Chapter 14: Threads of Survival

“Hyung!”

“Are you okay?”

“Kuoooh?”

“Haje, don’t try to get up right away. Check your condition first. Does anything hurt?”

“Hmm… I think I’m okay?”

Contrary to the expectation that I’d be in a lot of pain upon waking, my body felt fine.

There was no crushing pain in my chest, and it didn’t hurt to breathe.

“I thought my chest might explode or something, but I think I’m okay now.”

Concern.

The group, watching my reaction, must have realized I wasn’t lying and let out a sigh of relief.

Especially Hayul, who let out a deep sigh as if the world had crumbled and clutched my forearm tightly, nearly crying as he spoke.

“As a quest reward… a box came out, and from Dojin’s reward, a health potion dropped, so he gave it to you.”

“Ah…”

A health potion? Isn’t that super rare?

Startled, I turned my head toward Kang Dojin. As usual, with his expressionless face, he spoke first, as if to say not to make a big deal out of it.

“Don’t worry about it. My stamina is way better than yours anyway, so giving up one potion isn’t a big deal.”

“Th-thank you. It must have been valuable, though.”

Even if I don’t play games, I’ve been in charge of several game-related works and have read a lot for work, so I knew.

Recovery potions and stamina boosters that appear in places like this are extremely rare.
And yet he just gave it to me without hesitation…

Even though we decided to stick together, we’d only met just a day ago. I felt grateful, sorry, and in some ways, deeply touched.

Maybe my emotions were showing plainly on my face, because Kang Dojin frowned.

“Anyway, I’m glad you’re okay. I’ll go back to helping the old lady now.”

“Ah…”

Cool exit.

Come to think of it, the old lady and Jubiyeong were nowhere to be seen.

“What about them?”

“Grandma and Biyoung noona are preparing wild vegetables. We were helping too, but Bamtol and Gamja suddenly ran off, so we followed.”

Our Hayul, he’s so sociable. Already calling her “Biyoung noona.”

But as he kept talking, his voice began to tremble.

Alarmed, I looked at Hayul’s face—he hadn’t burst into tears, but he was on the verge.

Oh, right. I collapsed from a seizure in front of my little brother. He must have been terrified. Damn it, Lee Haje. You should’ve held it together.

“Hayul, I’m sorry. I scared you, didn’t I?”

“…..”

Of course he was scared!

You could tell he wanted to shout that but couldn’t get the words out, his eyes filled with tears.

Seeing him like that reminded me that, even though he’d grown a lot, he was still the same little Hayul from childhood. I couldn’t help but smile.

“You’re smiling? You can smile right now? You… you suddenly collapsed like that, and I was so…”

In the end, tears streamed down my brother’s face.

Maybe embarrassed to be crying as a high schooler, he frantically wiped at his face with both hands, sniffling and glaring at me fiercely.

But even that look was just like when he was little, and I couldn’t stop smiling.

“I’m really okay now, Hayul.”

I couldn’t say it with absolute certainty, but I wanted to reassure him first. Thankfully, he believed me.

“The item Dojin gave you… hic… it was an A-grade. He said it was a good one. If that didn’t help you, I didn’t know what would… sniffle.”

Hmm, more precisely, Hayul believed in the potion’s effectiveness.

Still, A-grade? I think the reward was something like a B-grade box or whatever. Could this be some kind of random loot system?

I was curious, but I decided to check the rewards later. For now, I stayed lying down and comforted my crying brother.

Honestly, I wanted to sit up and show I was really okay. But for some reason, Gamja was pressing down firmly on my chest with his front paw, so I couldn’t get up.

“Hayul, I’m really okay, so don’t cry anymore, okay?”

Sniff “I don’t want to cry either… but I was worried all night… sob.”

“All night? How much time has passed?”

Sniffle “A whole day since you collapsed. It’s afternoon now… sniff.”

Oh no, more time had passed than I thought. No wonder Hayul was crying so hard.

I gently stroked my brother’s arm as he tried to stop sobbing.

“Ugh, I should thank the elder… Hey, Gamja. Could you move your paw? Please? Gamja? Mr. Gamja?”

Gamja didn’t budge, as if he hadn’t heard me.

Instead, I heard the old lady’s voice from outside the room.

“Hey, puny one! Don’t get up for no reason—just stay lying down!”

“Ah, s-sorry, ma’am! And thank you!”

“I’m not deaf! Don’t waste your breath shouting—just stay still and rest!”

“Y-yes ma’am…”

It kind of sounded like I was being scolded, but the underlying concern in her voice made me smile.

Maybe because I laughed too easily, the heavy paw pressing on my chest finally lifted.

“Gamja! Stop staring and get over here! You help out too!”

“Kuoh.”

Responding to her call, Gamja sluggishly got up and walked out on two legs.

What the—he understands people just fine. He was just ignoring me?

As I watched Gamja’s back disappearing into the living room, I turned my gaze to the red panda perched on my brother’s legs, then to Hayul and Kang Dohee.

It made sense that Hayul stayed out of worry, but Dohee looked like she had something to say.

“Noona. Could I hear what happened after I collapsed?”

