Chapter 493
Chapter 493
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 23
Chapter Title: Gedroits's Heir, Deul (8)
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Whirr whirr whirr—clank!
Vreeee—
This was the sound of a massive circular saw blade, suspended from ceiling rails, moving through a room where green drapes and harsh fluorescent lights created an eerie vibe.
“Jawbreaker, hold him steady. If he thrashes around, that thing’ll slice him in two.”
“Music to my ears.”
This was a conversation between an elderly man in surgical scrubs and a burly guy smoking a cigarette in front of the operating table.
“Mmph! Mmphmmphmmph! Mrrrmmph!!”
And this was the muffled scream of terror from a man gagged and strapped to the table with titanium alloy chains.
At first glance, it looked like a scene from a gritty B-grade splatter flick boasting some serious gore. Shockingly, it was actually a wounded patient, his close buddy, and a kindly doctor who’d squeezed in time for surgery despite a packed schedule.
The slightly absurd scene made perfect sense once you knew the doctor’s name was Wooin. He was a top-tier trauma specialist and a mutant dissection expert to boot. This table was often used for vivisecting “live” mutants, which explained the titanium chains and rapid-freeze restraints galore.
Greeee—kreeeak!
“Mrrrmmmph—!!!”
“Jawbreaker. You punks really underestimate me.... The guy right in front of your eyes is the director of a major hospital, owner of the biggest black market in Sector 47, and a pioneer in cutting-edge mutant tech. You wanna keep making bullshit messes for me to clean up?”
Psssh!
“Grrraaah#(*$@&*#@mmph!!!”
“Tch. My apologies. Should’ve kept a tighter leash on the kids. Oh, right—here, take this. Found it on the way.”
“A blood-soaked pouch? What’s this? Poke someone and loot a gold brick or what?”
“Teeth. Lots of assholes in the way, so I warmed up a bit.”
“Ah, perfect. Good for the dentist.”
While Ian and Wooin cheerfully traded fresh teeth pulled from the mangled victim’s mouth, building a cozy rapport, the Professor was pondering just what the hell these two lunatics were doing to his body.
‘This absolutely can’t be surgery on this scale, can it?’
His medical knowledge topped out at basic first aid, but when it came to the sensation of his body being dismantled, he dared say he knew it better than any living thing.
Stabbed by that vicious arc knife, sure—but his body was that of a rock-solid Type-3 mutant. It might not match his in-game physique, but as a mutant body shaped by his mind’s form, it had at least some sluggish regenerative ability. No way would even a berserk Vex land a life-threatening blow. Obviously, the knife had just pierced straight into the meat of his back muscles, dodging organs.
Blood was pouring from his back and the electrocuted spot throbbed like hell, so he’d come for emergency care. But the old coot’s eyes lit up the second he saw him, he muttered something to Ian, and next thing he knew, he was dragged to a “large mutant operating room” and about to be carved up alive!
Drip—drip—
The fluid dripping through the IV right now was unmistakably animal anesthetic, marked with a huge skull.
Splash splash splash—
And that water sound beside it? Not water—it was his blood, leaking through a tube in his thigh into a big plastic bin.
Snip snap snip snap!
This was the sound of what should’ve been a simple suture between tough mutant hide turning into major surgery: sawing open his entire back, rummaging around his spine and everything nearby!
‘Are they... gonna kill me? Old man Wooin...! What the hell did I do wrong... wrong?’
Then, the Professor remembered. An event that was about 28 years ago for him, but just a week ago for Wooin.
The time they’d gone to clean out black market trash, only for Ian to roll up in a tank at the end, plowing through and blasting the center with a hearty shell.
The sinkhole-like crater in the middle of the black market, and the merchants who’d lost their livelihoods thanks to the tank crushing shops and stalls.
After that mess, the culprits bailed for a “week-long wasteland trip” without looking back. Wooin had to handle the black market cleanup and the merchants’ protests over their shattered businesses alone.
There it was. Personal grudge.
The Professor suppressed rising terror and calmly pondered how to talk his way out—mouth sealed, body restrained—while the mad doctor hummed and sliced his back....
“Hmm. Y’know, this guy’s got two hearts? Grew an extra when he mutated, right? Jawbreaker. Does a car need two engines?”
“Doubt it. If one’s output is enough, no need.”
“Right? Could probably extract one, no harm done. Worst case, heart attack insurance.”
.
.
.
.
“Mmph! Mmrrph! Grrmph! Mrrrmmmph!!!”
Failure. How could he forget? What turned the cool, handsome Ian Desmond—wasteland’s top metalhead nutjob—was learning from this very cool, handsome guy who’d picked up tricks from the nutjob doctor.
Squirm squirm! Thrash thrash!
The silver lining: Professor Park’s hybrid mutant body outclassed regular mutants in specs. He couldn’t escape, but his desperate wriggling was enough to disrupt the surgery.
“This guy. Why’s he such a wuss? It’s all for good reason, so stay still.”
“Mmrrph?!”
“Guess even gagged, the chatty ones get the point across.”
