Chapter 437 – Arrive. And Find Out.
The director points to the chair in front of his desk.
“You can sit there.”
“Got it.”
While I take my seat, the director suddenly approaches the refrigerator.
“Do you have any drinks you’d like?”
“Alcohol.”
The director gives a slightly awkward expression and shakes his head.
“I’m sorry. Even so, having alcohol in a hospital is a bit…”
“Oh, is that so? Guess I can’t help it.”
[Think about it rationally. Would a hospital have alcohol?]
‘I was just throwing it out there.’
He grins and pulls out a bottle from the fridge.
“Instead, we have a slightly fermented fruit drink.”
“Oh. Then I’ll go with that.”
‘So, it was here.’
[Ha, f*ck.]
Soon, the director grabs two glasses and returns to his seat.
As he pours me the fruit drink, he casually starts talking.
“Don’t misunderstand. This isn’t alcohol.”
“Of course. It’s just a fruit drink that happened to ferment.”
“You really do know your stuff. The storage conditions here are just terrible.”
And just as the glasses were filled, we quickly toasted and downed them.
It was surprisingly potent, sending a fiery sensation down my throat.
Thanks to that, I felt a bit more energized.
The director subtly asks why I’m here today.
“So, what did you want to ask me?”
“Oh, that?”
I pause for a moment to gather my thoughts in silence.
I carefully begin to speak.
“Recently, have any patients come in claiming to hear strange voices?”
The director gives me a puzzled look.
Instead of answering, he throws a question back at me.
As if he doesn’t understand my statement.
“What kind of voices are we talking about?”
“It’s not precise, but something like ‘give it back’ or similar.”
“Hmm…”
At that moment, piece gives me an unexpected response.
[By the way, you didn’t bring up regression this time.]
‘Well, I was planning to do that.’
[Wouldn’t it be better to mention it?]
It’s true that piece had a point.
But for now, I wasn’t inclined to do so.
Usually, regression was actively used and recognized by ability users.
Even in an era with many ability users, ordinary people without abilities still existed.
The director in front of me likely belonged to that ordinary realm.
Of course, I couldn’t be certain about that.
[Well, bringing it up could end up leaking unnecessary information.]
‘For now, it’s better to focus on what’s needed.’
That’s why I intentionally avoided mentioning regression.
Meanwhile, the director stared at his drink in silence.
Suddenly, he started to chug the alcohol straight.
I grimaced at the sight.
‘Ah, is this guy crazy?’
[Don’t be too harsh. He could be recalling the moment he lost his regression as an ability user.]
Piece tries to soothe me, but my mood doesn’t improve at all.
And for good reason.
‘He’s drinking straight from the bottle, f*ck. Some manners, seriously.’
[Ah, was that the issue?]
He was gulping down the alcohol right from the bottle, after all.
Once the director finished emptying the bottle completely,
He had a sheepish expression and scratched the back of his neck.
“I’m sorry. That was quite embarrassing.”
“It’s fine.”
Then, noticing my stiff expression, he quickly grabs two more bottles of fruit drink from the fridge.
“Here’s some alcohol.”
“Thank you.”
Finally, my expression brightened.
[Now there’s no thought of hiding it, huh, f*ck.]
‘What’s it to me?’
As expected, the director had quick wit.
Soon, we clinked our bottles in a toast.
With the sound of the bottles clinking as a signal, the director slowly began to speak.
“Typically, patient information shouldn’t be disclosed, but since it’s you, Shinwoo, I’ll share a bit.”
“Thank you for your consideration.”
“Of course, I must ask you to understand that I can’t share all the details.”
“That’s fine. That much is enough.”
The director gazes off into the distance, as if pondering something.
“Indeed, as you mentioned, there have been patients who came for that reason, and they’re having a tough time at the hospital.”
“Tough time… Are those patients hunters?”
“I don’t know how you figured it out, but that’s correct. Those f*cking bastards.”
Could it be because the patients who came in are hunters?
The director’s face contorts, and he drinks even more harshly than before.
In the meantime, he clenches his fists, teeth gritting.
