Chapter 240: Brain Death (5)

“Are you surprised?” Rosaline asked.

“W... What happened? Are you... You’re not a hallucination that only I can see...? You’re real...” Young-Joon asked, stuttering in amazement.

“This body is a multicellular system that currently exists in the physical world right now,” Rosaline said.

“What the hell happened? Where did you pop out from?”

“I didn’t just pop out. I flowed out of Kim Hyun-Taek’s body, became trillions of cells and minerals, and floated around this room.”

“Trillions?”

Nine-year-old Ryu Sae-Yi’s body was made up of about eight trillion cells. You can create a human body like this if you concentrate them in one area, but you can’t distinguish them with the human eye if you scatter the minerals at the atomic level and take the individual cells apart,” Rosaline said.

“I was capable of making a body like this a long time ago, but I wanted to surprise you. So, I’ve been watching you a bit, and I wondered what you were going to do.”

“...”

“I can’t believe you gave up on me.”

Rosaline scolded Young-Joon playfully.

“I didn’t give up on you. I was going to try to find another way.”

“I wasn’t disappointed. I thought you reacted like yourself,” Rosaline said. “And just so you know, I gathered the cells and glued them together, so it’s hard to take them apart again.”

“You really scared the hell out of me... You could have at least given me a hint or something. Do you know how worried I was?” Young-Joon asked.

“Haha, I’m sorry. But the mystery of life is really quite strange. I’ve never gone that deep before, so I’m learning things for the first time, too.”

Rosaline poked and pinched her wrists and knees with her fingers.

“It’s all so new and exhilarating.”

“So you’re going to live in that body now?” Young-Joon asked.

“Unfortunately, this is only temporary.”

“Really?”

“There was a huge amount of ATP stored in Kim Hyun-Taek’s body.”

“I see.”

“And it wasn’t because of the drugs we injected him with. Look. Kim Hyun-Taek is a semi-dead body now, but he used to be in pretty good shape, even though he was full of cigarettes and alcohol and had a bit of a fatty liver. He weighed close to eighty kilograms.”

“...”

“But now, he’s only fifty. What do you think happened to the other thirty kilograms?”

“No way...”

“Yes. About ten kilograms were decomposed and diffused by the laws of thermodynamics, and the remaining twenty kilograms were being fed to another dimension via the placenta and umbilical cord that formed when life was born.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Life creation is in God’s domain. It won’t be easy to understand with a human mind, because even I didn’t know it at first,” Rosaline said.

“The ATP that carried me up to the subventricular zone was only a tiny fraction of the total energy source. If the accumulated energy was a water tank, the energy that swept me away was only a cup of water, and I took out all the water from the water tank in Kim Hyun-Taek’s subventricular zone. It was a huge amount of fitness, and that’s how I recreated this twenty-kilogram boy of Ryu Sae-Yi.”

“...”

“I created cells and minerals and blew them out of Kim Hyun-Taek’s body one by one. Then, I collected them outside and glued them together.”

“But why is that body temporary?”

“That is...”

Rosaline brushed her arms.

“But is this what being cold is? There’s a tingling sensation, the hairs on the surface of my skin are contracting, and the hardness of my epidermal cells is increasing.”

“... Probably is. I’m sorry. I was in such a shock right now that I didn’t pay attention.”

Young-Joon took off his coat and put it on Rosaline.

“Eek...”

The feeling of the coat made Rosaline shiver again.

“It’s so slippery...”

Rosaline rubbed the coat’s lining curiously. She looked exactly like Ryu Sae-Yi, who was only nine years old. Young-Joon’s coat was very big on her, so the bottom of the coat dragged all over the floor.

“Anyway, the reason my body is temporary is because it’s created by fitness, which was created by absorbing a lot of ATP, similar to doping.”

“And over time, that body will disappear, just like the ATP-induced fitness that disappears over time?”

“Exactly. But conversely, it means I might have a stable body if I gather the fitness myself!” Rosaline shouted with a bright smile.

“...”

“The limit for my fitness disappeared as I absorbed the pathogen’s DNA.”

“Then, doesn’t that mean you can build a body right away?”

“Unfortunately, my fitness is slow to recover.”

“But your fitness will recover if you don’t use fitness and sleep for a few days, right?”

“Haha, it’s not that simple. Would you like to open the status window? It should open now.”

Young-Joon opened the status window, and a shocking status appeared in front of him.

[Rosaline Lv. 35]

—Metastatic Status: Heart (9%), Liver (47%), Brain (9%), Kidney (15%), Spinal Cord (8%)

—Synchronization: 24%

—Cell Fitness: 80 197 447 (+80 197 432.6 due to ATP)

“This is a crazy amount of fitness...”

Young-Joon barely stopped himself from screaming in disbelief. The last time he looked, it was just over ten. Now, it was over eighty million.

“I won’t be able to maintain this body without that ATP. I’ll probably just scatter and disappear again, like dust,” Rosaline said.

“... What happens then?”

“It will be the same as before. I’ll live in your body, and I’ll keep collecting fitness, like a savings account. But it will take a very long time.”

“Then, can you still use the message window?” Young-Joon asked.

Rosaline smiled and tilted her head slightly.

—Like this?

A message window popped up in front of Young-Joon’s eyes.

“It works well.”

Young-Joon let out a sigh of relief.

Click!

The door opened, and Song Ji-Hyun walked inside.

“I brought hot cocoa instead of water. Is this...”

She stopped in her tracks.

“Huh...?”

Then, she looked like she had all kinds of questions.

Young-Joon swallowed nervously.

