The Owner of the Healing Therapy Shop Is Ranked 0th in the World - Chapter 103

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Owner of the Healing Therapy Shop is World Rank 0

Chapter 103

My trembling fingertips touched the cold pile of mud.

At that moment, a strange phenomenon occurred.

Fine black particles instantly transferred to my palm and between my fingers like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

They clung together, turning my entire hand black like nano-robots in a movie enveloping the protagonist.

My heart sank at the cold, alien sensation.

“Ugh…!”

A short scream burst out.

It wasn’t painful.

But the unpleasant vibration that reached deep into my bones and the chilling sensation made every hair on my body stand on end.

“Mi, Mimi! What is this?!”

I shouted urgently, but Mimi, who was staring intently at the mud, didn’t answer readily.

Unable to bear the creepy alien sensation, I forcibly pulled my hand away, and like magic, the black particles smoothly seeped back into the mud.

Looking at what had returned to an ordinary pile of dirt, I kept brushing my hand that still seemed to have lingering vibrations.

As soon as I returned to the store, I took Mimi to the workshop and locked the door.

“Why did you give me such a Quest? And what were those black particles?”

“Didn’t you feel anything?”

Mimi narrowed her yellow eyes and asked back.

“Well… just a cold and unpleasant feeling?”

When I spoke while recalling the sensation I had felt earlier, Mimi quietly muttered as if lost in thought.

“Not yet… Is it because your level is too low?”

“What was I supposed to feel? Tell me.”

“It’s not something that can be explained with words. If you could see its ‘essence’, you would have realized it the moment it touched your hand.”

I bit my lips hard.

What I felt was just an unpleasant metallic sensation and creepy coldness, not the grand something that Mimi was talking about.

“Could it be… related to why I keep failing at item synthesis lately?”

“It’s not unrelated. It’s ultimately the point you need to reach. If you awaken to it, perfect control of mana addiction that you so desire, Bitna… no, even redesigning it would become possible.”

“Mana addiction?”

“Yes, though the road seems long now.”

I clenched my fists and closed my eyes.

In the end, it was saying my abilities were lacking.

People’s lives and deaths hung on my fingertips, yet I was only marking time at the most crucial threshold – this anxiety choked me.

* * *

Ean and Seondonguk were seated in a car heading to the airport customs warehouse.

Through the car window, they could see the panoramic view of a warehouse where a massive mana automation system was operating.

Giant cranes were moving containers like toy blocks while mana engines rumbled loudly.

Dozens of drones moved busily in the air, shooting lasers to scan product barcodes.

“I asked Chairman Shinnabaek for that evidence, but there’s still no answer.”

Ean spoke heavily.

“That old man holds the only evidence that can bring down Jang Dohun… but he’s so tight-lipped and inscrutable that it’s not easy.”

Seondonguk gazed out the window, lost in deep thought.

The incident from three years ago when he nearly lost his life came back vividly.

His colleagues’ screams heard in the chaos, the false hope that Jinseong was coming, and his colleagues’ body temperatures growing cold one by one.

Seondonguk shook his head vigorously, trying to shake off the terrible memories.

“What condition did the chairman set? He wouldn’t want something ordinary.”

“That’s the problem. If there were at least conditions, we could somehow try to meet them, but he won’t say what he wants and just says he’ll think about it, so it’s frustrating.”

“…He’s consistent as always.”

“Ugh, because Chairman Shinnabaek is being so lukewarm, Jang Dohun believes that and acts even more recklessly. I wonder if that old man has some weakness that Jang Dohun has caught…”

Ean’s complaining voice filled the car.

Seondonguk also swallowed his disappointment.

He hadn’t thought it would be easy to bring up something that happened three years ago, but the wall was higher and more solid than expected.

The two men got out of the car and froze when they spotted someone at the warehouse entrance.

Among dozens of employees, it was Jang Dohun’s secretary Mingaram giving orders with an openly high-handed attitude.

“Why is that bastard here?”

Ean openly showed his displeasure.

Mingaram also spotted them, tossed the documents he was looking at to an employee, and slowly approached.

