Chapter 9
The surgery everyone had thought would fail.
When that major operation for Hunters was over, I plopped down onto a chair in the hallway outside the operating room.
“Phew⋯ That feels good.”
A surgeon's life really was garbage.
A job that wrecked your food, clothing, and shelter, destroyed your schedule, and made it difficult to properly enjoy even a single hobby for the rest of your life.
Especially if you worked in severe trauma.
Called in while eating, called in while showering, called in while sleeping.
There was no such thing as getting off work, nor the luxury of having time to yourself.
Even so, there was exactly one sweet moment in that hellish profession.
Right after the surgery ended.
The moment after washing my hands, taking off my gown, pulling a cold sports drink from a vending machine to wet my throat, and leaning back against a chair.
The sense of release then was truly impossible to put into words.
And if today's surgery was the last one?
That was enough to make the whole day feel fantastic.
Of course, the patient was still severely injured.
A full recovery? Ridiculous.
For the time being, their breathing had to be monitored in the intensive care unit.
We had sutured the torn lung, but it was still precarious, and the chest tube couldn't be removed right away.
The same went for the abdomen.
We had controlled the bleeding and dealt with the intestinal damage, but the risk of infection hadn't disappeared, either.
A trauma patient who had undergone major surgery wasn't in the clear just because the surgery was over.
Rebleeding could occur within a few days, a fever could develop, or the intestinal sutures might not hold.
With a Hunter, we also had to monitor the stabilization of their mana circuits.
Even if their body looked fine, entering a dungeon right away could cause everything to rupture again from the inside.
Still.
They survived.
I had pulled a patient who was supposed to die off the operating table, and my job for now was done.
From there, recovery was up to the ICU staff, the rehabilitation team, and the patient.
I leaned back in my chair and took a sip of the sports drink.
That was when it happened.
[Congratulations!]
[You have successfully performed emergency trauma surgery on the B-rank Hunter ‘Jang Mi-hyeon’.]
[Experience has been awarded.]
“Huh?”
A status window appeared before my eyes.
[Successful treatment of tension pneumothorax +10]
[Successful chest tube insertion +10]
[Successful lung injury suturing +10]
[Successful hemostasis of intra-abdominal bleeding +10]
[Successful suturing of small intestine perforation +10]
[Successful hemostasis of mesenteric bleeding +10]
[Successful rib stabilization +10]
[Survival of a severe trauma patient confirmed +50]
“⋯What is this?”
Like an achievement screen from a game, the treatment items streamed down one after another.
After the messages continued for quite some time, a larger window appeared at the end.
[Congratulations!]
[Your level has increased.]
[Seo Jihoo]
[Job: Hunter Trauma Surgeon]
[Lv.1 → Lv.6]
[You have acquired 5 skill points.]
[Skill points can be used to enhance skills and unlock new skills.]
“Oh. I leveled up like crazy in one shot.”
I didn't know how strict the standards were, but gaining five levels from my very first surgery seemed like a considerable increase.
The prospect of enhancing my job equipment and unlocking new equipment sounded tempting.
But I wasn't interested in that right now.
I was sick of the smell of blood, sick of the operating room lights, and sick of the status window, too.
I casually swiped away the window floating in the air with my finger.
“I'll look at it later. Let me rest for now.”
Just as I was finally about to catch my breath⋯
“Ah, there you are!”
“Keh.”
When I turned my head, Ms. Na Ha-young was running toward me from the end of the hallway.
Come to think of it, she was still here.
The doctor who had somehow kept up with my pace in the operating room.
Na Ha-young.
A member of the Hunter Trauma Center at Daehan Central University Hospital.
A beast-transformation-type Awakener.
One of the youngest Hunter physicians in the country.
I hadn't been able to pay much attention to her during the surgery, with all my focus on the patient, but I knew who she was.
She was twenty-three, two years older than me.
A Korean-American, she had apparently made a name for herself in America's special Hunter medical program since middle and high school.
She had completed an accelerated program under a special exemption for Awakeners with a medical aptitude, and had quickly distinguished herself in Hunter trauma care by using the keen senses and delicate manual skills unique to beast-transformation Awakeners.
After returning to Korea, she treated countless Hunters and rose to prominence in no time.
At present, she was the hottest rookie in South Korea's Hunter medical field.
That was Na Ha-young.
I had put a first-year medical student in charge of surgery with someone of that caliber standing beside me.
Newcomers got marked wherever they went if they acted above their station.
At minimum, I had to expect some flak.
So I was about to bow my head and apologize half-heartedly when⋯
“I'm sorry⋯.”
“How on earth did you do that?!”
“Pardon?”
My apology never even made it to the end.
Instead, both my shoulders were suddenly seized.
Her eyes were glittering as she faced me.
No, they weren't merely glittering; they looked like those of a predator that had spotted its prey.
I could even see her tail sticking out from beneath her doctor's coat and swishing rapidly from side to side.
“That ability of yours just now! A scalpel that cuts through B-rank Hunter skin like it's nothing! A chest tube! A suction device! A clamp! A suture needle! What are all those things?! I've never seen equipment like that before!”
