Please Give Me A Kiss, Healer! Chapter 120

It felt like a dream.

A gate had appeared above the heads of hundreds of thousands of people. Jiwoo had never even imagined seeing something like this.

Countless gates stretched across the night sky above Yeouido, dazzling like scattered starlight.

But Jiwoo knew what kind of disaster that dazzling sight would bring.

The gates had opened. Soon, everything around them would be sucked inside.

Thinking about what was about to happen, Jiwoo squeezed her eyes shut.

But even after a long time, nothing happened.

The murmuring of the crowd grew louder.

“What is that?”

“Is that part of the festival? It’s really pretty.”

“Wasn’t that just the full moon?”

“How is that the full moon? You need to get your eyes checked.”

The gates in the sky neither grew nor shrank.

Jiwoo hurriedly grabbed the Guild Leader. He was also staring at the enormous gate in the sky.

“Guild Leader, that’s an S-rank gate!”

“I know. I fought one when I was sent to the United States.”

This was the first case in Korea, but S-rank gates had occasionally been observed in countries like the United States and China.

Since S-rank gates were difficult to deal with on their own, nearby countries were asked for support as soon as one appeared.

Shinhyuk had also participated in an overseas S-rank dungeon raid after receiving such a request. But this……

“An energy wave strong enough to create an S-rank gate should have been detected weeks before it appeared. So how could it happen in just a few minutes……?”

No matter how often unidentified gates had been appearing lately, S-rank gates were different.

There had never been a single recorded case of one appearing without any warning.

The communication devices began ringing like crazy.

[A gate has appeared above Yeouido.]

[This is the Emergency Disaster Response Team. We have detected a wave believed to be from an S-rank gate.]

[Evacuate all civilians immediately. The evacuation route is… Huh?]

A stunned groan came through the radio. An uncertain voice followed.

[Something… is falling from the gate.]

‘Falling?’

Jiwoo instinctively looked up at the sky. Just as the radio had said, a small ball of light fell from the gate.

It was beautiful, like a piece of a star. One or two lights fell at first, but soon they began scattering like a shower of glitter.

And the hunters weren’t the only ones who saw it. Everyone there was captivated by the dazzling lights blooming across the sky.

“Wow, Dad! Shooting stars are falling!”

“Make a wish quickly, Hyuna.”

“A wish?”

“Yeah. If you make a wish when you see a shooting star, it’ll come true.”

The little girl clasped her hands together and made a wish.

At the same time, Jiwoo looked at Shinhyuk, and Shinhyuk looked at Jiwoo.

‘No. Those aren’t shooting stars…….’

They’re monsters.

The shower of stars crashed into the ground.

With explosions, countless monsters poured down from the sky.

Terrible screams rang out from every direction.

[Monsters have appeared! Requesting reinforcements!]

[Monsters are falling from the gate!]

The beautiful nighttime festival became a living hell in an instant.

People ran from the monsters. Others were grabbed and dragged away. Some had just been killed, while others unknowingly stepped over their bodies.

Instead of trash, corpses rolled across the ground. People in a panic tripped over each other and pushed one another down.

“Prepare for battle! Protecting the civilians is our top priority!”

While Shinhyuk was giving orders over the radio, five monsters fell from the sky.

Jaekyung’s whip tore the heads off two of them, but the other three headed straight for the civilians.

“[Shield!]”

“[Shield!]”

At the same moment, Jiwoo and Nara cast their skills. One of the remaining monsters attacked the child who had been making a wish just moments ago.

The child had lost hold of her parents’ hand in the chaos and collapsed on the ground without even being able to scream.

The ground turned bright red.

“A, ah……”

Nara slowly stepped backward after witnessing a young life die right in front of her.

But she couldn’t run away. This wasn’t a dungeon.

Inside a dungeon, they could escape outside.

But in the real world, there was nowhere to run, no matter how desperately they tried.

“Hunter Do Jiwoo, go to Area B with Hunter Oh Nara. Treat the wounded and evacuate the civilians to the outskirts.”

Jiwoo nodded and ran toward Nara.

The first thing she did was grab Nara’s wrist, who was still too shocked to move.

