Chapter 79
*
B Sector.
A district of hot-blooded adventurers who still can't let go of their longing for freedom and exploration beyond the wall.
The shunned facilities that keep B Sector fed are the Adventurers' Guild and the smithy.
The shadows clinging there are mercenaries and assassins who will do anything for money.
That's why it's called Blade Street.
In this city, if your job has you living by the blade, then aside from nobles and knights, everyone gathers here.
“As you know, Teacher, I’m not exactly on good terms with the head of Blade Street.”
The car headed for B Sector.
Inside the car were me, Wangcho, Ayla, and four of her friends.
Wangcho began briefly explaining the situation.
“When a carrier pigeon suddenly showed up this morning, I thought we were placing some urgent order.”
B Sector has frequent dealings with D Sector.
When the adventurers of Blade Street hunt down monsters, the tanners' street handles the meat, materials, and magic stones.
Also, when money-strapped adventurers or mercenaries get hurt, the clinics in D Sector treat them cheaply.
And we can't forget the adventurers who, unable to contain the heat of a single night, head for the red-light district.
In many ways, B Sector is indebted to D Sector.
Given that, it was only natural for the boss of B Sector and Wangcho to be close.
“But it wasn't. The moment I heard that the expeditionary force sent out last night had come back wiped out, I woke right up.”
Wangcho said, letting out a rough breath.
Ayla and the students listening quietly all hunched their shoulders.
“Apparently, the aberrant monster that caused this incident itself wasn't strong. At most, it was small-monster level.”
A small monster is something a party with a rank-1 superhuman in it could easily take down.
“The problem was that when it died, it made a huge noise like some sort of alarm. Because of that, a pack of large monsters woke from hibernation all at once, and the expeditionary force is retreating after taking catastrophic damage.”
“Of all things, large monsters...”
But if large monsters wake up, the story changes.
A large monster's rank is roughly 3 to 4.
You need a noble to bring down even one of them.
If a large monster is leading a pack, you need knights as well.
Of course, nobles and knights were included in this expeditionary force.
So if only one pack with a few large monsters in it had woken up, they might have been able to handle it.
The problem was that it wasn't just one pack.
“They started retreating at dawn, and now the wounded are said to be flooding toward the gate.”
At dawn, it was still not long after the hunt had begun.
They must have gone out to target monsters that were still half asleep from hibernation, so it would have been the moment when they were most careless.
The situation was probably more serious than anything I could imagine.
“B Sector.”
Once we left D Sector's alleys, the scenery began to change.
The smell of grease and leather disappeared, replaced by the scent of charcoal and iron filings.
The street that should normally have been echoing with the sounds of anvils and whetstones from early morning was quiet.
Looking out the window, I could see everyone in the street heading toward the gate.
“There, Teacher.”
Wangcho pointed at the open gate.
Beyond the gate, with dawn light seeping in, was the view outside the walls blanketed in white snow.
And through that gate, people were pouring in.
“No way...”
Ayla covered her mouth with both hands.
A mercenary carried on a comrade's back.
A knight limping along, using his shield as a cane.
A noble being dragged along, supported by two servants.
A procession of wretched figures stretched from the gate.
In fact, they were the better-off ones.
Between the gate and the central square ran a broad road connecting the two.
Normally, carts carrying monster corpses should have been busily moving along that road.
But now the carts filling that road were carrying the wounded and the dead instead of plunder.
“Urk...”
“Help, help me...”
“My leg... my leg...”
Cries of anguish rang out from everywhere.
Bloodstains spread in every direction across the white snow, and at the end of each stain lay a collapsed person.
Ayla and her friends couldn't say a word at the horrific sight.
One student covered their mouth after locking eyes with a corpse being carried on a stretcher.
“Ugh...”
Sorry to show them something like this on their first day.
But before we left, I had definitely made sure to confirm it with them.
That where we were going was a horrific disaster site drenched in blood and filled with screams.
That they shouldn't even dream of a cheerful, carefree clinic life.
That there, I could only treat them not as students but as disaster relief workers.
Even so, the students said they would follow me.
So I had no choice but to treat them accordingly.
“We've arrived at the Adventurers' Guild.”
At Wangcho's voice, I got ready to get out of the car.
The other kids each prepared to disembark as well.
Soon the car stopped, and Wangcho jumped out first.
I hurried after Wangcho toward the guild building.
“Teacher, this way.”
The B Sector Adventurers' Guild headquarters was the stone building closest to the gate, on the north side of the square.
