Savior Proto-Call Chapter 4

Chapter 4. No Longer Human (4)

It stung as though someone had poured disinfectant directly onto an inflamed wound.

Perhaps that was why tears instinctively welled up in Yoon Doha's eyes.

When she finally managed to look down at her injured knee again, she found it covered in deep, uneven bite marks.

The woman had apparently chewed on it so thoroughly that the skin looked as though someone had repeatedly jabbed it with the blunt ends of chopsticks.

Even with scar-repair bandages, it would clearly take quite some time for the missing flesh to grow back.

Was this where she tore off that piece of flesh earlier?

The rational thought briefly crossed her mind before being completely washed away by the sheer absurdity of everything she'd just experienced.

A bitter laugh escaped her lips.

"Are you all right? I mean, she's currently experiencing a spike in her contamination level. She doesn't normally bite people, you see... Oh—oh my goodness! Y-your leg...!"

The brown-haired researcher, who had been desperately trying to explain the situation in a composed manner, finally noticed the extent of the injuries to Yoon Doha's leg.

She recoiled in horror.

Her eyes widened so dramatically that the whites showed all around her irises as she dropped to her knees in front of Doha.

The researcher's eyes trembled as she stared at the mangled skin.

Are there people who normally bite others, then?

And does my knee look all right to you when a chunk of flesh has been torn off?

Doha nearly blurted out those spectacularly antisocial responses.

But ultimately, the one responsible for destroying her knee was the woman standing over there, swaying limply like someone who had consumed far too much alcohol.

Unfairly shifting the blame onto someone else always left an unpleasant aftertaste.

"Lee Juhan! I told you to twist her arm behind her back and hold her!"

"Y-yes, ma'am! Excuse me, Lee Young."

Even after thoroughly tearing into Doha's flesh, Baek Lee Young apparently wasn't satisfied.

She continued struggling to get back to her.

Eventually, the man called Lee Juhan twisted her arm behind her back and pinned her against the wall.

I don't feel even a little sorry for her.

In any case, the culprit wasn't the researcher standing in front of her, looking so distressed that she seemed ready to chop off her own limbs in apology.

So Yoon Doha obediently kept her mouth shut and forced herself to nod.

Whether from relief or overwhelming guilt, the researcher let out a shaky sigh and rubbed her face with both hands.

The identification card hanging around her neck swung back and forth with a faint clattering sound.

Min Haeju

Salvation Agency (Seoul Branch / Headquarters)

Contamination Research and Management Department, Team 2

Contamination Research and Management Department.

It was the department responsible for studying and managing ability users whose contamination levels had risen sharply due to excessive ability use, eventually causing them to develop Phantom Pain.

The department was notorious for complaints about its low salaries compared to the dangers its employees faced.

The researcher who had guided Doha earlier belonged to Team 1 of the same department, so she already had a rough understanding of its responsibilities.

She suddenly remembered hearing someone mutter that the employees deserved hazard pay.

"Ah, what should we do about this wound? This is... Haa... Lee Young, honestly... Ah, this... First, I think we should take you to the medical wing and get you treated. Do you think you can stand?"

Min Haeju's hands fluttered helplessly in the air.

She clearly wanted to examine the wound but couldn't bring herself to touch it.

Ironically, watching the researcher's increasingly frantic behavior caused Yoon Doha, the actual victim of the incident, to grow calmer.

Ah... I really don't want to make a big deal out of this.

She hated major incidents.

Her entire life had already been one long succession of hardships.

She had no desire to get tangled up in another problem, especially one that hadn't been caused intentionally.

With considerable effort, she pushed herself upright.

Fortunately, she didn't seem to have injured her lower back.

However, the pain radiating from her buttocks, elbows, and right knee was almost enough to overwhelm that small relief.

Her knee was especially painful.

Although only the skin had been torn, sharp, tingling sensations shot through it as though the injury extended deep into the joint itself.

"W-wait! You should stay seated...!"

"It's fine. If I'd broken a bone, I'd probably have passed out already."

"Th-that's... true."

Her body swayed from exhaustion, but she somehow managed to steady herself against the wall.

