Please Give Me A Kiss, Healer! Chapter 60

“Huh……?”

Jiwoo’s eyes went wide.

Several apartments’ worth?

This thing?

This tiny little thing?

‘So I’ve been walking around with apartments strapped to my body this whole time?’

‘Kangwoo, what on earth did you give me as a gift?!’

She had seen mana stones a few times while working as a hunter, but she had never known the exact market price. All Jiwoo had ever done was haul dungeon byproducts around as a porter.

Why would she know the price of something she’d never own in her life?

She thought it’d be, at most, a few million won!

When Jiwoo looked like she was about to cry, Yoo Jaekyung asked again,

“You didn’t know? You said you bought it yourself.”

“…Uh, yeah, I mean. Haha. This mana stone is just decoration. It’s not a real mana stone.”

“Really? Guess replicas are made pretty well these days. It looked just like the real thing.”

Luckily, Yoo Jaekyung quickly lost interest.

But Jiwoo barely had time to breathe before—

“Waaah, I’m so sorry. Jiwoo, this is all because of me…… sniff.”

This time, Oh Nara stuck herself tightly to Jiwoo’s side. She kept sobbing nonstop, soaking Jiwoo’s shoulder.

“Nara, you’re going to ruin your throat if you keep crying like that.”

“But because of me, I caused trouble for everyone…….”

“Hey, no one got hurt and we’re all safe! I’m really okay. Really.”

She wasn’t just saying that to be polite. Jiwoo herself had been through the exact same phase.

When she had first become a hunter and entered her first dungeon.

The first time she encountered a monster, she felt killing intent for the very first time.

People say that right before a traffic accident, your whole life flashes before your eyes and your body freezes up—and when Jiwoo saw the monster charging straight at her, she froze the same way.

‘If the other hunters hadn’t helped me back then, I would’ve definitely died in that dungeon.’

And Nara wasn’t weak—she was suffering because of trauma.

That was something Jiwoo could fully understand.

Still……

‘Wouldn’t it be better for her to look for a path other than being a hunter?’

Putting the danger to the team aside, Nara herself seemed to be suffering too much.

Special Team 7 sat in a circle with the light Jiwoo summoned in the center.

After she stopped crying, Nara started biting her nails anxiously.

“Um… what if the monsters break through the entrance? Jiwoo, you broke in like that, so maybe the monsters can too…….”

“It’ll be fine. I saw them earlier—their wings are huge, but their bodies aren’t that big.”

Right after Jiwoo entered, the entrance had collapsed completely.

Up close, the monsters were about the size of a small compact car, and since they were flying monsters, it didn’t seem like they could force their way through solid rock.

‘If my guess is wrong… well, then I’ll just use the safe zone!’

No matter how important her secret was, it wasn’t more important than her life!

Jiwoo stayed calm.

But Cha Taepyeong did not.

While repairing his shield, he grabbed his head in frustration.

“How is this a D-rank dungeon?! Did the Association all lose their minds or something?!”

If they hadn’t detected the monsters in advance, they would’ve been wiped out.

Flying monsters appeared only in B-rank dungeons or higher, at minimum.

Jiwoo agreed with him.

They’d heard about dungeon mutations happening lately, but she never imagined something like this would happen on their very first official raid.

And that wasn’t the only problem.

“…No one brought food, right?”

They had left all their gear at the campsite.

Normally, Jiwoo kept emergency rations in her inventory, but even those were left behind.

They didn’t even have drinking water.

“We don’t know when rescue will come, so we can’t just stay here until then……”

“N-no! We can’t go out! Absolutely not!”

Nara trembled like she’d been struck by lightning.

No one wanted to face the monsters head-on.

Cha Taepyeong asked Jiwoo,

“Jiwoo, do you happen to have a stealth skill or something?”

“…What? Of course not.”

Did this man think she was Doraemon or something?

Like she could just pull out a skill whenever she got poked?

Jiwoo answered awkwardly, but Cha Taepyeong didn’t let it go.

“Why not? You had alarm skills and detection skills, didn’t you?”

“I learned those because they were useful, but stealth? I never even had the chance to learn something like that.”

There were many ways to obtain skills.

Usually, hunters trained for a long time at hunter academies or guilds to acquire them.

