I Became The Only Healer In The Academy [EN]: Chapter 196

196

The interior of the Rank 1 Gate was exactly as he remembered.

The top-ranked Hunters who entered the Gate were the same as before, so naturally, the plan remained unchanged.

“I’ll let you know when the boss appears, so until then, please move as you did last time.”

Following Ricch’s instructions, everyone prepared for battle.

As before, they were greeted first by something enormous.

“Padron.”

“Ah, I understand.”

This time, Padron carefully and delicately handled the dirt clods to prevent them from scattering around, unlike last time.

The time remaining until the Rank 1 Gate’s boss appeared was approximately three hours.

During these three hours, the top-ranked Hunters conserved their mana as much as possible while hunting giants.

“Kahaha! This is incomparable to last time!”

The only difference was Padron.

Having noticeably grown stronger after subjugating the mutated Rank 2 Gate, he was gleefully slaughtering giants.

“…”

Ricch, watching him, was about to tell him to conserve his strength, but seeing Padron’s expression, which wouldn’t listen to anyone, he simply sighed.

“Last time was my first subjugation, but even at a glance, I can see that you’re all using mana more efficiently than before.”

“Because everyone is a top-ranked Hunter.”

As Seonghyun said, the top-ranked Hunters had grown stronger than before.

Padron was just the most noticeable, but everyone had improved.

Since their abilities were already near their limits, their absolute power hadn’t increased dramatically, but it was clear that the amount of mana consumed when using abilities of the same power had decreased.

‘I don’t know how strong the Rank 1 Gate’s boss will be, but they are now at a similar level to what I saw before my regression.’

Everything Seonghyun had twisted so far.

From the small things to the big things, all of it had an impact without exception.

He could feel it in other areas as well, but feeling it from the top-ranked Hunters, who were practically responsible for the safety of humanity, made him realize that his plan was going well.

‘At this level… is it possible?’

The thought that they might be able to completely subjugate this Gate with just their strength began to dominate his mind.

If that were the case, there wouldn’t be any major threats unless Rank 1 Gates suddenly increased in number.

“Soon… the time will be up.”

“Has three hours already passed?”

“Yes. The exact time remaining is 10 seconds.”

Ricch, as well as the other top-ranked Hunters, knew this instinctively.

They had subjugated this Gate that many times.

Everyone defeated all the giants and gathered around Ricch.

“7 seconds.”

Ricch’s voice, announcing the time of the Rank 1 Gate boss’s appearance, seemed quite 떨리는 것 같았다 [tremulous].

Ricch was much stronger than when he first faced the Rank 1 Gate’s boss, but the shocking fear he had felt then was something that couldn’t be erased, as if it were engraved in his soul.

“3 seconds.”

The time remaining until the boss appeared was exactly 3 seconds.

Above the corpses of the giants scattered before them, the top-ranked Hunters representing humanity looked up at the sky with determined expressions.

The same situation as before.

Themselves, changed from before.

When they first entered the Gate, they couldn’t handle the elite giants and faced the Rank 1 Gate’s boss, but now they had cleared all the giants and even had the leeway to manage their stamina.

And the biggest difference compared to then.

That was Seonghyun’s existence.

Everyone in this place had heard and seen Seonghyun’s ability to restore even severed limbs, so they couldn’t help but be full of confidence.

“It’s coming.”

It was time to face the Rank 1 Gate’s boss.

As soon as Ricch finished speaking, the sky began to turn black.

And as if to mock the trivial confidence the top-ranked Hunters had, the sky began to split, emitting an overwhelming amount of mana.

Or rather than splitting, the change was more like tearing.

The sky was helplessly torn apart by the being coming from behind it.

“That is… the Rank 1 Gate’s boss…”

This Rank 1 Gate was the giants’ space.

The more they fought, the more enormous giants came, but the being that appeared in the sky now was not a giant.

The fiend, resembling a mannequin without eyes, nose, mouth, or ears, slowly descended from the sky as if emphasizing that it was not revealing its appearance but rather this world was descending.

“…”

The fiend, looking alternately at the giants’ corpses and the top-ranked Hunters, reached out its hand towards the Hunters.

“Wh, what kind of mana is this…!!”

It merely reached out its hand and used mana with that hand, but the flow of that mana was beyond the limits of what the human race could withstand.

In the face of the rough mana vortex, the Hunters with the lowest rank in this place began to have their skin torn.

“Is the Rank 1 Gate’s boss on a different level?”

Ricch immediately deployed his mana to block the vortex as much as possible.

It was impossible to completely block it, but he could reduce the tearing of the other Hunters’ skin to just slight scratches.

And such wounds were nothing to Seonghyun.

He didn’t need to raise his mana or even look at them.

Just standing in this place completely healed their skin at the same time it was torn.

“Facing it directly like this, the amount of mana is truly absurd. It doesn’t just feel like a large amount, but it feels like that fiend is the master of mana.”

“This mana barrier. You can remove it.”

“…Are you sure?”

It wasn’t a level that was too much for Ricch, but having to continuously use power in one place was naturally not a good thing.

“It’s okay. The pain of having our skin slightly torn is something everyone can laugh off, isn’t it?”

