WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Satori
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Healers Are Not Tools ◈
Chapter 11: What You Can Do at Level 40
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「Whoa, how is this person a paladin?」
「But they're a healer?」
「How's a healer the same level as us? That's wild lol」
Level 40.
It was the point where the gap between casual and hardcore players became painfully clear.
I'd expected it, but when I entered the new zone right after leveling up, only a handful of people were there to welcome me.
Until now, whenever I entered a new zone, there had been a fair number of people at its main hub, whether it was called a village, some fortress, or a military base.
The tutorial area had been packed, of course, and even the level 10, 20, and 30 zones had plenty of players.
But from here on, unless your life really was eat, game, eat, game, sleep, eat, game, you couldn't get here quickly. There were very few people around.
「Whoa, this person's actually using a shield with Intelligence and Spirit on it?」
「Hey, hey, are paladins good? I heard holy paladins suck at healing. Is it playable?」
「Damn, blue gear in every slot. Who is this?」
And, well, I'd expected this part too.
A healer arriving in a high-level zone this quickly was more than enough to draw a huge amount of attention.
Everyone standing around town came over at least once to click on my character and inspect me. Some even spoke to me outright.
Hmm... This attention wasn't bad.
It wasn't like I was overjoyed, but it did feel like people thought I was someone impressive.
「Hey, paladin? You seem really dedicated to the game. Would you like to join our guild? We're an adults-only guild. We use Discord too.」
「Healer, wanna join our guild???」
「Wow, this person still doesn't have a guild lol. Wanna join ours? Some of our members run dungeons all day. We'll funnel gear to you.」
I was busy running around town, clicking on various NPCs and picking up quests that offered lots of experience without much travel.
The people following me around and talking to me looked pretty serious.
It was almost as if they already knew a healer's value.
They seemed to know what a miserable, difficult pain in the ass leveling a healer was. They probably wanted to recruit me at any cost now that I'd already reached level 40.
「What, is this person Chinese? They aren't typing anything.」
「Aren't they just ignoring everyone???」
「Hey!!!! Hey!!!!!!!! Hey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!」
「They're ignoring trade requests too?」
Still, how should I put it?
I was genuinely grateful that people needed me and were interested in me.
Honestly, it made me happy too.
But I didn't particularly want to join a guild.
Of course, I knew guild culture would be different with a gap of ten, almost fifteen years.
But I still didn't want to join one.
I didn't want to get tangled up in those complicated relationships again.
* * *
"What the hell is this?! I can't level up!"
SquirrelThunder let out a long yell as he watched his character die yet again.
Famous as a mid laner in Legend of League, he'd naturally chosen to play a mage. Until now, there hadn't been any major problems.
"What the hell?!"
- Are these assholes camping his corpse?
- Wow lmaooooooo
- Squirrel, the stream sniping's on another level today. Let's just go play on the Rift.
- Fuck, can he even level up like this?
- lol isn't that his third death already?
But today was different.
After reaching level 40, he'd started questing as usual. Yet the moment he ventured a little way out of town and began killing monsters, enemies had attacked and killed him.
The enemies who'd killed him weren't ordinary monsters or even elite monsters.
They were players.
Players from the Allied Coalition had killed SquirrelThunder, who belonged to the Demon King's Army.
"Guys! Guys, come on. Are they stream sniping me like last time? Or do you normally run into each other here?"
「Anon donated 1,000 won」
[Squirrel, you're the highest level out of all of us.]
「BeumLOL donated 1,000 won」
[You think anyone watching your stream has made it to the Abandoned Lands? lol]
A few days earlier, SquirrelThunder had hosted some "illegal viewer participation" in a level 30 zone.
Lost of Fantasy was a game where players from opposing factions could meet and fight as enemies anywhere in the open world, at any time.
You couldn't even talk to the other faction. They were marked as enemies to begin with, so you could immediately unload all your attack skills on them.
"Is this like those guys who, uh, walked all that way just to snipe me?"
Stream snipers who'd leveled Allied Coalition characters to kill SquirrelThunder in Lost of Fantasy had actually crossed mountains and rivers to come after him.
He'd been a little annoyed at first. But after his viewers told him what an enormous distance the snipers had traveled, he'd given them a proper round of open-world PvP. SquirrelThunder had a good sense for what made an entertaining stream.
"Ugh, this isn't fun..."
- Why camp his corpse?
- Here we go again. Internet losers ruining a stream while pretending they're school bullies.
- Ugh, that's stream snipers for you.
- Turn off your sniping Discord already lol
But today was a very different story.
Some stream sniping was funny enough to make a great YouTube clip. Other stream sniping was just garbage that completely ruined everything.
There wasn't even a story about crossing mountains and rivers.
Three or four people had simply rushed SquirrelThunder while he was questing, smashed his head in, and killed him.
Then they'd stayed near his corpse, waiting for him to revive.
There was nothing fun about this for anyone.
"Hey, guys... If I give up on my corpse and just revive, there's a penalty, right?"
