"Whoa!? Kim Sinhwa? Are you saying Kim Sinhwa actually showed up?"
Gapureum, a reporter better known to friends by the nickname "Gapu," pushes up her thin half-rim glasses and inhales.
A quick, ragged breath mixed with shock, delight, and dismay.
[inhale]
And an exhale.
The man talking with Gapureum starts to speak in a rapidly trembling voice.
"Y-yeah. It was Kim Sinhwa... right! I’m sure of what I saw—absolutely Kim Sinhwa! No mistake! Yeah, Kim Sinhwa! The public enemy who plunged Busan into disaster! And the destroyer who brought ruin and chaos down on Paju! That evil wizard, henchman of the Abyss, appeared! I—I saw it with my own two eyes!"
He points at his own eyes as he says it.
Two eyes, he says—but from where Gapureum stands, she can only see the man’s right eye.
The left is hidden under a thick bandage.
'Huh?'
Gapureum flinches, startled.
Did she see that wrong?
The bandage over the man’s left eye—over where his eye should be—seemed to twitch in a strange way.
An unmistakably abnormal sign.
Safety rules for interviewing a survivor who escaped a surreal incident pop into her head, but...
"Haah—hoo—"
'But Kim Sinhwa showed up again! How am I supposed to hold back?'
Not even a month has passed since [that incident] in Gijang-gun, Busan.
And in the meantime, again!?
Kim Sinhwa has appeared again!
And in the very case I’m investigating! Kim Sinhwa!
This is fate! I’m going to uncover the truth about Kim Sinhwa! This is definitely a message from heaven! Didn’t that tarot-card lady say I’d be able to reveal the truth about Kim Sinhwa?
Wow, that lady really is the real deal.
"Haah—hoo—"
Gapureum pants—and asks another question.
"So! Do you remember what exactly Kim Sinhwa said?"
"Haah—hoo—"
The man’s breathing starts to match hers.
"Mushroom."
"Eh? A mushroom?"
"Mushroom. That’s what he said. Mushroom."
Gapureum peers at the patient’s face with a doubtful look.
[twitch]
The patient’s left eye twitches again.
That nasty spasm makes Gapureum feel a nameless dread—but she pushes on and asks again.
"So! You’re saying Kim Sinhwa said ‘mushroom’? Then besides the word mushroom, did he say anything else?"
"He said mushroom. Mushroom. He definitely said mushroom. Kim Sinhwa is Kim Sinhwa, and a mushroom is a mushroom. It was definitely a mushroom."
The giant-mushroom incident that broke out en masse in Ilsan.
The man answering Gapureum’s questions is a survivor of that mushroom incident and, among the people Gapureum can approach, the patient whose mind seems the clearest.
The mood is odd now, but up until a moment ago he seemed fairly normal. He greeted me—he even spoke relatively logically. So why the sudden change?
"Hey, miss reporter."
"Ah, yes. Yes, sir."
"There really was a mushroom. There’s still a mushroom growing inside me. Look at this—"
Giggling hee-hee, huh-huh-huh, the patient raises his hand and tears away the bandage covering his eye.
"A mushroom! And Kim Sinhwa is real! Kim Sinhwa is everywhere! Sowing spores of another world in every place! The mycelium of a different realm is taking root in the reality of this world! We will all become part of Kim Sinhwa!"
"Step back!"
A nurse erupts into view and shoves Gapureum.
[crash]
What power! Gapureum is flung nearly ten meters in one go.
'Whoa, that nurse is an ability user?'
To be precise: Paju Central Hospital’s famed combat nurse.
[thud]
Ugh, that hurts!
A brutal shock thuds into the back of her head. Spiderweb sparks leap across her vision. Her sight blacks out fast.
Right before she passes out—Gapureum manages to see the patient who ripped off his bandage.
Huge mushrooms bulging out as they push his eyeball aside.
[rattle]
Gray mycelium tangled with his hair as it grows.
