Seo Jung-woo carefully laid the unconscious Nam Soo-jung on the floor. The kitchen was too narrow, and there wasn’t enough space to lay her down. He kicked aside the three gangsters piled in the corner to make more room.

He took out a small glass vial from a thin metal cylinder. Inside was a red potion. It was only 3cc, but its effects were miraculous.

The red potion was a miracle wound healer. Even if one were stabbed in the heart, it could save them if used immediately. If an arm were severed, it could be reattached on the spot. Hunters and soldiers considered it a spare life.

However, due to its limited production and the abundance of seriously injured people, it was quickly consumed and hard to obtain. Lately, the supply had been especially scarce. That’s why Seo Jung-woo only carried one vial.

Seo Jung-woo opened the lid of the small glass bottle.

The red potion was simple to use—just pour it on the wound. If there was internal bleeding but no external wound, one would need to create a cut deliberately.

Since it would be absorbed into the body and heal all injuries, the location of the wound didn’t matter.

Seo Jung-woo poured the red potion on Nam Soo-jung’s wound. The small amount of potion, only 3cc, was absorbed through the injury.

He confirmed the bottle was completely empty and closed the lid.

“Phew.”

The special power within the red potion reacted to her wound.

The organs and blood vessels damaged by the knife began to regenerate rapidly. The speed of recovery was beyond modern medicine.

A deep stab wound had been made in Nam Soo-jung’s abdomen. That wound too began to heal gradually.

It didn’t even take a minute for all her wounds to disappear completely and for the pooled blood in her stomach to be reabsorbed.

Seo Jung-woo said,

“I told you—you’re not going to die. You’re going to live.”

The treatment was complete, but not all problems were solved. The blood on the floor was still an issue.

When treated with red potion, even severe wounds left no scars. In that case, there would be no explanation for where all the blood came from.

“Soo-jung, I’m sorry.”

He picked up the knife the gangsters had dropped. Wearing gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, he grasped it.

“Sorry for making a new wound on your stomach.”

Seo Jung-woo lightly stabbed Nam Soo-jung’s abdomen with the knife. He did it skillfully so it wouldn’t damage the inside, only enough to make it bleed.

“I’ll bring you medicine later to remove the scar. There’s good stuff over there.”

Seo Jung-woo opened the door. Nam Soo-jung’s younger brother, Nam Soo-ho, was sitting there crying. He was an elementary school student.

“Mister, what about my sister?”

“She’s fine. She’s just sleeping.”

“Really?”

Nam Soo-jung let out a small sound and opened her eyes.

“Ugh… my stomach stings.”

“See? She’s okay.”

“Sisterrrr!”

The 119 ambulance arrived first.

The paramedics were shocked by the blood-soaked floor.

“W-With this much bleeding, the injured person must be…”

Seo Jung-woo quickly spoke up.

“Ah, she did bleed a lot, but fortunately, it wasn’t a deep stab wound. The bleeding’s stopped now, so if you get her to the hospital right away, she’ll be fine.”

“Ah! Are you a doctor?”

“No. I’m a detective.”

“Huh? Then how can you be so sure…”

“Well, I’ve seen a lot of situations like this.”

The paramedics checked Nam Soo-jung’s condition. Her body was stained with blood, and she had a wound on her stomach, but she didn’t appear to be in critical condition.

“Then we’ll take the injured over there first. All three seem seriously hurt.”

“Those guys won’t die. Take Soo-jung first.”

“What?”

“Can’t take those guys until we cuff them.”

“Ah… Okay.”

The paramedics laid Nam Soo-jung on a stretcher for the ambulance.

From the stretcher, she asked Seo Jung-woo,

“Mister, I really won’t die?”

Seo Jung-woo walked alongside the stretcher and answered,

“Yeah. No one on our side dies in front of me. Only the bad guys die.”

“But those guys said I was going to die.”

“Are those guys doctors? What do ignorant thugs know? They saw the blood and misunderstood.”

“Ah… Thank goodness. Ow… My stomach hurts.”

“You were stabbed. Of course it hurts.”

