Chapter 361
Chapter 361
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 361
Chapter Title: The Outsider
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Chwiirrrrr—
The tentacles that had been wrapping around Park Gwangrim's body and head slithered back to my left hand with a disgusting sound.
"It's done now. Your turn, Teacher."
"By any chance—uhm—could you do that to—"
"Pardon?"
Her voice dragged even more than usual.
Lee Ha-seo, clutching both her cheeks with her hands, spoke with an entranced expression.
"Could you do it to me toooo~?"
Do what, exactly?
"Uh... You want me to treat your drug addiction?"
"Nooo~ To me too! With these tentacles!"
"Let go of my hand! I'm absolutely not doing it! Stop! Don't bite!"
In the end, I had to use magic to pry Lee Ha-seo off.
"You have to do it next timeee~"
"Yes, but not today."
"Okayyy~ I'll look forward to ittt~"
Kkirik—
Clank.
Restraints clicked into place on Park Gwangrim's unconscious, limp body.
I'd mostly removed the toxic buildup in his body and anything that could cause dependency on specific chemicals.
But with my abilities, I couldn't restore his reduced sanity score or free him from delirium in a "safe" way.
From here on, it was the realm of hospitals and doctors.
'Of course, the fact that the doctor is Lee Ha-seo is a bit unsettling...'
Kkiriririk—
"Ehehehehe—Are you okay with thaaat~?"
Lee Ha-seo gazed at me with a chilling smile.
The moment I gave my consent—her suspicious device would activate.
"Uh..."
As the young master once said—don't do unto others what you don't want done to you.
Flip that around, and it means if it's something you can do to me, it's fine to do to others too, right?
"Yes. Please go ahead."
"Alriiiight~ Let's beginnn~"
Clank.
Pajijijijik!!
A horrific bolt of electricity discharged amid a eerie blue flash.
Sensing my concern, Lee Ha-seo patted my shoulder and said,
"It's fineee~ The [Electroshock Awakening Device] is a safe device that's been through tons of tests."
"I'm convulsing here?"
"Uhm~ That means it's workinggg~ Alright, let's crank it up a bit moreee~"
Gwangrim, I'm sorry... I might've made the wrong choice.
Pajijijijik!!
"Uwaaaak!"
"Oooh! See~ You're awake nooow~"
Well, yeah, after getting zapped like that, anyone would wake up.
"Shin-hwa? Kim Shin-hwa! What the—!? Why!?"
"Uh, Gwangrim? This might sound weird, but this is treatment. Just hang in there a bit."
* * *
"Alrighttt~ Let's do one moreee~"
Park Gwangrim shook his head vigorously, his eyes now sharp and alert.
"I'm fine now! I'm good! Really!"
"Uh... Uhm..."
Lee Ha-seo glanced at me with a disappointed look.
"Teacher?"
"Just one more and it'd be certainnn..."
"I don't care about uncovering enemy secrets from some base, so let's stop now."
"Uuu~ Got ittt~"
Lee Ha-seo smacked her lips and powered down the device.
"Gwangrim, you okay?"
"Ugh... Yeah. Honestly, it just startled me. It didn't hurt that much."
"See~ We can do it agaiiin~?"
"Kim Shin-hwa! Please save me! This cultist might kill me with that freakish device!"
"She's not a cultist; she's a doctor."
As I said that, I channeled my mana.
Chwarararak!
The belts on the torture device—no, the [Electroshock Awakening Device]—unlatched all at once.
"Hah! Uwaaah!"
Park Gwangrim shot up in a hurry, only to tumble forward.
"Whoa, careful!"
Giiiing!
This time, I activated [Invisible Hand] to catch him and help him up.
"Gwangrim, your body's not fully recovered yet—so, uh, lie down for a bit."
"Thank you... Thank you."
I knew this would happen, so I prepared a wheeled bed in advance.
Even as he was laid down, Park Gwangrim shot me a glance laced with resentment and mumbled,
"No matter what, electrocuting someone's head is just brutal..."
Hearing that, Lee Ha-seo tilted her chin up and glared.
"It's not tortureee—it's proper medical equipmenttt!"
"Right. It's science—something like that. Teacher Lee Ha-seo is the top genius doctor in this field."
Yeah, it's all technique, theory, and meaningful procedure.
Absolutely not insane.
"It wouldn't just be cranking some random electricity to full blast~ That'd be crazy—but this is precisely controlled, safe shocks~ See the specially crafted mana stone here~?"
She just blasted me with random high-voltage electricity. Kinda depressing.
* * *
Since we'd snuck in at night, we couldn't do proper admission procedures.
"For nowww~ I'll check the ward situation and come backkk~ Uhm—in the meantime, get this IV driiiiip~"
Lee Ha-seo busily hooked up the IV.
"It's a liiittle sleepy-makinggg~ Nothing weirddd~"
"Teacher, thank you."
"Aww~ No biggiee~ Shin-hwa and I are se-cret friends, right~ Ehehe—Later, let's have a secretive chat about Shin-hwa's body tooo~ Uhihihi—"
How does she make those innocent sentences sound so terrifying?
I deliberately ignored Lee Ha-seo and turned to Park Gwangrim lying in the bed.
"Gwangrim, why'd you push yourself so hard?"
"Haa... I saw something way too horrific."
Hyun-ah transformed into [Byakhee] was a sight even a hardened fixer like him would struggle to accept.
If it were just the appearance, he might've endured, but monsters from [Cthulhu World] had the power to shatter human minds with their alien presence alone.
"I've handled that. You probably won't see it again."
Or not, if luck's bad.
