Please Give Me A Kiss, Healer! Chapter 29

“Hunter Do Ji-woo, he’s an unidentified man. Please do not approach.”

“No, it’s okay. He’s someone I know!”

But Shin Woo-hyuk did not back down.

“Are you sure? Are you certain that man is really someone Hunter Do Ji-woo knows?”

At those words, Ji-woo hesitated.

‘…Can I really call Kang-woo an acquaintance?’

If you think about it, they had only met twice.

Even if Kang-woo might feel close to her, at least from Ji-woo’s point of view, that was the case.

When Ji-woo’s answer was slow to come, a lonely look crossed Kang-woo’s face.

“Ji-woo…….”

Beneath his half-lowered lashes, his golden eyes sank darkly.

Ji-woo answered in a rush.

“No, I mean…… just a moment. We do know each other, at least. Anyway, Guild Master, put that weapon away before you talk!”

“…….”

But Shin Woo-hyuk did not move an inch. Instead, he pressed his sword even closer to Kang-woo’s neck.

“Let’s calm down and talk first!”

As the standoff continued, Ji-woo’s frustration slowly began to boil over.

Did I go through all that trouble just to bring him to the safe zone for this?

I even treated him, and now what is this? And no matter how shabby it is, a home is still a home.

Now, the half-collapsed shack made her even more upset.

Still, Ji-woo swallowed it all down and started persuading him.

“Guild Master, don’t you know about the Daewoon Group returnee? It’s been a huge deal for the last two days.”

“I do. The returnee Seo Kang-woo.”

Shin Woo-hyuk replied calmly.

Shin Woo-hyuk didn’t not know Seo Kang-woo’s face. The TV and all kinds of media had been making a fuss. Besides, Seo Kang-woo wasn’t someone you could easily forget once you saw him.

Thanks to multiple notices from the Hunter Association and the Daewoon Group, he also knew Seo Kang-woo’s personal details well.

Recently, high-rank gates had been appearing more frequently in Korea.

Especially after top-tier hunters were wiped out in the last A-rank dungeon, dungeon raids had become much more difficult.

At a time like this, the sudden appearance of a returnee like a comet filled the Association with great expectations.

But—

“Returnee Seo Kang-woo failed the Awakener test. Until this morning, he was nothing more than an ordinary civilian.”

When it was revealed that even the much-anticipated returnee had no abilities at all, everyone failed to hide their disappointment.

It hadn’t been officially announced yet, but Shin Woo-hyuk, the guild master of the Blank Guild, was aware of that internal situation.

However, the Seo Kang-woo he had just faced was different.

“That man is deliberately hiding his power.”

From Seo Kang-woo, he could feel a massive, unrefined power.

The energy was overwhelmingly strong, to the point that its limits were impossible to grasp, and it was extremely rough and unstable.

And that wasn’t all.

“Most returnees reported to academic societies around the world so far have been lunatics or psychopaths. People with mental disorders.”

Every returnee had something twisted and abnormal about them.

Having survived and returned from such a dangerous other world, it wasn’t exactly strange, but that didn’t mean the risk could be completely ignored.

On top of that, Seo Kang-woo had wandered the other world for a full ten years, so he needed to be even more cautious.

Shin Woo-hyuk continued speaking, never taking his guard off Kang-woo.

“How he managed to avoid the Association’s eyes—or rather, for what reason—I don’t know, but it certainly won’t be for a good purpose.”

At that, Ji-woo, who had been listening until then, tilted her head.

Ji-woo, who usually looked like she was always smiling, now had her brows deeply furrowed.

“Guild Master, but isn’t that the same for me too?”

“Pardon?”

“You were the one who told me not to get my rank re-evaluated, remember?”

“…Hunter Do Ji-woo, your case is different.”

“What’s different about it? And you’re the one who threatened someone who was just standing there doing nothing!”

Now that she thought about it, it really ticked her off.

Her hand naturally went to her waist.

“And what about this, then?”

Ji-woo pointed at the straw scattered across the ground.

Just a few minutes ago, it had been part of the shack.

“I even healed him to wake him up, and now you’ve gone and smashed up my shack like this!”

“I didn’t do that!”

“Then who did?”

“That would be that man over there—”

Shin Woo-hyuk’s words, as he pointed at Kang-woo, trailed off.

It felt like he was becoming a petty tattletale.

But Ji-woo snorted when she heard that.

“Kang-woo? Look at him—he’s just standing there quietly watching us.”

“…Huh?”

Quietly? Shin Woo-hyuk blurted out in disbelief.

Now that he thought about it, ever since Ji-woo appeared—

Seo Kang-woo had been standing there with both hands neatly folded. Like a straight-A student council president called into the teacher’s office.

