The sound of rain falling and the bright orange glow of the room visible through my closed eyelids guided me back to consciousness. As I slowly opened my eyes, adjusting to the sudden barrage of photons bombarding my corneas, I could make out the feint outline of my parents’ figures, arguing in the corner of what seemed to be a familiar looking hospital room. As I limped my way out of my slumber, my last few memories suddenly returned to me in a wave of panic as a hundred questions raced through my mind.

How did I get to a hospital back in Seoul? The last thing I remembered was fainting due to mana exhaustion in the middle of a loading dock in some foreign land. Was it the masked man who brought me back here? But how did he know where I lived? And more importantly, why would he help me after what he did to those smugglers? The last thing I remembered was the ston-… the emerald mana stone! I had found it. The one thing that could wake my sister up from her comatose state. But I remembered the masked man taking it from my hand before I lost consciousness. My parents must have noticed me frantically moving my hands across my body as I lay on the bed, searching for my belongings, because my mother let out a small shriek.

‘Minjun! He’s awake! Nurse, call the doctor, my son is awake!’ she screamed at the top of her now increasingly high-pitched voice.

‘Dad… where am I?’ I barely managed to articulate through my dry throat as my father approached my hospital bed, already reaching for a glass of water with his left hand.

‘You’re at Saengmyeong Hospital son,’ he spoke with an air of relief as he helped me sit up slightly and assisted me in gulping down a few morsels of water.

My parents must have seen the bewildered look on my face because by the time the doctor had entered the room, my mother had already started explaining and questioning in equal measure; ‘One of the nurses found you lying outside the hospital unconscious! Where were you?! Your father and I were out searching the whole night when you didn’t come home! What happened, tell me now!’ her voice trailed off as tears started welling up in her eyes.

‘Now now, let’s all calm ourselves, the boy seems to be doing just fine,’ the elderly doctor motioned to my mother as he checked my pulse and breathing. ‘Apart from him passing out due to excessive mana loss, we found the boy in tip top condition,’ he added, so as to further calm my mother down.

Looking down at my left arm that had almost broken off from the force of the S-ranked smugglers simple hand grip last night, the doctor was right. My arm seemed to be fully healed, with not a trace of injury apparent anywhere on my body. Was it the mana stone? Did it continue to heal me after I lost consciousness?

As my thoughts went back to the emerald mana stone, I quickly turned towards the doctor and inquired frantically, ‘My belongings, where are my belongings?!’ I had already noticed from my initial inspection of my body that I was dressed in the hospital’s patient gown.

‘Your clothes, wallet and WristNAV are right here,’ the nurse accompanying him pointed to a small basket next to my bed, quickly adding that, ‘This was all we found on you.’

I let out a large sigh, as I dropped my head, almost on the verge of tears. I had somehow managed to stumble across the one thing that could cure my sister, and I couldn’t even hold on to it. It was clear that the masked man had taken the mana stone, along with probably everything else in that warehouse. While the most probable explanation for my appearance at this hospital was that he had checked the I.D. in my wallet and brought me here via a portal, I couldn’t bring myself to be thankful for this small kindness. After all, he had taken away the one thing I truly wanted, even at the cost of my own life. While I did consider for a second that the hospital or whoever found me here might have taken the stone, I quickly dismissed the thought. It was unlikely, given how methodical the masked man had been, that he would just leave a priceless mana stone in my pocket for others to find. Gathering my thoughts, I turned to my parents to give them some sort of logical explanation for my current state.

‘I’m really sorry mom, dad. I had a lot on my mind last night so I kept wandering around after leaving the dojo. I was jumped by a bunch of thugs out of nowhere but I somehow managed to scare them off with a mid-level spell. I ended up using all my mana though, so I must have fainted. I guess someone found me and brought me here,’ I summarized, satisfied at the believability of my own explanation.

My parents must have decided to postpone their anger, because the next few hours at the hospital as well as the drive home were unusually quiet. When we finally reached home, our cook Yeon Soon had already set the dining table with an assortment of my favorite dishes. While Yeon Soon was older than my parents, my sister and I had grown up around the hefty, brown-spectacle wearing cook all our lives, and treated her like family. Surprisingly, I wasn’t very hungry even after a day of going without food, but out of respect for Yeon Soon’s efforts, I did partake in some pieces of steak along with a slice of warm bread.

‘Mom, dad, I’m going to head to my room,’ I declared getting up from my chair, more mentally exhausted than anything else.

