I Give Up on Conquering the Heroines

137Th Episode. Engine Replacement

“What the heck is this mess?”

Cologne Square, where a downpour was pouring down.

Giant craters had formed everywhere.

In the square where the buildings had collapsed and become ruins, Kern put down his toolbox with a thud.

There was one boy covered in blood.

There was one woman holding him and crying.

And there was one man with a familiar face.

“You came just in time.”

“Why did you call me?”

“Didn’t I already tell you?”

“Yes. I heard. You need help replacing the engine in the machine······.’

“······.”

Thud. Thud.

Kern’s face, which had looked at the boy with a hole in his chest once and then at the man with the brazen face once, was filled with astonishment.

“No way!”

“As expected, you’re quick-witted. That’s right. Since time is of the essence, please prepare quickly.”

“No! Ah! You bastard! Where’s the machine here!”

“Isn’t a human also a kind of machine? It’s just a difference in how sophisticated, delicate, and complex they are.”

“······.”

Kern was at a loss for words.

He thought he had been called to help with machine repairs.

When he finally arrived, instead of a machine, there was a boy with his heart pulled out and hanging down in front of him.

Is the heart also a kind of engine?

Kern felt his vision gradually blur.

“Are you really going to do it?”

“Yes. Please, Jill.”

“I don’t think he’ll last long······.”

The saintess, who approached with a hardened expression, cast a barrier around her to block the rain.

Then she began to cast magic on the boy.

The golden magic that gathered soon took the form of a winged angel.

Soon, it seeped into the boy’s body and began to perform a miracle of recovery.

The fatal wound healed, and the stagnant blood flow began to flow again.

He was still unconscious, but it was ambiguous to say that he was dead.

Sola blinked her eyes, not knowing what was going on for the time being.

“W, Saintess! What are you doing now? Zenon is already dead! Please withdraw your magic!”

“Not yet. As long as there is a possibility, I cannot stop.”

This was no different from pouring water into a bottomless pit.

No matter how much the body was forcibly recovered with recovery magic, it was nothing more than preventing damage to the already dead body.

Unless the heart that had been pulled out did its job again······.

“No way······.”

Sola realized it belatedly.

She was stunned when she realized what this suspicious man, the saintess, and the old man were trying to do.

They were now trying to reach into the forbidden realm.

“Don’t worry about hygiene and bleeding, leave it to me. Think of it as a dead life anyway, and feel free to do it.”

“Even if you say that······. Oh, man! I don’t know! You said that the body is also a kind of machine! It’s not a wrong statement!”

Kern rolled up his arms and rummaged through his toolbox.

Kern took out several small engines from the inside and held them up to Zenon’s chest to gauge their size.

Kern, who had chosen an engine of the right size, put on the gloves that the saintess had given him and began surgery, or rather ‘engine replacement’.

“This······. I don’t know what it is even if I look inside.”

“I’ll teach you. This side and this side are arteries, so connect them to the direction of blood flow······.”

The collaboration between the saintess and the engineer began.

While Jill was constantly pouring out magic to stop the bleeding and blow oxygen into the brain and major organs to prevent damage.

Kern worked on replacing the heart by inserting an engine into his chest.

‘It’s not the first time I’ve attached organic matter to a machine. I’ve done surgery on cyborgs before······.’

The beginning of the wind-up doll was when he wanted to create a doll that would move on its own by putting together the arms and legs of cyborgs.Kern, who had a rich career in attaching magic-powered mechanical legs to people who had lost their limbs.

But this was the first time he had replaced an organ inside the body, the heart.

It was the world’s first.

No one had ever tried it, or even thought of trying it.

“How are we going to deal with the rejection?”

“We have no choice but to suppress it with magic.”

“Are you going to have to cast that spell 24 hours a day, 365 days a year? You’ll die the moment you make a mistake. How are you going to sleep?”

“That’s…”

Jill was at a loss for words.

If it was an engine, you could charge it with magic power and forget about it until it was time to recharge it periodically.

But it was a different story if it was a spell to suppress rejection.

Where could you find someone who could cast a spell without ever resting for a moment?

Even if it was a simple spell, it would be impossible, and the spell to suppress rejection was a rather complex spell.

It would be nice if there was some kind of device that could cast spells automatically.

Jill was thinking about it when she suddenly had an idea.

“······Jinbeop.”

“······?”

“······?”

The two people who had been struggling seriously turned around and saw a pale-skinned girl blood ghost standing there.

The girl crossed her fingers and made a hand sign.

Magic was engraved on the engine in Zeno’s chest, and a jinbeop was drawn.

A regular tetrahedron shape of 0th order.

It evolved into a hexahedron by changing into a 1st order.

Mijung frowned slightly and twisted her hands, which had been making a hand sign, to make another hand sign.

‘What the bug did… All I have to do is follow it, it’s easy.’

The jinbeop of the hexahedron collapsed in an unstable form.

It twisted and began to change.

Everyone held their breath.

At the end of Mijung’s utmost concentration.

The jinbeop transforms into a diamond-shaped, octahedron shape.

2nd order jinbeop.

It was the form of a jinbeop that made it possible to apply sorcery in earnest.

It was the moment when Mijung awakened to the realm of full-fledged sorcery jinbeop.

“······Okay. I did it.”

“Here, this is the casting formula for the spell that suppresses rejection.”

Jill immediately handed the formula to Mijung in magic power.

Then the formula made of magic power changed into the form of magic in Mijung’s hand.

When it was applied to the jinbeop, the rejection of the body, which had not been able to accept the engine, subsided.

‘Jinbeop and magic have quite a few similarities.’

