Chapter 223

Episode 223 Pixie (6)

[…Let’s talk later. As for Dr. Han Hyeonjae.]

Click.

The call was cut off.

"Hmm."

‘This is a social emergency.’

A resident from another department had practically used a Trauma Surgery fellow as a folding screen while slicing open a femoral artery to insert a shunt. It was a tremendous incident, equivalent to pouring gasoline onto the hospital's internal political theater and power struggles.

Professor Song, who had just come down from the operating room, might come rushing in to grab me by the collar at any moment. However, the real emergency crashing down on me right now was something else entirely.

‘Possession Release.’

I urgently shouted the command in my mind.

Swwish—

The sensation of the foreign soul that had tightly filled my body came rushing out.

Flash—

My vision blinked and shook for a moment before regaining its original clarity.

"Whew..."

Without realizing it, my breath caught in my jaw, and my legs gave out, causing me to stagger.

"Teacher? What’s wrong?"

Baek Eunseo (Female), a 2nd Year resident who was organizing orders beside me, looked back at me in surprise. To her eyes, seeing me—who had been wielding a scalpel like a legendary blade-wielder just a moment ago—suddenly tottering like a scarecrow must have looked bizarre.

"Huh? Ah, it’s nothing."

I tried my best to act casual as I replied, but cold sweat was already forming in beads on my forehead.

The possession penalty. The possession penalty was completely trash. Although it had been reduced from 6 hours to 4 hours due to the recent system upgrade, the intensity of the pain itself had not decreased. To make matters worse, this penalty would strike unpredictably, like a slap to the back of the head, within one to five minutes right after the possession release.

‘So, quickly...’

Rolling my eyes frantically, I opened the system window.

[Shop]

Scroll.

My gaze desperately swept down the categories.

‘Scroll down faster. Please!’

[Fatigue Recovery Potion (High-grade)]

Price: 1,000 LP

Description: Relieves all fatigue and physical damage for 9 hours...

I didn't need this long description right now. The most important clause was written in small print at the very bottom.

When used to offset the penalty occurring after skill usage, the duration is limited to 5 minutes.

Even if I poured a high-grade potion down my throat, it would merely buy me a 5-minute delay. It was an incredibly rip-off exchange rate, but I was in no position to be picky.

‘5×3=15.’

Five minutes per bottle. Three bottles meant fifteen minutes.

‘For now, this should be enough. Let's endure for 15 minutes. Within that time, I need to go crawl into some corner and shrivel up.’

[Would you like to purchase?]

‘Yes.’

[A total of 3,000 LP will be deducted.]

[Remaining: 17,400 LP]

Flash!

"Haa..."

For now, I had put out the immediate fire. The plan was roughly set. I would act sick so no one would bother me, hole up in a bed in the corner of the Emergency Room, and quietly suffer through the muscle pain for 4 hours before getting back up.

First, time for my trashy acting. ON.

"Ugh..."

After watching the Vascular Surgery team handle the tidying up, I held my forehead and let out an exaggerated groan.

"Teacher? What’s wrong? Your face suddenly turned incredibly pale...!"

Baek Eunseo threw down her chart and hurried over to support my arm.

"No... well... I focused too hard earlier... and used too much energy... ugh... ah... can I go rest for a bit?"

It was an awkward line delivered like someone reading straight out of a textbook, but it didn't matter. My pale complexion lent tremendous plausibility to that clumsy acting.

Suddenly, Fellow Lee Minjae (Male), who had been staring blankly at this crazy situation from behind, approached with flashing eyes and pulled me along.

"Hey, hey, hey! You shouldn't be standing around here like this!"

Pushing my back, he ruthlessly dragged me toward an empty bed in the deepest corner of the Emergency Room.

"Lie down. You need to take a break right now. You collapsed from overwork. Got it?"

"Yes?"

"See you later then! I'll put in an order so no one can come in, so get some good sleep!"

Swwish—

Without even listening to my response, Lee Minjae heartlessly drew the bed curtain shut and disappeared.

"...What is this?"

Left completely alone on the patient bed so abruptly, I stared at the ceiling in sheer absurdity. Well, anyway, it wasn't bad since I now had a fortress where I could roll around and endure the hellish muscle pain coming in 15 minutes without worrying about others' eyes.

About a minute passed like that.

Slide—

The curtain opened, and two nurses entered my space carrying a plastic tray.

"Oh... pfft."

The senior charge nurse of the Emergency Room spotted me lying on the bed and bit her lip hard, desperately suppressing a burst of laughter.

"..."

And standing behind her was a new nurse, holding an IV bag and a syringe with a look of extreme nervousness. The new nurse, hands trembling violently, checked my chart and began the patient verification process.

"Ha... Patient Han Hyeonjae? Correct? Please tell me your date of birth."

"Yes?"

Why am I a patient?

‘Ah.’

