Taeho nodded.
The royal infirmary was filled with tension so thick that even breathing felt like something to be done carefully. An unknown illness whose cause could not be diagnosed, despite the world’s finest medical teams clinging to the case day and night for three days. Before it, Taeho silently flipped through the massive charts.
“Blood panels, genetic mutation analysis, CT scans, EEG records… There’s an enormous amount of data.”
“The Johns Hopkins team that was here last got only this far. Can you make a diagnosis with these materials?”
The royal physician, Al Mahdi, looked at Taeho with anxious eyes.
Instead of answering, Taeho quietly stared into the monitor.
—Rema, begin data pattern analysis. Focus the scan especially on the DRD4, HLA, and ACE2 mutation regions.
After murmuring while keeping his gaze fixed on the monitor for a moment, Taeho raised his head.
“Let’s examine the patients directly now.”
All four princes of the royal family were lying in beds, each showing different symptoms. Unnoticed by anyone, a blue light seeped into Taeho’s eyes. As Bio Vision activated, the patients’ blood flow and cellular responses unfolded before him.
“The eldest prince, Prince Raiyan, has a temperature of 39.8 degrees, and as you can see, the skin rash continues to spread.”
The nurse’s report continued. Red and bluish-black spots were spreading like a spiderweb across Raiyan’s arms and abdomen. But their shape and pattern of expansion were unlike any viral rash.
“The second prince, Prince Khalid, is showing neurological abnormalities. Intermittent convulsions and temporary memory loss. At times, he cannot remember anything from several hours prior.”
A member of the medical staff pointed at the EEG monitor as he spoke. Abnormal waveforms were continuously appearing in the frontal lobe region.
“Prince Hashim, the third prince, has unstable breathing. His platelet count is dropping sharply, so there is a strong possibility of a coagulation disorder. No common bacteria or viruses have been detected. Symptoms began in the youngest prince as well two days ago. At first it was only a slight fever, but now skin reactions and respiratory distress are appearing simultaneously.”
The tension in the infirmary grew even heavier. An illness whose cause the medical teams from the world’s best hospitals had failed to find. Taeho was dissecting the problem again from the very beginning.
“The blood analysis results, EEG, CT, and immune response curves are all moving separately. But the source is one. They’re attacking different organs, but the starting point is the same structure.”
Taeho picked up a pen and began drawing on the whiteboard. The molecular structure he drew was an unfamiliar diagram that existed in no textbook.
“This is not a simple infection. It’s an artificially designed biochemical substance. It’s programmed to attack different targets depending on the host’s genetic traits.”
“Programmed? Is such a thing possible?”
Royal physician Al Mahdi’s voice trembled.
It was a completely new opinion, something he had never heard of or seen before.
“In nature, it’s impossible. But if it is targeted toxicity based on a specific genetic sequence, then theoretically, it is possible. And right now, that theory is becoming reality before our eyes.”
Taeho looked in turn at the four patients before him.
Their symptoms differed—immune system, nervous system, blood coagulation, respiratory tract—but in his field of vision, he saw a single common signal. Not only what Taeho saw through Bio Vision, but also the information Rema displayed before his eyes was leading to the same conclusion.
—D4 receptor pathway, TLR-8 response, NK cell suppression pattern. Same origin.
“We begin treatment now.”
Taeho’s voice rang out firmly.
“For the eldest, Prince Raiyan, administer immune-modulating peptides and an anti-inflammatory stabilizer intravenously. For the second prince, Prince Khalid, we’ll induce suppression of neural excitation with a glycyrrhizin-based peptide. For the third prince, Prince Hashim, administer coagulation factor supplementation together with an antiviral immune enhancer. And for the youngest prince, we’ll slow the initial reaction with low-dose combination therapy.”
Al Mahdi asked with startled eyes.
“You’re starting treatment that easily?”
Taeho carefully took an ampoule from his medical bag.
“This is a candidate drug I’ve been researching in Korea.”
“What kind of drug is it?”
“A synthetic peptide immunomodulator. It modifies glycyrrhizin to inhibit viral RNA replication, while the attached peptide serves to neutralize a specific neurotoxin.”
“Is such a thing actually possible?”
“Not on its own. This is an adjuvant to the basic immunotherapy. However, seeing that it matches the inflammatory response patterns the current patients are showing, we can expect an effect.”
Al Mahdi looked at Taeho with a gaze mixed with admiration and fear.
“How on earth did you develop such a drug?”
“Biochemical terrorism shows predictable patterns. I’ve been studying those patterns until now. Several recent cases I handled were similar to this.”
Taeho did not bother to say that the closest examples were the cases of Prince Faisal and Princess Amira.
To reveal the full circumstances of that matter, a few more investigations were needed.
Al Mahdi and the rest of the medical staff seemed to be deeply shocked by even the partial facts Taeho had revealed.
“Then this must be the work of a state or a massive organization.”
“That’s highly likely. It requires both funding and technical capability. But it isn’t too late yet. If we adjust treatment according to their individual immune responses, there is a possibility of recovery.”
***
Taeho inserted an IV into the arm of the first prince, Raiyan. A transparent liquid slowly entered his blood vessel.
“Heart rate 140, blood pressure 90 over 60, temperature 39.2 degrees.”
The nurse read out the vital signs.
