Was Happy Being a Despised F-Rank Healer, You Know? - Chapter 143

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

17. Shadow Stepping (5)

So many words, yet when it came to saying something important, he grew impossibly timid.
Hong So-yeong, who had been watching her junior colleague with a look of wry amusement, rubbed the corners of her eyes where the dark circles had faded slightly and muttered.
“Anyway.”
“Anyway? You’re talking about my entire future here! Honestly, Goi-deun. The kid’s grown so much.”
“You handle your own affairs, Teacher. Isn’t Choi Ji-hyeong swamped right now?”
Gong Si-yun tilted his head in agreement with Hong So-yeong’s tilted-head question.
“……That’s true. He must have his hands full with Class 8.”
“Right?”
The students didn’t know it, but outside people had been making all sorts of unreasonable demands, and it was giving him a terrible headache.
The Narin Festival was an event where external people could officially enter Narin without any conditions, which was precisely why.
Usually, the second and third-year homeroom teachers were swamped making sure promising future talents didn’t go astray or get scammed, but this time the homeroom teacher of first-year Class 8 had the most to deal with.
“……Though come to think of it, he probably handled those things fairly easily…….”
“Out of everyone who came back to the Faculty Office, Choi Ji-hyeong recovered his stamina fastest. When I think about that, he doesn’t seem all that busy.”
“……I suppose.”
How unsettling.
Choi Ji-hyeong was now playing the part of a well-behaved(?) caretaker of the students, but before that, he’d been known as one of the notorious loose cannons.
The problem was that he’d charge ahead without a second thought for principle or propriety — that was just how he was.
The issue was that these kinds of external pressures mostly involved uncomfortable matters.
A first-year might have received something like a marriage proposal, not to mention contract offers mixing fraud with unthinkable servitude clauses, and there could even be moves to involve the children’s families.
Class 8’s students mostly lacked anything resembling a proper family, so that last element would probably be less frequent than with promising second and third-year talents.
‘Though I’m not sure that’s something to be grateful for.’
In Jin Hali’s case, he’d caught a glimpse yesterday that she had a mother and an older brother, and judging from how she’d processed their letters without any hesitation straight into the discard pile, he could read into the state of that family.
Private letters sent to Narin all had to be written in someone’s own hand, and that rule existed precisely to protect students from such situations.
So there were cases like Jin Hali’s where she (probably) had few family members to be used against her, and then there were those who had absolutely no one…….
‘What a mess this is.’
Compared to other classes, Class 8 was concentrated with children requiring extensive protective oversight.
From the start, that class had been assembled with Narin’s sole hope being that these students wouldn’t fall into crime — Choi Ji-hyeong probably never anticipated he’d need to manage them this actively.
And yet it seemed he’d taken on a certain vitality instead.
“Whenever I think that Choi Ji-hyeong’s actually enjoying his work, my stomach hurts and I get a bad feeling.”
“Teacher, you really are a fascinating person…….”
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Consistent, Teacher!”
Hong So-yeong laughed, her eyes flickering with mirth.
Gong Si-yun wiped away cold sweat and steered the conversation.
“But it is ominous, isn’t it. When that teacher enjoys his work, it means there are plenty of unhappy people…….”
“Exactly right. I think so too. I don’t know who it is, but I pity them.”
“That doesn’t sound sympathetic at all, Teacher.”
“Even so, Choi Ji-hyeong’s never wrong about such things. So whoever’s unhappy must’ve brought it on themselves, I figure.”
“I do hope you’ll use kinder language in front of the students…….”
“……Like you do……?”
Gong Si-yun, famous for his sleepy lessons despite his measured speech, subtly averted his gaze from Hong So-yeong’s pitying look.

***

Goi-deun had gone somewhere mysterious yesterday with the Yuhan Seong Party members.
These days, play rehearsals were nearly finished, so everyone should have had free time, but strangely only that party group seemed to be walking around looking like corpses every day.

“We trained for a few days and thought about it — if any of you are involved with the Annihilation Dungeon, it’d be better to train here if possible.”