"Gyahhh!"
The patient rages in a hideous frenzy.
"Grab him!"
Combat nurses swarm to subdue the patient.
'Ahh, there’s no way that’s real. If I sleep it off, I’ll wake up from this dream.'
Thinking that, Gapureum loses consciousness.
"Neeeuuural~"
That trailing, sing-song way of speaking.
"Hmmmmm~ they say there are no problems—"
Lee Haseo smacks her lips in disappointment as she studies the scan.
"I heard that part already. Everything else is really fine, right?"
"Uuuh... I think you should quit smoking, though—"
A sigh.
"Not that sort of thing."
Amazingly, there’s nothing wrong with Jang Hyundeok’s brain.
"The hole is really clean. No peripheral damage. It’s like it was drilled with a welder. And treatment is going well—"
The hole in Jang Hyundeok’s head pierced exactly the skin and skull, cleanly, and didn’t touch the brain or any of the other important tissues around it.
'Or it might have been wrecked once and then forcibly regenerated.'
Thinking that, I answer.
"At any rate, it sounds like we don’t need to worry about surreal aftereffects right now."
Lee Haseo seems lost in a daydream and doesn’t reply, her gaze drifting. I reach a hand toward the corner of her eye and speak.
"...Doctor, are you with me?"
"Huh? What? Hee-ing—yes— it’s just a very interesting hole."
Her attitude is irresponsible, but the answer is good.
If Lee Haseo isn’t interested, it means there’s no need to worry in a [Meta-Medicine] or [Meta-Science] context.
We even closed that hole already.
Right now he only needs outpatient care to monitor the prognosis. The explanation I’m hearing today is just the results from tests done a few days ago.
"I’ll explain the rest when the patient himself comes in—"
Jang Hyundeok is resting in the Hungry Mansion.
I met Lee Haseo today for other business. Talking about Jang Hyundeok was, well, just a while-we’re-at-it thing.
"But there wasn’t anything fun. Hm."
Lee Haseo pushes out her lower lip.
'So basically, no real difference from what I confirmed myself.'
Even before the hospital performed medical—or meta-medical—measures, I already ran examinations in the magical frame.
The conclusion I drew then matches Lee Haseo’s.
"Juuust— be careful about infection—"
"Understood."
Jang Hyundeok’s head is healing well.
I worried about surreal sequelae or fallout, but apparently it isn’t to the point of concern.
But is he really fine?
In this world, anything can happen.
We don’t know the enemy’s objective—so I can’t tell how far to watch and what, exactly, to guard against.
In any case, it’s unpleasant.
[They will help you leave this world with an easy mind.]
That message I received last time.
Roughly, it means this:
'Got a few friends now, so it’d be awkward to dump everything and go? We’ll kill them all so you can depart without baggage.'
Are they actually sane?
What I truly feel about those people doesn’t matter.
One way or another, they’ll attack the people now connected to me.
"From here, ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) a different doctor will see him, not me—"
Per Paju Central Hospital policy, Lee Haseo can’t handle ordinary patients.
Strictly speaking, most doctors who deal with [Meta-Medicine], [Mystic Medicine], or [Magecraft Medicine] are under prohibitions like that.
"If we used the spiral energy of the universe he’d get better quickly—"
"...For now, we’ll try ordinary methods instead of spiral energy."
Just like most fixers are out of their minds, most doctors who treat surreal illnesses and magical scars aren’t exactly normal either.
"Sinhwa, Sinhwa. By the way, could it be..."
When Gapureum finally wakes up, she has to endure a heavy scolding from the burly combat nurses.
"We told you not to provoke him!"
"Uuugh... I’m sorry."
"Further interviews are not allowed. Please leave at once!"
Grumbling about how this is exactly why reporters are the worst and so on, Gapureum leaves the ward.
"Ugh. Looks like I can forget about getting into this hospital for a while... You wretched Kim Sinhwa."
