Chapter 1884 – 1884. Eternal Eden
“What the fuck?”
Startled by the corpse’s heart stopping, I quickly stripped off its clothes, trying to see its heart with my own eyes.
“…What are you doing? Are you really trying to violate a corpse?”
Na Chaeyoung said, as if she couldn’t believe it.
I tried to explain the situation to her, but I staggered again. My legs wouldn’t hold me up. Luckily, I still had some strength in my arms, so I grabbed the edge of the desk to keep myself from falling.
“N-no, it’s not like that. I used recovery on this corpse, and its heart was beating! It’s real!”
“……You’re saying you brought a corpse back to life?”
Na Chaeyoung approached with a serious expression. That’s Na Chaeyoung for you. She believed me without questioning. She carefully reached out towards the corpse. Her hand was heading for its wrist. It seemed she was going to check its pulse first.
Just as I was about to say that its heart wasn’t beating again, my throat tightened. I was too exhausted to speak.
Na Chaeyoung was looking at the air, her hand still on the corpse’s wrist, surprised. Her eyes were fixed on the air, not the corpse. As if she was seeing something invisible.
“……It really came back to life. No, wait. The wound is gone. It’s dead. It came back to life for a moment and then died.”
Na Chaeyoung looked at the corpse with a complicated expression.
Players can see the name, abilities, and traits of an Awakened when they come into contact with them. In other words, the corpse had been an Awakened. I took a deep breath and pulled myself up. My hand gripping the desk was still trembling.
“Take off her clothes and check her chest.”
“…She was killed by a stab wound to the heart. The rotten smell is gone, and there’s blood coming from her sternum.”
Na Chaeyoung removed the corpse’s top. Through the blood-stained, plain bra, a stab wound could be seen. The wound wasn’t as big as I thought. Compared to the hole in her clothes, the wound was smaller.
“The wound has healed. Her heart must have been beating, just like you said. But she died right away. You can tell if you look closely. Her heart wasn’t completely healed. The bite wound on her calf has also healed more than halfway. It healed her whole body, not just her chest and heart.”
Na Chaeyoung said, analyzing the situation.
Just making the heart beat wouldn’t bring a person back to life. A human is a very complex machine. Even if the engine, the heart, is running, it won’t work if the other parts are a mess.
“Maybe your recovery can work not just on living things, but on objects too.”
“…You mean I could bring back a skeleton?”
“Maybe it’s possible.”
“Hah. It’s me, after all. I’ve awakened an incredible ability.”
“This isn’t something to joke about lightly. You have to hide the fact that you can bring dead people back to life. What do you think will happen if other people find out about this? Everyone will be after you. The US, China…. Every country in the world will try to get their hands on you. You’d be the best insurance policy. If they could just wield that power…. You know what I mean, right?”
“They’d use me? Those bastards?”
I smirked, and Na Chaeyoung quietly nodded.
“I admit you’re amazing. You’re definitely sane, so you won’t be mind-controlled and become a puppet… but they’ll try to get their hands on you no matter what. Or they’ll try to kill you. Even if you don’t like it, it’s better to hide the fact that you can bring people back to life. You don’t want things to get annoying, do you?”
“Hmm. That’s true. I should at least hide this power. But I’m still going to save her.”
“…Does anyone know you brought this corpse?”
“No one. I snuck it in secretly because I thought it would cause unnecessary rumors.”
“That’s good news, at least.”
With my legs still shaking, I went to a nearby chair and sat down. My body was still tired, but it was much more comfortable than standing.
“By the way, this is really exhausting.”
“You brought a dead person back to life. Not just someone who died recently, but someone who died a few days ago. It’s less decomposed than it should be, though… it must be thanks to the spiderwebs. It seems spiderwebs have a preservative effect. You should be grateful for your Absolute Mind. If you didn’t have it… you might have died?”
There are two things needed when an Awakened uses their abilities: stamina and mental strength. It’s been a long time since my stamina was drained this much. She was right, if I didn’t have the Absolute Mind, I might have died.
“Let’s leave the corpse here.”
“…What?”
“The air conditioning is blasting here. And there’s a fridge.”
“That’s my sparkling water fridge. It’s not a place to store corpses.”
Na Chaeyoung loved sparkling water. So much so that she filled the lab fridge with it.
“Let’s just leave it here. I really don’t have anywhere else to put it.”
Currently, this lab was Na Chaeyoung’s personal room. She slept with me at night, but she spent most of her time in the lab during the day.
“Haa. Okay. I’ll bring a black cloth to cover it. But you know we can’t just leave it like this, right? No matter how much we keep the air conditioning on, the corpse will rot.”
“I’ll use recovery on it every day. It won’t rot and get maggots. By the way, you saw it earlier, right? Her name and abilities.”
“Yeah. You picked up something amazing.”
