Chapter 44: 44

Swordmaster Healer – Episode 44

TL: Boko

Editor: Ren

Chapter 15 – A-rank Healer Hunter (2)

“My lord!” cried Rishubalt.

Sung Joon said, “Let’s go home for now.”

It was fortunate that he’d brought his gear, including his longsword, Roel, for a dungeon run. It seemed like the battlefield was quite far from his house.

Sung Joon saw cars lining up on the wide road, transporting soldiers towards the battlefield. The army had begun to move, so they should buy him enough time for him to take his father to safety.

Sung Joon sprinted towards his house.

Due to the broadcast that had advised the people to take shelter, Soo Hyuk had awoken and had been waiting for Sung Joon.

“Dad!”

“What’s going on?” asked his father.

“There’s been an outbreak of a Raid. We have to go.”

“What about you?” Soo Hyuk asked.

Although his father was a civilian, he knew that Hunters were called when a Raid broke out.

“I’m on a vacation leave.”

“Vacation?”

Soo Hyuk didn’t know much about a Hunter’s leave.

“I don’t have time to explain it in detail, but in any event, I don’t have to participate in the current Raid,” replied Sung Joon.

The army moved in order to buy time for civilians to escape. The first Hunters called wouldn’t be able to block the wave and there was a possibility that the radius of the battlefield would widen. Therefore, Sung Joon had to hurry.

While Soo Hyuk put on some outer clothing, Sung Joon packed their bags.

As Sung Joon was packing, he felt a presence and turned his head. He could hear several people disembarking from more than two vehicles.

“Rishubalt, it seems like we have some guests. Go out and check,” he ordered.

“I understand.”

Rishubalt briefly went outside, checked the situation, and came back.

“There were five of them. Two of them are Hunters.”

Sung Joon focused entirely on the outside. Although he had felt their presences, they didn’t enter further than the yard.

‘They know that I felt their presences.’

They were waiting for Sung Joon to come out.

“Dad, please pack the bags and wait. I’ll be back soon.”

Sung Joon equipped Roel, opened the door, and went outside. There was a man dressed in a suit in his yard.

“May I ask who you are?” Sung Joon asked.

“You seem like a Hunter… Were you preparing to run away while this Raid is occurring?” the suited man asked. He wore a dagger at his waist that didn’t match with his suit.

Although the man was wearing sunglasses, Sung Joon could at least tell that he was staring at him.

“I cannot gauge his skills exactly but if you take into consideration the amount and density of his mana, he seems to be a C-rank Hunter. The other one is similarly C-rank as well,” Rishubalt reported.

Sung Joon nodded his head. From his viewpoint as well, the two men’s mana didn’t feel exceptional.

“I’m in the middle of a vacation,” he replied.

“The people are dying left and right, so is a vacation really that important?” the man retorted.

The black sedan’s door opened and out came a middle-aged man. He looked at Sung Joon with a displeased expression.

‘They don’t seem to know that I’m an A-rank Hunter.’

Sung Joon laughed. If they knew that he was an A-rank Hunter, they wouldn’t have brought two measly C-rank Hunters and shown such a overbearing attitude.  

In the current situation, they had heard that it would be difficult for the Hunters to block the Raid whilst learning that there was a Hunter that wasn’t doing anything. Thus, they came by for a compulsory ‘mobilization’.

Sung Joon countered, “I’m just exercising my rights. No one can force a Hunter to mobilize when they are on ‘vacation’.”

If a Hunter was granted a leave of vacation, they gained the absolute right of a vacation that no one could intrude on. Therefore, to prevent it from being overused, it was difficult to be issued one, since it was both a hassle and strict.

Thus, Hunters were only given a vacation when they had a special objective. However, this time, under the consideration of the Hunter Bureau, Sung Joon had been able to receive it without much difficulty.

“You, do you not know who I am?” the man asked with a heavy voice.

