S-Rank Healer Gets Kidnapped First Chapter 14

Seeing the people around us turn pale with fear made me anxious as well.

‘I’m kind of curious what the message says.’

My phone had been in airplane mode for a long time because of the constant calls from the Association.

Because of that, there was only one way for me to check it right away.

“Han Seongwoo.”

“I’ll check.”

As if he understood why I had called him, Han Seongwoo moved quickly.

[WARNING] ※Korean Dungeon Alert※ A B-rank dungeon is expected to appear near Seolleung and Jeongneung Station in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu. People in the vicinity are advised to evacuate immediately. Estimated Time – 00:30

Fortunately, the shop we were in was close to where the dungeon was expected to appear. I finished the remaining spoonful of ice cream.

Then I looked regretfully at Han Seongwoo’s, which still had half of it left.

‘Why did he order so much?’

Honestly, whether I ordered two or three ice creams, the ending was always the same for me: staring at the empty cups and wishing there had been more.

Han Seongwoo, on the other hand, didn’t seem bothered at all despite having half his ice cream left.

We left the shop and ran toward the area near the station.

“How much time is left until the estimated time?”

“Not much. Be careful!”

The moment I asked, the ground shook violently.

Was this what experiencing an earthquake felt like? My vision shook so violently that I became dizzy and disoriented.

Just standing on the trembling ground was exhausting. My legs shook so badly that my knees bent on their own.

‘Judging by how violently it’s shaking, there’s a high chance it’ll appear right underneath us….’

I couldn’t be certain since I rarely went out into the field, but my instincts were telling me so.

Unfortunately, my prediction was correct.

The firmly paved asphalt began to crack apart helplessly.

“Hostage! Your hand! Take my hand!”

At that moment, I heard Han Seongwoo calling for me.

Because of the violent shaking, I struggled to lift my head, which had instinctively been lowered.

“Quick!”

Han Seongwoo was holding onto a streetlight with one hand and reaching toward me with the other.

But the streetlight was also shaking dangerously, and it didn’t look like it could hold out much longer.

“Ugh….”

Because the vibrations continued relentlessly, it took quite some time before our hands finally touched.

When I barely managed to grab his hand, I put all my strength into holding on so I wouldn’t let go.

“Don’t lose me!”

“That’s what I should be saying!”

Screeeech….

As we exchanged our desperate words, an ominous sound rang out.

The streetlight began to tilt, as though it refused to let us have our reunion.

And it was tilting directly toward me.

‘No, the dungeon looks like it’s going to appear underneath me, and now even the streetlight…! I don’t want this kind of attention!’

I could do nothing but stare in despair when—

“Hah.”

Han Seongwoo let out a hollow laugh as though the situation was hopeless.

Then, instead of holding on, he lowered his hand and began pushing the streetlight downward. As if he wanted to make it fall faster.

There was no way he would put me in danger.

But as the streetlight rapidly descended, I instinctively tightened my grip.

“Bear with it even if it hurts a little!”

It was a sudden warning, but he didn’t wait for my answer.

“W-What? Huh!”

I failed even to ask what he meant.

I felt as though my body had become weightless, and then I was floating in midair.

Han Seongwoo stepped onto the streetlight he had forcefully pulled downward and leaped up.

It was a high jump using the recoil.

We safely landed on a nearby building.

Crack. Krrrrrrash.

My eyes snapped open at the tremendous roar coming from below.

The place where we had just been was completely devastated.

The ground had been shattered like a crumbled cracker, while overturned cars, streetlights broken in half, and bent road signs were tangled together and collapsed in all directions.

But the most absurd thing of all was that the dungeon had appeared right in the middle of it.

‘If we had been even a little slower, I would have ended up like that….’

The thought alone made my knees weak.

“But why are my legs… Ah!”

The tips of feet that weren’t touching the ground caught the edge of my vision. Once I realized I was being carried by Han Seongwoo, I got goosebumps.