He lightly stabbed the now-scarless stomach again, making it look like a fresh wound. It looked pretty big, but it didn’t hurt her internally at all.

Nam Soo-jung said worriedly,

“If it leaves a scar, that’s bad for being a celebrity.”

“Just don’t wear crop tops.”

Even if there was a slight scar, it could be quietly removed after all this was over. There was medicine in the other world that could erase light scars. An ointment made from a specific monster extract worked exceptionally well.

Seo Jung-woo asked,

“After all this trouble, you still want to be a celebrity?”

“I have to audition at ES Entertainment. I need to earn money. Twenty million won.”

Seo Jung-woo chuckled softly.

“Yeah. Make sure you go to that audition. It’ll go well.”

“Ah… What about my brother?”

“I’ll send him to the same hospital in the next ambulance. Don’t worry.”

“We don’t have money for the hospital.”

“I’ve got it.”

Nam Soo-jung smiled.

“Hehe. Thank you. I should get up and bow… and bow… and…”

Her smiling face gradually turned tearful. Her mouth tried to smile, but her eyes filled with tears.

Then suddenly, she burst into tears.

“Mister… I was so scared. And it really hurt.”

“I know.”

She wept bitterly.

“It’s been so hard.”

“I know that too.”

In the war-torn world where people died easily, there were those who acted cheerful just to survive. It was the only way to endure.

‘To you, reality must’ve been a battlefield.’

Nam Soo-jung cried so sorrowfully that the paramedics waited a little distance away, looking elsewhere. With Seo Jung-woo blocking the way, they couldn’t force her into the ambulance either.

After crying her heart out, Nam Soo-jung finally calmed down.

“Ah… My stomach hurts too much to cry anymore. But… what if those guys sue you? You hit them really hard.”

“There won’t be anyone left in their organization, so don’t worry. If no one’s left, no one can sue.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll see. It’s a thing.”

Another ambulance arrived. Seo Jung-woo put Nam Soo-jung and Nam Soo-ho into separate ambulances.

“I’ll finish up here and visit you later, so go rest first.”

“Okay.”

Watching the ambulances drive away, Seo Jung-woo muttered,

“I thought this world was richer than the other one, but if people here die because they can’t afford medicine, how is that any different from starving to death because you don’t have money?”

Until now, Seo Jung-woo hadn’t rushed. He had been trying to take it slow, adjusting to this world.

However, after witnessing what Nam Soo-jung went through today, his thoughts changed a little.

‘Life in this world is too comfortable. I’ve been living too leisurely.’

When he first came to this world, he had a plan.

“I really need to take over a pharmaceutical company.”

To do that, he needed money. Teaming up with ES Entertainment wouldn’t earn him enough to buy a major pharmaceutical company, but it could provide the initial capital.

“How much would a small company cost?”

Seo Jung-woo put his hand in his pocket. He felt the empty case left from using the red potion.

He could bring red potions to this world, but replicating their effects was impossible. Numerous attempts to reproduce and synthesize their components had already been made in the other world, all of which failed.

Scholars argued that red potions contained special healing powers akin to magic or divine energy. Countless papers were published on the topic. However, detecting that special power separately was a failure every time.

If even the other world’s massive funding couldn’t crack it, there was no way a small lab here would succeed by analyzing just a single sample.

“That was my only red potion, and I used it well.”

Seo Jung-woo had also given a red potion each to Seo Sora and Lee Seon-hwa, but he couldn’t ask for them back. If either of them got hurt again, they’d need at least one each to recover.

“I was going to hand over the government-held supply to Uncle Cheol-woo, but that’s not happening. I’ll have to find something else for him. This time, I’ll have to bother Hyun-sik hyung.”

Lieutenant Colonel Yoon Hyun-sik belonged to the Special Forces for Awakened Beings.

The local precinct officers had arrived by then. Among them were familiar faces.

“Oh, Detective Seo. Another one, huh? Situation under control?”

“Yes.”

“Huh? I was just joking, but it’s really over? Wow. That’s Detective Seo for you. But those people... they’re not dead, right?”

