Chapter 18 – Healer Wanted

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Translated by Seoulbound

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“Could Luna Moon have been a player?”

CornerHoney asked me back, as if he did not understand what that meant.

“If it’s Luna Moon, isn’t that your mother? That tomb NPC.”

“Right.”

“How can that NPC be a player?”

“I’m not sure either. But seeing that everyone, including the commander, says I look like Luna Moon, she is an Asian just like us. Besides, it seems she was also called the ‘Hero of the Subjugation Battle’.”

“Hero of the Subjugation Battle?”

As if realizing something, CornerHoney’s expression turned strange.

“That… is a player title.”

“Yeah. In the game, there was no NPC other than players who was called the Hero of the Subjugation Battle.”

“No, but with just that…”

“Most of all, they say she had the same ability as us.”

“The same ability as us?”

“I mean the healing ability.”

“What?!”

When I said she even had a healing ability, the expressions of the two turned serious.

The first to open his mouth was Tae-jeong.

“It is strange indeed if Luna Moon really had a healing ability… From whom did you hear that Luna Moon had a healing ability?”

“The commander. I didn’t hear whether she was the type to heal by eating like us, but it is certain that she had a healing ability.”

“Since there is no reason for the commander to lie to you about such a thing, it is highly likely to be the truth.”

“No, but you know! Everyone must have tried the bastard route strategy, right?”

This bastard, didn’t he talk to me at first about how I was some devotee of the Dopamine Addict strategy or whatever?

“Even though I tried clearing the Cola zone as the bastard, as Luna Moon’s son, so many times!”

He didn’t even do it just once or twice.

“Luna Moon having a healing ability? I’ve never heard of such a thing! If she had such an ability, it definitely would have appeared in the game script!”

“That’s the reason why I brought up the talk of Luna Moon being a player.”

CornerHoney’s argument—that if Luna Moon had such an ability, it would have appeared in the script while executing the strategy, and there was no way we, as players, wouldn’t know about it—was valid.

However, that only held true if this world was really exactly the same as that game, ‘Apocalypse: Safe Zone’.

“It seems stories we don’t know exist in this world. The knowledge we have might not be everything.”

“……”

At my words, CornerHoney pondered something for a moment and then asked me.

“Then… doesn’t that mean the strategies we know are completely useless? If this is different from the game…”

“That’s not it. Because there are players who died from failing the strategy. The strategies are valid. Even if there are parts different from the game, nothing was different enough to affect the strategies.”

“Then couldn’t it be that Luna Moon simply had the ability, unlike in the game?”

“Isn’t that even stranger? Everything else is exactly the same as the game, so why is only the information about Luna Moon different? If Luna Moon was truly a player, it means this kind of possession might not be the first time.”

“…My head hurts, so can’t we just stop the apocalypse roughly?”

I wanted to do that too.

However, as long as the ‘Secret of the Apocalypse’ was related to Luna Moon’s ring.

We wouldn’t be able to just ignore and pass by Luna Moon in order to stop the apocalypse.

But since it wasn’t something we could do anything about right now…

“Just keep it in mind for now. For the time being, I plan to prioritize participating in the subjugation battle event.”

“Ah, the first subjugation. We must go. Just by surviving, we get a title.”

“Good. I have a proposal for that.”

“A proposal?”

“This isn’t the place to talk about it. Once the meal is over, Tae-jeong, bring the outsider and come to my room. I’ll tell the servants in advance.”

“Got it.”

“Understood!”

Since staying together for too long might draw attention, we were about to scatter when CornerHoney caught me and whispered in a low voice.

“Hey, don’t throw something like a barbecue party next time.”

Don’t throw something like a barbecue party?

‘Could it be… because there might be other players besides Luna Moon?’

Just as we weren’t the only ones possessed at the same time.

Perhaps, other than Luna Moon, other players might exist as existing NPCs.

If those NPC players were also all Koreans, they would be able to guess we were players just by the fact that we had a barbecue party.

It was naturally something to be careful about.

Just as I was about to feel proud of CornerHoney for thinking of such a thing.

CornerHoney continued.

“Since I can’t even taste it anyway, it makes my stomach turn with envy. Just distribute something like pig slop instead.”

This bastard’s personality was really terrible.

* * *

After wrapping up the barbecue party.

As I went into my room and waited, before long, Tae-jeong came in with CornerHoney.

But…

“…Why are you in such a good mood?”

It was strange how CornerHoney looked unusually triumphant, so I asked.

The fellow replied with a beaming face.

“I came here with my senior soldier. Because it is forbidden for a soldier to leave alone. So while we were eating meat, my senior was waiting outside, you know?”

“And?”

“You told me to come back after the meal, right? So when I told him I think I have to stay longer before going back, he threw a fit.”

“Don’t tell me you…”

“I told him not to mess around because the commander’s son called me, and he shut up. Puhaha!”

“……”

How was it that he didn’t deviate even a single inch from my expected actions?

I offer my condolences to the soldiers who have to serve in the military with you in the future.

“But what are we trying to do by gathering like this?”

When CornerHoney asked that, I took out a cookie tin from under my pillow.

“Cookies?”

“You probably didn’t call us just to have dessert time.”

“We are going to practice eating.”

“Practice eating?”

“Practice eating?”