‘Tell us if you need anything sweetheart,’ my mom replied hesitantly, as if unsure of what else to say right now.

As I walked upstairs to my room, out of habit, I decided to say good night to Yoonah next door before going to bed, futilely knocking before entering. My parents had left everything in Yoonah’s room exactly as it had been before the accident, so seeing my now sixteen-year-old sister lying on a princess-themed bed in a room decorated with fairytale memorabilia, seemed like a mismatch from her physical age.

As always, I walked up to her bed, pulling up a spare chair to sit beside her for a bit. While she had physically aged, there wasn’t much of a change from what I remembered to be her appearance two years ago. Trying to hold back my tears, I grabbed her hand, the only words on the tip of my tongue being, ‘I’m sorry Yoonah, I’m sorr-…’

Before I could even finish my apology, I witnessed what could only be described as an outright miracle. As soon as I touched her hand, I felt a momentary pain in my right palm as the emerald mana stone emerged out of it, as if being pushed out of a miniature portal embedded in the palm of my hand. As shocked as I was, I quickly grabbed the mana stone, worried that I might be hallucinating, or worse, that it might disappear from my grasp again. But here it was, an emerald mana stone, in the palm of my hand, along with a small scroll tied around the stone with a tiny golden string, as if it were a miniature gift from the gods themselves.

My breathing still heavy, I quickly opened the scroll, which said, ‘I’m pretty sure you were the reason I was able to find those traitors, so here’s a small parting gift. I hope it can help your sister. You’ve got guts kid. -S.’

At once, I put two and two together as my suspicions were confirmed. It was clear that the smugglers had been limiting their mana usage in order to hide from the masked man. And the minute surge in mana from when I tested the mana stone, coupled with the brief amount time the S-ranked smuggler had been forced to channel mana in order to apprehend me, had somehow alerted the masked man to our location. I could only presume that my last words had gotten through to him, and he had used a portal to bring me back to a hospital in my home town. 

Although he had murdered those mages in cold blood, at this moment, I could only feel gratefulness towards the masked man, or ‘S’ as he had signed the small scroll. He had clearly used the same sort of dimensional magic used for high-level storage rings to somehow hide the mana stone within my right palm. And as for why it emerged right now, I could only theorize that it had something to do with physical contact with my sister, whom I had intended to use it for.

Not wanting to waste another second, and unaware of how my parents might react upon seeing the mana stone in my hand, I quickly placed it on Yoonah’s open palm and channeled as much of my internal mana into it as I could without once again facing the backlash from mana exhaustion. It worked, as the emerald mana stone shone brighter and brighter, radiating a green aura which slowly enveloped Yoonah’s body, as if it were alive. I took a small step back, not wanting to interfere with the process, as the mana stone quickly became smaller and smaller, before completely vanishing in a cloud of emerald dust.

I held my breath as a minute passed without anything happening. And then another. And another. After standing perfectly still for what seemed like an eternity, my mind which had gone blank was once again filled with a dozen questions. I knew the mana stone worked; I had seen it instantaneously heal my wounds last night. So why wasn’t it working right now? I knew the entire stone had been used up; I had witnessed its aura slowly envelop my sister’s body before dissipating into thin air. Had I done something wrong? I wasn’t a healer, so had I missed something that only a healer would know how to do? Or was it that one mana stone was not enough to bring my sister back? I paced back and forth around the room, frantically trying to piece together an explanation which made sense when suddenly, there was another emerald flash of light from my sister’s direction, bright enough that I had to close my eyes to shield my corneas from being blinded.

When I finally opened my eyes and adjusted to the once again dimly lit room, my heart started racing faster than it ever had before. There, on the bed in front of me, was the figure of my sister, sitting upright, looking at me with a look of confusion coupled with joy at the same time.

No longer able to contain my tears at the sight of my sister, awake in front of me, I took a few steps forward and fell to my knees as I hugged her tightly, unable to stop crying.

‘Mom, dad, it’s Yoonah! MOM! MOM!’ I let out a tear-filled scream clearly loud enough for the entire neighbourhood to hear, as I soon heard frantic footsteps heading up the stairs towards us.

I will never forget the sight of my mother and father, standing in the doorway of Yoonah’s room in their nightgowns, a look of utter disbelief, shock and gratitude plastered on their faces at the same time as Yoonah turned towards them and finally spoke for the first time in two years, ‘Mom, Dad, why is my brother so weird…’