The Tone-Deaf Healer Kills with a Song - Chapter 108

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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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Tone-Deaf Healer Kills with Song – Episode 108
Harp emerged from the Subspace Arena quite readily at our request.
I had expected people to be upset about him suddenly abandoning his post, but surprisingly, the other researchers remained composed. They simply offered the standard platitude about not doing it again and moved on.
Harp offered only a perfunctory apology and said nothing more, allowing the conversation to fade naturally. I caught one of the researchers and broached the subject carefully.
“How did you end up starting the game? Was it something you did before? It seems like you might have some addictive tendencies.”
“Ah, it’s probably quite severe addiction. But there’s nothing we can do about it… I started playing games when I came here. I don’t think I played when I was an active Hunter.”
The game he played wasn’t one with an elaborate story.
It was what people called a “dead game”—one with almost no updates, merely awaiting server shutdown.
I couldn’t understand why he still clung to it, but everyone said Harp had been playing it for quite a long time.
Apparently, he’d spent a considerable amount of money on it as well.
“You could stop investigating my personal life.”
“Ah, that….”
I hadn’t intended to conduct any sort of interrogation.
I was simply hearing stories about him from various people.
He was clearly the one who had been half-dragged away by Jung Hwan-jae and Sung Ji-wook, yet here he was, waiting for me as I emerged from a brief conversation with the researchers.
I hadn’t been gossiping—I’d merely heard the truth—yet somehow I felt as though I’d learned something I shouldn’t have.
As I stared blankly at him, Harp exhaled a long sigh.
“I asked them to bring me some coffee. They seemed thirsty too, so they went to get it. I told them not to worry since I’d be watching you… Everyone says I’m incredibly addicted to games, don’t they?”
“Not incredibly so… just that you’ve been playing an obscure game for a very long time.”
But isn’t it true that if I enjoy a game, that’s all that matters? I had no intention of criticizing him for it.
I too have a history of clinging to boring games, chanting prayers to descend into hell together, only for it to end with server shutdown.
But Harp simply shook his head gently.
“It’s not a game I play because I find it fun. Rather, the player character in this game matches my Handler’s taste.”
“….”
“I don’t like games. But since he just reads books all day long, he keeps nagging me to develop some other hobby.”
Harp grumbled that he had chosen such a dreadfully boring game that people kept misunderstanding him.
My gaze kept drifting to his golden eye. The vertically slit pupil was unmistakably not human.
I’m not well-versed in psychological matters, but one thing was clear to me.
He suffered from intense trauma and longing. He desperately sought traces of his Handler that remained in this world.
The fact that he continued playing a game he didn’t even enjoy, enduring misunderstandings from others, showed this clearly.
“What kind of person was your Handler?”
“Well, his true identity was the Ancient Dragon.”
“Ah.”
So he was a dragon. That explained why one of Harp’s eyes looked that way.
While it’s true that you should look someone in the eye when conversing, I felt that staring directly at Harp’s eyes right now would be disrespectful.
So without thinking, my eyes began to dart about.
“Feel free to look all you want. There’s nothing unsightly about it anyway. And the other researchers I’ve worked with for a year still often stare at my eyes, saying they find them fascinating.”
“…I apologize.”
He laughed briefly, saying there was much to apologize for.
As if seizing the moment, he spoke about his Handler with a composed demeanor, offering more details.
He explained that his eyes ended up this way on the day of the last large-scale raid—and that the Ancient Dragon hadn’t merely lent him divine power, but had forcefully transferred it to him entirely.
Essentially, the Ancient Dragon had embedded divinity itself into the contractor’s body, and such drastic measures were necessary because Harp’s injuries were severe and the incoming attack was imminent.
“These eyes didn’t grant me any special abilities, really. If I had to gain something from all this, I wish I’d at least gotten clairvoyance.”
“Clairvoyance would be nice.”
“Then I could find you no matter where you were.”
His casual words pricked my heart repeatedly.
In truth, Harp wasn’t trying to deliberately provoke my emotions or make me uncomfortable—he was genuinely talking about his own feelings from that moment.
I knew all this already, so why did I feel so strange?
As I stood there listening blankly, Harp shrugged his shoulders again.
“I’ve been talking about myself too much. I watched you in the Ranking Tournament and built up internal affinity on my own, so I ended up acting like I knew you well.”
“That’s not true. I’m really just the person you saw in the Ranking Tournament—that’s all there is to me.”
“Your first guild is the top guild globally, you’re the Guild Master of such a guild and the exclusive healer of the Rank 1 Hunter, and you’re also Rank 1 yourself—that’s everything visible about you.”
Wait.
Hearing it phrased that way, I didn’t sound like such an impressive person. That wasn’t what I meant to convey.
“That’s…”
“And you defeated Rosalind Brown, who was the unrivaled Rank 1 healer domestically and internationally, and fought Jung Hwan to a draw?”
“No, that’s…”
“Your fan club exceeded 100,000 members on the day it was created, didn’t it?”
That was information even I didn’t know.
When I heard a fan cafe had been created, I thought it was excessive for someone not particularly remarkable.
A hundred thousand people—it was a number I couldn’t even fathom. Harp joked that it was only the first day, and by now it had probably multiplied several times over.
Knowing this much, I couldn’t help but acknowledge that Harp had built up internal affinity toward me.
“Information about me has spread more than I expected.”
“That’s inevitable. Though even for you, it’s not spread that much. With Jung Hwan and Joke, the news would’ve covered what they ate today.”
Harp turned on his phone, searched for something, let out a hollow laugh, and showed me the screen.
He mumbled with his lips, “Look at this.”
Hanttae Guild Master ‘Jung Hwan-jae’ purchased four beverages at Starbucks today with ‘Joke’
The “news article” was nothing but a covertly taken photo of Jung Hwan-jae and Sung Ji-wook posted without any real content.
I was so dumbfounded that I unconsciously pressed my forehead. I’d thought it was a joke, but absurd things like this were genuinely being posted in detail.
Hunters really had no privacy at all.
“Who even likes this kind of thing?”
“I have no idea either. When you search the name ‘Harp,’ it still somehow treats me as a failure and writes things like ‘the Hunter Association announced it will take full precautions to ensure no such incidents occur in the future.'”
He had a real talent for tormenting people without any malice.
He spoke passionately about how Hunters’ privacy shouldn’t be violated like this, as if he himself were nothing.
“Anyway, it seems you have something to discuss with me, so let’s head to the office. I can only spare about an hour—I need to get back to gaming.”
He ended the conversation just as casually as he’d started it.
I’d thought he was more humane than I’d heard, but apparently that wasn’t the case either. Following him, I hurriedly moved forward and bumped my shoulder against the doorframe.
“Ow…”
“Did you hit it?”
“Yes…”
I wanted to appear composed, but the pain was quite intense. I gripped my shoulder.
A bruise would likely form. But even so, I had no desire to sing in front of Harp.
He studied me intently, then reached out and placed his hand on my shoulder.
In the moment I thought his skin seemed even paler than mine, his blue eyes blazed with an even deeper azure light.
A luminescence nearly white-blue flowed from his fingertips through his hand and into my shoulder. I couldn’t hide the change in my expression.
Harp let out a soft laugh.
“Why? Did you think I couldn’t use my abilities at all?”

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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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