As soon as he regained consciousness, he realized his whole body was trembling. He couldn’t tell if it was due to the cold or because he wasn’t feeling well. It was pitch black in front of his eyes. He couldn’t even be sure if his eyes were closed or open.

No matter how many times he blinked, his eyelashes only brushed against thick fabric. To make matters worse, he felt the ground swaying. Was this also due to his poor condition?

With his vision blocked, his other senses became acutely heightened. The deep rumbling noise that made the floor vibrate, the unpleasant smell mixed with a salty scent, even the cold feeling of the floor against his skin.

He tried to get up by pressing against the uneven floor, which seemed poorly finished. However, his arms were tied behind his back, and something heavy like an iron weight seemed to be attached to his ankles.

First, he tried to deploy [Sanctification]. The mana in his body didn’t respond to his will. It was due to the mana suppressor he was forcibly made to wear. He had been rendered completely powerless, unable to offer any resistance.

Ryu Seo-ha took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. At times like this, it was crucial to stay calm. This wasn’t the first time he had been in a hostage-like situation. The most important thing was to assess the situation as accurately as possible.

Status: Remaining lifespan 27 days 15 hours 21 minutes / Waiting to receive reward

He quietly called up the status window in his mind. About 2 hours had passed since the unstable doctor had barged in. Even if there was a reduction in time due to physical contact, it wouldn’t be more than 1 or 2 hours difference.

The kidnappers’ range of movement was narrowed down to roughly the Asian region. Vietnam, China, Philippines… A list of Asian countries where security had become several times more lax after the great upheaval flashed through his mind.

The doctor probably didn’t mention foreign healers for no reason. Given that he likely helped the culprit access the VIP hospital room, he must have some connection to the kidnappers.

Click, hiss, the sound of a lighter being lit struck his heightened senses like thunder. The sound of footsteps approaching also felt much louder than usual.

The footsteps suddenly stopped, and soon the acrid smell of cigarette smoke assaulted his nose. The act of blowing harmful smoke directly towards his face carried a malicious intent to torment him.

“…President Go Young-hoon.”

Skillfully suppressing a cough, Ryu Seo-ha softly uttered the other person’s name. A chuckling sound settled above his head.

“What? How did you know?”

He asks so casually after kidnapping someone. The habit of lighting the lighter twice, the wide and hurried gait, even the mean pranks done without much meaning. There were quite a few clues to deduce who the other person was.

“You’re shaking a lot. That cold? Or scared?”

As he turned his head to avoid the hand patting his cheek, he heard Go Young-hoon clicking his tongue. Checking his status window, he saw his lifespan had indeed decreased by a few minutes.

“Why is a smart bastard like you acting like this? This isn’t the time to hold your head high and maintain your pride, is it?”

“I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“What?”

“I’m not feeling well right now, so please don’t touch me. I don’t want to get beaten for dirtying your hands.”

He couldn’t see what expression Go Young-hoon made at this half-truth, half-lie.

“Is that all you have to say? You must have a lot of questions.”

“Will you answer if I ask?”

“Depends on how you behave.”

That means he won’t. I didn’t expect him to anyway. Letting out a small sigh, he rested his forehead on the floor, but Go Young-hoon grabbed his hair and forcibly lifted his head again. I told you not to touch me.

“If I had known you’d awaken as a healer, I would have treated you better. Regrettable, isn’t it?”

“It’s not too late even now.”

“It is. Way too late.”

Go Young-hoon lamented in a low voice.

“Your debt, it’s no longer in my hands.”

His voice sounded somewhat dejected. By the way, what does he mean it’s no longer in his hands? Did he transfer the debt certificate to someone else? To whom? Why?

It was an action that made no sense when considering profit and loss. No, there was a recent reason. The fact that he had awakened as a healer had become known to the whole country.

“So you’re selling me off? To a new debt collector?”

“No, to someone who needs you.”

“……”

“You awakened as a healer, didn’t you plan to pay off your debt in an instant and leave my company?”

That’s right. The reason he tried to hide the fact that he was a healer until he had enough money to pay off the debt at once was because he knew Go Young-hoon would try to interfere with the debt settlement in any way possible.

“You even prepared a handover guidebook in advance.”

That was something he had written bit by bit whenever he felt the urge to quit, tired of working without holidays.

“If you’re going to leave anyway, I might as well sell you at a good price while you’re still in my hands. Don’t you agree?”

“How clever of you. I hope your business fails miserably and you live a long, disease-ridden life.”

As he calmly shot back with sarcasm, Go Young-hoon laughed dryly.

“This is the first time I’ve seen this side of you. How did you manage to hold back all this time?”

“No need to worry. I’ve been saying everything I wanted to in my mind.”

Go Young-hoon let out a disbelieving laugh at the unceasing retorts. There was no longer any need to lower himself with a docile attitude towards someone who was once his creditor and boss.

Since he had treated him like a rare product to be sold off with his own words, he probably wouldn’t do anything to damage the precious goods. At most, a bit of violence? Even so, it didn’t matter since he couldn’t severely harm or kill him.

“Don’t you care about the family you left behind?”

Go Young-hoon suddenly brought up family, seemingly annoyed by his nonchalant attitude.

“I heard your sister woke up. They say she’s quite beautiful.”

“Isn’t that kind of threat too old-fashioned?”

