White Blood — Cardiac
Before the third week of airing began, a video from the film specialist YouTuber CineKing went up.
Yeon-woo, who happened to be browsing internet reactions at the time, discovered the video as well.
"Hmm. An in-depth analysis of Ella through the lens of the characters' roles?"
He was curious to see just how this YouTuber would break it down.
When Yeon-woo clicked the video, the YouTuber's voice poured out through the speakers.
"Hello, everyone. This is CineKing. I'll cut straight to the point. I believe that as supporting characters with their own unique abilities join this White Blood expedition party, they serve to support the protagonist, Jeong Do-jin."
The YouTuber displayed photos of the members on screen as he explained them one by one.
"Actor Ryu Yeon-woo's protagonist Jeong Do-jin. He's literally the firepower specialist. In game terms, he's the DPS. He goes on a rampage all by himself and sweeps everything away. Then Akenaton is the utility support. Dipangdal is the driver."
Finally pointing to the last remaining member, Ella, the YouTuber continued.
"There's a brief mention early on that she's strong, but Ella hasn't really shown anything noteworthy so far. Why is that? Is she just some cute mascot character?"
YouTuber CineKing shook his head.
"A combat squad needs various roles, right? In game terms, you've got DPS, support, driver, and even a narrator as the intel source. The one remaining element is the 'tank.' I suspect they're going for that unbalanced fun of having a cute girl take on the tank role."
Listening to the YouTuber's analysis, Yeon-woo watched with interest.
"Interesting. Pretty sharp."
Of course, it wasn't that difficult a deduction, but the YouTuber's timing in uploading the video right as Ella was about to start showing her abilities today made his reasoning all the more intriguing.
As the third week of airing began, episode 7 of White Blood opened with a small spaceship flying frantically through space, pursued by White Blood Army fighters.
The ship had already left Thracia behind and entered Cardiac.
But the White Blood Army fighters kept up the chase, hammering them with laser fire until they were on the verge of being shot down.
Even if they were shot down and crashed, Do-jin's powerful body would probably survive—but the rest of the cells would be wiped out for certain.
"Akenaton! Don't you have any long-range attack techniques?"
"I am a high priest of the nation! I possess no arts meant for attacking others in the first place!"
Dipangdal was barely dodging the relentless laser barrage with his miraculous piloting skills.
Do-jin shoved the control stick for the ship's cannons into Akenaton's hands.
"Then get over here and grab this at least! Pull the trigger and lasers come out. Think of it like a game and shoot them down!"
"A g-game? As a high priest, I cannot use such impure— Guh!"
Do-jin smacked Akenaton on the back of the head.
"Shut up and shoot already!"
Then he turned to Dipangdal and gave the order.
"Dipangdal! Open the cargo bay!"
"What? Right now?"
"No arguments—open it. And once I'm out, close it!"
When Dipangdal opened the cargo bay hatch, the cargo inside went scattering into the air, and Do-jin drew his sword and leapt out of the ship through the bay.
He locked onto the positions of the freefalling cargo and gauged the distance to the fighters closing in at blistering speed.
Do-jin approached a plummeting crate, gathered power into his legs, and kicked off hard, using the recoil to launch himself onto the path of an oncoming fighter.
In the next instant he drew his blade and cleaved straight through the charging fighter.
Fwit—.
KWAANG—.
Leaving the exploding fighter behind, he tried to fly toward the next one in pursuit—only to find its altitude was far lower than his own.
At freefall speed, the fighter would pass beneath him and reach the ship before he could drop onto it.
Thoom—.
That was when the sound of a cannon firing came from the ship.
Shrieeeek—.
A cannon shell tore through the air, streaking straight toward Do-jin.
"That butterfingers Akenaton!"
Even if he'd aimed at the oncoming fighters, the evasive maneuvers made a hit uncertain.
And at that distance Do-jin shouldn't even have been visible—yet somehow the shell was flying this way. If that counted as talent, then talent it was.
Wait. If I use that...
Do-jin raised his sword and, timing it perfectly, struck the incoming shell upward.
He took the enormous kinetic energy of the fired shell into his body and converted it straight into recoil.
"Khup!"
A tingling numbness ran through his arms.
Receiving the reaction force from deflecting the shell, Do-jin began plummeting at the speed of a light ray.
And just like that he raised his blade and skewered the White Blood Army pilot sitting in the cockpit of the oncoming fighter.
Kreeek—.
