MTLNOVEL Chapter 2 - That's Not How You Use a Healing Potion
However, such emotional fluctuation was only momentary.
Rabbit Gondu soon let out a scoff as if finding it ridiculous.
“Huh….”
“…?”
“Is that nonsensical lie the only reason you could come up with?”
“It’s the truth.”
“Sure, I’m sure it is. Hmm, should I give you points for having the guts to lie? Unfortunately, you can’t fool my eyes.”
Despite the quite negative response, Siwon didn’t care.
‘…Surely, this is the right answer.’
It’s fine even if she thinks he’s a liar.
There must be a reason why her tongue has become so long.
At least, it seemed clear that what Siwon said had piqued her interest.
“If you just save me, I could even guide you to the Hidden Street….”
“I told you it won’t work, and you’re pushing it further? Why don’t you just say you can read blood letters too?”
It seemed he needed to speak more strongly.
“…Just, believe it… or not. Do as you please.”
At Siwon’s nonchalant reply, Rabbit Gondu furrowed her brow.
“You, if you’re not treated right now, you’ll die soon. Are you aware of that?”
“…I know. With wounds like these, I’ll probably die within a few dozen minutes. From excessive bleeding.”
“A guy who knows that so well is talking like that?”
“It didn’t seem like anyone would believe the words of an explorer who fell into such a crude trap.”
Rabbit Gondu’s brow furrowed.
‘Is it bravado, or is he serious?’
She needed to check.
“…Is that so? But you don’t seem like someone who would fall for such a trap?”
Siwon let out a dry laugh.
“…Huh, that’s right.”
A tone as if it wasn’t his fault at all.
‘It’s bravado.’
Realizing the truth, the corners of Rabbit Gondu’s mouth curved upwards.
“…Alright.”
“….”
“I don’t believe that nonsense you just spouted, but well.”
Rabbit Gondu’s hand, clad in a pink glove, reached towards the air.
Simultaneously, her hand lost its form, then reappeared.
In her hand was now the healing potion that Siwon had been desperately wishing for.
A thumb-sized glass bottle filled with a red liquid.
“Since you showed me a bit of hope, even if momentarily, I guess I should give you something similar in return?”
“…Thank, you.”
“Oh my, there’s nothing to thank me for.”
At that moment, Rabbit Gondu threw the healing potion in her hand towards Siwon.
As if she didn’t care if it broke, completely nonchalantly.
Clack.
“Oh, you caught that?”
“….”
Siwon somehow managed to catch the healing potion with his left arm, which was relatively unharmed.
An intense pain surged from his shoulder joint, but that wasn’t important right now.
What mattered was that he caught it anyway.
If his movement had been even a little slower, it would have broken.
‘This, this crazy bitch….’
Siwon gritted his teeth.
To throw such a precious healing potion so carelessly.
“Try to live if you can live once.”
Regardless of whether Siwon got angry or not, Rabbit Gondu turned her back immediately after throwing the healing potion.
“Feel how great the sense of loss is when hope crumbles.”
With those final words, Rabbit Gondu disappeared.
‘…Did she deliberately give just one?’
It seems she thought he wouldn’t survive because one healing potion wouldn’t be enough.
‘One is enough, but she doesn’t know that.’
The common term and derogatory name used to refer to people like Siwon, BabDdong-ra.
Until the war broke out, Siwon had just eaten, pooped, and played LAOA.
There’s no way someone like him wouldn’t know about the tricks related to healing potions.
‘…That bastard, what kind of guy is he exactly?’
On the way back to the temporary hideout after finishing the extermination work on the first floor.
Rabbit Gondu’s mind was filled with thoughts about the black-haired foreigner she met in the trap.
It wasn’t just on the way back.
Even while roaming around various parts of the first floor doing extermination work after leaving him.
The words and actions of that foreigner kept circling in Rabbit Gondu’s mind.
“He seemed quite interesting, maybe I should have just saved him…?”
She recalled his words and actions once again.