It felt like something that absolutely shouldn’t have touched me had touched me. Before I knew it, I exclaimed in genuine horror.

“Ugh! I really hate this! Put me down!”

“No, is it really something to hate that much?! Uh, uh? You might fall if I let go, so bear with it for a little longer!”

Fall? At that frightening word, I immediately stopped screaming.

Only then did Han Seongwoo exhale and move to a safe location before putting me down.

“Judging by the fact that the dungeon has settled in, there probably won’t be any more earthquakes. Should we go down now?”

“Should we head straight back to headquarters?”

“No?”

“Huh?”

“Why would we go back to headquarters when there’s something that good right in front of us? We should clear it.”

With the dungeon right in front of us, I couldn’t understand why he wanted to leave. Instead of saying anything, I raised my hand and pointed at the dungeon.

The dungeon that had planted itself right in the middle of the intersection beside the subway station.

“Are you sure it’s okay to go?”

Han Seongwoo looked back and forth between the dungeon and me as he asked.

Since Cha Seohae hadn’t told him, Han Seongwoo probably thought I was B-rank.

At the Association, even when a hunter’s rank matched the dungeon’s rank, they generally avoided bringing healers into dungeons whenever possible.

That was what he was concerned about.

I nodded.

“Yeah.”

I wanted to find out what I was capable of right away.

Until now, I had been so focused on building up my stamina that I hadn’t actually used my abilities. The most I had done was heal a little in the evening.

“It’s not like this is my first time, so don’t worry.”

“…All right.”

Faced with my firm attitude, Han Seongwoo backed down. He seemed to have realized that I was determined not to turn back.

Apparently, he was even more concerned about my safety than I had thought. Although he said he understood, worry lingered in his eyes.

Wooo. Wooo.

At that moment, the sound of police sirens could be heard.

They were a little late, but it seemed they had finally arrived to control the scene.

‘Come to think of it, why isn’t the Association coming?’

They weren’t the kind to stay away just because there was a major guild nearby.

“For a B-rank dungeon, the Association will probably send the Second Team at best, or the Fourth Team at worst.”

As if he had noticed the question on my face, Han Seongwoo briefly explained.

“No matter what happens, you mustn’t leave my side.”

That was something I wanted to tell him instead.

I got lucky and became a healer for Baekyang Guild.

But it hadn’t even been a month since I left the Association, and that didn’t mean all my memories from that time had suddenly disappeared.

Even when I closed my eyes, their laughter was still vivid.

The Association president would come looking for me because he couldn’t bear to lose a healer, but the First Team had probably erased someone like me from their memories long ago.

Now I wanted to show them that I was doing well.

I wanted to be doing so well that news of me would reach them without me even having to seek them out.

If my healing raised Baekyang’s standing.

If that made the Association grind its teeth in frustration.

There probably couldn’t be a better way to settle things with my past.

I remembered the race from before. The incident that had occurred when Cha Seohae kidnapped me.

I still didn’t know what had caused Do Joo-yeon to act so recklessly.

But one thing was certain: they wanted to take me back, and they didn’t care if I got hurt in the process.

I absolutely hated the idea of being captured by people like that again.

I had been foolish to waver, even for a moment.

‘If I’ve decided to get revenge, I should pay them back several times over.’

 

***

 

“Are your ears still ringing?”

“…….”

“Sorry. I mean, who would’ve thought we’d fall that far? An ordinary person wouldn’t fall from that height without a single safety device.”

“Since when were healers ordinary people?”

About ten minutes had passed since we entered the dungeon. I was having a conversation that was practically going nowhere as I tried to appease the sulking Han Seongwoo.

Strictly speaking, the reason I had screamed was because Han Seongwoo had jumped straight down from that high place with me tucked under his arm.

Apparently, he thought I had screamed because I didn’t trust him. But wouldn’t anyone scream first if they were falling from a rooftop? A safety belt that was barely one adult’s arm…. Even thinking about it again, it was the worst.

“No, you keep talking about trust, but we haven’t even been together for a month….”

