Please Give Me A Kiss, Healer! Chapter 14

Gulp. Jiwoo swallowed dryly.

“A-ah, yes. May I ask why you’re contacting me?”

[We’d like to briefly meet regarding what happened in the dungeon the other day.]

“T-the dungeon… incident?”

Jiwoo’s hand trembled as she held her phone.

At any moment, she felt like Kangwoo would snatch the phone away and ask, ‘Jiwoo, where are you right now?’

But thankfully, the heavens had not abandoned her just yet.

[It’s about the raid team who entered the dungeon with you, Hunter Do Jiwoo.]

“…Ahh.”

Jiwoo let out a deep sigh of relief.

‘Right… why would Kangwoo be looking for me?’

Anyone would call that delusional.

After a brief pause, the man on the phone continued.

[If it’s alright with you, Hunter Do, I’d like to meet in person and offer an apology.]

“Huh? Apologize… to me?”

[Yes. I heard you were stranded because of Hunter Kang Jaegyu during the dungeon raid. And that you filed a report.]

Jiwoo’s eyes widened at the unexpected statement.

‘Are they even allowed to expose the identity of a complainant like this?’

She’d heard Guild VOID had major influence in the Association, but this was more than she expected.

How was anyone supposed to live without a guild at this rate?!

Jiwoo pressed her lips together.

[If you feel uncomfortable, you may decline. But there’s something we’d really like to convey to you in person, so we reached out.]

“Haha, uncomfortable? Not at all! I’m actually grateful you took time out of your busy schedule to contact me first.”

Jiwoo answered in her usual soft, gentle tone.

But behind it was a flurry of sharp calculations.

‘They probably want to meet to offer settlement money.’

Years of rolling around the Hunter world told her one thing.

It was never good to make enemies with a big guild like VOID over something like this.

Besides, the anger and confusion she’d felt back then had faded into something like an old, washed-out photo.

Meeting Kangwoo afterward had overshadowed everything.

‘Emotions are temporary. Money is what stays.’

Anger? Fear? What were those?

For Jiwoo, bundles of cash were her joy, rage, sorrow, and happiness.

‘If I get a fat settlement out of this, I’m taking Heeseong out for a beef party!’

After that, she would head to the Association for a reassessment and send her résumé around to various guilds.

Jiwoo firmly set her plans for the weekend.

But as always, life never goes the way you expect.

After making an appointment, Jiwoo immediately began getting ready to leave.

“Heeseong, I’ll head out now.”

“Wait—noona. Aren’t you taking that bag?”

“Huh? Oh, that…”

Heeseong was pointing at the backpack where Dongsik was sealed.

Jiwoo waved her hand dismissively as she finished putting on her coat.

“I’m leaving it here. I’ll just shove it under the bed.”

“What’s even in that thing?”

“Mm, just junk. Nothing important. So don’t open it, okay?”

Well, even if he did, he’d only find one dumb-looking penguin doll anyway.

Fortunately, Heeseong didn’t show much interest in the old backpack.

“Do Heeseong, I’ve got a lot of places to stop by today, so I might not come for a couple days. Listen to the nurses while I’m gone, okay?”

“Worry not-not-nom.”

Heeseong barely listened, too busy popping grapes into his mouth.

Beside him sat a fruit basket the grandma in the neighboring room had given him, who knew when.

‘Well, he’s been here five years now.’

And Heeseong naturally drew affection from everyone around him.

Jiwoo always complained that the hospital people taught him unnecessary things, but truthfully, she was deeply grateful that they cared for him like their own child.

Then Jiwoo noticed something strange.

“…Hey, Do Heeseong. What are you watching again?”

“I told you yesterday. ‘Why Did the Madam Give the Secretary Cake?’ The morning drama I watch with the lady next door.”

Without looking away, Heeseong focused on the TV on the wall.

[Hyena is the executive director’s daughter!!]

[Don’t you lie to me! I told you I’m infertile!!]

“Wow, noona, did you see that? He didn’t even recognize his own daughter—what kind of scumbag trash—HEY, NOONA! Don’t change the channel! Don’t turn it off!!”

 

 

****

 

 

Soft background music flowed quietly through the café.

The entrance door opened, and the small bell chimed.

A neatly dressed handsome man, who had been seated at a table, stood up first.

“Hunter Do Jiwoo?”

“Hello. You’re the one who called me this morning, right?”

“Yes. I’m from Guild VOID. Thank you for coming all the way here.”

