I Became The Only Healer In The Academy [EN]: Chapter 8

[According to information released by the Association, hunters with healing abilities have side effects.]

[What kind of side effects?]

[According to the ability user, they fully experience the pain of the person they heal.]

“…What?”

Ha-yeon, who was about to drink her coffee, stopped with the cup in her hand, staring at the screen.

“They feel the pain?”

Just receiving the healing ability was already a favor, but to fully accept the pain, anyone would naturally be reluctant.

“…If it’s a healing ability, it’s understandable that there are such side effects.”

There are doctors and hospitals dedicated to hunters, but that’s just to distribute the large number of people; there isn’t a significant difference in quality.

The wounds inflicted by monsters weren’t just simple cuts and bruises.

Having body parts severed was basic, and it was common for the body to rot from mana poisoning.

Of course, after the appearance of the Gates [dimensional portals], humanity eliminated all the restrictions that had been in place for humanitarian reasons.

However, there was a limit to completely restoring severed body parts, and stopping the rotting of the body was the current limit.

The appearance of a healer in this dire situation wasn’t just about raising the nation’s prestige.

The endless battles with monsters that had continued until now, the long, seemingly endless battles.

To exaggerate a bit, it was injecting new life and hope into humanity itself, which was exhausted.

“Come to think of it… even though there were no visible wounds, he was holding his arm.”

All circumstances pointed to Seong-hyeon as the healer.

All that remained was to verify this conviction.

Seong-hyeon hunted monsters until the day before school started.

“Hoo…”

From waking up in the morning until midnight, when the monsters’ activity became more vigorous, except for meal times, he hunted every single day without fail.

[Monsters Defeated 63/100]

The quest was not cleared, falling far short of the goal, not just by a little.

‘Hunting alone is incredibly difficult.’

He thought he could achieve it easily because the monsters weren’t that strong, but there were far too many monsters that had already been attacked by other hunters.

‘I’ll have to catch the 37 slowly.’

Since he had restricted himself from using his abilities, he didn’t expect to achieve it easily.

But it wasn’t like he gained nothing.

“My body feels much lighter, is it just my imagination?”

Compared to when he first regressed [returned to an earlier point in time], his physical condition had noticeably changed.

Even compared to his physical condition right before regressing, he felt much lighter and more energetic now.

“…It feels like they were aiming for this.”

They gave him a quest to defeat monsters and even restricted his abilities.

The quest to defeat monsters alone without anyone’s help didn’t seem to be just to increase the difficulty.

“Are they trying to improve my physical abilities?”

The more he thought about it, the more it seemed right.

The biggest commonality among healers is that their ability to protect themselves is significantly lower than others.

“Whatever the intention, I know that these are for me right now.”

He didn’t know what they would throw at him later, but Seong-hyeon decided not to be suspicious because it was all for his development right now.

“The academy starts tomorrow.”

Just thinking about going back made him feel a mix of excitement and apprehension.

He was admitted for his talent, but ironically, he ended up being judged as lacking talent and was abandoned after graduation.

He had to go back to a place where he had to give everything instead of receiving support.

“…Well, it’ll work out somehow.”

It was late at night, and he had just finished hunting monsters, so Seong-hyeon fell asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.

“I’ll be back. And take it easy with work. You don’t need to go out anymore.”

Before going to the academy, Seong-hyeon said to his mother with a slightly worried voice.

“I’ll be bored if I don’t do that. Hurry up. You’ll be late.”

“…I’ll be back.”

Seong-hyeon left the house without saying more.

The distance from home to the academy was only about 5 minutes.

The academy building, which he hadn’t visited since his re-awakening, greeted Seong-hyeon, and unlike that day, there were quite a few other students going to school.

“Hey, did you see the news?”

“About the healer?”

“Yeah, will Korea’s prestige finally rise? We’ve always been pushed back.”

“Of course it will rise if they have a healer, but because of the side effects…”

Not only this group but also other students were talking about the healer.

‘There are a lot of talks about the side effects.’

“But if there are such side effects, will they use the ability…? They receive the pain instead; I wouldn’t want to with big wounds…”

“Besides, they say big wounds are difficult, so won’t it just be for raising national prestige?”

Since the reports about the side effects and limitations were over, there weren’t many positive reactions.

But Seong-hyeon didn’t care much.

The task now was to minimize the side effects of the ability as much as possible.

‘Was it this way.’

Seong-hyeon headed to his classroom in his memory.

Perhaps because he came a little earlier than usual, there weren’t many students in the classroom.

As soon as Seong-hyeon entered, everyone’s eyes briefly turned to him, but soon scattered again and started doing what they were doing.

‘Does no one among the students know me yet?’

If so, it was a good thing.

He didn’t have to receive unnecessary attention, and it didn’t matter as long as the people who needed to know knew.

Seong-hyeon soon returned to his seat and prepared for today’s class.

