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<Doctor>

 

 

Light flashed.

Shi-Hyeok grimaced instinctively.

He wondered who had turned on the lights when he had been sleeping well. Even if it wasn’t so, because he had to take over intern duties, his eyes had just closed at 5 AM.

He opened his eyes.

Was about to go on a bout and lash out, but he saw strange things.

“Huh?”

Shi-Hyeok looked at his surroundings with a puzzled expression.

Now, it was not the intern quarters where he had fallen asleep but outside.

The dim, black sky was the very first thing that entered his eyes. White light was whirling in the sky like a pattern, but curious, golden-yellow letters were floating within.

Besides that, the sky was slightly strange. It wasn’t endlessly laid out like the Earth’s, but it was somewhat bent as if it was inside an enormous dome.

The only strange thing wasn’t the sky.

The state of everything in his surroundings surpassed Shi-Hyeok’s common sense.

First of all, the buildings.

They were a very strange shape. Like in a movie scene set in middle-age Europe, there were spiky towers and walls in place surrounding the area. Shabby buildings made from wood were also visible here and there. And, like that, behind Shi-Hyeok’s back stood a giant statue.

Loud sound could be heard from all directions. Wondering what it was, he saw people fiercely fighting demons.

Wearing armor made of iron, people equipped with swords and bucklers.

Arrows were shot blindly from the neighboring tower. As the arrows cut the air, they flew over the ramparts. Every time they were pierced by an arrow the monsters let out a horrible shriek.

Shi-Hyeok stood like a nail hammered into wood and gazed at the spectacle before him.

‘Am I dreaming?’

As to those are armed people, let’s leave it at that. Since there are people who use pre-modern weapons among occasional rare special ability users.

Then what the heck are those monsters?

A small demon wrapped in flames.

Its height at best was not even one meter. A gaunt body with red skin, it possessed cruel canine teeth. It had a misshapen face, and it was holding a three-pronged spear with thin arms. It had a tail with an inverted-triangle protrusion, and occasionally the end of the tail sent out a trail of flames.

The armed people were bit by bit pushed back by the demons. They were leaning up against the ramparts and barely holding out.

The spectacle outright had no reality to it.

It was like dreaming, and also as if watching a movie.

As he was blankly standing, somebody thumped him on his back.

“You there! If you were summoned, you should join in the battle. What are you doing? You can’t wait for every single order! When you become a medic, you have to take initiative!”

“Urk!”

The force he was hit with was enough to make his eyes tear up.

Shi-Hyeok turned to look at the person who had hit him. He had been about to say something, but the moment he saw him his energy died.

With a height over two meters, he was a man with rugged muscles over his entire body. His entire body was protected with snugly fitting armor, and his two eyes were burning brightly like a tiger’s. Whether it was because there was a difference of two heads with Shi-Hyeok’s height of 170 centimeters, it was hard to look at him firmly.

Something was emitting a peculiar energy. As soon as that energy stimulated Shi-Hyeok’s body, strangely a confidence with unknown base rose quickly in his mind.

When he doubted this sensation within his heart, the man changed his expression.

“Hell, I considered it, but are you new?”

“What does that…..”

“Damn! Why is the front line like this today? Follow me! I’ll show ya what to do!”

The man grasped Shi-Hyeok and dragged him away.

He quite didn’t know his strength. Like a kitten carried by its mother by the scruff, Shi-Hyeok could not put up any resistance.

The place the man had taken Shi-Hyeok to was a tent far from the ramparts.

“Urghh……”

“It hurts so much!”

“Kill me instead!”

The tent was falling in on itself, but several wounded were lying inside moaning.

It was a gruesome scene.

In comparison, amputated arms and legs were child’s play. He could see someone whose lower body was completely gone. One person had a body burned completely black.

Whether it was because his skin was so burnt that he couldn’t feel his agony, the man was grinning, but the smile instead gave off an uncanny feeling.

Shi-Hyeok swallowed his saliva as he looked at these people.

The rancid smell of blood. Even the smell of burning meat hung in the air. Automatically, a nauseous feeling seized him, and he began to feel like throwing up.

The man pushed Shi-Hyeok forward. He shouted, ignoring Shi-Hyeok’s reactions.

“Treat them, quickly!”

Do what?

Filled with questions, Shi-Hyeok looked at the man.

The man beat his chest in frustration.

“There’s no time! If you’re a doctor too, didn’t you learn medicine in your own world? Help the wounded with that! Then, whatever the injury, they will be healed, and they can be thrown back into the battle!”

It was crazy.

No matter how he looked at it, the wounded inside the tent seemed to be on the verge of death.

They were people that were to have gone immediately to the emergency room if it was Earth.

Save those people?

Impossible.

The moment Shi-Hyeok was about to shake his head, the man yelled.

“Don’t judge this world by the laws of your world! Just treat them with the medicine you have learned! Then everything will return to rationality!”