Squish.

“Hm…?”

While walking normally, I suddenly stepped on something soft instead of the hard ground and looked down.

“What happened?”

When I fell silent, Han Seongwoo quickly came back.

“Look at this.”

“…What is that?”

Han Seongwoo cautiously pulled me toward him. It seemed he was trying to maintain a safe distance to protect me from the threat of an unidentified monster.

Still unused to being taken care of, I rubbed beneath my nose.

“Oh, it just moved.”

“How did it move from there…?”

Something fluorescent lime green and squishy briefly wriggled.

It seemed to have noticed our movements.

Its appearance caused an instinctive sense of disgust, so I reflexively backed away a little farther. Then the thing began moving even more violently, despite its sluggish, floppy movements.

Crack, crackle.

The more it moved, the louder the sound of something splitting open became.

Then the squishy mass sprang up like a coiled spring.

“Leg…?”

I hadn’t noticed when it was buried underground, but now I saw that what I had thought was something like a floppy sponge actually had the shape of a fairly thick pillar.

It was covered in regularly spaced suction cups.

“Suction cups.”

Then was it an aquatic species…?

Just as hunters had different awakening types and classes, dungeons were the same.

Common examples included dungeons that mimicked nature, such as volcanoes, the deep sea, or the sky above the clouds. There were also many other types, including mysterious staircase-shaped, maze-shaped, and dimensional-transition dungeons with structures that couldn’t exist in reality.

“But if it’s an aquatic species, shouldn’t there be water in the dungeon for it to live in…?”

However, there was no water to be seen anywhere.

“Hostage, over there.”

“Hm? What am I supposed to look at…?”

I followed the direction Han Seongwoo pointed.

There was a crack in the wall. And water was trickling through it.

“Wait, if there’s water flowing through there, then its body….”

“Move!”

Splash!

Perhaps the leg had reacted to the sound, because it struck down exactly where I had been standing.

Han Seongwoo noticed it too and made no sound other than his breathing.

Splash, thud. Splash, thud.

Once we fell silent, the leg began striking down here and there.

“At this rate, it’ll destroy the dungeon.”

“Let’s find a safe place first.”

We moved while being pelted by small stones raining down from above.

Boom!

Even though we whispered to each other, the moment we made a sound, the leg accurately blocked our path.

‘It doesn’t even have eyes, so how does it know we’re here?’

No, perhaps it wasn’t judging our location by sound. If it were using sound to determine where we were, it should have struck behind us rather than in front of us.

An attack guided by sound would naturally have a slight delay.

“…Look over there.”

“What is it this time?”

“An eye.”

“An eye?”

I turned my head at the incomprehensible statement.

“One of the things we thought were suction cups was actually an eye.”

Seriously, what else could this thing possibly have…?

I could only move my lips in disbelief at its impossible structure.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

The leg didn’t seem to have any intention of letting us live.

Watching it writhe once more, I spoke.

“We have no chance of winning by running away. Can you fight that leg?”

“What? What do you take me for?”

Han Seongwoo replied with a frown.

Well, as an S-rank hunter in a B-rank dungeon, there was no way it would be difficult for him.

“A leg like that is nothing….”

“There isn’t just one.”

Taking into account the thickness of the leg, the suction cups, and the information that it was an aquatic species.

Crack. Crackle. Crack.

“There are at least seven more.”

Boom!

The moment I finished speaking, identical legs rose up from all around us.

This was a dungeon where it was genuinely frightening to say anything out loud.

“Aha.”

Perhaps Han Seongwoo had also figured out the identity of our enemy, because he immediately prepared himself for battle.

Even though there were now more enemies to deal with, he showed no signs of panic.

I could tell just how much practical combat experience he had.

“It’s still only B-rank.”

Perhaps because the person beside me was so calm, I was able to regain my composure quickly as well.

In fact, he seemed more concerned about me. He had carried me and jumped onto a high rocky wall some distance away from where the battlefield would unfold.

And I broke into a triumphant smile.