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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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Seeing as all the people in the other beds were female, it might just be that they hadn’t paid much attention to my gender since I was still a young child.
Or the hospital room might have been assigned according to the guardian’s gender.
More than that, I was concerned about that doll named Arthur.
‘That woman named Rachel also seems to be an international student of the same age as Yeon Mi-rae… But why on earth is she hospitalized in a hospital in our neighborhood, and not in a general hospital near the academy or a hospital in her home country?’
Was she hospitalized in Korea simply because Korea’s health care was good?
Even if that was the case, I couldn’t understand why she was hospitalized in a hospital in our neighborhood and not in a general hospital close to the academy.
I wouldn’t say that the hospital in our neighborhood was a bad one, but still, compared to the hospital at the academy, it was inevitably inferior.
I came up with several hypotheses, but I couldn’t figure out if any of them were correct.
After all, I didn’t know anything about this woman named Rachel.
‘If there’s one thing I can guess….’
It would be that the woman named Rachel was the puppeteer who controlled the doll named Arthur.
However, even that didn’t explain why she was hospitalized in this hospital.
“The examination is over. Please rest.”
“Ah, thank you.”
The nurse, who had finished the examination of the woman named Rachel, headed to another patient.
Rachel, who saw the nurse off, then asked the doll.
“(Arthur. How was the academy today?)”
“(It was tough. But I gained a lot too.)”
The content of the conversation was a little strange.
…Was it possible that the woman named Rachel wasn’t the puppeteer who controlled the doll named Arthur?
I had that thought for a moment and checked the mana of the two.
‘…No, as expected, Rachel is the puppeteer of the doll named Arthur.’
The mana flowing in Arthur’s body was the same as the mana flowing in Rachel’s body.
And above all, to me, who could see the essence of things through Samādhi, I could see the connection between the two.
That meant that it was certain that Rachel was Arthur’s puppeteer….
And yet, Rachel was having such a conversation with Arthur, as if she were addressing a person.
“(I ended up losing in the sparring match with the Aura Master named Yeon Mi-rae. It seems like she was going easy on me in the last sparring match.)”
“(Really? I wonder if it’s impossible to reach the level of a true Aura Master just by remembering swordsmanship.)”
“……”
Was she playing two roles… or….
‘Does that doll named Arthur really have a function that allows it to think independently….’
If the puppeteer named Rachel had developed what was commonly called an artificial intelligence and had put it in the head of the doll named Arthur, I could understand the conversation itself.
…Though I still didn’t know why she was hospitalized here.
As I was thinking that….
“Aigoo, the foreign young man is here again. Come and have a drink….”
“Ah, no. I’m fine.”
“You should just take what an adult gives you….”
A grandmother who was lying in the bed across from us said that while looking at Arthur.
Arthur reluctantly accepted the drink the grandmother was forcing on him, and Rachel smiled while looking at Arthur and the grandmother.
‘…From the looks of it, it seems like it’s been quite a while since Rachel was hospitalized here….’
And that doll named Arthur also seemed to come to this hospital often under the pretext of a visit.
That must have been why the grandmother in the opposite bed recognized Arthur and was happy to see him.
‘…More importantly, why on earth am I making such a trivial deduction?’
No matter why Rachel was hospitalized here, in the end, it was someone else’s business.
Thinking that, I rested my head on the pillow and closed my eyes.
To meditate.
I didn’t particularly sit in a cross-legged position.
Basically, sitting in a cross-legged position was good for spiritual practices, but what I was about to do now was meditation with the thought of organizing the enlightenment and information in my head.
‘…I’ve seen too much this time.’
The space inside the crack I had opened to secretly enter the academy…
The incomprehensible things I had seen there…
I was confident that understanding them would bring me a new enlightenment or become a stepping stone for me to reach the next realm.
Even if there was nothing left after I had understood all of this.
And so, I closed my eyes, meditated, and organized what was in my mind, but….
“Geon-woo, noona is here. You’re not in pain, are you? Is there anything you want to eat or drink?”
“……”
Yeon Mi-rae entered the hospital room and asked me such questions.
…Still, it was a relief that she didn’t call me Master in front of others and treated me like a child.
I finished my meditation and looked at Yeon Mi-rae.
“U-uh…? What’s wrong…?”
“It’s nothing… Nothing.”
Although I had said that, Yeon Mi-rae, who had intuited that I was seriously angry, broke out in a cold sweat.
Seeing her like that, I let out a sigh and quietly looked at the paper bags Yeon Mi-rae was holding in both hands.
It seemed that she had bought things like drinks and various snacks as a get-well gift for me, but….
I understood everything else, but there was just one thing I couldn’t understand.
“More importantly, what is that, noona?”
“This? It’s a Spathiphyllum, it’s good for air purific—.”
As Yeon Mi-rae was saying that, the nurse, who was examining another patient in the hospital room, said to Yeon Mi-rae with a troubled look.
“Excuse me… Guardian? Potted plants are prohibited from being brought in according to the regulations….”
“What?”
“Put it in your subspace. Right now.”
“Okay… I got it.”
At the nurse’s and my words, Yeon Mi-rae put the potted plant into the bracelet on her arm.
And then, after apologizing to the nurse, she took out a drink, opened the lid, put a straw in it, and gave it to me.
“Geon-woo, ah….”
“……”
I looked at Yeon Mi-rae and kept my mouth shut.
On the surface, it looked like a play where she was treating me like a child, just as she usually did in front of my mother, but I, who had been watching her for a long time, knew the truth.
