Chapter 4
Apart from their writing ability, the author of questionable professionalism once again incorporated their personal affairs into their novel.
When the author’s ex-girlfriend, who had broken up with him, killed off a sub-male lead character based on the author with testicular cancer, the author didn’t stay quiet either and killed off the heroine overnight.
An irresponsible character deletion without any proper justification or foreshadowing. The author had erased the one and only heroine without warning.
Readers who didn’t know the behind-the-scenes circumstances poured out countless complaints about the heroine who had died young overnight, but the author was adamant.
[Author’s Note: The novel runs just fine without some measly heroine. From now on, there will be no heroine in ‘Majuk.’]
Though there was some backlash, the author even showed a detached attitude, arguing with readers saying, “If you want to see romance, go read romance novels!” As a result, the heroine—one of the few healers in the empire according to the world setting—disappeared.
That’s why there was no more appropriate job for Ji-woo to steal.
Since the heroine was a character who would be deleted later anyway, even if Ji-woo acquired the Guardian of Light in this Forest of Trials, it wouldn’t cause any problems for the protagonist’s party in their demon king subjugation.
Moreover, the job called Guardian of Light had great merits for sustaining Ji-woo’s future life—no, the benefits were so enormous that calling them simply “great” would be inadequate.
According to the original setting, the empire had absolutely no healing professions. Other awakened professions that could be obtained existed in roughly similar forms within the empire, even if not exactly the same.
Earth people who awakened sword-related jobs were regarded the same as the empire’s swordsmen, magic types were like the empire’s mages, and so on. There were plenty of people who could substitute for them.
The only difference was that awakeners, compared to the empire’s swordsmen or mages, grew ridiculously easily and were much stronger.
Nevertheless, occasionally a few empire natives who reached certain heights did exist and were strong enough to surpass awakeners. But this realm of healing was absolutely impossible to imitate unless you were an awakener from Earth.
The acts performed under the name of healing in the empire were mostly items from dungeons or potions made by alchemists. Even then, items were byproducts found in dungeons, so they were hard to obtain and had wildly varying effects, making them practically nonexistent.
Ordinary empire citizens and poor awakeners relied on potions made by alchemists. However, the effectiveness of potions was minimal, like modern medical ointments, medicine, or herbal remedies—they only helped heal a bit faster or recover over a long time, but noticeable healing was impossible.
“Hey, if you get hurt, your life is over. Be as careful as possible with your body.”
This was a cry commonly heard during dungeon raids or monster subjugation in the original work. No matter how great an ability someone possessed, once they got injured, their downfall was instantaneous. Awakeners were sensitive about injuries and could only undertake cautious journeys.
Currently, the phenomenon of stagnant corruption where awakeners focused on interests and politics rather than new adventures and heroic psychology also contained this reason.
Anyway, the only healing-related profession that only awakeners could obtain was Guardian of Light, which only one person per year could acquire. It was already a rare healer profession, and even the method of obtaining it was complicated.
It could only be obtained once a year, at a specific location hidden within the Forest of Trials. Not only was the opportunity limited to once, but finding the specific location or satisfying the specific method was difficult, making it an existence that appeared maybe once every few years.
As far as Ji-woo knew, the last healer to appear before the late heroine’s emergence was seven years ago, and that healer was probably absorbed into the Red Guild and receiving luxurious treatment. Considering this, Ji-woo also intended to enjoy such privileges as a healer.
A life of luxury using the healer profession after escaping the Forest of Trials—that was the most suitable role for Ji-woo, who had never accomplished proper labor with his own hands.
A crumbling temple welcomed Ji-woo. The temple, with its cracked and collapsed pillars mixed together haphazardly, leaving only a small hole-sized entrance, seemed to be waiting for Ji-woo.
Even looking at it positively, it was a place with absolutely no positive energy, but when Ji-woo thought about the future that would unfold, even the dark interior seemed bright.
The temple he crawled into by crouching and squeezing his body through a hole that only came up to his thighs was enormous, unlike its entrance. Everything was broken and filled with an empty atmosphere, but the intimidating presence of the vast space couldn’t be hidden.
As he looked around examining the carved murals, it wasn’t long before a strange voice echoed from beyond the temple walls.
[Welcome to the place for teaching the primordial guardians. Stranger.]
[I am the guardian deity who protects the Guardian’s Temple. I wish to test whether you are qualified here.]
“Yes, yes.”
While he might have been nervous at such a solemn voice, in Ji-woo’s case, this was a scene he already knew from the narrative description, so he nodded without particular surprise.
At his composed reaction, it somehow felt like the gaps between the lines echoing from the air had grown longer.
[If you fail to pass even a single question, the door of trials will close and the door of trials for teaching guardians will be closed. Will you still take the test?]
