The Female Lead Saves the World - Chapter 349

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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 170

As I drew closer to examine him, something was indeed amiss.
Kang Han’s long eyelashes were trembling faintly.
He seemed flustered about something?
Yet all around us lay nothing but empty ruins—nothing that should have startled him.
“Kang Han, are you alright?”
I gently grasped his shoulder, and he actually flinched in surprise.
It was a reaction unlike the usual Kang Han, who would merely raise his eyebrows slightly.
“Brother?”
“Han, what’s wrong?”
The guild members sensed something amiss and wore worried expressions.
“Um, it’s nothing.”
Kang Han’s gaze seemed to brush against me before fleeing elsewhere.
“It’s fine. Don’t worry.”
But it didn’t seem like nothing at all.
His flushed face still concerned me, so I asked if he needed healing, but Kang Han shook his head.
Well, I’d already reduced the addiction rate to five percent, so there shouldn’t be any issues.
As we navigated through the labyrinthine alleyways—as intricate as a medieval city—Kang Han remained silent.
His thoughts seemed to be elsewhere entirely.
Once we entered the Gate, his usually subtle, easygoing demeanor vanished completely, replaced by razor-sharp focus.
I’d have to ask him what was troubling him once we finished clearing this place.
It was just as I was thinking this that we reached the end of the alley.
“Wow, what a sight—.”
“It’s a plaza!”
Jang Su Ho and Lee Yu Eul cheered.
Emerging from the narrow, maze-like passage, we suddenly found ourselves standing in an open plaza.
Cracked stone floors, a fountain covered in dark green moss, and even a carriage with collapsed wheels.
The decrepit plaza seemed frozen at some moment in the past.
Yet simultaneously, it was the kind of scene that made me unconsciously listen for the sound of children laughing and running out from the opposite alley.
“It feels like we’ve traveled through time to Europe or something.”
Everyone nodded blankly at my words.
Though we’d been thrown into various environments through Gates before, this was the first place that felt so intimately lived-in, which made us all feel oddly unsettled.
“We should move further before nightfall returns.”
Night arrives without pattern or warning.
As Kang Han spoke, we moved across the Plaza again.
The contribution score that had remained stagnant for a while began climbing at a rapid pace.
“Where exactly is Muwoon fighting?”
Jang Su Ho tilted his head, saying he couldn’t hear any sounds.
“This wasn’t the time to loaf around like tourists!”
“They must’ve taken a shortcut! We need to hunt monsters faster too!”
The twins quickened their pace, anxious as they watched Muwoon’s contribution score soar.
“Eul Chan! You can’t just run off like that!”
Jang Su Ho shouted, conscious of my stamina, but I laughed and picked up speed.
I hadn’t actually done much yet, so I wasn’t even tired, and more than anything, I wanted to finish the competition quickly.
That said, it wasn’t anxiety like the twins were feeling.
The contribution score competition was about which Guild contributed more to clearing the Gate.
No matter how many minions we hunted, they couldn’t compare to the contribution points from the boss monster.
And in my assessment, Muwoon, who had rushed toward the East Gate—
‘Would they even get to see the boss monster?’

* * *

Muwoon overflowed with confidence.
They believed this was a match they couldn’t lose.
During the first battle, when the Justice Guild fired a flare high into the air, the guild members exchanged meaningful glances and laughed it off with ease.
Shin Se Hee, passing through the eastern gate in the City Wall, led her guild members forward without hesitation.
The fact that ‘night’ came intermittently inside the Dungeon, the map contents—everything matched what she had studied beforehand.
‘We’ll definitely make it to the semifinals.’
Unlike others who had entered simply to elevate the honor of the Muwoon name, her need for victory this time was far more desperate.
It wasn’t because of Sa Ma Young’s dismissive words and actions toward Muwoon, which the media had recklessly predicted over the past few days.
The cause lay within the Muwoon Guild itself.
The Muwoon Guild, which had begun as a traditional martial family based in Busan, had originally passed the position of Guild Master to the heir of the Shin Family
(家)
.
Therefore, it was naturally supposed to pass to Shin Se Hee.
Since childhood, she had dreamed of becoming the Guild Master of Muwoon, and when she awakened as an S-rank, she believed it was her destiny.
But the emergence of two S-rank hunters in the Guild blocked that path.
Among the elders, arguments began that one of them should become Muwoon’s next Guild Master.
It was uncharacteristic of Muwoon’s council of elders, who had always insisted it had to be someone from the Shin Family.
Still, if I just perform better, it should be fine.
Even Shin Se Hee’s patience, as she steeled herself that way, finally ran out when they were registered into the Shin Family.
The Guild Cup was an opportunity for Shin Se Hee to demonstrate her capabilities.
‘By any means necessary.’
The cheating of purchasing information about the interior of the Gate where the competition would be held for a hefty sum had shattered her pride, but she thought it was unavoidable.
A shattered pride could be restored with a resounding victory—that was all there was to it.
“It’s a shortcut.”
The reason I’d chosen the East Gate became clear as an enormous stone door came into view, nestled beneath a towering mountain.
Following the Underground Tunnel that began from that gate, we could reach the Fortress—the boss’s domain—without wasting a single step.
“A graveyard?”
Noh Jae Woon, one of our guild members, furrowed his brow at the inscription carved before the wide-open stone door: [ Resting Place of the Departed ].
We were similar in age and had gotten along well as children, but things had grown awkward ever since he insisted that an S-rank hunter should inherit Muwoon.
“Let’s not waste time. We should enter.”
Shin Se Hee took the lead, and the rest of the team followed with resigned sighs.
After all, this was a competition where we had to fight as one under the Muwoon name.
“It’s rather dark.”
Night hadn’t fallen, but the overcast sky couldn’t illuminate the depths of the Underground Tunnel.
“Bae Do Yoon, could you create a light source….”
It was just as Noh Jae Woon turned to Bae Do Yoon to speak.
Boom!
The stone door that had been wide open slammed shut in an instant.
In the darkness where nothing was visible, the hunters’ nerves, which had been loosely wound, suddenly tightened.
“Bae Do Yoon!”
At Shin Se Hee’s cry, Bae Do Yoon quickly conjured a fist-sized light source and suspended it in the air.
The corridor interior brightened as if fluorescent lights had been switched on, yet no one felt relief.
It was because of the System Message that appeared the moment the stone door closed.

