Who Is Entity (5)

January 2, 2026

The first weekday of the new year — the one that should have dawned bright with fresh beginnings — began with the sound of the whole world wailing.

"Requesting a TICU consult. Twenty-six-year-old male who developed a fat embolism mid-surgery yesterday for a femur fracture from a fall. He's currently in damage control — vitals unstable, can't be moved to radiology — so this is a bedside consult request."

The voice of the first-year resident who'd barely finished her overnight shift was trembling.

The fear of having made some mistake from sheer exhaustion was bleeding right through it.

After how hard she worked last night, could I really bring myself to chew her out?

Feeling a pang of pity for the first-year, I corrected the report as gently as I could.

"You left out the most important part — what kind of consult is it? You want an ultrasound, right?"

"I'm sorry, Professor. It's an ultrasound."

"You must be exhausted. Good catch anyway. My morning clinic got cancelled, so I'll take it."

"Thank you for understanding, Professor."

My first day of work in 2026 began with a first-year resident's patient report.

(For the record, yesterday's shift does not count as an 'official' workday. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is an unwritten rule of the medical profession — and a beautiful culture of respecting one's juniors — that the most junior professor voluntarily shows up on national holidays.)

I led the residents toward the intensive care unit.

The corridor was quiet, as if yesterday's chaos had never happened. The nurses, the patients — everyone was confined to their rooms, so the silence was only natural.

The state of the residents trailing behind me, though, was uniformly dire. Dark circles sagging under their eyes was the bare minimum; a few had actually nodded off face-down during morning conference.

Residents pulling all-nighters is hardly unusual. But working a full day after a night of back-breaking labor without a minute of rest is a different beast entirely. No amount of willpower bridges that gap.

Which is why the professors didn't scold them.

...Not that anyone was in a position to, considering a few of the professors had flat-out been sleeping during the conference itself.

"I know you're all worn out. Work something out with the department chair — negotiate the shift schedule yourselves."

"Thank you for your consideration, Professor."

The second-year, the least wrecked of the bunch, answered in a voice with no soul left in it.

And so I was walking my patients-in-all-but-name juniors to the ICU when my phone suddenly rang in my pocket.

Riiing-riiing.

"Hold on a second."

I stopped mid-stride and checked the screen.

A call from the department chair. But just in case, I double-checked the screen and the number — and only once I was certain this wasn't one of my known 'phone-calling entities' did I pick up.

"Hello, this is Lee Jeong-uk of Cardiology. What can I do for you, Chair?"

[Jeong-uk, you've got nothing on your morning schedule, right?]

"I'll be running ward rounds nonstop after the TICU ultrasound."

Hospitals across the country had suspended outpatient clinics. There was simply no capacity left to see clinic patients after what happened last night. Which meant my own clinic schedule had evaporated into thin air.

[So your day's wide open. Did you see the news?]

"My ER shift ended thirty minutes ago and I came straight to morning conference. Where exactly was I supposed to find time for the news?"

[Ah, you've been through the wringer. Anyway — sorry, but I need you to go somewhere.]

Son of a—

I should have known the moment I heard that weirdly low voice of his.

Still, I pushed back once, just in case.

"I told you, I have rounds to run."

[I'll see your patients myself, so you go over to the East Wing.]

"I'm sorry — why the East Wing?"

Our hospital consisted of four buildings — East, West, South, and North. The East, West, South, and North Wings.

Cardiology and the ICU, where I spent most of my time, were in the North Wing. The East Wing was where surgery and gastroenterology held court.

So when I heard 'go to the East Wing,' I reflexively started cataloguing the GI diseases that might warrant a consult request our way.

"Did GI want me to work up a patient for MI?"

[No, that's not it...]

The chair trailed off, hedging.

What is this man stalling for this time?

When he got like this, it was almost never good news.

[It's... hoo. The reporters want to meet you. Over in the East Wing.]

"Damn it."

The instant I heard that lineup of people I never wanted to meet, a curse slipped out of me and into the receiver.

They were someone's children. They were someone's parents, someone's lovers.

The first weekday of the new year rang with the sound of mourning.

Last night, barely moments after the Management Bureau's disaster alert went out, countless people fell into a frenzy and took their own lives. Screams that tore through the darkness covered the entire country. No one alive could have passed through that horrific night in peace.

And yet morning came, even to that hellish dawn. The frenzied regained their composure, one by one. Once the situation had been brought under control, the Blue House belatedly began analyzing the cause of it all.

These were people who had fallen into the frenzy but survived — saved by those around them restraining them, or by sheer luck: a phone call, an alarm. Their consistent testimonies, combined with an official statement from the president of the Korean Medical Association, established at least one fact: the novel had been the problem.