An atmosphere of pity surrounded him, as if you should pat his shoulder and comfort him at any moment.

Even Kang-woo, with his angel-like looks, simply dropped his head and didn’t offer a single excuse. His handsome face looked full of sorrow, and in his drooping eyes there was even a hint of quiet misery.

‘We’ve been had.’

To anyone watching, it looked like he had been bullying Seo Kang-woo one-sidedly.

Shin Woo-hyuk shouted in protest, sounding wronged.

“He wasn’t like this earlier! Until Hunter Do Ji-woo arrived, he looked like he was about to kill us all any second—!”

“Oh really? You sure said that well! The one who saved us when we were about to die was our Kang-woo!”

At some point, the way Ji-woo addressed Kang-woo had turned into “our” Kang-woo.

But Ji-woo was so worked up that she didn’t even realize her own slip.

‘If it weren’t for Kang-woo, both the Guild Master and I would be inside the Ant Queen’s stomach by now.’

Attacking out of nowhere wasn’t enough—now he was even slapping him with false accusations!

“Even if you can’t repay a favor, you should at least be grateful! How can you point a sword at someone without even listening first?”

And that wasn’t the only reason Ji-woo was truly angry.

“And what did you just say earlier? That Kang-woo is mentally unstable? A lunatic? A psychopath?”

“H-Hunter Do Ji-woo. I’m not saying that man definitely is—”

“No matter what, there are things you should say and things you shouldn’t! How can you say something so cruel right to someone’s face?”

Ji-woo knew that Kang-woo was a little different from ordinary people.

From the very first time they met, he had expressed affection by charging at her with his whole body.

His blind devotion, his love of physical contact, always trying to hug her whenever he got the chance.

On the surface, he seemed perfect, but when you stayed with him, there was a strange sense of discomfort.

But when Kang-woo appeared in the dungeon to save her, none of that mattered to Ji-woo anymore.

‘Ji-woo, are you hurt anywhere?’

‘I’m sorry. I should have come sooner.’

Even as he lay collapsed with a battered body, Kang-woo worried only about her.

Gasping for breath through terrible pain, apologizing for not arriving faster—a foolishly kind person.

And yet, all he received in return was this kind of malicious criticism.

“Kang-woo is just not used to Korea yet. He was in another world for a long time. He’s really not a dangerous person……”

Of course, Ji-woo knew Shin Woo-hyuk hadn’t said those things with bad intentions. Being cautious of a stranger was only natural.

That was why it hurt even more.

That they had to get angry at each other and argue over something like this.

“…Hunter Do Ji-woo.”

She could feel Shin Woo-hyuk watching her reaction.

Ji-woo let out a deep sigh.

“Hoo… I’m sorry for getting angry. If you really think about it, this is partly my fault too.”

She hadn’t meant to leave the two of them alone in the shack.

She had only hoped he would wake up quickly.

She hadn’t expected what kind of reaction the two men left behind would have toward each other.

Ji-woo bit her lip tightly and lowered her head.

She saw the fish skewers that had fallen to the ground during the chaos.

She had cooked them so carefully, even sweating, thinking, ‘We’ll share them nicely!’

Seeing the fish, now covered in dirt and rolling around on the ground, made tears well up in her eyes.

“…….”

At Ji-woo’s slumped 모습, Kang-woo’s expression slowly hardened.

Seo Kang-woo, who had been quietly observing the tone and actions of the two from earlier on.

He looked at Shin Woo-hyuk, who was pointing a sword at him.

Then he blinked, seemed to think for a moment, and soon curved his eyes as he opened his mouth.

“Hunter Shin Woo-hyuk, I believe there’s been a misunderstanding.”

As always, his voice was a pleasant, low-to-mid tone.

But what he said made Ji-woo gasp in shock.

“K-Kang-woo?”

Hunter Shin Woo-hyuk?

He can even use such proper honorifics?

Ji-woo felt not just surprised, but oddly moved.

However, Shin Woo-hyuk’s reaction was different.

Shin Woo-hyuk frowned, clearly not understanding.

“A misunderstanding? What do you mean by that?”

“I officially received a request from the Association to come rescue you.”

“…A request?”

“You said earlier, Hunter Do Ji-woo, that I was an unidentified man.”

Kang-woo took out a leather wallet from inside his clothes.

He hesitated for a moment, then pulled out a metal card from inside.

Three words written on the card.

Government ID.

Seo Kang-woo.

Emergency Disaster Team.

Then his red lips moved.

“Allow me to introduce myself again. Team Leader of the Emergency Disaster Team, Seo Kang-woo.”