Joohee Lee
Joohee Lee is a rare B-rank healer who works low-rank association raids despite having the power to join a major guild. Her story distinguishes magical talent from fitness for dungeon combat: she repeatedly saves injured hunters, but the double dungeon leaves psychological wounds that healing magic cannot remove.
Biography
Choosing association work
Joohee is identified as a high-rank awakened person who is neither materialistic nor already working as a hunter. An association support employee, searching for a way to protect vulnerable hunters such as Jinwoo Sung, is assigned to persuade her to join. The later result of that recruitment is visible in her work: rather than take a lucrative guild position, she repeatedly enters the association’s low-rank gates, where a B-rank healer can keep weak freelancers alive. (Chapter 76)
By the time she appears with Jinwoo, she has treated him in almost every raid they share. Her healing is one reason his many injuries have not permanently destroyed his ordinary life. She scolds him for continuing such dangerous work, softens when she sees that her words have hurt him, and invites him to dinner rather than treating him as only another recurring patient. She votes against entering the hidden chamber behind a D-rank dungeon, but the majority decision binds the party, and she follows at the rear with Jinwoo. (Chapter 1)
The Cartenon Temple ordeal
Joohee is the first person to notice the enormous god statue looking at the hunters. Terror quickly overwhelms her as the statues begin killing the party, yet her dependence on Jinwoo and her contribution to his survival operate in both directions: he pulls her away from the first eye-beam attack and guides her through the temple’s rules, while she repeatedly uses healing magic on his catastrophic wounds. (Chapters 1–2)
When a statue severs Jinwoo’s leg, Joohee attempts to stop his bleeding and pain even though B-rank healing cannot regenerate a missing limb. A nosebleed marks the strain, but she continues until her face is pale and her body begins to fail. On the final altar, she is still committed to treating him while the other survivors escape. By the time a route opens, overuse has left her lips blue and her body convulsing; she collapses when asked to support Jinwoo to the door. (Chapters 2–3)
Jinwoo refuses to save himself by abandoning her. He tells Chiyul Song to carry her out, presses his E-rank essence stone into her hand as a reminder of their promised meal, and remains behind. Joohee resists through tears until Chiyul knocks her unconscious and carries her to safety. She survives because Jinwoo gives up his own apparent chance to escape, while he reaches the System only after watching her leave. (Chapter 3)
Returning once and leaving the profession
The temple leaves Joohee unable to continue normally. She desperately seeks news while Jinwoo is hospitalized, then attends another association raid where prisoners are placed under Taesik Kang’s supervision. Jinwoo warns her not to enter, but her stubborn expression makes clear that she has chosen to go—partly because it gives her a chance to see him. She notices his transformed physique and improved fighting, but does not press him when he avoids explaining. (Chapter 8)
Her instinct to heal almost gets her killed. After Taesik murders the prisoners and other hunters, he pretends to be wounded; Joohee immediately approaches with healing light, making herself vulnerable to his surprise attack. Jinwoo intercepts the hand aimed at her neck and defeats him. Once the fight ends, she closes the small cut on Jinwoo’s face and agrees to keep his impossible strength secret. Her compassion remains intact, but the incident confirms how poorly direct combat and deception suit her. (Chapters 8–9)
Outside the dungeon, Joohee returns the essence stone from Cartenon Temple and tells Jinwoo that she is quitting hunter work and moving back to Busan. She has no regret about recognizing that the profession is wrong for her, although leaving also means losing regular contact with someone she cares for. She does not confess everything she wanted to say; instead, she asks him to call if he visits Busan and offers to buy him sashimi. The supplied corpus gives no later event in her life, so her final confirmed state is alive, retired from hunting, and returning to her hometown. (Chapter 9)
Appearance and personality
