HACKED 44

“Ja-myeong-go? Ah, you mean <The Drum that Sounds on its Own>. Only the entrance side and the part of the wall with the machinery are a bit broken, and the inner area where the sickbeds are is completely undamaged. I couldn’t go in because the door was locked, but he is probably fine.”

“That’s a relief…”

I had been tense, and now the strength drained out of my body. I flopped back down into my seat. My own condition isn’t exactly great, but with so many critical patients around, I can’t even complain about being in pain, even as a hollow gesture.

“Then, can the recovery room be fixed?”

“Uh… it’s a first for me as well, having an enemy invade the main base and break the recovery room.”

“Just the main point.”

“I think it might work if we input resources. When you upgraded facilities or equipped add-ons, you input resources and entered instructions into the system, right? I think we can do the same this time. Probably.”

‘Input resources and enter instructions,’ huh. So facility upgrades are implemented in this way in this dimension. For me, it used to be enough to just press the upgrade button on the game screen. Then, with a clanking sound effect, the facility icon would just pop into a new look.

“It looks like I’m going to spend all the resources I barely managed to get from fighting just to clean up after the fight.”

A photo that used to circulate on the internet comes to mind. A photo of a ruin littered with debris from a destroyed building, with a single banner hanging lonely that said, ‘Our shop is open for business as usual.’

At the time, I just thought of it as a funny meme and passed it over without much thought. I didn’t know that would become my situation.

I had no leisure to worry about <IsItPresbyopiaCrap>, who lost all his Incarnations and now even his resources and main base. My own situation was urgent enough.

‘I heard the neighbor’s house collapsed, so I went to see. But when I came back, my house had collapsed. As soon as I saw it, tears came to my eyes…’

“Yeah, whatever it is, let’s try to fix it first. I don’t know about other places, but this place must be fixed as a top priority.”

“Will you be okay? It’s basically like going all-in on repairing the recovery room with the few resources we have.”

“When a war breaks out, even if the entire city is bombed to ashes, they try their best to defend the hospital at all costs, right? Why is that?”

“Why… is it?”

“If you don’t know, learn from now on.”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind, just look at this. Where and what do I need to input?”

I turned on the terminal and entered instructions as Chirpy told me. The basic interface itself was similar to the game. Except that unlike the game where most things were solved with a single touch, there was the inconvenience of having to carry the resources directly from the storage here.

“Mister Myeong, how should we handle the resource transportation?”

“I feel bad for the twins, but I’ll have to make them do it. They are the only ones whose limbs are intact and are capable of moving right now.”

“Yes, I understand. I will tell the <Twin Longswords of the Salvation of the Nation> when they return later. But Mister Myeong…”

Chirpy was looking at me with a strange expression that was hard to describe. It didn’t seem like there were any particularly negative emotions, but it didn’t seem like it liked it either… it was a subtle expression, literally.

“Yeah?”

“Why do you feel sorry?”

“I mean, they’re just kids who barely reach my waist. What kind of things can they carry with those tiny, delicate hands?”

“You know. They are Incarnations of swords. They are not humans and they are not children. Tiny hands? Those hands could probably lift someone like Mister Myeong with a single finger.”

“…”

I know that too. Since Hwarang or other Incarnations have already said similar things. Without even going that far, it was me just a few months ago who pulled the Incarnations called <Twin Longswords of the Salvation of the Nation> through the gacha.

The twins are nothing more than game characters created with the motif of a pair of two swords. It goes without saying that they aren’t human, and they aren’t even living creatures. They are just a combination of numbers and letters inside the <No Lifer> app.

I know all of that.

Whether these things I’m experiencing are hallucinations or dreams or whatever, I thought it was none of my business and that I was someone who would return to reality soon. So I drew a firm line between them and me. No, I tried to draw one.

But every moment I face the Incarnations and talk to them, the line I drew in my head becomes blurred.

They were actually injured right before my eyes. Bones were broken and flesh was torn. The stench of blood vibrated in the air. Even if they tried their best not to show it, pain seeped through every glance and every gesture.

With them in front of me, there is no way I could have calculating thoughts like ‘How much HP was lost,’ ‘Considering resource efficiency, it would be a waste to heal them,’ or ‘This one is useless so I should grind him up…’

Chirpy, who caught a glimpse of my reaction, added as if making an excuse or trying to comfort me.

