The Tone-Deaf Healer Kills with a Song - Chapter 181

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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 181
I had never heard of mana changing color before.
The people around me gasped in bewilderment at the unfamiliar sight.
“Cover me!”
The voice cutting through my song belonged to Jung Hwan-jae.
No one dared to object to his sudden command. Instead, they moved in perfect unison as if they had been waiting for it.
“Ye-ah, don’t worry about anything else and keep going.”
Dark crimson mana pierced through the white light and shot through the air like a blade.
The characters that wavered in the void, attempting to sever my song, ignited all at once.
“Always showing off.”
Lucy, who had been blocking the front until now and minimizing the damage, made a gesture as if striking the void.
With sounds of thud, thud, thud, the mana amplified dozens of times over.
In an instant, the waves of characters were swept away and vanished.
“I’ve told you countless times not to overdo it just because you cleared them once. They don’t stay gone.”
….
Jung Hwan-jae glanced back at Lucy. Was he expressing gratitude for the help?
But as if refusing to grant even a moment’s respite, the characters erupted explosively once more.
More fiercely than before, as if unable to accept that their attack had been repelled.
The other hunters and the Assigned Staff Member rushed forward to block the waves of characters.
Light, flames, ice, and flashes.
I had to see this through.
I raised my voice and chorus higher. The mana that had turned white spread even further.
“Liri, I’m on our Awakened’s side, but you can’t fall behind either, can you?”
But Lucy teased Liri as if this was nothing serious, his tone playful.
Liri, still keeping her wings fully spread as she guarded the front, laughed as if sighing.
He kept instigating competition between the two of us.
“Are you mocking me right now?”
“No, I could conduct the trial myself, but I thought I should give you a chance to show off too.”
“I don’t have the desire to bluff like you or seek recognition.”
“What?”
Lucy’s voice took on an irritated tone. Liri burst into laughter.
“But with everyone else struggling like this, it wouldn’t look good if I were the only one playing around carefree.”
Liri, her voice composed, stepped forward.
At the same moment, a vision unfolded from the ground that had been stained violet.
“A spring…?”
It seemed as if clear water was rising drop by drop, then it became a spring so pristine it could illuminate this entire world.
That spring contained memories of countless worlds. Just like the Valkyrie Network.
Liri’s distant voice reached me as if from far away.
Like the Liri in the Courtroom, and like the Liri in my memories.
【The god who sought to explore truth sacrificed one of their own eyes and peered into the depths of the spring.】
【However, I shall gladly show you a deeper space without any price.】
Those words weren’t directed at us. They were aimed at the one spewing characters unconsciously from ahead.
In an instant, a whirlpool erupted from the quiet spring, swallowing countless characters.
It shouldn’t have been possible, yet I could hear the characters and the boss’s agonized screams.
Like a human witnessing incomprehensibly vast knowledge they could never accept—utterly wretched.
Just as our gazes were about to turn toward that place, Liri’s laughter-tinged voice reached us.
“Maintaining this for long isn’t good for Awakeners either, so shall we stop?”
The moment I blinked, the spring vanished without a trace.
One of those staring blankly at the scene before us cautiously approached.
“Um, couldn’t the Staff Member just eliminate the boss for us?”
“We cannot directly intervene in the cause of the calamity. Our support has its limits.”
“The only method available is to convert us into data and delegate to an Awakener.”
In other words, the constraints binding them would only loosen if an Awakener faced mortal danger.
“That won’t do. Ye-ah cares so much for her Staff Members.”
Jung Hwan-jae swung his scythe as he passed before me.
The blade energy cut sharply through the air, dispersing the curse fog entirely.
“Coming from Jung Hwan the Awakener himself, it almost sounds like teasing….”
“I’m speaking sincerely.”
Liri, who had been glancing at Jung Hwan-jae, turned to look at me as if none of that had happened, smiling radiantly.
“Do you need more?”
I shook my head. If they’d lent this much strength, surely this was my moment to finish it.
The accompaniment grew steadily louder.
“Certainly, the curse’s intensity has weakened.”
The one who accidentally touched the characters spoke with bewilderment. Normally there should be vomiting, but now there was only nausea.
That boss was definitely weakening from the consecutive failed attacks.
Or perhaps the negativity itself was being broken.
“I’ll help you!”
My voice rose an octave higher.
Don’t stop singing—they asked for help, after all.
I can’t be certain whether what that being, once Pandora, truly needs is comfort.
But it’s undeniable that my actions are landing solid blows.
That alone was reason enough to sing.
The character for despair cried out for help.
The character for loneliness pleaded not to be abandoned.
Shattered and broken
Crying and screaming without vocal cords
Protecting and blocking without hands
Until the moment you were forsaken
You continued on like that…
“…you called my name.”
This song was composed by a child trapped alone in the Labyrinth, on the brink of death.
When the child believed they would never escape the Labyrinth, a wanderer came to their rescue.
A song dedicated to one who sacrificed their voice and limbs to the Labyrinth’s trials without surrendering.
The wanderer saved the child from the Labyrinth, only to breathe their last afterward.
The child, unwilling to forget that nameless wanderer, composed a song and spread it across the distant future.
“O shadow of the nameless wanderer.”
I survived by treading upon your shadow
I beheld the world while grasping your sleeves, though you had no hands
I learned hope by hearing your voiceless voice
I endured
Holding your very life
Pandora was the wanderer, and So Yi-yoon was the child.
The wanderer, unable to save the child, wept in despair.
Voiceless, limbs severed, tormented by endless self-recrimination over their failure.
Even knowing the child had willingly entered the Labyrinth and drawn countless victims into it.
“Different characters are appearing! Prepare yourselves!”
A sharp cry pierced the air. Different characters from those we’d seen before?
I lifted my head.
For the first time, the boss was spewing different characters from its mouth.
‘Yoon’
‘Apology’
‘Regret’
‘Sorry’
These were not the names of debuffs or curses. I understood what these characters meant.
I gradually closed the distance.
Even after I stopped singing, my mana still lingered, rippling outward in all directions.
“Let’s go together.”
“Yes.”
Jung Hwan-jae approached my side.
Only this man could stand beside me. He wrapped around me as if shielding me.
“He believed his efforts meant nothing, and was consumed by despair at losing So Yi-yoon in the end.”
“….”
“I’m not sure if it helped, but I tried to convey that it wasn’t your fault, that you truly did your very best.”
I sang the song the child had composed.
Because of that, I could deeply feel the child’s sorrow at losing the wanderer.
At first, the characters seemed to block our approach, but as we drew closer, they veered away from us.
Even when I deliberately tried to get near, the same occurred.
I carefully lowered my body and met its gaze. Empty eyes stared at me like those of a doll.
Jung Hwan-jae’s crimson mana enveloped me.
There was no need for him to protect me this way—the opponent had already lost its will to fight.
“You did your best. I didn’t know either. That not everything can be saved.”
No matter how hard I tried, I learned too late that some things slip beyond my grasp.
Everything I lost felt like my fault, and I blamed myself for every reason, every responsibility to save them.
I cannot fully understand the heart of the Assigned Staff Member who lost an Awakener.
This may not be the right answer.
But….
“Even so, you cannot make the others victims of So Yi-yoon’s tragedy.”
Another character meaning ‘yoon’ surfaced in my mind.
It slowly blurred and vanished.
“Your way of mourning and atoning is wrong. Open the path for us. Do not erase our hope.”
As those words fell, the violet light gradually crumbled away.
A distant voice echoed.
【I’m sorry for becoming despair….】

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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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