I’m a Young God, Won’t You Raise Me?

I stared fixedly at Kwak Hanmuk.

I had heard both Kwak Hanmuk’s words and Dominic’s perfectly clearly.

But I struggled to understand them.

Seeing me completely frozen, Kwak Hanmuk raised his left arm toward me.

My gaze was automatically drawn to the arm he was offering me, as if he wanted me to examine it up close.

The blue lightning-shaped tattoo that stretched all the way to his bicep.

I remembered the first time we entered Dead Zone Delivery.

The default outfit was a short-sleeved T-shirt and military pants.

But Kwak Hanmuk had been the only one wearing a varsity jacket.

At the time, I hadn’t thought anything of it.

Now that I thought about it, it had probably been to hide that tattoo.

While I was still half-stunned, Dominic calmly continued explaining.

His tone was that of a teacher giving a lesson using educational material.

“He housed a god within his body, but he was incapable of assimilating it and only managed to seal it away. Even that is too great a burden for him, which is why he had to engrave that pattern onto his body and use accessories.”

He went on to explain that, aside from bearing that burden, he had gained no benefits whatsoever.

“For the same reason, that person cannot hear my voice or touch me. He is incapable of using the power of the god sealed within his body; the only thing he accomplished was opening his eyes.”

Then he made me a proposal with perfect courtesy.

“If he were to assimilate that god, he would become a subordinate with extraordinary power. His level of existence would increase, and he would be useful in many ways. I could help him.”

He was subtly trying to convince me to help my subordinate assimilate the god.

But I was unable to react to the proposal at all.

Seeing that I remained completely silent, Kwak Hanmuk asked again.

“And you, Goyo? Don’t you have anything like that on your body?”

I moved my lips slightly.

“…I don’t have anything like that.”

My mind was completely blank, so I ended up saying whatever came to mind.

“We could go to a public bathhouse together and check…”

Kwak Hanmuk burst into laughter.

Then he narrowed his eyes and said,

“You know perfectly well what this means, don’t you?”

At that moment, I realized I had fallen into his trap.

To anyone who knew nothing, it was nothing more than a rather unusual tattoo.

But I had reacted with a mixture of surprise and bewilderment.

It was hard not to when I had an extraterrestrial slime whispering in my ear that there was a god inside a person.

Shrugging lightly, Kwak Hanmuk sat back down.

Resting one arm on the chair beside him, he said,

“I’m not interrogating you. I was just wondering if you were like me.”

He smiled as he added that he was curious whether I also had something inside me.

He was already completely convinced that I had some kind of connection to a divine existence.

And honestly, it was a fairly reasonable conclusion.

After all, someone capable of manipulating the system windows could hardly be an ordinary person.

I looked at the blue tattoo again.

Blue Lightning.

There were still countless things I didn’t know about both Mo Haein and Kwak Hanmuk.

The Developer had truly only shown me the most pleasant parts of them in the game.

But I wanted to know much more.

Even the parts that weren’t pleasant.

Before I realized it, the words slipped from my lips.

“How did you end up getting that tattoo?”

I wanted to know why he had ended up sealing a god inside his body.

When he had done it.

How he had done it.

And, above all, which God it was.

I didn’t know what kind of expression I had at that moment.

But Kwak Hanmuk’s smile deepened a little.

He put the upper part of his uniform back on, though he only slipped his arms into the sleeves.

With all the buttons left undone, he looked like a rather rebellious soldier.

“Goyo…”

he said as he tilted his chin up slightly.

“You hide absolutely everything about yourself, yet you’re trying to find out everything about me, huh?”

Then he fell silent.

An increasing sense of unease crept over me.

I didn’t even understand why I was so obsessed with the god inside him.

‘The first time the system window advised me against registering Kwak Hanmuk, it was probably because of that God as well.’

The moment that thought crossed my mind, my impatience grew even stronger.

I could even feel a faint warmth around my eyes.

Then I remembered the status window.

As my abilities had evolved, a function capable of displaying the current condition of registered people had been added.

For now, it only showed simple things, like whether someone was happy.

But.

What if it kept evolving?

Maybe one day it would be able to display much more detailed information.

Perhaps it could even reveal which god was sealed inside him.

I wanted to see it with my own eyes.

“Goyo.”

“…Yes?”

“Your eyes are glowing.”

“Ah.”

I hurriedly blinked.

For some reason, it seemed like the color of my eyes was about to change again.

Since it wasn’t something I could control at will, it was difficult to hide as well.

‘I don’t even know what causes them to change.’

However, after studying my eyes carefully, Kwak Hanmuk said something strange.

