“Enough. What are you doing right now?”
“Oh?”
Iha Seo opened her eyes wide and looked in my direction.
“Uh... no, this is just... no, it’s not like that!”
Whatever “that” is—or isn’t—Iha Seo hastily threw the Hwalgok dangling from the forceps back into the glass case and snapped the lid shut.
Clatter clack.
She seemed flustered.
After several more clatters, she finally managed to close the case.
“It’s, it’s absolutely not like that. What I like most is—no, that’s not it. Uh, so!”
For some reason her face was flushed bright red as she covered her mouth and stammered.
‘Why on earth....’
I already knew she was pretty unhinged, but why did she suddenly look like a girl caught flirting with another man?
“Alright. You don’t need to say any more.”
“Oh, you understand me!”
“Yes.”
“Ahh—what a relief—”
Iha Seo wiped her eyes with both hands, looking as if she’d been crying.
“But—how did you appear? Teleportation?”
“No. Invisibility.”
“Wow—really? Then—could it be?”
“I’ve been watching since your meeting earlier.”
“O-oh—well, I! So—!”
“No! Please, whether you eat worms or dirt is none of my business, so stop it!”
After repeating the same nonsense for a while, we finally managed a somewhat coherent conversation.
“The new patients, right?”
“Yes.”
“It’s troubling, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. I thought cosmic radiation from Crystal Spiral Energy might help, but it was forbidden.”
“But that device has ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) never produced the intended results, right?”
“Exactly! The structure and design seem sound, but every time weird things happen—”
“Do you remember our contract terms?”
“Uh, what contract?”
“We made a deal. Once a month, I let you examine my body or—”
“Oh! Ahhh—you were going to help with my experiments!”
“Yes. The Crystal Spiral Energy experiment. I’d like to fulfill this month’s contract by helping with that experiment. How does that sound?”
“Help with the experiment? How?”
“First, let’s go see the device.”
“This is it.”
“Yes. It’s called the [Crystal Spiral Energy Emission Device].”
I looked at the wires and spiral coils connected beneath and said,
“Does it run on electricity?”
“Um, that’s just auxiliary power. The case contains a mana crystal.”
“I see.”
So it runs on mana crystals. Its structure is exactly like what I saw in the game. Which means...
‘A preposterous design.’
This enormous contraption, filling an entire room, looked less like medical equipment and more like an armillary sphere used in medieval times to chart celestial positions.
Interlocking rings of various sizes surrounded a central axis, and heavy-looking crystals rotated in some inscrutable pattern.
“How did you come up with this?”
“Did you see the gift I put in your bag when you were discharged?”
When I “escaped” this hospital, there had been a [Blueprint of the Ancients] in my bag, and the message window called it an achievement reward.
“...You put that in?”
“Yes. While preparing to help you leave, I suddenly had an inspiration. Since you’re an alien, I thought if you saw the blueprint, you’d complete this—”
‘Inspiration....’
Did the message window lie that this was an achievement reward, or did someone beyond the window plant that inspiration in Iha Seo’s mind?
“Ah?”
“This is something I made from that blueprint. What do you think? What did you create from it?”
Regrettably, I used the blueprint not to build something new but to decipher an ancient tongue—and, of course, to craft weapons.
Hearing my answer, Iha Seo sighed in disappointment.
“Weapons? So the blueprint really could produce anything?”
“Apparently. However—”
“Yes?”
“I can improve the device you made, regardless of the blueprint.”
“Re-re-really?”
Iha Seo’s expression turned serious, rather than the usual strange look. She asked clearly:
“I don’t want other features. I want to perfect this device to save people—those hurt by surreal disasters, those suffering from surreal diseases. And...”
This was the same desire Iha Seo had voiced several times when playing [Cthulhu World].
‘It sounds like the benevolent wish of a conscientious doctor trapped in cosmic horror, but...’
As in the game, she continued to the darker half of her wish:
“And... ultimately eliminate even ‘death’ as a disease. Create a world where no one dies, no one is unhappy, and everyone lives forever in happiness. Can you, Shin Hwa—who came from Andromeda—make that wish come true?”
In one sense, a positive desire—yet in another, the twisted ambition of a supervillain.
In the game, Iha Seo’s obsession with this wish drove her completely mad. As a transcendent being of another world, she would become the final boss, the [Re-Animator], unleashing apocalypse on this world.
‘A classic zombie storyline—truly awful.’
But since I’m overseeing this closely... it probably won’t go that far.
Besides, it solves Bong Ilcheonpa’s problem and becomes an ongoing recovery device. It could even restore mental stability to some extent.
“Alright. Let’s get started.”
In the game, you’d just spend pile of mana crystals and resources, hit the [Modify] button, and get a 5% improvement chance.
‘Honestly, that’s more convenient in some ways.’
But now I have to understand its structure and fix it by hand.
‘Fortunately, it’s more magical formula than machine.’
The rings serve as a substitute for a magic circle, and the crystals act as runes imparting certain properties.
Like mana-crystal guns and other artifacts, this device can be improved or modified by me.
“Ah...”
Iha Seo sighed as I stripped away the “useless parts” of the [Crystal Spiral Energy Emission Device].
