Chapter 1
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Translator: MJK
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Surviving as an F-Class Healer (1)
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“Number 18, Jin Hari.”
“Yes!”
“...You’re here again today.”
The teacher called roll and couldn’t resist adding that little jab.
“When does this class’s field training start?”
“Seven o’clock this afternoon!”
“Hm.”
You’ll die quick.
He didn’t say it outright, but it was close enough.
It had been a week since the entrance ceremony.
For that whole week, Jin Hari—the center of all the wrong kind of attention—had been smiling brightly, pretending she hadn’t caught a single whisper, even though everyone knew she had.
She has to know they’re all wishing she’d just drop dead. Can’t wrap my head around why she even came here.
The people of Narin Academy took pride in their school.
Minimum graduation standard: B-rank.
And only those with plenty of real combat experience at that. It was a prestigious hunter high school that produced nothing less.
Fifty years ago, during the Third Cataclysm, alumni from Narin had stepped up and stopped the end of the world. Its global reputation was sky-high for good reason.
Naturally, there were entrance requirements.
You had to be at least D-rank before turning seventeen, no criminal record, and above all, possess a skill usable in dungeons.
The problem? Those rules didn’t apply to healers.
Even so, an F-rank? Come on.
Healers were a special class, rare enough to get some leeway, sure. But this was the first time an F-rank had ever been admitted.
In dungeons, you protected healers because they could save your life in a pinch. But if that pinch could only happen three times a day? What was the point?
And yet, Jin Hari had enrolled anyway. For a full week, she hadn’t let her smile slip once, cheerfully enjoying academy life like nothing was wrong.
As if she couldn’t care less that someone might die because of her.
Whatever. Not my problem.
The poor ones were her classmates.
They could kiss their group performance scores goodbye.
Guess I’ll have to write off my first-semester bonus too.
The teacher clicked his tongue and snapped the roll book shut.
What could you do? He’d drawn the short straw, stuck with the reject class homeroom.
Class 8 did have its share of problem children besides her. Maybe it’d be a win for the academy if enough of them thinned out.
“Alright, then. See if you survive. Dismissed.”
He didn’t even bother hiding his lack of enthusiasm as he shuffled out.
“...What a prick.”
“Think he’ll even recommend our homeroom guy for promotion next semester?”
“...Anyone but that one guy, no way in hell.”
The second he was gone, Class 8 students glanced somewhere and started murmuring.
“F-rank heal? That’s what, three times a day? How’s she gonna handle all these field trainings?”
“No clue. Sucks to be the ones teamed up with her.”
She looked like some seductive beauty straight out of a fantasy novel. That empty-headed bright smile just made her seem like easy prey.
So the students didn’t hold back, talking smack right to her face.
Jin Hari, of course, ignored it like always. Even now, she was sparkling with interest over the next lecture’s materials, ears full of their chatter.
“Studying won’t do her any good anyway.”
The pissed-off students raised their voices on purpose, making sure she heard.
“And don’t sweat the team thing. F-ranks can’t legally enter C-rank or higher dungeons.”
“Oh yeah. ...But our school’s training dungeons start at C-rank, right?”
“Yep. So she’ll flunk the performance eval and just run the festival dummy dungeon? Unless some top-tiers scout her.”
“...Scout, my ass. She’s just here to catch guild reps’ eyes at the festival.”
“Dude, you need C-rank for that to even be possible. You think those reps are blind? No way they pick an F-rank.”
“Fair.”
That’s when Jin Hari glanced sideways at the kids circling their temples and mouthing “crazy.”
The murmurers flinched.
Caught trash-talking?
Nah, that’d happened plenty over the past week.
What threw them was, hilariously, how pretty she was.
Didn’t look that good at the entrance ceremony. Or maybe we didn’t notice under the rags?
Her once-pale, cave-dweller skin was now clean and smooth. It contrasted sharply with her long black hair, drawing the eye.
Those deep violet eyes looked like they had stars embedded in them.
Even among hunters—who got natural beauty buffs and skewed gorgeous—hers was standout, one-of-a-kind beauty.
Especially when she flashed that smile.
“...”
“...”
...She did just smile all cute, right?
Even family didn’t get looks like that from top awakeners. That’s why promising sprouts went independent early.
Not that anyone minded.
From the moment they awakened, half their lives were ruled by animal instinct. Skills, mana, stats? Just numbers quantifying how much instinct dominated you.
Point was, in their world, acting like that—for no reason, no dominance play—was weird.
Even after Jin Hari turned back to her materials, the two boys stayed frozen a while.
Then they slowly straightened up, thinking.
Shoulda gone to an entertainment agency, not here.
Her vibe was even stranger than her looks.
What, does she think she’s a saint or something?
An F-rank with that relaxed(?) kindness? No matter how rough you talked, she always hit back with gentle eyes, soft smiles, and a voice clear as birdsong.
Those serene, warm eyes especially left you feeling all fuzzy and off-balance.
They had no clue it was the gaze of an adult soul viewing teen kids like adorable puppies.
The two boys scowled.
Hunters were aggressive by nature.
Their world was closer to beasts’ than humans’.
Korea was one of the few with solid systems, so it was milder here. But still just a matter of degree.
Safe, harmless things unrelated to dungeon clears? Hard to come by.
Cute, fragile creatures or gentle words...
So they didn’t get why their anger suddenly fizzled out.
They froze a bit longer, then awkwardly picked up their griping.
“Uh, anyway.”
“Yeah, total nuisance!”
...Right, F-ranks were dead weight.
Class 8 had an odd thirteen students, so one leftover wouldn’t break dungeon teams. The real issue was finals.
“Finals are class vs. class.”
“Yep.”
One death, and your score tanked. So they were stuck babysitting a cute-but-useless burden in battle!
Barring her from dungeons would dock even more points.
Thinking of her as baggage normalized their racing hearts quick.
Come finals dungeon, if she just screamed and hid pathetically, this cooled anger might reignite.
“Shoulda dropped out this semester.”
Someone muttered it openly, and everyone silently agreed.
No idea they’d soon dread her leaving after just a year.
I gazed at my classmates with benevolent eyes.
They all took going into dungeons as a given.
How do they pull that off?
It fascinated me.
Sure, the academy watched to prevent deaths, but unless you were S-rank, death was always on the table.
There was a reason guilds scooped up Narin grads who made it out alive.
Every finals, class numbers drop by about a third, right?
Some died, but injuries forcing early retirement were common too.
In the original story, deaths would spike starting this year.
Unlike me, though, these kids wouldn’t quit despite knowing that.
They’d all come here clutching some spark of justice in their young hearts.
Modern-day heroes.
Or modern-fantasy heroes, technically.