“I need to find a new client too. They probably won’t work as well as you did, so maybe I’ll really send her to a brothel this time.”

You crazy bastard.

“…Go ahead if you think you can handle it.”

“What?”

“YH’s slush fund laundering routes, evidence of stock price manipulation, tax evasion evidence, cooked accounting books, list of borrowed-name accounts… Your competitors would love to know about these, wouldn’t they? Ah, the prosecutors would be happy too, finally getting a big case… Urgh.”

Ryu Seo-ha, who had been calmly listing the company’s weaknesses while trying to hide his urgent feelings, suppressed a scream at the sudden pain. Something hot, presumably a cigarette, was being ground into his temple.

The burning ember was cruelly pressed down on his skin, which had become sensitive enough for his hair to stand on end due to his covered eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he seemed to faintly smell burning flesh.

“Evidence my ass. You’re the guy who refused to touch those illegal routes no matter how much I beat you. All talk, aren’t you?”

“Do you really think so?”

After biting his dry lips tightly, he asked back with a feigned voice of certainty, and Go Young-hoon fell silent for a moment. He was probably calculating the probability that Ryu Seo-ha, who had been privy to internal affairs, would know such detailed information about content he wasn’t directly involved in.

“Even if you remember all those corruptions. How would you make them public?”

But it seemed he soon decided it didn’t matter.

“You’ll spend the rest of your life sucking up to a Russian tycoon anyway.”

So the person who instigated this kidnapping is of Russian nationality. Considering that they acted immediately after his healer awakening, it seemed highly likely that there was a different scheme at play, contrary to the content of these low-grade words.

“Do you think you won’t get caught after kidnapping an S-class healer?”

“Oh, are you worried about me?”

“I was practically in a confirmed contract state. Do you think you can handle Choi Gang-hu rummaging around everywhere?”

Suddenly, Go Young-hoon burst into laughter. What’s so funny? I mentioned Choi Gang-hu on purpose because I thought he would understand his fearsome nature to some extent after meeting him once. Had he not realized it yet?

“Choi Gang-hu. You seem to trust that bastard quite a bit.”

What’s this about now?

“Well, he will look for you. Because rich guys like him hate losing even more.”

A rustling sound rang in his ear. A small noise like tearing open plastic packaging. As he raised his guard at the ominous feeling, something jabbed into his shoulder. It was a thick, long needle that he had already experienced when he was kidnapped.

“Well, keep your hope circuit running. For now, after you wake up from a nap.”

Once again, his consciousness sank into darkness.

❖ ❖ ❖

His throat was parched. It felt like a fire had blazed through his esophagus, leaving only ashes behind.

“Water…”

As he mumbled unconsciously and fumbled with his hands, he suddenly became alert to his restricted body. Ryu Seo-ha quickly closed his mouth to stifle any sound and forced open his heavy eyelids to quickly scan his surroundings.

A place where lush forests stretched endlessly. He could see bright yellow orbs hanging abundantly from every leaf of the plants. Ryu Seo-ha was carefully laid out on a picnic mat spread over evenly packed soil.

“Are you thirsty?”

Along with a voice as bright as the shining sunlight, he felt someone approaching abruptly from behind him. Reflexively, he rolled once with his back to the ground to distance himself from the other’s approach.

Although he felt some pain due to his wrists still being tied behind his back, he had no energy to pay attention to that. Clank, the iron chain connected to the shackles on his ankles made a friction sound as it was pulled taut.

The person he faced like this had the appearance of a young boy. He looked about 15 or 16 years old. Brilliant blonde hair and fresh green eyes. Considering his Western-like appearance, he might be even younger.

“Hmm, I was just going to give you something to drink.”

The sound of liquid sloshing in the kettle openly tempted Ryu Seo-ha. The dejected expression of the blonde boy was also enough to tug at his heartstrings. However, Ryu Seo-ha’s wariness became even sharper.

In the early days of Chinatown’s lockdown, there were few beings as wary as women or children walking alone. Because the probability of them being bait was very, very high. It wouldn’t be much different in this current kidnapped situation either.

Staring intently at the boy’s innocent face as he tilted his head, he slowly stood up. He could feel cold sweat running down the bridge of his nose. He lightly pressed his tongue between his teeth to control his rapid breathing.

“You’ve been panting since earlier… Are you running a high fever?”

The boy asked in fluent Korean, feigning concern. It was as he said. His whole body felt like a fireball. Even though he was habitually suppressing his breathing as much as possible, his wheezing breaths were still audible.

His brain seemed to be on strike due to his poor physical condition, as his head wasn’t working well. His vision also intermittently blurred and cleared. Even standing straight felt burdensome due to dizziness.

“Yes, I don’t seem to be feeling well.”

“Wow! Are you speaking formally to me right now? That’s refreshing.”

“Would you please remove the mana suppressor for a moment so I can heal myself?”

“Oh right! I’ll give you something to drink.”

The way he just blurted out what he wanted to say, he didn’t seem like someone who could engage in normal conversation. The boy put down a flat bowl on the ground and tilted the kettle. Milky white liquid poured out with a gurgling sound.

“Drink up quickly.”

The blonde boy smiled brightly.

“Ah, you must be hungry too.”

Then, as if he had just remembered, he clapped his hands lightly. The boy took out a pouch from his breast pocket and poured something into another bowl. What filled the bottom of the bowl were brown pellets that looked like animal feed.