The weight of the three seconds Si-woo spent on his feet lingered in the room long after he collapsed back onto the mattress. The silence in the basement was heavy, broken only by the sound of his ragged breathing and the distant, muffled honk of a car on the street above.
Mi-rae sat on the floor next to him, her hand still resting on his shoulder to keep him steady. "You're white as a sheet, Oppa. Your heart is going a mile a minute."
"It's just the shock," Si-woo panted. He looked at his legs. They were still buzzing, a dull heat radiating from the nerves that had been silent for so long. "I didn't think I'd actually be able to hold my own weight. In the game, everything feels so light because the system handles the balance. Here... gravity is a lot heavier than I remembered."
"You shouldn't have done it," Mi-rae whispered, though she couldn't hide the small, hopeful smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "If you'd fallen and hit your head, Eomma would have had a heart attack. And she's already stressed enough about the doctor coming today."
Si-woo leaned his head back against the wall. He felt like he had just run a marathon, but the mental clarity remained. The way he had channeled his focus to stabilize his legs was exactly the same method he used to align the stones in the forge. It wasn't magic; it was just a very intense form of physical coordination that most people never had to learn because their bodies did it automatically.
"About Dr. Park," Si-woo said, his voice regaining some strength. "When he gets here, don't mention the game. Just say I've been doing the exercises he suggested and that I've started feeling some warmth in my feet. If he thinks I'm using a high-sync VR rig to bypass my nervous system, he might report it to the insurance companies or the police. They're already looking for reasons to blame the accident on me."
"I know," Mi-rae said. "Eomma told him you've been working with a specialized physical therapy program she found online. It's technically true, in a weird way."
They spent the next hour in quiet preparation. Mi-rae helped him change into a clean shirt and straightened the bedsheets. Si-woo hid the Aether-Link headset under a pile of old clothes in the corner. He didn't want the doctor seeing the scorched plastic around the neural sensors.
When the knock finally came at the basement door, it was hesitant.
Sun-young led the man in. Dr. Park was in his late fifties, wearing a rumpled suit and carrying a medical bag that had seen better decades. He was a man who had clearly been sidelined by the big hospitals—probably for asking too many questions or refusing to play corporate politics—which made him perfect for their situation.
"Well," Dr. Park said, his voice gravelly as he set his bag on the small table. "Let's see the miracle patient Sun-young hasn't stopped talking about."
He spent the next thirty minutes performing a standard neurological exam. He tapped Si-woo's knees with a rubber mallet, ran a needle along the soles of his feet, and checked his pupil response. Throughout the process, the doctor's expression shifted from professional boredom to deep, focused confusion.
"Your reflexes are... present," Dr. Park muttered, scratching his chin. "Two weeks ago, your charts from the hospital said there was zero conductivity below the L4 vertebrae. Now, I'm getting a response. It's weak, and it's erratic, but it's there."
He looked at Si-woo, his eyes sharp. "What exactly have you been doing, son? I've seen recovery before, but nerves don't just decide to wake up and start working on a Tuesday."
"I've just been focusing," Si-woo said, keeping his tone casual. "Trying to remember how it felt to walk. I spend a lot of time imagining the muscles moving."
Dr. Park stared at him for a long beat. He reached into his bag and pulled out a tablet, scrolling through Si-woo's old scans. "Mental imaging therapy is a thing, sure. But this? This looks like your body is being jump-started. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were being exposed to a high-frequency neural stimulant."
The room went cold. Sun-young shifted uncomfortably by the stove, and Mi-rae gripped the back of her chair.
"Is it dangerous?" Sun-young asked, her voice tight.
"If he's doing what I think he's doing? Yes," Dr. Park said, closing his bag. "The human brain isn't meant to force-start a damaged spine. It's like trying to start a car by touching two live wires together. You might get the engine to turn over, but you risk blowing the entire electrical system."
He looked at Si-woo. "I don't know what you're using, and frankly, at the price your mother is paying me, I don't want to know. But be careful. If you push too hard, you won't just be paralyzed. You'll be brain-dead."
After the doctor left, the mood in the basement remained heavy. The warning was clear, but Si-woo looked at his feet and remembered those three seconds of standing. He knew the risk, but he also knew that the violet light in the game was getting brighter, and his time was running out.
"He's wrong," Si-woo said to the quiet room. "I'm not forcing the engine. I'm just cleaning the pipes."
He reached for the headset. He had a war to win in the peaks, and a body to rebuild in Busan.