Part of [Scaled Trickery] was still in Hyun-ah's body. If she ever craved that power again, [Byakhee] would awaken once more.
Liar or not, Park Gwangrim looked somewhat relieved.
After a deep breath, he slowly opened his mouth.
"I've been tracking the Eternal Unity Cult."
"Eternal Unity Cult?"
"Yes. You said you lost Dokgo Gyeom last time, right?"
Well, I let him go, but yeah.
So that's what he'd been hung up on.
The [Jar of Canopus] containing part of [Scaled Trickery] had reached Hyun-ah through the Eternal Unity Cult.
'Puts together the path that led to Park Gwangrim getting caught.'
Talk about lucky.
Jeokdu—what a trash heap, but if he hadn't randomly saved Park Gwangrim, he'd have been a sacrificial lamb long ago.
"Shin-hwa. The Eternal Unity Cult might be plotting something."
"I've taken care of that too. Don't worry."
"No. It's not about the Blue Tiger Gang."
"...Then?"
"The containers they smuggled weren't just one. Most were seized by the Alien Management Agency, but... if any are left, they could cause another disaster."
"Uhm..."
The Eternal Unity Cult is always the problem.
Just when things are going great, they or Helix Tech trip you up for a game over.
One of the groups structuring high-level content. Starting to rev up now?
"Got it. I'll check on that separately—so rest up for a while, Gwangrim. Chuseok's coming up soon, right? Different from China's?"
"Similar. Mid-Autumn Festival soon. Everyone heads home to family."
Park Gwangrim wore a wistful expression.
"Haa... But I don't really want to go back. Family or not, they're not great people—I just want to see my little sibling."
"Bring your sibling here. You've got money, right?"
"This country still isn't that safe."
"Uh—"
"I thought Sejong or Busan might be safe—but after all this, not really. Gives me a lot to think about. Bring my family here? Or give up and go home?"
Sejong and Busan.
Both relatively safe spots—but because of me—no, not just me, but big incidents happened anyway.
"Korea, the setup in Paju, all the people I've met... Feels wasteful to just leave. But I'm an outsider in the end—settling down—"
The meds kicking in? His voice softened as he mumbled.
"Must be tough."
"Yeah... really tough... Kim Shin-hwa..."
"Yeah."
"Thanks for the help... truly grateful... Lifelong benefactor... Whatever happens next—... I'll help with anything... Kim Shi... Why are you so kind to me..."
"Outsiders gotta help each other. Enough talk—sleep now. Gotta be healthy if I want to use you well, right?"
* * *
"Uhm~ Now we can talk secrets, my secret frienddd~"
"Wasn't it about the blood test?"
I'd given Lee Ha-seo two blood samples.
Both mine, but one after my blood started turning to mana stones.
"Yesss~ The crystallized blood—like you said—liquefied after extracting the mana~"
"Any difference between the two versions?"
"Nooo~ Not much. The issue was overly dense mana~ Probably from getting stronger as a mage."
"So just a mana concentration difference in the end."
"Yesss~ But I found other things toooo~"
"Like what?"
Lee Ha-seo bared her teeth in a grin and said,
"Shin-hwa has no blood type."
"Uh... I see."
Surprising, but not shocking.
"Uh, precisely—your blood composition is too different from humans'. Couldn't test it. Makes sense for someone from Andromeda, right~? Don't transfuse or exchange blood with anyone."
"Got it."
"But I've seen similar fluids beforeee~ Uhm—found it~ Hereee~"
She casually used "bodily fluids" instead of "blood" as she rummaged through papers.
"See? Similar, right?"
Hard to tell from the graph.
"What fluid is this?"
"Alien Management Agency asked for analysisss~ Ah! Secret, shh—you know~ Shh."
Lee Ha-seo put a finger to her lips—but didn't wait for my reply and kept going.
"From some hospital near Gamaksan a while backkk~ Let's see... Ah, name's here. 'Jemukyung'~"
"Jemukyung?"
"Yesss~ Mutant with four arms—human? Heavily modified—mixed with non-human genes toooo~"
Hospital near Gamaksan.
That was Helix Tech's secret lab using Mi-Go alien tech. The test subjects there staged an armed revolt, so Helix Tech called in outside fixers to wipe them out.
Jemukyung was their leader.
And the fixer who killed Jemukyung was me and Curtain Call.
'Why's that name here?'
No, not that.
[Cthulhu World]'s starting point was Helix Tech's secret lab.
I woke up there, so this body I possessed—
'Was one of Helix Tech's test subjects.'
Makes sense it'd be similar to Jemukyung.
"Andd~ Shin-hwa! The writing inside your body—deciphered it~?"
"Somewhat."
"Ooooh! What'd it sayyy~?"
This body I'm in isn't standard human.
Blood composition like a test subject—or dimensional entity's.
Writing etched inside the skin and organs.
Even in the script used by Elder Things that made Shoggoths.
"Just a jumble of fragmented words."
Hard to connect into meaning—just random words.
[Doom], [Descent], [Contraction], [Assimilation], [Enhancement], [Amplification], [Compression]—
Magic-related words mixed with everyday ones.
Like [utensils], [bed], [new], [table], [clothing], [greeting], [vehicle]?
Plus so many incomplete words, no proper translation possible.
"Uh—why those words? Unrelated to magic~?"
"Not really magical runes—weak connections, words scattered everywhere. Not sure."
Could be an unknown magic system—can't be certain.
Too hectic lately to check properly—no need to tell Lee Ha-seo all this.
"Why though? Why write that stuff~?"
"Maybe I'm the reincarnation of some discarded word-memorization notebook."
"Aaaah!? Really~?"
"No. Joke. Don't take it seriously."