Then she deliberately straightened her back, pretending she was perfectly fine.

Nevertheless, Min Haeju continued staring at her with a sorrowful, sympathetic expression.

At the same time, she held out the identification card hanging from her neck.

Beneath a photograph that looked every bit as gentle as the woman herself, the personal information Doha had already glimpsed was neatly displayed.

"I'm Min Haeju from Team 2 of the Contamination Research and Management Department. I'm responsible for that girl over there... I'll make absolutely sure your knee receives proper treatment. I'll also compensate you for your torn pants. I'm truly sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Min Haeju repeatedly lowered her head in apology, behaving like a criminal who had committed some terrible offense.

Her excessive politeness only made Yoon Doha feel uncomfortable.

"It's all right. Really."

Doha shook her head while straightening her disheveled cardigan.

Then she looked down at her jeans, which had been split apart almost as cleanly as though someone had sliced through them with a knife.

She vaguely estimated how much stronger Baek Lee Young's grip must be compared to that of an ordinary person.

Is she a physical-type ability user?

If not, that grip strength makes absolutely no sense, even for an adult woman.

After all, the fabric hadn't even torn along the seams.

Whoooosh—

The research wing seemed to be maintained at a lower temperature than the other floors.

When the cold air slipped through the opening in her torn jeans, Doha's faintly double-lidded eyes narrowed sharply.

"I'm really fine. I was just startled, that's all..."

Of course, startled was a considerable understatement.

She'd been so terrified that her fear had escalated into outright aggression.

Nevertheless, Doha forced the corners of her mouth upward and pretended to be calm.

Min Haeju kept looking at her tightly furrowed brow, seemingly wanting to say something.

However, she appeared to realize that resolving the immediate situation took priority.

She turned around and quickly issued instructions to Lee Juhan and Seo Najin, who had successfully restrained Baek Lee Young.

"Juhan, Najin, could you take Lee Young back first? There's a vial labeled with her code in Medication Storage Room No. 3. Tell them to administer two doses."

"Yes, yes. All right, Baek Lee Young. Let's go quietly, before I have to stick you with an anesthetic."

"Understood."

Seo Najin and Lee Juhan immediately nodded at Min Haeju's clear instructions.

They exchanged a brief glance, apparently coordinating their next move before carrying out her orders.

More than five steps away, maintaining what was clearly considered a safe distance, Baek Lee Young was smacking her lips.

She stared intently at Doha as though she were looking at a particularly appetizing piece of meat.

Smack.

Her mouth hung open in a vacant expression, as though drool might begin spilling out at any moment.

A shiver ran down Doha's spine.

She hurriedly looked away.

"Lee Young, stop struggling. Unless you want to get scolded."

The two Saviors adjusted their grips on Baek Lee Young's arms as though escorting a prisoner.

Then they began walking back the way they had come.

Until the moment she disappeared around the corner, Baek Lee Young kept twisting her neck to stare at Yoon Doha's knee, which was still bleeding bright red.

She looked almost regretful that she hadn't been able to gnaw on it a little longer.

"The medical wing is connected through a passageway from the first-floor lobby, so it's a bit of a walk..."

Min Haeju watched Baek Lee Young disappear before turning her worried gaze back toward Doha.

She looked down at Doha's torn pants with a troubled expression.

Then, as though she'd finally made up her mind about something, she fixed her brown eyes on Doha's face and asked awkwardly,

"Sh-should I carry you on my back?"

When her kneecap had struck the epoxy-coated floor, the impact had produced a terrifying sound, almost as though the bone had shattered.

Even so, she could more or less walk.

It was merely a temporary shock to her knee, not something serious enough to require someone else's assistance.

And her bones weren't broken.

"...I'll walk."

Now that the commotion was over, Yoon Doha had quickly become listless again.

Min Haeju obediently nodded at her quiet response.

Even so, as she took the lead, it was painfully obvious that she remained preoccupied with Doha.

She slowed her pace to match Doha's slightly uneven, limping gait.

Every so often, she glanced back with an anxious expression.

