The More the Healer Gets Hit the Stronger He Become

27 – You Didn’t Know, Did You?

However, in no time, as one person burst into laughter, everyone present began to burst into laughter as if it were contagious.

“hahahaha! This guy is insane! If you want to try, go ahead, I won’t stop you!”

“There’s still a fool like this. hahahahaha!”

“Oh, tears are streaming down. I thought you were a quiet person, but you were just aiming for a laugh.”

The woman, laughing with tears in her eyes, glanced around and then opened her mouth wide.

“Was it sincere?!”

“….”

The woman, realizing from the man with the shield’s expression that his previous statement was sincere, was astonished.

“Haven’t you heard the rumors?”

“…Rumors?”

“Clearing trials alone. It sounds cool when you hear it, and that person is doing it too, but I wonder if I can’t do it. I know that feeling. So, just like that person, those who followed suit and jumped into trials alone are also numerous. But.”

Gulp.

The man with the shield’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

“They died.”

“….”

“All. Without exception, every single one. They died.”

The man with the shield looked around as if he couldn’t believe it. However, everyone he met eyes with just nodded their heads in unison.

“As far as I know, about eight people seem to have died.”

“Huh? Wasn’t it ten?”

Really. It’s unbelievable that those who followed that person’s lead and challenged the trials alone all met their deaths.

The man with the shield asked, a groan-like tone in his voice.

“So… that person. How is that person still alive?”

“Well…”

It wasn’t a curiosity exclusive to just the man. Everyone gathered here harbored such a question.

Everyone who followed him had died. Why is that person still alive and well?

It’s just luck. He’ll die in the next trial. No, it’s impossible for luck alone.

Opinions among people were divided, leading those who had cleared the challenge floor that “he” had attempted earlier to gather and discuss.

It was the same as the recent debate on whether he could clear the 19th floor trial.

“No one knows. But…”

“…”

“We can only speculate if that person has some special ability.”

All gathered individuals nodded in agreement.

As his journey from the 12th floor extended to the 19th, it solidified everyone’s belief.

The person who cleared the trial alone seven times undoubtedly possessed a special ability.

The man with the shield, who had been pondering the woman’s words, voiced the last curiosity.

“If that person successfully clears the 19th floor alone… well, the next floor is the 20th. Will he also attempt the boss room alone?”

…!

Everyone fell silent at the unexpected question.

Everyone here had engaged in fervent debates only about whether that person could clear the 19th floor or not, and no one had considered the next floor, the 20th.

“Surely… even though it’s the 20th floor. Will he try to go alone without forming a team?”

“That, that’s right? Because it’s the boss’s room…”

‘That person’ might form a team!

There was no more surprising news for those in the 19th-floor safe zone.

‘If that person joins the team and challenges the 20th floor together……’

‘Even facing trials alone, with that person……’

Clearing the 20th-floor trial is as good as done!

“I, I’ll go first! Something urgent just came up!”

“Oh, yeah! Me too! I’m coming!”

Confirmed, the 20th-floor trial’s party size remains the same, just like before, with 5 members!

People who lacked the party numbers hurriedly left, glancing around.

As a small question from one man became a typhoon, no one noticed that the tents in the 34th-floor safe zone increased from thirty to thirty-five.

***

“Wow, there are so many people.”

Since meeting people for the first time in the 10th-floor safe zone, the number of encounters increased as they climbed the tower. Today, there were more than thirty tents in the safe zone.

After clearing the trial and fearfully entering the tent first, Kangwoo securely locked the tent door.

“No one will see us, right?”

Kangwoo started avoiding people’s eyes like this since the 14th-floor safe zone.

After parting ways with Yoo Seung-a and the group on the 11th floor, Kangwoo started walking alone from the 12th floor and noticed one strange thing.

At first, he thought it was a simple illusion, but people’s gazes became more overtly different as he climbed the floors.

Every person he encountered stared at him as if watching a zoo monkey, and the gaze was incredibly burdensome.

Endure, endure, couldn’t endure any longer. Kangwoo, who had been camping in the Safe Zone from the 14th floor, finally poured out his worries to Yooseungah, whom he met in the Safe Zone on the 16th floor. Upon hearing his concerns, Yooseungah burst into laughter and, slapping Kangwoo’s shoulder, said,

“You didn’t know? hahahahaha! Kangwoo, you’re a famous figure now! The awakened one who clears trials alone! The so-called ‘that person’ whose name and face no one knows!”

What he heard next was even more absurd.

It was said that people gathered around would even discuss whether he would succeed in clearing the next trial or not.

Of course, it was not incomprehensible. Clearing trials alone was such a radical achievement that no one else had accomplished.

It didn’t matter to him if others gossiped about him. But there was one problem…

Be careful. If you’re a plunderer, for sure. They will be targeting you.

As Yooseungah’s concerns suggested, it was clear that clearing trials alone without sharing the rewards with plunderers and taking them all for himself would make him a tempting target.

