The Tone-Deaf Healer Kills with a Song - Chapter 117
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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 117
Ultrasound?
Metallic screech?
I don’t even know what came out of my own mouth.
I thought I had screamed, but what emerged from my throat was a horrifying cacophony.
If you took the metallic shriek you’d hear at a construction site and arranged it with terrifying distortion, wouldn’t it sound exactly like what’s coming from my throat right now?
“Horrific” is the precise word. Blood-like fluid began pouring from the monster’s ears in front of me.
Not only that—simultaneously, cracks spider-webbed across its entire body.
The Loom began collapsing as if struck by a bomb. Fragments scattered in all directions, but the emerald mana pressing down suppressed everything.
“Do you know what Ye-ah’s greatest enemy is?”
Liri, the only one who could hear this directly, spoke with perfect composure.
Jung Hwan-jae heard nothing because I had covered his ears and reinforced them with mana.
Just one scream, yet in this infinite space it echoed like a reverberating force, destroying everything around us.
I’m hearing my own voice, but it feels like I’m being attacked.
“My greatest enemy?”
What could my greatest enemy be?
Kim Kyung-hoon?
Some Dungeon that hasn’t erupted yet?
Jung Hwan-jae, whom I’ll have to face seriously in the Ranking Tournament starting next year?
“It’s Ye-ah herself.”
“Pardon?”
“Ye-ah is always harsh with herself and sometimes becomes unnecessarily withdrawn. Of course, that’s due to lack of experience.”
He laughed, saying it was like being afflicted with a debuff.
The three most beautiful men I’ve ever seen.
Jung Hwan-jae, Hwa-jon, and Liri.
I fell silent while gazing at his smiling face.
“How can I gain more experience?”
“You explore many Dungeons, experience new worlds, things like that. Ah, and struggling to this degree here is only natural. It’s unfortunate we didn’t include Lucy and me at full strength. You could have managed alone.”
Jung Hwan-jae’s shadow rippled as if in agreement.
I can’t know that for certain. Could I have managed alone?
In truth, when I was about to be caught and dragged away, if I had responded just a bit more wisely, it wouldn’t have happened.
These people have dozens or hundreds of times more Dungeon experience than me, so they would have found a solution with practiced ease.
“….”
“Ye-ah thinks too much. Look at what’s in front of you right now. You’re handling it well.”
More people die while clearing Dungeons than you’d think.
The reason Hunters earn so much money is because their lives are on the line.
But I didn’t want to humbly accept death.
Only when my voice stopped could I finally remove my hand from Jung Hwan-jae’s ears.
Turning around, I saw Sung Ji-wook wrapping both his and Harp’s ears with his shield.
The shocked expression on his face suggested that once we left here, a barrage of questions would come pouring down.
Your stats have been restored to their original state.
Vocal Performance (B+)
The Dungeon had ended.
I was the greatest contributor.
* * *
“I’m so exhausted… Why is that?”
The moment I stepped out of the Dungeon, my energy drained away and I collapsed onto the ground.
Liri sat down gently beside me and brushed my hair back with a tender touch.
“You’ve expended far too much mana. You poured out enough to obliterate the entire remaining section of the S-Rank Dungeon.”
“I’ve never experienced a mana shortage until now….”
“You will from now on.”
Jung Hwan-jae emerged from the Dungeon behind me and sat down on my opposite side.
Rather than helping me to my feet, sitting beside me seemed to be the only consideration he could offer.
“You’ll face more Dungeons ahead and new trials will come. I’m not sure what you’ll think, but….”
“I know I can’t avoid it. I don’t want to avoid it either.”
“Still, I wonder if it’s necessary to deliberately court danger like this.”
The man who had ventured into more perilous Dungeons than anyone else and was desperately sought after by people spoke those words.
He said it so casually, as though avoiding it would be perfectly fine.
If I were to suddenly grasp his hand and flee, there would be no reason left for me to remain at Hanttae.
I shook my head.
With practice and study, anything could improve gradually.
So I had to see more and learn more in order to become a better person.
Once I stepped outside and my composure returned, I suddenly felt the weight of what I had done.
“The person who truly fused with it can’t even come back outside.”
“Don’t burden yourself with guilt. If we had done nothing back then, far more innocent people would have been sacrificed.”
Jung Hwan-jae rushed to continue speaking, worried I might be carrying guilt over having killed someone.
I gazed at him quietly for a moment, then offered a faint smile.
Sung Ji-wook and Harp emerged from the Dungeon side by side, arriving later than the rest of us.
Seeing us sitting together on the ground, they exchanged glances awkwardly before sitting down with us.
“Researcher Harp. I suggested we go in together, so I feel terrible about….”
“We already went in and came back out, and we cleared the Dungeon. There’s no reason to say such things.”
His tone was matter-of-fact, as if to say what was done was done.
Yet that very tone made my heart ache even more.
Even with the loss of his Assigned Staff Member, his healing ability was remarkably formidable.
Had that Assigned Staff Member lived, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of magnificent hunter they would have been.
He blinked his eyes at different speeds. Harp, who had tapped the dragon’s eye ridge, gazed up at the sky with an expressionless face.
“In the end, that kid seemed to tell me to keep living. So I figured as long as I’m still breathing, I’m alive.”
“…Well, everyone has their own way of living.”
“Still, I came here because I thought there might be a possibility of bringing the Assigned Staff Member back to life.”
He explained everything that had happened so far with remarkable composure.
This place was far more likely to kill Staff Members than save them.
Contractors died, Staff Members died, or Fusion Dungeons emerged—such situations were far from rare.
Witnessing these events, Harp felt a profound disillusionment with the profession of Hunter.
Staff Members were never reassigned unless extraordinary circumstances arose.
Harp claimed that alongside this emotional disillusionment came a disturbance in his mana flow.
Sung Ji-wook, who had been listening quietly to the story, offered a single remark.
“Mana, after all, is the human soul itself.”
“Yes, my soul may have refused to move forward. Knowing better than anyone that living means more than just drawing breath… and yet.”
Since becoming a Hunter, I had found purpose in saving people.
But the guilt of failing to save the one who gave me their all weighed my soul down.
That’s how I’ve lived until now.
“Even if a Fusion Dungeon had erupted here, I would never have entered. Honestly, I didn’t have the courage to clear a Dungeon where Staff Members were dying.”
Had I heard this story before entering, I wouldn’t have suggested going together.
As I parted my lips to say something, he shook his head.
“It was my choice. If I truly hadn’t wanted to go, I would have refused even if you’d begged on your knees. So it’s not that you asked me to go.”
“….”
I tried to say something but was immediately cut off.
I knew it wasn’t entirely because of me, but being shut down so quickly made me feel embarrassed.
I also knew he was saying this to ease my guilt.
I was waiting for him to continue when, unexpectedly, Sung Ji-wook spoke.
“Why did you enter?”
“I work closest to Staff Members, yet I was desperately averting my gaze from their deaths.”
“Yes, I heard you only researched divine power all along.”
“But I had to face death eventually. It just happened to be then.”
Averting one’s gaze doesn’t resolve everything. Harp simply came to accept that.
Had that Dungeon not erupted then, he would have done so eventually anyway.
He wound the long whip in his hand.
“She gave me her eyes so I wouldn’t avert my gaze.”
With the eyes of the Ancient Dragon, even if the world endlessly threatened and wounded, one could overcome it.
He said he’d mentioned this before.
He stood and faced us with the sun at his back. The backlighting obscured his expression.
“I’ll cooperate without any compensation. Finding Kim Kyung-hoon.”
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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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