“So that’s why? I thought you were just slicing him open outta spite.”
“Bullshit. Even if I’m a quack, I’m still a doctor, punk.”
Whirr—click!
Wooin snapped an X-ray-like image of the half-dissected back with a massive contrast machine, jotted notes with a pen, and spoke.
“This body stalled mid-transformation into a Type-3 mutant. No one knows its exact state, right?”
“Uh.... Dome knows, probably?”
“Nah, the collab data I requested was full of moronic guesses. The Professor’s like a patient with a rare genetic condition. No one knowing his physical traits precisely means no one can take the right steps if he’s injured. This idiot makes a hobby of wrecking himself periodically, so even I need to know. Was gonna summon him and poke around anyway—perfect he walked in. Got it? Jawbreaker?”
“Snort. You’ve mellowed with age, old timer.”
“You get it too, Professor?”
“....Mmrrph.”
Get it? He was downright sorry for lumping this true healer with that brain-fried metalhead whose nerves were all peripherals.
Yeah. It was Wooin, of all people. The old man he’d visited for antidepressants during his wasteland survival struggles, who knew his ugly days and glory days. Sure, the tsundere type who never spelled it out, but everything he did had to have a reason....
“Swap the blood bag. Marrow’s messed up—blood keeps coming. Fresh one in, label the full ones: these.”
“What’s that? Lemme see.... [Mid-Stage Type-3 Mutant Blood, For Dome Research Collab], [Black Market Sales]...? ”
“....Mmph?”
Wait, what? Sales? Not for patient care or whatever?
The Professor strapped to the table and the brutish Ian gripping him both stared in disbelief. Wooin, bold as brass, raised a medical lever and declared.
“What? What’s wrong with it? Grasping the patient’s condition as a doctor, collecting top-value specimens as a mutant biology authority, and not passing up rare merch as a black market boss?”
“Mrrghmph!”
“Hmm. So you’re slicing up the Professor not for his condition, but to gift coworkers, sell off the extras on the side?”
“Aren’t all three legit reasons? At my age, centering your life’s key. Remember that BDSM black market terror last time? Do I look like someone who eats compensation losses?”
“Oh yeah. With all the cash we’ll burn soon, better to repay in goods than upfront. Heh heh heh! Classic Wooin! The quack I know!”
“Keh heh heh! What’s left to change at my age besides dying?”
Aaaagh! Help! Two lunatics butchering and selling people! Vex! Dana! Chief! Hyde! Aaaargh!
“Mmph! Mmph! Mmmph!”
No one to hear but the two maniacs at the table.
As anemia and anesthesia fogged his mind, he stewed in grudge against Rabbit—the root of this whole fiasco—and drifted off.
Praying that final roar wasn’t his bones being sawn.
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Whirr whirr whirr—thud!
“Liza! Get this guy in recovery! Plenty of wasteland scum itching to grab a piece—somewhere quiet and safe!”
“Yes, Doctor!”
In the end, the Professor blacked out from hypovolemic shock. No telling what went down in that surgery room humming like an automated factory after.
The two, drenched not just in blood but pickled in it, wheeled out the operating table, handed the unconscious Professor to the nurse, and collapsed exhausted in the break room.
Click, pop!
Sizzle, fwoosh!
Hooo—
“Jawbreaker. Gimme one.”
“Damn. Never seen you pull your own smokes. Stingy bastard, or too airheaded to pack ’em?”
“If I’m poisoning myself, might as well smoke the tasty ones. Nothing beats a stolen cig, right?”
“Rotten philosophy.”
Flick!
“Good work. Even with your own body busted, jumping into heavy labor.”
“Damn right.”
Wooin snatched the tossed pack with spry, age-defying flair. Seeing it stuffed with hand-rolled smokes, he grinned. For all his talk, he’d prepped knowing Ian liked his personal rolls.
Craaackle—
Hooo—
Hoooo—
For a moment, only crackling flames and sighs filled the tiny break room quietly.
“....How’s he doing.”
“Not good.”
Who knew what he’d done in the connector, but now he saw the world from on high.
To knock out a guy shrugging off neck electrocution and elephant-grade anesthetics, they’d drained a bucket of blood to trigger shock.
As Wooin pulled out notes full of medical jargon and X-rays, Ian thought of Vex, clutching the comms linked to him, hanging on every word.
“Muscles. Skeleton. Organs. Skin—all beyond human limits.”
“Obvious from the looks. Human under 170cm ballooned to 5m, down to 3m, now 2m. Isn’t that reverting to human?”
“Nope. My take: accelerating toward full mutant.”
Hooo—
Through thick smoke, Ian appeared, forehead buried in one hand.
“Blood’s inhuman too. Hormones still testing, but levels that’d wreck a normal human ages ago. That blood loss? For his size, he’s emptied out—yet conscious, thrashing. Bone marrow stem cells fully mutated. Literally bones-deep—”
“So what!”
Bam!
Wooin didn’t chide the rudeness. He was a doctor; delivering results to family was duty.
