The Female Lead Saves the World - Chapter 248

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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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Yeo Joo Saves the World
Part 2, Episode 69

After Yeo Joo fell asleep, the hospital room door opened silently, where only the soft rasp of her breathing had filled the darkness.
Kang Han slipped inside and quietly closed the door behind him, careful not to let the light from outside wake her.
Drawing upon his S-rank abilities, he approached the bedside without making a sound, his gaze settling upon her sleeping form.
His eyes lingered on her tightly closed eyes and slightly parted lips before drifting to her chest, rising and falling in steady rhythm.
As he listened intently to the cadence of her breathing, relief washed over him—only for him to bury his face in his hands moments later.
“Hah.”
A heavy sigh laden with self-reproach escaped against his palms, warming his face with shame.
‘What am I even doing?’
Sneaking into a hospital room like a thief in the dead of night, past midnight no less.
It was entirely unlike him, and a grave discourtesy to Yeo Joo.
Yet he had no choice.
Kang Han perched on the edge of the chair beside the bed, repeatedly dragging his large hands across his face in a dry washing motion.
Ever since Seo Yu Baek had pushed him back to the guild, an inexplicable restlessness had tormented him.
It was an irrational, suffocating anxiety that defied logical explanation.
Memories from the Double Dungeon kept surfacing unbidden.
The pallid coldness of Yeo Joo’s body draining of warmth, her limbs hanging limp and powerless—they haunted him with vivid clarity, as though they had happened mere moments ago.
Intellectually, I knew better.
Yeo Joo was safe now.
She had been transferred from the intensive care unit to a general ward, and I had personally confirmed the healthy flush in her cheeks and the brightness in her voice.
So why?
This emotion I couldn’t even comprehend had begun the moment I left the hospital and returned to the guild, following me like a shadow.
Even as I pushed myself through more grueling training than usual, even as I wandered the mountains with Baek Young, the thought of Yeo Joo kept bouncing around in the back of my mind.
And when night fell and I lay in bed, the anxiety reached its peak.
Sleep simply wouldn’t come.
A thought had consumed even my reason.
And it had fed on the darkness, swelling into an overwhelming intuition that Yeo Joo was in danger right now.
Before I knew it, I was driving toward the Awakened Healer Hospital.
Looking up at her darkened room, I tried once more to rein myself in.
But this strange premonition won out again.
What if the lights weren’t off because she had turned them off?
What if someone was threatening her in that dark room?
The moment that thought struck me, I threw open the car door and bolted toward her room.
There was no time to wait for the elevator.
I scaled the stairs with the physical prowess I’d cultivated within dungeons, bounding up them effortlessly.
Upon reaching the Hospital Room and opening the door, I realized my intuition—everything—had been wrong.
The moment I saw her sleeping peacefully, my anxious heart, trembling like a lost child, miraculously settled into a profound calm.
“…I’m losing it.”
He murmured the words lowly, then lifted his gaze to take in Yeo Joo.
Her soft, rhythmic breathing as she slept sounded almost sweet to his ears.
The serene sight of her seemed to dissolve the tension coiled throughout his entire body.
And impossibly, drowsiness began to creep over him.
It was the accumulated exhaustion from standing vigil beside her Hospital bed without proper sleep since she’d collapsed.
Kang Han quietly rose from the chair.
The private room came with a separate bed for guardians, but instead he moved toward the sofa positioned not far away.
Though large enough for three people to sit simultaneously, it was woefully narrow and short for Kang Han to lie comfortably.
Yet he didn’t mind.
From here, he could see Yeo Joo.
Curling his body on the sofa, he continued to gaze at Yeo Joo, watching her until fatigue finally overpowered his will.