But the fact that a novel was the problem didn't actually explain any of this.

The survivors did try to describe what had happened, but most of it was incoherent babbling and proved little help. A rare few mentioned a game, but those accounts were written off as delusion and quietly buried. Credibility, after all, isn't something you acquire easily.

Then, people seized on one fact.

All eyes turned to the association president in an instant. In the modern world, where attention is power itself, this could have been a positive signal for him.

The problem was that the responsibility attached to that incoming power was absurdly out of proportion.

So the president chose peace over power. He singled out Castrato Hospital as the leading actor — the one that had first caught wind of the crisis.

"The medical staff at Castrato Hospital were the first to definitively recognize the situation and spread word of the necessary measures. I merely passed that information along."

A hospital suddenly designated out of nowhere.

But the hospital's board had no desire to shoulder the blame either, and promptly tossed the baton to the chair of Cardiology.

"...And now you're passing the baton to me, Chair?"

[Come on, Jeong-uk. You were the first one to catch it, weren't you?]

"That's true."

[Exactlyyy~ so I know nothing. If I went out there, I'd just get torn apart. So you go to the East Wing and smooth things over with the reporters, saba-saba...]

'Saba-saba.' Seriously.

I've thought it before — our chair's way with words is absolutely shameless.

[Just explain things nicely to the citizens and give a reasonable interview. Think of it like a conference presentation, easy.]

What part of this looks like a conference presentation to you?

He's just hurling it at me with zero hesitation.

[Do this well and the hospital director's promised to bump up our department budget.]

I pressed hard at the bridge of my nose, as if to smother the irritation. The residents were watching me make this exact face mid-phone-call with the chair, but I lacked the mental bandwidth to care. I was genuinely tired enough to die, and it felt like my social mask was simply sliding off.

[Jeong-uk. Hey, from what you were saying yesterday, you know this stuff inside and out.]

"I do know it."

Far too well.

Ever since I joined the verification effort, the lore suddenly got a depth patch — that's how it became the monster it is now.

[Just do the interview and come back. Then you can take the rest of the day off. I told you, I'll handle your patients.]

"And tomorrow?"

[Tomorrow you work a normal clinic day, you punk. Where do you get off trying to freeload?]

Is this what he calls offering me a deal?

I stuffed the rising fatigue down deep, right along with my puffed-up eyelids. Sadly, I was the most junior member of the department. The chair was generous enough to banter with me, sure — but ours was not a relationship where refusing was on the table.

"Fine. I'll swing by the East Wing after the ICU."

[Good man. Thanks. Keep it up.]

Call ended, I set off toward the intensive care unit with the residents once more.

I examined the heart of the consult patient in bed 3 with ultrasound.

"Soyeon, listen up. Ejection fraction normal. No wall motion abnormalities. No dilation findings... So what does that tell you?"

"That the fat embolism went to the lungs and didn't put a significant load on the heart, Professor."

"Again?"

"Uh... the patient's prognosis could be better than expected...?"

"That's also true, but I'm talking about the cardiac stress. Usually after an insult like this, the heart's shape changes."

"Aha."

I didn't forget to squeeze in resident education between cases.

The test results showed no problems. The patient was young, too — if the surgery went well... he might actually recover.

"Tell trauma surgery we find no cardiac contraindications."

"Yes, Professor."

I left the patient to the second- and first-years and stepped out of the ICU.

With the day's only obligation done, I headed for the East Wing — and the residents didn't forget to hand their patients back down to the department office first.

"I've tossed my ward rounds to the chair. Wait here and run them with him when he arrives."

"Yes, Professor."

"Good work, everyone."

And off I went to the East Wing.

The East Wing entrance was a sea of humanity. The police controlling access stood guard at the barricades with weary faces. Reporters hunting for any crack in the line jostled and murmured, cameras and microphones in hand. The sprinkling of YouTubers held their selfie sticks high, streaming live.

The textbook image of a press scrum.

I could more or less understand why these people had come. They'd come hunting for the things that all blur together under a single word: attention — the exclusive, the views, the subscribers.

But the ordinary civilians mixed in there, the ones who fit neither category — why were they standing in that crowd?

'Family members of the victims? Or do they just think there's something worth hearing here?'

I shook my head and let it go. Their circumstances weren't mine to know.

I stopped and took stock. Pushing through that many people to reach the East Wing entrance looked flatly impossible.

So I entered through the medical staff entrance instead, then looped back around toward the lobby from inside.

"It's the professor!"

The moment I reached the entrance, a barrage of flashes greeted me. Click, click, click. The strobing bursts dazzled my eyes, and I reflexively raised a hand to shield my face.