Though it was said in a difficult way, it meant that if Ji-woo didn’t pass the test, the once-a-year opportunity for guardian job change would disappear. That was naturally not Ji-woo’s consideration.
He had crawled in here because he had something to rely on, but if it didn’t work, it would be a complete failure. If he took the Guardian Temple’s test in an orthodox way, even thinking positively, Ji-woo was not someone who could pass the test.
But so what?
He had absolutely no intention of giving up the opportunity for such a trivial reason.
“Yes!”
A rigid voice rang out in contrast to Ji-woo’s cheerful answer.
[Then I will begin the test.]
Ji-woo exhaled with a trembling heart. All or nothing. Please let his guess be correct.
The test that the voice floating in the air spoke of was so simple that it consisted of just a few questions, making nervousness meaningless.
Simply extremely light questions answered with ‘yes or no.’
‘Have you ever turned away from someone who needed help?’
‘Have you ever hurt someone?’
‘Have you ever lied?’
‘Have you ever betrayed someone?’
‘Have you ever hated someone?’
‘Have you ever harmed a life?’
It was a series of questions incomparably easier than the level of questions asked when obtaining the Third Eye, but they were questions at a level absolutely difficult to pass if answered with the original Han Ji-woo’s life.
The Guardian Temple judges the answers to questions and grants professions to the subjects. The more ‘no’ answers, the better grade of the profession is granted.
Those who answered ‘no’ to only one question received normal-grade healing abilities, and two questions got rare grades.
Though it proceeded this way, since the Guardian Temple’s creation, no one had ever been recognized for answering ‘no’ to all six questions.
The healer who achieved the highest grade was the heroine who answered ‘no’ to five questions. Others at most passed only one for a normal grade, or in really lucky cases received rare grades.
The reason for this was that the temple’s question criteria were quite ambiguous.
Turning away, hurting, lying, betraying, hating, killing.
Even people who were confident they had never done these things in their lives often couldn’t properly pass even one when placed in this position.
The temple’s standard for never having ‘turned away’ from others included cases of little kids sitting in the same space even if the person didn’t see them; ‘hurting’ included the inferiority complex of classmates who couldn’t join the conversation while someone bragged about their new phone; ‘killing’ even counted the record of swatting annoying buzzing mosquitoes.
Ji-woo’s earlier display of fake kindness in helping those Earth people was also because he worried it might be counted in this test’s ‘turning away’ and cause problems in the process of gaining abilities.
In short, it was an extremely harsh test where any decent person would have to answer ‘yes’ to almost everything. The original heroine who answered ‘no’ to five questions through normal methods was rather close to abnormal.
The reason the author’s sudden killing of the heroine was relatively mildly accepted was partly thanks to those who welcomed the absence of such a frustratingly abnormal heroine.
And Ji-woo was one of those people. Han Ji-woo was a moderately materialistic person who felt frustrated by all of the heroine’s actions.
Then what was Ji-woo’s reason for attempting this test?
The reason he came all the way here with some hope was one thing.
The truthfulness judgment standard.
『[Have you ever turned away from someone who needed help?]
The overbearing voice interrogated her.
“No.”
After her clear answer, a dry system voice rang out.
[Accessing Earth connected to the Natrene Empire to retrieve memories regarding human ‘Kim Si-yeon’s ‘turning away.’ No memories found.]
[Truth.]
Before the aftermath of tension could even fade, the voice continued.
[Have you ever betrayed someone?]
<Killing the Demon King> Chapter ## excerpt』
The temple’s examiner retrieves the truthfulness of the test-taker’s answers from Earth’s memories. That ‘Earth’ was the trap.
[!User information cannot be confirmed!]
[!Re-searching for user information!]
[!User information cannot be confirmed on Earth connected to the Natrene Empire!]
It was purely a hypothesis, but seeing the status window error that couldn’t retrieve data on the first day, Ji-woo gained confidence in the direction he was thinking.
If memories were drawn from ‘Earth connected to the Natrene Empire,’ then the time Ji-woo existed on the original work’s ‘Earth’ was absolutely zero.
If there was no time spent there, no psychopath, no murderer could leave memories of hurting, betraying, or lying to others.
[Stranger, have you ever turned away from someone who needed help?]
“No.”
When he answered negatively to the deep voice that had first welcomed Ji-woo, a mechanical voice contrasting with the guardian’s deep tone flowed out to judge Ji-woo’s truthfulness.
[Accessing Earth connected to the Natrene Empire to retrieve memories regarding human Han Ji-woo’s turning away. No memories found.]
[Truth.]
Nice.
If he had passed the question related to turning away, which could be called the biggest hurdle, then everything was proceeding as Ji-woo expected. In the end, there was no need to see the results any further.