Sung Joon glanced at him. He didn’t recognize him at all.

“I don’t care who you are. However, if you interfere in my business, I won’t take it lying down.”

“You impudent bastard…!”

The two that Rishubalt had pointed out as Hunters simultaneously drew their swords and pointed them at Sung Joon.

The man behind them also pulled out a handgun from his coat and pointed it at Sung Joon. Ever since the dungeons and Raids had appeared, possessing a firearm hadn’t been legalized. Yet, guns were much easier to see nowadays.

“Pull your hand off the trigger, unless you want to die,” Sung Joon said, releasing his killing intent.

“Ugh!”

“Ergh!”

Sung Joon released his dense killing intent and the five people exposed to it cried out, grasping their chests and collapsing onto the ground.  

They couldn’t stand up; they felt as if their legs had given out..

“A-all of you, what’s wrong!?”

Sung Joon suitably controlled his killing intent and didn’t affect the middle-aged man in the back.

“L-Look here! I’m Son Jin Woong, the governor here! If you mess with me, you’ll regret it!” the man cried.

Sung Joon just turned around and went back inside. Rishubalt glanced at Son Jin Woong and soon followed Sung Joon inside.

“How dare he try to threaten you, my lord… If I didn’t have this body, I would happily behead him.”

Sung Joon replied, “He’s like a bug, so don’t worry about him.”

Sung Joon and his father moved far away from the battlefield. However, it seemed like Soo Hyuk was getting tired from the sudden travel.

Sung Joon went inside a nearby motel and laid his father down.

“Dad, would you like to watch some TV while you rest?” he asked.

Sung Joon pressed the power button on the remote control. It showed coverage of the Raid downtown as soon as it turned on.

Their initial countermeasures had failed, so the battlefield was spreading.

“Son…”

Soo Hyuk looked at his son.

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“I’m not going,” said Sung Joon stubbornly.

If they had asked him politely, he might’ve thought about going, but since they had coerced and threatened him, he was over it.

Ring. Ring.

Sung Joon was drinking water he had gotten from the refrigerator when he heard his phone ring. Raising it, he saw that Hyun Sung was calling him.

Sung Joon furrowed his eyebrows and picked up.

“Have you already gotten reports on the situation here?” he asked.

He had dealt with a politician. He had somewhat expected him to have contacted the Hunter Bureau.

“How did you know? The Hunter Bureau has received a request to punish you, Mr. Kang Sung Joon from Namhae County*.” (*Namhae County is in the South Gyeongsang Province in South Korea.)

“It’s obvious what a politician thinks about.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“So… are you going to punish me for my actions?” Sung Joon asked.

“Not at all. The Hunter Bureau won’t punish you for this event, Mr. Kang Sung Joon.”

There wasn’t even a second of hesitation. Contrary to the Namhae County’s Governor expectations, the Hunter Bureau had taken Sung Joon’s side.

“If that’s the case, it seems like you called to ask me for a favor… Am I right?”

The outbreak of a Raid, the spreading of the battlefield, and Hyun Sung, the Hunter Bureau’s primary connection to Sung Joon calling him…

…There was no way it was a coincidence.

“You’re quite perceptive.”

Hyun Sung didn’t deny it.

“The first group of Hunters has failed considerably. The second round of Hunters have been sent by the Bureau’s headquarters and have arrived, but the battlefield has spread too far. Thus, it’s difficult to contain it and it’s also difficult to assault the warp gate.”

“So you’d like me to destroy the warp gate?”

“The Hunter Bureau should compensate you. Please tell me if there’s something you want.”

“You know that stealth item that I had borrowed before? Give that to me,” Sung Joon firmly requested.

“A-Are you speaking of the Veil of Darkness?” Hyun Sung stammered.

He hadn’t expected Sung Joon to request an item that was worth more than $10 million.

“If I don’t intervene, it seems like Namhae County will be burned to the ground,” Sung Joon said honestly.