“Nara, it’s okay.”

Nara’s frightened eyes darted around before finally looking at Jiwoo.

“Ugh… I, I……”

“Just use Heal and Shield. I’ll take care of everything else!”

There was no time to wait for an answer. Jiwoo dragged Nara along and ran toward the outskirts.

Nara felt like dead weight behind her, but there was nothing she could do.

Even if Nara couldn’t think straight right now, she was still an A-rank healer. She had to be useful somehow.

Jiwoo ignored everything and ran straight ahead. The chaos around her flashed past at incredible speed.

‘Everyone in the center is already doomed.’

Monsters, corpses, and people were all mixed together, making it impossible to tell them apart.

Instead of wasting stamina and mana trying to save them, maybe it would be better to use them on people who still had a higher chance of surviving……

Huh?

Jiwoo suddenly stopped.

She was horrified by the thought that had just crossed her mind.

‘What was I just thinking?’

Wasting stamina and mana? Treating people’s lives like an investment?

‘This isn’t a game or a training simulation.’

Jiwoo froze.

Maybe Nara wasn’t the only one who had lost her mind.

Maybe it was Jiwoo.

She was just too scared. She didn’t want to believe the horrible reality right in front of her, so she had been ignoring it.

The screams of terrified people, the monsters roaring, the people being brutally slaughtered.

All of it overwhelmed Jiwoo’s mind.

What should she do?

Was it really right to leave the dying people behind and head for the outskirts?

Or should she, even if it was foolish, do everything she could to save as many people as possible……

“Ji, Jiwoo? Jiwoo! Look over there!”

Nara shook Jiwoo’s arm.

An unexpected scene unfolded where she was pointing.

A wide road and a huge intersection, completely filled with corpses and monsters.

Beyond them, beneath the tall buildings, stood a makeshift barricade.

The barricade had been built by piling up nearby vehicles, and behind it were civilians who had survived.

Outside the barricade, at least five teams of hunters were fighting the monsters.

Among them was a hunter Jiwoo knew.

“Cheolsu oppa?”

“Jiwoo!”

Kim Cheolsu, whom she had parted ways with after the Donghae Dungeon, was fighting with a shield in his hands.

He wasn’t the only familiar face.

“Fuck! What are you standing there for, you idiot?! Snap out of it!”

…Jaegyoo Kang?

“You wanna die? Get over here and help, you fuck! If you’ve got eyes in your head, then use them for something!”

The flood of curses snapped Jiwoo back to reality.

“[Bless Body!], [Angel Walking!], [Holy Focus!]”

Jiwoo showered the hunters with buffs and charged into the intersection.

A monster that spotted Jiwoo and Nara behind her swung its tentacles at them.

Thud!

“[Shield!], [Shield!], [Shield!]”

Nara repeatedly activated her skill, blocking the attack and sending the monster flying backward. Perhaps because of her desperate instinct to survive, the Shields were several times stronger than usual.

Most of the hunters assigned to Area B had gathered around the barricade.

There were the Donghae Guild, which included Jaepil Ko and Jaegyoo Kang, and the Osan Guild, which included Kim Cheolsu. Jiwoo also spotted hunters she had seen during the briefing.

Jaegyoo Kang chopped off the head of a charging monster and shouted.

“Hey! You got anything? Huh?”

Jiwoo swung her staff and sent another monster flying.

“What do you mean, ‘anything’?!”

“Fuck! I’m asking if you’ve got any useful skills!”

Skills?

What skills could she use right now?

‘The Landlord’s Guards’ is…… No, I can’t use that.’

If she summoned the residents in this chaos, it would become impossible to tell who was an ally and who was an enemy.

‘Ant-Man’s Super Strength’ had a time limit, and so did ‘Whitebird’s Flight.’ And ‘Black Dolphin’s Breath,’ which could only be used underwater, was obviously useless.

If only this were a dungeon, she could use the safe zones.

If she used the skill ‘Welcome to My Home,’ she could move a few people as long as she had enough mana……

‘No, wait!’

If the goal was to evacuate people, she didn’t necessarily have to connect a dungeon to a safe zone, did she?