durahan’s blade came slashing toward my neck.
But I knew it wouldn’t land.
Rustle.
With that membrane-like sound at my back, my body shifted diagonally.
Not to the side—upward.
Durahan’s blade whistled past beneath us, missing by a breath.
Behind me, the Party members’ astonished voices erupted.
“What—what skill is that?”
“But you said you were the healer?”
Shimmer.
[Current Synchronization Rate]
90%
My Synchronization Rate had shot up by more than thirty points in an instant.
So my reckless action had been that foolish, apparently.
‘Fine, maybe it was stupid. But saving someone shouldn’t earn me ridicule.’
Still, it was enough to trigger the skill’s activation condition.
“Bloom!”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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