“Who is it?” Song Ji-Hyun asked.

“Um... She’s a distant relative,” Young-Joon said, scratching his head.

“I see. I was surprised to see a little kid wrapped up in your coat.”

“She said she was cold, so...”

Young-Joon tightened the coat on Rosaline more carefully.

Song Ji-Hyun set the cup of cocoa down on the table.

“She looks a lot like you, Doctor Ryu.”

“Haha... My family’s genes are quite strong, but do we really look that similar?” Young-Joon asked Song Ji-Hyun, glancing at Rosaline.

“Of course. At first, I thought she was your secret daughter or something, but I’m glad she’s not. What a relief.”

“A relief?” Rosaline asked.

“Oh, it’s just that... Because the reporters might make a scandal out of it...” Song Ji-Hyuk said, brushing her hand through her hair.

“It’s Doctor Song, right?” Rosaline asked.

Song Ji-Hyun looked surprised again.

“Yeah, it’s Song Ji-Hyun. What’s your name?”

“It’s Rosaline.”

Rosaline held out her hand and shook hands with Song Ji-Hyun. As Rosaline shook her hand, she sent Young-Joon a message.

—This is how you do it, right?

‘Yeah.’

—This is exhilarating. I can’t believe I’m talking to Doctor Song myself. This is cool.

Rosaline seemed excited.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Doctor Song. It’s so nice to meet you in person. How have you been?”

Rosaline’s voice was full of confidence.

Young-Joon, who was about to take a sip of the cocoa, almost burnt the roof of his mouth.

“Oh, you sound like a grown-up doing business. You speak so well.”

Song Ji-Hyun laughed in amusement. But it was difficult to laugh at what Rosaline said next.

“Of course, Doctor Song. you have less cross-linking of collagen molecules in the skin of your fingers than Ryu Young-Joon, so it feels more like the lining of this coat. And your hands are a little cold. I don’t think it’s an illness, but you could use a little more blood flow to your fingertips.”

“...”

Song Ji-Hyun froze, and Young-Joon sighed inside, putting his hand on his forehead.

‘No, that’s not it...’

Young-Joon said to Rosaline in his head.

—Was it a little awkward? I thought it would be okay since Doctor Song is a scientist, too. As you know, I’ve only ever had conversations like this.

Rosaline shrugged with a smile on her face.

‘Usually, kids your age don’t talk like that. It probably looked really awkward.’

—I don’t have to be like kids, right? Just Song Ji-Hyun needs to understand what I’m saying. Will there be a problem with the conversation if I don’t sound like a kid?

‘No, but... It’s going to be difficult to explain about you to Doctor Song.’

Young-Joon made up an excuse for Song Ji-Hyun, who was still flustered.

“She’s very smart, haha. But she’s just saying things she memorized from TV.”

“I see.”

Song Ji-Hyun calmed herself down.

“Rosaline, how old are you?”

Rosaline thought carefully about her answer. Right now, she was born less than two years ago, so she was technically one year old. However, Ryu Sae-Yi’s body was about nine years old by human standards.

Pointing to her body, Rosaline said, “This body is nine years old right now.”

She looked at Young-Joon like a puppy looking for praise, as if she was proud of her wise answer.

But Song Ji-Hyun took the awkward sentence differently and laughed.

“I see. Rosaline, you have the same name as my favorite scientist. Are you from overseas? You have a unique hair color,” Song Ji-Hyun asked.

“No.”

“She’s from the United States...”

Rosaline and Young-Joon answered simultaneously with completely opposite answers.

Young-Joon glanced at Rosaline, then spoke quickly.

“Her father is American, and she was born in the United States. She lived there her entire life. It’s a globalized world, right?”

Young-Joon smiled awkwardly.

—Is this okay?

Rosaline intervened.

‘Pretend you’re not good at Korean, so I can cover up your mistakes,’

Young-Joon said.

“I see.”

Song Ji-Hyun grabbed a chair and sat in front of them.

“So, what brings her to the hospital at this hour?”

“Um...”

After some hesitation, Young-Joon responded.

“I’m watching her for a little bit. But there was no one at home to watch her, so I brought her here.”

“Then where was she when you came in here earlier...”

“Can I have this?” Rosaline interrupted, cutting Song Ji-Hyun off.

Rosaline gestured to the cocoa.

“Oh...”

Song Ji-Hyun glanced at Young-Joon, flustered. Young-Joon nodded.

“Sure.”

Young-Joon took a closer look at the cocoa once Young-Joon gave her permission.

“Oh my god. What vending machine is this from? They didn’t change the filter. There are sugar impurities and bacteria in the solution...”

“Ack!”

Young-Joon jumped up to his feet.

“I just remembered something urgent... I’ll be on my way. You should get home, too, Doctor Song.”

Young-Joon picked up Rosaline in his arms and opened the door.

—What are you doing?

‘Let’s go home first.’

Something was definitely going to happen if they stayed. Young-Joon was sure of it.

Young-Joon waved goodbye to Song Ji-Hyun and hurried out. Song Ji-Hyun stared at Rosaline, who was being carried out by Young-Joon.

‘What a strange girl.’

Song Ji-Hyun wished she could have talked to them more, but she waved goodbye.

“Take care.”

* * *

Carpentier visited the hospital room early in the morning. He was with Professor Miguel. They checked the cerebral blood flow records from the fMRI, and there was a huge amount of blood flow in the medulla. This was the same progression as the beagles from the preclinical experiments.

“I’ll call Doctor Ryu. I think the cardiopulmonary function has returned,” Miguel said.