KEG 95
“Over here…!”
Just then, I heard a hushed voice. I turned my head and saw a nurse in a surgical scrubs peeking out from the preparation room. Without looking back, I ran straight into the preparation room.
“Here! Lay her down here!”
A doctor who had already finished sterilizing and was waiting, gestured with his hand toward the stainless steel workbench used for preparing medications.
Following his instructions, I moved the medicines and tools that were on the table to the side and laid the woman down. The tools scattered across the floor, but that didn’t bother anyone in the room.
“Seal off the area! Lock the door and block it with something!”
“Checking the patient’s consciousness! Ma’am, can you hear me? Look this way!”
I immediately moved to the door and blocked it with my body.
The space was unstable and the lights flickered as if the power might cut out at any moment. The nurses and surgical assistants quickly began preparing for the operation.
They operated the suction of the manual pump by hand and struggled to illuminate the surgical site by pulling over a stand lamp.
Thud! Thud!
The sound of pounding came from outside the door I was blocking.
“Don’t open it!”
A desperate shout came from Agent Won outside the door.
There are no Espers in here.
If I open it now, we’ll all die.
“I’m going to start cutting now. The smell of blood will spread. Please block every crack in the door with alcohol swabs and tape them up!”
“Yes!”
A few of the surgical assistants rushed over to my side to help block the door, and they began stuffing alcohol swabs into the cracks.
But it wasn’t enough. The force with which the monsters were ramming the door was too great; at this rate, the entire door would be ripped off and the monsters would barge in.
“Gah!”
Eventually, the doorknob snapped off, and a vine slipped through the gap. The vine pierced the shoulder of one of the medical assistants blocking the door. He clutched his shoulder and convulsed on the floor.
“Aarg!!”
Swoosh–
The nurse who had been blocking the gaps with alcohol swabs cut the vine with surgical scissors. It was tough, but she managed to sever it.
The attack had worked. The monsters on the second floor were weaker than those on the first.
“Don’t stop the pump!”
“We’re running out of hemostatic agents! Someone bring all the Vitamin K injections and adrenaline vials we have!”
The medical staff performing the surgery shouted for supplies.
“Could you pass the medicine for me…! My hands are in this state right now!”
The nurse who had cut the vine held up her hand, which was a mess from the monster’s slime. I pulled the purification potion I was supposed to drink today out of my pocket and handed it to her. For an ordinary person, even that much slime would corrupt their mind and deal a blow.
“What medicine should I bring you?”
At my question, the nurse hesitated for a moment before taking the potion and answering.
“Everything on the third row from the bottom of the cabinet and shelf labeled ‘K’.”
“Understood.”
I gathered the specified medications and handed them to the doctor. The doctor placed a piece of gauze over an adrenaline ampoule and snapped off the top.
Snap–
The sound was strangely loud. It was because there had been no sound coming from outside.
The commotion had suddenly ceased.
Could the monsters have quieted down all at once?
“Adrenaline is going in! Check for vasoconstriction!”
The surgery had only just begun. The medical staff had no spare capacity to worry about the situation outside.
That meant I was the only one who could assess the situation, and the course of action was clear.
“No! Don’t go out there!”
As I tried to open the door and step out, the nurse who had drunk the purification potion blocked my way. Blood was streaming from her nose. It meant her mind was being contaminated.
One purification potion hadn’t been enough.
“Danger… danger… ugh…”
Smack!
The nurse slapped her own cheek to stay conscious.
She turned her face toward me, her cheek red and her nose bleeding.
“It’s dangerous!”
I pulled a cloth handkerchief from my pocket and handed it to her. The nurse, who had been blocking the door with her arms outstretched, hesitantly took it.
“I’m fine. Please step aside.”
“No…! No more casualties…!”
Faced with the nurse’s firm stance, I turned my gaze toward the door. Then I called out to the person I suspected was the cause of the commotion.
After all, there was only one person in the hospital capable of such overwhelming force.
“Yuksam, are you there?”
Blood mixed with monster essence was seeping in from the bottom of the door.
“Yep! I’m right here!”
Lee Yuksam’s voice came from outside the door. The nurse’s eyes widened as she looked back and forth between the door and me. I ignored her and spoke to Lee Yuksam.
“Did you take care of the first floor?”
“Yes! I killed them all!”
At Lee Yuksam’s cheerful voice, the nurse who had been leaning against the door slumped to the floor. She seemed to have relaxed.
“What about Agent Won?”
