Vol 8 Chapter 5

"It seems... difficult to be so confident about the physical aspects."

Dr. Shin Jung-seok slightly furrowed his brow as he lifted his gaze from a point on the chart.

'Is he finally getting to the main point?'

"Actually, I asked those questions just now to see if there were other causes for changes related to what I wanted to talk about today, but from what I've heard so far, I'm not sure if there's any connection. Would you look at this?"

When Dr. Shin Jung-seok picked up a thin bar-shaped remote on the table and pressed a button, a hologram of a human right leg suddenly appeared in the empty space between him and Kapros. Inside the spinning leg, muscles, nerves, and bones were delicately expressed like a model in a not-too-grotesque way.

"Familiar, right? You've seen this many times before."

As he said, it was a hologram Kapros had seen almost daily while hospitalized here. Since they had used this model to explain how much change there had been after each rehabilitation therapy session, it was still very familiar to his eyes.

When Dr. Shin Jung-seok pressed a few more remote buttons, the leg model suddenly enlarged to about 1 meter, then its outer part became transparent, the bones disappeared, and only the fine nerves and muscle shapes became more vivid in color.

"This is a model reflecting your leg examination results from a few days ago."

When Kapros looked closely at the model after hearing this, the colors of the nerves and muscles that had been spread like thin tree branches changed to various colors. Most were red, but around the knee joint area, many had changed to blue or gray, making it look chaotic.

"I'll explain it simply. As you know, red means functioning normally, blue means uncertain, gray means dead."

Dr. Shin Jung-seok continued speaking while tapping these with his finger.

"After an accident, once some time passes, these results don't change anymore, so the condition neither improves nor worsens. You know that, right? But."

The parts he kept tapping glowed and stood out compared to the others. They were all blue branches.

"With these uncertain ones, we can't tell if they're functioning or not. We can only tell that they're not quite dead."

"So... what exactly is the problem?"

When Kapros sharply questioned why he was deliberately repeating things he already knew, a slightly troubled smile appeared on Dr. Shin Jung-seok's face.

"Look at the left."

At his words, when Kapros looked left, another identical leg model appeared. It showed almost the same colors as the right one, but had more red branches than the right model. In other words, it had more living, functioning parts... but what was this supposed to mean?

"The right one I showed first is the result from the examination a few days ago, and the new one on the left is from when you last had the same examination at this hospital a year ago. Can you see the difference? The red ones that showed up as perfectly alive in tests just a year ago have now turned blue. How should we interpret this?"

Suddenly an uneasy feeling came over him.

"What... are you saying?"

Kapros slowly looked back and forth between the two models. The left one with more red was his leg from a year ago, and the right one with more blue was his leg now? What did this mean? Though he had already realized it, a red warning alarm sounded in his heart that didn't want to think about the results directly.

"For now... we've decided to judge that they are dying."

Decided to judge that they are dying.

Thump. Thump. Heavy heartbeats resounded so loudly his ears felt blocked.

His vision... suddenly grew distant.

Even after finishing his conversation with Dr. Shin Jung-seok and coming out, their final exchange kept replaying in his mind.

"We don't know for certain why this is happening with current medical technology. I'm sorry I can only say we don't know, but to find the cause of this sudden situation, we'll need to start direct examinations again. Let's make it once a week. If you've had any other changes or strange occurrences during this time, tell me anything next week. But the important thing is, while change is good, you need to be careful with everything. Be cautious. Because your condition hasn't healed yet."

"..."

"Though you said you didn't need counseling a year ago, would you like to receive it continuously while getting examinations now? Think about that until next week too."

Because your condition hasn't healed yet. Those words kept echoing in his mind. It was strange. No matter how hard you try not to think about things, what you run away from will always catch up to your ankles someday.

Just when he had gained some confidence that he could move forward now. Just when living day by day had become somewhat comfortable. Why did something like this suddenly happen again?

His steps, walking slowly with his cane, gradually slowed until finally stopping in the middle of the corridor. He closed his eyes, which felt dry and stiff, while tightly gripping the handle.

"..."

What should he do?

What should he do?

The black world visible beyond his closed eyes felt like a deep swamp pulling him in. His chest felt tight and stifled. He wanted to get outside quickly, even a little faster, to breathe properly.

"Kar... there seems to be nothing here."

"Hyung, are you sure this is the right place?"

Even seeing the disbelief all over Kion-hyung and Lucrecian's faces, Kapros had nothing to say. That was understandable, since they had come to the location marked on the map to find the dwarf race several hours ago. Though the location was clearly marked, all that lay before them were mountains upon mountains, with only weak monsters around, and not even the first letter of "dwarf" to be seen.

"The map shows exactly this location..."

"After beating the ground, digging it up, and cutting down trees, nothing comes out - are you sure that's really correct?"

Kion-hyung grumbled while dusting off his dirt-covered fists after scorching the surrounding few hundred meters with Kapros trying to find a way somehow.

"If nothing's come out after doing all this, in my experience we're missing something. Think carefully."

"It might be good to try recalling any helpful memories from the past."