Chapter 17

After a busy night of filling my belly, I was able to return to my room and sleep soundly.

Ah, being young and spry really does have its perks. If it were my previous life, I bet my stomach would be grumbling, making it hard to sleep comfortably.

Then again, maybe it’s because, as Ria said, using that special power of mine tired me out unusually.

“Good morning…”

Well, even though I woke up well-rested, the morning wasn’t exactly refreshing.

It’s March, but it’s still a bit too early to say spring has fully arrived. The yellow forsythia has bloomed, but at dawn, the sun isn’t exactly shining yet, and I particularly struggle in the morning, making it a bit torturous to wake up before the sun rises.

Sure, summer will be hot, but at least the early morning sun makes getting up a tad easier.

Anyway, whenever the weather in my country seems bearable, some troublesome flaw starts to rear its ugly head, which is a real nuisance.

“Good mor— *pfft!*?”

As I rose from my seat, Ria burst out laughing as if she’d just pulled a prank on me.

“…What’s so funny?”

Isn’t it a tad rude to laugh at someone’s face right after they wake up?

I wondered if I’d drooled in my sleep or something, so I felt my face, and Ria, realizing it wasn’t a pleasant thing to witness, tried hard to stifle her laughter.

“I-I need to use the bathroom.”

At Ria’s words, I staggered up and headed for the bathroom.

And when I looked in the mirror, I was horrified.

My face was all puffy.

It seems I’d eaten too many carbs last night before going to bed. That’s probably why it was so hard to open my eyes.

…And Ria actually saw this face straight on.

Maybe I should cut back on ramen for dinner from now on.

I sighed deeply as I thought.

*

While showering, I forced myself to wash my face with cold water to reduce the puffiness—though, unfortunately, it didn’t completely go away—and after finishing my morning routine, Ria and I followed the Sister Warden toward the patient room.

I’m not a medical expert, but after looking after patients for a while, I’ve developed a bit of an eye.

If it’s not a case of magic contamination, and unless there’s some weird parasitic creature I’ve seen once before in a patient, one treatment should suffice. Especially in this case, the patient wasn’t uniquely afflicted; they just had a lot of deep wounds.

After I passed out, I heard from other witnesses that a truly monstrous creature—so they described it—had suddenly appeared while hunters were patrolling beyond the gate, causing the poorly experienced hunter to end up like that.

And of all times, the male hunter had a female hunter he had known for a long time right beside him, and he desperately threw himself in front of the monster to protect her.

Again and again, until not a single uninjured part of his body was left, until more advanced hunters showed up and managed to scare the monster off.

Fortunately, the gate appeared near Bukhansan. If it had opened somewhere on the mountain ridge, he likely would have bled to death before help arrived, but thankfully he was close enough to a road so they could get there quickly.

“…Huh.”

Wait a moment.

This story sounds familiar.

And by “people told me here,” I don’t mean it that way.

It’s a common tragedy for a high-grade monster to suddenly come out of a low-grade gate and massacrate the surrounding hunters, or for an unassessable monster to be lurking deep within a gate initially judged to be low-grade. It’s also perfectly possible for a couple of hunter friends to venture in there.

But still, it felt like a story I’d heard before.

The hero, sacrificing himself repeatedly, covered in blood, for his childhood friend. And then the Saintess heals that hero—

“Anna?”

“Ah, yes.”

I unconsciously stopped in my tracks, and the Sister Warden glanced at me with a strange expression.

Ria, who had been walking beside me, did the same.

“What’s wrong? Is something up?”

Ria asked.

“No, it’s nothing.”

I shook my head.

Right. That makes sense.

Maybe…no, probably not. I don’t really have a basis for that, but I want to believe it’s not.

The man with his face nearly torn off couldn’t be recognized, but faintly, I remembered a female figure among the chaos.

Unlike in the novel, her hair wasn’t in a ponytail.

So, it must not be her.

That’s right. Normally, the heroine’s hairstyle in web novels doesn’t tend to change much until the end. It’s treated almost like a sort of ‘attribute.’

At this point, there is not a long-haired heroine close to the protagonist.

