Chapter 14
Part 2. The Healer Who Gives Without Holding Back (4)
Mental Barrier Potion.
Among special potions, it was one of the few that had relatively steady demand.
It was also a potion that would be needed in the future, and one that Lee Haesol needed to take as soon as possible.
You could say I made it with versatility in mind, but after hearing about the dream, he might suspect that I had another reason for choosing it.
Hiding my strange sense of tension, I smiled very gently.
“I’m interested in mental-related fields. Studying them properly is good too, but that takes time. Potions have immediate effects, so they felt more appealing.”
If I talked too much, it might seem even more suspicious.
Yoo Hanseong listened quietly.
“Is there a mental-type potion you need? If you tell me, I can practice in that category too. I probably can’t reach a high level yet, though…”
“…Ah.”
After a brief pause,
he spoke carefully, his expression now free of suspicion.
“I do need something from the mental barrier line…”
“Huh? This is a mental barrier potion!”
The conflicted look on his face instantly turned blank.
In truth, mental-type potions were a field where difficulty varied wildly depending on the effect.
‘Other categories change in difficulty mainly by grade, but mental-type potions change based on both grade and effect.’
Potions that increase mental strength are relatively easy at low grades, but mental barrier potions are difficult even at low grades.
“You succeeded.”
“I know, right? I just happened to be practicing exactly what you needed.”
When I said it cheerfully, he flinched and stared straight at me.
“Still, I’ll give this one to the teacher, and I’ll make a new one for you. How about that?”
“…Thank you. And I’ll buy it. Don’t just give it to me.”
He said it firmly.
“Oh.”
As expected of the protagonist.
I nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
I was about to say I planned to sell them anyway, but he spoke again.
“It’d be better if you sold them to others too.”
“Hm.”
A small alarm rang in my head.
It felt a bit strange for Yoo Hanseong to show this much interest in an F-rank healer.
‘This level of concern just from meeting once doesn’t feel natural.’
Leaving a good impression should have been enough.
He was looking at me with a strangely persistent gaze, full of goodwill.
He probably thought he was being detached.
Holding back a laugh, I replied,
“You’re worried about me, right?”
“……”
Yoo Hanseong stubbornly kept his mouth shut, neither agreeing nor denying it.
He just looked like he absolutely needed to hear that I would sell them.
Smiling, I continued,
“Thank you. I was actually planning to sell them anyway. I was just going to give your mental barrier potion for free.”
“…To me? Why?”
“Because you trusted the effect without even testing it.”
He blinked.
Only then, as if realizing something,
“Also, the reason I’m giving these out now isn’t just because I have leftovers. It’s also because I thought no one would buy them later.”
I had a bad feeling that he was starting to see me as some overly kind pushover.
So I deliberately said it that way and smiled.
Yoo Hanseong tilted his head.
“They’re potions. That wouldn’t happen.”
“I’m F-rank.”
Yoo Hanseong froze.
“If people hear they were made by an F-rank, wouldn’t they look at them differently?”
It was a reasonable assumption.
Yoo Hanseong seemed to agree, because he didn’t deny it.
Instead, he asked something else.
“…Have you heard the rumors too?”
“Rumors?”
Was he talking about what the seniors were spreading?
The ones on the subway who said they’d spread rumors about how useless an F-rank healer was.
I asked eagerly, and he answered,
“That you’re too weak to even enter dungeons.”
Ah. Not rumors from seniors, but the general perception of F-ranks.
“I wondered if that’s why you thought this way.”
“Oh.”
I smiled brightly.
“You could say that. But that’s not a rumor, it’s a fact. And because it’s a fact, I think I need to work even harder.”
“Ha…”
“So I can interfere as little as possible.”
Yoo Hanseong spoke with a slightly twisted expression.
“Alright. Then how long are you planning to keep giving them away like this?”
“About a week?”
“A whole week?”
“Yeah.”
I said it as if it were obvious.
“I think that’s how long it’ll take for people to start trusting that my potions are stable.”
Yoo Hanseong’s expression stiffened ever so slightly.
“Lee Haesol was smiling after taking your potion earlier.”
“It’d be normal to feel offended getting a potion from an F-rank, but he didn’t. I was really grateful.”
“…What I meant was that there aren’t many people who’d bring up rank just to criticize a potion that’s already been completed.”
“Isn’t Haesol just unusual?”
I needed to interpret the situation conservatively. I answered with that in mind.
Yoo Hanseong sighed, sounding like he’d given up.
“If that’s what you think. Then at least, if you succeed with another mid-grade potion, I recommend you don’t give it away so easily.”
Maybe it was a trait of someone who’d lived a long time.
He seemed uncomfortable unless he resolved something.
But I immediately shook my head.
“No. Mid-grade potions are more useful than low-grade ones if you succeed, right? More people will need them. If I succeed, I want to sell them as cheaply as possible, or just give them away. …I wanted to give yours to you for free, too.”
Yoo Hanseong’s hand twitched slightly.
He couldn’t continue speaking for a moment.
He just stared at me in silence.
There was an emotion in his eyes that was hard to explain.
The wind rattled the window.
A small sound echoed through the quiet hallway.
“I’ll gratefully accept the thought.”
He spoke again in a very low voice.
“…But at least sell them.”
Holding the box tightly, I smiled gently.
“Okay, okay. I’ll sell them.”
And silently added to myself,
This is kind of scary. Please don’t try to recruit me somewhere, Regressor.
I guarantee I won’t be any help at all.
“Alright.”
Yoo Hanseong nodded, a little late.
I hugged the box again, avoiding his gaze.
“Then I’ll head down.”
I pointed toward the hallway.
“I’m going to give them to the others now.”
At that, Yoo Hanseong paused briefly.
Then he said quietly,
“Yeah. I’ll help.”
Seriously, why is the protagonist acting so unfamiliar?
I remembered him being pretty gloomy at this point in time.
Still, for image management, I hid my awkwardness and gave a short laugh.
“Thanks!”
“Well, I should pay back what I received.”
He replied while lightly shaking the lowest-grade potion I’d given him.
Then he headed toward the stairs.
‘This is more nerve-racking than I expected.’
Dealing with the protagonist feels harder than succeeding at a mid-grade potion.
If a rumor spreads that an F-rank healer looks “competent,” I’ll get dragged away immediately, right?
‘That can’t happen.’
I thought it’d be fine if potion-making alone became known, but now even that felt risky.
His gaze was unsettling.
He might even drag me into dungeons to grind me until I awaken an S-rank skill or something.
Sometimes, when someone exerts effort beyond their limits, there’s a very rare chance of awakening a related skill later on. There’s a real possibility the protagonist might think highly enough of my potions to drag me into dungeons to force that outcome…
‘It’s possible. Totally possible! He’s done similar things in the original story.’
That was done to awaken non–natural S-ranks, but the way those people were put through hell was painful to watch…
I thought I’d be safe since I was F-rank, but I’d caught his attention too early.
‘I had a bad feeling, and it really does feel like I’ve been marked.’
I wanted to dismiss it as imagination, but my bad premonitions were usually right.
‘Still, I didn’t deny that I’m useless, just like the rumors say.’
That was my only hope.
As long as I wasn’t dragged into dungeons, it’d be fine.
As I went down a few steps, Erich spoke.
[Pathetic. An S-rank is paying that much attention to you, and you’re pretending not to notice.]
‘…Wait? Did you just say S-rank?’
[His soul is S-rank. He’ll become S-rank soon. What a strange human.]
Oh.
It seems the demon sword can’t see that Yoo Hanseong has regressed—but it can see his true potential.