When I opened the door, the inside of a typical fantasy-style guild spread out before me.
A large space served as both a tavern and a waiting room, and farther inside I could see the reception desk and the bar counter.
But the tavern area had been transformed into a command room.
“How many B-rank and above are still outside!”
“Three! No, four! The Rina party still hasn't responded!”
“Check the clinic beds! If we're short, clear out the smithy and put people there!”
“Did you send letters to the noble houses?! Are you checking where everyone is?”
“Contact the upper sectors too! Hurry!”
Using the request board as a briefing board, a middle-aged man was shouting at the top of his lungs.
Where notices and hunt postings should normally have been plastered in layers, there was a rough map drawn in chalk.
52/8
64/9
The rough number of injured and the estimated number of dead were being updated in real time.
One shout was layered over another.
Wangcho pushed through the middle of that chaos without hesitation.
“Move!”
Throwing aside adventurers who got in his way, Wangcho walked toward the board.
The students and I walked along the path Wangcho made.
Before long, we reached the board.
A man was standing on the table placed directly in front of the chalkboard.
“Alexei! I'm here!”
At Wangcho's call, the man on the table lowered his gaze.
The man called Alexei was in his late forties, with a scar running across his forehead and jaw.
A wolf emblem in silver set into his black leather coat glimmered faintly.
“Tao Chen. You came quickly.”
“Teacher, this guy is Alexei. He's the B Sector Adventurers' Guildmaster.”
“Good day, Director Shun. I've heard the rumors.”
The guildmaster jumped down from the table, gave me a light bow, and offered a handshake.
When I took his outstretched right hand, I felt the cold touch of metal.
It seemed his right hand was a prosthetic.
“The situation is urgent, so please forgive the lack of proper formalities.”
“Not at all. Then what should I do here?”
“There are still many parties and teams isolated outside the wall. It isn't easy to focus solely on rescue work.”
Alexei let out a sigh and pointed at the board.
On one side of the chalkboard, a map of the area beyond the wall had been drawn.
Several team names were circled in red and marked with exclamation points.
“I'll handle the rescues outside the wall. Please take care of the injured who have come inside the walls. Before that, by any chance, how many healers did you bring?”
“Healers from the Mercure Trading Company are on their way down.”
For now, I sent out messages on the way here.
When I informed the company master of the situation, he snorted and said this.
— “Excellent! This is the perfect chance to elevate our company's image even further!”
What a thoroughly nouveau riche, sleazy choice of words.
Of course, even if he says it like that, I know very well that's not what he truly means.
Because he's a nouveau riche who admires the spirit of noblesse oblige.
Contrary to appearances, the company master was one of the few good-hearted people I could trust.
In any case, the healers were also on their way here.
“Thank you, Director.”
“You can thank me later.”
“Understood. Then I'll inform the other team leaders as well.”
Guildmaster Alexei called over one of the receptionists who had been bustling around.
“Marius. Pass this on to the guild staff and party leaders. From this point on, if they cross over the wall, when it comes to sorting and treating the injured, they are to follow this person's orders without exception.”
“Yes, sir!”
The staff member glanced at my mask for a moment, then instantly sketched my likeness on paper.
Black suit and crow mask.
Carrying that sketch, which had captured my features uncannily well, the staff member disappeared behind the counter.
Alexei pointed at the chalkboard with his right prosthetic hand.
“The guild has a clinic as well. Besides that, there should be two additional spaces we can use: the guild meeting room and the smithy warehouse in the neighboring building. I've got about thirty porters assigned already. If you need more, just say so.”
“Understood. I'll arrange additional support separately.”
With that, I turned to Wangcho.
“Wangcho.”
“Yes, Teacher.”
“We need more people.”
“I'll bring some muscle from the slaughterhouse.”
“You can use my car and the trading company's carriage freely.”
“Understood.”
If it was Wangcho, there was no way he'd do anything stupid with the vehicles in a situation like this, so I trusted him with it.
Wangcho gave a small nod and then went back out the way he had come.
After making sure his back was out of sight, I inverted my bag over the table.
Flags dyed in four colors spilled out in a rush.
“All D Sector clinic directors, gather here.”
“We're here.”
The five clinic directors who had arrived with me first gathered in front of the guildmaster's table.
Behind them, the guild staff also stopped one by one, wondering what was going on, and looked this way.
I immediately gave the clinic directors their instructions.
“Tell the healers who came into work at the clinics but haven't come to the scene yet to stay at the clinics. We need backup.”
