The Tone-Deaf Healer Kills with a Song - Chapter 191

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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 191
Lucy perched atop the keyboard, gazing at Liri on the screen.
The image of my beloved within the monitor appeared infinitely tender.
“Do you regret it?”
“Not particularly.”
Liri smiled gently.
My Awakened One probably didn’t know. That song on that day had saved everyone.
More precisely, it had anchored them to this land.
I had seized even the fading holy power of the Assigned Staff Member, preventing their annihilation.
I could have ignored that desperation and departed.
After all, I had lived for quite a long time as data, as an Awakened One, and as an Assigned Staff Member. That ennui was incomparable to anyone else’s.
Perhaps during that long span, my sense of duty had faded somewhat.
“Perhaps disappearing back then would have been the right choice. I still think so.”
“Sure, then I wouldn’t have been dragged along like this, wouldn’t have to watch you wallow in self-pity, and it would’ve been perfect all around.”
“Yom Ra, you’re free to go back. Go.”
“No matter what you say.”
Lucy grumbled pointlessly.
Still holding a smile, Liri turned back to the screen.
But I had chosen greed instead, leaving behind my holy power.
Not everyone could manage this. Like the vanished Pandora and the other Assigned Staff Members, those who disappeared were overwhelmingly numerous.
In Liri’s and Lucy’s cases, the data they had accumulated was vast.
Moreover, their unique Achievements themselves had been preserved as the first data of this Valkyrie Network.
The Network itself was operating defensive protocols to prevent data loss as much as possible when Yeom Ye-ah’s mana acted as a booster for it.
It would have been impossible without Lucy and Jung Hwan-jae’s support.
“Even if I wanted to return now, I cannot.”
But the data loss was significant.
Now I couldn’t even easily display a single message, let alone manifest an avatar.
Under disciplinary status.
The two Assigned Staff Members stared at the notification panel filling the top of their control screens.
A penalty for using holy power beyond necessity, despite not having returned all the data.
Probably wouldn’t be able to return for a couple of months.
“Even trying to send a single message would take three months by human standards, wouldn’t it?”
“Probably. But I won’t be able to return even in three months. At least, not me.”
In three months, I could inform my contractor that I hadn’t vanished.
But they wouldn’t do that.
In summary, the Assigned Staff Members of the two Awakened Ones were now concealing their traces of their own volition.
Just for a fleeting moment.
“Has an Awakened One ever preserved an Assigned Staff Member’s data through their own power before? Probably not.”
“It’ll be the last time too. There won’t be another person like my Awakened One.”
At Liri’s proud remark, Lucy waved his hand dismissively as if fed up.
“Awakeners don’t live as long as we do. I thought you might have forgotten.”
“I know better than you do, so please don’t say anything unnecessary.”
“Why, do you think that Awakener will become a Staff Member too?”
“Even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
Liri offered a bitter smile.
She would gladly sacrifice her records of fighting and saving others, but she would never become a Staff Member herself.
She found joy in living an era alongside those she loved and meeting their end together.
I wished she would be a little more selfish about it.
Perhaps that was why I had come to love Yeom Ye-ah as an Awakener.
With a far deeper emotion than a Staff Member’s love for an Awakener.
“What about your contractor? Jung Hwan-jae, I mean.”
“He’s not particularly sturdy to begin with, so it’s fine. And he’s not the type who wants to see his Staff Member the way Yeom Ye-ah does.”
Lucy didn’t bother hiding his disappointment as he muttered.
Jung Hwan-jae had safely returned to his duties as Guild Master after the weekend passed.
Some wept with joy at the Guild Master’s return, while others bristled at the thought of hell beginning anew.
Lucy found it regrettable that he couldn’t place himself among either group.
Liri suddenly looked at Lucy.
‘Despite what he says, Lucy surely understands.’
How much Jung Hwan-jae longed for him and how much he had relied on him all this time.
It was only natural—Lucy filled the void left by an absent family.
“Don’t you want to see your Awakener?”
