Brest University Hospital Intensive Care Unit.
The regular sound of a ventilator, the sharp beeps announcing heartbeats, and the busy footsteps of medical staff moving between them.
At the center of all that noise lay Professor Yamada.
“Did you say fucoidan?”
Professor Renault, the head of the ICU, looked Taeho over coldly.
“That is classified as a health supplement, not a verified medicine. Naturally, it is not a substance that exists in our hospital protocols.”
Instead of answering, Taeho fixed his gaze on Professor Yamada’s vital monitor.
Blood pressure 85/52, heart rate 110 beats per minute, body temperature 39.2 degrees.
Every figure stood on the boundary between life and death.
Standing beside him, Professor Durand tried to persuade Renault with an anxious expression.
“Professor Renault, Dr. Kang’s diagnoses and treatments have shown significant results so far. You saw the case where he completely cured President Ibrahim, didn’t you?”
“That could have been a coincidence.”
Mark, the resident standing behind Professor Renault, snorted and cut in.
“The very idea of treating viral encephalitis with a mere marine extract is unscientific.”
The head nurse, too, spoke firmly with her arms crossed.
“We must put the patient’s safety first. In a situation like this, an unverified attempt is…”
Beep—beep—beep—!
Just then, an alarm burst from Professor Yamada’s monitor. His blood pressure was plummeting: 78/48, 74/45, 69/42.
“BP drop! He’s in shock!”
A nurse shouted as she grabbed an ampoule of vasopressor. Professor Durand’s face turned as white as a sheet, and Professor Renault was about to order emergency treatment at once.
Amid the chaos, Taeho’s voice rang out.
“No! Vasopressors won’t work!”
Everyone’s movements faltered for an instant.
Professor Renault shouted in disbelief.
“What are you talking about? The patient is dying right now!”
“This isn’t septic shock!”
Taeho shouted, pointing at the data on the monitor. His eyes were also seeing the invisible data Lema was analyzing in real time.
“It’s a cytokine storm caused by the virus directly attacking the vascular endothelial cells! If you use vasopressors, his blood vessels will rupture!”
It was a diagnosis that no one present could have made, one only Taeho could deliver. Professor Renault was momentarily at a loss for words, but soon shouted at Taeho.
“Your basis! What is the basis for what you’re saying?”
“My eyes are the data! At this rate, he’ll go into cardiac arrest within five minutes. We have to administer fucoidan right now and first block the virus from binding to the blood vessels!”
There was no more time to persuade or prove anything. It was time to choose. Would they follow an outdated protocol and lose the patient, or would they trust the intuition of a stranger offering the only hope, unverified though it was?
65/40.
62/38.
His blood pressure continued to fall.
“Damn it!”
Professor Renault spat out a curse. He stared at Taeho as if trying to pierce through his eyes.
“You take responsibility.”
Permission, finally granted.
Taeho handed the case containing the suppository to the head nurse.
“Head nurse! Please!”
The head nurse’s hands held not the slightest hesitation.
The drug was administered, and a silence flowed through the ICU, as though the ticking of the second hand were gnawing at everyone’s hearts.
One minute, two minutes, three minutes…
But no miracle happened. On the contrary, the numbers on the monitor fell even more steeply.
58/35.
Now they no longer looked like numbers, but an omen of death.
Weeeeeeeing!
Professor Yamada’s heartbeat graph trembled faintly, then began changing into a lethal arrhythmic waveform.
Ventricular fibrillation.
The final warning before cardiac arrest.
“This can’t be! Patient is in V-fib!”
Resident Mark shouted in terror.
“Move, now!”
Professor Renault roughly shoved Taeho aside and rushed at the patient. His reason had snapped completely. He sensed that this foreign doctor’s gamble had failed, and that now he had to bring the patient back his own way.
“Charge the defibrillator to 200 joules! Everyone clear!”
“No!”
Taeho grabbed Professor Renault’s arm as he tried to take hold of the defibrillator paddles. His eyes were blazing like fire.
“This isn’t a situation that requires defibrillation! His myocardium is suppressed because of viral toxins. An electric shock won’t solve it!”
“You crazy bastard, let go!”
Professor Renault struggled to shake off Taeho’s hand.
“The patient is dying!”
“This is its last struggle!”
Taeho roared.
“It’s the final toxin storm the virus is releasing as it dies inside his body! If we hold out for one minute from now—no, just thirty seconds—this storm will end!”
The heartbeat graph on the monitor was now nearly a straight line.
In that fleeting moment when the boundary between life and death blurred,
all the medical staff in the ICU froze as they watched the dying patient.
Taeho was checking Professor Yamada’s condition with Bio Vision.
A purple aurora churned violently around his heart. As the viruses were destroyed by the fucoidan’s attack, the last toxins they spewed were racing through the blood vessels, struggling to cling to the myocardium.
But through that cloud of purple toxins, a golden aurora was slowly spreading.
Taeho could tell what that golden light was.
Professor Yamada’s own immune system was finally awakening. Thanks to the protective barrier created by the fucoidan blocking new viral infection, a normal immune response had begun to remove the cells already infected.
