F-Rank Healer (2)
“That’s not just some rest and recovery. Baek Soyeon’s condition is serious right now. With the mental pollution, she won’t be in her right mind.”
Jin Haeun’s words left me unsure how to respond.
Mental pollution.
It was the unknown threat that every Awakened inevitably encountered as they stood against Abnormal Phenomena to protect humanity.
An Awakened who frequently faces powerful Abnormal Phenomena accumulates mental pollution, and sooner or later falls into corruption.
A corrupted Awakened becomes an Abnormal Phenomenon themselves. If an S-rank hunter falls, they naturally become an S-rank Calamity. That was why there was an unspoken rule: Awakened whose mental pollution had piled up too high would retire early and convalesce somewhere safe, before it was too late.
Unfortunately, humanity still had not discovered any method of purifying accumulated mental pollution.
Through Mysteries, humanity had learned how to fight Abnormal Phenomena—and yet, even so, we still knew almost nothing about them.
Impossible to identify. Impossible to interpret. Impossible to understand.
The relevant authorities swallowed national budgets like hippos every year researching every kind of Abnormal Phenomenon, but as far as I knew, progress was practically nonexistent.
An S-rank hunter’s mental pollution status would be treated as a state secret…
After a long stretch of silent deliberation, I finally opened my mouth.
“Are you sure you should be telling me this?”
The subtext was obvious: was it really okay to leak state secrets to some F-rank healer? Haeun pursed her lips in a pout.
“Tch… I told you because I was thinking of you, and now you’re treating me like a security leak? Sometimes you really do feel like a total sociopath. You cold-hearted bastard.”
One little jab, and the complaints came machine-gunning out of her.
“I’m not supposed to say this kind of thing… I’m only telling you because it’s you. So be careful.”
If I left her like this, it would get dangerous. I hurriedly shoved a straw between her lips.
“Must be low blood sugar. Chug the latte.”
“Urgh…”
She glared daggers at me, but a moment later she was sucking down the latte in long, greedy pulls. As the sugar hit her system, the irritation seemed to melt away; her eyes softened at a startling speed.
As expected. Latte was the answer.
My childhood friend, cheeks puffed out like a hamster as she inhaled her drink, was pretty cute. A smile crept onto my own face without my noticing.
“Good?”
“Yeah. Tastes even better ’cause you bought it.”
Jin Haeun grinned, all hee-hee.
“Anyway… be careful. There’s no hunter in Gangwon-do who can stop Baek Soyeon.”
“There’s the Lord of Gangwon-do.”
Hunters naturally clustered in the capital region, so the government supported local governments in maintaining at least a minimal response capability against Abnormal Phenomena. As a result, a certain number of S-rank and A-rank hunters rotated through the provinces in turns.
In the Lord of Gangwon-do’s case, he possessed a special Mystery that let him draw out power approaching S-rank—but only in his hometown of Gangwon-do. That was why he spent roughly 350 days out of 365 living there.
“The Lord of Gangwon-do can’t handle Baek Soyeon. The grade of the Mystery she awakened is on a different level.”
Mysteries had ranks of their own. Not all Mysteries were created equal.
“Don’t worry. I’ve always been pretty quick on the uptake. The second anything feels off, I’m booking it straight to Seoul.”
If trouble came, I was fully prepared to abandon the clinic on the spot and run for Seoul—just like King Seonjo ditching the capital and fleeing north to escape the Japanese army during the Imjin War.
“Yeah. Don’t throw your life away trying to save the injured. Just run. If Baek Soyeon corrupts into a Calamity, Gangwon-do’s done for.”
Thanks to my childhood friend’s strings-pulling, I managed to land a job as a dispatch healer at a tiny public health outpost in Donghae, Gangwon-do.
It was a contract dispatch position, but the pay and benefits were solid, and barring some catastrophic screw-up the contract extension was basically guaranteed. Competition had been fierce—yet I sailed through the document screening and the interview in a single pass.
“As expected, connections are essential in South Korea.”
Today, as on every other day, I hurried through my morning routine at the government-provided dormitory and got ready to head to the branch clinic. For the past two weeks, nothing had happened—so thoroughly uneventful that Jin Haeun’s worries seemed almost silly.
The fact that Baek Soyeon was recuperating at a villa near the East Sea was already an open secret among those who needed to know; even the clinic staff were all aware. What they didn’t seem to know was just how far her mental pollution had already progressed.
“Sir, what brings you in today?”
“Think I hurt my arm hauling in the nets. Been hurting something fierce since this morning.”
“Let’s have a look.”
After clocking in, I started the day’s work by examining the arm of a fisherman who’d been waiting.
