Chapter 3: Scientist Ryu Young-Joon (3)

“What can you see?” The doctor asked.

“Uh... Some weird letters,” Young-Joon answered.

“What does it say?”

“... I don’t know.” Young-Joon found this too absurd to explain, and he also felt a little embarrassed for some reason.

“Are you hearing things as well?”

“No.”

Ring!

A notification popped up as soon as Young-Joon answered.

[The artificial cell has recovered your body.]

Then, a Siri-like voice read him the message.

“...I am hearing things.”

“What are you hearing?”

“It keeps beeping... like notifications or something.”

“Ringing...” The doctor wrote down a few more things on his chart. In the meantime, Young-Joon tapped the message windows with his hand with caution. With the sound of paper flipping, the windows disappeared immediately.

The doctor asked, “I think it would be best for you to go home today and then be evaluated by neuropsychiatry tomorrow. Would you like me to make you an appointment?”

“Yes, that would be great.”

“Do you feel discomfort anywhere else?”

Young-Joon opened his hands and slowly examined his body; it didn’t seem too bad.

“I’m okay.”

“Alright. I didn’t see any major issues when I was examining you either, so let’s have you booked in for tomorrow afternoon.”

“Thank you,” Young-Joon replied and got up.

“The admission office is that way.”

Young-Joon walked in the direction the doctor pointed toward and paid his bills. It was already the evening when he exited the hospital. As Young-Joon pulled out his cellphone to see if he had missed any calls, a nurse ran out and called him.

“Sir!”

Young-Joon did not know this, but she was a new nurse. She had promised herself that she would be as kind as she could be to her patients among her scary and picky superiors. All she would have to do was do the little things that no one really noticed, such as keeping her patient’s contact lenses safe and returning them.

“Yes?” As Young-Joon turned when he heard her, the nurse approached him with his contact lens container.

“These are your contact lenses.”

“Oh...” Young-Joon took the case.

“Get home safely.”

The nurse smiled and walked back into the hospital. However, Young-Joon just stood there, staring into space.

‘Contact lenses? So, I’m not wearing them right now? And I can still see clearly?’

Young-Joon tried to calm the thoughts that were racing through his head. Now that he thought of it, he

did

feel better. He just assumed it was temporary from getting some fresh air after being in the hospital for so long. But he wasn’t mistaken. He was full of energy, and he could definitely feel that he was healthier.

His vision wasn’t the only thing that was better. His chronic lower back pain he had acquired from getting his degree in graduate school was completely gone. His bad and forward head posture he gained from having a job where he had to stare at a screen for eight hours a day was fixed. Young-Joon could feel it; his neck didn’t hurt anymore and all the joints in his body were flexible. The pain in his upper abdomen he had even before being diagnosed with hepatitis was gone. His gut felt fine, and even the lower belly fat he had gotten from putting on a little weight in graduate school was gone, too.

Young-Joon’s body felt light. He felt like he had gone back to his body in his twenties: flexible, toned, and full of energy.

“Haa.” Young-Joon took a deep breath. He could feel the oxygen fill his healthy lungs. His strong heart was beating fiercely.

Young-Joon took out his phone again and went through it. He saw two missed phone calls and a message.

[Doctor Ryu, it’s okay if you come in late, so rest well. Call me when you are feeling better tomorrow. I hope it’s nothing and you get better soon.]

‘It should be fine, right?’

Young-Joon thought he could just get treated at the hospital again tomorrow morning if there was anything wrong.

* * *

A little while later, Young-Joon returned to his house, where he lived alone.

‘I should take my medicine first.’

Young-Joon took out the medicine he was prescribed from the hospital and swallowed his evening’s worth.

Bleep!

He heard a sudden sound. Then, something popped up in front of his eyes.

[The artificial cell is beginning to break down the orally administered drug.]

[Has broken down 30 mg of Prednisolone.]

[Has broken down 400 mg of Pentoxifylline.]

‘What is this?’

Young-Joon stumbled in confusion and flopped onto his bed. The message window followed him consistently as if it was at a certain fixed distance from his eye. He swatted at it, but nothing changed. Looking closely, Young-Joon could see two buttons on the side of the window.

[Status Window]

[Message Window]

“Status window?”

Young-Joon tapped the [Status Window] button with his finger. With the sound of paper flipping, a brown, translucent status window appeared in front of his eyes. It was like something that would happen in a fantasy novel.

Even though the status window was in front of Young-Joon, it was not

his

status that it was displaying.

[Artificial Cell Lv. 1]

-Metastatic Status: Heart (2%), Liver (46%), Brain (7%), Kidney (13%), Spinal Cord (4%)

-Synchronization: 3%

-Cell Fitness: 1.3

-Gene Expression Control: Suppression of CYP2E1 Expression (44%)

“What the hell... What is this...”

Young-Joon could see the status window clearly no matter how many times he blinked. Seeing that it didn’t go away even if he swatted at it, it wasn’t an actual object floating in the air.

‘Are those letters engraved in my retina or something?’

As Young-Joon stared at the letters blankly, he began to wonder what would happen if he pressed the [Message Window] button. He pressed the button that was below the status window.

[Loading unread messages.]

...

