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Jae-gwang stood entirely frozen, his gaze locked onto his wife’s exhausted face.
“Ji-ah… what did you just say?”
“Gasp… gasp… what that gentleman just suggested. I want to do it,” she repeated, her weak fingers maintaining their slight pressure on his arm. “I can’t carry this layout anymore, Jae-gwang. It hurts too much. Regardless of how the system processes the output… I just want to rest.”
The absolute reality was that Ji-ah had been desperately craving a withdrawal of life support for months. The physical agony of her metastasized cells was a constant torment, but watching her husband systematically dismantle his own life, pouring every ounce of his physical and financial health into a failing medical vault just to keep her heart beating, was an entirely separate layer of suffering.
The only reason she had forced her failing body to endure the continuous trauma of clinical stabilization was because Jae-gwang refused to sever the thread of attachment. She had been fighting solely to keep him from shattering.
But she had reached the absolute threshold of human endurance. She wanted to slip beneath the surface and leave the endless pain behind. Whether Se-hyeon’s undocumented magic resulted in an absolute baseline restoration or instantaneous, silent systemic failure, it represented a definitive exit from her cage.
“Ji-ah… please…”
“Let’s stop, dear. I’m so tired,” she whispered, a tear tracing a clean path through the film of sweat on her temple. “I forced my frame to hold together because I knew you couldn’t process the loss, but my matrix is at absolute zero. I want to leave this pain, and I can’t bear to watch you waste away beside this bed anymore. Gasp… gasp… so please. Treat this as our final turn. Let him run the spell.”
Jae-gwang closed his eyes, his shoulders shaking as the reality crashed down. Deep within his mind, he had always known that his desperate refusal to let go was a form of prolonged cruelty, forcing her to endure a living death just to protect his feelings. Seeing her articulate her exhaustion so plainly stripped away the last of his denial.
“Haa… alright. Let’s do it,” Jae-gwang wept, leaning down to press his forehead against her frail knuckles. “I’m sorry, Ji-ah. You spent so much energy holding your frame together just for my sake, didn’t you? I’m so sorry. My stubbornness only made your cage tighter.”
Exhaling a long, stabilizing breath, the veteran porter straightened his spine and turned to face Se-hyeon, his expression locked in solemn determination.
“Hunter Jang Se-hyeon. We will proceed under your terms. Regardless of how the structural parameters shift, and even if the output results in absolute failure… neither I nor my family will ever hold a grievance against you. Please… perform the art.”
With those words, Jae-gwang bowed deeply from the waist, offering a formal gesture of absolute submission. Se-hyeon acknowledged the gesture with a calm nod.
“While I felt it was mandatory to outline the theoretical risks of an unverified human trial, my private calculation suggests that a negative biological backlash is highly improbable. Now that your authorization is documented, we will initiate the cycle.”
Se-hyeon stepped toward the mattress, his presence commanding absolute stillness in the sterile room.
“Close your eyes and let your frame relax, sister. The processing time will be remarkably brief.”
As Ji-ah closed her eyes, her breathing settling into a steady rhythm, Se-hyeon cast a sharp look at his porter.
“And Jae-gwang-hyung—regardless of what visual or physical phenomena manifest in this room over the next sixty seconds, you will wipe it entirely from your active memory. Naturally, this absolute media blackout applies to Manager Park and the rest of the extraction crew. Officially, nothing occurred in this ward today. My presence here was strictly a standard social visit to an associate’s family member. Do you copy?”
Jae-gwang nodded, his jaw set. “Understood. No matter the clinical outcome, what transpires here remains entirely sealed. I will treat it as though the memory was never written into my mind.”
Having secured an absolute baseline of operational security, Se-hyeon extended his right hand over the center of the woman’s torso, mentally triggering his dark grimoire.
‘Touch of Pasarta: Extract!’
The ambient light in the hospital room instantly shifted.
SHHHHHHH!
A dense, freezing cloud of shadow condensed directly above the mattress, weaving itself into a massive, grotesquely detailed phantom hand that pulsed with an ominous, low-frequency hum. Without causing a single ripple in the physical structure of her clothing or skin, the spectral hand plunged smoothly into her chest cavity, sweeping through her vital organs like a master surgeon drawing a net through water.
SNAP!
A sharp, microscopic sound echoed through the room, and the shadow hand vanished back into the void.
[Touch of Pasarta has successfully extracted an active biological pathogen cluster.] >
[Do you wish to secure this cluster within your ring’s containment vault? Warning: If storage allocation is denied, the cluster will automatically regress to its original biological host.]
The spell operated under strict preservation rules; if the extracted sickness wasn’t manually allocated to one of his ten internal slots, the system would treat the action as incomplete and return the payload to the victim’s frame.
