S-Rank Healer Gets Kidnapped First Chapter 48

“See? Wouldn’t it have been better if you’d just stayed quiet from the start?”

Jang Jeong-in snorted as he looked at the unconscious Moon Yeonhee.

Holding the fallen Moon Yeonhee properly in his arms, Jang Jeong-in muttered contentedly.

“Still, I can say I handled this one myself.”

Whenever Team One completed a mission and returned, the credit always went to Do Joo-yeon.

Every time, she would say that the achievement was thanks to the team.

In the end, though, Do Joo-yeon was always the only one who received the rewards and saw her value increase.

Jang Jeong-in was tired of a system that gave everything to one person.

He planned to submit the report on this incident by himself.

“Kang Si-hyeon will probably complain, but I can just give him some money when the time comes.”

How long was he supposed to keep living in Do Joo-yeon’s shadow?

He didn’t think he was someone who deserved to be treated this way wherever he went.

‘I foolishly fell for the Association Chairman’s tricks and ended up unable to do anything about it.’

Jang Jeong-in ground his teeth.

Even if he regretted it, it was already too late. Just as he was about to flee immediately so he could claim this incident as his own accomplishment—

“…What is this?”

He stopped in surprise at the sight before him.

Jang Jeong-in scanned every corner of the floor.

The surroundings were filled with translucent golden water, as though a flood had broken out.

“Did the building collapse and rupture some kind of drainage pipe…?”

He said it out of confusion, but he knew this water was anything but ordinary.

There wasn’t even the sound of rushing water, and until he actually saw it, he hadn’t even noticed that the water had risen to his ankles.

It was simply water. Judging by its level, it didn’t seem particularly threatening, yet Jang Jeong-in felt as though something was slowly constricting him.

As if countless tiny things, no bigger than ants, were crawling densely from his feet all the way up to his neck.

The more that inexplicable fear consumed him, the faster the golden water rose.

The more of his body became submerged, the more his strength drained away.

Splash!

In the end, he dropped Moon Yeonhee, whom he had been holding with one arm.

A refreshing sound, completely opposite to Jang Jeong-in’s condition, rang out.

“W-What is this?! Stop! Stop! Damn it! Moon Yeonhee! What the hell did you do?!”

Jang Jeong-in immediately realized that Moon Yeonhee was the only possible source of this skill.

He shouted for Moon Yeonhee as the water rose all the way to his neck.

“I-I’m going to drown! Moon Yeonhee! Wake up!”

No matter how desperately he struggled, it was useless, as though he were trapped in a swamp.

He could see the bright sky above his head, yet his body continued sinking lower and lower.

He barely managed to move his foot, intending to kick the Moon Yeonhee he had dropped and wake her up.

“What is going on here?”

An unfamiliar voice belonging to another person reached his ears.

Jang Jeong-in hurriedly turned his head as though he’d just been given a lifeline.

“Na, Na Ye-ri…?”

“What? Where’s Yeonhee, who was supposed to be here? Why are you the only one here?”

Na Ye-ri was crouching on the rooftop.

She looked Jang Jeong-in up and down as though she genuinely wasn’t happy to see him.

Though, given their positions, all she could really see was him from the top of his head to his chin.

Even if the Association and the Guild weren’t on good terms, Tier-One Hunters often crossed paths.

That was because the Gates they wanted to conquer, and the Gates they had to conquer, frequently overlapped.

The world itself had turned them into rivals, so why would Jang Jeong-in be happy to see Na Ye-ri?

But right now, surviving was what mattered.

If he survived, wouldn’t he have more chances to trample Baekyang into the dirt and defeat them?

“I don’t know what’s going on, but help me just this once.”

“What? What is this?”

“How would I know?! If this is Moon Yeonhee’s doing, you’d know better than I do!”

Perhaps thinking that Na Ye-ri was pretending not to know, Jang Jeong-in shamelessly snapped at her despite being the one asking for help.

“Yeonhee?”

Instead, she really did look as though she didn’t understand, reaching out to touch the golden water.

Aside from its color, it was transparent like ordinary water and had no viscosity.

After creating ripples with her hand, she said,

“Just swim up. It’s not even sticky, so what’s with all the fuss? More importantly, where is Yeonhee?”

Na Ye-ri narrowed her eyes as she spoke.

“Don’t tell me you’re standing on Yeonhee because you can’t swim? If that’s actually the case, you’ll die and I’ll live.”

“What are you talking about?! Even if I wanted to, I can’t move in the first place!”

“Even if you wanted to?!”

Jang Jeong-in realized he’d misspoken and shut his mouth.

“…I’ll tell you if you save me.”

