[Late at night, in a general hospital in the provinces.]
“What do you mean he can’t?!”
A high school girl in a school uniform was shouting into her smartphone, yelling at the person on the other end of the call.
“Anyone can vote, right?! My dad can vote, okay?!”
Next to her.
A man lay in the hospital bed, his entire body in a cast, with metal rods seemingly embedded in various places to keep him completely still.
Half of his face was even covered with cloth, as if hiding a severe burn.
Only the firefighter’s badge hanging beside the bed gave any hint as to how he had ended up in such a state.
“Hey! Are you even listening?! Hey!!”
“That’s enough, Min-jung.”
A middle-aged woman, with dark circles under her eyes and cheeks sunken from days of barely eating, gently tried to calm the girl.
“It was just… bad timing.”
“Mom! How can you say that?! If he could just vote, he could become a Hunter—and then Dad could have a chance to get back up again…!”
“Opportunities like that aren’t given equally to everyone. But that doesn’t mean it’s right to blame the Master. …When something’s offered to the entire population, someone’s bound to get the short end of the stick. It just happens to be us this time.”
“I can’t accept that…! I—I…!”
“Min-jung!!”
After the girl stormed out of the hospital room, only silence remained.
“…The heavens are truly cruel. When I was out risking my life saving people, all I wanted was to see a clear sky again. But now that the sky’s finally cleared… I can’t even look at it anymore.”
The middle-aged woman tightly held the hand of the man lying in the bed.
“Just hold on a little longer. I’ll find a way to cover the hospital bills, no matter what. This time… ha. No, I’ll make time to vote, and maybe—just maybe—pray for a miracle.”
Her voice held no real hope.
Whether it was a prayer for the man lying there, or simply the bare minimum comfort for herself, the words trailed off before they could truly become a prayer.
With a heavy sigh, the woman walked out of the room.
“…”
Only silence remained.
The window creaked open in the dim room where even breathing was barely audible. A figure in a black robe stepped in, holding something like a tablet, and approached the bedside.
“Kim Min-kyu. Age 42. Firefighter. Injured while rescuing civilians during a beast outbreak from a Tower—crushed under collapsing debris.”
Like a grim reaper reciting the name of the dead, the young man listed off the middle-aged man’s details, then snapped his fingers.
Snap.
“What do you think?”
“Healing can fix minor injuries, but broken and shattered bones can’t be restored to their original state.”
“What about his skin?”
“Skin will regenerate, but if you don’t fix the damaged spine, he still won’t be able to move.”
A blonde woman in a nurse outfit—looking more like cosplay—appeared. The young man and the woman began analyzing the man’s body as though performing a CT scan with their eyes.
“Right. Healing restores stamina, but it doesn’t remove permanent debuffs like ‘severe injury.’”
“So, what now?”
“We at least have to let him vote. It’s not like he ended up like this because he was drunk driving or something.”
The young man pointed toward the other side of the hospital wall, then pulled out a small glass vial that looked like an item from a game.
“Mr. Kim Min-kyu. You were the kind of hero we’ve been waiting for. In recognition of your service and sacrifice—”
He poured the red liquid from the vial into the unconscious man’s mouth.
“Thank your daughter. Thanks to her relentless effort sharing your story on social media and fundraising, we were able to find you much quicker.”
Click.
The young man tucked the now-empty vial back into his coat and turned to face the window.
“Next?”
“An ex-Hunter who lost a leg. But are you sure about that? If his leg gets restored, someone’s bound to notice.”
“So what if they do?”
Beyond the window—
“I’m going to play dumb anyway.”
A black-haired maid in a red Santa-like outfit supported the young man as they leapt away in a single motion.
Clunk.
The window shut behind them.
Fsshhh.
The man’s body began to glow faintly red. Then, as though time were speeding up dramatically, new flesh started to form, and his twisted body began to straighten out.
Not long after—
“…”
The man slowly raised his upper body on his own, and the blood-stained cloth that had been covering him slid gently to the floor.
Creak.
The hospital room door opened.
“…Oh.”
“…Hello, Nurse Park?”
“Kyaaaaaaaa!!”
That day, in a small provincial hospital—
A miracle descended.
* * *
Awakening from brain death.
Regrowing lost limbs.
A person who was born blind sees the world for the first time in his life.
As impossible miracles began occurring all across South Korea—
“Commander, everyone’s in an uproar right now. They’re saying it has to be something the Master did.”
