Was Happy Being a Despised F-Rank Healer, You Know? - Chapter 163

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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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18. Who Opens Their Eyes? (2)

“They’re sharing this across the entire school right now. Good grief, even if the odds of a Flesh Flower appearing on an F-Rank are low, how could anyone manufacture something this heinous?”
“You, you’re being too harsh…… M…… Maybe they really, didn’t know…….”
Isang Hee’s dejected tone stirred something close to pity in me now.
“And you too, listen. Do the Class 8 kids even know what they’re eating right now? Why, they say you lot protect Hali’s Potion Shop while you’re at it! The moment her name comes up, they come running like a pack of chihuahuas!”
At first, I’d refused to believe it.
“That’s ridiculous. There’s no way. ……If that were true, the teachers would never let it slide.”
I’d protested properly back then.
But as I heard Isang Hee fret over it again and again, something began to feel wrong.
She said she’d even seen him directly cutting hair and placing it in, and she’d stolen a Manufacturing Recipe that appeared to be written by Hali—complete with notes about cutting hair and adding it—and brought it with her.
I’d heard Hali mention losing a notebook somewhere, so it had to be hers.
And since Byeon Ji-yeong couldn’t even mimic handwriting convincingly, I couldn’t fathom any scenario where this was a lie.
Why?
Because Byeon Ji-yeong herself was the sort of person who wouldn’t even think of such a thing.
And besides, Isang Hee seemed decent enough to me.
A simple oversight, but the kind that a surprising number of people commit carelessly.
Ji-yeong felt a sense of justice rising in her chest.
“This needs to be made public in a big way.”
“B-but.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t drag you into it. I know you hate being the center of attention.”
Besides, Class 8 receiving excessive attention had already been grating on me anyway.
Coming back alive from the Annihilation Dungeon is impressive, but from a position where I’d have to compete with them for scouts later, it wasn’t all good news.
Maybe that’s why I let it slide so easily.
“Just…… please don’t do that. I just want the kids to be, be safe……that’s all…….”
A hopelessly kind thing to say.
Since I’d already concluded she was good-natured and had been treating her accordingly, I interpreted all of Isang Hee’s objections that way.
If this came to light, it wouldn’t just end with Class 8’s reputation crumbling. Narin Academy’s honor itself could be damaged.
That wasn’t something I wanted either.
I had no desire to corner Class 8 completely.
I just wanted to knock them down a peg—not that they’d ever boasted openly anyway.
But that was, in the end, only my private feeling.
What mattered was the greater good.
The pursuit of justice!
In other words, Hali alone had to be eliminated.
“I understand what you mean. Then I’ll target just Hali.”
“W-what are you going to do?”
“Obviously, I’ll report it discreetly to the Principal. Ask them to investigate.”
“B-but…… while the investigation’s ongoing, the kids in our class will…… keep drinking Hali’s potions…….”
“Hmm……. What about this then?”
Byeon Ji-yeong adjusted her monocle, the one she used with her Slime Skill to manufacture and wear.
And spoke seriously.
“Since she said there’s no way to secretly film Hali making potions, we’ll use the Festival. You lot are doing a play, right?”
You said you were staging Simcheong as a theatrical production.
“We’ll force her to use a potion. An unexpected situation or something. From the records here, she apparently always carries cut hair in her pocket as a potion ingredient. We’ll make her drop it. And then you plant the suspicion—ask what she’s doing carrying something like that as if it were a potion ingredient.”
“……Um, o-okay…….”
Isang Hee nodded, covering her mouth with her hand.
To hide the smile leaking through.
At last, the final piece had fallen into place.
Isang Hee would use the play.
But the way she’d use it would be entirely different from what Byeon Ji-yeong imagined.
But since she’d recorded this conversation, even if evidence surfaced later and they traced it back, she could pin everything on Byeon Ji-yeong.
Light Attribute users were rare anyway—wouldn’t investigators overlook a few suspicious details?
From Isang Hee’s experience, that’s how it worked outside Narin Academy.