Hali was the owner of a dungeon!
It was dangerous, but in another sense, a reassuring revelation.
No matter how strong their friends became, nothing was safer than being strong yourself.
But having obtained such a cheat key, Hali had opened it to others instead.
When he asked why, this was her answer.
Really, why was she always so consistent?

“I’ll register access for you, so feel free to come and train however you want whenever you’d like.”
“But why only the people involved with Annihilation?”
“I’m worried about Sudden Dungeons.”
“……Ah.”

But what could not be denied was that this was help they genuinely needed.
In truth, Class 8’s children were doing their best to hide it, but their anxiety was growing.
There was certainly some avoidance of anxiety mixed into their sudden diligence with the festival.
And no wonder — they were only seventeen.
Even S-rank Hunters faced danger without experience when they were young, and here they were, facing the Annihilation Dungeon without reprieve.
Even if a miracle happened and they all became S-rank, would the situation really improve?
It was the Annihilation Dungeon, after all.
Even children who’d grown up confident through countless hardships had their limits. Rather, keeping a clear sense of reality helped survival, so they’d all soberly assessed their own situation and come to conclusions.
They would not graduate.
With very high probability, perhaps only the S-ranks of the Yuhan Seong Party would graduate.
Even that wasn’t certain.
The weight of Annihilation was that heavy.
Without Hali, and without the Yuhan Seong Party, they would all have been swept away and died without doing anything.
Swallowing that anxiety, they each threw themselves into training, but no matter how hard they worked, they’d lost confidence in survival.
Moreover, dungeons came in many varieties.
What if an Irregular Dungeon suddenly opened and caught a few of them in its grip?
No one would feel the connection between the Annihilation Dungeon and Class 8 more deeply than those directly involved.
They all knew it, they just hadn’t said it aloud.
So there was nothing strange about that dungeon suddenly opening and swallowing a few of them, was there?
The Annihilation Dungeon would show no mercy even inside the Academy.
And yet, having supported themselves alone all their lives, they never even considered asking for help.
They’d drawn the line: a problem they had to solve alone, even if it meant death.
Ironically, that very fact had helped them hide their true situation from Isang Hee.

“At the very least, I wanted to prepare a place where you could train without worrying about being caught by a Sudden Dungeon. I’m not trying to interfere with your individual training or anything!”
“You worry about everything. Just so you know, Hali — we have no pride to speak of, so don’t worry about that.”
“……Well. Then just take it as a courtesy.”

Goi-deun let out a quiet laugh, remembering Hali — who would never be so blunt as to say they wouldn’t care even if they died.
From then on, whenever Class 8 trained without Isang Hee, they all got free access to use the first section of Hali’s dungeon partially.
It took just over two days for this arrangement to come about.
Their actual strength didn’t suddenly improve, but this one thing dissolved a significant portion of Class 8’s anxiety and transformed their guilt and sense of debt toward Hali into something positive instead.
‘……I have someone on my side now.’
Until now, they’d been in a state of vowing to become her ally.
Having grown up, they’d unconsciously rejected the thought of anyone becoming theirs in return.
But through this, they felt it for the first time.
The feeling of having someone on your side.
The impact was so great that some even hid and cried quietly by themselves, out of sight.
Hali probably had no idea it affected them this much.
‘Or maybe she does know, but just doesn’t hold it over them?’
Should she just go cry in front of Hali like an idiot?
Such useless thoughts, and fleeting.
“So, what’s the matter?”
Seeing her homeroom teacher, whom she often encountered in the counseling room, Goi-deun snapped back to attention.
She nodded and, in her characteristic brisk and reserved tone, cast a stone into the peaceful counseling room.
“I think Jin Hali might actually be a saint.”
“…….”
A short silence fell.
And then.
“……What?”
Very slowly, the teacher repeated the question.
Goi-deun had a thought.
‘Well. Even a cold-hearted person couldn’t help but be flustered by something like that.’
And she casually activated the capture function built into her glasses.
A bewildered expression on the homeroom teacher’s face — this was definitely a sight she’d never see again in her lifetime.
She had to show this to the others.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————