“I made sure they stayed alive.”

Baek Sung-min arrived shortly after. As soon as he saw Seo Jung-woo, he asked:

“Jung-woo, what happened?”

“A minor slave contract.”

“Wow. What scumbags.”

“And attempted murder of an elementary school and high school sibling pair.”

“What?”

The earlier arriving officers flinched. They had known it wasn’t a simple case, but hearing the summarized charges made the situation sound far more severe than expected.

Baek Sung-min exploded in anger.

“Unbelievable. What kind of bastards are they?”

“Manager Do gang.”

“Huh? You already figured out who they are?”

“I recognized one of their faces.”

One of the three guys Seo Jung-woo knocked out had been present when Lemon Flower was threatened in the underground parking lot.

‘I’ve adapted to this world too much lately. Gotten soft. I actually hesitated to take down the Manager Do gang. But they all need to be wiped out.’

Baek Sung-min flinched.

“Jung-woo, your eyes just now were terrifying.”

“It just pisses me off that someone who’s trying hard in life ends up like this.”

Seeing the deep scowl on Seo Jung-woo’s face, Baek Sung-min offered a word of comfort.

“Hey, still, the Manager Do gang bastards are finished now. Stabbing a high school girl and trying to kidnap an elementary schooler? The team in charge of them has been waiting for a reason to arrest them ever since the last case. If we connect this incident too, they’ll be able to round up a bunch.”

Seo Jung-woo asked seriously:

“We won’t get them all, right? At least a few will be left?”

Seo Jung-woo is famous. Not a celebrity, but known as a detective who catches murderers well.

When he caught the 24-hour serial killer, his name wasn’t widely known yet. But after solving a series of major cases, his name became familiar to most people.

However, because he’d solved so many large-scale incidents, writing news articles about him solving minor ones didn’t attract reader interest. They always got compared to his past big achievements.

So a few reporters built connections with the police station where he worked. Whenever Seo Jung-woo handled a major case, he would notify them, and in return, they would write favorable articles—even if just a few lines.

As soon as those reporters received the case summary, they were certain:

‘This is going to blow up!’

‘A high school girl living alone with her sick little brother got stabbed by gangsters!’

‘And Seo Jung-woo appeared, defeated the villains, and saved the siblings? No way this isn’t a scoop!’

They rushed to the police station.

The criminals, however, were not at the station but in the hospital. They couldn’t be thrown into detention on the first day with broken noses, missing teeth, and fractured legs and wrists.

The team Seo Jung-woo belonged to initially questioned the three separately, then gathered them in one hospital room.

All three tried to talk their way out with excuses and lies.

“Ah, really, we weren’t trying to kill her! That bitch—no, the girl swung a kitchen knife first, and the whole thing happened while trying to stop her. And it wasn’t even me!”

“We just went to check on them.”

“It’s all a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding!”

Team Leader Kwon Byeong-cheol snapped.

“Do you bastards have any idea how serious this is? Want today's hospital air to be the last fresh air you breathe?”

The three exchanged glances nervously, but none confessed.

Seo Jung-woo stood by the window, checking the TV news on his smartphone. Finally, the news he was waiting for appeared.

There was a TV in the hospital room that worked with coins. Seo Jung-woo inserted one.

The three looked over, wondering why he was turning it on.

The news channel on cable was covering Nam Soo-jung’s story. The anchor spoke gravely.

- The victimized high school girl is reportedly in critical condition…

It was the perfect segment. Seo Jung-woo turned off the TV after that and said:

“The underage victim is dying after being stabbed by you guys. I just spoke with the doctor—they said there’s no way to save her. And now it’s on the news. You understand what kind of situation this is, right?”

When Seo Jung-woo arrived, Nam Soo-jung had been in such critical condition she might not have survived until the ambulance came.

But now, thanks to the red potion, she had recovered greatly.

The three men exchanged looks, eyes darting. The last state they had seen Nam Soo-jung in matched what the news said.

“T-that’s…”

Seo Jung-woo said:

“The first one to confess might avoid the death penalty.”