Chapter 197

After the mention from the presidential spokesperson, the fact that Name had been hospitalized at Samsung Seoul Hospital spread rapidly.

This time, a video was released by an anonymous informant showing Name being rushed to the hospital on a stretcher, leading society to face yet another turning point.

[What happened??? She was healthy until the No Name tournament, right?]

└ Could it be that the broadcasts were also part of a bucket list?

└ Don’t say such ominous things!

└ Seriously, this is really bad…

[If there is a god, then I really resent them. What crime has that child committed…?]

└ She has the talent of a devil but is short-lived… ah, this…

└ Ham Chorong…

└ The world is cursing No Name unfairly.

└ Please don’t be in pain, Jevall…

[Does anyone know why she was taken? Please, just one person.]

└ It’s a rumor, but I hear that senior professors have all been called to the hospital.

└ Could it be serious enough to require surgery? She seemed perfectly fine in the video.

└ Samsung Seoul Hospital Professor Dong OO’s surgery schedule has changed <- specializes in aura heart transplants.

└ Are you an insider for real?

Now, the majority of netizens realized just how much effort Name had put into this revelation.

In particular, the news that a child with a talent never seen again in the world was unwell struck a chord with people’s hearts.

What if the image seen in the interview became the child’s final appearance?

[Breaking news) Name’s aura heart surgery by the Jeong Jin-soo medical team scheduled for 20:30.]

[Please, Name...!!! Uncles and aunts are pleading like this.]

└ Are you really going to throw away your 800,000 subscribers...? You will come back, right? Pleasepleasepleaseplease...

└ I wish I could suffer instead of No Name. Really...

└ An aura heart means a huge surgery, right? Is this even logical...?

* * *

Meanwhile, Merlin Orphanage was bustling with reporters who suddenly descended upon it.

The intrusive camera equipment appeared expensive at first glance, and all the adult men and women were dressed in suits.

The children, raised in a Christian-based facility where silence was a virtue, looked at the commotion with curious eyes.

They wanted interviews about the child called "No Name" and a visit to Room 206, where she had lived.

“Hey, but isn’t Room 206 the one where the ghost appears...? Didn’t someone live there before?”

It was the room located furthest out on the second floor, which everyone now avoided.

Recalling a middle schooler’s curiosity, Jae-hwan, who acted like a leader among his peers, crossed his arms and reminisced.

“Room 206 was really a room where ghosts appeared.”

* * *

I had known about the problem with my aura heart for a long time.

The condition is referred to locally as Restacaya Syndrome.

In a past life, it was a very rare symptom that only manifested when forcibly casting forbidden magic of the 9th circle on a human body, but surprisingly, it was quite common in modern society, occurring in one or two out of ten million people.

Fortunately, it wasn't a world where everyone could wield 8th circle magic; rather, it was due to the excessively low mana density globally.

The inflated aura heart would not return to its original state but remain deformed.

As the wall separating aura and mana eroded, like an arterial wall thinning, it became a truly terrifying illness that could lead to death from neurogenic shock due to a rupture.

Thus, the makeshift solution I devised was to split the aura heart into seven parts.

Rather than literally splitting it, it would be more appropriate to express it as blocking the dam's entrance.

In a drought, if all the dam's sluice gates are opened, the bottom can be seen quickly, but if only one side is opened, all the mana flows to that side, maintaining an appropriate water level.

Ultimately, it was important whether mana could be properly converted into aura and if that aura could circulate well within the body, so even if only part of the aura heart was used, it wouldn't significantly affect daily life.

“This is the last one, Arin, hold on tight. Don't let go. And don’t even open your eyes.”

“Ugh...! My heart has been pounding, it feels like it's really angry!”

“Just hold on a bit more, you can do it. Hey, Baek Arin, don't tremble! Focus, focus!”

“Okay!”

Because the process involved directly inserting a metal rod woven with aura into my body, I needed help.

And at that time, my small surgical assistant was Baek Arin.

I didn't expect a first-grade elementary school student to handle aura, so I had simply asked her to hold the 15 cm long and 0.7 mm diameter aura structure as tightly as she could with her fingers.

Thump—

“Hyek!”

