Worthless Skill Escape (WN)

Chapter 221

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TL: ALT

Chapter 221 – Devotion for No Reason Part 1

◆??? PoV

I sneak into the ward of the university hospital where I used to work, weaving through the darkness of the night and sneaking into a particular hospital room.

In the private room, after the lights go out, a boy who has been staring blankly out of the window at the night sky turns his head toward me.

“Huh, Sensei? At this time of night…?”

As soon as he recognizes my face, a look of confusion comes over the boy’s face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t make an appointment…”

“That’s okay, but why?”

“Because I might not be able to come for a while.”

The boy asks without a trace of doubt, so I give him an answer that is partly a lie.

“My mother told me. You can’t come for a while, right? You’re busy with your research, aren’t you?”

“Y-yeah… that’s right. I have to attend a conference overseas…”

“Wow, overseas! You really are amazing, Sensei!”

Seeing how innocently he believes my words, I realize.

He hasn’t been told about my current situation.

I―Kiriko Kandori―am wanted by the police.

I am suspected of trying to harm the members of the Men’s Association in the Umihotaru Dungeon.

According to the reports, it seems to be being treated as an assault case that is almost a murder.

The clash between the groups of explorers making political demands was an unprecedented incident, but the results of the national election that followed were so shocking that my case was treated as insignificant.

Although I am being pursued by the police, the chances of my arrest are slim.

As a researcher, I was not at all interested in the level ranking of explorers.

If you are a researcher, it is healthier to care about the impact factor of your own papers.

Besides, the competition to determine who is stronger than who else is a competition based on a very masculine principle, and I have a strong feeling of disgust towards it.

It is possible to exclude yourself from the level ranking by changing the settings in the dungeon exploration app “Dungeons Go Pro”.

If I had included myself in the ranking, my current level would be far ahead of the current number one, the obnoxious royal who aspires to be a hero, Miyato Harukawa.

The strength of a dungeon explorer is not necessarily determined by their level alone, but there is no policeman who can “arrest” me with an overwhelmingly high level.

What’s more, that person is secretly leaking police information to me.

The misbehavior of a child like me is also a serious matter for that person, and he wants to avoid the possibility of me falling into the hands of the police.

Or, to be more precise, what that person is afraid of is not a police investigation, which will not bear fruit anyway.

This person wants to prevent me from falling into the hands of that black tengu, Yuto Kurashiki.

I still have important work to do.

“We don’t have much time. I’ll treat you now.”

“Understood.”

The boy took off his pajama top and turned his back to me.

For a boy his age, his back was white.

Although I feel disgusted just looking at a man’s body, I can still touch the boy’s back for now.

I use my unique skill of Experimental Space to remove the lesions from the boy’s body.

The identity of the incurable disease eating away at the boy is abnormally formed white blood cells.

These white blood cells, produced by the diseased cells scattered throughout the boy’s body, attack his own nerve tissue, which they see as a foreign body.

The system that protects the body from foreign bodies, such as bacteria and viruses, has malfunctioned and is damaging the boy’s body.

The problem is that this disease is hereditary.

Modern medical technology has not yet found a cure.

Because it is an extremely rare and difficult disease, there has been little progress in researching the condition, let alone developing a treatment.

Even with my Experimental Space, I can only destroy the abnormally formed white blood cells.

This is a technique that has only recently become possible.

Of course, it is impossible to recreate my Experimental Space with science.

This means that there is no one other than me who can alleviate his suffering.

“Today I’m also going to try a new treatment.”

Recent research has enabled me to identify the mother cells that produce abnormal white blood cells.

I will change these mother cells into normal cells in the Experimental Space.

“This should last longer than before.”

“Wow, thank you so much!”

The boy thanked me without a care in the world.

“Of course, it won’t be a complete cure. Experiments to directly rewrite genes in the Experimental Space have not been successful yet. I’m sorry.”

It should be possible to edit the base sequence of genes in the Experimental Space.

However, in order to do this, it is necessary to identify which base of the gene needs to be changed.

This is because if you damage the base of the gene at random, you don’t know what the effects will be.

