GN Chapter 2.2

Jung-mi made an “ugh” expression and continued to speak.

 

“Well, the waist is basically no different from the neck. It’s just a matter of arguing whether it’s full-body paralysis or lower-body paralysis? The ruptured discs had hardened and ossified because they had been left untreated for a long time. Did that child walk around well on his own two feet? His limbs probably weren’t intact in that condition.”

 

Jae-yun remembered the young man limping with a wooden stick as a cane, and even then, he only held the wooden stick in his right hand and his left hand kept trembling slightly. He had only thought he was panicking and scared.

 

Jung-mi glanced at the back of Jae-yun’s head, which was deeply bowed, and manipulated the tablet again.

 

“Anyway, one of the biggest challenges of modern human disease is disc problems, so everyone has one and they dismiss it as nothing, but this wasn’t caused by bad posture. It was very severe, as if it was caused by a major accident or impact.”

 

Severe? Jae-yun repeated Jung-mi’s words as if to recall them.

 

“It’s like he was hit by a truck or something on the highway and didn’t receive any treatment at all. The pain must have been unbearable. If the disc pain is really severe, it’s worse than childbirth pain. At least labor pains come and go, but disc pain is constant 24 hours a day.”

 

“Why didn’t he get treatment and just leave it?”

 

Jae-yun said in a small voice like a groan.

 

“It costs a lot of money to treat that with general medical technology, even with insurance. He would have had to have surgery if it was that severe. Maybe he didn’t have the financial means.”

 

The general insurance system in the world has changed a lot since the gate incident.

 

Cases of disappearing, getting injured, and dying in the gate were commonplace, and many insurance companies went bankrupt in a row, and the premiums of the newly established insurance companies became so expensive that even middle-class people couldn’t afford to take out a pen.

 

“So, maybe because of that child’s pain, his whole body was soaked in various pain medications, such as opioid narcotics, steroids, anti-inflammatory painkillers, nerve relaxants, tranquilizers, epilepsy drugs, Parkinson’s drugs… all kinds of pain medications.”

 

“Steroids? Epilepsy…?”

 

It was not an unusual combination for Jung-mi, who was a doctor, but as an Esper who didn’t even catch a cold, it was natural to wonder why he had to take steroids or epilepsy drugs when his disc was ruptured.

 

“Yeah. Steroids. Not the kind you know that builds muscle. A different kind. It’s used to reduce swelling and inflammation in neuralgia. It’s called the devil’s drug by doctors because it has so many side effects as much as it’s effective.”

 

Devil’s drug. Jae-yun repeated the word again.

 

“The drugs you don’t understand right now, even though their main effects are different, they all have an additional analgesic effect that reduces neuropathic pain, so they’re strong drugs used for nerve pain too. Can that kid even talk properly? Opioid narcotics make you stupid if you take them for too long.”

 

Jaeyun thought about the large amount of pills the young man had been taking. And his slightly slurred and slow speech.

 

“Um. Actually, that’s not the important part, this is the more important part. I estimate he’s been taking drugs for at least four years. The accident must have happened even longer ago, right? His organs were all messed up because of the drugs. His stomach and esophagus were so eroded that they had ulcers, and his vocal cords were damaged by the stomach acid that came up.”

 

Jaeyun recalled the young man’s parched and dry frame.

 

“His liver was developing non-alcoholic cirrhosis. Originally, cirrhosis is a disease that hepatitis virus carriers or alcoholics get, but sometimes you can get it if you take certain drugs harshly for a long time. To put it simply, it’s a disease where your liver hardens like a stone and you die, you know? The kid’s complexion was probably black and dead because of liver toxicity. His liver was dying, so he had severe jaundice.”

 

Cirrhosis. Jaeyun felt his chest tighten. Was there any part of the young man’s body that was intact?

 

“His kidneys were in the stage of moving from stage 3 to stage 4 of chronic renal failure, so if he had been left any longer, he would have had to get dialysis or a transplant, right? His respiratory function was also unstable because of the opioids. His organs were in that shape, so he couldn’t eat properly, and he was severely malnourished.”

 

Jaeyun’s face turned even paler as he looked at Jungmi with surprised eyes. What have I done to a young man who must have had a hard time just breathing…

 

“To be honest, if he had been left to take drugs like that without proper treatment, I think he would have died suddenly from respiratory failure due to the narcotics, or from complications from liver or kidney problems, in at most two or three years.”

 

Only two or three years? Jaeyun’s face began to turn blue, beyond pale.

 

“But what era is this? There are Espers, right? So right now, a recovery ability Esper and a purification ability Esper are working their butts off. It’ll probably take about ten more hours to restore his bones, joints, discs, and organs, and to detoxify his drug-soaked body.”

