Chapter 6
It was unbelievable.
Even after witnessing what had happened right before her eyes, Na Ha-young couldn't quite grasp reality.
The body of a B-rank Hunter.
Mana had condensed in its skin and muscle layers, making it difficult to open even with most Hunter-specific medical equipment.
To open the chest properly, one had to bore inward, peeling back one layer at a time with a mana scalpel; even a slight miscalculation in output would send it bouncing away or tear the internal organs further.
Jihoo had opened such a body with astonishing ease.
And he hadn't simply cut it open, either.
The angle at which the blade entered was impossibly precise.
The narrow gap between the ribs.
A spot where he could relieve only the pressure inside the thoracic cavity without touching the lung.
If he had gone even slightly deeper, he would have torn the lung further; if slightly shallower, he would have accomplished nothing. It was a depth of uncanny precision.
He opened it only as much as necessary.
Only enough to save the patient without killing them.
‘Could Student Seo Jihoo have been a Hunter⋯?’
But it made no sense.
In this world, Hunter awakenings had, at some point, begun occurring almost exclusively in women.
Men becoming doctors was rare, as was becoming judges or high-ranking officials, but such cases weren't entirely absent from history.
But male Hunters were different.
Regardless of East or West, cases of men awakening as Hunters had long since become stories from the distant past.
And that ability was even stranger.
He wasn't summoning a magic sword that spewed fire into the air or wielding a holy sword that emitted light.
A surgical scalpel.
He had truly created nothing but tools a doctor would use.
A sight she had never seen before.
But whether Na Ha-young and the other medical staff were frozen in shock or not, Jihoo simply did what he had to do.
“Please lend me an operating room right now.”
The medical staff around him stirred.
“You want us to⋯ lend you an operating room?”
“How can we let a medical student do something like that⋯?”
It was an obvious reaction.
No matter how miraculous the treatment he had just performed, Seo Jihoo was still a medical student.
And not just any medical student, but a man who was supposed to be protected wherever he went in the world.
From any reasonable perspective, handing an operating room over to someone like that was unthinkable.
But then Na Ha-young spoke.
“Give him the room we were going to use.”
“Y-Yes?”
“Doctor Na, what if something goes wrong⋯?”
“Accident or whatever.”
Her voice sank low.
“Either way, all we can do is watch the patient die.”
The medical staff fell silent at her words.
Na Ha-young herself had been the one to say earlier that they had to give up on this patient.
But she was a doctor, too, in the end.
She had chosen this work because she wanted to save patients, and whenever Hunters were brought in covered in blood, she had taken her place in the operating room, trying to hold on to even one more of them.
Then there was only one thing left to do.
“We've got to grasp at any straw. I'll take responsibility.”
Thus, the B-rank Hunter, whose airway had only barely been opened, was taken straight to the operating room.
***
The patient was still alive.
But that was all, for now.
The pressure inside the thoracic cavity had only been temporarily relieved, and they still hadn't checked whether the lung was torn, the ribs were broken, or the abdomen was injured.
The patient's condition could deteriorate again at any moment.
“I'll provide support staff from our side.”
As they headed toward the operating room, Na Ha-young spoke quickly.
“We need at least six people: one anesthesiologist, one trauma surgery assistant, a circulating nurse and a scrub nurse, plus someone in charge of Hunter equipment. So—”
But.
“No.”
Jihoo cut her off.
“It's fine.”
“What?”
“You don't need anyone to help you.”
“⋯What do you mean?”
It was absurd.
Even with an ordinary patient, trauma surgery involving both chest and abdominal injuries was never something to do alone.
While the lead surgeon made the incision and controlled the bleeding, someone had to keep the field clear, someone had to suction away the blood, and someone had to maintain the patient's breathing and blood pressure.
And this was a B-rank Hunter.
A patient who would need specialized equipment just to open a single layer of skin.
And he intended to perform such a major operation alone.
That was closer to recklessness than confidence.
If anything went wrong, it could become an experiment on the patient's body rather than treatment.
But.
“Please trust me.”
Jihoo looked straight at Na Ha-young.
For a moment, Na Ha-young was speechless at that look.
A man, no less⋯
He should have been someone who was protected and hidden away, someone whose every minor injury sent everyone around him into a panic.
And yet, how could he speak with eyes so unwavering?
Eyes so clear they bordered on arrogance, and so strange that they seemed to reverberate somewhere deep inside her.
As a woman, Na Ha-young couldn't help but give in.
“⋯But I'll supervise from behind.”
Even so, as a fellow doctor, she couldn't yield on that point.
“Whatever you do, I'll intervene immediately if the patient's condition becomes dangerous. That's all right, isn't it?”
“Of course.”
And so, the two of them changed into surgical scrubs and entered the prepared operating room.
A Hunter-specific operating table.
A mana scalpel.
Reinforced sutures.
A space equipped with fixation devices and chest drainage equipment.
This time, Na Ha-young resolved not to be surprised.
She had already witnessed an unbelievable scene moments ago.
So no matter what happened now, she had to make calm judgments as a doctor.
But the more closely she watched Jihoo's fingertips, the more bewilderment filled her eyes.
