By Zephyria 
“Ah! W-what is it?”
A strange sensation arose, and Yohan flinched in response. Where Lee Hyun-muk’s fingertips pressed gently, an indescribable, strange feeling arose. It felt tingly, as if his muscles were twitching on their own. Lee Hyun-muk pressed gently on his particularly tense calf and asked.
“It’s called EMS, like a low-frequency massage. It doesn’t hurt, right? The principle is to send a fine current to relax the muscles.”
“…Yes! It doesn’t hurt.”
Yohan was amazed, as he had only known Lee Hyun-muk’s abilities to be high-voltage electricity that struck mercilessly.
“Wow, you can use your abilities like this too?”
“When there’s no fire, I can also use it for heating.”
‘I see,’ Yohan nodded. Can I charge batteries with it too? Would it be rude to ask for something like that? A human air purifier and a human charger… While he was thinking about various things, he soon found himself in a perplexing situation. It wasn’t the time to just marvel.
Yohan swallowed back the embarrassing sound that was about to rise to his throat. It hadn’t felt like much when he received the massage earlier, but perhaps because of the added electrical stimulation of the EMS or whatever it was called, the strange feeling was intense. He tried singing any song in his head and even thought of sad scenarios, but in the end, the blood rushed to his lower body.
‘Ah, no! Hey, can’t you read the situation?’
It was no use scolding himself sternly in his mind. Lee Hyun-muk’s touch was too strange… and felt too good…. It was fortunate that he was lying face down. As Yohan groaned inwardly, Lee Hyun-muk tried to turn him over, as if performing a muscle massage, making Yohan exclaim in surprise.
“U-uh! I think this is enough…. I’m so sleepy, I just want to go to bed now…!”
He said this somewhat desperately, fumbling to pull the blanket closer. Lee Hyun-muk looked down with a faint smile and, instead of continuing the massage, stroked Yohan’s head.
“Sleep well, Yohan-ah.”
“Thank you for the massage! Good night, Lee Hyun-muk-ssi!”
Yohan, who had been smiling brightly, let out a silent scream as soon as Lee Hyun-muk left. He didn’t notice, did he…? He didn’t notice, did he? In his embarrassment, he buried his head into the bed several times before he could finally fall asleep.
Once he could sufficiently dodge even two-handed attacks, Lee Hyun-muk began teaching him how to sense danger. This training was also simple. He just had to dodge Lee Hyun-muk’s attacks hidden nearby. However, when Lee Hyun-muk deliberately concealed his presence, Yohan couldn’t help but be flustered. It truly felt like no one was nearby. Even though he knew Lee Hyun-muk was watching him, he felt unnecessarily anxious and blurted out a question.
“Lee Hyun-muk-ssi, you are nearby, right…?”
Naturally, there was no answer. Slightly dejected, Yohan began to move as he had been told. The goal was to dodge as many attacks as possible while walking ten laps around their dwelling. Yohan, tense, began to walk, looking around. After a few minutes, he suddenly felt something wet on his forearm.
“Ugh!”
Startled, Yohan looked at his forearm and saw something black and sticky on it.
“W-what is this?”
Frowning, he carefully peeled it off to reveal a clump of something disgusting and dirty, with something faintly wriggling inside. Yohan shuddered and shook his hand. Then, he quickly purified it. No wonder he had told him to wear white clothes… The attack didn’t hurt, but it was quite unpleasant and sticky. When he was hit on the back of the neck, he couldn’t help but shudder.
He walked with his nerves on edge, but during the first lap, he was hit by ten attacks. By the time he completed ten laps, he could finally sense the impending attack, but he still couldn’t dodge it. After all the attacks, Lee Hyun-muk reappeared. Yohan, cleaning Lee Hyun-muk’s dirty hand, asked dejectedly.
“What did you throw at me?”
“A clump of dirty mud from near the livestock pen?”
“Ugh….”
The next day, Yohan could dodge five out of a hundred attacks. However, due to how unpleasant it was to be touched, from the latter half of the training, he started purifying the mud clumps before they even touched him. Brushing off the powdery dirt, Yohan asked cautiously.
“It’s not okay to purify it before it touches me, is it?”
“No, that might even be better. Usually, if it’s purified, monsters lose their strength. It’s better to make it a habit.”
Thus, after a week of training, Yohan could dodge half and purify the other half. Brushing off the dirt and straw fragments from his body, Yohan asked.
“By the way, when do I learn how to attack?”
“It’s best if you generally avoid attacking.”
Lee Hyun-muk gave an unexpected answer. While brushing off dirt from Yohan’s back that he hadn’t seen, he explained.