Other times, repeatedly doing the same thing in daily life could turn into a skill—and most of Jiwoo’s skills came from that route.

Yoo Jaekyung chimed in,

“Even if you had a stealth skill, it wouldn’t work. Birds have incredible eyesight.”

…Birds?

‘Right. They are birds.’

Their size was ridiculous, but they were still flying monsters. Creatures of the sky.

“Birds…….”

Jiwoo’s eyes slowly narrowed.

No way. It couldn’t be.

It had to not be.

‘It can’t be!’

Jiwoo secretly grabbed her hair.

At the same time, a terrible feeling crept up on her.

That those bird monsters were very… very deeply connected to the baby birds that had appeared in the safe zone.

She wanted to go to the safe zone to confirm her new theory, but the situation wasn’t great.

On Jiwoo’s right—

“Nara, could you maybe let go of this for a bit?”

“A-are you uncomfortable? But what if I lose it again…….”

Oh Nara, suffering from separation anxiety, was clinging tightly to Jiwoo’s arm.

And on her left—

“Hahaha, Jiwoo. Do you know what you call a deer with good eyesight?”

“…….”

“The answer is ‘good idea’! Ahahaha! Guess this joke was a bit too advanced!”

Jiwoo stared desperately at the back of Yoo Jaekyung’s head.

Team Leader, please.

Please take your husband away from us.

But Yoo Jaekyung, who was leading the way, didn’t turn around.

That left only Shin Ilguk, guarding the rear.

Jiwoo glanced back at him.

“Is something wrong, Hunter Do Jiwoo?”

…If she said she needed to use the bathroom again to sneak away, she’d really be labeled as chronically constipated, wouldn’t she?

“No, it’s nothing.”

Jiwoo lowered her head like a cow being led to slaughter and trudged along.

Special Team 7 was currently exploring deeper into the cave.

Since they’d likely be stuck here for a while, they needed to make sure there was nothing dangerous inside.

Red coral-like stalagmites and long stone pillars filled the space.

Sparkling droplets gathered at the tips of round stalactites before falling.

“Hey, couldn’t we collect that dripping water and drink it?”

“Hmm, even if you stood there with your mouth open all day, you’d probably barely get a sip.”

Then Nara, adjusting the ribbon in her hair, asked,

“Is it okay to drink water from a dungeon?”

“Water’s usually fine. I drank it a lot in the past.”

Back when Jiwoo worked as a dungeon laborer, she’d often gone into cave-type dungeons.

There could be microorganisms or contaminants in the water, but maybe because hunters had strong bodies, she never got sick from drinking it.

But to Nara, it seemed shocking.

“B-but it’s a dungeon! Isn’t that really dangerous?”

“Well, I’m still alive and well, aren’t I?”

“Uh… that’s true, but…….”

Shin Ilguk, walking behind them, joined in.

“It’s fine. According to dungeon ecology, food and water obtained inside dungeons are generally safe for consumption.”

“Ohhh, Ilguk, you know your stuff about dungeons!”

“Dungeon ecology is a required subject at the Hunter Academy. Didn’t you graduate from the academy too, Hunter Do Jiwoo?”

“Ah, you caught me. I slept through that class every time.”

She’d been exhausted from working part-time jobs day and night, so she missed a lot of lectures.

To be fair, that class was famously boring, and very few students actually paid attention.

“What about you, Nara? Did you take that class?”

“Ah, I didn’t really attend the Hunter Academy…… I was recruited directly into a guild.”

“Oh right, that’s true. Nara, you’re A-rank.”

While finishing the Hunter Academy was the standard path, top-tier hunters were different.

If they joined a guild or the Hunter Association right away, they received training there instead.

The Blank Guild also had various educational programs in addition to beginner hunter courses.

After staying silent, Nara finally spoke.

“When we get out of this dungeon… I’m thinking of trying the treatment program at the guild.”

“A treatment program?”

“Yes. Mental health treatment. I’ve been advised to try it before, but I was scared and refused. This time, I really want to get better…….”

Her determined eyes stared straight at Jiwoo.

Jiwoo was just about to say something encouraging when—

“Wait.”

Yoo Jaekyung, walking ahead, stopped after noticing something.