“Seriously, this guy….”

Na Ye-ri grabbed the back of her neck as her blood pressure rose.

Judging by how he carefully watched her reaction yet kept saying exactly what he wanted, she doubted he’d properly explain anything regardless of whether she pulled him out now or later.

“I’ll find her myself.”

Na Ye-ri cut off the conversation and entered the water.

Seeing this, Jang Jeong-in screamed so desperately that the veins on his forehead stood out.

“What are you doing?! Don’t come down! I told you to save me! The more of your body comes into contact with this water, the stiffer you become!”

But Na Ye-ri, who had already entered the water, ignored him.

Unlike Jang Jeong-in, who couldn’t move a muscle, Na Ye-ri moved with ease.

‘You just have to move. What’s so difficult about it?’

Even though Na Ye-ri had never seen this water before, she believed Jang Jeong-in when he said Moon Yeonhee had caused it.

It wouldn’t have mattered whether it was her, Cha Seohae, Han Seong-woo, or someone from Baekyang who had come.

The water carried the exact same energy as the healing Moon Yeonhee had given them.

She had jumped in to find Moon Yeonhee, but rather than feeling like she was drowning, it felt as though she was receiving a heal with her entire body.

The longer she remained in the water, the more she could feel her wounds healing and her fatigue fading.

Once her body felt refreshed, finding Moon Yeonhee wasn’t difficult.

Na Ye-ri found Moon Yeonhee lying unconscious on the bottom and hurriedly lifted her into her arms.

“Pwah! Yeonhee! Wake up! Moon Yeonhee!”

“Khup!”

“Yeonhee! Are you conscious?”

The body that had been completely limp from unconsciousness began to twitch.

Seeing her take a deep breath, Na Ye-ri’s expression darkened.

Then she felt around Moon Yeonhee’s neck with one hand.

“Damn it…!”

Her suspicions confirmed, Na Ye-ri became even angrier and quickly moved.

“Take her! Lay her down properly so her airway doesn’t get blocked. Help her breathe!”

“Yes!”

The Guild member who had followed Na Ye-ri took Moon Yeonhee and laid her down on the rooftop.

Watching that, Na Ye-ri immediately turned her gaze toward Jang Jeong-in and glared at him.

“You strangled her?”

Gurgle, gurgle.

Jang Jeong-in was now in no condition to speak.

The water had risen to just beneath his nose.

His terrified eyes seemed to ask how Na Ye-ri could move so freely.

“Stop acting pathetic and get your ass up here and answer me!”

Frustrated, Na Ye-ri grabbed Jang Jeong-in by the collar.

But that lasted only for a moment.

‘He’s heavy.’

It wasn’t a matter of body weight.

Would Na Ye-ri, a Hunter and, more specifically, a Tanker, really struggle to lift a single man using her strength?

It felt as though something from the bottom was pulling Jang Jeong-in down, making him incredibly difficult to lift.

‘But there was definitely nothing in the water.’

While Na Ye-ri was confused, Jang Jeong-in finally managed to exhale.

Thanks to being dragged out, he escaped the water, even if the position he ended up in was humiliating.

“Cough! How can you move?”

“…You don’t have the right to ask questions. Do you think I pulled you up just so you could ask me something like that?”

Na Ye-ri immediately shot back as though she refused to lose to Jang Jeong-in’s attitude.

Jang Jeong-in, who was hurriedly coughing up water, flinched at her forcefulness.

“I asked if you strangled Yeonhee. You’d better answer properly. Otherwise….”

“Vice Master! The healer’s condition isn’t good! I think she needs treatment immediately!”

Just then, a Guild member urgently shouted from the rooftop.

Na Ye-ri threw the soaked Jang Jeong-in aside and asked,

“How’s her breathing?”

“She is breathing, but she hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”

“Let’s hurry. She was probably already exhausted from the AoE healing and multi-target buffs, and then she was strangled on top of that….”

The Guild member’s face turned pale at the end of her words.

“What about you, Vice Master?!”

“I’m going too. Pull him.”

“Yes!”

At Na Ye-ri’s words, Jang Jeong-in desperately tried to make a bubbling sound with all his remaining strength.

It was because the hand holding him had been released. Na Ye-ri turned around on the rooftop, looked at him, and spoke.

“I have no intention of helping you, but I can’t help you even if I wanted to. I simply couldn’t pull you out.”

Gurgle, gurgle.

“But you’re really something. After doing this to Yeonhee, you’re shamelessly clinging to me because you want to live?”

Gurgle, gurgle.

Watching Jang Jeong-in’s complexion gradually turn pale, Na Ye-ri continued.