Wearing her brightest business smile, Jiwoo sat down at the table.

Even so, her eyes quickly scanned the man from head to toe.

Just as expected from someone representing Guild VOID, he looked like a high-rank Hunter.

‘His eyes are bright red… he must be a dealer-type. But why does he look strangely familiar?’

She felt the rough calluses on his palm as they shook hands.

After their handshake, the man smoothly handed her a business card.

Just like his demeanor, the card was neat and clean, displaying his number and affiliation.

 

Hunter Guild: VOID

010-XXXX-XXXX
Guild Master Shin Woo-hyuk

 

Jiwoo scanned the card—and jumped like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

“…G-Guild Master Shin Woo-hyuk?”

Why on earth was such an important person in such a humble place?!

Shin Woo-hyuk.

One of the few S-rank dealer-type Awakened in Korea.

He rarely appeared on TV, so his appearance wasn’t well known. But Jiwoo had once seen a high-definition photo of him—

On the phone wallpaper of her hunter-fanatic younger sibling, Heeseong!

Noticing the odd nuance in Jiwoo’s reaction, Shin Woo-hyuk tilted his head.

“Have we met before?”

Jiwoo quickly covered.

“Ah, n-no. I’ve just seen you from afar. During the last A-rank dungeon raid, I was working the loading crew.”

Large dungeons produced tons of by-products like magic stones and monster hides.

Moving those outside required many hands, and that work was called “loading/unloading.”

Jiwoo had taken part-time jobs hauling monster corpses near the gate entrance just to earn some extra cash.

“I see. That must have been hard work for a healer-type hunter.”

“I did it often. Believe it or not, I’m a five-year veteran in loading.”

Jiwoo let out a shy chuckle.

Her softly curling eyes made her already gentle face look even more harmless.

Shin Woo-hyuk watched her, his gaze narrowing slightly.

‘This seems different from the report.’

When disciplining Kang Jaegyu, he’d received a full report on the incident.

It detailed Jiwoo’s actions during the dungeon, and suggested she might actually be a high-rank healer.

Low-rank healers were treated like glorified porters, but high-rank healers were rare and highly valued.

Fortunately, Shin Woo-hyuk possessed a unique ability that allowed him to sense another person’s aura.

He quietly focused, examining Jiwoo thoroughly.

But no matter how he looked, Do Jiwoo’s aura was no more than that of an ordinary E-rank healer.

‘So it was a mistake.’

High-rank healers weren’t exactly common, after all. He let the thought go.

Meanwhile, Jiwoo was just as wary of the guild master in front of her.

‘The guild master himself came…?’

She’d expected some guild representative to show up—not the guild master.

‘I don’t know why, but this is good. Guild masters aren’t stingy with settlement money.’

Besides, when would she ever again get the chance to meet VOID’s guild master in person?

Jiwoo fiddled with the business card Shin Woo-hyuk had given her.

From the counter, the café employee called loudly,

“Customer number 467! Your two drinks are ready!”

Shin Woo-hyuk immediately stood up.

“Please wait here, Hunter Do Jiwoo. I’ll bring them.”

“Huh? Oh— I can get them!”

“No. Please stay seated.”

He was curt, but fundamentally polite.

All the high-rank hunters Jiwoo had met so far had personality issues, but Shin Woo-hyuk had none of that arrogance.

‘Everyone should learn from someone like him.’

What was the Hunter Academy even doing, if they weren’t using this man as the model for character education?

While Jiwoo was wasting brain cells thinking useless thoughts, Shin Woo-hyuk walked off to get the drinks.

“Let’s be together now~ ♪ A world rising with the power that gathered us~ ♪”

Jiwoo’s phone burst into a lively ringtone.

“Ugh, it’s the loan scammers again.”

She rejected the call immediately.

As Shin Woo-hyuk returned with the drinks, a strange expression flickered across his face.

‘That song… Grand Rise?’

Grand Rise—an online game that once dominated its era.

The servers had shut down long ago, but Shin Woo-hyuk could never forget the name.

Because there was someone he needed to find.

Someone who appeared at his lowest point, stayed beside him… and then vanished without a trace.

He wanted to find that player in real life.

He’d tried everything he could, and every attempt failed.

The company had disappeared completely along with the game when it shut down.

It was an absurdly low probability, but Shin Woo-hyuk asked, hesitating—

“Hunter Do Jiwoo, by any chance…”