It appears that those hunters must have been extremely annoying.
“They don’t even say what they’ve lost. They just claim strange noises are happening — how are we supposed to handle that?”
“So they don’t even properly explain their symptoms.”
“That would be fortunate if that was all.”
“What other nonsense have they pulled?”
The director’s tone began to rise considerably.
“Those f*ckers skip out on consultation fees, and then climb onto the hospital beds with their shoes on!”
“Didn’t they sneakily eat the patients’ meals?”
“They even brought in stray cats to feed them in the hospital!”
All that pent-up frustration erupted all at once.
The intensity of it was truly something to behold.
I was worried he might have a fit from all that anger.
“Some of them even pretended to be dementia patients and crapped everywhere! Are they out of their minds?”
[That’s kind of similar to how you pretended to have amnesia, huh?]
‘I at least didn’t go that fcking far, fck.’
Seeing the still-furious director made me feel a bit sorry for him.
But I had one more question to ask, so I carefully brought it up.
Since I also belong to that f*cking hunting class, I wanted to avoid provoking the director’s mood.
“Then, do you know when those patients started coming in?”
“Hmm… Just a moment…”
The director suddenly starts working at the computer to check something.
And after a while,
Fixing his gaze on the computer, he responds to my question.
“Since around last autumn.”
That was an answer I both wanted and yet didn’t want.
Because that time was when I graduated early from the academy.
[If you’re saying what I think you are, that time was definitely…]
‘Ha, f*ck.’
At the same time, that f*cking bastard from my dreams must have recognized my presence.
People were losing their regression in the same situation, so it was a bit strange that there was a difference in their experiences.
Ultimately, this timing had caused those differences.
To be honest, I had expected this.
Since that bastard had recognized me and his voice was clearly heard.
However, I had just left this as a possibility since I couldn’t determine the relevance of these changes.
Moreover, as I listened to the director continue speaking,
I discovered a clue to an unanswered question I hadn’t even voiced.
It was about another unexpected event.
“Looking at it now, the number of patients seems to be on the rise.”
“They’re not coming in at a constant rate?”
“Yeah, initially it was single digits, but now it’s nearly in the triple digits.”
[It’s not cumulative numbers, though.]
‘So, that means the pace at which they’re losing regression has accelerated.’
Afterward, I could see the pattern of patients drawing closer to me.
It seemed that the bastard had started slowly but had recently gotten extremely close, even to the point of contact.
At that pace, he should have been quite distant to make contact with me.
Probably, the conditions for that bastard to move were the theft of regression.
And he would come closer by paying with the regression he had stolen from others.
Therefore, it made sense that he had been snatching regression more rapidly than before to close the gap.
[As for the voice, it probably became more involved after observing your presence.]
‘Since the target became visible, he must have quickly closed in on me while stealing regression.’
Of course, this assumption was based on piece’s explanation being correct.
To forcibly interfere with another’s consciousness, one must sacrifice much.
Still, there were lingering questions I hadn’t solved.
Why, after retrieving regression in such a way, would he choose to approach me?
What was he hoping to gain from me with such actions?
And why, at the moment of contact, did my left eye throb and partially free my actions?
And am I still helpless to face this?
Whatever it was, it was clear that this wasn’t a good outcome.
Now, the being in my dreams had successfully made contact with me.
In a way, you could say my time was running out faster than I thought.
[It feels quite similar to the scarcity of time left until the end of your course at [Healing Succubus Korean Branch].]
‘……Just say I don’t have much time, you f*ck.’
What would happen next, I wasn’t sure, either.
“Shinwoo, do you have anything more to ask here?”
“No, this is enough. I’ll be going now.”
“Okay, please take care.”
Although the issues weren’t completely resolved,
At least I could learn a bit more during my time at the hospital.
With a somewhat lighter heart, I wanted to leave the director’s private medical office.
“And I’ve already sent the aphrodisiac to the guild.”
“……Aren’t you moving a bit too quickly?”
But as I left, my heart felt heavy again.
“I’m just bored.”
“……I’ll just be going, f*ck.”
In any case, I said farewell to the director.
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