I Became The Only Healer In The Academy [EN]: Chapter 202

The boss couldn’t contain his laughter at the surge of magic power. “Hahaha!”

How often had he wielded such potent magic in all his long years?

But there wasn’t much time to celebrate.

Three minutes remained.

He had to deal with Seonghyun within that brief window.

The boss began to envelop his arm in magic power, just as he had against the Lich.

However, this time was different: the gathering of magic power was nearly instantaneous.

“Hahaha!!”

The magic power erupted with unrestrained force, unleashed with a mere swing of his fist.

The magic power, amplified several times over, hurtled toward Seonghyun alongside the boss’s fist.

“Take back what you did to me!”

Seonghyun deflected the first blast of magic power with his sword, but he couldn’t intercept the second, which followed immediately.

The speed of the magic power was so great it seemed to teleport.

“These are things you can’t comprehend, things you don’t need to know: efficient magic power management.”

The boss’s mastery of magic power was undeniably beyond human capabilities.

He launched attacks similar to Seonghyun’s, with comparable power, but vastly superior speed.

One of Seonghyun’s arms was left tattered after absorbing the second blast of magic power directly.

Fortunately, it wasn’t severed or destroyed, but without his healing abilities, he would have been severely incapacitated.

Instead, he laughed.

The genuine amusement in that smile prompted the boss to ask, driven by curiosity.

“…Why are you laughing?”

“Isn’t it funny? You?”

“What’s so funny?”

Since his regression [time travel/reincarnation], had any monster or hunter ever inflicted such a significant wound on Seonghyun?

Certainly not. It was unlikely even if all the hunters from the past, present, and future were combined.

Even against the Owner of the Gate, he had sustained only minor injuries, never a wound of this magnitude.

And the monster who inflicted this first major wound was the boss of a Grade 1 Gate, using Seonghyun’s power, not his own.

In other words, the fact that he was injured by a monster borrowing human power was incredibly amusing.

“A monster, the boss of a Grade 1 Gate, fights a human by borrowing the power of a human. Don’t you find that funny?”

“Shut up. If you’re trying to stall for time, you’re mistaken.”

“Oh, so there was a time limit?”

“…”

The boss frowned at Seonghyun’s words.

His inhuman magic power and unsettlingly calm demeanor were deeply unsettling, bordering on frightening.

The boss immediately activated his chain summoning ability.

Not only did they blanket the sky, but even thicker, more formidable chains of magic power began to emerge from dimensional rifts in the void.

“Behold! The manifestation of your despair!”

The boss’s voice was filled with unprecedented arrogance.

The boss now possessed unimaginable strength, justifying his hubris.

The chains were originally limited to attacking a single target.

They lacked the magic power to attack multiple targets simultaneously. However, the current boss, having copied Seonghyun’s magic power, was now capable of it.

“Instead of dealing with you one at a time, I’ll eliminate all of you at once.”

Seonghyun considered another hypothesis.

The boss’s red eyes copied abilities, and his mouth unlocked the limits of magic power.

If the red eyes and the mouth’s ability combined to copy all of Seonghyun’s magic power, it likely extended to his abilities as well.

But even if he had copied all of Seonghyun’s abilities, one thing remained beyond his reach.

That was the object of faith [people who believe in Seonghyun].

The faith they held was exclusively for Seonghyun.

Moreover, the power of most of Seonghyun’s abilities scaled with the number of these objects of faith.

If Seonghyun’s hypothesis was correct, the abilities the boss copied would only be a fraction of the whole, such as purification or healing.

“Yeah. There’s no other explanation.”

It might seem presumptuous, but Seonghyun could infer it from the boss’s reaction.

‘He copied all my abilities, and that’s all he can do?’

The sword that could be summoned as many times as the number of objects of faith.

The ability to summon one of the objects of faith.

The ability to teleport to the vicinity of the objects of faith, and so on.

It wasn’t just about having infinite magic power.

Yet, this was the extent of his display?

“Now it’ll become clear.”

Seonghyun confirmed the presence of one sword floating beside the boss.

The sword made of light that always accompanied him.

Seonghyun summoned that sword alongside the boss, and this time, he summoned a minimum of over 500 swords to match the number of chains.

“…? What, what is this? I definitely copied all the abilities…”

Seonghyun’s hypothesis was confirmed.

The boss copied all of Seonghyun’s abilities, except for one crucial element.

He couldn’t copy the objects of faith.

The boss’s bewildered eyes began to waver.

He had undoubtedly become much stronger, gaining inexhaustible power, but he still felt incapable of winning.

Even the wound on Seonghyun’s arm, which, if inflicted before the power copying, would have signaled victory, now meant nothing.

