S-Rank Healer Gets Kidnapped First – Chapter 25

Author: isuzuuy

The one-week ordeal had passed.

But that was only the beginning. From now on, it was my turn to experience firsthand the hell Na Ye-ri had described throughout the entire week.

Clang!

“Faster.”

“It’s impossible to increase the speed any further here… Agh!”

Even as I spoke, attacks came flying at me one after another, forcing me to hurriedly activate my shield.

“Hey! Are you out of your mind?”

“You can do it.”

I quietly bit my lip at those words, which made my blood pressure rise just by hearing them.

It was annoying, but I had no comeback. The training had been conducted the same way from the very beginning, and just as he said, I could do it.

“One more time.”

Clang!

“I think you can do it a little faster.”

Clang!

I had repeatedly activated and deactivated my shield so many times that I had completely lost count.

It wasn’t physically demanding in terms of movement, but it was mentally exhausting. I had reached the point where I resented my shield for not even developing a crack.

“You did well making it sturdier, but because you’re concentrating so hard, the activation time is getting slower.”

I wanted to grumble and ask what exactly he expected me to do, but I forced myself to swallow the words.

When I thought about it, this training was all for my sake. Considering that I was receiving personal instruction from an S-rank Hunter, petty complaints were a luxury.

There was definitely a difference between Na Ye-ri’s attacks and Cha Seohae’s.

Na Ye-ri’s attacks felt heavy and blunt when they collided with my shield, whereas Cha Seohae’s felt delicate and swift.

Having grown accustomed to a tanker’s speed, I was having a hard time blocking a damage dealer’s attacks when they came at me with full force.

“Ah!”

A projectile grazed the outside of my right arm.

I covered it with my other hand as a stinging pain spread through the area.

That was the sixth injury.

Cha Seohae noticed me clutching my arm and approached.

“Are you hurt?”

“……”

“You can self-heal, right?”

That was exactly the sixth time I’d heard him say that.

“Yeah.”

My body was aching all over, but it wasn’t enough to make me stop training.

What puzzled me was something else.

Minor injuries were inevitable during training, but Cha Seohae came over to check on me every single time I got hurt.

“You can just keep doing your thing. You don’t have to keep coming back and forth.”

Of course, coming all the way over here wouldn’t exhaust a Hunter.

But there was a mountain of things he had to do, and I didn’t want our training time to be unnecessarily extended because he was wasting time on things like this.

Cha Seohae flinched slightly at my words before speaking in a subdued voice.

“…It doesn’t hurt to be careful.”

The hesitation in his voice seemed suspicious.

Instead of pressing him about it, I watched him out of the corner of my eye while healing my wound.

Sure enough, once he realized I was curious, Cha Seohae slowly began to speak.

“Actually, the Association’s movements are suspicious right now.”

I was startled by the sudden mention of the Association and looked at him.

“Hm?”

“I don’t know exactly what they’re planning yet. But it’s too quiet considering what Do Ju-yeon did. She even held a press conference as an A-rank Healer, yet she hasn’t made any public moves since.”

After hearing the details, I could understand why Cha Seohae found the Association’s behavior suspicious.

“We’ll keep an eye on you from nearby, but don’t go anywhere alone if you can help it. If you absolutely have to go somewhere, take Na Ye-ri or Han Seong-woo with you.”

“Uh…”

“I can go with you too.”

Not knowing what to say, I simply nodded.

“Sorry it’s such a broad precaution. We’re keeping watch, but we haven’t detected any significant movement from the first team.”

For once, he looked genuinely troubled, as if he were facing a difficult situation.

“It’s fine. It’s not like being a first-team member means they have a private entrance anyway. If you keep watching them, you’ll eventually find out something. More importantly, why are you suddenly telling me this…?”

“You were upset.”

“Hm?”

“…Weren’t you?”

“Oh, is that how you were looking at me?”

I teased him, and Cha Seohae fell silent.

“I was wondering why you were acting like that.”

“I was worried.”

“……”

“Now that I think about it, I never properly explained why I was putting you through this training.”

Cha Seohae continued.

“At the very least, you should know why you’re undergoing such intense training. You wouldn’t feel as wronged that way. We had to start your training in a hurry because we didn’t know how the Association would respond, so I forgot to tell you.”

I was momentarily surprised when he said he was worried, but I relaxed when he explained that he was concerned I might be exhausted by the training.

However, as I thought over his words, something bothered me.

