Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 763

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 763
As night fell, the child collapsed into deep sleep.
Yeo Ha-ryun set the child down and spoke.
“He’s completely knocked out. Utterly exhausted.”
“Jasi played with him until sunset. He drained every ounce of energy from the boy.”
Jasi said.
“If you only half-exhaust them, they wake at dawn whimpering. If you’re going to put them to sleep, you might as well do it properly.”
“You were a good father, Jasi.”
“A bad one. The kind who regrets only after losing everything.”
Jasi said this and placed a wolf pelt over his head.
Jin Cheon-hee asked.
“How much lifespan remains?”
“Not much, but enough to see this through. When the time comes, the spirit will settle its debt by consuming my soul.”
“Your body?”
“The spirit must return to where it came from, so I’ll wear my own skin turned inside out during the journey home. When that happens, I won’t respond to anything you say—but that won’t be me, it’ll be the spirit inhabiting this form. I trust you understand.”
Jasi spoke of his own death with calm acceptance.
“The price is truly cruel.”
“Leaving one’s domain burdens even spirits, so such payment is necessary for balance. Normally, they never venture beyond their territories.”
“Isn’t it an evil spirit?”
Yeo Ha-ryun asked.
Jin Cheon-hee fell silent in thought before speaking.
“Well, it’s similar to demonic cultivation. Though with demonic cultivation, there’s at least a chance of rebirth and survival midway through. With sorcery, I’m not certain.”
“Don’t you know that all things have their price, and that price must eventually be paid?”
At those words, Jin Cheon-hee chuckled softly.
“I happen to think living off others is the greatest thing in this world.”
The one who defies the heavens spoke.
Jasi shook his head.
“You never give up easily, do you?”
“I’ll do what I can. Besides, every contract has loopholes.”
“I only taught you the fundamentals of sorcery. And the greatest principle was that every miracle demands an equal price, wasn’t it?”
“That’s true, but there are countless methods of repayment in this world. Proxy payment, early repayment, installment payment…”
“You’re saying increasingly strange things.”
Well, if it brought him peace of mind, Jasi decided not to worry about it.
The road ahead wasn’t that long anyway.
The three of them slipped outside and employed concealment techniques.
They moved silently through the shadows, observing the Rakshasas.
“Hey! Stop drinking so much!”
“Come on… I’m barely drinking an ant’s worth and you’re nagging me. Wahaha!”
Surprisingly, the Rakshasas maintained the same lifestyle as during the day.
Like at the tavern before, they all chattered and laughed away the hours.
I spent time with my family, slept soundly, and rested well.
The drunkards gathered merrily at the inn to drink once more.
[So they’re like this, yet they rush to devour anyone they see.]
I nodded at Yeo Ha-ryun’s words.
[Right, it’s an instinct embedded within them that they themselves don’t even realize.]
[It’s common for pilgrims and merchants to go missing after encountering bandits, and with entire villages losing their memories, there’s no way to trace it.]
[Exactly. Most families would assume their loved ones died of illness. Without even finding bodies, how could anyone possibly suspect this?]
Besides, those who arrive during the day and leave during the day, or those who simply sleep without venturing outside their rooms at night, wouldn’t be affected.
Only those who wandered at night went missing.
At that level, it was surprisingly…
‘In this era, it’s quite common.’
Without street lamps or surveillance cameras, how could anyone possibly catch them?
After observing the people one by one, I soon arrived at the temple.
The temple was empty, whether day or night.
Jin Cheon-hee rolled my foot to create vibrations.
Kuuuung—
A low resonance caressed every corner of the temple.
After pressing my hand against the floor and sensing the vibrations for a long while, I finally opened my eyes.
“As expected, there’s a secret staircase leading underground. Why do villains always insist on creating hidden chambers in such places?”
Muttering thus, I began searching the temple building.
Even after climbing to the upper floors, there were no documents or books.
“I suspected these guys wouldn’t leave obvious clues behind.”
To that, I replied.
“Judging by the absence of dust and cobwebs, it seems they left not long ago. And even if they hid clues, we can’t know without searching.”
Then I headed toward the underground chamber I had just discovered.
I made my way to the Buddha statue in the main hall.
As I pressed the statue’s forehead firmly, the ground creaked and descended, revealing a staircase.
“Hwang-gu, guard the entrance.”
Clang!
After instructing Hwang-gu, I descended below.
[The stairs go quite deep. Watch your step.]
* * *
How far down had I gone?
‘If it were an apartment building, maybe about ten stories?’
As I descended to such depths, I felt the sensation beneath my feet change.
‘Ah, it’s a natural cave.’
Beyond the artificial stairs, a natural cavern slope came into view.
Stalactites began appearing on the ceiling, and I could hear the sound of unnamed insects crawling about.
When I illuminated the surroundings, I noticed the insects’ eyes had atrophied, their long antennae adapted for survival in the cave, their bodies transformed accordingly.
Their bodies were uniformly translucent white, which was particularly striking.
Descending further into the depths, I discovered an underground pool large enough to accommodate roughly a hundred people.
The water’s color was peculiar.
“Ah, but of course—don’t drink it.”
An subterranean lake devoid of fish.
It went without saying that no ordinary person could consume such water.
I protected my hand with inner energy and briefly touched the surface with my fingertips.
Sizzle—
A strongly alkaline liquid. The temperature was elevated as well.
‘It resembles the natron lakes I read about in Earth texts.’