[ Night has begun. ]
[ All monsters’ ranks increase by one tier. ]
[ The effects of darkness are nullified by the power of light. ]

“Damn it.”
Shin Se Hee drew the sword she’d kept at the ready.
It wasn’t simply a matter of the sky brightening and darkening—the System itself seemed to recognize darkness as night.
Outside, day and night alternated naturally.
But here, underground.
“Bae Do Yoon, whatever you do, don’t let that light go out.”
The moment the light disappears, we’ll have to fight monsters that have grown one tier stronger.
“Yes, ah, understood!”
Bae Do Yoon, his face as pale as the light source itself, quickly nodded.
Shin Se Hee turned back toward the corridor, suppressing her anxiety.
At the edge where the light touched, skeletons emerged from the darkness, their bones rattling as they walked.

* * *

Night fell once more at the edge of the village.
The ones who revealed themselves were the wild dogs I’d first encountered beyond the City Wall.
Though their numbers were greater than before, honestly, their headcount meant nothing against Kang Han’s martial prowess.
Especially since that unusually short night ended and they reverted to their original B-rank status.
Still, thanks to continuing to move with urgency, I was now drawing closer to the Church standing atop a Hill, having left the urban area behind.
On the map, it was merely an intermediate stage to pass through to reach the Fortress, but in truth, the highlight of this Dungeon wasn’t the boss’s domain—it was that Church.

[
25688
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45677
]

“Looks like it’s started again.”
It seemed to pause for a moment, but watching the Muwoon Guild’s red score gauge spike upward again, I clicked my tongue.
When I first received this item, I’d thought it was good to clearly see the score difference, but I was wrong.
It was simply too distracting.
‘…They won’t die, will they?’
They don’t have Kang Han, after all.
Of all routes, they chose the Underground Tunnel.
It’s not like I pushed them in that direction—they just crawled in on their own feet, trusting only the hastily obtained advance information, so it’s entirely their own doing.
“Unnie, what’s wrong?”
I’d only let out a small sigh, but Lee Yu Eul heard it like a ghost and asked me.
“Nothing, it’s just that the Muwoon Guild’s score gauge is rising quickly. Looks like they’re fighting pretty intensely.”
But Lee Yu Eul’s reaction went in an odd direction.
“Unnie, don’t tell me you’re worried about them getting hurt right now?”
“Huh?”
There seems to be some misunderstanding here.
Looking at Lee Yu Eul’s face, she had that ‘What am I going to do with this unnie?’ expression.
“That noona’s surprisingly soft-hearted.”
“Yeo Joo, how are you going to survive in this harsh world being so kind?”
Lee Yu Chan and Jang Su Ho laughed as if they couldn’t believe it either.
“No, that’s not what I meant….”
Getting hurt doesn’t matter.
As long as a body part isn’t completely severed, most injuries can be healed, and they should have trauma treatment potions anyway.
But they need to stay alive.
That way I can implement justice against the Muwoon Guild for their cheating and make them a laughingstock, right?
But there’s no need to clear up every misunderstanding.
The drone’s camera, which I’d momentarily forgotten about due to becoming too accustomed to it, is broadcasting our entire conversation outside right now.
Let me imagine the future picture for a moment here.
The Muwoon Guild, which not only lost the competition but was caught committing foul play, and the Justice Guild, who didn’t know any better and worried about them instead.
…Not bad at all, is it?
I shrugged my shoulders and spoke.
“I just hope no one gets seriously injured. It’s a fair competition where we test our true abilities against each other.”

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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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