I was already dead tired, and the merciless baptism of flashbulbs wrung a scowl out of me before I could stop it.

'Ah — smile. Smile.'

I belatedly remembered to arrange my face into a smile. Whether it looked natural, I couldn't say.

After a few minutes of photo time, the real interview finally began.

The first outlet to ask a question was... uh... who? I couldn't tell from the logo alone.

"Professor, we understand you were the first to contact the Medical Association about this incident. Was there a particular reason you suspected the novel was the cause?"

"Because I read it, and I nearly died."

A low murmur rippled through the reporters.

"When you say you nearly died...?"

"I was reading that novel when I almost killed myself. An alert saved me."

The moment they had their confirmation, the reactions split sharply down the middle.

One camp responded with something close to awe, as if marveling at my luck.

The other camp reacted to the revelation that a professor — of all people — had been reading web novels.

Why, what of it? Is a professor not allowed to have hobbies? Are we supposed to golf and drink, and nothing else? Or listen to classical music and visit art galleries exclusively?

I was still arguing with myself internally when the next question came.

"At the height of the crisis, Professor, we understand you were the first to propose censoring the novel. On top of that, we understand it was also your proposal to send a safety-notice text to every phone in the country every five minutes, to cover the screen. Is that correct?"

Now that I thought about it, I had made those proposals.

Not everyone reads web novels on their phones, but most people do. So while we were censoring the novel, I'd also proposed sending any safety-notice message at five-minute intervals to black out the screen.

Because no reader on earth — however fast — could physically finish all ten readings within five minutes.

I'd wondered whether they'd accept the proposal, but apparently they really had adopted it.

"Yes, that's correct."

"Then did you perhaps predict this incident in advance? Did you know it was coming?"

"I didn't predict it. But I know that novel very well — including the fact that the phenomenon it triggers dovetails with the setting of a certain game."

"I'm sorry?"

The crowd stirred again.

What, professors aren't allowed to play games now either?

At that moment, one person among the restless reporters thrust a hand into the air. Judging by the phone rather than professional camera gear, they were a streamer.

"Would that game happen to be Paranoid Institute!"

A strangely confident voice. I wanted to answer that ringing declaration with an equally ringing reply, but my professor's white coat steadied me.

"Yes. That's correct."

I answered as mildly as I could, while still weighing every syllable.

If I wanted to seize the upper hand in this chaotic society, hiding and monopolizing this fact would be one way to do it. The truth would come out eventually, but merely delaying that moment would let me hold the advantage.

But in the meantime, far too many people would vanish or die without ever knowing why.

That was not something a doctor could do.

"There is a game called Paranoid Institute. It may be premature to jump to conclusions, but looking at the evidence, that game is currently the best explanation for this phenomenon."

The murmur swelled to outright noise before I knew it. The clamor of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reporters and streamers desperate to snag something — anything — mashed together into an incomprehensible roar.

I raised a hand and quieted the commotion.

"There is a ward directly above us. The people who survived last night are fighting for their lives in there right now. I would ask you to lower your voices."

The crowd flinched. A few straightened up in solemn silence and bowed their heads. The din gradually died down.

Holding an appropriate hush, I began taking questions one at a time.

"Is that game still accessible right now?"

A middle-aged male reporter with glasses asked the question. His features were sharp, but his eyes were genuinely serious.

"It appears so. Creating new accounts also seems to be possible."

Next question.

"Professor, did you play this game regularly?"

Again. Again!

Even now, someone's trying to frame me as a gamer.

"I won't be taking personal questions unrelated to this incident."

No bait for that one.

"Reports say Castrato Hospital had the lowest death toll in the country during this incident. Was there some special treatment protocol involved?"

Now this was a question that flattered the hospital. Answer it well, and the director might actually loosen the purse strings for my department.

"That credit belongs not to me, but to our medical staff and to this hospital's system."

The question was conveniently well-timed, so I immediately rolled out the heartwarming lip service.

"Last night, every single member of our hospital's medical staff answered the call, without exception. Some ran in from their homes the moment their phones rang. The ICU nurses tended patients through the night, and the hospital staff supported us at every turn. It was a miracle made possible by their devotion."

The flashes went off again. This time, they didn't grate on me.

That ought to do it, Director, don't you think?

Salary negotiations are coming up with the new year. I did good — so how about a raise?

And so, fielding questions without a break, the hour-long interview drew to a close.

There, I shared every piece of knowledge I possessed, as much as I possibly could.

'This is my penance.'

I thought of those who had died because I had moved too slowly yesterday. People could argue it wasn't my fault, but I couldn't wipe away the debt I owed them.