‘What’s with her today…?’
Right now, she wasn’t acting or anything.
Even though my hands were fine, she was trying to take on the role of my hands.
Even though my feet were fine, she was trying to take on the role of my feet.
She was genuinely regarding me as a target to be protected and was trying to do everything from one to ten for me.
Had she suddenly awakened her maternal instincts or something?
Of course, I wasn’t really Yeon Mi-rae’s son.
“…Yeon Mi-rae?”
The doll in the next bed, Arthur, who saw Yeon Mi-rae, was also horrified to see her.
Because he saw a completely different side from what she usually showed at the academy.
“Hm? Arthur? Why are you here…?”
“Well… An acquaintance of mine is hospitalized here…. Why are you…?”
“It’s the same for me.”
Right after saying that, Yeon Mi-rae’s eyes turned to Rachel.
That alone must have been enough for her to figure out that Rachel was the puppeteer who had made Arthur.
“Ehem…?”
Yeon Mi-rae looked back and forth between Arthur and Rachel as if it were interesting, Arthur didn’t know what to do, and Rachel blushed as if her secret had been exposed.
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Yeon Mi-rae took me, Arthur, and Rachel to the cafe attached to the hospital.
And she got to hear the detailed story of Arthur and Rachel from the two….
“Hmm… So, to summarize, you wanted a boyfriend, so you made a doll to be your boyfriend? And a high-performance doll that can think for itself, at that.”
“Th-that’s… It sounds strange when you put it like that!”
“Well, it’s not wrong, is it?”
Rachel blushed at Yeon Mi-rae’s teasing words.
But even to me, Yeon Mi-rae’s summary didn’t sound wrong.
Since Rachel also knew that she was strange, she chose to be hospitalized in a hospital in our neighborhood instead of a hospital near the academy to avoid meeting acquaintances if possible.
But in this very hospital, in the bed right next to hers, I had been hospitalized, and so she ended up meeting Yeon Mi-rae.
“I’ll respect your taste.”
“You’re full of thoughts of teasing me, aren’t you? More than that, you have no filter in front of a child!”
“Don’t worry. I’ve blocked Geon-woo’s ears with aura.”
Of course, that was Yeon Mi-rae’s lie.
In the first place, even if Yeon Mi-rae had blocked my ears with internal energy, with my senses, it wouldn’t be difficult to hear their conversation through her internal energy, so it was meaningless.
“Ahaha….”
The doll named Arthur laughed awkwardly while looking at the two having a conversation mixed with insults.
…Is this really an artificial intelligence?
Rachel didn’t put a human soul into a doll, did she?
After Yeon Mi-rae had come to visit me and had met Arthur and Rachel, she and Rachel had become close at a rapid pace.
In that process, I was able to get additional information about Rachel. She was famous as a puppeteer who had studied puppetry under a master of puppetry, and the reason Arthur was able to enter the academy was thanks to the help of the British government and the academy’s chairman who knew of Rachel’s situation.
Well, no matter how outstanding of a doll Arthur was, in the end, since he was a doll, there was no way he would be able to get an identity on his own.
Besides that, we learned that Rachel was congenitally weak and had to live on medicine every day….
“So that’s why you’re hospitalized?”
“Yeah. If I’m in the hospital, I don’t need to move my body much, and I can receive a regular supply of medicine.”
It was said that the doll Arthur could also act normally even if he was a certain distance away from Rachel.
However, since he needed to be periodically supplied with Rachel’s mana, Rachel had to be hospitalized in a hospital in Korea, and not England….
After hearing all that, I was able to understand why Rachel was hospitalized in this hospital.
‘She’s practically on a time limit.’
When I learned that she was congenitally weak, I sent my internal energy to check Rachel, and her body was certainly weak.
No, beyond being weak….
‘She has almost no Innate Qi.’
An energy considered to be a human’s source of life or life force.
Since she had almost none of it, it was impossible for her to live long.
Although there was a way to artificially replenish Innate Qi….
‘There’s a method of putting another person’s Innate Qi into her body.’
Though that wasn’t her own Innate Qi, so not only was the efficiency poor, but the thus-replenished Innate Qi would also only stay in Rachel’s body for a few days. After a short while, it would leave her body.
And above all, the life of the other person who had their Innate Qi consumed would be in danger.
In other words, it meant that Rachel’s early death was unavoidable.
“……”
If there was a possibility, it would be Aether.
I recalled the message from Dr. Jacob that I had seen when I had strengthened the Awakener System.
[What’s important is that this Aether can change into any form.]
Aether, which made up the Black Fog and the Awakener System…
If I refined that well, couldn’t I also change it into Innate Qi?
‘…Shall I test it?’
It was a crazy idea.
Generally, the Innate Qi that appeared in martial arts novels was an energy that produced explosive power once it was used.
But why didn’t the martial artists in martial arts novels use Innate Qi?
Because it was a type of energy that couldn’t be replenished and was directly linked to life.
But what if it could be replenished?
‘I see many possibilities….’
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T/N – Mentioning Innate Qi reminds me of the other novel I’m working on, the Academy novel. So Rachel is the female version of Kang So-hyun? At least, initially.
Also, making a sentient doll so that you can have it as your lover is wild.
Lastly, the MC is going in a direction I wanted him to go to the moment the author introduced Aether. I hope the MC explores his Divine Art of Harmony further when he looks for a solution to the Innate Qi problem. I really think his technique is using, if not producing, Aether.
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
