The Magical Hunter Girl Decorates the Dungeon! - Chapter 53

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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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The Magical Hunter Girl Decorates a Dungeon! Episode 053
“What? That’s up to me, old man!”
“Just keep him from going up to the second floor! Don’t let him break the King Rabbit Ribbon!”
After her earnest plea, Lee Ji stepped out of the Blacksmith’s Workshop, climbing over rose stems.
Grimoire, who had followed her, asked a question.
[Are you trying to move those Four Elements again? It might be too hard for your strength! You saw how the firewood hardened earlier, didn’t you?]
“I know. But just in case!”
A raven landed nearby, its voice dripping with disdain.
“Looks like you’re up to something pointless.”
“It has a point!”
“Children always overestimate their own actions. But here’s the thing—you lot are fundamentally useless to adults.”
“…….”
“Better useless than a hindrance! You should learn first that you exist by stealing time from adults!”
“……I know that. We really do steal a lot—a *lot*—of adults’ time.”
“Khahahaha! Such excellent self-awareness for a little thing!”
Grimoire was taken aback.
[Call Geum-hee right now! We need someone to tell him that’s not true!]
But Lee Ji understood well.
To raise her, Hyun-ji had needed countless “aunts” and “grandmothers.”
After those women turned on a YouTube video for Lee Ji, their soft whispered words to each other accumulated, one by one, until she grasped the reality of it all.
‘Does she know she’s going to owe Hyun-ji so much in the future?’
‘Hyun-ji always leaves work on time. For someone in her first year at a company, she’ll get a reputation—she’ll never get ahead.’
‘When will she finish raising her? These days, turning twenty doesn’t mean you start earning yet.’
Lee Ji was raised on her sister’s sacrifice.
Those twenties—the years that would never return—ground down into Lee Ji. And probably her sister would be the same way even after thirty.
‘So I think I understand the Blacksmith’s situation a little.’
The dungeon master had said it earlier.
[Did memories of caring for a sibling stir in you? There is no sick parent here, no brother! Go create your masterpiece!]
Had the Blacksmith also poured his life into his family?
……If he hadn’t, might he have accomplished something remarkable?
Reality would have been relentless nonetheless—
But this dungeon had given the Blacksmith an opportunity.
A perfect workshop free of all responsibility.
‘But here’s what I wonder. Did the Blacksmith really want that?’
If he had, why hadn’t he forged his greatest blade until now?
The raven spoke in its hoarse voice.
“Little one, take my final warning: if you keep actively obstructing the Dungeon Clear, a Dungeon Break could occur!”
“That would be terrible.”
“Then stop resisting and disappear. We’ll make good use of that foolish Hunter who’s become a rabbit.”
“That’s even worse.”
“Hahah! What will you do then? An F-Rank bear thrashing about can’t win against us—we drain the Magical Power of S-Ranks!”
“It doesn’t matter. Because I’m not going to fight.”
“Utterly foolish till the end…… Wait. Why did you come here?”
Lee Ji had finally reached her destination.
The Field—where the carcass of the young fawn lay, the one she’d set down with a blanket earlier.
“Little one……?”
Lee Ji struggled to gather the blanket again. But just as Grimoire had warned, the blanket wouldn’t budge—as if nailed to the ground.
“Ugh, why won’t it move?”
“It’s easy to slot a puzzle piece into an empty space, but hard to pull just one piece out of a completed puzzle. Especially while an S-Rank Battery protects our dungeon!”
The puzzle analogy didn’t quite land, but the raven’s last sentence struck Lee Ji hard.
Battery? The kind they advertise as long-lasting?
‘He’s not a tool!’
“He’s a rabbit, not a Battery!”
“The difference is only in usefulness! When he came, our dungeon’s power rose from D-Rank to B-Rank. The entrance twisted in the process, but…… we should be grateful to you for delivering his original form here!”
On impulse, she reached toward the fawn’s carcass too, but it wouldn’t move either.
Finally, Lee Ji gave up on the fawn and ran back toward the Blacksmith’s Workshop. Behind her, the raven laughed unpleasantly.
“Told you it was pointless!”
‘It had a point.’
She’d confirmed a problem that had been nagging at her.
“So what now, little one? Will you wail before the rabbit and pray for a miracle? ……Hm?”
At the entrance to the Blacksmith’s Workshop, Lee Ji picked up an Iron Bowl. It was the same object that had rolled across the ground when she’d bumped into the door on her first visit.
“I’m back, Grandmother! You, sir……?”
‘They’re fighting again!’
A battle had erupted inside the building.