What Ricch was worried about wasn’t the other Hunters.

It was absurd for a top-ranked Hunter to not be able to endure that level of pain, but he was worried that Seonghyun had to bear all the pain caused by healing those wounds alone.

“That’s not what I was worried about…”

“Yes?”

“It’s nothing. Then I’ll remove the mana barrier.”

Soon, Ricch’s mana barrier was removed, and the fierce mana storm began to rush in again.

The skin was torn and healed at the same time.

What would have happened if Seonghyun hadn’t been here?

The gradually tearing wounds and the mana storm that continued to rush over them would gradually widen those wounds, and it was obvious that they would cause great pain at a certain level.

From the beginning, the very fact of being in the same space as that boss created its own time constraints.

“I’ll go first.”

Padron didn’t take his eyes off the boss for even a moment.

The mana storm also left wounds on Padron’s eyes, which didn’t blink, but he was enduring it with Seonghyun’s aura and his own recovery ability.

“Let’s observe its movements first.”

“No. Just confronting us like this means it knows it has the advantage. That fiend does.”

The boss didn’t seem to have any intention of moving.

It was just continuously using the mana storm.

As Padron said, if this confrontation continued, it was obvious that the Hunters would be at a disadvantage.

The wounds on their bodies could be easily healed by Seonghyun, but the boss’s appearance, which created this situation just by reaching out its hand, was very suitable for inducing fear.

An area that even Seonghyun’s purification couldn’t erase.

The fear they felt instinctively would be slowly rising even as they talked.

“We don’t know anything about that boss’s abilities.”

Ricch’s words also made sense.

What if it was setting a trap and waiting?

If a variable occurred to Padron, one of their greatest forces, and that variable was in an area that Seonghyun couldn’t resolve, the ending of this subjugation would obviously be a bad ending.

“That’s why I said I’ll go first…”

At that moment, as Padron turned his head to persuade Ricch, the boss, who had been reaching out its hand in the distance, suddenly appeared before him.

“…”

Whether it couldn’t speak or wasn’t speaking, the speed at which the boss disappeared and reappeared was not within the range that could be seen with the eyes.

Because even the presence wasn’t felt, Padron didn’t immediately realize that the boss had appeared before him.

The flow of air created as the boss appeared tickled Padron’s cheek, and Padron finally realized that the boss was right in front of his nose.

“Th, this…!”

From the moment the boss appeared to the moment Padron grasped the boss’s location.

The gap created in that fleeting moment.

The boss swung its hand towards Padron’s side as if to pull something out.

“How dare this trash…”

Padron turned to face the boss and simultaneously swung his right hand towards the boss’s hand.

His body was sturdy, so it would withstand the attack to some extent, and it was his intention to not allow a deeper attack.

‘This level of attack…’

But there was one small misunderstanding.

The boss’s hand, coming deep into his side, was a little, no, very fast than expected.

“Kuek!!”

The boss’s hand dug into Padron’s side to a depth of about two finger joints, but Padron was still able to knock away the boss’s hand as he had initially intended.

However, because he knocked away the hand while it was stuck in his side, the wound extended from his side to his back, tearing quite deeply.

“Padron!”

Ricch had slightly grasped the presence of the boss’s sudden movement, which he had not expected at all, but he had not been able to react in time.

The boss didn’t give even a moment’s attention to Padron, who was momentarily faltering from the pain of his torn side.

As if it had no interest.

The place where the boss’s gaze was directed was none other than Seonghyun.

Of course, the gaze didn’t last long because of the mana that Ricch was using, but the boss was clearly looking at Seonghyun.

Clearly, the boss had no eyes, but it felt as if they had made eye contact.

‘Did the boss also notice?’

At the moment the boss disappeared, it was thinking of finishing off the Hunter who showed the biggest gap among the Hunters in front of it first.

It knew better than anyone that humans were infinitely weak beings, but it should never be careless.

Moreover, the humans in front of it were not weak humans.

The moment the human who showed the biggest gap blinked.

The boss moved as planned, but at that moment, it grasped the gaze looking at it.

The one behind the strongest-looking human woman.

It wondered if it was mistaken, but it was definitely not a mistake.

That gaze was clearly looking at it, and there was not even a hint of fear in that gaze.

It was an unpleasant gaze, as if evaluating it, as if allowing it to do as much as it could, saying it would see how much it could do.

Padron, who had shown the biggest gap, showed a quick reaction speed.

If it had hesitated even a little at that human’s gaze, it could have dug its hand in even deeper, but Padron showed an unexpected reaction.

Instead of pulling his body back, he shook off the hand digging into his side.

If it had been even a little slower and even a little weaker, it would have been the worst decision, but as a result, it was the best decision.

“Padron! Are you okay?!”

“Kuk! This much…”

Padron’s body was healing on its own, but it seemed that a wound of this size would take quite a while, and Seonghyun also stepped forward to heal Padron.

“I don’t need it.”

But Seonghyun had no intention of backing down either.

Enjoying the battle was good, but in a situation like this, it was no different from acting spoiled.

“You don’t need it…”

“Shut up.”