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This was surely a first, in Yoo Joonghyuk’s long life.
As with all dungeon monsters, Kim Dokja, also known as the fearsome, famed Demon King of Salvation, possessed a fiery core at the center of his being, pulsating with an undying energy. Like many others, it fueled his powers, coursing life through his veins, feeding him mana within these depths. Leeching the energy from within the air, it was akin to a human heart in functionality.
That’s why, for him to be in such a perilous situation—it was insane for him to be so calm.
Kim Dokja surely found himself trying to throw his life away at every opportunity, but this just now must’ve been more than a death wish.
“I’m fine, Joonghyuk-ah,” Kim Dokja sighs. The sound heaves, whistling through his teeth. Gritted, jaw clenched to the point of breaking, even a fish would be able to tell he was lying.
The cut through his chest is quite a large one, to say the least. It would be concerning, even if the wound wasn’t seeping with drainage by the second.
The glowing round orb, exposed through a thick layer of skin, muscle, and profusely clotting black blood, seeps a gaseous blue mist, clouding up the dungeon air. It glows ethereally, unhindered in intensity even as the wound itself continues to drip cloudy ichor.
At such a sight, a muscle in Yoo Joonghyuk’s brow involuntarily twitched.
“This is no time for deflection, Kim Dokja.” Yoo Joonghyuk’s grip on his sword tightens, to which Kim Dokja barks a sharp laugh at. “You’re injured.”
“So what?” he says. His blackened claws—fingers sharp—come to scratch at his own face, a sheepish motion. “It’ll heal over. I’ve gotten injuries worse than this before. Don’t you remember?”
Yoo Joonghyuk glowers at him. Though this guy is known to have a suicidal streak, the times when he comes frighteningly close to death are no less infuriating. He was not one to babysit his party members, but ever since Kim Dokja had joined him, it had become an increasingly common issue he’s had to deal with.
“Hey, you’re not about to kill me, are you?” His eyes are still pointed, aimed towards Yoo Joonghyuk’s rapidly tightening fist. To that, Yoo Joonghyuk’s brow twitches some more. His laugh in response to his frustration only fuels the embers.
Kim Dokja isn’t entirely wrong in his assumption. Seeing this sight had ignited something within him, something that even he didn’t know. It didn’t please him, this sight. Though Kim Dokja had annoyed him to no end throughout the time of their journey together, it wasn’t as if he truly wanted him to die. In all honesty, his presence had grown on him, the times without his chatter almost too quiet to his ears.
When he’d been separated from Kim Dokja for a short while, it took more time than he would like to admit to adjust to the unending quiet and the sounds of his own swordsmanship. The time that he had spent as a lone wolf through this dungeon had met its end when he had grown to live with the party he had formed.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes glance over the wound again. The black blood that had previously dripped endlessly had slowed to a halt, the clotting almost complete. Despite that, the large gash remained on his chest, Kim Dokja’s heaving breaths only growing more intense by the second. Even with his attempts to calm them down, it only seemed to exacerbate the growing issue.
“How,” Yoo Joonghyuk swallows, “how do you plan to fix this?”
Knowing Kim Dokja and his biology as a dungeon monster, it wasn’t likely that Lee Seolhwa’s healing spells would work on him. As with previous incidents, the healing magic that she could cast would barely work. In certain cases, it had only made his situation worse.
Kim Dokja looks hesitant to speak. Whether from the pain of the wound, or from something else, Yoo Joonghyuk is unsure. It’s only when the silence draws out, his heaving breaths slowing, does he recognize it as the former.
He’s hiding something from him.
“You aren’t telling me something.” Yoo Joonghyuk’s glower grows stronger, his jaw clenched impossibly tight. This is no situation to keep secrets, and Kim Dokja surely knows it. So why was he staying so tight-lipped? Is the wound really so severe?
It only draws fire to his throat and a dizzying frustration to Yoo Joonghyuk’s mind the longer he thinks about it. He’s sure that Kim Dokja doesn’t know where he had obtained such a gash—despite how insane that might seem. For one, they had been walking through a relatively peaceful clearing up until late, when the wound had suddenly been recognized, growing and growing. Likely, with the wound staying open, his core endlessly suffusing mana throughout the air, it had to be a curse. Otherwise, it would have healed over as quick as it had formed. The durability of dungeon monsters were not to be thought of lightly.
The identity of the curse would remain unknown until they came into contact with Lee Seolhwa or Han Sooyoung. Though, as a mage of veritable expertise himself, Kim Dokja should have the capacity to discern the nature of his affliction.
