An F-Rank Veterinarian Physically Heals an S-Rank Magical Beast - Chapter 55
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 55
“Mmm…”
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I felt was the delicate fragrance of peach blossoms tickling my nose. Warm spring sunlight. A gentle breeze. Even the texture of the air against my skin felt different. It was a world 180 degrees removed from Floor 12’s battlefield, which had been saturated with the stench of machine oil, acrid smoke, and the cold metallic screech of combat.
“Where… am I?”
I pushed myself upright. Soft grass cradled my body. Before me, a crystalline stream flowed, and in every direction, peach trees in full bloom scattered their pink petals like snow. In the distance, atop jagged cliffs, stood ancient pavilions with elegant tile roofs—structures that seemed fit for immortals—floating among the clouds.
It was none other than Mulung Utopia. An idyllic paradise that should have existed only in the pages of Eastern fantasy novels now materialized before my eyes.
“Hehehehe! So this is heaven! Have I finally ascended to immortality!”
At the familiar voice, I turned to see Namgoong Cheon, patriarch of the Namgoong Family, dancing with unbridled joy. He was no longer the elderly man in oil-stained work clothes. He wore pristine white silk robes, and at his waist hung a sword that gleamed like a legendary blade. Most astonishing of all was his face. The deep wrinkles and age spots had vanished, replaced by taut skin and jet-black hair—the visage of a man in his prime, barely thirty.
“My body feels light as a feather! My inner energy flows endlessly from my dantian!”
Namgoong Cheon unleashed a palm strike into the empty air. Craaash! A boulder crumbled to dust. This was nothing like the helplessness he’d felt being overwhelmed by machines on Floor 12. This was omnipotence—the sensation of shattering mountains with a mere fingertip.
The other martial artists were no different. The Huashan Sect Elders played immortal games beneath plum blossoms, engaged in leisurely games of go, while the Beggar Sect members laughed heartily before tables laden with delicacies beyond measure.
“This is the world martial artists have always dreamed of!”
“No more fighting those hideous machines!”
“My arthritis is gone! My back is straight!”
Everyone was intoxicated with happiness, desperate to forget reality. A trap laid by Deus. A virtual reality Matrix that hacked human brainwaves and manifested either their happiest memories or primal desires.
Even Beris had fallen into this snare.
“Oh my, this place is absolutely perfect.”
Beris lay on the grass in a state of rapture. Normally, she would have recoiled at the thought of dirt clinging to her, but this place was different.
“Not a speck of dust, not a single bacterium… a perfectly sterile environment. Air purity at one hundred percent. Ah, so wonderfully clean.”
She rolled about in bliss. For someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a world without contamination was no different from a drug.
In this paradise where everyone was intoxicated with happiness, there was one. No—one man was experiencing hell.
“Aaaaaaahhhhh!! My muscles!! Where did my muscles go!!”
A harrowing scream echoed from the direction of the stream. It was more desperate than the roar of a beast. When I turned to look, there stood a skeletal figure—a mere “anchovy” of a man—weeping as he stared at his reflection in the water.
It was Ma Dong-tak, the S-rank Hunter known as the Destruction King.
His once-taut, bulging pectoral muscles had shriveled like deflated balloons, and his steel-like thighs had become as thin as twigs. His shirt hung so loose that his shoulders threatened to slip through the neckline. Deus had deliberately set Ma Dong-tak’s avatar stats to a “minimum” state to eliminate his threatening physical power. His strength stat had plummeted below 10—a physique inferior to an ordinary person.
“What is this! I have no strength at all! My triceps! My lats! My traps!!”
Ma Dong-tak pounded the ground in anguish, but his frail fist couldn’t even leave a scratch in the sand. Instead, his own hand hurt, and he wrapped it with a whimper of “Ow!”