I couldn’t fathom why such a thing existed in these depths, but an ordinary person falling in would begin experiencing skin necrosis.
Only flamingos, bacteria, and certain crustaceans adapted to these conditions could survive here.
Though there would be no flamingos in the depths, naturally.
The walls were adorned with murals.
They resembled the crude scrawlings of a young child.
Yet they remained comprehensible.
A continuous sequence depicted human sacrifice, the consumption of medicine created through such sacrifice, and the transformation into Rakshasa.
Some images proved more difficult to interpret.
‘It appears to depict corpses, and perhaps Rakshasa consuming them and transforming into corpse-like beings?’
There were also characters I didn’t recognize.
‘What is this? It’s neither Chinese characters nor the local language.’
Though I possessed extensive knowledge of numerous languages through the Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong, these characters were entirely unfamiliar to me.
They differed from talismanic script, oracle bone script, and Sanskrit alike, making them difficult to decipher.
“Hmm.”
Yet Jasi appeared to recognize these characters, falling into deep contemplation with a grave expression.
“Jasi?”
“This is a record of events that occurred in this land long ago.”
“Ou?”
Jasi had grown accustomed to my peculiar exclamations by now.
Wasn’t this simply how I had always been?
Though my temperament was undeniably strange and eccentric, he knew that when it came to saving lives, I was more earnest than anyone.
Jasi swallowed hard and refocused on the ancient script.
I observed his complexion growing increasingly pallid as he read the ancient characters.
“At least thousands of years ago. What transpired in this land… ah… this cannot be…”
“What is it?”
“A breeding ground.”
“A breeding ground?”
Ha-ryun, unfamiliar with the term, tilted his head slightly as he questioned his senior.
Fortunately, I understood what the word signified.
It was a concept that occasionally appeared in Earth horror films from the past.
“So this is where eggs are laid? And offspring are born? But what creature… ah, Rakshasa. Could these be Rakshasa eggs?”
Jasi nodded his head.
“Clever as expected. Yes, this is a Rakshasa breeding ground. And if a human consumes a Rakshasa egg, that human is devoured from within.”
The price of sorcery that could become an Abutter.
Even if false, if it were surely paradise, that too would not be so bad.
As if mocking that question, the world opened its magic box and revealed the truth.
“Devoured? They don’t transform?”
“Devoured. The Rakshasa consumes that human and becomes that human. Except for transforming into a Rakshasa at night… there is nothing different from that human. Even if they bear children, they will be born as ordinary children. The only exception is feeding that child a Rakshasa egg again, so that child is also devoured.”
“…So the parents give it as medicine for the Abutter?”
“When there exists medicine for a paradise where one neither dies nor starves, how could parents refuse it? They would stake their lives to obtain such medicine and give it to their children.”
It was not sorcery.
It had never been sorcery from the beginning.
I withdrew a glass vial from my breast.
It was medicine the Governor had given, that the people of this city had given with sincere hearts.
What would happen if I consumed it?
Would I be devoured from within by the Rakshasa, and that Rakshasa would don the memories of the person called Jin Cheon-hee, believing itself to be Jin Cheon-hee, living out the day with my sense of self?
At night, transforming into something entirely different.
A theme frequently explored in clone human films.
“Ah… I cannot even reach paradise on my own feet.”
At those words, Yeo Ha-ryun asked.
“Is it truly unreachable? If there existed a being with identical memories to mine, living in the exact same form, would that not be me?”
The sound of an iceberg slowly splitting was heard.
There was a thought experiment I had learned on Earth.
Swampman.
The thought experiment of Swampman.
A thought experiment devised by Donald Davidson, an American philosophy professor.
This was a matter concerning identity.
If explained at length it becomes complex, but simply put, one could say it like this.
Is the existence called ‘I’ truly unique and irreplaceable?
The Swampman story goes like this.
A man was struck by lightning in a swamp near a pond and died.
But that lightning, for unknown reasons, perfectly replicated the dead man.
The man’s corpse. The nearby mud had replicated this man.
If the memories, body, age, everything were identical, then is this man real?
Or is he fake?
Anyone who claims to like science fiction has heard this thought experiment at least once.
I felt fine hairs standing on end from my fingertips.
‘The Rakshasa hollows out the human from within and becomes that human itself. And the Rakshasa that hollows them out grows in a fluid state, thus acquiring the human’s memories and sense of self intact.’
Yeo Ha-ryun asked.
“You have taken my pulse before, have you not? Are you truly human?”
“Yes. I am human. During the day, the movement of blood vessels and organs, the contraction of pupils, all of it was simply human.”
Countless films and novels have grappled with this philosophical question: whether the zombie and the original person are truly the same individual.
Though it had become a well-worn broth by now, Jin Cheon-hee, being a fan of science fiction, found each viewing refreshing anew.
Day six: Island, Ghost in the Shell, Multiplicity, Oblivion….
Films that had begun to earn the title of classics.
Yet the theme remained eternally consistent.
What is the self?
If a cloned human were to emerge one day, bearing identical memories to mine.
If memories could be uploaded into a computer.
If that being believed itself to be me and wandered through virtual reality, could I delete it?
If I were to delete it, would that be murder? Or suicide?
What my Senior had said back then.
-Isn’t the soul ultimately just ‘memory’? The shell itself matters far less.
-If my memories reside in this corn can, then that is me. But if this body were struck by lightning one day and lost all memory, then that would no longer be me.
‘Why am I thinking of that person?’
What had that Senior seen in that film back then?

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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