Plunderers.

The term referred to individuals like Jang Gyumin, whom he had already encountered, who killed their comrades inside the trials and seized their weapons.

With the appearance of gates on Earth and the creation of the Tower, the Tower was now the only gateway for modern people to ‘awaken’ and a ‘lottery ticket’ to obtain valuable items.

Even gathering items from those who died in the 1st-floor trial alone could result in tens of millions in an instant, a place where you could hit the jackpot in one shot.

Moreover, what happened inside the Tower was an advantage that could never be known outside, making it the perfect place for criminals.

So, individuals with impure intentions began to gather in the Tower, and they did not hesitate to kill their comrades.

From Noble mtl dot com

Awakened individuals who left the Tower due to the continuous appearance of plunderers also complained to the government, but punishing the advanced personnel, the ‘Awakened,’ without evidence was a delicate matter.

Thus, the unwritten rule emerged: ‘What happens inside the Tower stays inside the Tower.’

“Sigh.”

Although he was confident he could handle it easily if he encountered them in reality… he didn’t want to meet them if he didn’t have to.

So, with a sigh, Kangwoo reluctantly opened his store.

[Current Points: 11,690]

Trial completion reward 1,100 points, and with the double points for clearing the achievement by defeating 67⨉35 monsters, the total reward received on the 19th floor is 6,890 points.

When combined with the points previously held, the money suddenly exceeded 10,000 points.

“Wow, it’s almost in the tens of thousands now.”

When on a single-digit floor, a few thousand points seemed like a lot, but upon reaching the 10th floor, the balance surpassed four digits.

“It’s possible because I cleared it alone, but…”

The reward for clearing the trial with a party of five on the 11th floor was only 1,215 points.

Considering that the reward for clearing solo on the very next floor, the 12th, was 6,150 points, the difference in rewards between a party and solo was clear.

“It’s not comparable at all.”

Kangwoo, who quickly manipulated the store, purchased the rewards for his hard work.

[Chicken and beer set 55 points]

Quite surprisingly, even in a store with everything, there was alcohol.

This fact was also learned thanks to Yoo Seung-ah.

“Wow, this is it.”

Kangwoo, who finished a meal, collapsed on the spot.

Spending ten days in the trial, he took a long time to relieve the accumulated fatigue.

Even after waking up from sleep, Kangwoo, who had been rolling inside the tent, cautiously stepped outside the tent only after midnight.

“Isn’t it here?”

Wearing a black top and bottom set purchased from the safe zone, Kangwoo, with a cap pulled down low, looked around cautiously.

It wasn’t like he committed a crime, and he couldn’t fathom why he had to wander around like a thief so late at night, but it was already done.

Kangwoo, quickening his pace, arrived at the door leading to the next trial and sighed.

“A 20th-floor garden with five people….”

Kangwoo, risking (??) his safety, had ventured outside the tent to check the 20th-floor garden and to see if Seung-ah was in the designated safe zone.

This was because the next trial was the boss room on the 20th floor.

Having already endured the trials and tribulations in the boss room on the 10th floor, Kangwoo knew it was a different ball game when the floor ended in zero.

Therefore, with a sense that if there were more than six people in the 20th-floor garden, he might join Seung-ah’s team for the challenge, Kangwoo was dismayed.

“To face the boss room alone again….”

He had no intention of seeking another team. He couldn’t trust strangers enough to team up with them.

Rather, even if it was more challenging, Kangwoo resolved to face the challenge alone and moved forward.

The time was midnight, and the location was the right corner centered around the door to the challenge.

It was a promise made as people gathered in the safe zone.

Separated from Yoo Seung-ah, Choi Seo-hee, Lee Jeong-min, and two others, a team currently smoothly ascending the tower.

Parting ways on the 11th floor safe zone, the team of Yoo Seung-ah, Choi Seo-hee, Lee Jeong-min, and two others was currently progressing smoothly up the tower.

Parting ways was so frequent that it made the farewell on the 11th floor seem meaningless.

12th floor, 13th floor, 16th floor, 18th floor. Only meeting four times in the mere seven floors ascended, it was confusing whether he was climbing the tower alone or together.

Although it was disconcerting to encounter each other so frequently, Kangwoo didn’t dislike the meetings with Seung-ah.

After the incident with Jang Gyu-min and becoming famous as ‘that person,’ Seung-ah was the only person Kangwoo could trust, as he avoided people.

Waiting for a long time at the agreed-upon place, Kangwoo returned to the tent alone.

Perhaps because of his slow trial-clearing speed.

Whether he had challenged the 20th-floor trial first or not.

Despite waiting for three hours at the appointed time, Seungah did not show up at the promised place.

***

He had to clear the 20th floor alone.

Faced with this heavy reality, Kangwoo, who had a stern expression after breakfast, activated the spatial ring and took out all the items he possessed.