“This isn’t needed.”
I’d removed everything but the frame.
Creak—crash—
Iha Seo watched most of the machine being torn apart with tears in her eyes, but we couldn’t waste time. I ignored her concerns and continued working.
“It’d be nice to add more general-purpose functions, but let’s solve the immediate issue first.”
“Immediate issue?”
“Yes—treating people with worms burrowing in their bodies.”
“Uh—right.”
This device—better called a magic circuit—lacked a core to produce a clear effect.
‘And that’s not its only problem.’
To partially achieve Iha Seo’s goals, we need a special core. If it were within my ordinary ability, I would’ve used healing magic in the first place.
There are plenty of destructive spells in the game, but healing and restoration magic is extremely difficult and demands absurd resources.
“What is that?”
“A mana crystal.”
“You mean that?”
I placed a glowing, indescribably colored twenty-sided mana crystal at the core spot. I’d spent considerable effort making it last night.
“But—what’s the impurity in it?”
A sharp question, worthy of a doctor handling surreal illnesses.
I reshaped the device with magic and telekinesis, embedding a new formula, and answered:
“I got it by chance yesterday. It’s something the hospital would grade Black.”
“A divine body?”
“Not quite. It’s a fragment taken from a totem imbued with an avatar’s power.”
“You... got that by chance?”
“Yes.”
Iha Seo’s eyes went wide as she began to babble about how incredible I was—alien from Andromeda, best ever, and so on.
Precisely, it was the [Egg Pouch] imbued with the [Fear Eater]’s power that hatched Hwalgok and giant worms.
The [Fear Eater] had tried to descend through the [Egg Pouch], but I interrupted its ritual at the exact moment.
The core tactic is to disrupt the descent, forcing the abyssal entity to exhaust its power, and seize both the energy and the artifact elevated to [Abyssal Totem].
‘You only recover around 10–30% of the magic power, but it’s an absurd amount—more than any genius could gather in ten lifetimes.’
In any case, this mana crystal was made by combining part of the [Egg Pouch] with [Purified Water] I recovered from Paju’s Three Tombs.
It’s beyond a mere mana crystal. The tooltip even shows a different name:
[Transcendence Stone: A fusion of the Starving Predator’s hunger and the Fear Eater’s thirst. Can manifest their powers or serve as a sacrifice for their descent.]
“All done.”
“Done?”
“Ah, not quite. Step back a bit.”
I motioned toward the door and cast another spell:
[Lock]
[Wall of Force]
From here on it’s a trade secret. Iha Seo... she won’t leave even if I tell her to—the contract binds her, so she won’t interfere or leak.
But I erected a barrier around her to keep her at bay.
“If you force your way in, I’ll treat it as aggression and respond accordingly.”
“I understand—”
After adding further safeguards against unforeseen events, I began the final process.
[Insight]
Fizzss—
Light flooded the room, sparks everywhere.
I’d hoped to avoid [Insight], but a device powered by a Transcendence Stone cannot be controlled with normal magic.
[Insight] grants me the power to comprehend the structure and laws of this world.
From my toes to my head, I felt boundless omnipotence, exhilaration, ecstasy.
A perception beyond human cognition delivered information about everything: Iha Seo’s rapt expression as if experiencing religious awe, people moving beyond the barrier, the patients lying there, the madmen sensing and screaming, even monsters rampaging in the closed ward beyond the building, and the gaze of the headless Gong Isu facing me—no, I saw, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted everything from every angle in an instant.
Simultaneously, I understood how—and why—this object existed in this place.
Such understanding grants the power to reshape its form and mode of being.
[L-grade accessory Mask of Carcosa’s inherent ability, Madman’s Craft, activates.
// Madman’s Craft: You may attempt to unlock an artifact’s hidden ability or impart a new ability.]
A golden radiance filled the room.
Yes, forget its previous form.
From now on, exist for me and live as I will.
The modification completed perfectly.
“Ah, brilliant. My head... it hurts.”
Now I could treat Bong Ilcheonpa’s patients.
I shook my head briefly and said to Iha Seo:
“All finished. Now it’s ready for the functions you wanted—”
“Ahh—Ahhhhh—”
Tears streamed down Iha Seo’s face.
“I love you. I love you. I will dedicate this body, this soul, all my past, present, and future to loving you.”
She stepped toward me, lips parted, slender white fingers raised, wearing a look of hunger and thirst as though she’d gone mad.
“Uh—wait—Doctor, stop!”
The barrier I’d placed to protect against her interference remained in place.
Zzap—
The bolts of electricity set in the barrier automatically discharged, pushing Iha Seo backward.
“Ugh, stop it! Calm down!”
I hurriedly dispelled the barrier—but too late. Iha Seo collapsed, unconscious, in the corner of the room.
“Ugh—Doctor, are you okay...? You’re not dead.”
Fortunately, removing the barrier quickly prevented any life-threatening damage. She merely fainted.
“Seriously, Iha Seo’s sudden behavior....”
Even granting her object of longing was complete, wasn’t that a bit much?
I shook my head, laid her down properly, and turned to regard the newly perfected [Crystal Spiral Energy Emission Device].
“Well, at least we have a recovery base now.”