From a scientific point of view, it is not impossible to identify the gene sequence associated with the boy’s disease.

However, it would require an enormous amount of money and manpower.

Subsidies for national research institutes and development costs for pharmaceutical companies are concentrated on major diseases with a large number of patients.

This is more efficient in helping as many suffering people as possible, and the larger the number of patients, the larger the market for drugs, making it easier to recoup the costs of drug development.

Difficult diseases that affect only a small number of people worldwide inevitably get put on the back burner.

Even if the gene can be identified, direct editing of genes is impossible with modern medical technology.

In my Experimental Space, it might be possible in principle, but it would still be extremely difficult.

In order to rewrite problematic genetic information in the Experimental Space, I need to be able to image the base sequence at high resolution.

I also need to be able to target the base sequence with pinpoint accuracy.

But there are 6 billion base sequences in human DNA.

The world’s current population is about 8 billion.

Pinpointing a specific base sequence and replacing one of the ATGCs with another base is as difficult as identifying a single person on the entire planet.

A different approach will be needed.

Amateurs often ask, “Can’t you cure this disease with an item from a dungeon, like an elixir?”

It’s sad that ordinary people can’t even understand something like that, but the boy’s situation is more than something to scoff at.

Unable to bear to see him suffer, his parents took out a loan and bought him an elixir.

They mortgaged their house and borrowed money from the bank, and they also bowed to their relatives and co-workers.

The elixir they obtained in this way had no effect on his illness.

Perhaps the information written in his genes meant that the lesions he was born with were considered a normal part of his body in the perception of the dungeon.

As long as it was written in his genes, it was the correct state of the boy’s body.

There have been dozens of experiments both in Japan and overseas to administer the elixir to children born with genetic disorders.

However, most of the papers conclude that “The elixir cannot cure birth defects.”

There are reports that some defects have been cured, but in this case, the defects were not genetic but caused by environmental factors in the womb.

Of course, I told his parents this many times.

But his parents could not just watch him suffer from the nerve damage.

Even if only the peripheral nerves are affected, he is still in excruciating pain.

What would happen if the central nerves―and even the brain nerves―were affected?

Once a male research doctor, who didn’t know the meaning of tenderness, said to the parents, “At worst, he could become a cripple.”

I was so angry at that man’s words that I wanted to kill him, but the content of his words was not wrong.

Hoping against hope, the parents threw away their fortune, took out loans, went to various government offices, and petitioned politicians to obtain the elixir, which is a designated strategic search item of the country.

“Why are you apologizing? I’m the one you’re helping.”

“Right…”

This will probably be the last time I can treat him.

I was able to remove the diseased cells for the last time, but they will undoubtedly return eventually.

His body will continue to produce body cells based on the problematic genetic information.

Although not all the cells will be problematic, the lesion cells will undoubtedly reappear in the not-too-distant future.

The only hope I had was the magic moss.

I would transplant the specially processed magic moss into his body.

This magic moss would produce slime macrophages with a certain characteristic.

This “certain characteristic” is the characteristic of specifically preying on abnormally formed white blood cells.

In short, the idea was to implant an “organ” into his body to get rid of the abnormal white blood cells.

Unfortunately, the research stopped halfway through.

I couldn’t find a way to automatically give the slime macrophages such a “characteristic”.

I cultivated slime macrophages in the countless dungeons I had created in my body and tested all sorts of abilities.

However, I was unable to give them the ability to locate and attack only the abnormal white blood cells that caused his incurable disease.

What I could create were slime macrophages that indiscriminately ate all kinds of white blood cells in the blood and slime macrophages that selectively ate only the sickle-shaped red blood cells among the red blood cells. Those were the limits.

As a researcher, I am deeply ashamed that I could not find a way to cure him.

However, I was given a greater task than just curing him.

If the “paradise” that that person seeks can be realized, perhaps there will be a way to cure his disease…

Of course, it is unlikely that I will live to see that day.

“I know my illness is difficult. There is no need for you to apologize. I am truly grateful to you for taking away my pain like this.”

“I see…”

I shook my head and looked down.

Then he asked me a difficult question.

“Why is Professor Kandori helping me? I’m a man, after all.”

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