Taeho nodded.
“Check every five minutes. Glycyrrhizin’s antiviral effect should appear immediately. The peptide compound is also directly neutralizing the neurotoxin.”
Al Mahdi stared at the monitor with startled eyes.
“The effect appears that quickly?”
“We’ll administer the second dose in thirty minutes.”
Taeho nodded.
The gathered medical staff all looked at one another as if they had been bewitched by a goblin.
Six hours later.
“I can’t believe this…”
Al Mahdi stood for a long time, holding the chart.
Prince Raiyan, whose consciousness had been clouded by a high fever, had dropped to 38 degrees, and the rash had stopped spreading. Prince Khalid, who had been convulsing repeatedly, quietly opened his eyes and recognized his surroundings. Prince Hashim, who had been vomiting blood, had stabilized breathing and his platelet count was slowly recovering. And the youngest prince, who was the most frail, had fallen into a deep sleep with only a slight fever remaining.
“To think all four of them are showing signs of improvement like this… How on earth…”
Al Mahdi’s voice grew smaller and smaller.
Taeho checked the princes’ vital signs and said,
“Fortunately, the princes’ conditions were not too severe, so the response appeared quickly.”
With this, one fact had been confirmed.
Children were more resistant to this specific virus than adults.
Taeho realized that compared to Princess Amira, who had hovered between life and death, and the patients in the emergency room at Geumsan Samcheok Hospital, the princes had shown an extremely mild reaction.
Al Mahdi shook his head and asked,
“But no matter how I think about it, I cannot understand. How did you, Dr. Kang, know about this treatment in advance and prepare it?”
“A similar viral strain has been under study at the Geumsan Research Institute for a long time. It’s a protocol for preparing against biochemical terrorism.”
“But I’ve never seen a similar case in any WHO report. Why did you not report it to the WHO?” “Because it had not yet reached the formal clinical trial stage.”
Al Mahdi’s eyes still did not let go of suspicion.
“You’re saying all of this is truly a coincidence?”
“I was lucky.”
Taeho smiled calmly, but his eyes were by no means light.
At that moment, a faint voice flowed from the bed.
“…Mother, Father. Where are you…?”
Raiyan had opened his eyes and regained consciousness.
In an instant, the entire infirmary stirred.
Al Mahdi dropped the chart he was holding.
“Prince Raiyan!”
Al Mahdi hurried over.
“T-this can’t be…”
The head nurse stared at the monitor and murmured in a trembling voice.
“Blood pressure 120 over 80, pulse 72. All readings are normal!”
“Oh, God!”
“Prince Raiyan!”
The medical staff rushed to the bed all at once. But they all stopped in front of it and could only stare, dazed.
Al Mahdi placed a trembling hand on Raiyan’s forehead.
“His temperature is normal too, and the rash has almost disappeared.”
His voice grew smaller. He had studied and practiced medicine for forty years, but what was happening now surpassed all medical common sense.
“Doctor!”
A young resident shouted in a trembling voice.
“Prince Khalid too! Prince Khalid has opened his eyes as well!”
The infirmary instantly descended into chaos.
“Prince Hashim’s platelet count has risen to 150,000!”
“The youngest prince’s breathing has stabilized too!”
Shouts from the medical staff erupted here and there.
Al Mahdi looked at Taeho. Awe and fear seeped into his eyes at the same time.
“Doctor…”
His voice trembled.
Seeing Al Mahdi unable to continue speaking, the other medical staff also began to look at Taeho one by one.
Every gaze in the infirmary focused on Taeho.
Awe, fear, suspicion, gratitude.
They were gazes in which all manner of emotions were tangled together.
To Al Mahdi, all of this was so perfect that it was frightening. It felt as though he were watching a play whose script had been written in advance.
It was suspicious, but the results could not be denied. This Korean doctor truly had saved the princes.
Taeho felt Al Mahdi’s gaze, yet calmly walked off to check on the patients.
***
The office of Prince Mansur, the king’s brother, on the third floor of the Abu Dhabi royal palace was a space where tradition and modernity harmonized.
On the floor covered with Persian handmade carpets stood a state-of-the-art hologram desk, and on the walls, several monitors had been installed alongside oil paintings depicting the founding history of the UAE.
Even after hearing the news last night that all four of his sons had miraculously recovered, Mansur could not feel at ease. The timing was too perfect, the diagnosis too precise, the treatment too swift.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Come in.”
Qasim, the head of security, entered holding a tablet.
“Your Highness, you called for me?”
“Qasim, has anything come up about Dr. Kang Taeho?”
“As a matter of fact, there are many strange points.”
Qasim opened a file on the tablet and turned it toward Mansur.
“This is the result of our cybersecurity team’s direct investigation. We discovered traces that, starting two weeks ago, his laboratory collected Middle Eastern medical data in large quantities.”
“Two weeks ago?”
Mansur’s eyes sharpened.
“Yes. According to our cyber defense team’s reverse tracing, records confirm attempts from an IP originating in Korea to access medical databases in eleven countries across the Middle East.”
“Are you saying he intruded into our system as well?”
“Yes. In particular, there were seventeen attempts to access our Abu Dhabi royal medical system.”
Bang!
Mansur struck the desk and rose to his feet.
How dare Kang Taeho, that man!