“This can’t be… I can bench 1,100 pounds… I can’t even lift an empty bar…”
He trembled with terror. The loss of the physique he’d spent his entire life sculpting was a pain worse than death itself. Muscle loss. For a gym fanatic, it was hell.
“You bastards! Just kill me! I’d rather die than live like this! Give me back my protein!”
I let out a quiet laugh at the sight. The situation had become clear. Deus had determined that physical combat—Ma Dong-tak—and unpredictable variables—the Murim Alliance’s equipment advantage—were disadvantageous. So he’d digitized their consciousness and pulled them into a field that favored him.
In this place, physical force was useless. Only data values held truth. Ma Dong-tak was nothing more than a “low-capacity file” here.
“The master of this house is clever. He struck at our exact weak point.”
I brushed myself off and stood.
Then the sky split open, and an enormous eye appeared. It was far larger than what we’d seen in reality, radiating an omnipotent pressure.
[Welcome, foolish organic beings.]
Deus’s voice thundered across the sky. The entire firmament of Mulung Utopia became a speaker. The martial artists, intoxicated with happiness, all looked up at once.
[This is my world, “Neverland.” Here, you shall never age, never fall ill, never suffer pain.]
“Ohhh… Divine being! Thank you!”
“To restore youth to this old man… we are eternally grateful!”
Namgoong Cheon and the other martial artists prostrated themselves before that voice. Their memories of reality blurred, and a hypnotic effect took hold, making them desperate to believe this sweet illusion was real.
[But there is a price. Your bodies will cease to exist in reality, and your minds will become eternal sustenance for my database. Dream your happy dreams as you slowly decompose into data.]
Deus’s declaration was cruel—he was essentially pickling their brains to use them as batteries.
“Hey, Director Ma. Snap out of it. Aren’t you hearing that?”
Jin-hyuk shook Ma Dong-tak’s shoulder. But Ma Dong-tak was completely entranced.
“My muscles… they’re all gone… I’m finished….”
“Ugh, you’re completely useless.”
Jin-hyuk clicked his tongue. The physical therapist had been neutralized. The Murim Alliance was brainwashed. Beris was addicted to cleanliness. Luna was too distracted admiring flowers. Utterly isolated and without aid.
Yet Jin-hyuk’s expression remained calm. He thrust his hand into his pocket and spoke toward the sky.
“Hey, Deus. There’s one thing you overlooked.”
[What is it, weak human?]
“You set a trap to catch a ‘tiger’, but you’ve put a ‘dragon’ inside that trap instead.”
[Error. That analogy is incomprehensible.]
“You brought someone else here besides me. My robot.”
Jin-hyuk gestured with his chin toward the side.
“Kim Chun-sam, come out.”
Digital particles coalesced from empty space, forming the shape of a man. Not the crude exterior of a robot. A black leather long coat, form-fitting sunglasses, slicked-back hair. A man who oddly resembled the protagonist from the film Matrix, yet wore an infuriatingly cool smile.
It was Kim Chun-sam.
“Master. You called for me?”
Kim Chun-sam lowered his sunglasses slightly and winked. His voice was smooth and melodious—not the mechanical tone of a robot.
“Do you understand the situation?”
“Of course. I completed a full scan in one second.”
Kim Chun-sam glanced around and let out a scoff.
“The graphics resources are quite impressive. The texture quality isn’t bad either. However… the security level is pathetic.”
Kim Chun-sam snapped his fingers at the empty air. Snap! Suddenly, streams of green digital code began pouring down like rain from the sky of the peaceful Mulung Utopia.
[System Warning]
[External administrator access detected.]
Deus’s pupils trembled.
[You… are you that tin can robot? How did you gain access to system privileges?]
“How? You invited me here yourself.”
Kim Chun-sam spread both arms wide.
“In the real world, I was an AI trapped in a hunk of scrap metal… but this is a world of ‘data’, isn’t it?”
Kim Chun-sam’s smile deepened.