“He’s lying down right now!”
“I’m here….”
Agent Won sounded like he was on the verge of death. At least his survival was confirmed.
Was the second floor safe now too?
“Ho-hyung, but you know what~”
I slipped my hand into the hole where the doorknob had been and tried to open the door. After all, having an outsider like me in the operating room would probably be a hindrance.
Just then, Lee Yuksam’s hand suddenly entered through the hole where the doorknob had been.
“Flowers have bloomed on my head and Agent Won’s. What could this be?”
Clank!
Lee Yuksam tried to open it from the outside. Clank, clank–the sound of him pulling at the door continued several more times.
Even though he could easily break it down, his insistence on opening the door was still so typical of Lee Yuksam.
He still was Lee Yuksam.
“The flowers are getting bigger.”
For now.
“Agent Won, can you hear me?”
I called out to Agent Won.
“Yes…”
Agent Won replied in a weak voice.
Lee Yuksam said Agent Won was lying down right now. He also said a flower had bloomed on his head.
Is Agent Won a human or a monster right now?
“What is Lee Yuksam’s condition right now?”
“Huh? Ho-hyung, I’m fine!”
“Yeah… he looks fine…”
Both of them insisted they were fine. Could I trust them?
Was there no way to find out? Just then, I noticed the walkie-talkie at my waist.
“–Eagle, this is Black Panther One. Please respond. Over.”
“Eagle” was the code name for the security team leader. I radioed the team leader, who was down in the basement.
Soon after, the radio crackled, and the team leader replied.
-This is Eagle. Transmit, Black Panther One.
“Agent Won is currently exhibiting abnormal symptoms after being attacked by a monster. Possible mutation stage onset. Requesting an identification code to verify mental integrity. Over.”
When I was in the military, there were codes used to identify personnel who had entered the mutation phase. I didn’t know if this security team had them, but with a team leader who was a military veteran, it was highly likely they did.
-…This is Eagle. Ask for ‘today’s code phrase’ and ‘oldest memory.’ Copy that?
The identification code did exist.
I didn’t know today’s password or his oldest memory. But that wasn’t an issue for the questions.
“Agent Won, do you copy?”
I directed the question toward Agent Won outside the door.
“Uh… uh… the password, you mean… my oldest memory….”
Agent Won was also wearing a walkie-talkie.
So he had been listening. Yet instead of answering, he repeated the question.
“Lee Yuksam.”
When I called out to him, Lee Yuksam, who had been silent, replied briefly with a “Yes.”
“Take out Agent Won.”
There was a moment of silence.
And then,
Crack.
There was a sound of something breaking outside.
The stream of blood seeping in through the crack at the bottom of the door grew thicker. The nurse, who had been leaning against the doorframe, turned pale. Then she asked me, her voice tinged with reproach.
“Just now…! What did you…!”
“He was supposed to answer within three seconds.”
“Huh?”
“You have to respond to the identification code within three seconds. If you don’t, it means you’ve turned into a monster.”
At my reply, the nurse remained silent for a moment, then lowered her head. It seemed she didn’t want to discuss this topic any further.
As someone who worked in the medical field, she probably knew better than anyone that once the transformation into a monster begins, there’s nothing that can be done.
“Hyung! Can I go in now?”
The situation wasn’t over yet.
Lee Yuksam was still there.
An emergency surgery was underway inside, and there was no Esper capable of standing up to Lee Yuksam. For Lee Yuksam, something like an identification code didn’t even exist.
In that case.
“I’ll go out.”
I had no choice but to go out myself.
The nurse, who had been crouched on the floor, tried to stand up and warned me.
“I told you no! Absolutely not…!”
The nosebleed that had barely stopped from the nurse’s nose started again. Her hands could barely hold back the blood; they were no match for stopping me.
“I can run away.”
The nurse paused for a moment.
“I can drop everything and run away at any moment. But can the people here do the same?”
The nurse couldn’t answer my question.
Even in this situation, the medical staff were too busy performing surgery to pay us any mind, and the nurse would have to rush over the moment they called her.
The people in this room weren’t the kind who could easily escape.
It would be more accurate to say they wouldn’t run away.
“If it gets dangerous, I’ll run. You protect the people back there.”
I gestured toward the operating room where the surgery was in full swing, then pulled the nurse away from the doorway. Then I opened the door.
The walls were red.
The sickly sweet scent of flowers and scattered pieces of flesh
And….
“Ho-hyung!”
Lee Yuksam greeted me warmly.
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