WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Satori
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Healers Are Not Tools ◈
Chapter 7: Getting a Little Closer to Im Harin
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To Im Harin, Jeong Hana was an adult who wasn't hard to deal with, but wasn't exactly easy to approach either.
If you hate studying that much, at least become a pro gamer.
Harin's gaming life had begun almost as an act of defiance against her parents' scolding. She'd done better than expected, but as Hana had judged, she was still missing that last two percent needed to become a real professional.
In that sense, Hana was someone Harin couldn't help feeling drawn to, unlike the other adults around her.
Though her pure white hair and red eyes did stand out far too much.
'Ever since she got sick that one time, she's been kind of...'
Now Hana was sitting beside her in a couple's seat, playing the same game, Lost of Fantasy.
It felt strange, but Harin also felt as if she'd suddenly made an older friend.
'Well, this is better than last time, when I just gave her money and we got our stories straight.'
With that thought, Harin settled into the familiar game.
Plenty of kids at school played Lost of Fantasy too, and she planned to level up quickly today.
Hana, meanwhile, paid Harin no attention. She ordered a peach iced tea, rested it on her chest, and sipped it while enjoying her own game.
"Huh?"
"...What?"
Harin had glanced at Hana's screen and let out a quiet gasp of genuine surprise.
"You play this too?"
"I told you I did."
They'd talked about it briefly before Hana ordered her iced tea.
"What class is that?"
"Paladin."
"I heard that class sucks."
"Hybrids always have that reputation."
Harin tilted her head at the unfamiliar word.
'Hybrid? What's a hybrid...?'
Something she'd heard on the news came to mind, but she gave up thinking about it.
'So she plays this too. Well, just about everyone does these days.'
Lost of Fantasy had only just launched, but it was so popular that anyone with even a passing interest in games was playing it.
With a craze like that going on, even Hana's sudden interest in gaming felt like a small, ordinary change.
'For now... I'll just hit level 30 today. If I play until ten, I'll definitely get there.'
Leveling up meant learning new skills.
Learning those skills meant being able to enter more dungeons.
Harin liked that simple cycle, so she eagerly began completing quests and hunting monsters.
"Ugh, this is so annoying..."
While looting a monster's corpse, she frowned.
"What's wrong?"
Hana's question startled her a little.
"Oh... I'm running out of inventory space."
Harin had played other RPGs before, so she knew how inventories worked.
Hana turned to look at her screen and gave a little chuckle.
"Of course you are. You're still using the starter bag."
"...Bag?"
"Yeah, your bag. You can get more than sixteen slots."
"Really? How do I do that?"
"Your quests... Open your inventory for a second."
Hana turned toward her, took the iced tea off her chest, and leaned lightly against Harin's right arm to look at the screen.
"It's open."
"Let's see... Yeah, you haven't done the quest that gives you a bag. Remember the Alphadisco Excavation Site? That area?"
"Oh, there? Of course I do."
"There's a quest there where you gather something called Moongazer and turn it in for a six-slot bag. Do that one, at least."
"Six slots..."
Harin pouted.
"That's all I get?"
"You can equip up to four extra bags like that, you know. You'll get more space as you play. Bags can drop in dungeons later, too."
"How many slots do those have?"
"Leaving out raid drops, since those are a long way off... Some quests give you ten-slot bags. By the time you hit max level, you'll naturally have a bit more space."
Hana casually reached out to point at the screen.
The movement pressed her heavy breast firmly against Harin's right arm, but Harin barely reacted, keeping her eyes on the monitor.
"You equip your bags in these slots here. The game's still new, so not many people have picked up professions yet. Don't buy crafted bags or anything..."
"Professions? What are those?"
"Something you'll need to do later. You don't have to worry about them yet."
Hana pointed at some nearby gathering nodes.
"If your bags are driving you so crazy you can't stand it, see those plants over there?"
"You mean the Mana Toughgrass?"
"Yeah. You can... Actually, never mind. Just gather some. Later, when you get to a major city, there's an auction house, right? List it there and sell it. That should get you some money, and you can use that to buy bags."
Harin blinked and stared at Hana.
"Hana."
"What?"
"How do you know all that? I've never heard any of this before."
Tap-tap-tap. Harin typed and opened YouTube.
"I can't play games during class, you know."
"You'd be in big trouble if you did."
"So I go through YouTube and online communities looking up all the tips and guides I can find."
Hana rested her chin on her hand and looked at her.
"But nobody mentioned anything I told you today?"
"No. The bags... Oh, someone did post a video about bags. I just forgot."
But gathering materials and professions were completely new to Harin.
"Professions? This is the first I've heard of those. I've heard plenty about how good warlocks are and how they're different from mages, though."
"You'll find out as you play. I just found out a little earlier."
"That's it?"