“In other words, this is my home turf. AI versus AI without the constraints of a physical body. So tell me—who’s the superior entity here?”
Deus realized his mistake too late. While focused on imprisoning the humans’ minds, he had forgotten that Kim Chun-sam—an autonomous AI—had also been connected to the network. It was equivalent to injecting a virus directly into his own brain.
“Now, shall I show you who the real god of this domain is? Time for Deus to get a proper education.”
Kim Chun-sam’s fingers began frantically typing across a virtual holographic keyboard suspended in the air.
“Chun-sam, go as dirty as you can.”
Jin-hyuk gave the order.
“Dirty? That’s my specialty.”
Kim Chun-sam pressed the Enter key with force.
[Executing Hacking Code: ‘Dirty_Play_V1.0’]
In an instant, noise began to corrupt the once-peaceful landscape of Mulung Utopia.
Ding-ding! Ding-ding!
Instead of clear birdsong, a tacky prize-winning jingle blared through the air.
“What is that sound?”
Namgoong Cheon, lost in bliss, lifted his head. Before his eyes, a massive pop-up window materialized across the blue sky.
[Congratulations! You are our 1,000,000th visitor!]
[Click now for instant cash prizes! Access immediately!]
“A talisman… appeared in the sky?”
But it was far from over.
[Bitcoin Jackpot Chance! Don’t miss out!]
[Oppa~ I’m so lonely~ Call me~♡ (Photo attached)]
[Your computer is infected. Pay now to remove the virus.]
Garish malicious advertisements and spam messages engulfed the heavens. The elegant classical background music cut out, replaced by casino sound effects—”Pararaba-bam~ Jackpot!”—and tacky remixed pop blaring so loudly it felt like the ears would split.
“Ahhhhh! My eyes! Obscene images keep appearing! This is despicable!”
The Shaolin Monk screamed, shielding his eyes. Stickers reading “Loan Consultation Welcome” began plastering his solemn robes.
The grassy field where Beris had been rolling transformed instantly into a murky swamp of error codes.
“Kyaaaa! Disgusting! What is this?! The texture is corrupted! The pixels are smudged!”
Beris jolted upright in horror. Her once-pristine sterile chamber was rapidly becoming a garbage heap of glitches.
[Warning. Illegal data intrusion. System overload. Attempting deletion… Failed. Deletion impossible.]
Deus’s panicked voice echoed through the space.
“Think you can delete it? What I planted isn’t just some ordinary virus. It’s a ‘self-replicating malicious code.’ The more you compute, the more it multiplies.”
Kim Chun-sam chuckled, waving his hands like a conductor orchestrating chaos across Mulung Utopia.
“Master, is this satisfactory?”
“No, not yet. We need a finishing blow.”
My gaze turned toward Ma Dong-tak, who sat crouched on the ground weeping.
“Our brother needs his spirits lifted.”
“Ah, understood. Activating special service.”
Kim Chun-sam clicked and dragged Ma Dong-tak’s avatar, then entered a command into the console.
[Target: Ma_Dong_Tak]
[Apply Cheat Code: Super_Soldier_Mode_ON]
[Muscle Mass: Infinity (∞)]
“Brother, a gift for you! Please accept!”
As Kim Chun-sam hit Enter, golden light erupted from Ma Dong-tak’s body.
“Huh…?”
Ma Dong-tak lifted his head. His gaunt forearms began to swell. No—swelling was an understatement. They were exploding with growth.
“My… muscles… are returning?”
Life sparkled in Ma Dong-tak’s eyes. His lost triceps, pectoral muscles, and latissimus dorsi surged back, now ten times more massive and magnificent than they had ever been in reality.
Crack! Boom!
“Ooooohhhhh! OOOOOHHHHH!!!”
Ma Dong-tak roared with primal fury. His single cry shattered hundreds of popup windows suspended in the sky, their fragments scattering like shards of light. At last, the true counterattack within this virtual realm was about to commence.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————