It was I who was poked by the needle, but Arin curled her ten toes. She squinted her eyes so hard that her face trembled.

It seemed that a child’s extraordinary imagination had reached a level where they could empathize with the pain of others.

“Is... is it done?”

“Sort of? We might need to push it in a little more. I'll take care of the rest.”

“Then can I open my eyes now, Name?”

“Yeah, if you want to.”

“Eep...!”

Arin’s eyes blinked.

Seven needles penetrated my abdomen.

“...!”

Seeing me adjusting the angle and pushing in with my fingers, Arin fainted right there, foaming at the mouth.

Unfortunately, I had no capacity to immediately care for the child who collapsed on the cold floor.

The next steps were going to be much more exhausting and tedious.

I constructed chambers inside the thin metal rods and sealed unique magic that would serve as the centers for each chamber.

Since the wild tantrum was ultimately inside my body, there was no need to design the circuitry prison too precisely.

However, if the coordinate system changed later while handling magic, it would complicate calculations, so I decided to at least build a plausible "house."

Here, there would be Medusa, next to her would be Erisiton, and finally, Shardenfroide.

The circuit formulas forming the unique magic transformed into an excellent gatekeeper sealing the entrance and exit of the aura heart.

It was at that moment that Arin woke up again.

She seemed fascinated by me carefully trimming the spikes that had popped out of my belly with a nail clipper.

“Ah... doesn't it hurt...?”

“Yeah. It's not even really a metal spike. Once it's shaped, it'll be absorbed back into the body.”

“Still, it seems like it would hurt... do you need me to help with anything?”

“Hmm...”

Arin looked at me with sparkling eyes, indirectly expressing that she wanted to help me more.

Reluctantly, I gathered the spike pieces I had trimmed with the nail clipper.

“Alright, hold out your palm. Like this, okay.”

With her two hands, Arin presented her palm respectfully.

To prevent any possibility of her getting poked, I coated her palm with an aura barrier and placed the remaining spike pieces on top.

“Is there a trash can in my room? Can you take this and throw it away?”

“Yeah! I can do that much!”

Somehow, Arin, who became a trash shuttle, seemed so happy to be entrusted with that task that she hurriedly ran towards the door.

“Whoa!”

“Hey, Baek Arin!”

Crash—!

There was an old tile that was slightly raised under her feet, and Arin tripped over it.

The spikes she had been holding flew in all directions and embedded themselves in the walls and floor.

“Ouch... Waaah!”

“I can't live. Are you okay, Arin?”

“I-I can't even do this right... I'm sorry... Waaaah...”

Arin began to cry pitifully, clutching the bruise on her knee.

“No, it’s not your fault. I need to ask the nun to replace the flooring. Right?”

“Sniff...”

“It’s okay, I’m saying it’s alright, okay?”

It wasn't my strong suit to soothe children.

Arin finally stopped crying approximately ten minutes later.

After bursting into tears, she flopped back and lay on the floor, suddenly shivering and running over to hug me.

“What's wrong?”

“G-ghost!”

“Ghost?”

“I heard a real ghost sound! What is it...? I really heard it!”

“Do you hear it now?”

“No... I don’t hear it... But I really heard it! I'm not lying, Name! It’s true!”

“Ah, okay, I’ll believe you.”

“Really... ooh... sniff…”

Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind.

The place Arin had fallen back and used her hand to brace herself seemed to be the spot where the spikes had flown and embedded themselves.

Hoping against hope, I flattened myself on the floor and swept my hand around.

A voice that sounded as if it would tear my ears came forth.

[Die, you despicable brat!]

[Die! Just die!]

[Don’t even breathe! I’ll kill you!]

I instantly understood the identity of the ghost Arin had mentioned.

It must have been a very small fragment of the unique magic “Sekhmet,” shaped by anger.

I took a marker and made an X on the ground.

“What was that...?”

“A ghost... something similar?”

“Kyaaaaaah!”

“It’s okay, it’s not too dangerous.”

I marked the locations of the remaining six spikes with Xs as well.

“Let’s not touch this place for a while.”

“What happens if we touch it?”

“You’ll hear ghost sounds like earlier.”