Of course, that is only the case if he ever was willing enough to open his damn mouth. Seeing the mana continue to mist from his core, his jaw clenched in pain, it seems as though that time would never come.
Yoo Joonghyuk eyes Kim Dokja askance. He’s stubborn, annoyingly so.
Kim Dokja notices his heated glare as quickly as it makes contact with his face. Meeting his gaze, he sees something that causes that terrible feeling to sprout in his throat. Kim Dokja’s eyes are weary, whittled down by pain.
He sighs, coughing into his palm. “It’s really nothing. You’re too insistent for no reason at all.”
He’s truly insane if he can call something of this magnitude nothing. Mana escapes his core by the second, likely causing him tremendous distress, and yet he acts as though everything is fine.
It’s how he’s always acted. That fact, an annoying fact, has been true ever since he had joined the party. It has been no less frustrating, though. If Yoo Joonghyuk was going to do anything throughout this debacle, he’d try to hammer home the fact that Kim Dokja’s life is valuable, that he is part of their party for a reason.
“You call this nothing?” Yoo Joonghyuk grits. It stopped bleeding a while ago, sure, but the flesh remains parted, the core still visible. An ambush or anything of the sort could send Kim Dokja out of commission.
Kim Dokja laughs again. “This really is nothing. Don’t you remember that time Han Sooyoung fired a spell at me?”
“You mean that time you got half of your body blown off in a single hit?”
This guy is going to be the death of him.
“It was nothing. I recovered fine, you see?” He gestures to his own form, blinking slightly and hissing as the skin around the wound shifts. His smile wavers just a little bit as he looks at the gaping hole in his chest. “…Well, I was fine before.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s jaw clenches and unclenches in rapid succession. Instead of voicing his frustrations, he chooses to look away at Kim Dokja’s face.
Meeting his eyes again, Kim Dokja’s own crinkle up in a humor that shouldn’t be present in such a dire situation. He coughs into his fist again. “You’re not going to fuss over me until Lee Seolhwa’s here, are you?”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s jaw only clenches more at his words. He’s been seen through, but he wasn’t hiding his intentions in the first place. Sighing, he walks towards Kim Dokja, close enough to make contact with the wound.
Kim Dokja opens his mouth, about to form a retort, or some crazy assumption. Before anything can escape his mouth, Yoo Joonghyuk brings his hand astonishingly close to the wound, enough to touch the gaseous blue drifting outwards. The blue is cold against the skin of his palm, floating between his fingers like foggy mist.
Kim Dokja hisses as the palm comes close, the ambient mana from another being likely causing him immense pain.
“Tch.” Yoo Joonghyuk clicks his tongue at his movements, his body instinctively backing away. Any dungeon monster would try to protect their exposed core—a survival instinct encoded within their bodies. Despite his human-like appearance, Kim Dokja is no different.
From underneath his fingers, mana gathers, slowly condensing into a light glow of white. A green light diffuses from his palm, hovering right above where the gash sits.
It’s not a healing spell. Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t acquainted enough with magic to be able to cast such a thing, but it is something similar. A numbing spell that would ease his pain for the time being would be enough for now, until Lee Seolhwa or Han Sooyoung came back from their expeditions.
It’s only his hope that they come quickly. If not, the itch underneath his skin might not be able to be contained. Seeing Kim Dokja suffer in such a state was no less enjoyable than having all of his teeth pulled out, one by one.
As much as he hates to admit it, he actually cares for this annoying bastard. This realization should’ve been more shocking, but he’s become too worried over Kim Dokja’s well-being to truly care. After countless brushes with death, prioritizing the time he’s spent with Kim Dokja and making sure that he survives is all that matters now.
The green glow is warm, the feeling spreading throughout his own palm as the spell is cast across the entirety of the wound.
It works just as quickly. Kim Dokja’s breath has bated for the time being, his jaw relaxing a minuscule amount, but an amount that Yoo Joonghyuk easily catches. The furrow in his brow has all but disappeared. Though Kim Dokja continues to grit his teeth, there’s not much else he can do for the pain that wracks his body.
His hand doesn’t move from the spot above Kim Dokja’s body, the green glow dispersing still. If he’s still in pain, it’s his job to try to combat the pain, right?
“…Thanks,” Kim Dokja mumbles. He scratches the back of his neck, his eyes averted to the side. There’s a faint flush on his cheeks, illuminated by the green of the spell.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s own face heats up, his ears growing hot.
Ah. What a hassle.
It doesn’t matter, though. Whatever keeps Kim Dokja alive is not wasteful, no matter how frustrating these situations may be.