Patsutsut—.
The White Blood Army pilot dissolved in a spray of electricity.
With the pilot dead, the fighter began to fall.
Do-jin tried to work the controls somehow, but the impact of their collision had smashed every instrument panel to pieces.
"Narrator! Can you communicate with people other than me?"
- As long as they are not too far from you, Do-jin, it is possible.
At the Narrator's words, Do-jin looked toward the receding ship.
"Connect me to Akenaton and tell him to meet me at the Cerebral Artery."
- Understood.
The fighter Do-jin was riding traced a curve as it plummeted downward.
"Ohhh, I understand. O God."
Hearing the voice in his ear, Akenaton dropped flat onto the floor in worship.
Ella tilted her head as she watched him.
"Uncle Akenaton, what are you doing?"
"I have heard the voice of God. God Doujin has commanded us to go ahead to the Cerebral Artery and wait."
Just then, Dipangdal scratched his head from the pilot's seat.
"Your Highness, there seems to be a problem."
"A problem? What is it?"
"The cargo bay hatch won't close. We need that shut before we can lower the landing gear."
Apparently the explosion they'd heard from the White Blood Army lasers fired on the ground before takeoff had been the cargo bay hatch mechanism.
Ella tilted her head at that.
"Then we just need to close the door, right?"
"Well, yes, but the weight is enormous. There's no way to close it manually."
Ella pattered over, grabbed the steel door—thick as a person's torso—and lifted it.
"Hup!"
Clunk—.
"I'll hold it until we land!"
"······."
Watching the tiny girl hoist a steel door thicker than her own body, Akenaton and Dipangdal's mouths fell open.
"Your Highness, what exactly is that person?"
"...Truth be told, I don't know either."
Aside from the fact that she had come up from the lower regions with God, Akenaton knew nothing about Ella.
What was certain was that she was absolutely no ordinary red blood cell.
Black smoke was rising from the middle of a coniferous forest that looked as if it belonged in a tundra region.
It was the wreckage of the fighter Do-jin had ridden in.
Strictly speaking, he hadn't so much ridden it as taken a short rest while it was falling.
Near the exploded fighter, Do-jin pushed himself upright.
Just before hitting the ground he had thrown himself clear, snapping several trees of the coniferous forest before slamming into the earth.
"Ugh, every joint is aching. Last time it was a sand field so it hurt less, but this ground is frozen solid."
- Do-jin. I am picking up Cardiac's signal nearby.
"I know. We already crossed the border into Cardiac."
- No. I mean the King of the Red Blood Cells, 'Cardiac.'
Do-jin's face hardened.
It had been far too distant a goal to call a primary objective, yet ever since he had fallen into this body it had been his primary objective all the same.
Finding the cell called Cardiac.
"Where is it?"
- The summit of the snow mountain.
Hearing the Narrator's words, Do-jin looked around.
The coniferous forest was so dense he couldn't secure a line of sight.
Hmm, the tallest tree around here...
Scanning the area, he found one tree thicker around than the others.
Tatak—.
Lightly stepping up the trunk, Do-jin climbed onto the highest branch and surveyed the surroundings.
"That one?"
Far in the distance, a towering snow mountain rose into his view.
- Yes. That is correct.
"Whew. My heart's racing. We finally found it. I've been wondering for six years what kind of bastard this Cardiac really is."
Given how dense the forest trees were, running would be faster than using a hoverbike.
Do-jin tore through the tundra forest at tremendous speed, heading for the snow mountain.
After running for a long while, the snow mountain that had been a hazy blur in the distance drew close before his eyes.
"I don't have to search this entire huge mountain, do I? The summit is definite?"
- According to the coordinates, yes.
Do-jin nodded and began climbing the snow mountain at high speed.
Yet even after climbing for a long time afterward, the summit refused to draw any closer.
"...Something's off. At this point the summit should be in sight. Narrator."
- ······.
"Narrator?"
- ······.
No matter how many times Do-jin called, the Narrator did not answer.
Contact had cut out from time to time before, but his instincts told him something was wrong.
Do-jin stood still, closed his eyes, and opened every sense.
The auras rippling around him each poured out the information they held.
Ever since he had entered the world inside this body, the opened sense of ki allowed him to see far more with his eyes closed than open.
The auras that had been spreading in chaotic patterns like paint dissolved in water, tangling and mixing with one another, were now swirling in a single place.
Here.