“Are ghosts really real?”

“No.”

“...?”

The longest Shardenfroide circuit has a half-life of two weeks, so about two months later, this phenomenon would naturally dissipate.

Until then, I earnestly warned Arin not to touch the marked places.

It wouldn’t do any good if she learned bad words at such a young age.

Despite such advice, shortly after, Arin was adopted by a dignified gentleman.

I still don't know what happened to Room 206, which became instantly vacant as I ran out of the suffocating orphanage.

* * *

“The surgery was successfully completed. This MRI photo was taken from the side, and the parts visible in the left photo are the nerve bundles surrounding the aura heart. As you can see, there’s a large bundle of nerve fibers, and this can be considered the boundary of the aura heart.”

“The size...”

“Yes, it’s about the size of an adult fist. If you look, it’s about ten times bigger than the aura hearts of children in the same age group. While it was originally large, considering how surrounding organs were compressed, it might have been expanded due to acquired factors. Do you see this bright-looking tube? This is the main nerve, and fortunately, the outer wall is thick—”

The physician meticulously informed Professor Cheon, the guardian, about the process and results of the lengthy 12-hour surgery.

They explained that they had flattened the deformed aura heart, and created knots in the pathways besides the main nerve to revert the amount of mana being absorbed to normal levels.

“Additionally, the aura heart’s ability to partition itself is something I haven’t seen in my 30 years of practice. If the patient and guardian agree, would it be alright to report this to the academic community?”

Professor Cheon firmly refused.

The doctor didn’t seem too disappointed either. Satisfied that the major surgery had been successful, apparently.

Once the doctor left the room, Professor Cheon sighed deeply.

“Are you awake, Name?”

At the sound of my name being called softly, I reflexively opened my eyes.

“How did you know?”

“It’s hard to pretend not to when you poke your ears up like that.”

“Ah, did I do that?”

I had an IV drip in my arm, and what do you call this thing that goes in the nose? Nasal cannula?

In any case, I was experiencing the essence of modern medicine throughout my entire body.

“It seems the surgery went well.”

“Yeah... it does.”

“Why do you seem so drained, Professor? You weren’t like this.”

“Are you still in a lot of pain, Name?”

It seemed he thought it was his fault that I had been hospitalized.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t wear such a sad expression.

I lifted my left arm and grabbed his hand that was holding the bed rail.

“If it hurts, I’ll definitely tell you it hurts.”

“Will you promise me?”

“Here, promise.”

I made a pinky swear with just my pinky finger extended from my fist.

With his eyes wide open, Professor Cheon held my pinky with a face that seemed to show whether he was smiling or crying.

“By the way, Professor, what's that big tree behind you? Oh, it’s a flower basket, what is it?”

A colorful flower basket with the message “Wishing for the recovery of student No Name” stood out immediately.

“President Lee Jo-won came by briefly yesterday.”

“Really?”

“He just showed his face up to the door and left.”

How is it that a head of state can come visit so easily?

Wait, on second thought, it wasn’t that special in South Korea.

It often made me think of the absolute monarchy era, giving me the illusion that it was as if a king had directly visited, but in reality, it was just an ordinary office worker who happened to stop by out of curiosity.

“Well, he didn’t specifically mention anything about terrorists, did he?”

“We exchanged a few polite phrases and parted ways.”

Of course.

How could I distinguish whether he genuinely came to see me out of concern, came out of mere curiosity, or was just there for image-making?

I wished he didn’t have to come personally but that he could just fulfill the requests I had made behind the scenes.

“The hospital room is too small, so let’s put the flower basket outside in the hallway.”

“Shall we?”

“Otherwise, it might cause inconvenience to other patients. I think just putting it outside on the first floor would be fine.”

“If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be better just to throw it away?”

“Well, it’s enough to receive the sentiment. It seems to just take up space unnecessarily.”

“I understand.”

I personally didn’t really like such types of decorations.

And the next day, a ridiculous article appeared on television.

[The unfortunate genius abandoned by Korea, turning away from the President's late offer of consolation.]

[President Lee's congratulatory flower basket found in the hospital's back dumpster... Does this hint at possible emigration abroad?]