“But… will that really not cause any problems with your body?”
The Director of the National Intelligence Service, who had seemed a bit moved, suddenly asked me that.
It wasn’t an unreasonable question.
After all, every living being treats blood loss as something dangerous.
But that didn’t apply to me.
Some might say, “Isn’t it dangerous even for a dragon to lose blood?”
But that’s only true when the blood loss goes beyond a certain level.
Just donating a bit in my human form? That’s not nearly enough to make me waver.
My original body is the size of a building, do you really think drawing a few liters of blood from something that massive would be risky?
There’s a reason I confidently told Yeon-hwa I could supply her with blood every day.
It’s just that my blood donation cycle is a bit faster than others’.
I didn’t even need time to recover.
That amount of blood is about the same ratio as a small pinprick on my actual body.
“Director, my original body is huge. A little blood like this won’t affect me at all.”
“…Well, when you put it that way, that does make sense. Still, isn’t there a danger? If a drug with that kind of miraculous effect is made from your blood, parasites will surely come crawling.”
“That’s exactly why I brought this up with you. I don’t want creepy bugs hanging around me either. But since it’s a good thing for the public, I thought—why not?
So, what do you think? Not a bad proposal, right?”
The Director laughed at my words.
“Haha, I get it. I’ll take care of it personally. Of course, I’ll keep you informed of everything as it progresses.”
“Yes.”
“Yup.”
“Honestly, even if some weird people do come sniffing around, with Yeon-hwa around, you’ll probably be fine.”
“Oh, absolutely. Yeon-hwa’s ability… It’s honestly terrifying.”
To be honest, once she controls someone’s blood, a normal person has no way to resist.
She’s like a walking disaster.
If she wanted to, wiping out an entire country wouldn’t even be hard for her.
All she has to do is make every visible human’s blood vessels burst.
…Come to think of it, what if someone like a demon-type mutant had that power?
Just imagining it sends chills down my spine.
How did someone like Yeon-hwa get that kind of ability, and how did I end up with the power of a dragon?
It’s a mystery.
Even Shi-ah’s power is fascinating.
I wonder… is there some kind of built-in restraint?
Like a system that doesn’t give too much power to someone with extreme thoughts?
I don’t know…
How could something like that even be judged?
“It’s terrifying, isn’t it? That’s why my colleagues—those so-called ‘higher-ups’—and I have no choice but to handle people like you very carefully.”
“Right. Honestly… it’s a bit surprising. It’s not what I expected at all.”
“Haha, what part surprised you?”
“You know, like when they used to brawl in the National Assembly.”
I tried to word it politely, but the Director understood right away.
He probably knows very well how many problems exist in the government.
Well… maybe the Director himself has had to do a few things behind the scenes, knowingly or not.
Positions like his aren’t earned through integrity alone.
“With people like that in the picture, of course your safety becomes a priority. These are people who’d do anything for profit, do you think they’d mess with someone who could reduce their entire empire to ashes in an instant?”
Come to think of it, that was true.
As long as we don’t touch their profits, there’s no reason for them to freak out.
“I’m no different from them, you know. So don’t trust me too much.”
“Of course. In this day and age, who trusts people so easily? Still… I believe in what you’ve done for us mutants. At least that much.”
“Haha, is that your way of telling me not to get any funny ideas?”
“It might sound a bit arrogant, but… yes.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. I’m not stupid enough to destroy everything I’ve built in a moment of carelessness. Anyway, if the talks with the pharmaceutical company go well, I’ll let you know right away.”
“Understood.”
“…Really, thank you. Thanks to you, my granddaughter might finally find hope to keep living.”
The conversation seemed to wrap up well.
Since the new drug would be made from my blood, as long as I’m recognized as the rightful source, there shouldn’t be any real problems.
As for how the pharmaceutical company handles the origin of the drug, well, if they don’t want to lose money, they’ll take care of that properly.
The messy, complicated stuff is their job, not mine.
I’m just the one supplying the raw material.
I’m more curious to see what kind of packaging and branding they’ll come up with for the dragon blood.
In the end, it’s a win-win, right?
For me, the pharmaceutical company, and the people who’ve lost hope due to illness.
Of course, that means the effects of dragon blood need to be analyzed more thoroughly.
You never know.
If it regenerates nerves, it’s clearly tied to some kind of regenerative function.
If that also affects cancer cells, there could be a risk of rapid tumor growth.
Either way, the pharmaceutical company will need to run strict clinical trials.
So, it’ll probably be quite a while before the public actually sees the new drug.
With things more or less settled regarding Ha-yoon, the only thing left was the group project.
I immediately asked about the group project progress in the group chat.
If you don’t bring this stuff up in time, people either forget or don’t do it properly, there are plenty like that.
[Yoon Seo-hyun: How far along is everyone with the group project?]