‘Secure.’
The moment Se-hyeon issued the mental confirmation, the microscopic black mist that had crystallized around his fingertips dissolved into the core of Xerostan.
[Pathogen storage finalized successfully.] >
[Slot 1: Stage 4 Adenocarcinoma (Primary: Colon) — Metastasized Aggressions: Lung, Kidney, Pancreas, Stomach, Breast.]
The systemic breakdown was horrifying. The malignant growth had compromised virtually every major organ system in her upper torso; it was a statistical miracle that her vital signs had maintained a baseline at all.
Brushing a non-existent speck of dust from his sleeve, Se-hyeon stepped back, his voice dropping into a casual tone. “The extraction is complete. How does your frame feel, sister?”
At his voice, Ji-ah’s eyes slowly opened.
The change was instantaneous and undeniable. The deep, agonizing tension that had kept her facial muscles permanently drawn tight for over a year had completely vanished. Her skin, though still pale from malnutrition, lacked the gray, deathly undertone of systemic failure.
“It… it’s completely quiet,” she whispered, her voice immediately catching as she drew a deep, full breath into her lungs without a single hitch. “The pressure in my chest is gone. It doesn’t hurt. Jae-gwang… take this mask off me. It’s too restrictive.”
For months, removing that oxygen line would have triggered an immediate drop in her blood saturation levels, leading to suffocation. Now, she was actively batting at the plastic with her fingers. Jae-gwang rushed forward, his hands shaking as he unhooked the straps.
“Ji-ah… are you truly certain? Is there no burning? No breakthrough pain?”
“None,” she gasped, sitting up slightly, her eyes wide with a childlike wonder. “Just a moment ago, drawing air felt like swallowing broken glass. Now… it’s as if that entire nightmare was a complete fabrication. Everything is entirely light. Though… why aren’t my arms responding properly? I want to swing my legs out, but my muscles feel completely hollow.”
She stared at her thin forearms in mild frustration, confused as to why a body that felt completely liberated from pain refused to execute high-speed movements. Se-hyeon offered a reassuring smile.
“The spell systematically purged every trace of the malignant cellular growth, but it cannot retroactively rebuild mass. You’ve been bedridden for months; your muscle tissue has heavily atrophied, your bone density is low, and your systemic caloric reserve is completely empty due to a strict diet of clinical IV fluids. Your biology is healthy, but your battery is drained. High-protein nutrition and structured physical therapy will resolve those deficits within a matter of weeks.”
The structural decay was a simple mechanical issue. With the active cancer entirely erased from her blueprint, rebuilding her physical form was a standard logistical problem that could be easily resolved with time and proper meals.
“Hunter Jang Se-hyeon… I… I don’t even know how to begin formulating my gratitude,” Jae-gwang sobbed, dropping to his knees and bowing his head toward the floor. To watch his wife transform from a dying hospice patient into a fully cured human being within sixty seconds was a reality so immense it defied his comprehension. “This debt… I have no currency or service capable of balancing it.”
“Keep your head up, hyung,” Se-hyeon countered smoothly, catching the man’s shoulder to pull him back to his feet. “As I stated earlier, this is a pioneering human trial, so ensure she undergoes a full, rigorous diagnostic sweep via the hospital’s standard imaging equipment tomorrow. Once the clinical team confirms that her profiles are entirely clear, focus heavily on her physical rehabilitation. And remember our agreement: I was never here.”
“You have my oath on my soul, Hunter Jang,” Jae-gwang said, his voice dropping into a fierce whisper. “Until the day my heart stops beating—and even beyond that—this event does not exist. Today, a localized medical anomaly occurred, and my wife simply received a miracle from heaven.”
Se-hyeon’s lips curved into a subtle smile. “Excellent. The medical staff is going to lose their minds once they see her chart tomorrow, so you’ll likely have a very hectic schedule managing the administrative fallout. I’ll take my leave now. Once the formal scan results are printed, give me a casual update.”
While his system confirmed an absolute extraction, observing how Earth’s conventional medical tech interpreted a sudden, complete reversal of stage-four metastasis was a data point Se-hyeon wished to monitor for safety.
“Understood. The moment the diagnostics are finalized, I will send you the breakdown,” Jae-gwang promised.
Se-hyeon turned back to the bed, offering a polite nod to the woman. “I wish you a swift and complete recovery, sister. Once you’re formally discharged and your mobility returns, I expect an invitation to dinner.”
“You absolutely have one, Hunter Jang,” Ji-ah replied, her eyes shining with profound emotion. “The moment I am out of this ward, I will personally prepare a feast for you. My culinary skills are quite respectable, so you must attend. Thank you… thank you for giving me my life back.”