Come to think of it, for Lee Minjae to legally keep me lying on an ER bed right now, he naturally had to register me in the computer system and issue a prescription.

‘I’m getting an IV fluid. Under the pretext of overwork.’

This gentleman's sense of detail was entirely useless. I needed to have at least one line hooked up so that even if the professors came by, they would just think, 'Ah, he really collapsed from overwork,' and let it slide.

Resigned, I recited my date of birth. After passing through that brief verification process, I was greeted by a sharp 20-gauge needle approaching my forearm.

"Then, um... I'll insert it. It’s going to prick a little."

With trembling hands, the new nurse aimed for a blood vessel on the back of my hand.

Poke—

‘If you stab at such a steep angle, it's going to pass right through the back wall of the blood vessel...’

An internal critique popped into my head, but I tightly suppressed it.

"You should have flattened it there and gently pushed it in. You pierced the other side. Can't you see it swelling?"

I could see the charge nurse watching from the side and scolding her sharply. Sure enough, the area around the back of my hand where the needle had been inserted began to swell into a lump as the IV fluid leaked out.

"Ah, sorry! I'll do it again!"

Turning pale, the rookie nurse applied pressure with an alcohol swab and then targeted my forearm this time.

"Then, this way..."

Poke—

The needle entered again.

"Huh? Um... no blood is flashing..."

The rookie's hands began digging around, tilting the needle tip back and forth to find a blood vessel. That horrifying pain of a sharp piece of metal rummaging through raw flesh ensued. Unable to bear it any longer, I lifted my other hand.

"Excuse me."

"Ah, yes! Dr. Han. It hurts a lot, right? I'm sorry..."

The charge nurse expressed her apologies, but that wasn't what was important. It hurt.

"I am not a human mannequin..."

Only after a total of four adhesive bandage medals were slapped onto both of my arms did the charge nurse, unable to witness the frustration any longer, take over and finally allow me to find peace.

"Whew..."

Just as I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it was finally all over, and tried to sink deep into the bed—

A chilling sensation raced up my spine.

‘Uh?’

While the new nurse had been fumbling around, poking four holes into my arms with a needle, the limited time of the high-grade fatigue recovery potion bought from the shop had ruthlessly run out.

An intense pain, as if every muscle fiber in my body was being ground up in a blender, came rushing in like an explosion from the tips of my toes to the crown of my head.

"Oh, shit...!"

With the IV still hooked up, I cleanly passed out.

4 hours later.

"Ugh..."

In the spot where the pain that had weighed down my entire body slipped away, only a stiff ache remained. Waking from my slumber, I checked my wristwatch immediately upon opening my eyes.

"Dammit."

Four hours. I had been knocked out precisely for the exact duration of the possession penalty.

‘There’s still time left until clock-out.’

Would it have been better if the penalty time had been longer like before, so I could just stay passed out until late into the evening?

"Up we go."

I grabbed the bed railing, pulled myself up, and stretched. A popping sound echoed from my joints.

Unraveling the curtain, I stepped outside. As I passed by the station, I locked eyes with a nurse who happened to be changing an IV bag. It was the same new nurse who had repeatedly punched needle holes into the back of my hand earlier.

"Could you remove this line for me?"

When I shook the IV line dangling from my forearm, she flinched in surprise and hurried over.

"Ah, yes! I'll take it out right away!"

Seeing me perfectly fine after getting some deep sleep, the nurse firmly pressed down on the injection site with an alcohol swab and pulled the line out.

Sitting heavily in my designated seat at the central station with a single bandage stuck to my arm, I had to endure a barrage of words that had been piling up for hours the moment I sat down.

"Are you seriously crazy???? No, what even was that?! Did you prepare for surgery on the side or something?!"

To my left was Emergency Medicine Fellow Lee Minjae.

"Hey! Packing is just slicing open, ripping apart, and mindlessly stuffing things in, but this is a vascular technique, vascular! You sutured a blood vessel! A blood vessel! And on a teenager's leg, no less! Are you really a psycho?! You magnificent crazy bastard!! Magnificent!! But you're still a crazy bastard!!"

From the opposite ear, a voice with a completely different tension was heard.

"Teacher, you were seriously so cool earlier. Truly. I mean, how could you think of pulling off an emergency surgery right then and there like bam-bam-bam? Did you see the look on those doctors' faces when they froze up? Even I felt the thrill!"

To my right was Baek Eunseo.

‘Both of you are too loud.’

I pressed my temples firmly with both hands, knitting my brows. My half-awake head felt like it was about to explode. It was right when I was refreshing the patient list on the monitor with a highly displeased expression.

"Teacher!"

An intern rotating through our department rushed toward the station in a hurry, looking for me.

"Huh? What is it."

"Someone is looking for you outside."

"Who? A guardian? Or a resident from another department?"

Kang Minser swallowed hard and replied, "A professor from another department. She’s waiting for you right now in the connecting walkway."