There are limits to what can be done at the scene.
So those who haven't arrived at the scene yet will wait at the clinics.
“And from this point on, the clinic directors and I will focus on sorting patients rather than treating them.”
I spread the bundle of flags out on the table.
Red, yellow, green, and black.
They were flags for triage classification.
In a large-scale disaster where time and manpower are limited resources, you can't provide the best care for each individual.
The moment several medical staff rush to one patient, the remaining ten who are left out are neglected.
Because of that, in disaster situations like this, medicine aims not for the best outcome but for the survival of the greatest number.
And triage classification is a system that sorts patients by severity and determines priority.
“What I'm about to explain is the triage classification method. Since I imagine all of you have experience working in emergency rooms, I'll keep it brief.”
First, green.
“People who can walk on their own. Those who can communicate and are clear-headed are classified with this flag. Treatment is the lowest priority.”
Yellow
“Those who can't walk but are conscious, and who need treatment but have about an hour to spare. We'll treat them, but only when we have spare divine power.”
Red.
“Those who must be treated right now. Those with clouded consciousness, labored breathing, or severe bleeding. We will treat these people first.”
And black.
“... You all know what that means, right?”
I'll skip the explanation because there are too many ears listening.
But it's a color everyone who has worked at my clinic knows.
Black.
No hope.
“We won't perform time-consuming treatments such as CPR, neurosurgery, or regenerative surgery.”
“Yes!”
I continued my explanation.
“There are rules when classifying. 30 seconds to 1 minute per person. No more than that. The criteria are breathing, pulse, blood circulation, and consciousness.”
The most important thing in this situation is classification.
Proper classification alone can change the leading digit of the survival rate.
But if classification delays things, then it's no different from putting the cart before the horse.
“Don't overthink it. If you're unsure, just mark them yellow for now.”
The healers all nodded at once.
“All right, then we'll divide the sections by color—”
That was when it happened.
A loud trumpet blast rang out from outside the guild.
Pwooo-ooooo!
It was a trumpet sounding from the gate.
The guild staff listened closely to that trumpet call, sounded in four broken bursts.
One of them said to me,
“It seems the Basilisk Assault Team has returned.”
“About how many are there?”
“About 80.”
“We're going to get busy.”
I handed the flags to the clinic directors and finished my instructions.
“Divide the sections according to the flags and sort the patients. Then let's get started right away.”
I gave the order briefly and took up the bundle of flags.
Then I nodded toward the students who were staring blankly this way.
“Students, follow me.”
*
I led the students around and began handing flags to the patients.
I examined an adventurer in leather armor whose ankle was twisted.
“What's your name?”
“… Ma… tin….”
“Green flag.”
He can't walk, but he's conscious and shows no signs of a life-threatening condition.
A person doesn't die from a twisted ankle.
Therefore, green.
I told the patient to take that flag and head to the green section with help from other patients who could walk.
The next patient was a knight with a forearm-thick thorn embedded in his abdomen.
“Patient. What's your name?”
“Mom...”
Mom, I'm hungry, I'm cold.
That's the stock line of people waiting for the ferryman at the River Styx.
The moment I heard that line, I immediately lifted his eyelids and lightly pressed and released his fingers.
His condition was bad.
His breathing was shallow and rapid too. Even a rough count put it well over 30 per minute.
That said, if we pulled out the thorn and cast Heal, we could expect his condition to improve quickly.
“Red.”
Tap.
Ayla tied the flag to the knight.
Before long, the laborers Wangcho had arranged lifted the knight onto a stretcher.
And they began moving him to the place where the red-flag patients were gathered.
“I'll pray for you, sir.”
Before the knight was taken away, Ayla cast Refresh.
Normally, the rule in a situation like this is to conserve divine power.
But I made Ayla an exception.
Over the past few months,
I had never seen Ayla run out of divine power from using Refresh.
There were even days when she'd used it nearly a hundred times and still been fine.
So I allowed her to cast Refresh on patients with red flags.
Because doing so might raise the survival rate even a little.
“There, green.”
“This one's yellow.”
“This one...”
Black.
Every time a black flag was planted beside a patient, the students' expressions grew darker.
Ayla also parted her lips, but no sound came out.
They knew it too.
They knew how horrifying a tragedy would unfold the moment you spoke of reckless miracles in reality.
That's why they were silently planting the black flags like that.
It was a reality I hadn't wanted to show to the youngsters still growing up if I could help it.
“Next...”
That was when it happened.
