The Tone-Deaf Healer Kills with a Song - Chapter 73
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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 073
“But if we use a tracking skill, don’t we have to tell everyone what we’re going through and what we’re going to do?”
“No, I can handle that myself.”
Sung Ji-wook, who had been sitting quietly, raised his hand.
He was a healer-class hunter like me, and he said he possessed a tracking skill.
I looked at him with a bewildered expression.
Well, I may have the title of healer, but I’ve reduced entire dungeons to ash with a single scream.
“How precisely can you track?”
I turned my head toward him slightly.
A hunter perfectly specialized in defense. I remembered those star fragments that radiated from him.
But rather than tracking something, they felt more like protection—for himself and those he wished to guard.
The description I’d heard of Sung Ji-wook back then matched that impression. He continued speaking to me with a calm expression.
“About as well as a private detective agency.”
“…What kind of detective agency?”
“The kind that could catch someone like Kim Kyung-hoon.”
He seemed reluctant to explain the details.
Jung Hwan-jae and Sung Mi-ju looked like they knew something, but they didn’t press the issue. With Dante here too, this wasn’t the time to dig into Sung Ji-wook’s secrets.
I urged him to investigate the traces immediately and took a step forward. He carefully raised his hand and placed it on my neck.
Those star fragments I’d glimpsed during the ranking tournament scattered in all directions.
The star fragments gradually found their own arrangement. They seemed to mimic some constellation I’d seen before.
“Of course, I can’t read memories without permission like a detective agency does. When I use my skill, a window should appear for you.”
“That’s very conscientious of you.”
“I only access memories without permission when the target is dying or unconscious. They can’t press the permission button in those cases.”
Sung Ji-wook spoke of terrifying things without a single change in expression. From his tone alone, it sounded like he’d actually dealt with people in such situations.
I definitely shouldn’t ask about that.
At the same moment, a window appeared before my eyes.
‘Last Lifeline of Existence’ is accessing memories inscribed upon your body.
Do you permit this?
Except for what appeared in ranking tournaments or the media, most skills displayed their class names.
Because of that, when using interactive skills, I sometimes inadvertently learned the other person’s class.
Yes
Last Lifeline of Existence—it had an emergency room atmosphere about it, something urgent and tense.
Except for cases where his sister got hold of him, it wasn’t a name that suited the usually unflappable Sung Ji-wook.
The moment I gave permission, the stars that had been arranging themselves into a constellation pattern scattered in all directions and began to rampage.
They flew up fiercely like something chasing traces I couldn’t see, thrashing about like a broken traffic light.
[Liri: It’s because Sung Ji-wook is much stronger than Kim Kyung-hoon, so he can read it.]
‘Baldur operates on a somewhat survival-of-the-fittest structure.’
I recalled the rule that if a handler was stronger, they couldn’t be touched.
If Liri had been weaker than Kim Kyung-hoon’s handler, if Sung Ji-wook had been weaker than Kim Kyung-hoon, then we probably wouldn’t have found a clue like this.
Liri fell silent for a moment, seeming to think about something.
[Liri: You humans have a saying—knowledge is power. That’s precisely the source that governs Baldur.]
[Liri: The more knowledge an Awakener possesses, the greater their access to information, the stronger they become, and those individuals make formidable Handlers.]
[Liri: Even now, Hunter Sung Ji-wook’s ability to read memories exists because he and his Handler have greater access to information. Look.]
Upon reading those two characters—”look”—I lifted my gaze and surveyed my surroundings.
Until now, I hadn’t noticed, but the star fragments glowing in gold were forming the silhouette of a woman.
Her long hair, flowing like the Milky Way itself, seemed to embrace Sung Ji-wook from behind.
“She’s my brilliant brother’s Handler.”
Sung Mi-ju, standing beside me, added the remark as though it were inconsequential. Yet despite her composed tone, her eyes remained fixed upon his Handler.
A living, breathing constellation. Beautiful.