Eugene nodded as he watched the scene.

Even though they started from the same mana, sorcery and magic seemed completely different.

Jinbeop and magic could share formulas with each other without any cumbersome conversion.

In the end, it was proof that the fundamentals were the same.

“We’ll need magic to operate the jinbeop. If we connect an adapter that converts magic power into magic to the jinbeop······. Kwaak! How do you expect me to connect this to the jinbeop! A sorcery jinbeop and a machine made of magic that I can’t even see with my own eyes! This is crazy! Do we have to keep making mistakes?”

“Hurry up. I’m running out of magic power······.”

A fierce speed battle began.

The engine to replace the heart, and the jinbeop to suppress the rejection of the engine, were all ready.

But connecting them all was by no means an easy task.

“If I let the magic flow, the jinbeop will exert a force of attraction and absorb the surrounding magic. Then if I connect it like this······. Good······!”

After numerous trial and error, the connection of the blood vessels was completed.

After connecting the adapter to supply magic to the jinbeop.

Kern, who had filled the engine with magic power, gulped and started the engine.

Kurung!

The engine starts with a powerful sound.

Then the engine started to beat rhythmically like a heart, and it started to circulate on its own without backflow, sending out the incoming blood.”It’s a success······.”

“Ugh!”

Kern stepped back, his voice trembling.

Jill strengthened the intensity of her magic and began to repair the hole in his chest.

She reattached the broken ribs, covered the engine, and grew new flesh over it, reattaching the torn muscles.

In no time, Zenon’s chest was completely covered, as if it had never been pierced.

Sola let out a cheer and burst into tears.

“Ah······!”

Jill, who had squeezed out her magic to the limit, beyond exhaustion, lost her balance and blood gushed from her nose.

Thud.

Familiar hands caught her and held her up.

Even though the barrier had disappeared and the torrential rain was pouring down again, Jill closed her eyes and felt warmer than ever.

“Sleep well. You’ve worked hard.”

“Yeah······.”

She had saved a life.

There was a sense of satisfaction in that, but Jill felt that this one word was even more precious.

She was not hated by Eugene.

She had gained that conviction.

Only then could Jill relax and pass out.

“Zenon! Zenon! Open your eyes!”

“······.”

Sola screamed, putting her ear to Zenon’s chest.

The heart, or rather the engine, was definitely beating strongly.

The surgery was a success.

However, that did not mean that there were no side effects.

Zenon might never wake up.

There was no way to know what had gone wrong or how to fix it.

She could only pray endlessly, hoping that Zenon would open his eyes without any problems.

“Sister······?”

“······!”

And finally, a boiling voice came out from between Zenon’s parched lips.

He looked a little weak, but Zenon was definitely breathing in and out on his own, his eyes full of life.

Zenon looked around in confusion, as if he couldn’t believe it himself.

Sola stopped crying and hugged her precious brother tightly, briefly overcome with joy.

“aaah! I’m so glad! Aah!”

Sola’s sobs echoed through the air.

The torrential rain that had been pouring down stopped.

The dark clouds that had covered Cologne soon parted, and the sunlight streamed down on the two of them.

.

.

.

Zenon’s life was saved.

It was all over.

Soon after, the main force of the Holy Knights arrived in Cologne and began to sort out the situation.

“Is this the man? The one who killed Cardinal Nicholas? Then arrest him. Take him away.”

“No! This man is innocent!”

“Deputy Commander Sola. Don’t you know that you’re also under investigation? Ignore the Deputy Commander and take him away quickly.”

“I’ll add a word. This man is innocent. Cardinal Nicholas has been dead for a long time. It was an evil spirit that was moving his body. Instead of arresting him, it would be right to investigate him thoroughly as a witness.”

“Even the acting mayor······.”

Sola’s support was useless.

Thanks to Cornelia’s defense, I was able to take off my handcuffs.

For the time being, since the incident was so complicated and confusing, I decided to cooperate with the Holy Knights and help them understand the facts.

It would be quite difficult to guess that a necromancer like Luna had taken over the Cardinal’s body without any clues and sacrificed over 500 bodies in the cathedral’s basement to resurrect a giant spider monster.

For the time being, I kept quiet about Sola.

If it was discovered that she had cooperated with the enemy, she would be sentenced to life imprisonment for treason.

I decided that it would be a waste to leave such a monster to rot in prison.

Of course, it would be useless if she couldn’t bear the guilt and blew everything up.

Once the facts were more or less established,Once it was revealed that I protected the Saintess, destroyed Luna’s puppets, and saved Zenon, the stance of the Holy Knights changed completely.

At first, I was just a reference person, but before I knew it, I was promoted to the status of a full-fledged investigator.

If they found something they didn’t know or discovered something strange, they would bring it to me and ask me about it with a bow.

“Thank you again… What did you say your name was?”

“Cheon Michael Jackson.”

“Mr. Ickle Jackson.”

“It’s my full name, both of them together.”

“Ah. Mr. Michael Jackson. By the way, we found a survivor in the rainwater tunnel.”

“A survivor?”

What kind of nonsense is this?

A survivor?

There wasn’t a single living thing inside the rainwater tunnel.

I even tore apart all the dead bodies.

I followed them, puzzled, to where they were leading me.

“This is the child.”

“This is…”

There, a naked girl covered in a blanket was drinking warm cocoa, blowing on it.

Long, black hair that reached her buttocks.

And golden eyes.

My brow furrowed automatically.

This girl…

“Are you Imma. Kalinya?”

“Woof?”

No matter how I looked at her, she looked just like Kali.

To be exact, she looked like the girl body attached to Kali’s spider body.