NOVEL NEXT This damn world doesn’t even have curtains.
If there was fabric to make curtains, the commoners would be busy making or selling clothes instead, so there’s nothing we can do about it.
They could at least put up a door so we could close it.
Instead of that, with a wide-open space and no door, they just leave eaves extended to keep the rain out. How thoughtful!
Yona opened her eyes against the sunlight hitting her face.
Even though she had just woken up, her eyes seemed to have adjusted to the light somehow, and it wasn’t blinding.
“Damn it…”
She muttered a curse out of habit and got out of bed.
Stretching her body brought some satisfying pops from various joints, but that was nothing new at this point.
After gulping down some water from the kettle next to her, Yona headed to the bathroom to wash her face.
She picked up a comb sitting next to the sink and carelessly ran it through her hair.
Her milky-white hair had no shine at all, and every stroke would catch on tangled strands.
“Ouch! …Damn.”
A few hairs got pulled out, making her grimace.
It was a tingling, prickly kind of pain.
After grabbing some scrap cloth to wipe her face, Yona stepped back into her room.
A bed stuffed with straw.
A table creaking with every little thing placed on it, made from roughly arranged wood.
And on top, a long strip of rag thrown haphazardly.
“Ugh. May I earn enough to eat safely today…”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
A warm feeling wriggled near her lower abdomen and then spread throughout her body.
Thankfully, she still had some divine power left today.
If that were to disappear, she’d be starving.
Yona let out a sigh of relief as she took down the nun’s outfit hanging on the wall and hurriedly put it on.
“Please let me eat and live safely today~”
She hummed as she put on the nun’s outfit, which got stuck around her breasts and refused to go down any further.
“Damn it, why are they so unnecessarily big…”
It had already been three years, and still, every time she dressed, it was such a hassle.
Though grumbling, Yona managed to wear the nun’s outfit as best as she could.
At least she thought it was fortunate that it covered most of her body.
You know, the kind of outfit you always see in web novels or webtoons…
This was not the kind of outfit that made you question whether she was a saint or a prostitute; it was a nun’s habit, wrapped tightly in black fabric, except for her right arm.
A nun outfit tightly wrapped in black fabric, except for the right arm.
What a relief.
The nun outfit Yona was wearing left her entire right arm exposed from shoulder to wrist.
“Alright… then.”
She picked up a rag that had been carelessly thrown on the wooden table.
It was too narrow to call it a cloth, more like a bandage, really.
One end of the cloth had a little hole in it.
A hole drilled for hanging something.
Yona matched that hole to a clip attached to the nun outfit on her right shoulder.
And then she began to wrap the cloth around her right arm.
Before long, her right arm was tightly wound in the gray-white cloth.
With the veil she had draped alongside the nun outfit pressed down, she was now ready.
“Alright, let’s go.”
*
Evian could be considered a mid-sized city.
Surrounded by small satellite towns, Evian was located right in the middle.
Given that, there were many people coming and going, making it a very bustling place for the Adventurer’s Guild.
– Creek.
The wooden door of the Adventurer’s Guild swung open, and someone’s shadow cast long across the floor.
A shadow with long hair cascading down to the waist, topped with a veil.
Just by looking at the shadow, the people inside the guild instantly recognized who it was.
“I’m here, you punks.”
A barrage of curses.
Yona enjoyed the gazes that were immediately drawn to her as she stepped into the guild.
“Yona, the milk jug is looking healthy again today!”
“You crazy bastard, don’t even think about it.”
“Wow, how stingy.”
Yona playfully whacked the bald adventurer, Alex, on the back of the head.
“Stingy? Just so you know, I was a man originally! You want to hit on a guy?”
“Guess I’d be grateful to hit on you.”
“No way, you bastard.”
Seeing her firmly reject him made the others burst into laughter.
Yona, the healer, who insists she used to be a man, was a bit quirky, to say the least.
And that’s not all! She claims she came from a far-off other world, making her quite the eccentric healer in this Adventurer’s Guild.
“Hey, Yona, sis!”
“Stop calling me sis.”
Mary greeted Yona with a bright smile.
Yona frowned as usual, insisting not to call her sister, but it didn’t really matter.
“Your chest is making a strong case that you’re a woman, though?”
“No… wait, I’m not saying I’m a man now, I’m just saying I was originally a man—!”
“Oh dear, okay, okay! But what now? There aren’t any parties looking for a healer yet.”
“Okay, okay, I got it. But what now? There’s still no party looking for a healer.”
“Damn it, what the hell are those adventurers doing, not going out to work?”
“Right? But come on, sis, you’re not exactly the kind of healer who can just join any adventurer party.”