“That’s why the sharp ones are always a handful…”
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s not that I dislike it. I just don’t see the need to go around making it obvious. Let it be. I have no intention of officially admitting anything.”
Testimonies compiled by Drei from countless online communities were being brought into public discussion one after another in real time.
“I never intended to hide it from the start. I just won’t admit it was the Master. That’s all.”
“So it’s like covering your eyes and pretending not to see? The whole world knows only the Master could pull off something like this. Fufufu.”
“The only thing that would change if I admitted it is attracting parasites trying to exploit it.”
“Exactly. If you’d planned to say ‘It was me,’ I was going to stop you.”
The Miracle of the Elixir.
Even just with Hunters and Towers, the world had barely begun to accept such supernatural phenomena.
But while people had come to terms—somehow—with things like mana beasts, Hunters, and Towers, the complete healing power shown by the Elixir was far beyond what anyone could comprehend.
A realm completely beyond modern medicine.
Severed limbs regrew. Cancer vanished. Brain-dead patients rose from their hospital beds.
It was absurd. And there wasn’t even any kind of disclaimer like, “The miracle will vanish if you reveal the secret.”
Even if the recipients or their families didn’t publicly confirm it, the doctors and nurses who witnessed it directly or indirectly kept speaking up—so the miracles couldn’t help but become a national issue.
Especially because.
– Does the Master have a nationwide database of everyone’s lives?
– People with criminal records, electronic tags, or in prison weren’t chosen at all.
– Good people who met with misfortune—those are the ones being saved.
The fact that most recipients of the Elixir’s miracles were people who had suffered unjustly only fueled speculation.
Because the value of the Elixir was practically limitless.
“Commander, people are catching on. There’s talk going around that you might actually possess ‘something like the Elixir.’”
“It is Elixir. But I won’t acknowledge it. If word gets out, there’ll be people swimming toward the Illinois begging, ‘Please, just one bottle!’”
“You can just blast villains with artillery, but you can’t really blow away desperate civilians, right?”
“Of course not. Stimulants and Elixir aren’t in the same category.”
Even without becoming a Hunter, people can still live.
But a mythical panacea like Elixir—one that breaks the laws of the human world—is something every person would wish for.
“If they want Elixir, tell them to climb Babel and buy it themselves. They can grind S-rank Towers, collect Tower Coins, go up to Babel, and purchase the Elixir—simple as that.”
“…Commander. This is a far-off scenario, but—”
Drei carefully lowered her voice.
“Once you clear all six Babels, will you go for the remaining ones too?”
“…….”
“In games, whether it’s Elixir or any other item, once you clear the final stage, everything in your inventory disappears. Same with Coins.”
“That’s true.”
“And who knows? Maybe another Babel will appear after clearing the current ones. That means you can’t use things recklessly, right?”
“Well… that’s something I’ll think about when we’re near the end of the last Babel.”
I gently shook a vial of Elixir.
“Right before we tackle the final Babel, I’ll use up all my Tower Coins to buy as many Elixirs as I can. Then I’ll return to Earth and spread them around.”
“With Elixir alone, you could probably seize total power.”
“…Maybe.”
It’s possible.
“But honestly? I just want to play the new games coming out and have fun at home. I’m not aiming to rule the world or sit at the top of some power structure. I’m just a regular game nerd.”
“…‘Regular’?”
“A Korean guy who just happened to invest a bit more energy into gaming than others. If anyone else were in my shoes, they’d probably do the same things.”
“Even though we’re now living in a world where miracles are happening?”
“People worked hard to get here. This is just the world’s way of paying them back. If nothing came of that struggle—not even a miracle—then the world would be way too cruel.”
Anyone can dream of such a future.
A world where miracles are real.
“Honestly, what feels more miraculous to me right now isn’t some unknown Santa spreading miracles—it’s just watching those people walking around like that over there.”
“…Ah.”
“Drei. Look closely. Could you have even imagined this?”
“…I’m not from this world, so I can’t say for sure, but judging by community reactions… yeah, it’s absurd.”
Is regrowing a lost arm or regaining vision the more unbelievable miracle?
“Look. Now even politicians are jumping in, all promising to fund K-Games.”
Or…
“Is it more miraculous that politicians are dressing up like Marines from a game base and shouting on campaign trucks about turning games into national industries?”
[If I’m elected, I will push for a bill to provide every household with an X090!!]
“Seriously, the world’s lost its mind.”