The reason to practice eating was simple.

We had to eat not for meals, but for healing.

If we could absorb food quickly in an emergency, wouldn’t we be much safer?

“From what I tested, if you focus on the act of eating, the absorption speed and amount change.”

Merely bringing food to the lips caused more energy to disperse without being absorbed than the amount that was actually absorbed.

In addition, the speed at which wounds healed when consumed with focus was also minutely faster.

I opened the lid of the cookie tin and handed them each a cookie, telling them to try it themselves.

Along with a fork.

“Why give a fork when we can just eat with our hands?”

CornerHoney asked me that, but Tae-jeong, who had already experienced once what purpose I used the fork for, stabbed the back of his own hand with the fork with a resigned face.

“Aaaagh!”

CornerHoney screamed in surprise and jumped up.

He seemed to have leaped a whole meter in place.

“What?! Why are you suddenly self-harming? Are you crazy?”

“You stab yourself too, Second Brother.”

“What? Why should I?”

“Shouldn’t there be a wound for us to know if the healing works well or not?”

“……!”

With a shocked face, CornerHoney looked back and forth between Tae-jeong and me.

“Looking at this, it’s not the first time… You guys are truly crazy… out of your minds…”

“You’ll get used to it too as you keep doing it.”

CornerHoney refused, saying it was nonsense, and only after I asked if I should stab him instead did he stab his own hand with his own hand to make a wound.

And after the sound of crunching cookies continued for a short while.

“Oh. It really is. The quality of healing is different when eating with focus.”

“Ugh… Why on earth did they give us this kind of perk…”

“Indeed. It would have been better if they made us unable to feel pain as well.”

“A truly sociopathic remark.”

Whether CornerHoney thought of me as a sociopath or not was none of my business, but it was a bit hurtful that even Tae-jeong nodded at CornerHoney’s muttering.

“And… our purpose is healing, not a meal, so it feels too inefficient that healing is only possible when we bring it to our lips.”

“What are you trying to do?”

“If we can practice and grow our ability so that healing is possible just by holding food in our hands, our chances of survival will rise significantly. Of course, it is unknown whether absorption is possible through parts other than the actual mouth.”

“Hmm… That’s definitely worth a try.”

“Right?”

“Why are you looking at me like… Ah, fuck. I have to stab myself again.”

I was going to stab myself together this time, so I hoped he wouldn’t feel too wronged.

“Is it because you are a devotee of the Dopamine Addict that even your strategy execution is fucking like that sociopathic bastard?”

Ignoring that remark, both Tae-jeong and I.

Each made a wound with the fork, tightly held a cookie in our hands, and waited for the wounds to heal.

“……Huh?”

Unlike Tae-jeong and me, who couldn’t absorb even a little bit if it didn’t touch our lips.

CornerHoney’s wound on the back of his hand was healing, albeit very slowly, even though he was only holding the cookie in his hand.

The cookie he held in his hand was also shrinking, as if the edges were being nibbled away.

“How… is that working?”

“You’re the one who made me do it, and you’re asking why it works?”

CornerHoney replied with a frown as if irritated, and added quietly as if it was no big deal.

“Originally… my body was weak, so there were more days I lay in bed getting an IV than eating. It worked when I thought of that sensation.”

Aha.

Since he originally had many instances of absorbing nutrients elsewhere rather than the act of eating by mouth, was he used to the act of not eating by mouth?

‘By the way, this fellow… had a weak body in reality.’

Is that why he became a shut-in gaming addict?

Thinking about it that way, it was a bit pitying…

“I’ve decided.”

“It’s fucking making me anxious when you say that. What did you decide?”

I grinned at CornerHoney and said.

“From now on, you are the healer.”

At my words, both CornerHoney and Tae-jeong wore expressions showing they had no idea what I meant.

“What kind of bullshit is that? I can heal by holding it in my hand, not heal others, so what kind of healer?”

“No. You can heal others too.”

“So, how?”

“When everyone is injured, you are the only one who can quickly self-heal without the act of eating.”

“How does that lead to the conclusion that I’m a healer?”

Tsk, to not be able to calculate this simple thing.

“If you, who became fine first, shove food into another guy’s mouth, what is that if not healing?”

“…You are truly out of your mind. Every single idea is that of a complete madman.”

Since he said that, I wondered if I would have to go through a long process of persuasion to convince him this time as well, but unexpectedly, CornerHoney readily nodded.

“Well… I’ll do that.”

“…Really?”

“I can’t catch a medium-sized monster with shooting like you, nor am I big-built like him. If it’s something I can do, I should do it.”

Oh.

Contrary to my thoughts, it seemed he had matured a bit.

Feeling a bit proud, I added another piece of advice.

“Since your control is good, maybe you can even transfer the blue particles themselves to someone else.”

“I hope that’s possible. Because after all, I don’t want to be a crazy guy who suddenly shoves food into the mouth of someone taking their last breath.”

“Haha.”

Since he wouldn’t be able to do that until the first subjugation battle, I should avoid telling him that his status as a crazy guy was guaranteed.

After finishing the conversation and sending the two back, the moment I returned to bed and lay down.

An unbelievable system message popped up before my eyes.

[A friend request has arrived from T-Bastard.]

[Would you like to accept?]