“…No, no. Such a guy, shouldn’t be saved.”
That foreigner probably doesn’t know what she had done over the past few years to find the Hidden Street.
“That’s why he spewed such nonsense.”
Even if it was for a very brief moment, what he said made Rabbit Gondu taste vain hope.
His end should be the same as well.
Getting distracted by the healing potion and harboring a vain hope of survival, only to realize that the amount is insufficient and face the approaching death.
That was the fitting end for that damned bastard.
“Still, maybe I was too harsh….”
It seems like it might have been worth throwing one more healing potion.
Just in case his words and actions weren’t bravado but real, so he could survive.
“Well, it’s already in the past.”
For deaths in the labyrinth, a brief moment of mourning is more fitting than regret.
Still, she had shown respect by exterminating all the maggots who would desecrate his death.
After shaking off the idle thoughts filling her mind, Rabbit Gondu walked towards the hideout.
“…?”
Just as she was about to reach the temporary hideout, she felt something different from usual.
“You, what are you doing, bastard?”
“….”
“Come out, right now. If you don’t want to die.”
Someone had intruded into her hideout.
To be precise, rather than intruding, they were hiding near it.
That’s why she was showing this much mercy, if this person had even touched her temporary hideout, she would have killed them immediately without showing any such mercy.
‘I should at least see their face.’
The fact that they found the hidden hideout right away, and the way they hid without touching anything, showed this wasn’t an ordinary person.
Even though they were eventually detected.
“You found this?”
A familiar voice was heard from where Rabbit Gondu was looking.
The difference from before was that it sounded slightly excited.
“Wait, you…!”
It was that foreigner from earlier.
“How did you survive?”
Although he was still in a slightly awkward posture as if not fully healed.
Still, the important thing was that he was alive.
“Well, because I used the healing potion you… no, you gave me.”
“…One shouldn’t have been enough?”
Five holes about 3cm in diameter, and one wound deeply gouged and twisted by a longsword.
To heal all those wounds completely, at least three or more healing potions should be needed.
Of course, this is just in theory, and the extreme pain that follows the process of recovering with a small amount of healing potion doesn’t allow it.
It’s also the reason why first-class explorers who have just set foot in the labyrinth go berserk even with small wounds and pour all their expensive healing potions.
…But how did this man.
“Not enough? It was sufficient.”
“…What?”
Rabbit Gondu’s expression distorted.
Siwon added one more word without backing down.
“…That’s not how you use a healing potion.”
“…!!!”
Rabbit Gondu’s sky-blue pupils blazed with anger.
“You, what do you know about the labyrinth to be spouting such nonsense?”
Rabbit Gondu was a 5th-class stagnant explorer.
She was by no means at a level to be mocked by some nameless guy like this.
“I might not know about the labyrinth, but at least I seem to know more about healing potions than you do.”
‘I probably know more about the labyrinth too.’
Siwon thought so inwardly but didn’t bother to say it out loud.
After all, the one holding the knife right now was Rabbit Gondu, not him.
“You, are you picking a fight with me now….”
“More importantly, aren’t you curious? About what method I used exactly.”
“….”
Rabbit Gondu was at a loss for words.
It was as he said.
She was extremely curious.
So curious that she was going crazy.
Nevertheless, she held back her question only because of pride.
“What’s the use of knowing such tricks when healing potions are what’s left in the dimensional storage?”
“Didn’t you just say earlier that there weren’t even enough healing potions for promising newcomers? Is my memory wrong?”
“….”
Rabbit Gondu was momentarily at a loss for words.
“And you never know. There might come a moment when healing potions are scarce.”
“….”
Irritation welled up.
More so because everything this foreigner said was based on facts.
How dare he fight unfairly with the truth.
“Well, go ahead and speak.”
In the end, Rabbit Gondu gave an answer befitting her.
Siwon didn’t bother to argue either.
“Here, take a look at this.”
Lifting his blood-stained tunic slightly, Siwon revealed his shoulder joint.
“…!”
