The Tone-Deaf Healer Kills with a Song - Chapter 154

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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 154
“Liri, what brings this on?”
“I’ve been studying and practicing various things, so I wanted to check if there’s anything you’re struggling with.”
It was the typical service question adults ask students—the “is anything giving you a hard time lately” inquiry.
I began slowly retracing my memories.
“Well… there’s been so much happening recently that I haven’t even had time to feel like anything is difficult.”
Liri nodded as if she fully understood my sentiment.
“Certainly, events beyond what an ordinary person would experience have been unfolding.”
“Right? The ranking one position was already extraordinary, but the things that happened after that seemed beyond imagination.”
“Going back further, awakening itself is an incredible achievement. Not every world has the opportunity to create Awakened Ones like this.”
Across countless worlds, the opportunity to cultivate Awakened Ones capable of responding to destruction—Ragnarok—is rare.
In fact, far more worlds succumb helplessly to destruction.
To begin with, dimensions with the luxury to prepare for such destruction are far scarcer than one might think.
“Humans also have difficult times, living hand to mouth day by day.”
“Of course. They live their days busily, shouldering burdens far heavier than necessary.”
“Exactly.”
“But the human soul is different. Now it’s converted into mana, as it were.”
Liri’s index finger traced circles through the empty air.
Each time she drew in the void, white light appeared and wavered slowly along her trajectory.
It almost felt like watching someone conduct an orchestra.
“In essence, that qualification means the soul harmonizes well with the existence called mana.”
“So Baldur has its own criteria for making that judgment?”
“Exactly.”
Whether these souls are powerful enough to respond to destruction.
From the moment the soul becomes mana, they carefully consider whether that Awakened One will remain unbroken, among other things.
Even if all those conditions are met, they don’t simply entrust them to the system—they always assign a dedicated Staff Member to each one.
“The Staff Members seem like they never eat or sleep, and it strikes me anew each time that they’re not human.”
“If they wanted to, they could mimic it, but there’s no need to waste energy on such actions when manifested in their divine form.”
Awakened Ones must sleep to recover some rest, but the Staff Members do not.
The Staff Members use that time to check whether any problems like attacks might occur to the Awakened Ones they oversee, whether the flow of mana or skills are excessive, and so on.
Since Awakened Ones experience virtually no psychological or physical fatigue, the Staff Members can work around the clock without rest.
It’s no different from a sweatshop.
“Ah, but I was asking Ye-ah if there was anything difficult, and suddenly the conversation shifted to the Staff Members?”
“I was just asking about something I was curious about too. To be honest, I wanted to know where the Staff Members work and what kind of work they do.”
“We can answer whenever asked. There are no secrets in the Staff Member’s world. There are just data we can’t handle.”
Simply put, there’s data we can’t access out of concern for the Awakened One’s mental state.
According to what she added, people like me, Jung Hwan-jae, and Dante have access to more information than others.
“That’s why the rank one hunter can see part of the Valkyrie Network. I wanted to show you. Anyway, that hunter was careless.”
“Did you just call your senior careless?”
“I didn’t mention anyone by name.”
Liri deliberately placed a hand on her chest as if she’d been struck, feigning pain.
She let out a short laugh, then moved forward slowly.
“The conversation took quite a detour, but what I’m trying to say is that if Ye-ah has been struggling with something, you’re free to talk about it comfortably now.”
“The hardest thing I’ve had to carry so far is the fact that I haven’t developed as much as I wanted to.”
In the end, we hunters called Awakened must break free from existing skills and discover our own unique methods of application.
That’s what true ability awakening is, and how we transcend our limits.
I clasped my hands behind my back and gazed up at the sky.
“I understand that the mana in my body is superior to others, and that healing itself is a rare ability with significant scarcity value.”
“That’s right.”
“But to actually wield those things, I need the capability to operate them, don’t I?”
I couldn’t count how much theory I’d studied.
Even right after leaving a Dungeon, back when someone would hear my song and collapse backward unconscious.
Even when I narrowly escaped death in an S-Rank Dungeon after losing my composure, or that day when I went to the United States and glimpsed another possibility within myself.
I came out and practiced with all my might to understand why things happened the way they did and how I could improve.
“But I don’t know how to cover for my truly insufficient real combat experience. And I don’t have much time.”
“Why do you think you don’t have much time?”
“Huh?”
When I lifted my head, Liri’s face was suddenly right in front of mine.
I was a bit startled, but not flustered.
As I lightly scratched my cheek, she smiled and took a step or two back.
“It seems like Ye-ah sometimes acts rushed, as if being chased by time.”
“I admit my heart is a bit impatient. Everyone around me is so much more skilled and experienced than I am, and I haven’t even reached that level yet. But people who don’t know me judge me by the title of Rank 1, and they expect abilities to match that.”
Even though people knew that before this I was just a ordinary Convenience Store part-timer, they didn’t focus on that.
They simply said that an ordinary person became Rank 1, and then became a promising healer from Hanttae.
And as if the world had been waiting for my awakening, all sorts of things have been erupting.
Perhaps these circumstances were heavier than I realized, because my voice grew increasingly heated as I spoke to Liri.
Once I’d poured it all out, I felt embarrassed.
“Here, take this.”
But Liri said nothing and simply extended her hand toward me.
In her palm lay something like a white pearl.
Similar to the Okwanhdan that Hwa-jon created, yet distinctly different—it possessed a more majestic and gentle luminescence.
The moment I took it, strength naturally flowed into my body.
“All Assigned Staff Members have their own distinct names, just like your class.”
A system window appeared before my eyes.
‘Source of Knowledge’ is watching you.
“Even if Ye-ah were three thousand years behind everyone else, as long as I’m by your side, you could catch up in less than thirty seconds.”
“Liri.”
“Because you’re the kind of person who can do that—that’s why I became your Assigned Staff Member.”
Wings unfurled behind her.
As if to shield my face from the sunlight falling directly upon it.
After staring at his face for a long while, Liri smiled gently once more.
“Countless Awakeners carry their own burdens, and it is the duty of Assigned Staff Members to listen to their concerns. It was then that Ye-ah told me something.”
That she wanted to become stronger.
Back then, ignorant of what the future held, she made such a wish.
And I became stronger—absurdly, impossibly stronger.
To the point that my past self would never have believed it.
Liri’s hand touched my cheek with such care, as though handling something that might shatter at the slightest pressure.
From one who was not human, I felt a warmth as gentle as that of a human being.
He gazed at me with the expression of one beholding something precious and irreplaceable.
“I granted that wish. Or rather, Ye-ah accomplished it herself. So tell me—what do you desire now?”
“Now, I…”
“Humans always need new goals to strive toward.”
I pondered.
Until the cascading sunset dyed itself in shades of violet.
The same vast shadow that had sheltered me then enveloped me still.
“I want to become strong in a different way.”
“Different?”
I looked into Liri’s face.
The dark visage of Kim Kyung-hoon surfaced in my mind.
“Not strength for its own sake alone.”
I thought of the people of Hanttae and Nike, of Kim A-jin and Dan Myeong-ah.
And then of Jung Hwan-jae again.
“I want the strength to never lose what I love.”

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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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