I Became a Goblin Ancestor

Beep– Beep–

A hospital room where a steady machine sound echoes.

The room of about 20 pyeong (about 66 square meters) with only one bed and medical equipment exuded a stark white and desolate feeling.

To be more precise, this was a hospital room for founding families in the medical floor, that is, a room where only Yeon-ah and family members could be hospitalized, but for today only, a girl who didn’t qualify was hospitalized in this room by the order of Shin-yeon, the ancestor.

The hospitalized girl was none other than the girl Shin-yeon had brought while she was out.

A girl who had no intact part on her whole body and was suffering from severe malnutrition and infectious diseases.

Fortunately, thanks to the meticulous care of the General Management Team’s medical department, she was currently in a situation where her nutrition had been urgently supplemented, treatable diseases had been treated, and she was even being diagnosed for mental issues.

And Shin-yeon, who was watching the girl still talking to the psychiatrist with a bewildered look through the magic mirror beyond the hospital room, asked the medical department’s general manager beside her:

“So? Did you find out about that kid?”
“Yes, information just arrived from the city management department. The girl’s name is Neon. Age 16. There was no information about her mother, but her father is Cha Baek-gi, the head of the ‘Hyeonhwa Organization’, an action organization in the 8th district slums. It seems she was abandoned at the bottom of the organization like her other siblings because he’s a human who discriminates against his children based on whether they have innate abilities or not, and then escaped from the slums.”
“Hmm… I see.”

At the general manager’s report, Shin-yeon let out a nasal sound but didn’t take her gaze off the girl, Neon.

Instead, while examining the girl carefully as if scrutinizing her, Shin-yeon quietly sank into thought.

Neon’s white hair stained with various colors such as light green, yellow, pink, and so on.

The body continuing below that had become not much different from ordinary people after receiving nutritional supplements, but it was certainly on the thin side, and in her eyes containing bewilderment were nailed irrepressible excitement and various negative emotions.

“She really looks alike…”

A sense of kinship rises at the sight of Neon, who is truly like her past self… no, perhaps even worse than that.

It was because of that sense of kinship that she had brought her like this, but seeing her awake in person, Shin-yeon praised her own choice once again.

“Ah, is it over?”

And a moment later, seeing the psychiatrist getting up from beside Neon, tucking the chart he had been scribbling on under his arm, Shin-yeon, who had been waiting for him to finish his work, immediately approached the entrance of the hospital room.

The general manager turned around in surprise at Shin-yeon’s sudden action, but the entrance to the hospital room that Shin-yeon had already approached opened.

Hiss—

The entrance to the hospital room opens with a steam sound.

Then, as Shin-yeon entered the entrance, the doctor who was about to leave the hospital room was startled and bowed at a right angle to Shin-yeon.

“Gasp?! Ah, hello!”
“Yeah, hi. Sorry, but I’d like to talk with Neon alone.”
“Yes, yes! I understand! I’ll leave right away!!”

After all, which General Management Team employee wouldn’t be surprised to see Shin-yeon, the ancestor?

The excessively polite attitude of his heart was probably something all the medical department personnel behind the magic mirror would sympathize with.

Therefore, colleagues offered sympathetic comfort to him who had returned to behind the magic mirror after answering Shin-yeon.

And even in such a situation, the general manager who had been observing inside the room lowered the magic mirror’s barrier without a word at Shin-yeon’s hand sign covering her two eyes from inside.

Even if she was the general manager, she was just one of the employees who had to obey in front of Shin-yeon’s orders.

If she said not to see or hear the conversation from now on, no matter how curious she was, she had to follow that order.

‘I wonder who this girl Neon is for her to go this far…’

However, as that one question was still unsolved, the general manager sank into a time of seeking answers while harboring doubts.

Neon, the girl Shin-yeon had ordered to treat and make normal while going this far, even though she was the ancestor.

What kind of person could she be, who had lived in the slums, to receive such protection from Shin-yeon?

The question that couldn’t be solved floated quietly in his mind like that.

‘…Hmm.’

Neon was currently in a state where she couldn’t properly come to her senses.

No, Neon’s actual mind was very clear. Neon was in a state of clear mind to the extent that she could assert she had never been clearer in her life.

Therefore, saying she couldn’t come to her senses meant that her head couldn’t properly keep up with the current situation.

‘What is going on here…?’

Undoubtedly, she had come out of the hole in the slums and lost consciousness in the alley without even being able to set foot on the complete outside.

The frightening sensation of not being able to move her body in extreme hunger and thirst was still vividly present in Neon’s mind.

However, when she regained consciousness and got up, Neon realized that her body felt too light, and she could confirm that her body, which had certainly been skeletal, now had flesh like other ordinary people.

And looking around, Neon could also see that where she was was a hospital room… but one incomparably better than those in the slums that she had occasionally passed by, and then things beyond belief happened one after another to Neon who had regained consciousness.

-Young lady, you’ve finally come to your senses!
-Is there anywhere you feel strange?
-Hmm, she’s certainly normal, but…

First, three or four doctors who came in and checked if Neon had any additional painful areas before treating her.

-Here’s your meal. It’s only rice porridge and artificial side dishes because your stomach hasn’t fully regained its function yet, but please enjoy it.

After the three or four doctors left, a doctor who brought a meal incomparably more delicious than anything Neon had eaten before.

And finally, now.

About an hour after regaining consciousness, Neon was receiving counseling from a man who introduced himself as a psychiatrist.

“I see… So that’s how it is.”

The counseling that started with light questions as it was the first time.

During such counseling, Neon, who had been in a daze with her mind still unable to keep up properly, snapped back to attention when the doctor stood up after scribbling something at the end of the chart, recalling what had happened until now.