The woman composed of starlight covered Sung Ji-wook’s eyes with both hands and whispered.
“For you, who strives toward a better future for this world’s Awakeners, I open the doors of the Valkyrie Network.”
In that same instant, a hallucination erupted—a meteor shower so brilliant it threatened to blind.
Sung Ji-wook’s eyes blazed with the radiance of stars, then grew serene. The Handler who had stood behind him vanished in the blink of an eye.
He released his hand from my neck as though nothing had transpired.
“The Dungeon that Hunter Yeom Ye-ah was dragged into back then was a place where they frequently committed their crimes. Of course, since Hunter Yeom Ye-ah was discovered there, it can no longer be used.”
From Kim Kyung-hoon’s traces alone—from the wound on my neck—he extracted that memory. In this era of Hunters, no secret remains eternal.
One mustn’t live a wicked life.
“However, that wound wasn’t treated by Kim Kyung-hoon. It was naturally healed by Hunter Yeom Ye-ah’s internal mana.”
“Natural healing?”
“Yes. Her body’s mana responded automatically to treat the wound. It seems Hunter Kim Kyung-hoon intended to kill you through excessive blood loss.”
At the very least, he would have summoned Liri.
I might have been astonished that my body had healed its own injuries, but too many extraordinary things had already transpired.
The fact that he’d tried to kill me hardly registered as a threat.
Even for someone as unflappable as Sung Ji-wook in most matters, discussing such things seemed to cause reluctance—his speech grew progressively slower.
“Then you obtained less information? What were you able to discern?”
“I searched through Hunter Kim Kyung-hoon’s memories of when he harmed people. He had never actually killed anyone.”
He himself had stated with his own mouth that he’d never killed anyone.
Someone else must have done the actual killing.
I shook my head. Yet even if he had merely ordered others to commit such acts, his guilt remained undiminished.
“About that Dungeon I was kidnapped to earlier. You said it was a place where they frequently committed crimes. Were there no other locations?”
There couldn’t be only one crime scene.
Even Harp’s Handler mentioned a different large-scale raid site from where I’d been held.
There had to be other places.
Sung Ji-wook nodded in agreement with my words.
Yet his gaze was oddly fixed beyond my shoulder.
“Guild Master.”
At his words, I reflexively turned my head.
Jung Hwan-jae wore an expression I’d never seen before. I couldn’t determine when it had begun.
But his face bore the look of someone barely restraining fury—the visage of someone ready to kill at any moment.
I hurried toward him and gripped his shoulder.
“Senior!”
“Ah.”
He hadn’t realized he’d been making that expression, so he quickly composed his face.
“It started when Kim Kyung-hoon said he’d kill you through exsanguination.”
Dante opened his mouth with a tone that made it clear he found this amusing.
I patted Jung Hwan-jae’s shoulder soothingly, then positioned myself in front of him. Not that my standing here would actually block his face from view.
“What just happened? Please, just tell me where we need to go next.”
Sung Ji-wook seemed to be craning his neck at an extreme angle, trying to look only at me.
Yes, keep your eyes on me alone. As if an angry Jung Hwan-jae never existed in the first place.
“The Library of the Tomb Dungeon.”
“The Library of the Tomb?”
I’d heard of it before.
A B-rank dungeon where an entire library had transformed into a dungeon wholesale.
While the measured difficulty itself wasn’t particularly high, the sheer volume of knowledge that had become monsters meant the potential for variation was enormous.
It was a place where even powerful hunters sometimes met absurd deaths.
‘But what if there’s actually a reason behind those absurd deaths?’
I hadn’t investigated it in detail, but if I counted all those who’d died there, the number would be endless.
Jung Hwan-jae, who had finally composed himself, stepped forward in front of me.
“Then let’s go. To the Library of the Tomb.”
“Right now?”
“Immediately.”
And so an extravagantly luxurious raid team was assembled—one hardly befitting a B-rank dungeon.
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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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