I Became the Only Healer in the Academy - Chapter 22.1
With the urgency of escape, the man bolted through the gate and towards his hideout, never casting a glance behind.
‘That guy… deceived me!’
He had clearly said there would be no one else other than them inside the gate, but he was completely wrong.
Upon reaching his hideout, a colleague welcomed him with a perplexed look.
“Already back? Did everything go as planned?”
“M-More or less.”
With a slightly evasive response, the colleague looked at the man with a suspicious expression, but didn’t inquire further.
The man went straight to his room and made a call.
“Hello?”
“…Hey! Your tone is different.”
“What? My tone is different. What are you talking about?”
“Let’s meet and talk. Where are you right now?”
“…I’ll come.”
Having already spilled the beans to Seonghyun about the client, the man, who wasn’t particularly concerned about being followed, called Taehyun and waited with a visibly irritated expression.
Within about 10 minutes, Taehyun appeared at the man’s location, perhaps he might have been close by.
“What happened? Did it fail?”
“Fail? Hey, didn’t you clearly say there wouldn’t be any guards inside the gate?”
“…Yes, but…”
Taehyun delved into his own memories.
His certainty about the absence of guards inside the gate wasn’t mere intuition.
It stemmed from concrete information provided by his brother, who worked within the association.
“It’s nonsense! There were guards inside the gate!”
“…Is that even a problem?”
“What?”
Taehyun, wearing an expression of discomfort, spoke to the man.
“If you’re going to give up just for that, what level are we talking about here? Ha… really…”
“W-What?”
Since it wasn’t a false statement, the man couldn’t come up with a retort.
“The payment has been settled. You must have been quite surprised, so why not use it for some tonic or something.”
“…Watch yourself. Besides Kim Seonghyun, there’s an incredibly skilled person. Someone I wouldn’t even sense approaching.”
“That’s good to know. Is our conversation over then?”
“…Yes.”
Taehyun rose from his seat, let out a sigh, and said,
“Ha, making such a fuss over a setback. I should have considered someone else for the request.”
The man observed silently as Taehyun exited, his fists tightly clenched.
Once outside the building, Taehyun pulled out a cigarette with an irritated expression.
“Haa… I should seek another request now.”
This place was supposed to be the most skilled, so Taehyun felt a bit conflicted with the outcome.
“He probably knew…”
As someone with a certain position within the association, Taehyun’s brother couldn’t be so misinformed about these matters.
“I should give him a call after working hours.”
Since his brother still had some time before leaving work, Taehyun finished his cigarette and returned to the academy.
After Taehyun left and some time passed, a man in a black suit entered the place where Taehyun had just come out.
“A request?”
“Yeah.”
At first glance, one can see the guest in suit has a lot on his plate, and the man welcomed him, momentarily forgetting about today’s failure.
“I know your request today has failed, but can I trust you?”
“W-Well, there were unexpected variables…”
“Anyways, it was you who failed, right? The situation with the hunter with healing abilities?”
Judging from his words, it seemed like the client was related to that insane hunter. The man nodded confidently in response.
“Yeah, probably I’m the only one who knows about that guy so well.”
“Is that so? Then I did come to the right place.”
“So, what kind of request…”
The man, who was delighted at the thought of receiving another payment, suddenly froze as his breath caught in his throat.
In an instant, his body began to float in mid-air, with nothing he could do but flail his legs.
“Cough…”
It wasn’t until the groans ceased to be audible that the man in suit finally left the room.
Time passed quickly until the day of the decisive battle to determine the grade representative.
During that time, Seonghyun and Inhwan hunted to some extent, and though the time spent at the gate was short, Inhwan’s proficiency rapidly increased. He could now handle his abilities much more freely than when he first started.
On the day of the decisive battle to select the grade representative, all students were allowed to skip classes and watch the competition.
“…”
There was an awkward atmosphere in Seonghyun’s team, considering they were supposed to be on the same side.
“If you use healing on me, I’ll kill you first.”
Seonghyun, without responding to Sang-yeon’s words, looked at Inhwan.
“Let’s just do it as we practiced.”
“Yeah, at least there won’t be any misfires.”
Feeling quite irritated at being ignored, Sang-yeon approached Seonghyun, raising a finger to his chest.
“Do you understand?”
“Yeah. Let’s just do it that way.”
Satisfied after hearing Seonghyun’s response, Sang-yeon found a spot a little apart and sat down, waiting for the start of the battle.
Not long after, one of the professors entered and began explaining briefly about the representative battle.
“I will explain the rules. There have been some changes in the rules starting from this battle. The three of you, choose a captain now.”
Upon hearing the term “captain,” the three exchanged glances.
“You can let me know shortly before the battle starts.”
The professor placed a phone on the table, and the phone screen had a blank space where the name of the chosen captain for the day would be written.
“Now, let me explain the rest of the rules.”
