Chapter 1: The Unexpected Discovery
The fluorescent lights in Examination Room Three had a persistent, sub-audible flicker. Dr. Hwang Yeo-hwan noted it, as he noted everything—the scuff mark on the baseboard, the slight tremor in his own hand as he lifted the tablet. The room smelled, as always, of lemon-scented disinfectant over the deeper, chemical tang of antiseptic. It was a clean smell. A controlled smell.
On the bed, Kim Seowan sat with his legs dangling, humming a tune that didn’t exist. His chart was open on Yeo-hwan’s screen. Routine bloods, drawn that morning. The young omega was pale, slighter than he should be even for his frame, but his expression was serene. Distant.
“How have you been sleeping, Seowan-ssi?” Yeo-hwan asked, his voice calibrated to be warm but neutral. He scrolled.
“The astral currents have been turbulent,” Seowan replied, his gaze fixed on a point just above Yeo-hwan’s left shoulder. His voice was soft, almost melodic. “Mediator Daeun says it’s because the dragon stirs in the northern wastes. My mana regeneration is slow. But I persevere.”
Yeo-hwan made a non-committal sound, his eyes scanning the digital report. Electrolytes, liver function, CBC. All within acceptable parameters, given the cocktail of antipsychotics and mood stabilizers. Then his thumb stopped scrolling.
Human Chorionic Gonadotropin. Beta subunit. 25,000 mIU/mL.
The number didn’t change. He blinked. It remained.
His pen, poised over his own notebook, froze. The sterile hum of the room seemed to amplify, condensing into a high-pitched ring in his ears. One month gestation. Confirmed.
“Seowan-ssi,” Yeo-hwan said, and his voice was tighter now. He lowered the tablet, turning fully to the young man. “Your bloodwork shows something… unexpected.”
Seowan’s gentle eyes finally focused, meeting Yeo-hwan’s. A smile touched his lips, beatific and unshadowed by any mundane concern. “The sacred blessing.”
“The what?”
“The blessing. From Daeun.” Seowan’s hand drifted to his own lower abdomen, his touch reverent. “Our child. The catalyst for my ascension to Level 7. It’s why the mana feels different. It’s not turbulence. It’s a new life, resonating.”
Yeo-hwan’s mind detonated into a thousand frantic trajectories. A pregnancy. On Risperidone. On Lamotrigine. The potential for neural tube defects, for cardiac complications, was a stark, clinical list that unspooled behind his eyes. The legal implications. The ethical maze. How? The ward was segregated. Monitored. But alphas from other wings, orderlies, delivery personnel… a five-minute unsupervised moment was all it would take. A violation. An assault.
Or consensual. With who? A delusion?
“Mediator Daeun,” Yeo-hwan repeated, keeping his tone impossibly even. “Seowan-ssi, can you tell me… how you met Daeun? Is he here? In the hospital?”
Seowan laughed, a light, airy sound. “Oh, no. Daeun transcends such physical limitations. He is an alpha of pure cosmic will. He came to me during the lunar convergence. In the garden. He said our union was destined to forge the weapon against the darkness.” His face glowed with absolute conviction. “Our child is that weapon. A holy sword.”
The garden. The secure, walled courtyard where patients took supervised fresh air. Yeo-hwan’s stomach turned to stone.
He stood up, the legs of his stool scraping sharply against the linoleum. He needed to see the supervision logs for the garden. He needed to review every security camera angle. He needed to pull the medication administration records, check if Seowan had been vomiting doses, if the levels in his blood had dipped enough for ovulation to even be possible.
But first, he had to handle this. Now.
He walked to the small doppler unit on the counter. His hands were steady. They were always steady. “Seowan-ssi, with your permission, I’d like to listen. To check the baby’s wellbeing.”
“You can hear its nascent aura?” Seowan asked, lying back with eager trust, pulling up his thin hospital gown.
Yeo-hwan squeezed conductive gel onto the probe. It was cool. Seowan flinched, then giggled. “Cold mana.”
Yeo-hwan pressed the probe low on Seowan’s abdomen, moving it slowly. The silence stretched, punctuated only by the soft whirr of the device. He adjusted the depth. The gain.
Then it came—a fast, rhythmic whoosh-whoosh-whoosh, like tiny wings beating frantic against a window.
The fetal heartbeat.
It filled the silent room. A vital, stubborn little drum.
Seowan’s breath hitched. A tear escaped from the corner of his eye, tracing a path into his hairline. “The heartbeat of the prophecy,” he whispered. “Do you hear it, Doctor? It’s so strong.”
Yeo-hwan heard it. It was strong. It was also horrifically vulnerable, bathed in a chemical soup it had never asked for. A life wrapped inside a life wrapped inside a profound and impenetrable fantasy.
He removed the probe, wiping the gel away with a towel. His mind was a cold, clear chamber now, all professional protocol. “The heartbeat is good, Seowan-ssi. That’s promising.” He had to choose every word like a surgeon choosing a scalpel. “This… blessing. It changes things. The medications you take, they could be very strong for such a small, developing aura. Do you understand? We may need to adjust them. To protect it.”
The joy on Seowan’s face dimmed, replaced by suspicion. “Daeun said the child would be shielded by our combined will. Your potions are weak in comparison.”
“I’m sure Daeun’s will is powerful,” Yeo-hwan said, the lie ash in his mouth. “But let’s just be extra careful. For the child’s sake. I’m going to have you moved to a quieter room. And we’ll run some more tests. To map the… the mana field more precisely.”
Seowan studied him for a long moment, then nodded, placated. “You are a wise elder in this temple, Doctor. I will abide by your guidance. For now.”
Yeo-hwan forced a smile. It felt like a crack in plaster. He helped Seowan sit up, noting the protective curl of the omega’s hand over his stomach. He was already bonding with a phantom, with a story.
The moment Seowan was escorted out by a nurse, Yeo-hwan’s composure fissured. He locked the exam room door. He braced his hands on the cold steel counter, head bowed, and took three deep, shuddering breaths.
Then he snatched up the room’s phone, dialing the head nurse of the omega wing. “Kim Seowan in Room 312 is not to return to his bed. Put him in the private observation suite on the second floor. Log it as a precaution for sudden vertigo. No visitors. No courtyard privileges. I don’t care if the President calls, he sees no one until I clear it.”
He hung up before the nurse could fully answer.
Next, the pharmacy. The security office. The administrative head. A pregnancy was a bomb. A pregnancy in a psychotic, medicated patient by an unknown alpha was a nuclear device waiting to detonate in the middle of his career, in the middle of this carefully ordered ward.
But beneath the cold cascade of procedures, a quieter, more terrible fear pulsed in time with that remembered whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.
Someone had done this. A ghost named Daeun, woven from delusion, or a man of flesh and blood who had seen a fragile, beautiful omega alone in a garden and decided to take what he wanted.
Yeo-hwan looked at his own reflection in the black screen of the tablet. His sharp eyes were shadowed. His graying temples seemed more pronounced. He saw the face of a man who was about to tear his own ward apart looking for a monster, all while trying to protect a man who believed he was carrying a holy sword from a dragon that didn’t exist.
The real dragon was here. In the mistakes, the failures, the violated trust.
And it had already left its offspring growing in the most vulnerable patient under his care.