The duties assigned to a bottom-tier healer dispatched to a backwater branch clinic were almost always this sort of thing. Too weak for combat to join Abnormal Phenomenon raid teams, they usually ended up handling trauma treatment for rural residents who could barely even make it to a proper clinic.
Even an F-rank’s mana-based healing could rapidly mend ordinary people’s injuries, so in its own way it was a genuine contribution to the local community.
A parachute appointment, of course, but still.
I muttered that to myself as I reached out, laid my hand on the fisherman’s arm—injured while hauling nets—and manifested the Mystery of healing.
Warm light touched his arm, and the pain-twisted expression on the fisherman’s face eased.
“How’s that?”
“Much better. Thank you, young man… really.”
He thanked me several times over, then left the clinic.
That one fisherman was the entire morning’s patient list. No one else showed up at the outpost until lunchtime.
“Ugh! This is so goddamn boring!”
From the next seat, D-rank healer Kim Seongmin let out a massive yawn and then practically shouted, as if having a fit. He was the most senior of the healers dispatched to this little outpost.
Though “healers” here is just him and me.
He had the personality of a textbook old fogey and spent every day stuffed full of complaints, but a senior was still a senior. On top of that his Awakened rank was higher than mine, so I kept my head down and just did my job.
“Healer Lee Jinwoo. You’re F-rank—how’d you even get here? They usually bounce every F-rank at the document screening.”
Sure enough, he must have been bored out of his skull; he couldn’t restrain his dog-like personality and started picking a fight the moment lunch rolled around.
“I got lucky.”
I gave him a half-hearted answer, not wanting to waste any emotional energy.
“Hmm. That so?”
But he wouldn’t let it go.
“A parachute… is that it? You’ve got some hunter connection with a bit of pull, don’t you?”
He must have been monumentally bored; even after I’d openly put up a wall, Kim Seongmin climbed right over it.
“If you’d been some big-shot’s parachute, you’d have gone somewhere better. So you’re probably just a so-so connections parachute. Nice to meet you—I’m a parachute too.”
I clenched my teeth and ignored him.
“Working in a dump like this is just too boring, you know? I don’t know why my dad sent me to a place like this to live some no-fun life like a monk polishing his spirit. Seriously.”
He was just asking and answering his own questions at this point. Absolute chaos.
“I almost wish an Abnormal Phenomenon would just show up already. I’m all for it.”
“If an Abnormal Phenomenon occurs, people die. We could be in danger too.”
I couldn’t just let the “I hope an Abnormal Phenomenon happens” line slide. I tossed the sharp reply out—and for Kim Seongmin, it apparently made for a welcome bit of stimulation in the middle of the boredom.
“You’re… pretty good at playing the nice guy. Just because you Awakened doesn’t mean an F-rank should be fretting over a bunch of powerless nobodies.”
Not worth answering. I shut my mouth.
Among D-rank and higher Awakened, there were quite a few of Kim Seongmin’s type—the ones who believed they were a new breed of humanity and got drunk on superiority.
Not even worth talking to.
Kim Seongmin’s superiority complex seemed pretty severe. Something about him had felt off during our shifts together; as expected, my instincts had been right on the money.
“Well, an F-rank isn’t much different from a regular person. Guess that’s why you feel such kinship with them.”
Just as I was about to snap back at the endless provocation—
Emergency. This is not a drill. Repeat: this is not a drill.
Abnormal Phenomenon confirmed within the jurisdiction. S-rank Calamity alert issued.
All branch clinic healers are to assemble at the main public health center in accordance with the manual.
Sirens blared from the speakers installed inside the outpost. An Abnormal Phenomenon had occurred in Donghae. An S-rank Calamity, no less.
“I-I didn’t… I didn’t want this…”
I glanced sideways. Kim Seongmin had gone deathly pale, his hands shaking violently.
“Snap out of it! Grab your gear and assemble at the health center!”
When an Abnormal Phenomenon on the scale of an S-rank Calamity occurred, branch healers were required to gather at the main public health center for medical support and await further orders.
I packed my equipment according to the manual we’d been trained on.
I grabbed the yellow protective suit that served as a minimal barrier against mental pollution, and the amplifier that boosted healing output even a little.
Wanting to be of even the slightest help, I took everything I could carry—and just as I was about to head out, I saw Kim Seongmin still frozen in panic, limbs trembling.
“You idiot! Get a grip and get out here!”
Even my shout drew no response.
Ah. This bastard was pissing me off.
“Hurry up and get out here, you moron!”
I slapped the dazed Kim Seongmin across both cheeks, then bolted out of the outpost building ahead of him.