Rabbit Gondu’s brow furrowed.
It was in such a bizarrely torn state that one could hardly say a healing potion had been used.
“No, you… What the hell kind of dog’s trick did you pull?”
“Dog’s trick? This is such a high-level skill. Take a closer look.”
Rabbit Gondu’s expression distorted.
A horrific form that seemed like it would contaminate the brain just by looking at it.
It was questionable why a bizarre life form that should only be seen ten floors below was growing on this guy’s shoulder.
“….”
Nevertheless, she looked closely at the bizarrely shaped wound as Siwon said.
“Don’t you feel something different?”
“Hmm, there is something different.”
“Right?”
“…You made the wound look like this, and you call this finished healing?”
All Rabbit Gondu could figure out was that the more she looked at this wound, the more it made her want to vomit.
She felt stupid for thinking even for a moment that he had completely healed his wounds with just one healing potion.
“…Try looking beyond the appearance once.”
“Beyond? What do you mean by….”
Even as she said this, Rabbit Gondu looked at the bizarre wound again as Siwon said.
A wound with a repulsive appearance that looked worse rather than healed.
Nevertheless….
“Wait a minute….”
No more blood was coming out of that wound.
“The bleeding has stopped.”
“That’s exactly it! If you only need to stop the bleeding, there’s no need to return to a ‘complete’ state, right?”
“….”
At this statement that sounded like something a mad scientist would say, Rabbit Gondu was at a loss for words.
“Just now, after receiving the healing potion….”
“Stop right there, I don’t want to hear the rest of it.”
It felt like just hearing about the process would contaminate her mind.
“Hmm, it would be good information though.”
Rabbit Gondu frowned again at Siwon’s reply.
‘…It’s not bravado, he’s just insane.’
He had an irritating way of speaking, befitting a madman.
“You, are you feeling very proud of yourself?”
“Well, I survived. I really thought I was going to die.”
“…So, if you survived, you should have left quietly. Why did you come all the way to my hideout? Do you want to die?”
“…No, the conversation we were having earlier isn’t finished yet, is it?”
“…?”
Rabbit Gondu’s brow furrowed.
“What conversation?”
“About the Hidden Street.”
“You, still…!”
Rabbit Gondu was about to snap at him but then trailed off.
At first, she had pegged him as a 1st-class explorer.
For whatever reason, someone who falls for such a crude trap couldn’t possibly be of high rank.
Her first conversation with him was just amusing, but she never considered it to be the truth.
‘…It’s strange.’
But thinking about it now, there were more than a few strange points.
Despite being pierced all over his body by such large thorns, he didn’t let out a single groan.
He didn’t beg for his life from the maggots, and even put on a brave front to her, his only hope, with his life on the line.
Just because he’s insane?
No matter how insane a 1st-class explorer is, could they behave like that?
‘…It’s contradictory.’
This person’s very existence is contradictory.
Even a novel written like this would be criticized.
Moreover, this man knew about a bizarre method that even she didn’t know.
Despite sustaining such injuries, he managed to treat… well, not completely heal, but survive all his wounds with just one healing potion.
“…You, how did you know about and find my hideout?”
“…Is that important right now?”
The man seemed reluctant to answer.
As he said, that wasn’t what was important right now.
The fact that he knew about her temporary hideout that no one else had discovered.
The fact that his tone and knowledge didn’t seem at all like that of a 1st-class adventurer.
Even the fact that he knew about healing potion knowledge that she didn’t know, albeit bizarre.
“You, do you really know where the Hidden Street is?”
The corners of Siwon’s mouth curved upwards.
“Of course, I do.”
Rabbit Gondu’s brow furrowed.
‘Should I really believe him?’
It’s not easy to trust someone other than a comrade in the labyrinth.
“Is that so?”
Nevertheless, Rabbit Gondu decided to believe Siwon’s words.
“Then, could you guide me….”
“Why should I?”
“…Huh?”
“…Why should I guide you to the Hidden Street?”
“….”