Then… was he coming to check on me every time not only to see whether I’d been injured, but also to see whether I was holding up emotionally?

The fact that Cha Seohae had been paying that much attention to me made him suddenly feel unfamiliar.

He could’ve just stopped me and told me sooner.

For some reason, I felt embarrassed and couldn’t bring myself to look up.

I had been too busy trying to keep myself together through the grueling training.

Only now did I start wondering if I’d been too cold toward him without realizing it.

Maybe I’m just really exhausted.

That could be it. I was going through a second round of training without any real break.

“Okay, break time’s over.”

“…What?”

Break time? When had he ever given me a break? No, more importantly, why was he acting as if he’d generously granted me one when I hadn’t even asked for it?

I asked incredulously.

“You didn’t activate your shield, no attacks came flying at you, and you got to catch your breath. If that’s not a break, then what is?”

“But I never asked for—”

“You had the look of someone who was about to rebel by refusing to activate their shield if I didn’t give you one.”

Did I?

I hurriedly rubbed the space between my brows.

Cha Seohae burst out laughing at the sight.

“If this had been before, I wouldn’t have been able to train at this intensity because I would’ve been too tired. But these days, thanks to a certain Healer, I sleep well and feel refreshed.”

“Are you trying to claim that I’m the reason you’re able to increase the training intensity?”

“Not really. Just keep it in mind.”

Looking at his unbearably smug smile, I made a mental note.

Next time, I’ll have to reduce the amount of healing I give him.

***

After Cha Seohae warned me to be wary of the Association, I did my best to follow his advice.

I avoided going outside as much as possible, and aside from when I was healing someone, I didn’t meet anyone except the three executives and Chil-deuk.

On top of that, it seemed Cha Seohae had issued additional orders concerning my safety, because Chil-deuk stuck to my side like my personal assistant and helped me with everything.

Even Cha Seohae couldn’t possibly tell me to be more careful than this. The days continued in almost absurdly perfect safety.

Honestly, even I hadn’t thought I’d be able to live this quietly. It would’ve been difficult if not for Na Ye-ri.

“I finally found the weakness of God’s Blessing! It’s vulnerable to poison that spreads through the air and illusions that manipulate the mind! It can’t reflect them at all!”

After countless experiments, Na Ye-ri had finally discovered a weakness in God’s Blessing. She then kept me around for quite some time while she thought about how to compensate for that weakness.

I wasn’t dissatisfied. She had done something that was ultimately my responsibility. If anything, I should’ve been grateful.

“So it’s weak against anything other than physical attacks…”

The words that slipped from my lips like a whisper sounded more like a sigh.

I brushed my fallen hair back and lifted my head.

There was no such thing as perfect defense. You could only prepare for as many possibilities as possible. Even then, there would always be some kind of opening.

“But to be disappointed… I guess I’ve gotten used to this peaceful life without even realizing it. Or maybe I’ve gotten a little too arrogant.”

Ever since I’d learned that God’s Blessing had a weakness, I felt my strength drain away several times a day.

I knew I should just shake it off, but it wasn’t easy.

Becoming S-rank had made me act as if I’d thrown away the person I used to be.

Just as I was regretting whether I’d been too eager to show off my S-rank advantage to the Association—

“Wait. If the enemy doesn’t know about the weakness, isn’t that enough?”

A thought suddenly flashed through my mind, and my eyes lit up.

Even I thought it was overly simplistic, I couldn’t think of a more certain strategy for securing victory.

And when I had been feeling dejected after learning about the flaw in God’s Blessing, hadn’t Na Ye-ri and Han Seong-woo said something similar?

“Everyone has weaknesses. Even the Association President must have one. Hunters are ultimately people with supernatural abilities that emerged because of dungeons and monster outbreaks. If those people were far superior to dungeons and monsters? If they became impossible to compare? Then I can feel relieved thinking that another new danger would emerge. I’m glad we’re not perfect.”

“What’s gotten into you? That’s surprisingly smart.”

“…Come at me, Han Seong-woo.”

“Ah, anyway, it’s because you believed that no perfect advantage exists in this world that we were able to find its weakness, Hostage. Instead, we should think about finding the Association President’s weakness.”

“Stop changing the subject and come at me!”

Na Ye-ri had said that she could withstand poison and hallucinations as well. In the process of repeatedly honing her shield, she had unknowingly trained her mind as well, eventually becoming capable of resisting even poison and illusions.

If I could overcome it through effort, then it wasn’t such a serious weakness. I could train myself in the meantime, too.