* * *

Finally.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“I’m really being discharged? Going Home?”
“Yes, but you have to promise to rest thoroughly at Home.”
Seo Yu Baek smiled and extended his pinky finger.
I quickly hooked mine around his, then kicked off the blanket and scrambled out of bed.
“Going Home… oof.”
Perhaps from moving too quickly, a mild dizziness swept over me and I stumbled without thinking.
Of all moments, right in front of Seo Yu Baek!
“Whoa, ah, I’m perfectly fine.”
Watching me desperately act as though my stumble had been an intentional reach for the clothes on the nightstand, Seo Yu Baek sighed softly and shook his head.
“I used a skill to fully restore your body, but you still need to be careful for a while. You were bedridden for a week, so we can’t predict what aftereffects might linger. Understood?”
“Yes!”
I answered energetically, then picked up the clothes Kang Han had neatly folded and headed into the Restroom.
Of course, the fact that I nearly fell from another dizzy spell inside was a secret.
After receiving final reminders from Seo Yu Baek about my outpatient appointment in a few days, I finally managed to get into the car.
Leaning the seat back slightly against the inexplicable sense of security Kang Han’s driving provided, I gazed out the window.
Fortunately, the Justice Guild was just a stone’s throw from the Awakened Hospital—close enough that you’d hit your nose if you fell.
The familiar streets that appeared seemed newly beautiful to me.
Had I died in the Double Dungeon, I would never have seen this sight again.
Yet something strange was mixed into that pleasant view.
“Who are those people?”
At first, I thought they were just handing out advertising flyers, but when the car stopped at a red light, I got a better look and realized that wasn’t the case.
The red vests they wore bore the words “Cult Leader’s Paradise! Disbelief Apocalypse!”
“They’re from the Apocalypse Cult. It seems they’ve been conducting missionary activities in various places lately.”
“The Apocalypse Cult is… conducting missionary work so openly like this?”
The Apocalypse Cult was fundamentally a pseudo-religion.
The believers seemed to make considerable efforts to gain recognition as a legitimate religion, but what else could you call a religion that preached the world was approaching its end, that surrendering one’s freedom and obeying the Cult Leader would grant passage to heaven? It was textbook pseudo-religion.
Yet here was this pseudo-religion conducting missionary activities around Doksan Station, practically in front of the Justice Guild’s courtyard.
Kang Han also seemed displeased with them, furrowing his brow as he spoke.
“Ever since rumors spread that the Apocalypse Cult’s leader prophesied the appearance of the Double Dungeon, more people have been taking interest in them.”
“Even so, it’s just an organization where people submit to the Cult Leader and die together, right?”
“That’s true. But for some people, escaping their fear of the apocalypse might be more important than free will.”
“Hmm.”
As our conversation ended, the traffic light turned green and the car began to move.
And then I found myself thinking.
How grotesque those Apocalypse Cult members looked, spreading apocalyptic doctrine with smiling faces.
I wanted to dismiss them lightly as just another group of lunatics, but I couldn’t.
The rise of the Apocalypse Cult.
I could see the storm it would bring drawing ever closer.

* * *

“Let’s go rest in your room for now. They’re throwing a welcome-home party for you this evening anyway.”
“It’s not like this is my first discharge. Why would they throw a party?”
“Don’t you think the problem is that you’ve been discharged multiple times?”
“…Ugh, I’m exhausted. I’m going in.”
I’d muttered something pointless and gained nothing from it.
I opened the door and stepped inside, setting my hospital bag down by the entrance.
“…Na Baek Ho?”
I was honestly nervous.
It was because of the memory of seeing Na Baek Ho fall into depression the last time I nearly died.
“Oh, you were sleeping.”
Unlike the small Na Baek Ho who had been hiding under the bed with a vacant expression, the large Na Baek Ho was rising from where he’d been sleeping soundly on my bed.
He stretched his back languidly, extended a long yawn, then hopped down to the floor with movements that seemed almost light.
“Na Baek Ho!”
I called his name and spread my arms wide, but Na Baek Ho didn’t come running to embrace me.
Instead, he circled around me slowly, deliberately.
Even as he did, he scanned my body from head to toe, as if checking my condition.
At this point, I began to feel uneasy.
‘Why is he acting so indifferent?’
I’d expected to have to soothe an angry Na Baek Ho for quite some time.
After a full week away, he seemed calmer than before when I returned home.
“Rumble.”
Once Na Baek Ho confirmed there was nothing wrong with my body, he suddenly sat down in front of me.
Then he looked up at me intently and nudged his head forward.
“Huh? Oh, you want me to pet you? Got it.”
Even after growing larger, he often sought affection by bumping my hand with his head.
So without much thought, I placed my hand on his distinctly striped forehead.
But in that instant, my fingertips tingled with heat, and a blue light emanated from Na Baek Ho’s body.
Only after the system window appeared did I understand what was happening.

[ Marked Familiar ‘Na Baek Ho’ evolves to Stage II. ]

After the blue light faded, Na Baek Ho’s body had grown slightly larger than before.
But that wasn’t all.
Even I, his master, could feel a new aura of pressure emanating from him.
Momentarily stunned by the sudden change, Na Baek Ho bumped my hand with his head again, placing it on his forehead.
And in that moment, a voice reached me—not through my ears, but directly into my mind.
“[Promise. Keep.]”

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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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