“....Head. What you see is Professor, but everything but the brain’s Type-3 mutant. Even that... will change eventually. Post-Sector 38 incident, no improvement. Just nonsense factors slowing it.”
“Fuck, damn it, shit....”
Tzzzzz!
Sharp static burst from Ian’s comms. Probably Vex, rage-smashing his end.
“....How long?”
“No one knows.”
“How. Long.”
“....Not long.”
Crash!
Ian’s patience snapped.
“You’re a doctor, old man! Not just any—a miracle worker! Saved jawless guys! Saved that nurse Liza with her limbs gone! Makes twitching prosthetic arms and legs! Something—hell, swap his chest like junk, lop off the bad parts! Swap everything but the head—!”
“Ashfield. You’ve changed a lot.”
Wooin’s calm eyes on the unraveling man held even deeper emotion. Ian saw it.
Ian released the legless old man’s collar. Lighter without legs.
He knew. World full of unchangeables, no matter the effort.
But some truths, plain as day, you just couldn’t accept.
Wife you vowed forever with, exploding before your eyes.
Daughter you swore to live for, clinging to her exploding mom.
Or a buddy you thought finally reclaiming life, with days numbered.
Tsssk, tssk! Tick tick!
“Fucking hell of a world.”
Ian chucked the low-fuel lighter, clamped an unlit cig in his teeth, clutched his head.
“That’s... it follows the host’s mental form, right.”
“Per known info.”
“That bastard thought he lost in the damn game, turned monster, smashed everything.”
“Yeah. Saw those vids for research. Extreme emotions spike the mutation virus big-time.”
“....Like the message said, he found Raptor. War could pop any second. And war means.... he’ll overdo it.”
Ian wasn’t dumb. Every angle screamed: disrupt whatever Raptor’s hiding before results, ASAP.
But full-scale war.... Professor’s condition tanks. Insanely fast. Irreversible.
“Jawbreaker.”
“What.”
“Don’t be a dick and oppose. Just say yes. Of course we hit Raptor.”
“Old man. Senile? You know what happens to him? Or.... ‘no choice, cut bait’?”
“You’re the one who lived for gunpowder till your skull blew into mush.”
Wooin glared like he’d deck him, shot back.
“Think the world-conquering Professor with that puny brain didn’t consider what we all know? Asking around clueless if war prep to chase Raptor or chill and wait—which is right?”
“....He’s not perfect.”
“Saw Rabbit before coming. For war talk, you said. But did they seriously discuss? Your message: just yes/no and done. If he really wanted war reasons, would those two gloss over?”
“Don’t dodge. I’m not in deep-think mode.”
To growling Ian, Wooin soothed with hollow tone.
“Just whining to share the load.”
“Share the... load?”
“Yeah. Like multiple guards on the gallows switch. The war he deems essential—share a bit of the guilt for kicking off that death spiral.”
Wooin knew war. Ian did. Professor did. Every wasteland survivor did.
“You.... got mad thinking we gotta let Professor go? Couldn’t accept losing someone precious forever, vented emotions?”
“That’s—”
“War demands that heart-prep—for everyone I know. Start it, and death tickets for all, no exceptions. Anyone can go. Goodbyes all around.”
“Starts with me, ends who-knows-where in destruction chain. Lived it. We all know how WW3 ended.”
Ian was speechless. WW3—the war that wrecked old world.... just fizzled. Instigators, defenders—all dead, no one to declare end. Sank into smoke like dying embers.
Did starters predict that end?
Could Professor be sure this war wouldn’t?
“He’s the spark for that war. So.... shut up and agree. Let’s war. Yell he’s dumb for agonizing, call him idiot—like you do.”
“Lighten that heavy pack: ‘I started the war.’”
Ching!
Wooin faintly smiled, wrinkles galore, held flickering lighter to Ian’s face.
Ian eyed the unlit cig in his mouth, the dancing flame.
“....Heh heh heh. Damn it all.”
Craaackle—
Hooo.
Rage-roar swapped for foggy sigh clouding his view.
“Old man.”
“Yeah.”
“Preemptive goodbye here. Gotta say it to you.”
“No moping, punk.”
“Bull. You just preached ‘prep everyone’s hearts.’”
Wooin chucked his cig butt at smoke-spewing Ian’s head, pulled a heavy metal case from under his wheelchair.
“Oh, what I asked for?”
“Nah, that’s prepping. This is mine.”
Click—the case held two prosthetic legs, gleaming metallic through haze.
“....Coming out? At your age?”
“Don’t plan holing up taking goodbyes. If goodbyes, at the battlefield’s first shot.”
“Heh heh heh, old folks’ tempers.”
Ian laughed again, in the end.
Laughter leaking past metal jaw—big but fading, subdued.
Like always, enduring faced pain.
“Shit.... Was pondering wedding serenade for that guy.”
“Chugged the kimchi soup hard.”
“Thought it was fine now. Now.... Heh heh heh!”
The wasteland, true to form, seemed loath to grant its dwellers long rest.
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