“Is that so⋯?”
“Don't give me that ‘Is that so⋯?’! Even my claws can open Hunter tissue, but I can't use them for long! Their durability is poor, controlling the depth is exhausting, and if I slip even a little, the tissue tears! But you just opened it with a few smooth strokes! And then you materialized several pieces of equipment at once, finished surgery, drank a sports drink, and sat down to rest!”
Ms. Na Ha-young shook me back and forth.
But perhaps her claim that she was a Hunter hadn't been an empty boast after all.
Her strength was no joke; a roller coaster probably wouldn't have made me this dizzy.
“You said your name was Jihoo, right? You're freaking amazing! Come work at our hospital. Huh? Come right now. I'll write you a recommendation letter. No, forget the letter—I'll bring you in myself!”
“Wait, just a moment.”
“With your ability at the Hunter Trauma Center, our surgical success rate will skyrocket. No, it's not just the equipment—there's something strange about your hands, too. Those weren't a student's hands. Where on earth did you learn that? America? Europe? Or a private Hunter medical institution?!”
Then I realized something.
I had seen this scene before.
At university, it was the look professors got when they found an unbelievably talented student and tried to drag them into graduate school by any means necessary.
I had been a graduate student once, too.
Though my paper turned the academic world upside down, so the professor who had recruited me ended up acting more like my research assistant before even a year had passed.
Anyway.
That was exactly the look in Ms. Na Ha-young's eyes now.
The look of a researcher who had discovered brilliant talent.
The look of a scholar who had found a rare specimen.
And the look of a professor who had found a useful slave.
Panting and even drooling, she looked just like a vixen in heat.
But.
“I'm sorry, but I'll have to decline.”
“Wh-What?”
I had already made up my mind.
“Why? With skills like that, weren't you planning to become a Hunter specialist?”
Ms. Na Ha-young's expression hardened.
“No.”
“I heard you're in a pretty difficult situation at the university, Jihoo. You're even entangled with the Student Affairs Council, and I hear there was an issue with moving up to your second year.”
“You investigated that already?”
“Information is a doctor's lifeblood!”
Wasn't that called a background check, not information gathering?
Ms. Na Ha-young continued speaking without paying any attention to my reaction.
“I can have your back. If you come to the Hunter Trauma Center, the university won't be able to push you around! I can even get you through graduation, and depending on the circumstances, you might qualify for special-track training. With your ability, the hospital will want to snap you up immediately!”
Hunters were the world's greatest human resource.
And a Hunter specialist who could save those Hunters would surely possess tremendous authority as well.
With Ms. Na Ha-young's recommendation and the protection of Daehan Central University Hospital's Hunter Trauma Center, neither the Student Affairs Council nor the university would be able to push me around easily.
There might not have been a better safety net than that.
But my answer had already been decided.
The moment I awakened as a Hunter trauma surgeon, I had already drawn up a new career path.
“I'm going to open a private clinic.”
“A-a private clinic?”
Ms. Na Ha-young asked back with a face like the world had just collapsed.
“Yes. Just one small clinic.”
“With skills like yours?”
“Precisely because I have these skills.”
I set down the can of sports drink.
“I have no intention of spending my life at a university hospital. I didn't enter medical school to toil away at a severe trauma center and actually die⋯ no, anyway. That's not the kind of life I came to medical school for.”
I cleared my throat and moved on.
“What I want is a clinic that runs on my schedule. A small neighborhood surgical clinic. Rather than major surgeries, I'd see patients, write prescriptions, perform minor treatments, and send them to a major hospital when necessary.”
A quiet neighborhood.
Fixed clinic hours.
Nights without emergency calls.
A life spent sleeping in my own bed instead of on the sofa in an on-call room.
Even as a surgeon, there was a way to live like that.
I didn't have to hole up in a severe trauma center and open people's abdomens just to help them.
“The seriously ill can be sent to major hospitals. I'll live nearby, commute to work, have my own time after I clock out, and eat, sleep, and live a reasonably comfortable life.”
“⋯⋯.”
“So I won't be working at a university hospital.”
Ms. Na Ha-young's face remained stiff for quite some time after hearing that.
As if she'd just been hit on the head with a hammer.
Her tail stopped moving, too.
She stared blankly at me, then muttered in a tiny voice.
“I⋯ can't do without you anymore, you know?”
“Even if you say it suggestively, no still means no.”
“After getting a taste of those hands, how can I go back to the way things were!”
“As long as you don't die, everything goes back to normal. That's the way of the world.”
“Take responsibility⋯.”
“For what?”
Then a fire lit up in her eyes again.
“My career as a surgeon!”
“I'm not taking responsibility.”
“Jihoo.”
“I said I'm not doing it.”
“Come to our center.”
“No.”
“Just one month.”
“No.”
“One week.”
“No.”
“Then just one day!”
I shot to my feet.
“I'm clocking out.”
“Your shift isn't over yet!”
“Then I'll go resume my volunteer work at the hospital.”
“Jihoo!”