Chapter 23
To end this whole situation, I needed Baek Doha’s help.
“Yoo Yi-joo, you, why, what are you doing now……”
But the problem was that Baek Doha wasn’t in his right mind.
“How…?”
I had warned him beforehand for this very reason, but Baek Doha was just staring at me, completely frozen.
He seemed unable to comprehend the situation itself.
It’s understandable. How should one react to their pain suddenly transferring to someone else?
In fact, even I found it hard to understand, perhaps due to my diminished judgment.
‘To go this far knowing I’d be in pain.’
If I had told myself this fact just a day ago when I was lying around, I would have dismissed it as nonsense.
But what can I do? With the quest time limit, I’d die either way.
‘…No.’
In truth, I would have done it even without the quest. I wasn’t such a bad person to ignore someone who saved my life.
Baek Doha’s face gradually blurred. More precisely, my vision seemed to be reaching its limit.
If I faint now, everything will be in vain.
“Baek Doha, quickly, do as I say……”
I fumbled for my neck and grabbed Baek Doha’s hand that was placed there.
He was startled and looked at my neck. He seemed to have forgotten that his hand was there due to his confusion.
Then he quietly spoke.
“You… are you crazy?”
I’m not crazy.
Ignoring my cracked voice, I slightly squeezed our joined hands. It was meant to ask him to just follow my words. In fact, I had used all my strength, but it probably just felt like a slight twitch.
Surprised even by that weak force, Baek Doha removed his hand from my neck.
“Ah.”
This won’t do.
[SYSTEM] Your physical condition is deteriorating due to abnormal status!
I coughed, and blood spewed out.
But the coughing didn’t stop at once, it kept repeating. It meant my physical condition was worse than I thought.
‘Maybe it could worsen to the brink of death within 15 minutes?’
Anyway, looking at Baek Doha’s state, he didn’t seem capable of choking me.
It seemed better to wait for the sub-quest to appear, or if that didn’t work, to stay alert and stab myself once.
Fortunately, I felt hopeful about this quickly devised plan…
But that’s when I saw something strange beyond my field of vision.
A monster with an unfamiliar appearance was approaching us, sniffing.
A body covered thickly with weed-like fur, golden eyes, a body several times larger than a bear.
My blurry vision cleared as if doused with cold water.
The chances of this monster not noticing us sitting openly in the middle of the forest?
Absolutely zero.
The creature, covered in weeds and waddling on two feet, eventually met my eyes.
In this situation, there was only one thing I could say.
‘F*ck.’
It was the worst possible timing.
💎
“This will make you stronger.”
15-year-old Baek Doha entered a place called ‘laboratory’ for the first time.
He felt an inexplicable sense of discomfort amidst the kind and bright atmosphere, but that was all.
“Will that alone make me stronger?”
To repay the chairman who had bought him, he had no choice but to become stronger, and to do that, he had to follow the words of the laboratory people.
“Then I’ll do it.”
By the time he realized that the red liquid was the blood of an elf, a different species, it was too late.
“Is this a failure too?”
“Maybe we injected too much.”
“Ah, another failure.”
“Regrettable, but we need to find a sturdier body.”
Extreme pain and the incessant sound of ‘failure’.
Everyone said Baek Doha would die like this. They turned their backs without hesitation, saying they should look for another test subject.
Even he thought he would die, but exactly 5 years later.
At 20, Baek Doha manifests as S-rank and overcomes the aftermath simultaneously.
He met the chairman who hadn’t shown his face for 5 years, and under his direction and sponsorship, established a new guild.
A mere orphan becoming S-rank and establishing a guild…
To a third party, isn’t this the perfect growth story?
But Baek Doha didn’t forget. The moments when he was weak and the times he struggled to survive.
“I’ll try not to be a burden as much as possible. Please let me accompany you for just a month.”
It was closer to sympathy than a sense of responsibility.
Three S-rank and one unexpected C-rank.
After falling into the dungeon, when he took Yoo Yi-joo’s hand asking for help, it was partly for surveillance and caution, but there was another purpose. Baek Doha himself knew this.
“After all, I survived on that sympathy too.”
In the end, it was because of sympathy.
That’s why he was shaken when Yoo Yi-joo said those words.
It’s true that he got unnecessarily irritated because his physical condition was sensitive at the time.
It’s also true that his eye color returned earlier than expected due to the disturbance.
