Please Give Me A Kiss, Healer! – Chapter 88

Author: Asternkm

“…What?”

Kang Jaegyu asked with a doubtful look. Recruit? Who? That airheaded woman?

“Why the face? Don’t want to do it?”

“No, it’s just… Do you really think Healer Do Jiwoo would come? Leaving Blank Guild?”

“What? What are you trying to say? Are you saying our East Sea Guild is somehow inferior to Blank Guild?”

Go Jaepil barked angrily. Overwhelmed by his imposing presence, Kang Jaegyu immediately backed down.

“N-No, sir! I’ll arrange a meeting as soon as the raid is over!”

And so, on the very first day inside the dungeon,

without Jiwoo even knowing it, she was unofficially selected as a recruitment target for East Sea Guild.

****

After setting up tents in the cleared area, they held a brief briefing.

“As I said during the pre-raid meeting, there’s nothing dangerous on the southern coast. All the monsters are gathered in the north. Basically, once we take down the Kraken up there, the rest of this dungeon won’t be any different from a D- or E-rank dungeon.”

The direct battle against the Kraken would be handled by the East Sea team, who already had experience clearing this dungeon. They would establish another base camp in the north and maintain communication with the starting camp.

The Osan team and Special Team 7 would remain at the base, delivering food and supplies while treating injured teammates.

“I can’t tell whether we came to a dungeon or a vacation resort.”

“Isn’t it nice? It feels like we’re getting our summer vacation early. And nothing dangerous is going to happen, hehe.”

After everything that had happened recently, Jiwoo’s mind had been a mess. The southern coast where she stood was practically paradise.

There were no monsters, so there was no fighting to do.

Only the peaceful sound of the waves.

“Oof… my back. Still, if we gather just a little more, we’ll have enough food for today.”

“Hunter Do Jiwoo! Some seaweed is blowing away over there on the rocks!”

“Waaah! Got it! Nice catch!”

The mission assigned to Jiwoo and Shin Ilguk in this paradise was…

Food gathering!

There were over twenty people in the raid party, and no one knew how long the dungeon raid would take.

They had brought plenty of food, but they still had to conserve it in case of the worst.

As he dried seaweed under the blazing sun, Shin Ilguk wiped away his sweat.

“By the way, where did Hunter Oh Nara go? I haven’t seen her for a while.”

“Oh, Nara said she was staying in the tent because she has a sunlight allergy.”

“A… sunlight allergy?”

Shin Ilguk frowned.

He’d lost count of how many times he’d seen Oh Nara come to work wearing sleeveless summer dresses. And besides, what kind of A-rank Awakened had a sunlight allergy?

“Isn’t she obviously just pretending to be sick because she doesn’t want to work?”

“Oh, come on… Maybe she really isn’t feeling well. Nara’s always been a bit frail. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt.”

If Yoo Jaegyeong had been here, she definitely would have said something. But she and Cha Taepyeong were busy building defensive obstacles in case of an emergency, so there was no one to object.

In the end, only Shin Ilguk and Jiwoo paired up to gather food.

The easiest food to collect was shellfish buried beneath the seabed.

Jiwoo would locate them with her detection skill, while the taller Shin Ilguk gathered them.

“Oh! Ilguk! Over here! There’s a clam!”

“Where?”

Shin Ilguk narrowed his eyes and looked beneath the water. The waves were calm, and the water was so clear that the seabed was visible, but he couldn’t see any clams.

“No, not under your feet! Under my feet!”

“Ah…”

It was close enough that he could grab it with a quick dive.

But Shin Ilguk simply stood there awkwardly, letting the waves wash over him while glancing at Jiwoo.

“Ilguk? What’s wrong? Aren’t you going to get it?”

“Well… ahem. The truth is… I’m a little afraid of water.”

“Huh? Really? You should’ve told me sooner! Are you okay standing here?”

“Oh, I’m fine going into the water. I just can’t dive. I can’t open my eyes underwater, and I can’t hold my breath.”

That was a relief, but if they kept standing around, the clam might disappear.

Jiwoo dug her feet into the sand.

“I’ll just get it myself.”

She wriggled around for a moment before suddenly plunging her face into the water and diving.

A short while later, she resurfaced holding three enormous clams.

“Wow, look how plump these are! They’ll be perfect grilled on a hot stone later!”

Jiwoo grinned from ear to ear as she dug through the sand.

Every time she dove beneath the surface, she resurfaced carrying three or four more giant clams.

Shin Ilguk gradually began looking at her with admiration.

“Hunter Do Jiwoo… You’re like the Little Mermaid. No, not the Little Mermaid… the Mermaid King… the Mermaid Goddess…!”

“Ah! That’s so embarrassing! What are you even saying?!”

Jiwoo shuddered and hurriedly stopped him.

Maybe it was her imagination, but his joking seemed to be getting more and more exaggerated.

As in the real world, time flowed normally inside this C-rank dungeon.

The sun slowly sank beyond the horizon.

“At this rate, when are we ever going to gather enough food…”

They had collected plenty of seaweed and clams, but it was nowhere near enough to feed all five members of Special Team 7.

Especially since Cha Taepyeong had a huge appetite.

“This won’t do. We’ll have to go farther out!”

Jiwoo finally decided to leave the shoreline and head into deeper waters.

Since her shield allowed her to breathe underwater, it wasn’t impossible.

She immediately took out her staff and cast shields around herself and Shin Ilguk.

The seawater parted, and a golden barrier surrounded each of them in a perfect sphere.

“Ta-da! A one-person submarine. Pretty cool, right?”

“It looks just like one of those adorable hamster balls. Especially with Hunter Do Jiwoo inside it…”

“What?”

Jiwoo shot him a glare, and Shin Ilguk quickly looked away.

“Anyway, Ilguk, I’ll go see if there’s anything edible farther down. If there are enough fish, we could even make a net.”

“Then I’ll come too—”

“No! You stay here. Someone has to stay up here to keep track of where I am.”

After convincing him, Jiwoo slowly sank beneath the surface inside her shield.

The underwater world was breathtaking.

Tiny fish darted around her, and colorful coral swayed gently in the current.

Before long, Jiwoo had completely forgotten she had come searching for food.

‘Wow… how can a dungeon… be this beautiful?’

A dungeon should have been filled with blood and death.

But this one didn’t feel like a dungeon at all.

If anything, it was even more beautiful than the real world.

It felt almost dreamlike.

Then, as she stared in wonder, something suddenly flashed past her.

Incredibly fast.

No ordinary fish could move that quickly.

So that had to be…

‘A monster…?’

The East Sea team, who had cleared this dungeon before, had insisted there were no monsters in this area. Since the Kraken commanded all the sea monsters, they had said every one of them stayed in the north.

‘But over there… there’s something shining like a lighthouse…’

Jiwoo narrowed her eyes toward a distant cluster of faint lights.

Then she immediately swam back to the surface.

“Ilguk!”

“Hunter Do Jiwoo! What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“Can’t you see it? Down there in the water—”

Just then,

a system message appeared before Jiwoo’s eyes.

System

Some monsters who have taken a liking to you are sending you a signal.

It was the same notification that had appeared when the A-rank gate had suddenly emerged before.

But this time, there was one important difference.