‘This is impossible⋯.’
When the lead surgeon made an incision, the assistant opened the field.
When blood welled up, the suction operator removed it, and the scrub nurse handed over the next instrument.
The anesthesiologist maintained the patient's breathing and blood pressure, while the equipment operator adjusted the output of the Hunter scalpel.
That was surgery.
Especially Hunter trauma surgery.
And yet Jihoo was handling nearly all those roles alone.
“Suction.”
[Job equipment ‘Hunter-Specific Suction Device Lv.1’ is being materialized.]
[Blood and bodily fluid suction assistance applied.]
“Retractor.”
[Job equipment ‘Hunter-Specific Retractor Lv.1’ is being materialized.]
[Surgical field exposure assistance applied.]
“Hemostatic clamp.”
[Job equipment ‘Hunter-Specific Hemostatic Clamp Lv.1’ is being materialized.]
[Bleeding-point fixation assistance applied.]
Each time a short command fell from Jihoo's lips, a surgical instrument appeared in midair.
Scalpel.
Suction device.
Retractor.
Clamp.
Forceps.
Suture needle.
Their forms differed little from instruments used in an ordinary operating room.
But their performance was entirely different.
The instruments slipped naturally into the B-rank Hunter's tissues, which had repelled even a Hunter-specific scalpel moments earlier.
They did not tear through them by force.
They read the grain between the mana-hardened skin and muscle and slipped through the thinnest gap.
The suction device precisely removed the blood obscuring the field, while the retractor spread the ribs apart only as much as necessary.
The hemostatic clamp caught every small bleeding point without missing a single one.
And the hand directing it all.
Jihoo's hand did not tremble.
The inside of the patient's chest was narrow, slippery, and dangerous.
Going even slightly too deep would tear the lung further.
Veering even slightly to the side would hit a blood vessel.
Apply too much force, and the tissue would burst; hesitate, and the patient would die.
And yet Jihoo did not hesitate.
He moved as if he had already opened that narrow rib cage dozens, hundreds of times.
A hand accustomed to working alone.
A hand that naturally bore all responsibility at its fingertips.
The moment she saw that hand, Na Ha-young had no choice but to hold her breath.
‘What kind of specialty does he have⋯? No, this isn't a matter of specialty.’
Those were not a student's hands.
They were the hands of a surgeon who had never retreated before death.
Knowing where to open.
How far to spread it.
What to secure first before the blood welled up.
Those judgments came faster than words.
At that moment, Jihoo suddenly raised his gaze.
He seemed to have noticed Na Ha-young staring intently at him.
“⋯If you really want to help, can you support me?”
“Support⋯?”
Na Ha-young's eyebrows twitched.
She was the youngest specialist at the Hunter Trauma Center.
An Awakened with a beast-transformation ability.
A doctor who knew a Hunter's body better than anyone.
A rising star in Hunter trauma surgery, among the best in the country.
And she was always the one standing at the center of the operation.
And now he was telling her to be an assistant?
It would be a lie to say her pride wasn't stung for a moment.
But that emotion did not last long.
“Open the field on the left just a little more.”
“⋯What?”
“The lung is being compressed again. I'm going in with suction, so keep the retractor at that angle. If you open it too far, the mana layer around the ribs will push back.”
“Ah, yes!”
Her body moved before she could think.
Na Ha-young gripped the retractor and spread the space between the ribs at the angle Jihoo specified.
That was when she realized.
Open it a little further, and the tissue would tear.
Open it a little less, and the field would be blocked.
The angle Jihoo requested was exactly between the two.
“Good. Keep it there.”
“⋯⋯.”
“Suction coming in.”
Blood was drawn away, and the field opened.
Jihoo's hand moved immediately.
“Forceps.”
[Job equipment ‘Hunter-Specific Forceps Lv.1’ is being materialized.]
[Tissue grasping assistance applied.]
“Suture needle.”
[Job equipment ‘Hunter-Specific Suture Needle Lv.1’ is being materialized.]
[Mana-infused tissue suturing assistance applied.]
A small injured area of the lung came into view.
The moment Jihoo saw it, he grasped it without hesitation.
He identified where blood and air were leaking, lifted it without pressing the surrounding tissue, and stitched it with exact precision.
Fast.
But not rough.
Decisive.
But not reckless.
Na Ha-young clenched her teeth.
‘What the hell is he?’
She'd heard the word genius until she was sick of it.
She'd been a prodigy as a Hunter and had quickly distinguished herself as a doctor, too.
She learned earlier than others, mastered things faster, and did them better.
That was why she had always been ahead until now.
But not now.
Simply keeping up with Jihoo was overwhelming.
Just maintaining the field he had opened, matching the angle he wanted, and predicting the instrument he would use next left her struggling to keep up.
She realized it for the first time.
Jihoo hadn't tried to perform the surgery alone because he liked working solo.
Nor was it because he couldn't trust others.
It was simple.
It was because other people couldn't keep up.
With his speed.
With his judgment.
With his fingertips.
⋯There were many geniuses in the world.
Na Ha-young had always believed she was one of them.
But what stood before her now was not a genius.
A monster.
It was a hand that could only be called a monster.