Of course, before the main story begins, the protagonist has already had his life saved by the Saintess, and a story about his childhood friend being nearby comes up, and he repeatedly throws himself to buy time and saves her—his childhood friend having a higher hunter grade was, in fact, injured and couldn’t do anything but watch, that much was mentioned in the novel!

Maybe that’s why the protagonist ends up fully trusting the Saintess and lets her cover his back! But the vibe seems to keep hinting that he’s trusting the Saintess more than his childhood friend, which is kind of turning my insides upside down!

The start of the main story is transitioning from fall to winter. There’s still plenty of time left… I want to believe there is!

“Uh… are you alright?”

Ria asked me with a serious look. The Sister Warden seemed a bit worried too, likely having just heard what Maria told her.

“Sister Anna, if you’re tired, you can go rest. That wound from yesterday looked serious in a general sense, but there weren’t any signs of magic contamination.”

“Right. If you’re tired, just go rest in your room, okay?”

“Ah, no.”

I shook my head and declined the offer.

“I need to confirm a few things.”

That’s right.

I had to ascertain whether those two individuals I encountered yesterday were indeed the protagonists I knew from the novel.

Though, I probably wasn’t wrong. Still, I’m not exactly a Saintess, just a Saint Candidate, so it’s probably very unlikely. But if I don’t check on how this situation is unfolding, I won’t know how it’s actually panning out.

Taking a deep breath, I started to move.

The Sister Warden and Ria, who had been a bit startled, soon followed close behind me.

With a bang, I opened the door to the patient room, revealing several almost-empty beds, just like always.

There were only two patients occupying the beds at the furthest end.

One was a woman, and the other, a man.

The woman still had long hair. Great, let’s skip over her for now.

“Ah, sisters—”

As if trying to express gratitude while getting up to greet us, the man at the farthest bed looked at me and smiled brightly.

As usual, the nuns and priests stood nearby to protect me.

This time, however, I didn’t keep my distance. I boldly walked over, surprising the nuns and priests with my unusually bold demeanor, and stood before the man.

The whole process flowed so naturally that the onlookers didn’t even have time to react.

“Hmmm.”

I stared intently at the man’s face.

Compared to the state of his face, nearly showing the bones yesterday, it would be believable to assume I was looking at a completely different person.

He had pale, smooth skin. It was as if a higher being had painstakingly altered his visage to epitomize the concept of being handsome.

But the male protagonist’s face I knew was in SD. So, that alone didn’t help me make a clear distinction.

The jet-black, glistening eyes were a check.

And indeed, the dark, shiny hair was also a check.

“Hmmm.”

“Um, Sister?”

The man, staring at me as I leaned close and tilted my head, spoke up with a flustered tone.

Good. He had better manners than some previous patients. He didn’t try to grab me or anything.

I stepped back and spoke.

“Excuse me, Brother. Could you part your bangs like this?”

“Huh? My bangs?”

“Yes. It’s really important.”

Unlike in the novel, real hair moves easily. Something like a ponytail or side tail doesn’t change much once tied up, but the bangs or side hair can be blown away by just a breeze.

“Uh….”

Seeing me mess with my bangs, the man awkwardly tried to move his hands.

Frustrated with that, I took hold of his bangs to style them a bit.

“What!?”

The woman lying right next to him gasped at that, but that’s not what mattered right now.

“Uh, um, Sister!?”

The man was equally startled, but I managed to ruffle his bangs a bit, creating a hairstyle that was slightly messy yet somehow tidy.

Then I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“Brother, may I know your name?”

My voice trembled slightly as I asked.

“Ah, um…”

The man seemed nervous with the gazes from around us, looking left and right before he replied with an embarrassed expression.

“Lee Si-yoon. I’m embarrassed to be like this on my first mission, but for now, I’m a level seven hunter—”

The explanation that followed was lost on me.

His appearance and name were sufficient.

As I backed away with my hand on my forehead, Ria quickly supported me.

Ah, I see.

So, the incident from yesterday was the very one mentioned in the novel—

It felt as if I had unwittingly become the role that pushes aside the childhood friend heroine I had been rooting for.

…This was how I came to meet that man, the protagonist Lee Si-yoon.