[Lee Si-hyun: I finished gathering the materials just like you said last time! Should I send it over now?]
[Yoon Seo-hyun: Yeah. Go ahead and send it.]
Looks like Si-hyun had already finished gathering information based on the books I recommended before.
[Lee Si-hyun: Is there anything else I need to do?!]
[Yoon Seo-hyun: Nope. You’ve done everything, so you can take a break now. What about the rest of you?]
The international students did upload some materials, but… yeah, just as expected.
The quality was trash.
I knew this would happen.
Still, at least there were signs they tried, so I didn’t say anything.
[Yoon Seo-hyun: Then… Min-seong?]
[Kim Min-seong: Ah, yes, sunbae.]
[Yoon Seo-hyun: I’ll send you all the material today—can you finish the PPT as quickly as possible?]
[Kim Min-seong: Leave it to me. I’ll send it by Monday.]
[Yoon Seo-hyun: Oh, that’s reassuring. Sounds good. I’ll be the one presenting unless something comes up, but just in case, I’ll also write a script so no one gets caught off guard if the presenter gets chosen at random.]
[Professor Kim Jin-young doesn’t mind if we glance at a script.]
[Lee Si-hyun, Kim Min-seong: Got it!]
It was basically a group project done by three people, but since I’d already done this project before, putting the paper together didn’t take long.
Using the material Si-hyun gave me, I clearly cited sources, trimmed out the unnecessary parts, and cleaned it all up.
I’ve done this kind of thing so many times—it’s practically second nature by now.
[Yoon Seo-hyun: FinalVersion.hwp]
[Yoon Seo-hyun: Just turn this into a PPT. If there’s anything you’re unsure about or want to know which parts to highlight, just ask. I’ll explain everything.]
[Kim Min-seong: Thank you.]
As expected, no complaints.
The final product will probably turn out great too.
There’s such a thing as a trustworthy aura, and Min-seong definitely has it.
Good.
That’s pretty much it for the group project.
Writing the presentation script won’t be too hard either.
Still, I decided to set up a separate meeting with Si-hyun.
Rather than doing everything for her, I figured she needed to gain some experience herself.
I didn’t invite Kim Min-seong.
We weren’t close, and asking him to join would probably just make things awkward.
Besides, he was perfectly capable on his own—there was no need for me to step in and explain things unnecessarily.
So, I was now waiting for Si-hyun at a café near the officetel.
The place had been remodeled after the Minotaur-type mutant incident and now welcomed customers with an even cleaner appearance than before.
It’s impressive they managed to restore it, really.
It was absolutely wrecked back then.
As far as I knew, Si-hyun had to find another part-time job because of that incident.
Coming back here might feel a bit nostalgic for her.
It didn’t have to be this café, but…
Honestly, I just liked the coffee here the most, so I chose this place.
It was easy to find, too.
Before long, Si-hyun appeared.
She beamed when she saw me and said.
“Unnie!”
“Hey. You’re early.”
“You’re the one who got here super early, though.”
“I guess I just wanted to enjoy a bit of peace for once. You know, sitting at a café and looking out the window on a bright, cloudless day like this—it’s a really nice feeling.”
“Oh, I get that. Ah, let me go say hi to the owner real quick.”
“Sure.”
Since she hadn’t quit under bad terms but because of the store’s situation.
Si-hyun even came back with a little service item.
“Oh!”
“This is really good. The owner used to make it for me sometimes when I worked here…”
What she brought was a small slice of tiramisu.
“I know it well. I used to come here a lot before my transformation.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Alright then…”
I took out the laptop I’d brought.
“I’ll show you how to organize your research, how to edit your content, and how to write a presentation script. You’ll probably end up being the group leader for a project someday too, after all.”
“Oh, is that why you asked me to meet today?”
“And once we’re done, we can just chat and hang out a bit.”
“I’m in!”
“But make sure you learn properly. It’ll help you a lot later on.”
“Unnie, thank you so—”
“Enough, I have money. I’ll pay for dinner.”
“Th-then… I’ll gratefully accept!”
“I’ll also give you a rough explanation about the PPT. Back then, a junior dumped the whole thing on me, and I ended up making it all by myself.”
“…Who did that?”
“Some guy named Seong Yoon-hwan from the class of ’16. I really had a hard time because of him.”
“That senior is seriously awful.”
“Sneaky, right? That’s why I usually avoid the class of ’16 altogether. They’re all pretty much the same.”
“Ugh…”
“Still, if you do see him, don’t make it obvious. There’s no benefit to making more enemies, okay?”
“Of course. I’m good at reading the room, you know.”
Now that I thought about it, if Si-hyun really had poor social skills, there’s no way she would’ve made it this far in the Korean Lit department, especially one with such a high female ratio, without anyone talking behind her back.
The fact that no one did probably meant she knew how to carry herself well enough.