After copying Seonghyun’s abilities, he fully grasped the extent of his healing ability.

That level of injury was insignificant.

Truly insignificant.

“Still, there’s a certain satisfaction in knowing my magic power inflicted the first major wound on my body.”

Seonghyun swept his other arm across the injured area, and the wound vanished completely along the path of his hand.

Even while healing himself, Seonghyun continued to block the chains targeting the other top-tier hunters with his swords.

As the boss increased the number of chains, Seonghyun increased the number of swords.

Each sword possessed superior power compared to Seonghyun’s original ability.

The chains initially withstood the swords’ attacks, but with repeated collisions, they began to crack, break, and shatter.

“T, this can’t be…”

Sealing was ineffective as well.

Despite copying abilities and magic power, something was amiss; he couldn’t replicate it perfectly.

And to compound the problem.

It was particularly unfortunate that Seonghyun’s ability was healing.

It was a situation where victory was impossible without copying Seonghyun’s abilities, yet ironically, victory remained elusive even with them.

‘…I was blinded by the sheer amount of magic power.’

To end an opponent’s life swiftly, one needed a surprise attack in a favorable situation or vastly superior power.

But from the moment he copied the opponent’s power, he ultimately had to overwhelm them with his original abilities, which was impossible.

The opponent healed himself.

Realizing his initial approach was flawed, the boss slowly descended from the void, consumed by despair.

The dimensional rifts that had opened in the sky and around the boss began to close.

The boss had only about a minute remaining.

The choices available to the boss had been dwindling since Seonghyun entered the gate unnoticed, and now only two remained.

Accept his demise passively or struggle pathetically for the remaining minute before annihilation.

“What the hell are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not a power a human should possess. Who is behind you?”

Perhaps driven by his dwindling time, the boss, kneeling on the collapsing bridge, approached Seonghyun.

Naturally, the boss looked up at Seonghyun.

What answer would this human provide?

Seonghyun lowered himself to meet the boss’s gaze.

“Why are you asking questions so presumptuously, you monster…”

Seonghyun desired nothing more from the boss.

There was nothing to ask, and even if there were, there was no time to listen.

Of course, that didn’t mean he would let him off easily.

He dared to wound him, and if he simply vanished when his time was up, the memory would linger.

Seonghyun raised his sword.

There was no need to infuse it with magic power.

The boss had already lost his will and remained motionless.

“Let’s see how tough you are.”

The sword’s edge aligned with the boss’s neck.

Seonghyun sliced the boss’s neck along that trajectory.

Unlike previous cuts, this felt like sawing, indicating significant resistance.

“It’s tough indeed.”

Seonghyun, using the full force of his pure physical ability without magic power, severed the boss’s neck and discovered a sparkling purple crystal inside.

“A purple crystal?”

That crystal, typically found only in gates mutated to purple, originated from the boss of a Grade 1 Gate.

Simultaneously, another purple crystal in Seonghyun’s pocket began to vibrate with a buzzing sound.

“Yeah. Eat this too.”

He removed the crystal from his pocket and brought the two crystals together. The original crystal absorbed the other as if devouring it.

He wondered if the precious crystal from the Grade 1 Gate boss would trigger any changes, but after waiting, the crystal remained silent.

“…When are you going to prove your worth? Huh?”

As he tapped the crystal with a hint of dissatisfaction, cracks began to appear.

“Huh? What’s wrong with this?”

“Hunter Kim! Are you okay?!”

Just as he was panicking about the crystal’s transformation, the Lich rushed over, having confirmed the battle’s conclusion.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

The Lich’s gaze shifted to Seonghyun’s arm, but it was a pointless concern.

The wound had already vanished without a trace.

“Hunter Kim.”

“Yes?”

“What on earth is that power…”

“Ah, haha…”

His eyes clearly demanded an explanation, but with escaping the gate as the priority, the Lich sighed and said.

“Let’s get out first.”

“What about the other hunters?”

“When you stepped up, I pretended to protect them and blocked their view with a magic barrier.”

“Even to that extent… I understand. I’ll explain it outside.”

The Grade 1 Gate was completely subjugated.

No living creatures remained inside.

The gate would soon disappear once Seonghyun and the hunters departed.

Seonghyun glared at Padron with contempt, who was snoring as if unconscious or asleep, and carried him out on his shoulder.

The Grade 1 Gate subjugation, lasting approximately 5 hours and 30 minutes, was successfully completed.

The boss appeared after about 3 hours, and hunting the boss took about 2 hours and 30 minutes.

This day was recorded as the first subjugation of a Grade 1 Gate in human history, achieved without any casualties.

In all periods, before and after the regression.