Apparently the dungeon master, through another raven, had been inciting the Blacksmith.
“Hurry up and finish it! While that annoying little thing isn’t here!”
At the landing before the stairs, the Blacksmith swung an Axe at Geum-hee.
“Get out of my way! I’m going to kill every fang-toothed thing!”
“Look in a mirror, old man! You’ve got fangs too!”
“Raaaagh!”
“Pull them out? So you can practice what you preach and pull mine out too……. Oh, Mom. Lee Ji. When did you get here?”
“Just now!”
[Magical Girl Wants to Talk!]
The skill bounced harmlessly off the back of the man swinging his Axe at the landing. Yet Lee Ji didn’t stop.
“Sir, sir! Please look at me!”
“Shut up! I don’t have to care for anything anymore!”
“…….”
“Now I can spend my time only for myself—”
“That’s not true!”
Lee Ji moved past the Blacksmith’s back and stood on the landing, raising what she held in her hand.
A gleaming Iron Bowl.
The Blacksmith laughed at first.
“What is that supposed—”
“Sir. This is a fawn’s bowl, isn’t it? There are no dogs in this dungeon.”
“……A, fawn?”
“The baby fawn from the Field. Did you perhaps grow fond of one of them? Enough to set out food for it like this?”
The moment the Blacksmith’s gaze tilted toward the bowl, the raven shrieked in panic.
“No, no! Just some fawn!”
“…….”
“How could one who found even family burdensome care about some fawn? Blacksmith. All this time you’ve been here, you’ve had eyes only for Hammer and Anvil—”
“That’s not true.”
Lee Ji stepped forward and spoke.
“Sir. All this time, protecting your family must have been incredibly, enormously, impossibly hard. I know.”
“Quiet, child! What could you possibly know?”
“The hardship! I’ve studied it hard!”
At Lee Ji’s suddenly raised voice, the raven faltered for a moment.
It was true.
From the moment she’d heard from the adults’ mouths that her sister was struggling, she’d thought about it earnestly in her own way.
It wasn’t just the guilt—the sense that ‘my sister suffers because of me.’
The real reason was…… because she loved her sister.
The night Lee Ji’s scattered understanding of the neighborhood people’s words finally came together, she asked Hyun-ji a question.
‘Hyun-ji. Isn’t it really hard raising me? You’re at such an important age, and you work so hard.’
‘……Wow. Who told you that?’
‘I figured it out myself.’
Instead of tattling, Lee Ji asked the most important question.
‘Hyun-ji.’
‘Yeah?’
‘If you hugged me a few times, would you feel a little better?’
The moment she learned her sister was struggling, she wanted to learn how to protect her.
The best solution would be to grow up. But that was impossible…
So the next thing she thought of was a hug.
Something her kindergarten teacher had taught her—something Lee Ji could do.
‘How many hugs do you need? I can give a hundred!’
‘…….’
‘If you can stand it! I’ve gotten pretty strong!’
‘……That’s. Wait a moment.’
At that moment, Hyun-ji bit her lower lip and bowed her head.
Even though she’d said ‘wait a moment,’ she couldn’t meet Lee Ji’s eyes for a long while.
Her trembling soon stopped, but her sister still wouldn’t lift her head—only her hands reached out.
‘Just once.’
‘Okay!’
Lee Ji ran over and hugged Hyun-ji. Her sister bowed her head, and her warm breath and hair tickled Lee Ji’s neck.
‘Lee Ji.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m so glad you chatter and talk endlessly. That you greet me every day. That you ask for delicious food. I really am.’
‘You like it when I ask for dinner?’
‘That’s not it. ……Thank you. For coming to me.’
‘Huh?’
Back then, she hadn’t understood her sister’s last words.
But now, two years older, she thought she grasped it.
A person cannot live by dreams alone.
Whether family or stranger…… especially if they’ve ever loved someone.
“Blacksmith sir. Didn’t you grow fond of one of the baby fawns here?”
The raven shrieked at the top of its voice.
“Enough, enough talk!”
“You became so close that you didn’t spend time at the Anvil like you used to…… so the dungeon master did something cruel to the fawn and threw it in the Field, making it look like a wild animal had killed it.”
Lee Ji had first felt a dissonance when observing the Pond.
Geum-hee had said it.
‘There are frogs all over the place here. A snake just has to open its mouth and it’s a feast.’
But the Pond held no dangerous predators. Only colorful creatures swimming about in peace.
The forest was the same. Small animals that normally fled at the sight of humans wandered peacefully in this dungeon, accepting human eyes upon them.

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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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