“Has everyone arrived?”

Before long, a familiar face entered the classroom.

Seong-hyeon’s homeroom teacher in his first year, and the professor who graded according to the value of the ability, Hwang Gi-hyeok.

Thanks to this homeroom teacher, Seong-hyeon’s first year was completely twisted.

He still couldn’t forget what the homeroom teacher had said to Seong-hyeon on the first day of admission.

‘Ability is Weakness Detection? Huh… pathetic.’

The gaze that frowned deeply as if he had seen something he shouldn’t have and looked down on Seong-hyeon in front of everyone remained as a trauma that he couldn’t forget even if he tried.

Since that day, Seong-hyeon received the lowest scores every time.

How hard Seong-hyeon worked and what grades he showed didn’t matter to the homeroom teacher at all.

In the first place, it wasn’t an ability that helped in combat itself, and it was a useless ability once information about monsters was accumulated.

But now, that homeroom teacher was staring at Seong-hyeon very blatantly.

As if he had found something to be proud of.

After briefly making eye contact with Seong-hyeon, the homeroom teacher turned his gaze and pointed at the screen, saying.

“…Today, we will start the briefing on the newly created Gates.”

The academy was just an academy in name.

In fact, the word military was more suitable as the content mainly dealt with combat and tactics rather than theoretical classes.

“The newly created Gates in the metropolitan area this week are one Grade 4 and five Grade 5. Among them, the Gate we have to subjugate is Grade 5.”

At the academy, it was common to create an assault team for each class and go out to subjugate.

Here, Seong-hyeon’s position was naturally the buffer/debuffer position, located in the center of the assault team, using his existing ability, Weakness Detection.

At best, Seong-hyeon’s job was to inform the monsters’ weaknesses and fill the empty spots behind the front line.

‘Wait a minute, Grade 5 subjugation?’

Seong-hyeon quickly recalled his memories.

The big events that happened after entering the academy were unforgettable, and the memory of the first subjugation after the start of school belonged to this big event.

The destination of this subjugation, the Grade 5 Gate, was a goblin habitat.

The goblins, who tended to travel in groups, were tricky to subjugate alone, but the academy was also an assault team, so it was judged suitable as the first subjugation site.

‘…1/3 of the students died in this subjugation.’

Sometimes Gates mutated, and sometimes there were errors in measuring the grade of the Gate.

And unfortunately, the hopeful first subjugation of the academy’s first-year students was an unprecedented event in which the rarest probability, mutation, occurred.

The result was disastrous.

As soon as the subjugation team entered, the Gate mutated, and the goblins became stronger.

The goblin habitat turned into the center of a large goblin tribe, and in the end, the assault team had to wage a war instead of subjugation.

Originally, there should have been only goblin warriors, but due to the mutation, a goblin chieftain appeared, and the assault team was defeated by the tactics of the goblins, who had a leader in a situation where the physical abilities themselves were not that different.

If the association, which had noticed the mutation, had not come to support, not 1/3 but all of them could have been annihilated.

‘I can’t change the schedule.’

It wasn’t something that could be solved by begging.

To change the academy’s schedule, he had to bring evidence that was appropriate for it, but there was no way he could prepare evidence of something that hadn’t happened yet.

‘I have to go to the association directly before going on the subjugation.’

The only thing he could do was to request support from the association in advance.

Fortunately, Seong-hyeon’s current position allowed him to make that request.

“The first subjugation schedule is next week. Until then, we will conduct classes related to improving basic combat abilities and classes on how to utilize abilities, so everyone can concentrate on receiving them.”

Before leaving the classroom, the homeroom teacher stared directly at Seong-hyeon and said.

“…Come and see me if you have something to say.”

Unlike his words, his eyes seemed to say that he had something to say, so come to the faculty office.

‘I was going to go anyway.’

There was something he had to clarify with the homeroom teacher, so Seong-hyeon headed straight to the faculty office as if it was a good thing.

‘…Were we in the same class?’

Ha-yeon was fixing her gaze on Seong-hyeon from the back seat.

She already knew he was an academy student, but she didn’t even think that he would be in the same class.

‘Why didn’t I know…’

Even if she excluded the healing ability, she couldn’t not know about someone with Seong-hyeon’s ability.

Of course, she didn’t directly witness the battle scene, but circumstantially, Seong-hyeon had single-handedly defeated the goblin group that was chasing her.

Everyone knew that the criteria for admission to the academy were purely talent.

However, as the ability awakened at the age of 20, its utilization and combat sense were considerably lacking compared to other hunters, but Seong-hyeon didn’t have that.

‘I want to investigate a little more, but…’

If she investigated more deeply here, it would be disrespectful to the person who saved her life.

She just needed to figure out who he was and whether he was being treated unfairly.

Ha-yeon stared at Seong-hyeon’s back as he headed to the faculty office for a while before heading to the training room where she had class.