Joohee is barely twenty, with long, straight hair and a youthful face that could pass for a high-school student’s with a different haircut and uniform. Her emotions show openly: she pouts when Jinwoo makes light of injury, puffs out her cheeks when he misses an invitation, turns pale before danger, and struggles to meet his eyes after his transformation. (Chapters 1, 9)
She is compassionate, conscientious, and persistent, but deeply frightened by violence. That fear is not cowardice or indifference. She keeps healing Jinwoo after the temple has overwhelmed her, returns to association work despite trauma, and runs toward a seemingly injured Taesik before considering her own safety. The conflict is that her care for others repeatedly pushes her into situations her mind and noncombat skill set cannot safely withstand. (Chapters 2–3, 8)
Her decision to retire is therefore an act of self-knowledge rather than failure. Joohee understands that rank and magical value do not oblige her to remain in a job that is destroying her. She also respects boundaries: although curious about Jinwoo’s new power, she recognizes that he wants secrecy and declines to pry. (Chapter 9)
Abilities, skills, and rank
Restorative magic
Joohee is a B-rank healer, a rare specialty valuable enough that a major guild would ordinarily recruit her. She channels dim blue light through her hands to close wounds, relieve pain, and stabilize injuries. Her repeated treatment makes it possible for pre-System Jinwoo to return to normal life after raids, and after the Taesik fight she removes a facial cut almost immediately. (Chapters 1, 3, 8–9)
Her effectiveness is especially important in low-rank association parties, which lack the resources of large guilds. A support employee explicitly sees her recruitment as a way to reduce fatalities among hunters whose own ability is insufficient to keep them safe. She can continue treatment under severe stress and sustain a badly wounded person through blood loss longer than an ordinary medic could. (Chapters 2–3, 76)
Limits and battlefield role
Healing is not regeneration without limit. Joohee cannot replace Jinwoo’s severed leg, describing the effort as trying to fill a leaking vessel. Heavy use produces a nosebleed, pallor, blue lips, trembling, mental exhaustion, and eventual collapse. Her power therefore depends on remaining conscious and protected long enough to cast, and a sufficiently catastrophic injury can exceed what she can repair. (Chapters 2–3)
She is explicitly a noncombat hunter. She readies healing while Chiyul prepares fire magic, but she demonstrates no offensive skill, armor specialty, or ability to defend against a fast attacker. Taesik treats her as a priority because her B rank could sustain the group, yet correctly identifies that a surprise attack would bypass her lack of combat training. Jinwoo’s intervention, not a hidden defensive technique, saves her. (Chapters 1, 8–9)
Joohee’s other useful traits are medical attention and willingness to act. She recognizes injury quickly, begins treatment without delay, and keeps focus on a patient even in a collapsing situation. Those same instincts can become a vulnerability when an enemy feigns injury, so her best role is protected rear-line support rather than independent field combat. (Chapters 2–3, 8)
Relationships
- Jinwoo Sung: Jinwoo is initially her most frequent patient and the colleague whose repeated injuries worry her most. She invites him to dinner, stays beside him in Cartenon Temple, and develops feelings she never voices directly. He in turn refuses to abandon her on the altar and protects her from Taesik. Their final farewell is warm but incomplete, shaped by her need to leave hunting and his respect for that decision. (Chapters 1–3, 8–9)
- Chiyul Song: Chiyul is her experienced raid leader and fellow survivor. He carries her out of the double dungeon at Jinwoo’s insistence, later fights beside her during the Taesik incident, and helps keep Jinwoo’s strength secret. (Chapters 1–3, 8–9)
- The association support employee: The unnamed employee’s desire to protect weak hunters leads him to Joohee’s file and apparently to her recruitment. This context explains why someone of her rank works association raids instead of pursuing a more profitable guild career. (Chapter 76)
Items
The E-rank essence stone Jinwoo presses into Joohee’s hand is not a powerful item, but it carries personal importance as the promise that they will share a meal after escaping Cartenon Temple. She preserves it through the aftermath and returns it only when she decides to leave for Busan. No separately cataloged item is otherwise assigned to her. (Chapters 3, 9)