Around the lungs, a light green aurora rippled like waves. The alveoli swollen from inflammation were gradually calming, and oxygen exchange was returning to normal. He could see tiny green flames in each alveolus igniting again, one by one.
The most astonishing part was the brain.
A rainbow-colored aurora was flowing gently around the DRD4 receptors. As the neural connections damaged by the virus’s attack were restored one by one, Professor Yamada’s consciousness was slowly returning.
What Taeho watched most carefully was the heart. The purple toxin cloud was growing fainter, and the golden immune response was slowly taking its place.
The electrocardiogram graph, which had been nearly a straight line, began to tremble. The blood pressure that had been falling without end finally stopped.
“Ten seconds.”
Taeho witnessed a wondrous sight.
The lights that had dyed Yamada’s entire body in different colors slowly merged into one, forming a soft and peaceful veil of light, like an aurora rising in the quiet dawn sky. It was the stillness after the storm had passed.
“Now.”
Taeho murmured softly.
No sooner had he finished speaking than, as if by magic, the monitor’s figures began to return to where they belonged, one by one.
The irregular waveform regained a stable rhythm, and the blood pressure slowly but clearly traced an upward curve.
Professor Renault stood frozen, looking back and forth between the defibrillator paddles clenched tightly in his hands and the unbelievable scene before his eyes.
Professor Durand leaned against the wall, barely stopping himself from sinking weakly to the floor.
The storm had passed.
Only then did Taeho feel the tension leave his entire body, and he drew in a rough breath.
“Ugh…”
A faint groan escaped from the bed.
Everyone in the hospital room held their breath.
Professor Yamada’s consciousness was slowly returning.
Yamada’s eyelids trembled, then opened slowly. But there was no focus in his eyes. He stared into empty space as though looking at something from another dimension. An eerie murmur slipped between his lips.
“The test subject… the test subjects…”
“Professor! Are you conscious?”
Professor Durand carefully shook his shoulder.
Yamada reacted. His head turned slightly toward Durand, but his eyes still were not seeing reality.
“Con, control…”
Yamada’s lips quivered.
Professor Renault checked the monitor with a tense expression.
All his vital signs were normal, but Yamada’s brain waves were in an extremely activated state. It was almost like sleep paralysis.
“It failed.”
Yamada’s voice came out rough, like metal scraping.
“Everything… failed…”
The nurses looked at one another uneasily. This situation appeared in no medical textbook.
The atmosphere, which had been filled with relief only moments ago, instantly shifted into a heavy tension.
“Is it delirium?”
The head nurse asked. But everyone knew it felt somehow too unsettling to dismiss as simple delirium or confusion.
Taeho’s eyes flashed sharply.
Test subject?
Alarms began ringing in his head.
“Too… many.”
Yamada continued to murmur.
“More than… planned…”
“Professor, calm down. This is a hospital. You’re safe. You’re all right now.”
Durand said urgently, gripping his hand tightly.
But Yamada was still wandering through a nightmare. His eyes moved rapidly left and right, and fragmentary words continued to spill from his mouth.
“Vector… spread…”
“Prepare 2 mg sedative, IV. Immediately!”
Professor Renault swiftly instructed the head nurse.
Just as the nurse was about to prepare the syringe, Taeho raised a hand to stop her.
“Wait.”
Taeho leaned toward Yamada and asked in a low, grave voice.
“Professor, what do you mean? Please tell me.”
For the first time, Yamada recognized Taeho.
A faint trace of relief passed through his eyes.
“Ah…”
A little life returned to Yamada’s voice.
“Dr. Kang…”
“Yes. But I think what you just said is more important than that.”
Taeho looked at him with desperate eyes.
Yamada tried to open his mouth. It seemed he was about to say something important. Everyone in the room held their breath and waited.
“Promethe…”
But at that moment, Yamada’s eyelids slid shut. This time, it was not a precarious coma. It was deep, peaceful, natural sleep. Every number on the monitor was moving stably within the normal range, as if by a miracle.
Only the regular beeping of the medical equipment could be heard in the hospital room.
At last, Professor Renault was the first to speak. His voice was now filled with questions instead of cynicism.
“Dr. Kang, I’ll admit your treatment method was correct. But those things the patient just said. Do you happen to know what they mean?”
“I don’t know either. But I think they may be important clues.”
Taeho said as he looked at Yamada.
Professor Durand let out a deep sigh and drew a conclusion.
“First, let’s apply this method to the other patients’ treatment. And as for that story, we’ll have to hear it directly from Professor Yamada once he has fully recovered.”
Everyone nodded.
But Taeho’s heart was heavy. The words Yamada had muttered kept circling in his mind.
Taeho quietly instructed Lema.
“Lema. Search for every piece of related information using the keywords test subject, failure of control, intentional virus, and vector spread. Focus especially on materials related to viral research from the past five years.”
—Searching…
As Taeho watched Yamada’s peaceful sleeping face, he could not shake off an ominous premonition.