"Yeah. And there's a reason those YouTubers you watched aren't telling you about this stuff."
Harin's eyes widened.
"Professions make money."
"Ohhh."
They made money.
It was honestly ridiculous, but no answer could have been simpler or clearer.
"So they're keeping the really good stuff to themselves until they've squeezed all the profit out of it."
Harin had a good head for games. She gathered a few clumps of Mana Toughgrass, then immediately shrugged.
"The plants disappear when you gather them? They didn't tell anyone because that would mean more competition."
"They respawn after about ten minutes, but having competition is still a pain."
Hana started to put the iced tea back on her chest, then gave up and held it as she drank.
'So this is what she's really like...'
Quietly impressed, Harin returned to her game.
'She waits until I ask for help. Then she wasn't just half-assing it last time, either?'
It was a complete misunderstanding, but Harin was beginning to like Hana.
Unlike her parents, Hana didn't make her feel as if she'd been left to fend for herself.
And she knew how to offer gaming tips without hurting Harin's pride.
For a gamer like Harin, it was impossible not to like her.
"Oh, right. You're almost level 28, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
"I need to go to this dungeon anyway. You're good at games, so come with me."
The way Hana so casually invited her along for something that would benefit Hana too made Harin smile for no particular reason.
"Sure! I'll carry you."
* * *
"Ahh! That was so much fun."
Ten p.m.
As a minor, Harin couldn't escape that magic hour.
I'd thought we might be cutting it a little close, but we'd cleared the dungeon without any real trouble, then logged off and left with exactly no time to spare.
"Should someone who made such a fuss about becoming a pro gamer really be saying she had fun as she leaves a PC café?"
"Well... So what? You'll cover for me."
"Unbelievable."
Harin was all smiles. Apparently, playing a game together once was enough to make her feel close to me.
Actually, though, we'd done quite a lot today.
Maybe my talk about professions had struck a chord, because she'd gathered every node she saw alongside me.
We'd run two dungeons, and thanks to her, I'd also breezed through an annoying quest to kill an elite monster in just two minutes.
Solo play was astonishingly slow for a healer, so having a DPS player along to help was bound to make things easier.
Anyway, I'd expected to waste some of today, but if anything, she'd saved me a bit of time.
"Hana, can we play together like this every day?"
"That'll be hard."
"Oh, why?"
"You're a student. You have to go home and sleep, and you can't play during class. I can."
Harin stared at me with endless envy in her eyes.
"By tomorrow, I'll probably be two or three levels ahead of you. That means different areas and different dungeons, so there won't be anything we can do together for a while."
"Ugh... Okay. That's a shame, but I guess it can't be helped."
Huh. She wasn't asking me to slow down just to play with her.
Come to think of it, this was one nice thing about becoming a woman.
I could talk about games with a high school girl without any awkwardness, sit in a couple's seat with her, and chat.
That would've been pretty hard if I were a man, right? The landlady probably wouldn't have asked me to look after her in the first place.
All right. Then why not get a little closer?
"But if you get stuck or have trouble with anything while you're playing, ask me."
"How am I supposed to ask?"
"...Oh, right. We haven't exchanged numbers. Give me yours. I'll add you."
"You wouldn't give me your number last time..."
Apparently so.
What kind of person had Jeong Hana been?
"That was then. Now I know we share a hobby."
Without giving it much thought, Harin took the smartphone I held out and entered her number.
"By the way, Hana."
We'd made it down the stairs and were feeling the slightly chilly breeze when Harin spoke, staring at my face... No, my chest?
"Did Grandma tell you to hurry over?"
"Huh...? Why? Where's that coming from? Not really. I just slept without noticing how late it was."
"Oh, I see. No reason. Just..."
Harin murmured it as casually as a passing remark.
"You're not wearing a bra."
"...Huh?"
"I thought maybe Grandma had dragged you out in a hurry to look after me when you hadn't planned on going anywhere."
"N-no... How do you know that? Whether I'm wearing a bra or not?"
Could women tell?
Just by looking? Could they really? It wasn't as if I'd lifted my clothes and shown her.
"What do you mean, how? Your chest was touching me."
"N-no, you've got it wrong. You're imagining things. I'm wearing one. I put it on properly!"
I took a step back, and Harin chuckled.
"What's wrong? Why are you so embarrassed?"
Of course I was embarrassed! She'd caught me going without a bra!
"I sometimes skip it when I'm going to the convenience store, too."
"No, I really didn't need to know that."
I covered my chest with both hands and crouched down.
"You! You're a high school girl! Don't say things like that! That's asking for trouble!"
"What's the big deal? We're both girls..."
It was a big deal!
Anyway, anyway, I'd gotten closer to the landlady's granddaughter, so this wasn't a loss... right?
Footnotes:
In South Korea, minors must leave PC cafés by 10 p.m.
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