“Nothing special. While you were helping the elder, Dojin and I checked our rewards.
I got a B-grade detox potion, and Dojin got an A-grade health potion, so he gave it to you right away.”

“I got the same B-grade detox potion as noona.”

I patted Hayul on the head and turned back to Dohee, who lowered her voice slightly as she continued.

“After you seemed stable from the potion, we moved you to the room and talked a bit with the elder and Biyoung.

Seems like the four of them lived alone here—the old lady, Biyoung, that bear, and this raccoon.”

“Noona, she’s not a raccoon. She’s a red panda…”

“Raccoon, red panda—same thing.”

“Kiing!”

As if objecting to that, Bamtol flapped her front paws menacingly, but Dohee didn’t even glance at her.

Wow. She’s totally unfazed by something that cute. That’s… honestly kind of impressive and cold.

“Anyway. We figured it was better to be honest than lie, so we told them exactly how we ended up here.”

“Oh… um… D-did they believe you?”

Since the door was wide open, I asked in a whisper, a little self-conscious. Dohee shrugged and nodded.

“She said, with monsters roaming around like wild dogs, what’s there not to believe?”

“Yeah… fair point.”

I nodded in agreement.

Dohee then continued telling me what had happened since I collapsed.

★★★

After introductions, they were about to formally ask if they could stay here for a while, when out of nowhere, Ha-je collapsed.

Seeing his older brother suddenly lose consciousness, Hayul panicked. Kang Dojin and Kang Dohee immediately lifted Ha-je’s legs and upper body and carried him into the living room.

They had been worried seeing him clutch his chest as he fell, but thankfully, he was still breathing. Though it was shallow and ragged with pain, it was breathing nonetheless.

The problem was the muscle spasms around his heart. The skin visibly rippled as the muscles spasmed and trembled uncontrollably.

Kang Dohee knew a method to forcibly relax muscles spasming that severely by using acupuncture—but that only applied to areas like the forearms, calves, or thighs.

‘But this is the heart. It’s obviously dangerous to leave it like this.’

Still, she couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.

“Ma’am, do you have a knitting needle, or at least a long needle of some kind?”

Determined to try something, Kang Dohee made a hasty request.

While Gwak Hong-bun went into the room to look for a needle, her granddaughter Joo Bi-young approached. She gently pressed down on Ha-je’s trembling chest with her hand and spoke in a firm voice.

“You can’t recklessly stab here.”

“If there’s another way, we’ll try it. Do you know something?”

Kang Dohee asked, hoping Joo Bi-young might be a medical professional.

Joo Bi-young’s eyes turned to empty space.

Kang Dohee followed her gaze, but saw nothing there.

Still, it wasn’t the look of someone simply staring into space—Bi-young’s eyes clearly focused on something only she could see.

‘What is this?’

She barely had time to wonder.

“Hyung! Hyung, what do we do? Please open your eyes! Don’t we need to do CPR or something?! Hyuuuung!”

Hayul’s desperate, tearful cries—his face pale with panic—distracted Kang Dohee for a moment.

But this wasn’t the time to console him. She turned back to focus on Bi-young.

After staring into space for a few seconds, Joo Bi-young suddenly whipped her head toward Kang Dojin.

“You! Do you have any potions on you? Like a recovery potion?”

“!!”

Hearing that, Kang Dojin immediately thought of the item he received from the Supply Crate (B) as a quest clear reward when they entered this house.

Though his expression didn’t change much, Joo Bi-young seemed convinced he had such a potion and gave a firm nod.

“That potion—use it on him right now. That’ll work.”

Without asking how she knew, Kang Dojin pulled out the potion he’d hastily shoved into his pocket.

Health Recovery Potion (A)

It was about the size of a typical vitamin drink bottle sold at pharmacies.

The moment he opened the cap, a foul, fishy stench filled the air, but since it wasn’t for him, he shoved the bottle into Ha-je’s mouth and poured it in.

He knew better than to pour liquid into the mouth of an unconscious person.

But this wasn’t the time to worry about that.

Kang Dojin and Kang Dohee were already thinking of ways to force him to swallow it if necessary—but they soon realized it wasn’t needed.

Maybe it was a property of the potion itself, but the liquid vanished almost instantly as if absorbed.

“His esophagus is like a drainage pipe.”

Comparing an esophagus to a drainage pipe, Kang Dohee glared at her younger brother, silently telling him to watch his words.

She suspected it might be a fast-absorbing elixir-type potion, and that assumption was quickly proven right.

Ha-je’s condition began visibly stabilizing.

“Hyung! Hyuuung! Are you okay!? Huuu… Let go, let go of me!”

“Gu-guuuhk!”

Hayul had completely panicked when his brother collapsed and was now restrained in the fluffy arms of the moon bear, Gamja.

Even now, he was thrashing around, trying to escape the bear’s grasp, but the fact that his legs were dangling in the air proved how strong Gamja was.

“Let me go! Put me down!”

“Gu-Guuuuh! Guuuuh!”

“Gamja, it’s okay now. You can let him go.”

Hearing the calm voice of his owner, Gamja finally released the small human from his embrace.