“You said it yourself. You said this looked like Yeonhee’s skill. Then just wait and see how this ends for you. I think what happens to you is up to Yeonhee.”

With those final words, Na Ye-ri turned her back without hesitation.

She wasn’t the type to take someone’s life lightly just because she disliked them, but helping him was simply beyond her abilities.

Meanwhile, the Guild member kept looking back several times even while carrying Moon Yeonhee on her back.

“Is it really okay to leave him like that? If the Association comes to rescue him, he might become even more desperate and put the healer in danger again.”

“If I could, I’d take him hostage and squeeze information about the Association out of him. But I really can’t.”

Na Ye-ri looked at Moon Yeonhee, who was breathing evenly.

“The strength of every skill varies according to the caster’s will.”

“That’s right.”

“If that skill really belongs to Yeonhee, then regardless of what happens, Jang Jeong-in brought this upon himself. Just now, he knocked Yeonhee unconscious so she couldn’t withdraw the skill.”

“…….”

“It’s simply karma. Judging by how he strangled her and then left the person he’d made unconscious in a sea of water, it didn’t seem like he cared whether Yeonhee lived or died.”

The Guild member fell silent.

She realized that worrying any further, no matter how much she was doing it for the healer, could end up looking like she was taking Jang Jeong-in’s side.

And so, the two of them descended from the building.

“We have an emergency patient here! Is there anyone who can treat this healer?”

“Everyone’s busy right now. If you wait for an opening, it’ll take at least twenty minutes….”

The staff member answered Na Ye-ri with a troubled expression.

She knew the woman wasn’t lying, but every second mattered.

She anxiously stamped her feet when someone receiving treatment suddenly raised an arm.

“Ah, I’m fine now, so please take care of the healer.”

He was one of the snipers who had been held hostage.

“But your injuries haven’t been treated yet….”

“This isn’t urgent. It’s something Hunters deal with all the time. But you said the healer hasn’t regained consciousness!”

Hearing that, the staff member nodded.

The Guild member laid Moon Yeonhee down on a makeshift stretcher.

While the staff member examined her, Na Ye-ri muttered irritably.

“When are Cha Seohae and Han Seong-woo going to finish fighting? Even though they know how Kang Si-hyeon fights….”

“Huh? Look over there! Water is coming out!”

“But the color…. Is that really water? Honey…?”

“Wouldn’t honey make even less sense?”

The murmuring among the people gradually grew louder.

Na Ye-ri guessed what they were pointing at.

Sure enough, the building they had just come from looked strange.

The water continued to emerge without stopping, overflowing and flowing down the surface of the building.

“But why is it boiling like that?”

Na Ye-ri frowned and stared at the building.

The water was boiling so violently that it could be seen even from a distance, looking almost like lava from a volcano.

As she watched steam rising from it, Na Ye-ri’s eyes widened.

Boom!

Liquid that looked as though pure gold had been melted erupted upward into the sky at that very moment.

For a moment, everyone was rendered speechless by the sight.

It looked like a scene straight out of a painting.

“Wow, it’s like a fountain. What kind of skill is that?”

“It’s so beautiful!”

“Something’s falling from the sky! Look at this. It’s sparkling like rain made of gold!”

“It feels like my aches are disappearing….”

As more and more people regained their senses, they each commented on the scene before them.

Every single person standing there was filled with joy.

It was difficult for so many people to feel the exact same emotion at the same time.

Yet this skill had accomplished exactly that.

“Wow! It’s a rainbow!”

At the cry of a child, everyone looked up at the clear sky.

Between the arcs of the rainbow, sunlight reflected off the droplets of water, creating a fantastical scene.

Na Ye-ri suddenly had a thought as she watched it.

It felt as though a god had descended and embraced everyone.

Even though she didn’t follow any religion.

Na Ye-ri stared at the scene as if entranced for a long while before turning her head.

Moon Yeonhee’s complexion, which had been gradually improving, came into view.

‘I see.’

Her comrade’s new skill was clearly the type that excluded enemies. It must be an offensive skill.

But even an offensive skill had taken the form of healing.

She had always thought that attacking meant nothing more than destroying and knocking enemies down, but after seeing this skill, she felt she needed to reconsider.

She had thought there was no skill better than overwhelming burst damage.

But this healing, soft and vast like the sea, seemed to have an impact greater than even overwhelming burst damage.

Suppressing the enemies and lifting allies to the surface, creating the conditions for them to launch a new attack.

That was Moon Yeonhee’s attack.

Na Ye-ri laughed softly, as though the air had escaped from her.

“Congratulations. You’re a born healer, recognized by the world itself.”