Screech–!

“Ah…!”
“Alright, that’s the end of the counseling. For now, rest comfortably and if there’s anything uncomfortable, press that bell next to you. Even if it’s something trivial, okay? Then other doctors will come to help you.”
“Ah, yes…!”

At the doctor’s words showing consideration with a kind smile, Neon reflexively answered and nodded.

Then, smiling once more at Neon’s answer, the man tucked the chart under his arm and headed out of the hospital room.

At that sight, Neon belatedly realized she hadn’t asked what she was going to ask, but soon lowered her hand that was about to call out to the man.

‘…It would be a bother.’

Even if Neon didn’t know the ways of the outside world, her sense honed by life in the slums hadn’t gone anywhere.

After all, no matter how much the man had spoken considerately, Neon herself knew best that she wasn’t someone who belonged in this hospital room.

She didn’t know who had hospitalized her in such a room, but until she properly knew them and clearly understood the situation so far, it was right for Neon herself to stay quiet.

So let’s naturally ask what she couldn’t ask now when the next doctor comes in.

Neon made up her mind like that and lowered her head to the bed as she withdrew her hand.

Hiss—

“Gasp?! Ah, hello!”

‘Huh?’

At the man’s surprised-sounding voice heard along with the sound of the hospital room door opening, Neon had no choice but to raise her head again.

Where Neon’s gaze was directed was, of course, towards the entrance of the hospital room where the man’s voice had come from.

And what Neon saw when she turned her head was a man being excessively formal and a girl standing in front of such a man.

“Yeah, hi. Sorry, but I’d like to talk with Neon alone.”
“Yes, yes! I understand! I’ll leave right away!!”

The man who had been smiling kindly with composure until just now greeted the girl while sweating profusely and hurriedly left the hospital room.

A situation where anyone who wasn’t a fool could tell that this girl wasn’t an ordinary person from the series of scenes just now.
Therefore, Neon swallowed nervously.

Who on earth could she be for the doctor to bow his head like that?

While feeling tense like that, the girl who entered the hospital room slowly approached Neon.

Eventually, the girl who sat down in the seat where the man had been sitting until just now looked at the tense Neon and placed her hand on Neon’s head with a smirk.

“Hello, little one. Relax. I’m the one who brought you here.”
“What? Ah, you…?”

The words the girl said while patting Neon’s head were the answer to Neon’s question that she was going to postpone.

She had been so curious about who had brought her, but to think it was this girl.

It was hard to believe, but since the man from earlier bowing his head to this girl who looked much younger was already a strange thing, Neon didn’t make any unnecessary comments.

Instead, if the girl really was the one who had brought her, there was obviously something she should say first, so Neon bowed her head while feeling the girl’s hand still patting her.

“Um… Thank you very much for saving my life. And for bringing me to this hospital… Al-although I don’t have any money, I’ll somehow repay the medical expenses…”
“Ahaha! It’s okay. I didn’t do it expecting money, so it doesn’t matter. In the first place, what I did for you wasn’t treatment that cost money.”
“Wh-what?”

What did she mean it wasn’t treatment that cost money?

Neon tilted her head at the girl’s incomprehensible words.

No matter how ignorant she was, she could tell how expensive this clean hospital room and the strange machines attached to her were.

It would be a price she couldn’t even pay half of even if she gathered all the money she had ever stolen.

In addition, she could feel without being told how much cutting-edge medical technology had been used on her to make her body, which had always been heavy, steeped in fatigue, and dried up like a mummy, so light and normal like this.

So there was no way she could understand when she was told that such treatment didn’t require any money.

And perhaps such emotions were shown too obviously, the girl looking at Neon’s expression burst into laughter again and then answered the question Neon harbored.

“Do you know about the General Management Team? This isn’t a hospital, it’s the medical department floor of the General Management Team. And this is just the basic treatment provided to people of the General Management Team. Well… I don’t know the details since I just heard it from Yeon-ah, but anyway, that’s how it is.”
“Ge-General…? What? No, wait a minute…”

At the girl’s words, Neon stammered, vividly experiencing the feeling of her soul leaving her body for a moment.

It wasn’t because she didn’t understand the words. It was because these words were difficult to even take in to Neon’s mind in the first place.

The General Management Team. How could Neon not know?

Even though the slums were almost cut off from the outside world, news about the Five Major Powers came in every day, and among them, the General Management Team was the head of the Five Major Powers that even scared her father along with the Punishment Team and Protection Team, so there was no way she couldn’t know.

And if she hadn’t misheard the girl’s words just now, it meant the girl was a member of the General Management Team.

No, it meant not just the girl, but even each of the doctors who had examined her were members of the General Management Team.

When her thoughts reached that point, the image of the doctor bowing politely to the girl came to mind.

If she received such a greeting, it meant the girl was at least not an ordinary position personnel.

Therefore, Neon carefully looked at the girl sitting next to her with a grinning smile.

“If-if that’s the case, may I ask who you are in the General Management Team…”
“Ah, that’s right. I haven’t told you yet.”

The girl let out a small exclamation as if she had forgotten.

Then the girl introduced herself to Neon with a toothy smile.

“My name is Shin-yeon. I’m a goblin called the ancestor in the General Management Team.”
“An-an-ance-ancestor…?”

The position of the girl in front of her that she couldn’t even dare to mention casually.

And the moment she heard it directly from her own mouth, Neon lost consciousness without even being able to breathe.

At least if she had remained conscious at this moment, she might have really died from her heart bursting.

Neon had no choice but to choose to detach her mind from the present world for a moment.