Section Chief Jung's face slid fully into the open doorway, clearly showing his reluctance to enter the room.
"The Doctor is here. Come out for a moment, Hye-yoom." "I will take a short break and see you again shortly."
In the brief moment Hye-yoom turned her attention to Section Chief Jung, the green light on the detector disappeared. Hye-yoom left the room, leaving the equipment powered on just in case.
Upon leaving the interview room, Section Chief Jung was utterly delighted, praising the Teacher's tools.
"As expected, the Teacher's tools are different. How many Phenomenon Investigators have come and gone until now? Look how it caught the Sorcery right away."
An adult so emotionally excited as to use honorifics for a machine was unsightly.
"Is the Doctor in the lounge?" "What do you think?"
Hye-yoom stopped walking and looked at Section Chief Jung's face. Sensing the implication of his question, she did not hide her discomfort.
"If you are asking what it looks like to someone with Brown Eyes, I apologize, but I don't see anything special."
Section Chief Jung's face turned pale, as if he hadn't deeply considered what he had asked. He waved his arms excessively, trying to cover up his mistake.
"Ah, no, that's not what I meant. Uh, what was it, I didn't say anything like that, why bring up eyes? I asked just in case. I wondered if you might be able to see the clipped soul, or the Sorcery that clipped the soul." "Section Chief, are you forgetting what kind of eyes Brown Eyes are?"
Jeong-han cut off Section Chief Jung, his face thoroughly excited at the prospect of teasing his superior.
"Cough! You, be quiet! Do you think I'm asking because I don't know that?" "I don't know if it's really time for you to retire."
Jeong-han muttered softly, just loud enough for Section Chief Jung to hear. As Jeong-han and Section Chief Jung bickered and exchanged remarks, Hye-yoom ruthlessly turned her back and headed toward the lounge.
Hye-yoom entered the lounge with an absorbed expression and saw the Doctor's gaunt face. Dark circles deep beneath his eyes, skin that looked parched even from a distance, and hair that was matted, making it impossible to guess when it had last been washed. Every external aspect of the Doctor subtly suggested countless nights spent working.
Hye-yoom and the Doctor exchanged a brief nod and immediately got to the point.
"I'm not certain, but it seems like the Limbic System has been tampered with." "What is the reason for specifically mentioning something you are not certain about?"
Hye-yoom asked sharply while checking the documents that appeared to have been brought by the Doctor.
"Because it is the only commonality found among the victims." "Is this a symptom shared by all victims?" "No, only about three people, including Choi Min-jae, are showing the same symptoms. It seems that some Sorcery-related action was taken on the Amygdala and the Hippocampus, but there is no exact way to confirm it."
Hye-yoom made a rustling sound as she placed the paper on the desk.
"I was under the impression that the basic Sorcery examination was concluded early on. Is there a specific reason why this was confirmed so late?" "Because it didn't appear in the basic examination, that's why I'm telling you now. Finding a commonality among the victims wasn't easy either. Besides, Investigator, you seem quite sharp today."
The Doctor, arms crossed, spoke with a frown.
Backed by the Teacher's authority, Hye-yoom realized that since starting her work as an Investigator, she had been able to give orders, though not officially, to the Yellow Eyes. Even in this case, she could have spoken more gently, but Hye-yoom unconsciously used an overbearing tone to wield her power.
Seeing the distortion of the Doctor's face, Hye-yoom immediately recognized her mistake. Feeling she had acted similarly to the Yellow Eyes just because she gained a little authority, Hye-yoom sincerely apologized to the Doctor.
"I am truly sorry, Doctor. I think I've been a bit sensitive due to lack of sleep. What kind of additional examination was conducted?" "I didn't know what to examine, so I ran many tests, which caused a slight delay. The brain Sorcery examination was the very last of the additional tests. And you know there's no Sorcery yet for examining the brain, right? Do you know how much trouble I went through to find this out?"
As Hye-yoom expected, the sensory organs were indeed being controlled by Sorcery. If the brain was certainly tampered with, it would have looked like the soul had been touched. Controlling sensory organs with Sorcery was much more realistic than severing a soul with a spell.
"I know you've gone through a lot of trouble. But are you truly certain that the brain was tampered with by Sorcery?"
Hye-yoom asked, looking directly into the Doctor's eyes for confirmation.
"I feel certain. But this doesn't seem to be related to the Sorcery that touched the soul." "So, the Doctor's statement is that two types of Sorcery are involved: one affecting the sensory organs and one affecting the soul. Is there no possibility that the control of the sensory organs by Sorcery only makes it look like the soul was affected?" "That's possible, but... I don't think so." "What is the Lim... Lim what? Is that in the brain?"
Just as Hye-yoom was about to ask the Doctor, who seemed convinced that the soul was damaged, for his reasoning, Section Chief Jung, who had been looking over the examination papers scattered on the desk, belatedly joined the conversation.
"It might be easier to think of it as a part that constitutes the brain. To be more precise, the Amygdala detects danger, and the Hippocampus is responsible for rational judgment. But right now, the Amygdala of these three victims isn't working, and the Hippocampus is working excessively. They've been like this since they returned. They aren't unresponsive to external stimuli. They have muscle paralysis in their fine motor skills and cannot move." "I don't understand a single word. They can't detect danger, but they can still make judgments, so their body can't move?"
Section Chief Jung nervously ruffled his hair and continued speaking.
"Anyway, it can't be confirmed by machines like CT scans or anything? You said there's no Sorcery to examine the brain, so how did you find this out?" "This wasn't confirmed by Sorcery. We used science and technology to discover that some kind of Sorcery is continuously causing fine motor paralysis."
Section Chief Jung slightly closed his eyes and tilted his chin up, as if repeating the Doctor's words in his mind and trying to understand.
"What is the reason you believe the soul was damaged by Sorcery?"
Hye-yoom didn't miss the moment a gap opened in the conversation and asked the Doctor for his reasoning.
"That is... simply my intuition..." "Pardon? Intuition?" "Yes, the five senses... my feeling... something like that..."
An awkward atmosphere hung in the lounge between Hye-yoom, who was dumbfounded by the Doctor's words, and the Doctor, who avoided Hye-yoom's gaze in embarrassment.
"What on earth did the culprit do to the victims?"
Jeong-han, who had been listening quietly to the conversation, murmured softly while looking at the screen recording of the interview.
"I wonder... What on earth did they do."
A long sigh seemed to express Section Chief Jung's frustrated state of mind.
"It could also be something meant to conceal. Like the Formula being written on the Eyes-blinding Sorcery page. The culprit did something, and then bound their speech and action to hide the crime. And it might not be Sorcery, but a Curse."
Something seemed to occur to Jeong-han at Hye-yoom's words, and he spoke up with an excited voice.
"You mentioned fine motor paralysis. Could that be a drug? What was it, coffee? You know that common Curse Drug that can be easily obtained these days."
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