“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 seed 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 so reason her face was flushed bright red as she covered her mouth and stamred.
‘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 !”
“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 eting 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 sa nonsense for a while, we finally managed a sowhat 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 ti weird things happen—”
“Do you rember 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 experints!”
“Yes. The Crystal Spiral Energy experint. I’d like to fulfill this month’s contract by helping with that experint. How does that sound?”
“Help with the experint? 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 ga. Which ans...
‘A preposterous design.’
This enormous contraption, filling an entire room, looked less like dical equipnt and more like an armillary sphere used in dieval tis to chart celestial positions.
Interlocking rings of various sizes surrounded a central axis, and heavy-looking crystals rotated in so inscrutable pattern.
“How did you co 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 ssage window called it an achievent 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 ssage window lie that this was an achievent reward, or did soone beyond the window plant that inspiration in Iha Seo’s mind?
“Ah?”
“This is sothing I made from that blueprint. What do you think? What did you create from it?”
Regrettably, I used the blueprint not to build sothing new but to decipher an ancient tongue—and, of course, to craft weapons.
Hearing my answer, Iha Seo sighed in disappointnt.
“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 sa desire Iha Seo had voiced several tis when playing [Cthulhu World].
‘It sounds like the benevolent wish of a conscientious doctor trapped in cosmic horror, but...’
As in the ga, 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 ca from Androda—make that wish co true?”
In one sense, a positive desire—yet in another, the twisted ambition of a supervillain.
In the ga, Iha Seo’s obsession with this wish drove her completely mad. As a transcendent being of another world, she would beco 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 becos an ongoing recovery device. It could even restore ntal stability to so extent.
“Alright. Let’s get started.”
In the ga, you’d just spend pile of mana crystals and resources, hit the [Modify] button, and get a 5% improvent chance.
‘Honestly, that’s more convenient in so 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 .
“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 fra.
Creak—crash—
Iha Seo watched most of the machine being torn apart with tears in her eyes, but we couldn’t waste ti. I ignored her concerns and continued working.
“It’d be nice to add more general-purpose functions, but let’s solve the imdiate issue first.”
“Imdiate 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 ga, but healing and restoration magic is extrely difficult and demands absurd resources.
“What is that?”
“A mana crystal.”
“You an 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 sothing the hospital would grade Black.”
“A divine body?”
“Not quite. It’s a fragnt 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 Androda, 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 mont.
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 lifetis.’
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 re mana crystal. The tooltip even shows a different na:
[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 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 madn sensing and screaming, even monsters rampaging in the closed ward beyond the building, and the gaze of the headless Gong Isu facing —no, I saw, heard, slled, 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 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 stread 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 , 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 rely 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.”
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