 

“Haa….”

 

Whether it was because he was shocked by the young man’s condition, which was more serious than he had expected, or because he was relieved by the news that treatment was possible, a sigh like a groan escaped from Jaeyun’s mouth.

 

“And now, starting from now. I’m going to scold you, okay? Are you a son of a bitch? Why did you bite the kid’s whole body! Are you completely crazy? There are as many as forty-nine serious bite marks, so serious that the flesh is almost completely torn off! You crazy bastard, but in the meantime, you avoided biting through all the carotid arteries? Do you know what the healing Esper said? I saw the corpse of a person who was bitten to death by a pack of wolves in the United States, and it died more beautifully than this!”

 

Jungmi began to kick Jaeyun’s shin mercilessly with her shoe-clad foot.

 

“What did you do to one of that kid’s earlobes! Even though Espers often joke that they want to eat their Guides, do you really have to tear it off and eat it? The recovery Esper ran away, saying that he was a recovery Esper, not a magician who creates things out of nothing, and I barely managed to catch him again!”

 

Jaeyun was shocked by Jungmi’s words, his heart sinking. But even if he tried to remember what had happened, it was something that happened when he was out of his mind, so he didn’t remember.

 

Even though he was an Esper, Jaeyun, who didn’t react at all to being kicked hard by another Esper, suddenly raised his head and asked with shaking eyes.

 

“Then, what’s going to happen to my Guide’s ear now?”

 

“You crazy bastard, is that what you’re worried about? Aish, you son of a bitch. I transplanted buttock skin and regenerated it. The kid didn’t have any fat, so there was nothing else to use but buttock fat. And fortunately, the two missing left molars and one right molar still had impacted wisdom teeth left, so I pulled them out and used them to restore them. Did you beat the kid up? Why are his molars missing! Did you pull out his molars and eat them too? And you were trying to pull out his tongue and eat it too! The muscles at the root of his tongue were torn, so it almost got pulled out!”

 

“……”

 

Since he didn’t remember, he was going crazy with anxiety because he didn’t know what he had done. Jungmi, who had been kicking Jaeyun until her hair was disheveled and her face was red, straightened her posture and smoothed her clothes only after she had kicked him enough to satisfy her.

 

“Well… since you were in that state, you wouldn’t have been able to control your strength at all, so I’ll let it go that you crushed all the bones in his body and ruptured his muscles. If his ribs had broken wrong and pierced his heart, lungs, or diaphragm, he would have died instantly, so know that you were really lucky! The rupture of his internal organs and the lacerations in his anus and rectum…. Hooo…. Well, it’s all been treated well.”

 

Jungmi grabbed Jaeyun by the collar again, as if she had remembered something else.

 

“After this treatment is finished, go bow your head and apologize to the healing Espers, okay? Hyun Jonghyun, the healing Esper you almost kicked to death, has been running to heal that kid’s external wounds for five hours and has collapsed from exhaustion. And the recovery and purification Espers have to work on recovery and detoxification for the next ten hours!”

 

“Um.”

 

Jaeyun nodded heavily. Jungmi, who had let go of his collar, looked at Jaeyun with a rapidly sinking gaze.

 

“The reason that kid didn’t die from shock was because of the drug energy that was circulating at the time and the brain’s defense mechanisms like adrenaline and dopamine while he wasn’t unconscious…. That means that kid remembers everything while he’s awake and sober.”

 

Jungmi tapped Jaeyun’s crown with the pad she was holding.

 

“You only have that kid who can Guide you in this country right now, are you okay with that? You have to receive continuous Guiding for at least a week after you get out of the rage state, and you have to receive final mucosal Guiding more than twice to get out of the risk of re-raging. Your Guiding risk level may be okay right now, but your wavelength is a mess.”

 

Jaeyun didn’t know if the reason his head hurt right now was because of guilt or because he was worried about what would happen in the future. What was certain was that he wanted to apologize to that young man with all his heart, even if it took a lifetime.

 

He thought he would bear anything if he could only be forgiven.

 

It wasn’t important that his wavelength was a mess right now. That young man was now Jaeyun’s heart.

 

“Leave the rest of the treatment to another Esper, and now you go wash up and disinfect yourself at the center, and go home and change your clothes. I know you want to show off that you received Guiding for the first time in five years, but your showing off is too assertive. Hehe.”

 

At Jungmi’s advice, Jaeyun looked down at his body.

 

Aside from the monster’s blood and bodily fluids, the white stains that looked so clearly like semen were plastered all over his bare upper body and black combat pants.