episode_0103

Startled, Noah met her gaze and embraced her.

“Huh..? Uh..?”

Lian began to stutter like a broken machine. Noah held Lian tightly, struggling for breath.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Noah’s heart raced violently. It felt like her airway finally cleared.

“N-No-Noah..?”

In a dazed state, Lian called out to Noah, eyes closed. Unable to embrace Noah, Lian’s trembling hand hesitated towards her back, but Noah abruptly pulled away.

Turning back, Noah scrutinized Lian’s face.

The first thing that caught her eye was the reddened eyes and blood trickling down Lian’s cheeks, likely from silently enduring pain.

“You always… ”

Anger and sadness mixed as she realized Lian’s hidden suffering.

“Stop it! Please stop now! How long… will you keep sacrificing yourself?”

“No… I…”

“What have I become by trying to protect you?”

Noah’s expression seemed on the verge of tears, prompting Lian to desperately try to understand her words.

“What? What did I do wrong?”

Just meeting Noah’s gaze made Lian’s head spin. After much effort, Lian understood why Noah was upset.

“Oh! It’s because of the blood!”

For a moment, she reflexively thought, “Is she angry because the floor got dirty?” but quickly dismissed it, as it didn’t fit with protecting or sacrifice.

“Oh! I worried because I bled!”

Fortunately, she reached the right answer this time. The challenge lay in what would come next.

“It’s nothing serious even if it looks like this. It’s just a scratch…”

“Just spitting blood like this is nothing serious?”

Noah’s eyes flashed dangerously at Lian’s words, looking at the blood-soaked floor.

Lian pondered, rolling her eyes.

“How do I explain this?”

To explain properly, she’d have to start by mentioning she came from a comedy world.

Aside from the overwhelming amount of information to convey, she wasn’t sure if Noah would accept that she wasn’t from this world.

Humans inherently reject what’s different. Even if Noah and others initially accepted Lian, distance would naturally grow over time.

In the worst case, discomfort might arise, leading to further alienation.

Lian racked her brain for a plausible explanation.

“Well.. You might not remember, but a few years ago, you mentioned how my body easily heals wounds and feels less pain than an average person. This is similar.”

“….!”

Noah’s face started to show shock as Lian continued confidently.

“When we eat, saliva comes out, right? It’s kind of like that for me… No need to worry so much! I won’t suddenly drop dead… Ah..”

Lian’s words became increasingly blurred as they went on. The thought that if she were to face ‘that scene’ again, she might die, flashed through Noah’s mind. To Noah, who had no way of knowing this, it hinted at a desire to keep it a secret even though she might die.

While Noah carefully chose her words, holding her breath, Lian spoke first.

“Noah… There’s something I’m curious about.”

Struggling to prevent her gaze from involuntarily shifting downwards, Lian’s eyes began to shake uncontrollably. A fleeting glance at her chest revealed it was as flat as before.

“By any chance… are you a woman?”

“Yes.”

As Noah, in a state of confusion due to various concerns directed at Lian, realized that her secret had been exposed in her mind, her brain seemed to freeze white.

“Was it my mistake…?”

…

Various thoughts flooded Noah’s mind in response to Lian’s question. The way of pretending not to understand and telling the truth.

Faced with two paths, Noah couldn’t easily continue speaking.

“What matters now isn’t that.”

What mattered now was Lian’s health, not her gender. Since it was a fact that would eventually have to be revealed, Noah slightly lowered her head and nodded.

And then…

“Uh, well… uh…”

“….! Lian!”

Shocked by the realization that what she saw was real(?), Lian spewed blood from her mouth and nose, fainting on the spot.

If Lian had fainted a little later, the blind mini-Lians driven by desire would have escaped and almost made a dark history statement like “How many kids do you want?” but thanks to the escape plan, the dark history was prevented.

“No… ”

Noah embraced Lian, who had collapsed heavily into her arms with a vacant expression. Her body trembled like a reed in the wind.

With a start!

Noah hugged Lian tightly and started running down the hallway.

Her awakened body swiftly passed through the corridor at tremendous speed. The place where her footsteps stopped was a location labeled ‘Infirmary.’

Among those searching every nook and cranny for Lian, Mu Khan, who could immediately bring her to the infirmary if he found her, was waiting there.

Bang!

In her haste, Noah half-broke the door and entered. Mu Khan, sitting on a wooden chair chewing on grass like a cow, looked towards Noah.

“Mu, Mu Khan…! Lian!”

Noah had a face as if she would burst into tears at any moment. Mu Khan immediately stood up and pointed towards the bed.

“Lay her down over there.”

At Mu Khan’s words, Noah hastily brought Lian to the bed. Mu Khan pressed firmly on his under-eye dark circles and watched Noah carefully lay Lian down.

“I heard she has a lover. Is that true?”

Whether Boss had a lover or not, it wasn’t important to Mu Khan, so he approached the expressionless Lian lying on the bed.

“Seeing dried blood around her lips, seems like there’s an issue with her organs. And… hmm?”

As Mu Khan lightly examined Lian up and down, he noticed something and furrowed his brow. Unable to contain herself at Mu Khan’s expression, Noah, standing beside him with an anxious look, spoke.

“How is her condition? Is it serious…?”

“Leaving aside whether it’s serious, this is… ugh…”

Mu Khan looked down at Lian with a truly annoyed expression. Noah urged her with a pale face.

“What’s wrong? Is there some serious issue?”

“Here.”

Mu-kan pointed to Lian’s forehead, showing signs of discomfort at the boss’s urging. It was slightly swollen from being hit against the wall multiple times. Noah finally noticed the wound on her forehead.

Almost chewing on a piece of grass that had become shorter than his finger, Mu-kan spoke.

“This is a wound you inflicted on yourself.”

“What…?”

“In simple terms, it means self-harm.”

Noah froze at Mu-kan’s casual words. His mind turned white at the unimaginable revelation.

Mu-kan, leaving the boss with closed lips, began to examine Lian more closely. Soon after, her expression changed oddly.

‘What is this?’

Mu-kan, who had been able to live as a therapist in the cruel land of Cardisian thanks to his special eyes, could feel an ‘instinct’ on how to treat someone even with a lack of medical knowledge.

Even without precise knowledge of the correct treatment methods, he could sense whether surgery or herbal medicine would likely be effective for a particular symptom.

Although lacking detailed information on the exact surgical procedure or how long to take herbal medicine, any information, no matter how brief, was valuable.

To learn proper knowledge, one had to risk their life in Cardisian, and her abilities were more than enough, even if called a bluff.

‘I have no idea what this means.’

Mu-kan couldn’t put into words the intuition he felt whenever he looked at Lian’s body. It was like having an itch somewhere on your body but not knowing exactly where, similar to the state of not being able to pinpoint the itch.

This was inevitable because the bizarre movements of squeaking organs, unreadable thoughts, and the mechanics of wounds whose operation principles were unknown were being conveyed as information.

It seemed impossible for her to understand such strange information.

“I’ve only seen a case like this once before.”

After rummaging through her past memories, she recalled a presence that gave her a feeling similar to Lian’s. With an indifferent face, Mu-kan asked Noah,

“Is this person… perhaps a chimera?”