...Those don't really look like the eyes of someone who's just worried, though.

Occasionally, there seemed to be a strange curiosity mixed into her gaze.

But Doha had no desire to interpret it.

At most, the researcher was probably wondering why she'd been wandering around the fourth basement floor of the research wing like a ghost in the first place.

Her brain was already overloaded.

Maybe I should've just gone home.

I don't need compensation or treatment...

With that belated regret, Yoon Doha silently followed Min Haeju.

The pale, sterile space stretched around them, hollow and empty, as though it might swallow both of them whole.

Dragging her feet, Doha blinked her stinging eyes.

Then, all of a sudden—

Smack.

The sound of someone smacking their lips seemed to echo beside her ear like an auditory hallucination.

Yoon Doha decided she didn't want to look at anything white for a very long time.

In the twenty-first century, on a blue planet whose greenery and deep oceans had been devoured by Phantasms, supernatural abilities were merely one of the symptoms of a disease.

The year 2000.

On the day that marked both the hope of a new century and the beginning of the end, mysterious doors of unknown origin appeared across the world.

Following the first outbreak of Phantasms, the International Disaster Crisis Organization (IDCO) was established.

The organization designated the phenomenon's official English name as DOOR.

Unofficially, however, it was also referred to as GATE, ROUTE, and various other names.

In the Republic of Korea, its official designation was Phantasm.

There was a reason for this.

The interiors of Phantasms were often reconstructed from events that had occurred in the surrounding area in the past, or from intimate yet universal experiences embedded within the living and nonliving things that had once existed there.

They were fantasies in the most literal sense of the word.

However, rather than representing an idealized form of something at the very limits of human imagination, they produced overwhelmingly negative outcomes.

Consequently, people sometimes referred to them by the peculiar derogatory nickname Pandemonium.

Within Phantasms, a substance known in Korean as Cyan—and internationally as Blue Sign, abbreviated BS—drifted about in either gaseous or materialized form.

It was this substance that ultimately led to supernatural abilities being classified as symptoms of a disease.

An easy comparison would be the organisms infected by zombie viruses in apocalyptic movies.

Even when infected organisms displayed extraordinary physical evolution, people still defined them using the prejudiced term monsters.

Similarly, infection with Cyan caused two symptoms to manifest simultaneously.

Supernatural abilities and Phantom Pain.

The former was considered a positive symptom.

The latter was considered a negative one.

As was often the case, medical conditions were defined primarily by their harmful symptoms.

Thus, professionals in the medical and scientific communities ultimately classified ability users as Non-Fragmented Carriers.

Fragments.

The term generally referred to all entities existing inside Phantasms.

More specifically, however, it was commonly used to describe organisms that humans perceived as grotesque or unnatural.

Put simply, a Non-Fragmented Carrier was a monster that retained its rationality.

The term could also refer to an ability user whose Phantasm contamination level remained relatively low.

Nevertheless, the only beings capable of destroying Phantasms were those whom society had already judged to be monsters.

The South Korean government had once dismissed these individuals as mere patients and treated them with contempt.

However, it still needed to provide the Non-Fragmented Carriers with a reason—and a justification—to risk their lives in battle.

And so, the government bestowed upon them the impressive-sounding title of Savior.

It then attempted to persuade them into service by dangling the promise of stable government employment before them.

But the festering scars left by humiliation were not so easily erased.

Those who had already been insulted and ostracized weren't about to forget their treatment simply because the government had given them a flattering new title.

Ultimately, the South Korean government began forcing Non-Fragmented Carriers who refused to cooperate into appointments as Saviors.

When persuasion failed, it finally revealed its true nature.

The government went so far as to grant them military officer ranks, equivalent to company-grade and field-grade officers, before sending them straight into the heart of battle.

In the end, the vast majority of Non-Fragmented Carriers became people who protected the lives of others while wearing the mask of a Savior and carrying the stigma of being diseased.

Even now, fear and contempt remained deeply embedded in society's treatment of them.

They continued carrying out acts of salvation that others took for granted.

And they did so without ever receiving the gratitude they deserved.