Please Give Me A Kiss, Healer! Chapter 118

“Oh, then did you buy a lottery ticket too? You should buy one on a day like this. What have you got to lose?”

Cha Taepyeong joined in. He was already holding two spicy fish cakes in each hand.

Everyone had skipped their meals and was hungry. Team 7 surrounded the food stand and aggressively devoured tteokbokki, fish cakes, and sundae.

“Hunter Do Jiwoo, here’s some fish cake broth.”

“Oh, thank you.”

Jiu absentmindedly accepted the paper cup Shin Ilguk held out to her.

She did briefly wonder, ‘Is this really okay?’

‘Eh, whatever. The manual never said we couldn’t have snacks.’

They had been told to mingle with the citizens and watch out for a possible doppelgänger incident, not that they weren’t allowed to have fun.

Jiu picked up fish cakes in both hands. She was just about to take a bite when—

“What are you doing here?”

Shin Woohyuk’s sharp voice stabbed into the back of her head.

Damn it! Why now?!

Jiu turned around with an awkward laugh.

“Ah, hello, Guild Leader. But why are you here…….”

The area assigned to the Guild Leader’s direct team was supposed to be the plaza beside the cherry blossom road.

So why was he here?

Jiu shifted her eyes sideways like a flounder.

A quick glance showed that the other team members had already destroyed all the evidence and clammed up.

They had even moved far away and were pretending to inspect another area.

‘What a bunch of cowards.’

It looked like she alone was going to have to face the Guild Leader’s wrath.

Jiu’s shoulders drooped. The trampled flyer on the ground looked just like her future.

“So, Guild Leader. About this……”

“It looks delicious.”

“Right? It really is deli…… Huh?”

Jiu quickly raised her head and saw Shin Woohyuk wearing an awkward smile. He gave Team 7 a slight nod before standing beside the food stand.

“Would you like some too, Guild Leader?”

“Yes. It’s been a while since I’ve had fish cakes.”

“Uh……”

Still bewildered, Jiu quickly brought him some soy sauce.

Shin Woohyuk took a bite of the spicy fish cake and frowned.

“Guild Leader, can’t you handle spicy food?”

“No.”

“You obviously can’t. Your ears are already red.”

“…Ahem.”

The reason Shin Woohyuk had ended up at the cherry blossom road was simple.

He had gotten lost in the crowd.

Before he knew it, he had been swept all the way here.

No wonder he hadn’t said much even though they had been slacking off during their assignment. He was probably too embarrassed to scold them after getting lost himself.

“Guild Leader, are you bad with directions?”

“I’m not bad with directions. I just have trouble finding my way when there are too many people.”

“That’s what people call being bad with directions.”

How had he managed to clear dungeons all this time while being bad with directions? Dungeons were usually incredibly complicated inside.

‘And the Guild Leader’s direct team without their Guild Leader.’

It was like a fish-shaped bun without the fish.

Anyway, finding his direct team among the huge crowd would be difficult. The lost Shin Woohyuk decided to temporarily join Team 7.

As the sun went down, more and more people gathered along the cherry blossom road. To watch over a wider area at once, Team 7 decided to split into pairs.

Yoo Jaekyung and Cha Taepyeong, the married couple, formed one pair, while Oh Nara quietly came over and stood beside Jiu.

“Then I’ll be with Jiwoo……”

Just as Jiu was about to say yes, she sensed something strange.

Shin Ilguk stood silently while the Guild Leader stared at him.

‘That’s right. Those two didn’t get along.’

Jiu remembered what Shin Ilguk had said.

‘More accurately, I’m the one he dislikes. We were actually pretty close when we were young… It’s all my fault. Because I wasn’t good enough.’

He had said that the Guild Leader disliked him for clinging to the guild despite lacking the ability to do his job.

It was a one-sided claim, but it was true that the atmosphere between them seemed tense.

‘If I let those two go together, something might happen.’

Jiu decided to sacrifice herself for the sake of the two brothers.

“I have something to discuss with the Guild Leader about the Emergency Disaster Response Team. Would it be okay if I went with him?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

Shin Woohyuk nodded.

Team 7 agreed to meet at the center of the cherry blossom road once every hour before splitting up. Jiu ended up walking side by side with Shin Woohyuk.