“Long time no see, Hunter Seondonguk. No… hyung.”

Seondonguk cut off his greeting sharply and asked.

“Why… are you still doing this? Why are you still sticking by Jang Dohun’s side?”

“For the same reason you continue being a hunter even after nearly dying, I guess.”

“…”

Garam took off his glasses, rubbed his tired eyelids, and sneered slightly.

“It seems like you want to ask about that day. I just relayed what I was told from above. I didn’t know that information was fake either.”

His voice was so unnaturally calm it was chilling.

Because of the one piece of ‘fake information’ he had passed on, Seondonguk had fallen into a coma for years, and all the hunters who went in together returned as corpses.

To know that and still have such an attitude.

The muscles in Seondonguk’s jaw trembled.

“Hyung, there’s no point digging into it now. Just be grateful that at least you’re alive and bury it.”

Garam glanced at Ean and added.

“Oh, you two can’t enter here. Hyung doesn’t have qualifications as an unaffiliated hunter, and Mr. Ean is no longer an Association employee.”

At Garam’s mocking words, Ean spoke sarcastically.

“It sounds like you need to be at least Director Seo Eunhae’s level to enter.”

“Well, it might need to be higher than that.”

“Higher than that would be Chairman Shinnabaek?”

Garam’s eyes wavered for just a fleeting moment.

Ean didn’t miss that wavering.

He became convinced there was a connection between Shinnabaek, Jang Dohun, and Mingaram.

But without immediate justification, the two had no choice but to return empty-handed, unable even to confirm the whereabouts of item materials that had arrived from overseas.

* * *

Nara entered Bitna’s workshop making a loud noise.

She poured out all the materials she had brought in both hands onto the table.

“I swept up everything that looked similar!”

Bitna blinked repeatedly in surprise at the enormous quantity.

“Sister… how did you get all this… How much was it? I’ll pay you back.”

“I have more money. So choose comfortably, Hunter Bitna. You know best that making items is the most important thing right now, right?”

Bitna picked out a walnut-like ‘Crimson Ignition Seed’ from the materials Nara had given her.

It was an unpopular material that no one could easily handle because it would self-destruct at the slightest touch, but to Bitna’s eyes now, the shell of this fist-sized seed looked like the perfect ‘vessel’ to contain her mana.

Bitna carefully poured the extract from spores and mirror fragments through the breathing holes of the seed.

She could feel the flame properties inside the seed violently fluctuating as they touched her mana.

‘Please.’

Bitna looked at the seed growing hot in her hands and desperately prayed for the item to be completed.

Nara, who had been staring intently at Bitna, opened her mouth wide.

“Wow… you use this much mana to make one item? Our Bitna, aren’t you really SS-rank?!”

Despite Nara’s pouring praise, Bitna’s expression was dark.

It was because she had failed at item synthesis again.

Forget about items for the Predator Gate, she couldn’t even synthesize basic wound healing ampoules that she could normally make with her eyes closed.

Bitna was trembling at her fingertips pitifully.

Seeing this, Nara swallowed a small sigh and quietly asked.

“Still don’t know why you’re failing?”

“Yeah… Even using the same materials, even using essential oils I extracted myself, they all fail. I’m really putting my heart into making them, but why on earth…!”

Bitna clutched her head, feeling like it would explode from stress, and slumped down in her seat.

The fear that countless people would die because her level was too low, because she was still inexperienced, dominated her.

“Bitna.”

Nara, who had been watching the tearful Bitna, approached and gently cupped both her cheeks.

“You know what? There’s something really different about you now compared to when you used to make items before.”

“…What’s different?”

“Back then, you looked really happy when you were making items. But look at yourself now.”

Nara looked at Bitna’s cracked lips and sunken eyes with pitying eyes.

“I know it’s a heavy burden. But it’s not something you have to carry alone. So what if gates burst open? That’s what S-ranks like me are here for.”

Nara held Bitna tightly in her arms and patted her back.

Nara’s collar gradually became damp.

At that moment, the [??] section in Bitna’s status window flickered, and about half of the question marks were erased, becoming transparent.

But Bitna didn’t notice this fact at all.

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