With his eyes still closed, Do-jin drew his sword and cut through the swirling aura.
Jjeong—.
The sound of something massive cracking rang out, and the surrounding sense of ki shattered like broken glass.
When Do-jin opened his eyes, he was standing not before a snow mountain but before a cave of pure crimson on every side.
No, rather than a cave, more like...
A prison.
Inside that red prison, an old man rose to his feet—dressed entirely in red, with even his eyebrows and irises dyed the same crimson.
"To enter the Atrium... impressive, Jeong Do-jin."
Do-jin regarded the old man steadily.
He was only a white-haired elder, yet a fairly intense presence radiated from him.
And this was the first cell that had ever pronounced Do-jin's name correctly.
"Thanks for not calling me Doujin. Are you Cardiac?"
"I am."
At Cardiac's affirmation, Do-jin looked around as he spoke.
"This place is the Atrium? A prison is an unexpected use for it."
The atrium is the chamber in the upper part of the heart, enclosed by cardiac muscle.
"It is performing its original role properly. However, as the most thoroughly secured location in the entire body, the White Blood Army must have confined me here."
Do-jin's expression hardened.
That cell had just said "in the entire body."
"You know that you're a cell inside someone else's body?"
At Do-jin's words, Cardiac smiled faintly.
"Of course. Just before I was captured, I left a faint suggestion with the Narrator so that he would seek out Jeong Do-jin. That arrangement was mine as well."
"...Who are you?"
As if he had no intention of hiding anything, Cardiac spread both hands and opened his mouth.
"I am the final ember that will help Do-jin save this body. The king sealed within the Atrium, and the father of all hematopoiesis—Cardiac."
Hematopoiesis.
The hematopoietic stem cells Akenaton had once mentioned.
The cells that produce every blood cell, white or red without exception.
Sensing that further explanation was needed, Cardiac spoke again.
"Most cells live short lives relative to their allotted span and then reincarnate. I am the administrator who has lived intact through those ages without reincarnating, managing this body."
Do-jin had considered this problem before as well.
Ordinarily a white blood cell's lifespan is twelve hours.
And a red blood cell's lifespan is a full one hundred twenty days.
But that is according to the time of the outside world.
In this world, one year passes with every heartbeat, so even calculating one beat per second, a white blood cell's lifespan is roughly forty-three thousand years.
And a red blood cell's lifespan is more than two hundred times longer still.
Over ten million years.
But Ella and Akenaton didn't look like they'd lived that long.
Probably, just as the Cardiac before him had said, because they continually died and were reborn through reincarnation.
Yet he claims to have lived intact without going through reincarnation...?
Ten million years was a span he could barely grasp.
Humanity's earliest record—the handprint cave paintings—was a mere fifty thousand years old.
The Stone Age had begun two million years ago.
"So you're saying you've lived through that enormous span of time."
"Looking back after it has passed, it is all but an instant."
Do-jin looked at Cardiac.
"You said you are the final ember that will help me save this body. Then you must have a solid reason for bringing me here as well?"
It had already been six years since the Narrator first contacted Do-jin.
To the Cardiac before him it might have been an instant, but to Do-jin it had been a long, long time.
After searching so hard, if there was no plausible reason, rage might well have risen in him.
And the words that came from Cardiac's mouth were something he had never expected at all.
"I can send Jeong Do-jin back to his original world for a short while."
With those words the screen faded to black, and the third week's broadcast content came to an end.
Yeon-woo finished monitoring as well and stretched.
"Whew. The content's pretty long, but the viewers seem to be following along well enough, so that's a relief."
Every story that ends as a dragon's head and a snake's tail earns poor reviews.
The "beginning-development-turn" is important, of course, but how the "conclusion" is tied determines the direction of the reviews and whether someone will recommend it to others.
He had now scattered every plot thread, and to gather them all into a single point and reclaim them, the remaining fourth week's content had to become an excellent "conclusion."
And of course he was confident about that as well.
While he was sorting through these various thoughts, his smartphone buzzed.
Vrrr—.
Yeon-woo picked up his phone and checked the contents. It was a message that had gone up in the group chat with Han So-hyun and Son Jin-uk.
Yeon-woo looked at the messages, smiled, and began typing.
Tomorrow he had somewhere to go with the two of them.
It was something they had been talking about steadily since last time—the day Son Jin-uk and Han So-hyun, who had visited the set for cameo filming, had coordinated their schedules in advance with him was tomorrow.