“Why is this happening! Hurry up and treat me!”
A shout rang out across the square.
I stopped my hands as I was organizing the flags.
Ayla and her friends also stopped in their tracks at the shout.
At the corner of the square.
In the relatively less busy green section, a man was gripping a healer by the collar.
The healer was being lifted up, his priestly robe wrinkled by the fist of a man more than a handspan taller than him.
The man gripping him by the collar was wearing a flashy blue coat, broadcasting his nobility with every inch of his body.
A single hawk was embroidered on the chest of the coat.
Of course, seeing that crest didn't tell me which house he belonged to.
“You dare, knowing who I am!”
The man shook the healer's robe roughly.
“The second son of the Karimzad viscount house has entered the city walls, so how can a healer stand there and do nothing before me!”
“Do... Young master... Right now there are more people in worse condition...”
“What? Worse condition?”
The man's voice rose.
“Are you saying that after looking at my thigh and forehead? Where on earth is there a more urgent injury than this!”
From afar, I quickly assessed those wounds.
The wound on his forehead was definitely deep.
If left like that, it would definitely leave a scar.
The wound on his thigh was by no means small either.
But the blood from his forehead and thigh had long since stopped, and the second son's consciousness was clear.
Unless an artery had been damaged or something, it should be assessed as green.
Besides, as a superhuman, he'd be tougher to kill too.
But to the pampered second son, those wounds apparently felt like ones that could kill him at any moment.
“And yet you have divine power to spare, so how dare you not treat me!”
The second son's shouting rose another notch.
“Think about which is more valuable to the Empire: me or that commoner sprawled in this square!”
The second son's logic was extremely simple.
“Rather than Heal that commoner, Heal me.”
That was the logic behind his claim that it would be socially beneficial.
Strategically, he might even be right.
After all, one rank-1 superhuman is worth more than ten rank-0 soldiers.
But medically, it was logic I simply couldn't agree with.
And the healer whose collar had been grabbed seemed to think much the same as I did.
“Young master. Even so...”
The healer couldn't continue.
He was clutching a brass cross while still being held by the collar.
But he didn't use that cross to cast Heal.
While working at our clinic, he had learned.
Just how many miracles a low-level Heal could bring about.
That was why he couldn't use low-level Heal lightly.
By conserving this divine power alone, he could move several people under the red flag into the yellow category.
So the healer replied in a trembling voice.
“I understand what you're saying, young master, but... if I use Heal on you now, then the five people under red flags who will arrive a little later...”
“Shut up! How dare you...!”
“Lord Karimzad.”
Unable to stand it any longer, I cut in.
The second son snapped his head around toward me.
And once again, embarrassment took the place where anger had just been.
It seemed this man knew my face too.
More precisely, my mask.
“Ah, the crow mask. So you're that Director Shun?”
The second son's tone dropped.
It was a gentle tone entirely different from the roar he had just made.
“To meet you in a place like this. This meeting can only be His Majesty the Emperor's grace.”
The second son let go of the hand that had been gripping the healer's collar.
And he lightly tapped his own chest with a fist.
“I am Arno Karimzad, the second son of the Karimzad viscount house. Under His Majesty's boundless mercy—”
I let his introduction go in one ear and out the other, and signaled the healer.
I'll handle this here, so go look after the other patients.
The healer lowered his head slightly and quietly stepped back.
In the meantime, after finishing his introduction, the second son called out to me.
“Director Shun. By the way, aren't you curious how this wound came to be? During today's hunt, I encountered a medium-class monster all by myself. A Black Bristle Wolf, if you've heard of it, one roughly equivalent to a rank-2. When the thing came in from my side, I—”
Arno tilted the wound on his forehead proudly to show it off.
It was probably something like sacrificing his thigh to take the wolf's neck.
The bite marks on his thigh were proof of that.
But I wasn't interested in his boastful tale.
So I cut him off in the middle.
“Lord, do you know this?”
“...?”
I had dealt with plenty of these nuisances in my past life.
As a trauma surgeon, I dealt with plenty of these nuisances alongside emergency-room doctors.
And I know how to effectively shut people like this up.
“We're in an emergency situation right now. I trust you understand the meaning of a condition that requires the healers' full attention in a situation like this...”
I lifted the red flag lightly and pointed toward the eastern section of the square.
Arno's gaze instinctively followed that direction.
There, people who already had red flags planted beside them were gathered.
An adventurer whose entire left arm was missing from below the shoulder.
A knight lying face down with his breastplate completely melted away from the back.