“If you don’t know the monster’s characteristics well, you might get counter-attacked while trying to attack. For example, it might explode when hit, or stick strongly like glue, or you might attack what you thought was an enemy but was actually an ally under an illusion.”
Hearing Lee Hyun-muk’s words, Yohan recalled the Red Head and the wheelchair monster he had seen at the hospital. Both were creatures containing dangerous poisons, perfect examples fitting Lee Hyun-muk’s explanation.
“It’s better to just purify it with your ability. That will put the enemy in a state of confusion, giving you time to escape. Of course, if you have a Dealer and still let a Healer get attacked, then everything is ruined.”
Yohan nodded, listening intently to the crucial information that would help him survive. During the training, Lee Hyun-muk seemed to have definitively classified Yohan as a Healer through observation. Judging by his stamina and muscle strength, he was deemed less capable than even a supporter class.
‘Well, if you get corrupted, your regeneration ability decreases. By restoring that, in a way, I guess a Healer is fitting.’
It was only when Yohan became able to dodge about 70 to 80 out of 100 attacks that Lee Hyun-muk decided to set out to locate Yoon Seung-ryong.
“He’s a lazy guy, so there’s a high probability he’s still near where he was last seen. Today, we’ll go on a light search to gain some practical experience.”
Since the round trip would take about two days, they had to pack food. They immediately entered the Black Forest. Yohan could feel the gaze of monsters watching them from the darkness. He wouldn’t have noticed before, but now he could sense their presence.
Because they had to walk a long distance, they only lit a small light this time. Fortunately, they were not attacked in the Black Forest. The problem arose when they reached a swamp area after crossing the forest for about 30 minutes.
The ground gradually became softer and wetter, and the stench grew stronger. After a while, his feet began to sink slightly. As Yohan broke out in a cold sweat, trying to step only where Lee Hyun-muk had stepped, he felt something strange. He quickly dodged, and something whizzed past where he had been standing.
“Whoa, that startled me!”
Patting his chest, he turned his head to see Lee Hyun-muk tapping his shoulder twice.
“You dodged well. What attacked you just now was this guy. It’s the blood-sucking type.”
Pleased by the praise, Yohan looked closer. Lee Hyun-muk was holding something in his hand. It looked like a flapping bird, with wingtips as sharp as saw blades. After purifying it once, it turned into a moth with a common appearance in forests, flapping its wings. If he had seen it before, he would have made a fuss about it being a giant monster moth, but now, this was not very scary.
“It was a moth.”
Unlike frogs, this couldn’t be eaten, so they let it go. The moth flapped its wings and flew far away. It would likely become a monster again after some time. Yohan watched the moth disappear into the darkness before resuming his walk.
As time passed, the air became unpleasantly humid, and his feet sank deeper. Yohan had to struggle several times to pull his feet out of the mud. Lee Hyun-muk stopped walking for a moment and raised his spear high. He plunged it into the ground ahead and sent electricity through it, causing a commotion in the quiet swamp.
Screech! Aaaargh! Aaaargh!*
The swamp, which looked like solid ground at first glance, erupted as the monsters, suddenly hit by the electrical attack, thrashed and leaped out all at once. They then hastily fled in a panic. Lee Hyun-muk, observing the monsters’ movements, pointed in one direction with his spear.
“The area where the monsters didn’t emerge is where the ground is solid, so watch carefully and follow behind me.”
…It’s useful for low-frequency massages and can be used like this, so electrical abilities are really useful, aren’t they? Thinking this, Yohan carefully moved, choosing the spots Lee Hyun-muk stepped on. When monsters attacked, Lee Hyun-muk would first let Yohan dodge, and if he couldn’t, he would block the attack for him as they advanced.
The most troublesome monsters in the swamp were swarms of insects. They flew in with a terrifying buzzing sound, and just looking at them made one want to scream. Even after purification, these were still disgusting swarms of insects. Fortunately, they had a human electric fly swatter. Lee Hyun-muk also didn’t let the insect swarms attack Yohan; instead, he dealt with them himself. Several times, a foul smell of burnt flesh wafted through the air.
As they pushed forward with such difficulty, they encountered a large tree monster. After Lee Hyun-muk zapped it and Yohan purified it, their hands turned the monster into a suitable stump for two people to lie down and sleep on. After a simple meal, Lee Hyun-muk set his spear down at an angle and said.
“I’ll stand watch first, so you sleep.”
“Ah… Then I’m sorry, but I’ll sleep first!”
Although he had followed without complaint, Yohan was extremely exhausted. He busily laid out his sleeping bag and crawled inside. He was so tired that he fell fast asleep the moment he closed his eyes.