“…The color changed a little. Ah, it’s back to normal now.”

Before he could examine them any further, the color had already returned to normal.

But at that moment, the color of my eyes wasn’t what mattered.

I discreetly rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand.

Kwak Hanmuk smiled as he watched me.

“My tattoo is a secret, Goyo.”

He explained that only Director Jang Seokyun, Samra, and a few executives at the division chief level knew the reason behind that tattoo.

Aside from them, the only people who knew the secret were Mo Haein and me.

I promised him that I would never reveal it to anyone.

Our conversation on the rooftop was gradually coming to an end.

But there was still the most important thing I had to say.

As I watched Kwak Hanmuk gather the things from the table, I hesitated for a few moments.

Finally, I gathered my courage and spoke.

“Captain Kwak, suppose that…”

Kwak Hanmuk, who was stacking the empty plastic cups, looked up at me.

At that moment, I realized something.

Throughout our conversation on the rooftop, I had asked him many questions about things I was curious to know.

However.

He hadn’t mentioned even once what should probably have been the thing he was most curious about.

After the uproar caused by Pasung’s CEO Cha, it was obvious that rumors were already spreading throughout the Trial Response Agency that I might end up signing with Pasung.

I could easily imagine everyone talking about what my future would be.

And yet, the person most closely involved with me.

Kwak Hanmuk had remained silent.

He hadn’t even asked me much about the slime.

Maybe.

He simply didn’t want to make me feel pressured.

That gave me a strange feeling.

“If I end up officially signing with the Trial Response Agency…”

“Have you already signed?”

Apenas had I started speaking when Kwak Hanmuk interrupted me.

“Not yet, but I plan to.”

After hearing my answer, Kwak Hanmuk lowered his gaze for a few moments.

After thinking briefly, he asked,

“…What did the Director say to you?”

“No. This is a decision I made myself.”

It was true that Director Jang Seokyun had said many things to me.

But I didn’t believe any of them had influenced my decision.

Besides.

If I mentioned that conversation, I was afraid what I was about to say would sound like an obligation to Kwak Hanmuk.

“C-Captain Kwak… if I join the Trial Response Agency…”

I hesitated.

It was incredibly difficult to say what came next.

Kwak Hanmuk simply waited in silence.

“Weren’t we a team?”

In the end, I gathered enough courage.

“…Could you keep being on the same team as me?”

Honestly.

I wasn’t exactly a good teammate.

It’s true that we managed to clear the Trials.

But throughout the entire process, all I did was cause trouble for the Special Operations Team.

If it hadn’t been for Director Jang Seokyun’s orders, someone as troublesome as me would probably have been kicked out long ago.

Even Mo Haein probably didn’t enjoy having me around.

The more I thought about it,

the more the little confidence I had left disappeared.

Unable to look him in the eyes, I heard Kwak Hanmuk murmur,

“A team…”

Still looking down, I cautiously raised my eyes toward him.

He wore an expression that was difficult to read.

Neither of us really knew how to react.

In the end.

Kwak Hanmuk was the first to look away.

Staring at the sky, where the sun was already beginning to set, he murmured almost to himself,

“A permanent team would be one hell of a burden.”

It was understandable.

After all, he already had Field Team 3.

If the Special Operations Team, which had only been a temporary special unit, became a permanent team, it would naturally be a huge responsibility for him.

Just as I was beginning to think that maybe I’d have to find a way to clear the Trials on my own.

Kwak Hanmuk called my name again.

“Han Goyo.”

It was very rare for him to call me by my full name.

Startled, I immediately looked up.

“You…”

He slowly opened his mouth.

Just as he was about to continue.

Rumbleee!

A deafening roar covered the sky.

It wasn’t a rainy day.

Nor was it storming.

Run!!!!!

The moment the system window appeared, I looked up on pure reflex.

An enormous mass of fire was descending from the sky.

Its long trail shone with such overwhelming brilliance that it seemed capable of blinding me.

Had barely three seconds passed?

The ground beneath my feet seemed to ripple.

And then.

BOOM!

A deafening explosion struck as though a bomb had detonated.

The concrete building shook violently.

My ears began ringing.

A thick cloud of smoke, mixed with the smell of burning and concrete dust, engulfed the entire area.

Chunks of concrete were hurled toward us.

Before they could reach us, the beads of the rosary shot forward and raised a solid wall in front of Kwak Hanmuk and me.

Coughing over and over, I tried to wave the smoke away with my hand.

Kwak Hanmuk immediately dispelled the barrier to see what had happened.

“……”

The sight before us left us utterly stunned.

An enormous crater had formed in the middle of the rooftop.

