The Owner of the Healing Therapy Shop Is Ranked 0th in the World - Chapter 26

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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 26

Three hours ago.

Jinseong, who had entered the fog-shrouded Maze Gate in France, immediately raised his arm to cover his nose as a sudden gust of wind blew.

It was a toxic wind.

He immediately bit down on a potion with his teeth. It was to gradually detoxify the poison entering his body with each breath he took into his lungs.

Jinseong’s steps as he entered the maze were very slow and cautious.

Unlike other gates, visibility was not secured here. The thick fog already made it impossible to see the terrain right in front of him, and with the deep darkness settling in as well, it felt like walking through shadows.

It was different from most mazes where monsters would rush at you as soon as you entered.

It seemed to be a gate where only spiritual monsters appeared.

Those creatures are cautious. They assess their opponent’s strength and gradually probe them, then exploit any weakness the moment they find it.

That’s why the most important thing when facing spiritual monsters is to keep your mental state from wavering.

They would try to disturb the hunter’s mind through various means and methods, but experienced Jinseong wasn’t shaken by ordinary attacks.

Was that the reason?

He could feel that the competitive spirit of the monsters attacking him had grown stronger.

Thanks to Yebichnna’s oil, he didn’t get lost and continued moving forward, which seemed to anger them even more.

Jinseong gave up moving further forward and stood in place.

He instinctively knew he had to prepare accordingly for the killing intent he could feel on his skin.

“….”

A chilling wind blew.

The silence soon turned into screams. No, those were auditory hallucinations.

“Please save us, please save us!”

Jinseong’s shoulders stiffened slightly at the chilling voice that seemed to scratch at his ears.

He knew this was their typical method.

A crude temptation that dredged up fragments of the opponent’s memories to strike at their most painful spots.

Instead of closing his eyes, Jinseong drew up his magical power to forcibly expand his field of vision.

“The dead don’t speak.”

He declared firmly.

This was one of the ways to respond to spiritual monsters. To show them that the trauma they were attacking with wouldn’t become a weakness.

Along with Jinseong’s cold words, a chilling sword aura erupted from the tip of his blade. It was a black sword aura that resembled fog.

The sword aura that cut through the air tore apart the approaching fog, but the torn fog soon reconnected like rags and wrapped around Jinseong’s wrists and ankles.

It wasn’t simple fog.

Those were thousands, tens of thousands of hands.

The hands of people he couldn’t grasp in the end at the gate, hands that had grown cold.

“Why did only you survive! My husband!”

“Don’t leave us behind! We’re still alive!”

“Hyung! Hyung! Come with me! Please! I don’t want to die!”

Jinseong bit through the potion bottle with his teeth and roughly swallowed the liquid.

The intense awakening effect hit his brain, but the monster’s attack dug deeper than that.

Because it was a formless spiritual monster, even Jinseong’s ability to turn everything to dust was useless.

To eliminate the sounds coming from all directions, he would have to completely remove even the air he breathed.

As he seemed to be pushed into a defensive position, forms began to slowly appear from within the fog.

People covered in blood and crushed under building debris, crying children, and the reddened eyes of people who resented him.

He had prepared himself, but his teeth ground together.

The poison entering through his breathing kept clouding his mind while showing him hallucinations and auditory illusions that stimulated his trauma.

“Urgh….”

It was on a different level from the monsters he had dealt with in other gates so far.

Previously they had been around C-rank, but this place felt like hundreds of A-rank monsters clustered together.

If they had physical forms, even that wouldn’t have been a problem, but the compatibility between spiritual monsters that don’t reveal their true bodies and Jinseong was the worst.

Time flowed slowly, yet heavily.

Despite his efforts to endure until the end and find the monster’s true body, the poison affecting his lungs and brain began to invade every part of his body.

There was a limit to enduring with potions.

Jinseong’s breathing became rough.

To transfer the pain from his lungs and brain elsewhere, he stabbed his thigh with the tip of his sword.

The sharp pain briefly awakened his reason, but this time fog containing the monster’s invasion skill penetrated through his nose.

With each breath, guilt spread throughout his body through his mucous membranes.

“This is… all fake….”

The hand gripping his sword trembled.

The fog before his eyes cleared, recreating that horrific scene from a day in the past.

The sensation of that outstretched hand growing cold. It was the reality of the nightmare Jinseong had been having every night for years.

Jinseong swung his blade once more, making a large wound on his body.

His mind snapped to attention.

Jinseong found himself unconsciously reaching his hand forward as in his nightmares. But what he saw wasn’t an illusion.

The chilling sensation he felt in his hand wasn’t a fantasy, but the touch of a real person’s outstretched hand.

“Help, help me….”

A small voice. It was Adam, a French hunter who had collapsed in a corner with his mind held hostage by the monster.

When that faint breathing reached Jinseong’s ears, chilling reason returned to his cracking mind.

‘I can’t let go of this hand too.’

Jinseong gritted his teeth until they bled.

The metallic taste of blood in his mouth actually cleared his mind.

Rustle.

That’s when it happened. A massive shadow from within the fog struck at Jinseong’s back. The monster had made its final move to prevent Jinseong’s recovery.

But there was something the monster had overlooked.

His reason had returned faster than expected.

Suddenly, magical power exploded from Jinseong’s body and spread in all directions. Along with phantom screams, the fog that had been clinging persistently was torn away.

The creature scattered with a scream, and finally, only a single ray of light began to show clearly in the fog-filled maze.

“Huff, huff….”

Jinseong struggled to his feet and approached Adam.

He forced his powerless arms to move and carried him on his back.

His lungs burned as if on fire and his head felt like it would split from the aftermath of the attack, but the faint warmth he felt on his back made his legs move.

One step, two steps. As he moved toward where Yebichnna’s oil pointed, the bluish exit of the gate began to appear in the distance.

Finally, Jinseong stepped on the boundary line of the exit.

Along with light pouring down blindingly.

The voice of someone he had so desperately wanted to hear reached him.

“Senior!”

Only then did Jinseong let the strength leave his body.

As his vision grew blurry, he thought.

‘This time, I was able to save someone.’

* * *

“It’s dark.”

Inside the maze was so dark it was hard to see even an inch ahead.

Without the faint light emanating from the oil, it would have been difficult to take even a single step.

Even the air entering through my nose was murky and unpleasant.

Since it was an already cleared gate, there were no monsters, but it was frightening enough to make me breathless.

When I looked back, no one was visible.

The person who had entered with me seemed to have gotten lost immediately.

Feeling creeped out, I immediately turned my head forward.

Because I have a reason that I must move forward.

‘Senior, wait for me.’

I deliberately quickened my pace. As I followed the path Oil indicated, almost running, a scene that seemed like something from a movie greeted me.

It was a beautiful scene of hundreds of large fireflies gathered in the black grass thicket, emitting light.

When I approached closer to examine it, the light that twinkled like stars in the night sky was emanating from flower buds.

‘So this is Memory Iris.’

It was fascinating. When I looked closely at the glowing flower buds, someone’s memories played back like a panorama.

Memory Iris can be considered the offspring of Spiritual Monsters, the Memory Eaters.

This is because they store the memories of humans they’ve devoured in these iris flower buds.

In this vast Memory Eater’s Nest, I must find Senior Jinseong’s iris.

Just as I was feeling overwhelmed, a status window appeared before me.

^[Warning! The part-timer’s life is in critical danger.]^

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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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