White Blood Ends
Hearing Do-jin’s words, Ella looked back and forth between him and the rocky island high in the sky.
“All the way up there?”
“Yeah. I think you can do it.”
Cardiac had said so.
Hematopoietic stem cells grew endlessly stronger the higher they rose in the body.
This place was a little higher than outside the barrier, after all.
“Mmm! I’ll give it a try!”
Ella nodded and scooped Do-jin up in both arms like a princess.
“…No, this is a bit much. Hold on.”
Suddenly cradled like a baby, Do-jin shifted his stance, planting one foot on Ella’s hands and balancing there.
“…Okay. Now throw me.”
Meanwhile, in LN Entertainment’s conference room, the production staff and cast watching the screen all burst into laughter at once.
“Ah, that’s hilarious. The editing is gold.”
After all the serious scenes, the sudden ridiculous pose had Jeong Su-yeon slapping her thigh as she laughed.
“Han Byeol, how did you film that?”
“Oppa was hanging from the wires!”
Well, of course the real Han Byeol couldn’t have lifted Yeon-woo.
In the scene that followed, unlike reality, Ella hurled Do-jin with all her might, and he flew at tremendous speed until he finally arrived at the brain.
Unexpectedly, there was nothing in the brain to stop Do-jin.
It looked like the interior of a futuristic spaceship—all white metal with grooves carved here and there.
“What am I supposed to do now…?”
He had made it all the way to the brain, but he had no idea how to actually cure the leukemia.
For most cancer patients, it was enough simply to kill the problematic cancer cells.
But his little sister’s lymphocytic leukemia was a disease in which some abnormality caused blood cells to transform into cancer cells that then spread throughout the body via the lymphocytes.
“So the question is, how do you fix that ‘unknown cause’?”
Cardiac had clearly said that he was the last spark that could save this body.
And that fate would guide everything, so he shouldn’t be afraid.
Do-jin began scouring the vast space as thoroughly as if he were hunting for lice.
The answer has to be in here somewhere!
After searching for a long while, Do-jin discovered a single closed door.
From what he had seen while wandering around, every other place in this location was accessible via open passages, but only here was there something that could properly be called a door.
Around that door were all sorts of marks, as if someone had tried to force it open.
Scorch marks from fire, deep scratches where something had tried to gouge the surface.
Do-jin approached to examine the marks and ran his hand over the scratches.
Ziiing—.
Unexpectedly, the closed door opened automatically.
“Hm?”
Stepping inside, he found a massive ash-gray circular staircase that connected endlessly upward, and in front of it someone lay with a hand on their stomach.
She was dressed entirely in white, with brown hair, and a little taller than Ella.
A woman with a gentle face, and on her ear was a device glowing blue.
Do-jin recognized her at a glance.
“…So you’re the Narrator.”
He approached carefully and shook her, but she didn’t stir.
When he put a hand to her nose, he felt a faint breath.
Thankfully she wasn’t dead; she seemed to be in a deep sleep.
And behind her stretched the enormous circular staircase.
The stairs spiraled endlessly upward, and from below it was impossible to see how far they went.
This has to be the answer.
Judging by the marks on the door outside, the Narrator had protected this space until the very end.
Or perhaps she had been alone here for the entire six years.
Do-jin approached the stairs.
Up close, he saw a strange gap at the starting point of the staircase.
The width of the gap is exactly…
As if possessed, Do-jin drew his sword and thrust it into the gap.
Srrrk—.
The sword slid in naturally, as if finding its proper place.
Then what he had thought was a circular stone staircase began to glow.
The light, as if it would swallow everything, annihilated the ash-gray dust covering it and shone even brighter.
Before long, the circular stone staircase was transforming into a glowing double-helix structure.
That helical form was unexpectedly familiar.
It was his little sister’s DNA.
Only then did Do-jin understand everything.
…So that’s why Cardiac called it fate.
From the beginning, this journey had required him to arrive here with both the sword and the gems.
Do-jin, pursued from the castle and swallowed by a dimensional rift, had woken to meet Ella.
Riding the orbital elevator, Do-jin and Ella had crash-landed in Akenaton’s kingdom.
They had taken Difangdal’s taxi, then ridden a small spaceship together until the White Blood Army’s fighters chased them and Do-jin fell alone.
Thanks to that, he met Cardiac, and his companions were driven ahead of schedule right up to the front of the brain.
Do-jin returned to his companions’ side, and the Macrophage appeared at exactly that moment.
Swallowed by the Macrophage swarm, Do-jin just happened to fall into the Lachrymal Gland.
If even one of these things hadn’t happened, arriving here would have been meaningless.
Because.
“The sword and the gems. Those four are the base sequences of DNA.”
DNA is a structure formed by four bases in a linear arrangement.
Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine.
If even one of AGCT is missing, it isn’t DNA.
In the end, the powerful force spoken of in the literature by the sage was the power to heal his sister’s DNA itself.
Throughout lunch, Doctor John, who had been watching the final episode, cheered.
“Yes! My prediction was right! I knew it!”
And at the same time, he got chills.
“The story is like finely woven silk from the first episode to the last…”
The lattice-structured story was connected from one to ten, with nothing unnecessary.
That was the fun of this work.
Only when you watched from beginning to end did the proper enjoyment come through.
“And the protagonist who brings all of it to life at two hundred percent. Who on earth is that actor?”
As a film buff, John had seen Sketch before, but he never imagined that actor was the same person as the current protagonist.
There was still a bit of the ending left, but John paused it for a moment and opened an internet window.
His most time-consuming hobby, and John’s other profession besides being an internist.
John Taylor was one of the few A-tier critics on Recomendar, the world’s largest review site.
When Do-jin finished the treatment by thrusting in the black sword, there was no more need for the sword.
The White Blood Army stopped their rampage and began to function properly.
Difangdal found Emilin.
Akenaton succeeded the Red Blood Cell King, who had already been killed by the White Blood Army, and became the king of the River region.
And Ella was granted the role of administrator by Cardiac, and Cardiac was freed from a life that had lasted eons.
“I don’t know how to do that kind of thing!”
“You’ll adapt little by little. I will assist you, Mother.”
“Uncle Akenaton! Why do you keep calling me Mother!”
And the Narrator was performing her original role.
Her true identity was the Unconscious.
Her job was originally to sleep, and waking was the abnormality.
Looking at that Narrator, Do-jin bowed his head.
“Thank you so much for being with me these six years, Narrator.”
Jeong Do-jin returned to reality.
And his little sister recovered at a miraculously fast rate, was completely cured of leukemia, and was soon discharged.
Even the hospital was astonished, saying it could only be described as a miracle.
Everything was joyful.
But as one day, two days, and then several months passed, some unnameable empty feeling only grew larger.
He missed his companions unbearably.
It’s pretty funny, when you think about it.
Those companions were, in fact, nothing more than cells inside his sister’s body.
But that long, grueling journey was something he would never forget for the rest of his life, until the day he died.
And then, several months after the complete cure, one day his little sister came down with the flu and was laid up in bed.
“I told you to dry your hair before bed, so of course you got sick sleeping with it wet. That’s why Mom keeps telling you to take the supplements she packs for you every single time! That’s how your immune system gets stronger and you don’t catch every little cold. Right?”
Mother launched a barrage of scolding, but his sister seemed to have already fallen asleep from the medicine and made no reply.
“Honestly! Haa, it’s my fault. Spoiling her because she’s the late child.”
“I’ll look after her a bit more carefully.”
“Huu, go ahead.”
Looking at his sleeping sister, Do-jin fell into thought.
Even if he went back in, the cells he knew would have long since disappeared.
Cardiac, who had lived an eon-like life, had a lifespan of only about 120 days in real-world time.
The same went for Ella, who had inherited the role.
The others would have died ages ago, needless to say.
But even knowing all that, Do-jin was entering the body again on the off chance.
And the moment he closed his eyes, the conversation he had had with Cardiac flashed through his mind.
— A few days? One second outside is almost a year here.
— Time doesn’t work that way.
And the screen faded to black, and every episode of White Blood came to an end.
Clap, clap, clap—.
Applause rang out through LN Entertainment’s conference room.
It was a work whose filming content was vast and whose difficulty had been extremely high.
There was no one in the conference room who hadn’t suffered.
Meanwhile, at Snowbish Mount headquarters in Hollywood, Jake looked at Catherine with a gaze that mixed a little dissatisfaction and expectation.
The fact that he was this nervous over a series made in a small country on the fringes of Asia was clearly because Catherine had failed to run the promotion effectively, he thought.
But he couldn’t exactly cut off the head of a general who had just stepped onto the battlefield, so he was holding it in for now.
And on the other hand, now that English-speaking users would start being active in earnest, he expected they would be able to widen the gap further.
“…Sir, it looks like it’s been updated.”
Seeing the employee speak with a slight hesitation, Jake’s eyes narrowed.
The gap didn’t widen as much as I thought? It should have been at least a 3,000-point difference.
Jake sighed and said,
“Put it on the screen.”
Then the employee squeezed his eyes shut and put the results on the screen.
1.White Blood[+1]
2.Alliance[-1]
3.C.A. New Lawfirm[-]
“…Ah.”
“…...”
A short sigh, then immediate silence.
“What the hell is this bullshit.”
Jake’s face twisted completely.
And at that moment.
South Korea’s internet was turned upside down starting with one article.