「Individual Name: Choi Hyejin
Potential: ★★★★★
Awakened Ability: Golden Body.
Traits: Instinct, Purity. Warrior.」
That was the information about the corpse that Na Chaeyoung had told me.
“Her name was Choi Hyejin. Her potential is 5 stars, just like me. You picked up something amazing.”
“…Potential is just potential. No matter how high your potential is, you’re not strong from the start. You’re the unusual one.”
“What about Golden Body? Is it an ability that turns the body into gold?”
“No, it’s the highest-level ability in the physical enhancement category. It’s like a passive ability, like your Absolute Mind. Even if you’re just breathing, your body gets stronger little by little over time. It gets stronger faster if you train. The biggest advantage is adaptability.”
“Adaptability?”
“It means you won’t have any problems even if you undergo body modifications, evolution, or mutations. In Choi Hyejin’s case, her efficiency is halved because of her trait, Purity.”
Purity. It was the same trait as me.
The Warrior trait increased combat ability.
Instinct was rare. It raised the limits of physical abilities. It was also said to sometimes cause special events. However, it wasn’t all good. Instinct could also cause problems.
“A typical example is anger management. They can’t control their rising anger and end up causing accidents.”
“I see. So, what’s the overall assessment?”
“If we look at it like a game, it’s perfect.”
“What about realistically?”
“It depends on Choi Hyejin’s personality.”
Anyway, we made a space in the corner of the lab and restrained Choi Hyejin. We restrained her with shackles and handcuffs. Na Chaeyoung didn’t stop there, she even made an iron cage. Just in case, she even installed two turrets in front of it. So we could kill her immediately if necessary.
“She’s not just a human, she’s an Awakened. It’ll be a problem if she starts rampaging.”
“Hmm. Well, Choi Hyejin will understand. But Choi Hyejin was bitten by a zombie. Won’t she turn into a zombie if we revive her?”
“Hmm. I don’t know. Your recovery ability seems like it would return her to the state she was in before she was bitten by a zombie, so it should be fine… but it hasn’t happened yet, so I can’t be sure.”
“Can my ability reverse zombies?”
“Wouldn’t it be possible? Your ability doesn’t turn back time. You’re not losing your memory because you’re constantly using recovery. And you’re also building up resistance to Bister I. It means it won’t reverse anything that isn’t harmful to your body.”
“Thinking about it, something is strange.”
“This whole world is strange, what’s there to be surprised about.”
Na Chaeyoung said with a self-deprecating smile. She was a player who had entered the game world. From her perspective, it might not be strange for strange things to happen. And I was a guy who had entered a fictional world.
• • •
The next day.
I was on the morning news.
Footage of me fighting the Queen Spider had been taken and spread on the internet. And it was vivid, without any mosaic.
“Didn’t Taehwang take this? The video is edited.”
Na Chaeyoung frowned and glared at the TV.
“I don’t think so. Gu Taehee isn’t the type to do something like that. The editing is focused on me too. And the security team isn’t visible.”
“……It’s like a video trying to make you a hero.”
The sight of me continuously shooting blue lightning and fighting the Queen Spider was a sight to behold. It was even more exciting because it wasn’t a movie.
“That’s a really well-made mad movie.”
I was impressed. I didn’t know who edited the video, but they were definitely a professional. Maybe even someone currently working in the field. I wanted to hire them.
“…Aren’t you angry? They used your face without permission?”
“It’s not a video that’s dissing me.”
I went online to check people’s reactions. The Korean netizens were naturally happy. An Awakened with great power had appeared. They were comparing me to some guy called Daejeon Thor and praising me to the skies.
Seoul Zeus.
That was my nickname. It seemed I got this nickname because of Daejeon Thor. If Daejeon Thor was the Thunder Emperor, then I was the Thunder God.
‘I like that I’m ranked higher than Daejeon Thor, at least. It’s a fair assessment.’
The world was a mess right now. The population was rapidly decreasing because of the damn zombies and mutant monsters. In this desperate situation, people couldn’t help but be happy that a hero had appeared.
“Dr. Na, I’ve come up with an amazing plan.”
“…It sounds like nonsense, but I’ll listen.”
“I’ll become the superhero Eugene the Zeus and save the people. I’ll gather public support. And with that foundation, I’ll enter politics. I’ll join a good party and run for president. I’ll get elected president thanks to my popularity as a superhero. After that, I’ll change South Korea to my liking… and become the eternal super president.”
“I’ve heard your nonsense. It seems like the country would collapse if you became president, so I’ll vote for another candidate.”
“Who’s a better leader than me in this chaotic world? You don’t know, but I have experience ruling the world. Even a famous shaman said that I was destined to become the emperor of South Korea.”
“Ah, yes. Sure.”
Na Chaeyoung answered as if she was annoyed and drank her sparkling water.