So it would be the same here too.
She was safe.
“Oh, just checking something.”
Byeon Ji-yeong, who’d been walking away with confident strides flushed with righteous indignation, stopped and called back to Isang Hee.
“Hm?”
“You didn’t mention this to anyone else, right?”
She looked suspicious.
Having set something in motion, a little anxiety was creeping in now.
Or perhaps a genuine desire to ensure no one but Hali got hurt.
Isang Hee hid the mockery leaking through her beaming smile.
“O-of course not!”
“……Yeah, you wouldn’t. No point in letting rumors spread.”
“Right, exactly.”
“Got it. See you at the Festival. When things blow up, I’ll be watching from the audience and help guide it along, so don’t be too scared!”
“Okay!”
The foolish sacrifice had moved away.
Isang Hee turned her body around and headed toward the upperclassmen she’d been cultivating.
Building connections, then based on those connections, fabricating evidence just convincing enough to trust.
Holding suspicions about Hali’s potions was free. Expressing those suspicions was free too. No one could stop her.
But in a place no one could hear, Isang Hee took it further—she showed those pieces of evidence, similar to what she’d shown Byeon Ji-yeong, and drew strange conclusions.
“But wait, does just putting hair in it really make a potion change that much?”
“Y-yes, I thought so too. Um…… Actually…….”
“What?”
“H-have you h-heard? About the L-living…… Flesh Flower……?”
“Flesh Flower?”
Isang Hee made plausible-sounding statements by deftly leveraging knowledge she’d lifted from Goi-deun’s research materials.
“A s-special flower that b-blooms in the U-Underworld, supposedly. B-but Hali might, m-might have…….”
“What? So what you’re saying is.”
A few upperclassmen, marked as poor students for their irresponsible and illegal conduct, their futures uncertain, bit beautifully at those words.
“That F-Ranker’s an Elixir or something?”
“W-well, maybe…… though…….”
The look in their eyes as they exchanged glances:
They swallowed hard and asked her to steal some of Hali’s hair for them.
‘So pathetic.’
Hair, of all things.
If they’d heard this much, shouldn’t they have asked for flesh instead?
That’s why they get marked as inferior students—no ambition, no imagination.
But since I needed the words to sound foolish enough to use and discard, this level would be appropriate.
Isang Hee expected even more that they’d gossip among themselves without any sense that they were keeping a secret, and it would spread as rumor.
And she hoped that rumor would reach, if possible, the really cutthroat people outside the Academy.
The moment it reached them, they’d send love calls to Class 8.
And remarkably, things unfolded exactly as Isang Hee had hoped.
「Hello, Isang Hee. Upon reading this message, delete it immediately and verify through this channel. We…….」
The text from an unknown number contained minimal information about the senders themselves, but it included actual records of awakened individuals being kidnapped and sold.
Since Hali had become famous from the Annihilation Dungeon, they’d decided she was worth selling even if those rumors weren’t true.
Isang Hee was satisfied.
Hali, who’d inexplicably survived the dungeon I sent her to with the intent to kill, where Annihilation suddenly began, who survived every dungeon afterward and every torment without dying—she was hateful.
No, more precisely, she was sickened by the fact that Hali continued to receive the attention of the person Isang Hee wanted.
Recalling Yuhan Seong’s face, the sight that left her entranced just to think of it, Isang Hee found her lips curving up slightly without her noticing.
Once Hali disappeared, whether they liked it or not, they’d have to find someone to partially replace their healer.
A mage with a Light Attribute would become an irreplaceable talent for him.
***
In the audience seats were a few freshmen who’d been worked on similarly to the upperclassmen, Byeon Ji-yeong as the sacrificial pawn, and…….
Several people bearing the distinctive atmosphere of those in the underworld caught the eye.
Yes, everything was flowing in the right direction.
That’s what she believed.
Right up until the Festival dawn broke and the curtain rose on the full Simcheong theatrical production.
Isang Hee had no doubt of her own victory.

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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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