“What good does it do me to want to see someone who doesn’t want to see me?”
“Then stop turning the monitor toward Jung Hwan-jae’s Awakener all the time. Let me see Ye-ah too.”
“Ah, just a moment more. I got my monitor suspended anyway. This is excessive punishment.”
Lucy complained while his words and actions contradicted each other entirely.
Of course, he could have returned alone in a few months, but he couldn’t abandon the foolish Liri who had chosen to disappear.
Only Lucy understood how agonizing the loneliness of one who had witnessed a world left alone to perish could be.
“I know myself well. I won’t last long before I return because I miss Ye-ah.”
“Even if it’s ‘a few months,’ it’ll take several. Honestly, if you just steeled yourself a bit more, that Awakener would come back with white hair.”
“A year is quite long for humans, isn’t it? Then there really won’t be a place for me… What if they get married in the meantime?”
He spoke in jest, but I could understand what choice his heart had made.
I couldn’t condemn him for making an extreme choice to release human emotions from his heart.
“Your Awakener will grieve greatly.”
“So will yours.”
“My son shows me no interest whatsoever. He doesn’t even treat me like a father.”
“Because you’re not a father. Honestly, if I had such a foolish father, I wouldn’t be particularly happy either.”
It was a joke.
Both of them knew that Jung Hwan-jae always carried Lucy’s sacred symbol in his inventory, ready for his return at any moment.
If they simply gave up on their return, they could naturally fade away.
The Awakeners they knew had never learned to give up first.
Even as I lived day by day and returned to my ordinary life, I searched desperately for a way to awaken the Staff Members.
“No matter how hard we try, there’s probably no precedent of actually awakening a Staff Member. There’s nothing in the data either.”
“But sometimes new data does get registered from scratch. For instance, if someone defeated a calamity entirely on their own.”
“Though that’s extremely rare.”
Lucy shrugged his shoulders.
The two of them claimed to have intentionally hidden their traces, but if those Awakened ones discovered a way to break the seal early.
The Staff Members of other Awakened ones who had slumbered for so long might open their eyes as well.
“If that happens, wouldn’t we have to forcibly bind them as Staff Members?”
“Let’s worry about it. We could spend a whole year just worrying about that.”
“Yeom Ye-ah might not, but our son will definitely forget my face.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
Liri laughed as she glanced at Lucy, who bristled and insisted he wouldn’t forget.
A year in name only—it could become next month at any moment.
Even if they made a promise with themselves right now to wait a year, they would rush out the moment their Awakened ones faced danger.
That’s why they existed in this place.
“Perhaps loving an Awakened one is inevitable.”
Soon, the true Lucy spoke, dropping the words carelessly.
Liri’s gaze slowly shifted toward him.
“But that’s only for us. The Awakened ones have no obligation to love us.”
Liri’s head nodded very slowly.
“Actually, this isn’t a problem between Awakened ones and Staff Members. It might just be a story of failed love.”
Simply that I failed to win the heart of the one I love.
That’s all.
The one Yeom Ye-ah loves simply wasn’t me. That has nothing to do with being a Staff Member.
And love cannot be forced by power. Even if it could be, Yeom Ye-ah would only become unhappy, so I won’t do it.
A Staff Member, after all, is a being that hopes for their Awakened one’s happiness.
“Well… I understand.”
“You love your Awakened one too, don’t you?”
“I don’t. A high-maintenance Awakened one who dumps their lover the moment they meet someone—I don’t love that kind.”
Yet he continued staring at the screen.
He had just said loving an Awakened one was inevitable, yet he was quite dishonest about it.
“When the time comes, we’ll go back together.”
“Yeah.”
“Even if that time comes a bit sooner, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Lucy laughed silently. It probably meant agreement.
Liri, tenderly caressing the image of Ye-ah’s bright smile surrounded by people on the screen, whispered softly.
I love you.
So I’ll see you later.
I’ll return when I can endure well enough that my love doesn’t intrude upon your love.
Until then, you must be happier than anyone else.
My Ye-ah.

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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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