[Congratulations, Creator. The artificial cell has become synchronized to your body.]

[Improve the metastasis and synchronization to increase the level of the artificial cell.]

[Your recovery speed and total amount of fitness will increase as the level of the artificial cell increases.]

[You, the owner of the artificial cell, can consume cell fitness to gain insight into processes of life or control the expression of genes.]

“What is this bullshit...”

Young-Joon rubbed his eyes.

“I became what?”

[The current message and status window is created by the artificial cell manipulating your cerebral cortex; it analyzes the memories in your hippocampus and presents information to you with the UI design most familiar to you.]

[I will remind you of the moment when you created life.]

A new message popped up. At the same time, light flashed in front of Young-Joon’s eyes and he saw a hallucination.

There were artificial cells on the small container that was on the stage of the microscope. To be exact, it wasn’t a living organism yet. It was still not living even after Young-Joon added salt to it with 10X PBS. However, a miracle happened when a few microlitres of blood fell into it as he cut his finger.

As Young-Joon’s blood cells died from entering a new environment, they released a large amount of ATP. That ATP entered the artificial cells and created a large amount of energy, which stabilized the cell membrane.

Then, the artificial cell rapidly rose to the surface. That was the unique characteristic of this cell: the ability to move into the air from the culture medium.

‘The ability to float through the air.’

The artificial cell entered his body through the cut on the tip of his finger. It traveled through his capillaries and veins and reached his heart.

“Ack!” Young-Joon screamed and shook his head.

[The artificial cell is now within you.]

[Creator, please name the artificial cell.]

“Fxxk, w–what...”

[Would you like to name it, Fxxk, w–what...?]

“No! This makes no sense!”

[Would you like to name it, No! This makes no sense!?]

“...” Young-Joon thought about it for a little while, then said, “Rosaline.”

It was the name that was written on the sample tube in the lab.

[Creator, you have given the artificial cell the name Rosaline. You can see everything about Rosaline by calling this name, and Rosaline forever belongs to you.]

[Also, life creation is an event that can only happen once. Remember that life will not appear even if you try to recreate Rosaline the same way.]

With this last explanation, all the message windows disappeared at once, and so did the strange-looking status window that read [Artificial Cell Lv. 1].

Young-Joon rubbed his throbbing temples and calmly called, “Rosaline...?”

Flutter!

[Rosaline Lv. 1]

-Metastatic Status: Heart (2%), Liver (46%), Brain (7%), Kidney (13%), Spinal Cord (4%)

-Synchronization: 3%

-Cell Fitness: 1.3

-Gene Expression Control: Suppression of CYP2E1 Expression (44%)

The same status window as before appeared. However, the name had changed from Artificial Cell to Rosaline.

“Okay, be calm.”

Every strange phenomenon had a scientific explanation. The way Moses stained the Nile River with blood had a scientific explanation: a red tide. The way that this artificial cell was created was nonsensical, to be honest. It only seemed intuitively plausible because of the hallucinations and knowledge forced into his brain, but it was actually outside of the capabilities of current science.

‘Let’s think about that part later.’

If Young-Joon believed that a magical cell called Rosaline was actually created and if everything that he saw was true...

“Then is the change in my body because of this, too?”

Young-Joon focused on the part that was bothering him as he read the status window.

[Liver (46%)]

It was a particularly prominent value in the Metastatic Status category. The human body was made up of thirty-seven trillion cells, and since two hundred billion of them formed the liver, it meant that about a hundred billion Rosaline cells were covering his liver.

What was the liver? It was the cause of fatigue... No, it was the biochemical factory in the human body that detoxified all the toxins that occurred in the human body. This was the reason people got hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, or a fatty liver if they drank a lot, as the liver was the organ that broke down alcohol. The more alcohol one drank, the more they used the liver, which led to problems.

The condition of Young-Joon’s liver was terrible. Having hepatitis meant that his liver cells were being destroyed and were dying from the infection in his liver. If it progressed further, it would turn into liver fibrosis and eventually liver failure.

Young-Joon opened the message window again. As he scrolled through the unread messages, he saw something surprising.

[Starting normalization of the body.]

[Detected a widespread infection reaction in the liver. Starting suppression of the infection and recovery of the organ. Prioritizing metastasis to this region. Discovered large amounts of lipids. Attempting lipase activation and removal of lipids.]

[Detected overexpression of CYP2E1 in large amounts of the liver cells. Suppressing at 57%.]

[Detected spinal disc herniation between L4 and L5. Controlling expression of steroid hormones. 27% overexpression.][1]

[Attempting reinsertion of the herniated disc. Starting recovery of nerve damage and contraction of muscle fibers.]

[Detected scalp fascia contraction due to nerve damage. Starting muscle relaxation.]

[Detected possibility of a posterior herniation of the spinal disc above C2. Degree of deviation: 71. Attempting to strengthen cartilage and recover nerves.][2]

[Initiating myocardial cell regeneration.]

...

Young-Joon’s jaw dropped to the ground in shock.

‘What is happening to my body right now?’

1. L1 to L5 are the vertebrae of the lumbar spine that is located in the lower back. ?

2. C1 to C7 are the vertebrae of the cervical spine located in the neck region. ?