- yep yep yep
- Of course there is lol
- Someone did that last time and died right after. Their repair bill was fucking huge lol
- Those assholes are probably camping near the healer anyway.
When players died in Lost of Fantasy, they left a corpse behind.
They returned as ghosts and had to find their bodies and press the "Resurrect" button to revive normally.
However, in case they died in front of an enemy that was too powerful, or had someone endlessly camping their corpse like this, they could also accept a penalty and revive at an NPC called a Spirit Healer.
'I'm screwed...'
The problem was that the enemies so determined to camp his corpse clearly weren't going to sit back and do nothing.
"Uh, well... Is Daydream around? Or, uh, what about Sky?"
SquirrelThunder naturally thought of the streamer friends he'd played with yesterday.
Unless someone came to rescue him, the sheer difference in numbers made his chances of survival look very slim.
"All right, guys. For now, I'll try reviving..."
He'd opened his mouth to at least keep his viewers happy, but suddenly stopped short.
[PissBloodAndIllRipYourGutsOut]
「Help!!! 4 Coalition rats west of Kalkas」
It was because of Jeong Hana's message in zone chat.
[PissBloodAndIllRipYourGutsOut]
「Nobody coming?」
"Oh? Isn't that the person from yesterday? Guts? Right? Isn't it? It is!"
- What's going on?
- Is she a stream sniper too?
- Didn't their routes just overlap?
- She just seems like a total gaming addict lol
- Wait, did a healer come to rescue him?
Hardly daring to believe it, SquirrelThunder tapped WASD and paced around at the maximum distance from which he could resurrect.
Then, right on cue, Jeong Hana appeared from the direction of town and actually began smashing an Allied Coalition player's head with her hammer.
Naturally, no one was with her.
The flames of RvR, that fierce battle between factions, hadn't yet been kindled in people's hearts. Not a single other person behaved like Jeong Hana.
Everyone was busy questing. When a pack of red enemies showed up looking ready to kill them, many players simply chose to run away.
"Wait! Guts! What are you doing?!"
The stream snipers camping his corpse hadn't expected a healer to suddenly appear and start a four-on-one fight either.
As a result, they were slow to react to Jeong Hana's attack. When the fight briefly became two against one, she kept hitting her enemies without giving an inch.
So SquirrelThunder made his choice.
"Water! Water, water! Water! Water! Quick! Guts, water!"
He immediately resurrected at maximum range. Jeong Hana stood right beside him, fighting two opponents.
There wasn't even time to type as soon as he revived.
If they'd been in a party, they could have used voice chat, but they weren't.
- Whoa, how'd she know?
- Wait, she got him straight back to full health again?
- Hell yeah lol. Now this is winnable, right?
- Holy shit, instantly full health.
But as though she knew SquirrelThunder had been wandering around his corpse as a ghost, Jeong Hana used a skill that restored his health to 100% the moment he revived.
Now at full health thanks to her, SquirrelThunder calmly unloaded his skills into the stream sniper in front of him.
"How do you like that?! Can't win when it's a fair fight, huh? Huh?! You're not even as high-level as me!"
The enemy had two more people, but the situation overwhelmingly favored Jeong Hana and SquirrelThunder.
For one thing, both of them had higher combat power than the stream snipers.
They'd cleared every dungeon they could and scraped together every piece of gear they could get on their way up. There was an enormous gap between them and the four snipers.
On top of that, Jeong Hana was making good use of long-duration crowd control skills that hardly anyone else used, effectively limiting how many enemies could fight them at once.
- Whoa, they already got one?
- They're just no match for them lol
- You think these guys can beat a man who once dreamed of going pro?
- Stream snipers down!!!
- Ugh, fucking losers. One person shows up and they all get squashed like bugs.
"Wow, Guts is a total hero!"
The four-on-two fight became three-on-two in an instant.
And once SquirrelThunder started fighting back properly, the remaining three didn't even put up a real fight. They just ran away.
Just like that, he was no longer being ganged up on.
[SquirrelsEye]
「Wait! Guts!」
「Did you come to rescue me?」
SquirrelThunder typed with the same energy he always showed on stream.
Still, he hadn't expected an answer.
Jeong Hana had consistently shown just how cool and detached she was.
[PissBloodAndIllRipYourGutsOut]
「If something red shows up and attacks you, of course I should help」
「That's what the Demon King's Army does」
"Oh... What was that? Wait, what?! What was that just now?! This person! What a line!"
- What's with that chat? lol
- Is she Himmel or something?
- Well, you should help if you're on the same side, yeah.
- Hey! We're practically family!
- Hell yeah lmaooooo
"Yeah, she's right... We're all on the same side. If a laner gets, you know, picked off or ganked, you've gotta help them! Yeah, that's right!"
Faction against faction.
The Allied Coalition and the Demon King's Army.
Kill anything red that appears, and help your allies.
It was a concept people were still unfamiliar with.
"Now that's got some heart..."
Footnotes:
Himmel is the heroic adventurer from Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.
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