It’s just annoying because I don’t know how long it’ll take.

Na Ye-ri was a maniac when it came to shields. I didn’t need to see her training history to know how insanely hard she’d trained.

Besides, there was no way the Association would fight fair and square. On the surface, they pretended to be righteous under the banner of protecting the nation, but when it came to winning or losing, the Association was the most underhanded and ruthless group imaginable.

They would surely anticipate something like this and try to uncover my weakness the moment a battle began.

“I’ll have to be careful if I end up raiding a dungeon with the Association team.”

With that thought, I finished organizing my thoughts while idly swinging my legs in Cha Seohae’s office in his absence.

I was currently on the forty-fourth floor, watching television.

Watching the news to keep up with what was happening outside had become a new hobby of mine since I couldn’t go out.

Today, however, I’d missed most of the earlier news because I’d been lost in thought.

—We are currently at the site of the dungeon that suddenly appeared near Seongsu Station at approximately 1 a.m. yesterday.

A dungeon broke out?

To clear my head, I focused on the information appearing on the television screen.

—Thanks to the Association’s swift response, there were no fatalities, but because it occurred in a densely populated area, there were numerous injuries.

The news continued while showing the damaged buildings nearby.

The Association.

Even though I wanted to ignore it, my body still reacted automatically. I sighed in frustration and looked at the screen.

“Let’s at least see which team it was.”

—The dungeon that appeared was a B-rank dungeon, the same rank as the dungeon that recently appeared near the Baekyang Guild.

“B-rank? I didn’t see any alert message.”

I pulled out my phone.

“…Oh. It was there?”

I must have been so busy training lately that I’d been ignoring my notifications without even checking them.

“What a waste. A B-rank is definitely within the range where I could’ve been dispatched. Why didn’t anyone go?”

There were so many things I wanted to know, but there was no one around to answer me.

Na Ye-ri and Han Seong-woo were in a joint training session, and Cha Seohae was away as well.

—The Association team dispatched to the scene belongs to the first team. Hunters Kang Si-hyeon and Jang Jeong-in completed the dungeon raid at remarkable speed.

“Hm?”

Kang Si-hyeon and Jang Jeong-in. I hadn’t seen those faces in a while, not since I’d left the Association.

I wanted to change the channel, but forced myself to stay put.

—The two Hunters happened to be nearby when the dungeon appeared. Although they had not received orders to deploy, they voluntarily took action for the safety of the nation. And that concludes—

“‘Happened to be’?”

Had the Association ever done anything by coincidence?

My eyes narrowed instinctively at the suspicious wording.

I opened a map app on my phone and compared the distance between the dungeon and the Association with the distance between the dungeon and Baekyang Headquarters.

“Hah. What coincidence?”

The result showed that the dungeon was much closer to the Baekyang Guild.

The Association absolutely hated Baekyang.

There was no way the first team, which had been deliberately assembled by the Association President, would simply have been wandering around near the guild headquarters for no reason.

Nor were they close enough, despite their business relationship, to be casually hanging out together at one in the morning.

“The Association is suspicious right now.”

Cha Seohae’s words suddenly came back to me.

Thanks to him mentioning it beforehand, I was able to notice something was wrong much more quickly.

“So it’s basically confirmed that the first team has been assigned to follow me.”

Since they’d been caught lurking around me, they might replace some of their members.

“I was hoping they’d send the second team after me. I guess they wouldn’t do that against Baekyang.”

If it was the first team, then every member except one was S-rank.

First was the team leader, Do Ju-yeon.

He was an S-rank Tanker and commander whom practically every Korean citizen knew.

Many people thought his specialty was copying because that was what he was often seen doing in battle, but copying wasn’t actually Do Ju-yeon’s primary ability.

He could copy thanks to his S-rank advantage, Command.

It was an ability based on understanding every ability and deploying personnel in the right place at the right time.

Second was Kang Si-hyeon, an S-rank Damage Dealer and illusionist.

Third was Jang Jeong-in, an S-rank Damage Dealer and archer.

Fourth was Go Woo-ri, an S-rank Damage Dealer and telekinetic.

And finally, Park Ji-won, an A-rank Healer and saint.

There was one Tanker and one Healer, but overall, the team was heavily specialized toward offense.

“They didn’t somehow overhear about my weakness. The timing is just too perfect.”

It felt as though every situation was fitting together like gears, leaving me deeply unsettled.

I was sighing over the frustrating reality when—

Click.

“…Yeon-hee.”