If he equipped the stealth item, he’d be able to do so much, even outside of the dungeon.

Hyun Sung also knew that fact. Since the stealth ability was chiefly used for assassination, the Bureau, which currently possessed the stealth item, took special care to not let the item go outside.

“I’ll trust you, Mr. Kang Sung Joon.”

Hyun Sung consented after thinking about it briefly. There was also the fact that the situation was turning for the worse, but he thought it was necessary to take this chance to implant trust in Sung Joon towards the Hunter Bureau.

“Thank you. I also have one final request,” added Sung Joon.

“Please tell me.”

He didn’t know what kind of conditions Sung Joon would put up, so Hyun Sung felt anxious.

“I’m with my father right now. Since his health isn’t good, I need someone to watch over him.”

“We’ll send a vehicle to take your father to a safe place.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable request, so Hyun Sung acted immediately.

“Thank you. Then, I’ll go to destroy the warp gate now,” replied Sung Joon.

After he said that, he ended the call. Also, he walked over to Soo Hyuk and explained the situation. Unexpectedly, his father shook his head happily.

“You did well, son.”

It seemed he hadn’t been comfortable with the idea of his hometown becoming devastated.

‘Now that I think about it, this was my hometown.’

It was also Sung Joon’s hometown. Sung Joon belatedly became aware of this and felt goosebumps.

‘Am I losing my emotions as my synchronization rate increases…?’

It was certainly possible. Sung Joon’s past self had been so cool-headed* that it was appropriate to say that he didn’t know what emotions were.(*His past self only gets hot-headed when he’s provoked, challenged, or insulted. Otherwise, he’s cool-headed.)

Eventually, a nearby Hunter Bureau worker arrived with a car. There were actually two cars. The armored vehicle was for transporting Sung Joon to the battlefield.

“Dad, I’ll be back soon.”

“Be careful.”

Sung Joon got into the armored vehicle first.

“I’ll go to the battlefield immediately.”

The armored car departed. While he was on the way to the battlefield, Sung Joon got a report on the situation.

It was a B-rank Raid, but the waves were piling up and the battlefield was expanding. Therefore, the situation was becoming dangerous. The army couldn’t kill the monsters with their weapons, so all they could do was buy time. The Hunters that had been called couldn’t deal with the merging waves and the monsters’ swelling numbers, so they couldn’t advance towards the warp gate.

“I’m sorry. We cannot go any further with the armored vehicle.”

“This is good enough,” Sung Joon reassured.

Sung Joon got off the armored vehicle and drew his sword.

“It’s the Lizardmen’s recon party,” Rishubalt reported.

Sung Joon felt their presences.

‘There are seven of them.’

Eventually, the C-rank Lizardmen revealed themselves. As he had expected, there were seven of them.

“There are six infantrymen and one archer!”

Rishubalt had quickly grasped the Lizardmen recon party’s composition. Sung Joon approached them and quickly closed the distance.

Before the archer could even pull his bowstring, Sung Joon had already advanced up to the lead Lizardman.

One of the Lizardmen let out a horrible shriek. Sung Joon didn’t know the meaning, but it seemed as if it was a warning to his allies.

‘It’s too late.’

He had warned his allies after Sung Joon had swung his sword. Unlike the Living Armors, the Lizardmen weren’t encased in armor, so he didn’t need to use aura.

Crunch.

The Lizardman spilled blood as he fell to the floor. The archer had belatedly pulled an arrow on his bowstring, but Sung Joon had hidden himself.

Sung Joon appeared behind the archer and used his Flash Cut. The Lizardman archer screamed and fell down. The remaining Lizardmen infantry belatedly aimed their spears at Sung Joon and ran towards him.

However, before his sword, they were helpless.  

When he had reached a synchronization rate of 15%, Sung Joon’s body had gotten even faster. Mere C-rank monsters wouldn’t be able to evade his sword.

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