A mercenary with half his face gone, his jaw hanging grotesquely downward.
Seeing the area where they had gathered, the second son's face stiffened slightly.
“If necessary, I can help arrange for you to receive the healers' attention over there.”
“… Are you threatening me?”
“Well.”
For the record, every time I used this method, complaints would often come in.
Something about a doctor threatening a patient, or whatever.
Thanks to that, I often found myself going in and out of disciplinary committees.
Of course, our hospital had an even more outrageous director, the thoracic surgery chief, and the center chiefs, so I was always found not guilty.
— “When a doctor works, sometimes you can even throw around lousy parents. Good job, Yoonho.”
— “Chief... that's only something you do at our hospital. And I don't want to go to the disciplinary committee.”
— “If you get disciplined enough times, it starts feeling like you're getting medals, and once you get used to it, it's fine. As long as you don't get a red line, you're good.”
In particular, thanks to the pediatric department chief, who was close with me and defended me aggressively,
I later started to get a little reckless myself, just like that old man.
Eventually I was stacking a tower out of complaints filed under my name.
... Damn it.
I only learned weird things from that guy.
Anyway.
“Lord Karimzad. Would you like me to guide you over there? If you don't like red, I can escort you to the black section.”
“...”
A little color drained from Arno's face.
Soon after, he shook his head.
“Come to think of it, waiting here would be the proper conduct for a noble.”
“I can provide simple first aid.”
Still, I thought it would be a bit much to leave a noble's son completely unattended, so I decided to give his thigh a quick treatment.
Of course, not by me, but by the trainees' clumsy hands.
“Ayla, practice suturing open wounds with your friends.”
“Huh? Why not you—urk!!”
Sometimes, very rarely.
Whenever this happened, I couldn't help thinking.
I liked that dark fantasy was an era where romance still lived and breathed, so there was no need to worry about what came afterward.
*
Arno was grabbed by the students and became excellent teaching material.
After telling the students to study enough and come back to me later, I moved on again for triage.
I was just leaving the green section when—
On one side of the green section,
a man was sitting upright on a lump of stone.
Dark bronze skin. A high nose bridge, and thick eyebrows.
His jawline was neat, and his short-trimmed black hair glinted with a touch of gray at the temples.
He looked to be in his early forties.
A family crest embroidered in gold thread was visible on dark red silk.
'Who is that?'
Freya could tell which house it was just by looking at the crest.
Tch.
Charlotte and I couldn't tell who someone was just by looking at something like that.
Fortunately, I could tell who the man was right away.
“Count Mukadar. It would probably be best to call a healer.”
A man who looked like a retainer was speaking in a low voice beside the count.
“I mean the wound on your side. The area that's bruised is...”
“I'm fine.”
The count waved his hand.
“As I said, this much is bearable. It's only a bruise, isn't it? We can't waste divine power on something like this.”
“Didn't the last time you hid an injury like that turn into a scar?”
“An invisible wound is a noble's medal. The more medals, the better.”
“Count, is this really the time for jokes!”
“Heh heh. Cough.”
The count gave a light laugh and coughed.
“I'm really fine, so inspect the knights' condition instead.”
“No. You absolutely must be treated. Didn't you get hit squarely by a troll's club? There may be an invisible injury inside, so you should at least receive a Heal.”
“Honestly, you're persistent. Why make such a fuss over a troll's club...”
The count stopped speaking to his retainer and turned his head over his shoulder.
And said to me,
“… What exactly are you doing?”
“I'm doing a physical examination.”
“Is the famous Director Shun's examination method really to walk up to a count without a word and place a hand on his back?”
I nodded.
“Yes. Thanks to that, I was able to determine your condition.”
“Heh heh. You're as eccentric as I'd heard.”
“Thank you. But before that, I have something I'd like to say.”
I gestured as if to whisper in the count's ear.
The count regarded me warily for a moment, then nodded and allowed me his ear.
I leaned toward the count and whispered low in his ear.
“I understand that strength is the proof of a noble title, but there is no meaning in dying just to protect your pride.”
“…?”
“Your lower left chest hurts whenever you breathe or speak, doesn't it? And it's hard for you to hide the cough, too.”
The count stared at me with shocked eyes.
I pointed toward a tent with a tilt of my beak.
And I said in a voice that others could hear,
“If you're all right with it now, Count, I have a personal favor I'd like to ask of you. Could we talk for a moment over there?”
I meant that I would treat him over there where no one could see.
The count thought for a moment, then nodded.