The Tone-Deaf Healer Kills with a Song - Chapter 38
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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 038
Upon hearing my words, he rose as though he’d never been smiling at all, his expression turning serious. Though a snowman wearing a serious expression was still just a snowman.
He fluttered his wings and drifted up into the empty air, matching my eye level.
“Pene is fundamentally not the type to stop her contractor from doing something. If I hadn’t intervened or if Lucy hadn’t given a timely hint, there would have been quite a serious fight.”
“Lucy too?”
“Still, please don’t blame Pene too much. It’s only natural that human standards of good and evil don’t apply to us.”
The snowman approached and gently pressed his warm body against my cheek. Naturally, I wrapped him in both my hands.
He was warm.
He spoke in a voice as warm as his body.
“But regardless of good or evil, I’ll come whenever you need my strength.”
“Thank you.”
“Really? You’re really grateful?”
“Of course.”
‘This is actually quite touching….’
Liri gazed at me with a happy expression, as though unaware of what he’d just said.
I was the one receiving help, yet why was he wearing such a pleased expression? Liri, Jung Hwan-jae, and everyone else—they rush to my side when I need them, and then they’re delighted with just a word of thanks.
They truly are remarkable beings.
“Would you like to come up here? It seems like it would be difficult for me to keep carrying you.”
“Yes!”
“But this doesn’t require much strength, does it?”
“It’s fine. I’m just a small divine vessel.”
Following my guidance, Liri drifted up into the air and settled obediently on my shoulder.
Jung Hwan-jae, who had waited quietly until the Staff member’s conversation ended, turned his gaze toward me. Lucy, who had been grinning beside him, straightened up.
“Actually, if a Staff member can even manifest a divine vessel to the point of full manifestation, it’s a display of how strong that Staff member is. A display.”
“So I showed myself off the moment I arrived?”
“Looking at the reaction just now, even being generous, that one burst out on their own. It probably didn’t look intentional.”
Lucy shrugged and gradually faded away. It seemed he had only appeared briefly because of the Rosalind situation earlier.
Confirming his disappearance, Jung Hwan-jae turned his gaze back to me.
“Still, so far only relatively lenient Hunters have approached you. Kim Kyung-hoon won’t be coming today, so the most dangerous person won’t be here either….”
“Since I have Liri now, if you need to talk with someone else, you can go ahead. And like Hwa-jon mentioned earlier, I’m wearing the ring too.”
I raised my hand to show the ring still fitted on my index finger.
Jung Hwan-jae stared at my face for a long moment, then nodded. He understood what I meant, but his feet seemed reluctant to leave.
I disliked wasting time like this too. He had more than one or two things to take care of besides me.
I turned him around and pushed his back. He could have resisted easily, but he yielded to my push without resistance, taking a few steps forward.
“If anything happens, just call out.”
“If I shouted from here, at least several people would lose consciousness.”
“…That’s true, but.”
‘The fact that he doesn’t say otherwise hurts more.’
“Then I’ll at least greet some people I might meet in the ranking tournament. Though I probably won’t gather any particularly important information.”
“Go ahead.”
He took three steps, turned back to look at me, took three more steps, and turned back again. Only when I showed no sign of following did he stare at me with unmistakable anger before disappearing from view.
Rosalind is the most powerful healer I know. Being skilled as a healer doesn’t necessarily mean being skilled in offensive abilities.
This place is overflowing with people more capable in combat than Rosalind.
“Don’t worry.”
“Liri.”
“As long as I’m here, no Hunter in this place can lay a finger on you. There’s a hierarchy among Staff handlers, after all.”
“Is Liri the strongest Staff handler among all the Hunters here?”
I’d asked it in jest, but Liri nodded enthusiastically.
Really? I questioned with my eyes, and she nodded even more earnestly.
She wouldn’t lie about something like this. Suddenly, I became acutely aware of her weight on my shoulders.
Behind this snowman exists someone with a gentle voice—well, I never said handsome, but thinking of such a being made my mood inexplicably buoyant.
“Actually, I don’t even understand why I’m participating in this ranking tournament. There are people with higher rankings who could actually fight me.”
“You’re more than capable. You just need to understand exactly where to apply this ability. Usually, when Awakeners experience power dysfunction, it’s because they don’t know how to use their own strength.”
How to use my power, she says.
I’m a healer. Shouldn’t I use it to treat people?
And since I can provide buffs too, I could probably work as a support class as well.
While I stood there lost in such thoughts, Liri placed her hand on the back of my neck.
It felt strange, as if she could see right through my mind.
“That’s not it.”
“But I haven’t said anything yet?”
“For instance, like this: I want to become a famous Hunter, so I want to be flashy. I want to earn a lot of money. I want to save people. That’s what I mean. Just because I’m a healer doesn’t mean I must heal—that’s merely being bound by words.”
But the system clearly shows me what I must do and what my class is, doesn’t it?
Asking me to think differently about things already fixed was cruelly difficult for someone like me with such obvious limits to imagination.
As I made a helpless expression, Liri lightly flew back to the Terrace railing. Perched there, she gazed blankly beyond the railing.
“Your country has a saying: you see as much as you know, knowledge is power, yes? The Valkyrie Network moves by that knowledge.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Depending on how well I understand myself, this system, and the world’s knowledge, I can better utilize my own power. If you’ve hit a wall now, it’s because you haven’t grasped how to use your strength. What do you think about when you use a skill?”
“I hope it works. If it doesn’t, there’s nothing I can do about it….”
‘Ah, that’s it.’
The thought that there’s nothing I can do if it fails. A vague sense that this power came to me by chance, yet fits me wrongly, like wearing clothes several sizes too large.
Without even time to think about what I want to do with it, everything feels burdensome, and on top of that, there’s even fear of singing.
I’ve been wondering why I must sing, why being a rare healing-type draws so much attention.
“Liri, I don’t have any desire to earn a lot of money or anything like that.”
“I see.”
“I just don’t want to sigh when checking my balance before paying rent, and when my family has debts to repay, I don’t want to have to search for another place to borrow money. That much would be enough. I never had any grand ambitions.”
From then on, Liri simply nodded silently without answering.
How could my heart feel so at ease speaking to this cute little snowman, like a figurine placed on a car dashboard?
I continued with a faint smile.
“But when the opportunity came, why does everyone insist I do something I can’t do? No matter how hard I try, people mock me or ridicule me.”
I wasn’t on the verge of tears, nor did I feel wronged.
After enduring that sense of breaking apart for so long, the moments when I spoke of my wounds no longer tormented me.
Too much time had passed for me to wallow in self-pity, and wasn’t I standing in a better place now than among those who had once tormented me? Though I couldn’t say what would have become of me had things gone differently.
“So when Jung Hwan-jae took my hand, I tried my best not to disappoint him in any way.”
“I see.”
“I practiced every day, carved out time from my failures to be useful to him. Jung Hwan-jae said I was already helpful enough, but I wanted to give him something more concrete, more tangible.”
“And then?”
I exhaled slowly. After pouring out all these words, my heart felt a little clearer.
I had grown weary of pushing myself forward so desperately. I was terrified of failing to fulfill my purpose. But what did I actually want to do?
After sitting with that thought for a moment, I spoke.
“Liri, please make me a Ranker. I want to become someone more necessary.”
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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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