At its center.

Deeply embedded in the melted concrete.

Was a stone the size of a fist.

It hissed as it radiated an unsettling heat, as if it were alive.

Little by little, it regained its original color.

Neon green.

Mixed with coal black.

Shining intensely.

It was a Trial Meteorite.

I stood there staring at it, frozen, only a few steps away.

And then.

The entire world began melting into a fluorescent glow.

***

Flash!

A white fractal pattern split across the storm-ravaged night sky.

An instant later.

Rumble!

Thunder roared above our heads.

Mixed with the sound of the rain was a deep mechanical hum in the background.

Soaked by a storm so violent that it was impossible even to open an umbrella.

“I” looked up at the building before me with trembling eyes.

It was a maximum-security prison.

Built on an island in the middle of the sea.

It resembled a gigantic gray concrete mausoleum.

Its outer walls, blackened by the rain, were covered in moss and salt stains.

Three or four layers of barbed wire surrounded the entire building.

Searchlights swept across the island, piercing through the curtain of rain until they stopped on me.

That prison had been built to imprison both extremely dangerous human criminals and Creatures.

“I” had been assigned there as the prison physician.

I had been sent there against my will.

And all I felt was fear.

Completely drenched, “I” walked toward the massive steel gate.

A surveillance camera from the control center watched me from above.

Shortly afterward, accompanied by a mechanical sound, a small metal door opened.

The music began fragmenting more and more as its tempo increased.

It was joined by the heavy pounding of a bass drum.

The thunderous rhythm felt as though it were crushing my heart.

The moment I stepped inside the prison.

A suffocating cold enveloped my entire body.

A distorted synthesizer let out a piercing screech.

Amid that shrill sound that seemed to tear at my ears.

Five prison guards were staring directly at me.

Not a single drop of rain had fallen on their immaculate black uniforms.

I had heard about them many times before.

They were said to be even more monstrous than the Creatures themselves.

They wore black metal masks that covered the upper halves of their faces, leaving only their mouths visible.

Every single one of them was exactly the same height.

Around two meters tall.

I looked at them fearfully.

Only one of them wore a gray metal mask.

He spoke in a deep voice.

“Little Lamb?”

He was probably the Chief of Security.

Breathing with difficulty, “I” nodded.

“Yes. I’m Little Lamb, the new prison physician. The weather turned out to be much more…”

“This way.”

The Chief of Security cut me off.

There wasn’t the slightest trace of respect in his voice toward a young physician.

I followed him to the inspection room.

In the center of the narrow room, surrounded by metal bars, stood a cold stainless-steel table.

“We’re going to inspect your belongings. Step forward.”

Hearing such a blunt order, I almost doubted my own ears.

“Excuse me? I came here as a physician.”

“This isn’t the mainland, Little Lamb.”

Lightly tapping his riot baton against the palm of his other hand, the Chief of Security continued,

“It doesn’t matter how extraordinary a physician you were outside this island. The moment you set foot here, you’re nothing more than a potential smuggler.”

His voice overflowed with unmistakable contempt.

I instinctively shrank back.

Another guard roughly snatched my bag away and dumped all of its contents onto the steel table.

A medical coat.

A stethoscope.

A personal notebook.

Several medicines.

Everything crashed onto the table.

“It’ll be easier for everyone if you cooperate according to the regulations.”

Completely pale, I allowed them to search me as though I were a criminal.

When the inspection was finished.

One of the guards lightly poked me with his baton while sneering.

“Hey, doctor. You’d better keep being this obedient if you want to survive here.”

After that, they led me to a small room assigned to the prison physician.

Still soaked from the rain.

I collapsed onto the floor.

My body wouldn’t stop trembling.

Once I was completely alone.

A system window appeared before me.

Han Goyo (Little Lamb) has entered (The Cell Block X).

“……”

Even though I had regained control of my body.

I couldn’t move for quite a while.

Another system window appeared to inform me of my role.

Little Lamb’s role is “Prison Physician.”

I remained lying face down, trying to get my breathing back under control.

Why had a Trial Meteorite suddenly fallen?

Was Captain Kwak okay?

So many thoughts flooded my mind that I couldn’t put them in order.

At that moment.

Space tore open.

A slime gently fell onto the floor.

The Pudding Slime landed with a small bounce and, upon seeing me, opened his eyes wide.

“Mr. Gunbam! Are you alright?”

The slime’s sudden appearance calmed me down a little.

Trying to suppress the trembling in my body, I forced my mind to think.

Fortunately.

The Cell Block X was a Trial I knew.

But.

I had never liked that game very much.