Bewitching me like that. Kim Sinhwa, you rotten devil.
Muttering to herself as she walks down a corridor of Paju Central Hospital—Gapureum suddenly realizes there’s a problem.
"Huh? Where am I right now?"
A quiet corridor with an unfamiliar vibe.
The clean, monotone design somehow feels chilly—and at the same time, eerie.
"Haah—hoo—"
Her breathing speeds up on its own.
Feeling anxious, Gapureum takes a tiny aroma pipe from her bag and puts it to her lips.
A short, slightly soft plastic stick engraved with a beautiful spiderweb pattern.
[inhale]
She bought it from that well-known tarot shop. Cheap, fragrant—wasn’t it tuberose?
[exhale]
Her mind settles.
'Is it okay to keep going this way?'
Just a minute ago this was the west wing full of patient rooms. Gapureum’s destination was the north wing where the main entrance is...
She finally finds a directory.
[South Wing – Research Building]
"Whine... I went the wrong way!"
Gapureum clutches her head and stamps her feet.
"Ugh— so where do I go?"
There’s probably an exit in the south wing too, but the parking lot is near the north wing.
"Ugh—so annoying."
Slumping her shoulders and wandering in a random direction—at some point, she hears something strange.
"Sinhwa, Sinhwa. By the way, could it be..."
"Eh?!"
Gapureum startles and hunches her shoulders.
'Sinhwa? Did someone just say Sinhwa? Kim Sinhwa?'
Her glasses broke in the scuffle a moment ago, so she puts on her emergency thick horn-rims—
Gapureum heads toward the direction of Lee Haseo’s voice.
The voice is coming from a room labeled [Lee Haseo].
"Could this be Human Mutilation?"
"...?"
Human? As in human what?
"What did you say?"
At my question, Lee Haseo fidgets, pulling at her long, trailing curls.
"Liiike—you know? Abducting humans for experiments—drilling holes in the head—"
Lee Haseo thinks I’m an alien from Andromeda. Well, she’s not wrong that something from beyond drilled it.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but I wasn’t the one who drilled it."
"Eeeeeeh~? I see. Aww, disappointing..."
"Let’s leave that aside. I’d like you to run my bloodwork again."
We did bloodwork last time, but that was before my blood started turning into mana-stone.
So I need to get tested again.
"Ahh—?! Really? Your blood, for me?"
Hand over her mouth, Lee Haseo looks moved—as if a bashful girl were just asked out.
"I said test it, not drink it. You do understand me, right?"
"Ooof course. You want me to draw that ruby-red fluid flowing beneath your beautiful skin, and examine and analyze everything contained within—haahk—hff... hee-hee, e-hee-hee..."
"Hmm..."
Then—
The warding set outside the room alerts me to the approach of a humanoid intelligence.
'Finally tripped? All right, who is it?'
The warding on the door carries a spell of induced indifference. An ordinary person can’t get close.
I extend my mana to confirm information on the figure loitering outside.
[vvvvv]
[Clairvoyance]
Instead of my eyes, mana paints the scene outside the room.
Short, with cropped hair, a round pumpkin-like hat, horn-rimmed glasses.
A cheerful-looking woman whose face naturally inspires friendly feelings.
'That face...'
An INT stat of 30 dredges up the profile from my memory.
Gapureum?
A reporter with [Fixer Daily], published for fixers nationwide. The traits she carries are...
'Ah, so she’s been poking around with [Amazing Discovery] and [Happy Accident]? No, it feels like some other weird enchantments have been laid on her too.'
Even the request I handed Lee Haseo for a blood draw is, in truth, part of a larger errand.
I came here today to catch that reporter—Gapureum.
Oh, why this all of a sudden?
To explain Gapureum...
I’d have to explain the things that happened around me these past few days and the stupid, stupid, stupid mess a man named Jang Hyundeok made.
It isn’t that long a story.