She had accepted her death. The past twelve months had been a relentless gauntlet of torment so severe that she had actively craved the void. Yet, in a single, silent pulse of shadow magic, the agony had been completely erased. Her muscles were weak, but her spirit felt completely refreshed. She had been handed a clean slate—a second entry into the world.
“Haha, I’ll be looking forward to that meal, sister. Make sure you practice,” Se-hyeon chuckled, adjusting his jacket. “Alright, hyung, I’m heading out. Just as a heads-up: I’m pulling myself out of the dungeon rotation tomorrow to handle some personal matters. We’ll resume day after tomorrow if your schedule permits. If you need more time to manage things here, just notify Manager Park in advance.”
For as long as they had operated as a party, Se-hyeon had maintained a relentless, daily clearance schedule without a single pause. To hear him voluntarily declare a rest day was a massive surprise, but Jae-gwang simply assumed the young mage was purposely clearing the schedule to give his porter time to stabilize his family life. In reality, Se-hyeon had managed to accumulate a prime inventory of F-rank magic stones and intended to spend the next twenty-four hours deep within his private laboratory tree.
The following morning arrived with a peaceful, uninterrupted calm.
Having already notified Park Sang-soo that his combat profile would remain offline for the day, Se-hyeon enjoyed a long, luxurious sleep before finally sliding out of bed to begin his crafting trials.
Reaching into his sub-space inventory, he retrieved Kaltraven’s Elixir Synthesis Apparatus and placed the heavy, brass-and-crystal mechanism onto his dining table.
The machine featured a modular layout with multiple isolated input chambers: dedicated slots for dried botanical sorting, a high-pressure well for pulverized magic stones, and a sealed reservoir for liquid suspension. The integrated system operated under strict consumption logic—regardless of how many raw materials he piled into the chambers, the machine would only draw the exact, mathematically precise milligrams required to fulfill a single crafting action.
Se-hyeon selected a handful of low-tier magic stones and deposited them into the designated crystal well.
WHIRRRRRRRRRR!
The moment the stones cleared the entry threshold, an internal kinetic field engaged, instantly pulverizing the dense crystals into a micro-fine, shimmering silver dust.
“Oh? That’s remarkably convenient,” Se-hyeon observed, his eyebrows raising.
Under normal circumstances, crushing or grinding a dungeon-harvested magic stone outside a specialized industrial lab caused its internal volatile energy to rapidly dissipate into the atmosphere, rendering the material useless for alchemy. Yet, within the localized field of Kaltraven’s apparatus, the raw energy remained perfectly stabilized despite the complete destruction of the stone’s physical lattice.
With the stone dust prepared, he systematically sorted and loaded the remaining rare flora required for a basic health potion into their respective hoppers. The moment the inputs stabilized, a series of luminescent green digits flickered to life on the central crystal display.
[Magic Stone Dust: 100] [Petrov Leaves: 53] [Zeltan Roots: 48] [Gafrin Powder: 82] [Water Volume: 30]
The interface was displaying the absolute maximum number of potions he could manufacture based on his current material allocation.
“The water volume is the restrictive bottleneck, capped at 30 units,” Se-hyeon analyzed. “That means my maximum continuous output per cycle is exactly thirty bottles before I need to manually replenish the fluid reservoir.”
While he could continuously top off the inputs to maintain a constant manufacturing loop, he was far more intrigued by the stone consumption metric. One standard F-rank magic stone provided enough refined dust to fuel exactly 100 potion cycles. Given that he had tasked Park Sang-soo with converting his high-grade loot into over a hundred low-tier stones, he currently possessed enough base dust to manufacture over 10,000 potions.
“Naturally, the sheer time required to monitor the machine means I won’t be mass-producing thousands of units today,” he muttered, adjusting his stance. “Let’s run a baseline test of one hundred health potions and one hundred mana potions first.”
He took a box of small, thumb-sized glass vials he had purchased in bulk online and lined them up along the automated output tray. With everything aligned, he initiated his active Alchemy skill, targeting the lowest-grade health potion recipe.
VROOOOOOOOOM!
The apparatus hummed, its internal gears shifting with fluid precision.
[Lowest-Grade Health Potion manufacturing complete.]
The entire process took exactly fifteen seconds. A standard alchemical circle required a minimum of thirty seconds of constant mana channeling to bind raw ingredients, but thanks to the 50% casting reduction anchored to Kaltraven’s dedicated gear, the loop was halved.
Psssssh…
Like a premium espresso machine cycling a shot, a vibrant, crimson fluid streamed down from the central nozzle, filling the glass vial to the brim before an automated mechanism sealed the cap.