“A sword is a tool made to be used by a human. And Mister Myeong is their master and the one who gives them orders. If Mister Myeong uses them in any way, they will be unconditionally happy.”

‘That is the setting, I suppose…’

This is the reason why I cannot accept them as humans exactly like me, even while thinking of the Incarnations as personalities rather than mere data. They are like people to be called objects, and their consciousness of being objects is too strong to be called people.

“I get it. I get it well, so stop.”

“Mister Myeong, what I wanted to say was…”

Chirpy followed hurriedly, perhaps thinking that I was offended. I lightly shook my head toward the fellow.

“No, I’m not angry. I understood what your words meant, so let’s stop here. As for the recovery room repair… we’ve taken all the measures we can in this situation, and some result will come out. Let me know if there are any problems.”

“I understand. Oh, wait a minute. Where are you going?”

“Next door.”

“Why are you going there? You don’t have an escort right now. It’s dangerous!”

“I can’t just leave it like that forever. If it gets really dangerous, I’ll run back immediately.”

“No, Mister Myeong! Aaaaah! If the people lying over there find out, I might really di…”

I closed the door, leaving Chirpy’s desperate scream behind.

˙✧˖°🎮 ⋆｡˚

The place we used as a lodging, meeting room, base camp, or whatever, was a large room presumed to have been originally used as a rest area. It is a place where there is nothing, absolutely nothing, except for a few pieces of furniture such as a sofa, a sofa bed, and a coffee table. There isn’t even a common prop like a flower pot, a book, or a picture frame.

The biggest characteristic of this room is that there are no windows. This is the result of reflecting Hwarang’s assertion. He said we have to prepare for attacks that might fly in from the outside. I wondered if that was possible in this empty dimension where nothing but the sky stretching endlessly up, down, left, and right can be seen no matter how much you look outside, but since my best sniper said so, I just went along with it.

Other rooms are lined up on the left and right of this room. Those rooms have similar structures. There are no windows facing the corridor, let alone windows facing the outside, so if the door is closed, it’s hard to know what’s happening inside the room.

‘It’s good in terms of security or safety… but it’s a bit scary at a time like this. Maybe I should have asked to lock him up somewhere else.’

I stood in front of the door of the next room with the feeling of opening Pandora’s box. As soon as I put my hand on the panel, a familiar message popped up.

Do you want to unlock it?

[Yes / No]

‘Surely nothing big will happen.’

The door that recognized my fingerprint slid open. The moment the door opened silently and the pitch-black darkness filled my vision, it looked to me exactly like a hungry beast opening its mouth wide.

I stepped inside the door. I had only taken one step from the corridor where bright lighting shone on the white walls and floor, but in an instant, everything around me became dark.

An indescribably ominous feeling climbed all the way up from the tips of my toes. It wasn’t that I heard any sound, or that someone touched me, and there was no change on the surface… but a feeling that I shouldn’t go any further here. The feeling of barely stopping right in front of a cliff while walking with eyes covered.

There, in the deepest and darkest place, was a pair of blue flames. The blue flames burned quietly upward in place, as if candles had been lit. Then, occasionally, they wavered on their own in the indoor space where no wind blew.

It feels like the blue-tinted horror is slowly eating away at my brain. If I stay in this darkness any longer, I might go crazy.

‘…And I didn’t come all the way here to get caught up in that guy’s tactics.’

I immediately took out the terminal and turned on the flashlight function. This terminal is strangely funny; despite not being a phone, it had almost all the functions that would be on a phone, including games and a camera.

“Ah!”

A small groan was heard from a distance. I shone the flashlight in that direction. As soon as the artificial lighting touched it, the blue flames disappeared without a trace. Instead, in that spot, two bright red eyes were looking up at me resentfully with a frown.

“Husband…”

“We aren’t even married, so just how much longer do I have to hear this ‘husband’ talk? And from a male fellow at that?”

There is a reason why <The Nine-Tailed Maegu of Cheonggu>, that is, the Gumiho, is locked up in this state. It’s because I finally checked this bastard’s status ailment.

Status Ailment: ‘A Thousand Livers’

: Feels an indiscriminate impulse to kill at random timings. This impulse cannot be resisted and does not disappear until 1,000 enemies are killed. (Current kill count: 61)

The moment I saw this, I made a firm resolution.

This bastard must be isolated at all costs.