"Oh, boy..."

What was bound to come had arrived.

I let out a deep sigh and rose from my seat. It was time to pay the price for laying a blade on someone else's patient without permission.

Walking with heavy steps out of the Emergency Room, I found Professor Song, who had roughly thrown a doctor's gown over her surgical scrubs, waiting for me with her arms crossed.

"You're Dr. Han Hyeonjae, right?"

"Yes, Professor. I am Han Hyeonjae..."

Before my greeting could even finish, she asked point-blank, "Did you do general surgery?"

"Pardon?"

"I asked if you've ever received surgical training."

What kind of talk was this? Had I received surgical training? Did she mean if I had received surgical education?

"When I was an intern, I rotated through the operating room and entered a few times..."

"No, not that."

Professor Song Jiyeon frowned and cut me off.

"General surgery or Thoracic Surgery resident. Have you ever formally received residency training? I'm asking if you've learned it for even a single month."

Resident? I had been in Emergency Medicine from the very start.

"No... I haven't."

"Then how are you in EM?" She let out a hollow laugh.

"That's..."

While I racked my brain trying to find an excuse, her imagination began to leap in a highly spectacular direction.

"Did you come back from working somewhere like Doctors Without Borders? Like a foreign conflict zone? A civil war zone in the Middle East or Africa where you opened up countless gunshot patients?"

What on earth does this person usually watch? And why would a person like that come to a Korean emergency room?

"It's nothing like that..."

"How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-nine..."

"Wait, what?"

Professor Song Jiyeon shook her head as if it made no sense, unfolding a piece of A4 paper she had gotten from somewhere, which appeared to be my personnel record card.

"Then what is this military service record? You have no field experience, you're young, but you're exempt? Were you exempted because you were some kind of secret military doctor?"

Her imagination was going a bit too far. Though, to be fair, that was probably a lot easier to swallow than telling her I could see a community run by ghosts.

"That's because I tore my ACL playing soccer..."

I shattered her brilliant spy thriller scenario with a very ordinary, pathetic fact.

"No, what is this really..."

Professor Song Jiyeon looked back and forth between the document and my face, genuinely confused. My background was a perfectly ordinary K-medical student tech tree, but my skills were on par with a trauma center director with decades of experience, so it was completely natural for her brain to short-circuit.

Scratching the back of my neck awkwardly, I asked, "So, did you call me out here just to ask that...?"

"Ah! Right. This."

Professor Song slid the very last page out of the stack of documents she was holding and thrust it against my chest.

Each clinical department entirely agrees to the specific details of the above [Provisional Plan for the Establishment of an Acute Care Center and Chronic Care Center, and the Integration of the Resident On-Call System] to safeguard the essential healthcare system of this medical center, and hereby resolves to actively cooperate with subordinate manpower operations and facility construction by affixing signatures and seals.

August 17, 2029

Chief of General Surgery: Joo Myeonghyeon (Seal)

Chief of Vascular Surgery: Song Jiyeon (Seal)

"Huh?"

My eyes went wide. This was the document that Chief Jo Kyeongun of Thoracic Surgery had shown me and stamped on the day his rotation ended. It was the agreement to establish a ghost medical department centered around me, pushed forward by Medical Center Director Lee Jaeyoon. The seals of General Surgery and its subordinate division, Vascular Surgery, were stamped vividly upon it.

"To be honest, after this official document was quietly sent down, I just left it abandoned on my desktop... then it suddenly crossed my mind. I called you out to show you this."

Professor Song Jiyeon tapped the document and spoke casually.

"Since I heard what Dr. Han did today with my own ears and opened it up to see with my own eyes... well, I figured there was nothing left to argue about."

"Uh... so..."

"I spoke with the Chief and took care of getting the agreement from the entire General Surgery department on my end, so just know that, Dr. Han."

"Ah, yes. But since I can't go on a general surgery rotation..."

When I asked with a dazed expression, she smirked.

"You don't need to come on a rotation. Your hands are already faster than my fellow's, so what rotation? Just save everyone in the ER like you did today. Go on back inside then! Genius Doctor Han!"

Waving her hand, she turned around coolly and headed toward the connecting walkway leading to the main building.

"Ah... Yes! Take care!"

Even after bowing deeply to say goodbye, I stood in that spot for a long time.

‘To think even a professor from another department would call me a genius...’

While my shoulders felt heavier, a strange sense of thrill surged up my spine. Embracing that overwhelmed heart, I opened the ER automatic doors and had just stepped back inside.

"Dr. Han! Dr. Han!"

An intern spotted me from inside and came rushing over in a flurry once again.

"Why? I already met with Professor Song earlier..."

"No, it's not the professor. The guardian of that bicycle traffic accident patient from earlier is looking for you."

"Me?"

I knitted my brows. The surgery had ended well and the patient should be recovering, so why on earth was the guardian looking for me, an ER doctor?