At that, Yona frowned.
She couldn’t just join any party.
She had her standards!
“Healers are in short supply these days. Just wait a bit, okay? Plus, there’s actually a lead right now.”
“A lead…? Alright, got it.”
Yona turned silently away from Mary.
If the receptionist Mary said that, it must be a tricky situation for her to outright mention it.
“Hey, Alex. Did another healer bite the dust? I can’t see any of the usual faces.”
“Yeah, I heard one died yesterday. The vanguard guy got sliced in one shot, they said.”
Baldy Alex.
He was surprisingly well-connected and always had the latest gossip.
There were things Mary, the receptionist of the Adventurer’s Guild, couldn’t say directly, but Alex often had the inside scoop.
“What happened to get sliced?”
Information is crucial.
What were they doing, and who did it?
Yona needed to know this to be careful.
Alex cleared his throat and scratched his neck.
That action made Yona frown again.
“Alright, you brat. Stop acting all high and mighty. Mary! A beer over here!”
“Drinking at this hour?”
“It’s not me! This idiot Alex says he’s drinking! Says if he drinks yeast, he’ll grow hair!”
Laughter erupted in the guild office once again.
Mary chuckled at Yona’s remark, and soon after, a frosty beer glass was placed in front of Alex.
The beer was overflowing with froth.
Looking at it, Yona couldn’t help but think how nice it would be to have a cold beer herself, but she shook her head.
What good would a healer be getting drunk?
If they had to go into a dungeon, would a tipsy healer even manage to heal?
So Yona just watched Alex chug the beer.
“Hey, now spill the beans.”
Setting down his half-empty beer glass, Alex wiped his mouth, letting out a ‘ahh’ of satisfaction.
The white froth left a long line on his lips.
“There’s that underground dungeon, you know? Somewhere in the west…”
“Is there only one underground dungeon there?”
“I’m talking about the catacomb, the catacomb.”
The catacomb.
The western underground dungeon’s catacomb.
They probably had already cleaned it out pretty well, so there wouldn’t be much left to loot.
“What do you expect to find there? Isn’t that place pretty much cleaned out?”
“Wow, lady…”
“Lady? Who are you calling lady?”
Yona shot Alex a glare at the “lady” comment.
But honestly, she did look like a lady.
Especially if she kept her mouth shut, she could be a stunning beauty.
Alex thought that if Yona just kept her mouth shut, they could probably get into that distant cathedral.
“… So, did you really come from another world? Why’s your news so late? You’re an adventurer, for crying out loud.”
“It’s true that I came from another world, but right now, I’m long-term staying at the Moonlight Inn, so just spill it already.”
“Anyway, they found a passage to the third basement level over there. But a guy from the investigation team went there, said he saw a demon, and ended up dying the day before yesterday.”
“Aha…”
Yona finally understood the whole situation.
The Catacomb had been cleared up to the second basement level.
Since they found a passage down to the third level, it seems they went down to loot but ended up like that.
“Oh. Hmm.”
But for that to happen, there should be quite a few parties trying to go down there now.
Yet there are too many people just hanging around here at this hour.
Yona stretched her neck and looked around.
Adventurers were crammed at every table, and among them were quite a few adventurers Yona knew well.
There were even some seasoned adventurers who had long shed their greenhorn status, perhaps now deserving to be called veterans.
“But why is everyone just sitting around here?”
Alex didn’t answer that and chugged the remaining beer down.
Yona watched enviously as his throat bobbed with each gulp.
Ah.
Maybe I’ll just have one drink.
As she gradually succumbed to that serious temptation, Alex spoke up.
“So, they’re saying there’s a demon. A demon showed up, right?”
“A demon…”
If a demon has really shown up, then that changes things a bit.
The healer in the party is literally a healer, but they’ll need a priest against a demon.
“So, is it true that there’s no priest around, and that’s why everyone is just loafing around?”
“Uh, kind of. The lord needs to send a hunting party for us to join in and go.”
“A hunting party? The rewards must be pretty good, huh?”
Well, those heavy-bottomed priests aren’t budging unless it’s a proper hunting party.
Those priests think of themselves as superior, despite the fact that only healers can handle the Sacred Barrier—talk about irony.
“The rewards, well… anyway, we’re all just waiting around until the hunting party arrives.”
“Got it.”
That made sense.
If it’s a hunting party organized under the lord’s orders, the rewards should be decent.
It’d be more of a loss to go looting just to not get in with the hunting party.
“Hm, then maybe I’ll just wait around too.”
Maybe I can grab some easy cash.
That’s what Yona thought.