“About what happened in the dungeon last time. Thank you for helping me. I honestly didn’t think you’d let it slide, Guild Leader.”

She had always imagined the worst possible situation.

Since Shin Woohyuk had hated Antman from the very beginning, she had thought that if he found out she had accepted monsters, she would definitely be kicked out.

But instead of firing her, he had stepped in and covered up the whole incident.

“What else could I do? It already happened, and we can’t undo it. It’s better to keep an eye on you from nearby so another incident doesn’t happen.”

“You’re really practical, Guild Leader.”

“I hear that often.”

Shin Woohyuk hesitated for a moment before continuing.

“Hunter Do Jiwoo.”

“Yes?”

“The offer I made before, asking you to join the Guild Leader’s direct team, is still valid.”

It seemed Shin Woohyuk still hadn’t given up on recruiting Jiu. She had expected him to lose interest after the monster incident, if nothing else.

“I’m always serious about it. If Hunter Do Jiwoo would come to my team, I’m willing to give you anything. Whether it’s money, fame, or even my body……”

“Aaaah! Please stop saying things that make it sound like something else! I’ll think about joining the direct team a little more. I just have a lot on my mind because of my work with the Emergency Disaster Response Team.”

Jiu waved her hands frantically.

If she worked on the same team as Shin Woohyuk, she might end up having to summon her houseguests again.

Hearing about something in a report and seeing monsters with your own eyes were completely different things.

Even though everything had already been exposed, Jiu wanted to hide her abilities as much as possible in front of Shin Woohyuk. Whether that would actually be possible was another matter.

Jiu hurriedly laughed and changed the subject. There were all kinds of stalls on both sides of the road, giving them plenty to look at.

“How about that claw machine? Should we try it?”

Jiu pointed at the claw machine with curious eyes.

The machine was filled with cute stuffed animals.

The one Jiu wanted was an Adélie penguin plushie inside.

‘It looks exactly like Dongsik.’

She had already been feeling bad about not paying enough attention to Dongsik lately.

She wouldn’t have been able to argue if someone called her an evil owner who did nothing but make him work.

“Everyone’s carrying something. Wouldn’t it look suspicious if we just walked around empty-handed?”

It was an obvious excuse, but Shin Woohyuk silently followed Jiu.

“Okay, then I’ll go first.”

Jiu took coins from her wallet and slipped them into the claw machine.

Her movements as she inserted the 500-won coins into the slot were incredibly practiced.

‘Hehehe. It’s been a while since I played a claw machine.’

Back in the day, Jiu had been the claw-machine champion of her neighborhood arcade.

She had stopped playing as she got older, but her old instincts were still there.

Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

Jiu’s hands moved skillfully. She pressed the joystick rapidly with two fingers, stopping the claw right in front of the penguin plushie she was aiming for.

“Pheeeew.”

Good. Perfect.

She couldn’t allow even a single millimeter of error.

After taking a deep breath, Jiu pressed the drop button.

And then, clunk.

On her very first try, Jiu pulled the penguin plushie she wanted into her arms.

Shin Woohyuk looked at her in amazement.

“Are you naturally talented at claw machines?”

“Hmm, claw machines too. And this might sound a little embarrassing to say myself, but I’m pretty talented at most games.”

“Games?”

“Yeah, things like games. Games. You know, games.”

Jiu answered casually. As an adult, she felt a little embarrassed bragging about being talented at games of all things.

But Shin Woohyuk’s reaction was completely different.

“Come to think of it, you said you used to play Grand Rise too, Hunter Do Jiwoo.”

“Oh, yes.”

When had she ever told him that?

Jiu tilted her head.

But judging from the way he had said ‘too’……

“Guild Leader, have you played Grand Rise before?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, really? Did you play for a long time?”

“I played from the beta test until just before the servers shut down.”

“Wow, then you really played for a long time! I started during the beta test too!”

Grand Rise had been an incredibly popular game, so it wasn’t hard to find someone who had played it.

But someone who had played consistently from the beta test all the way until the servers closed?

‘Then maybe the Guild Leader knows me too. I was a pretty famous player, after all.’

Her username was Mom’s Hand.

If he had played for that long, he might have heard of her.

Excited by the shared memory, Jiu brought up her old gaming days.

“Which server were you on? I was on the AhenDel server.”