“Haha, this feels exactly like operating a high-end coffee maker,” Se-hyeon laughed, lifting the warm glass vial to inspect its system parameters.
[F-Rank] Lowest-Grade Health Potion
While it lacked the premium sub-options found in A-rank Perfect Potions—such as instant status-ailment cleansing or accelerated tissue knitting—a flat, instantaneous recovery of 3,000 vitality points was an incredible baseline metric.
For context, an average D-rank hunter who didn’t specialize in a dedicated Shield or Vanguard path rarely possessed a maximum vitality pool exceeding 10,000 points. Carrying an inventory of these instantaneous potions meant a standard raid team could comfortably clear mid-tier gates without requiring a dedicated high-cost Healer on the payroll.
“A three-thousand-point recovery ceiling… It’s statistically useless for my personal profile,” Se-hyeon reasoned, thinking of his own massive 111,200 vitality pool. “An instant injection of 3,000 won’t even register on my health bar. But for the standard commercial market? This is an incredibly disruptive asset.”
Reaching out, he initiated the next crafting sequence.
[Lowest-Grade Health Potion has achieved a Great Success during manufacturing.]
“Oh? A Great Success on the second pull? Let’s see how much the variance alters the baseline.”
WHIRRRRRRRR!
The machine deposited a secondary vial into the tray, the fluid inside pulsing with a noticeably deeper, more luminous crimson hue. Se-hyeon brought up the updated readout.
[F-Rank] Lowest-Grade Health Potion [Great Success]
The difference between a standard craft and a critical success was massive. The absolute recovery value had jumped by an immediate 2,000 points, and the addition of a topical mending sub-option transformed a simple consumable into a versatile field-dressing asset.
“The variance is significant,” Se-hyeon noted, his eyes narrowing with interest. “To achieve this level of quality scaling from the exact same raw material cost is an incredible margin.”
With the baseline metrics verified, his expression turned focused. “Alright. Time to put this machine to work.”
Leaning over the table, Se-hyeon systematically settled into a steady, rhythmic production loop.
It took approximately one hour and thirty minutes of constant oversight to completely deplete his planned material run for both health and mana potions. While the accelerated processing speed should have wrapped the trial up sooner, the manual labor involved in cleaning the reservoirs, swapping out the finished trays, and resetting the hoppers added thirty minutes of administrative friction to the loop.
His final inventory yield sat neatly on the table: 85 standard health potions, 15 Great Success health potions, 89 standard mana potions, and 11 Great Success mana potions.
“I expected the Great Success yield to sit slightly higher given the machine’s 20% modifier, but the real-world RNG is a bit conservative,” Se-hyeon muttered, reviewing the tallies. “Well, pulling down over ten critical units per run isn’t a bad starting point for a novice level. I need to aggressively grind my Alchemy mastery level to naturally tilt those success vectors.”
Currently, his crafting profile was relying entirely on the static multipliers attached to Kaltraven’s apparatus. Once his personal mastery leveled up, his critical success percentages would naturally compound, allowing him to output premium cargo with absolute consistency.
“For now, I’ll segregate the premium stock…”
Se-hyeon reached into his bag and retrieved a heavy, tactical utility belt he had ordered alongside his glassware. The belt featured custom-molded, padded leather cells engineered to absorb heavy kinetic impact, ensuring that the fragile glass contents would remain perfectly insulated during intense physical combat.
He systematically slotted 10 Great Success health potions into the left utility cells and 10 Great Success mana potions into the right, before fastening the buckle with a crisp click.
“Now, I just need to bundle this along with the shield and deliver it to Se-hee.”
Among the equipment drops he had secured from the spider nest was a high-grade vanguard shield perfectly suited for his sister’s knight-class profile. While her current placement inside the national Hunter Academy meant she had zero exposure to live combat hazards, her curriculum included an upcoming high-priority field expedition within the month.
Dungeon incursions were inherently chaotic environments where historical data could shift in an instant. Since he was already off the clock, Se-hyeon decided to use his free afternoon to deliver the defensive gear and the critical potions directly to her campus, ensuring she possessed an absolute safety net before she ever set foot inside a gate.
The adventure continues! If you loved this chapter, When I Loved You, I Wasn’t Famous is a must-read. Click here to start!
Read : When I Loved You, I Wasn’t Famous
If You Notice any translation issues or inconsistency in names, genders, or POV etc? Let us know here in the comments or on our Discord server, and we’ll fix it in current and future chapters. Thanks for helping us to improve! 🙂
Was this last chapter an unedited ai translation? I had to stop reading halfway through because it was bothering me so much. The system was weird and half the conversation suddenly felt like two computers talking to each other.
No the translation seems correct that’s the way the novel is