Using the S-grade potion on Yoo Yi-joo at such a great loss just because of sympathy seems pathetic now that he thinks about it.
Using the S-grade potion just because he felt sorry for momentarily trying to abandon Yoo Yi-joo and escape the dungeon…
And above all, not regretting that choice.
‘Pathetic.’
Even if he could go back, Baek Doha would probably have saved Yoo Yi-joo, caught by that shallow sympathy.
In the end, this meaningless farce made of emotions should have ended there, but…
[Using skill, ‘Boundary Line (C)’!]
[SYSTEM] Your physical condition has drastically deteriorated!
“Cough!”
It was strange.
Turning his head away from Yoo Yi-joo, who was coughing up blood, Baek Doha could see.
A barrier was cast right behind his back, and a monster enraged by its sudden appearance.
Yes, the farce didn’t end, but was returned to Yoo Yi-joo.
It was a situation completely different from what Baek Doha had expected.
Yoo Yi-joo’s hand, stretched out to hastily cast the barrier, couldn’t hold on and fell.
Baek Doha looked down at the pale face. He saw Yoo Yi-joo stubbornly holding on despite being in a state where fainting at any moment wouldn’t be surprising.
Kwaaang!!
[The barrier’s durability decreases! (655/1000)]
[The barrier’s durability decreases! (371/1000)]
[The barrier’s durability decreases! (138/1000)]
The boundary line was breaking apart in an instant.
The monster’s solid tail stretched out, then swooped through the air with a whoosh.
The final blow. There was no way the barrier could withstand that one hit.
Just as dismay appeared on Yoo Yi-joo’s face.
[SYSTEM] The barrier reaches its limit and shatters!
Baek Doha reached out his hand.
Because he knew better than anyone that pain which might make death preferable.
[SYSTEM] Desperation reaches its maximum!
So Baek Doha wanted to ask, just once, just this one time.
[SYSTEM] The Goddess who cherishes you grants your wish!
[SYSTEM] Skill, ‘Recovery (E)’ temporarily increases dramatically!
What kind of life have you lived to be able to make such a choice?
[Single skill, ‘Goddess’s Healing (S)’ is used on the target!]
A huge green light began to envelop the surrounding forest.
Baek Doha’s sensitive ears caught the sound of two urgent footsteps.
It was clearly the footsteps of Cha Si-hyeon and Im Yoo-chan, who had realized Yoo Yi-joo’s disappearance.
As the light covered everything, Yoo Yi-joo seemed surprised, then eventually smiled with her eyes curved.
At the end of all those actions, her head dropped with a thud.
Feeling the limit of his magical power, Baek Doha thought.
[SYSTEM] Main Quest-8 [Remove Companion ‘Baek Doha (S)’s Abnormal Status] Cleared.
He would probably never forget this moment for the rest of his life.
💎
Exactly 24 hours.
It was a full day later when I fully regained consciousness.
‘I slept a lot.’
I could feel my lips were badly chapped from enduring the pain.
Looking around with half-open eyes, I saw the familiar interior of the cave.
[SYSTEM] Main Quest-8 [Remove Companion ‘Baek Doha (S)’s Abnormal Status] Cleared.
[SYSTEM] Due to the single skill ‘Goddess’s Healing (S)’, your physical condition has fully recovered.
[SYSTEM] The effect of skill ‘Exceptional Brain (E)’ increases.
After reading the series of system messages that had piled up, I tidied my disheveled hair and went outside to find Baek Doha there.
“You look terrible.”
Damn. I know. He smiled brightly, stabbing a dagger into my heart.
“…You don’t look so great either, Doha.”
I glanced at Baek Doha’s face, which was a mess of sweat and blood.
He seemed to have just woken up too, but the shine amidst that mess must be my imagination.
“Then let’s go wash up together.”
As I was about to turn my head, Baek Doha suggested.
Wash up? Before I could answer, he gently grabbed my wrist and led me.
‘His hand is a mess too.’
I stared blankly at the hand covered in dried blood stains, then looked up.
The wind blew, tickling Baek Doha’s hair. Under the eyelashes pierced by the bright golden hair were green eyes.
‘They’re back.’
After a long silence, he was the one who spoke first.
“They forcibly injected elf blood into me.”
I almost bit my tongue at the sudden, straightforward statement without any warning. What, what?
💎
Thank you for reading! ♡