So at the very least, I hoped the precious people they'd left behind would not suffer harm while knowing nothing.

"If I learn anything further, I will share it with the public immediately."

I had no interest in fame.

It was simply that in a world where anyone could die at any moment, I intended to keep telling people everything I could, right up until the moment I couldn't. This was my penance — and my responsibility too.

The interview ended on that warm note. A few reporters asked for handshakes, and I obliged each one.

"Thank you for your time, Professor."

"Thank you."

Courteous greetings passed back and forth. Short of dying of some absurd smear campaign, I'd be meeting the press a lot in the days ahead — so there was nothing to lose by banking a little goodwill like this.

Heh heh.

After answering nonstop for a solid hour, my throat felt raw. Still, a weight had lifted off my chest. I had hidden nothing and done everything that needed doing. It was the kind of choice I could defend anywhere as my father's son, unashamed.

The moment I finished up and turned toward my research office,

a woman who looked like a streamer approached me.

"Hello, Professor. I'm with this channel."

She greeted me perfunctorily and held out her phone in place of a business card.

A channel I didn't recognize. Though her whole bearing said I should.

"Would you happen to be free to talk right now?"

She planted herself beside me and, angling the camera like she was taking a selfie, showed me the live streaming screen.

As if to say there was no way I could refuse in front of the broadcast. Or maybe it was simply her way of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠signaling confidence in her own looks.

Her attitude wasn't exactly pleasant — but I'd already resolved to share as much information as possible, so I accepted her request.

"Ask whatever you like. Any question you have, I'll take it."

"Oh, thank you!"

She beamed with exaggerated delight and adjusted the camera angle. That familiar-arm-over-the-shoulder manner of hers was grating beyond belief.

I'm not the kind of person who throws around authority just because he's a professor — but neither am I someone who takes this treatment from a total stranger without batting an eye.

Still, I held it in. Because this shameless woman might share valuable information live with thousands of people. And because she might, just maybe, ask a good question I hadn't thought of.

"Then I'll get right into it. As you know, Professor, they're saying this incident didn't only happen in South Korea, right?"

...Right.

Only then did I recall a defining trait of Echoes.

The The Most Romantic Choice Echo can latch onto multiple works at once. Not an infinite number — one work per language — but either way, there was no denying it was a thing capable of inflicting world-scale damage.

The streamer's question continued, reminding me of exactly that fact.

"In this incident, other countries are still failing to respond, or their victim counts have reached the tens of thousands. Compared to that, our country managed to contain the damage at the first-tier stage—"

"?"

While she was talking, a slow, creeping unease crawled up my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spine.

What is this.

Where is she going with this?

Goosebumps rose on my arms. The same species of chill I'd felt back when I heard an intern had mislabeled a cardiac tumor patient's tissue samples.

"South Korea pulled off the remarkable feat of keeping its victim count to a mere fifteen hundred. Deeply moved by this, I have to ask — did you perhaps respond using entities or items you'd secured in advance...?"

A feat. Fifteen hundred. Entities. Items.

The instant I heard that word — feat — I swear I heard the thread of my reason snap inside my skull.

That she would interpret my good faith like this?

That, I could stomach. Live long enough as a young medical school professor and you'll hear every conceivable insult to your face; it comes with the territory.

What I could not stomach lay somewhere else entirely.

"Hey. You piece of trash."

I dragged my voice as low as it would go.

"?"

The streamer looked my way. Her face still hadn't the faintest idea she'd done anything wrong — and staring at that idiotic expression only fanned the fury higher.

A feat. Fifteen hundred. Entities. Items. You—

Does this creature think human beings dying is a video game?

And the reason South Korea's losses were uniquely light — is she seriously thinking it came down to some item I'd stockpiled?

No.

This was the miracle forged by the ordinary citizens who couldn't walk past someone about to leap from a bridge. By the hikers who stopped a stranger from jumping off a mountain on New Year's Day. By the people who, seconds after clawing their way back from death, ran to report others instead of fleeing — so that no more victims would follow. And by the medical staff who grabbed their patients by the collar at death's very threshold and hauled them back.

It was a miracle that everyone had fought for and earned together.

And she was insulting that miracle with a single word: item.

I could not let it pass. Forgetting entirely that the cameras were rolling, I drew power up from the deepest core of my body, and toward the streamer — as if to detonate everything at once — I wrung out the last strength in my vocal cords and roared.

"Are you even human?! People DIED! What was that? A FEAT?! A FEAT?! Does this look like a simulation game to you?!"

I hurled her phone to the ground, stomped it flat under my shoe, and screamed over the crunch.

"They were numbers to you — they were my PATIENTS to me!!"

The whole space fell silent.