Rationality?

Shi-Hyeok looked at the man with eyes of cold distrust.

In all rationality, it seemed like those people over there were just going to die.

Since the man had been insisting so strongly, he first went to the wounded. Seeing them up close, a sigh came out automatically.

“Huu-u, I don’t even have acupuncture needles or anything so what does he expect me to do……huh?”

At that moment, he felt something in his left hand.

He felt several metallic objects.

Reflexively, he looked down at his left hand, but he witnessed something unbelievable.

Several long, thin metallic objects were held in his left hand.

Even just a moment ago there was definitely nothing there. But these things had appeared out of thin air.

A very familiar feeling for Shi-Hyeok.

These thin (acupuncture) needles.

And among acupuncture needles, these were the kind that were as fine as hair on one side and slightly thicker on the other so as to be comfortable to handle, just as Shi-Hyeok remembered.

Where did these come from?

He didn’t have the leisure to pose questions. Just as the man was pushing him, he went to the closest patient and placed the needles in his body.

A man whose arm was cut off and flowing blood from the shoulder.

Truthfully, he roughly determined the acupuncture points. Since hitting the points wouldn’t stop the bleeding anyway. That was Shi-Hyeok’s common sense, but something happened to turn that sense over.

Along the large intestine meridian, he placed needles in the bicep, elbow, forearm, wrist, and back of the hand. The place between the wrist and the back of hand had already been cut off, but a preposterous thing happened as bones and flesh formed following Shi-Hyeok’s fingertips.

A miracle had been born in a flash of green light.

Five needles had been placed in the wounded’s arm.

“Heok?”

Shi-Hyeok’s mouth opened in surprise.

The wounded bolted right up.

He didn’t look like the weak person from moments before. His faced was flushed, and energy overflowed from his healthy body.

The man who had dragged Shi-Hyeok here spoke sternly.

“Now you know what’s what? Be quick! No matter how new you say you are, you can at least treat this many!”

Shi-Hyeok approached the next wounded.

He placed the needles. He ignored the oriental medicine theory he had learned for seven years and placed the needles as he felt. As he did that, the leg and arm that had been cut off grew back; the crushed flesh was restored; and the burnt skin regenerated.

Each time, something like energy flowed from Shi-Hyeok’s body to the patient’s. It was a pure energy as well as warm. When he treated an extensive wound, a large amount of the energy was consumed, and when he treated a minor wound, only a small amount was used up.

As he witnessed these unbelievable events, Shi-Hyeok emptied his mind.

“This must be a dream.”

Since he kept on having these kinds of thoughts.

No matter how many needles he placed, such miraculous regeneration and recovery was impossible. So was the fighting at the ramparts also impossible.

That there were people armed with swords and bucklers along with demons enveloped in flames!

A dream, even that was an exceedingly silly idea.

Even as a silly dream it was rather lifelike, but by any means possible he wanted it to be that.

Even in the real world, strange demons had appeared and attacked humanity, and it was already five years since ability users and manifestation beings appeared. So compared to that, this feeling was nothing.

Shi-Hyeok treated the wounded with a light heart.

He wasn’t in any shape to be able to heal infinitely. Each time he treated a person, the energy in Shi-Hyeok’s body was consumed. And so, by the time he had treated 10 people, he was in a breathless state.

The man nodded his head.

“So this is your ability since you’re still a rookie. Good, all follow me! Assemble troops!”

The man held up an enormous hammer.

A white light shone and enveloped the recovered people at once. As the white light fell on their armor, strange letters burned and an intense energy was radiated.

As he held up the hammer, the man bellowed.

“Let us go!”

With much ardor they ran up to the ramparts and began to sweep up the attacking demons in great numbers.

They must have taken Shi-Hyeok to the task in order to do that.

After resting for a moment, he treated the wounded. He didn’t notice the passing of the time as he demonstrated miracles that would have been impossible in reality.

“This is fun”

It was just like playing a game.

Should he say it was like he had become the healer unit in a game?

Even the needles were supplied endlessly. This convinced him with even more certainty that this situation was not reality.

Happily, Shi-Hyeok placed, placed more, and placed endlessly the acupuncture needles.

This was a dream.

An amazing dream where, if he woke up, there was no promise he would be able to find his way back.

His intention was to enjoy as much as he could before dawn came and he awoke.

Only, he couldn’t possibly treat all of the patients.

“Aaaaargh! Aagh!”

A patient came whose skin had caught fire. Starting at his left arm, his arm, torso, and face burned as he let out a scream.

He placed the needles immediately.

However, there was no effect. Rather, as if grease had been poured on it, the flames spread. In a brief instant, the flames had swallowed the body entirely.

The patient was in agony as he crowed. He clutched at his throat and rolled on the ground, and eventually his life was put to an end.

Shi-Hyeok, who had been busy, his hands froze.

“This kind of…”

Was it not that he could treat anything?

He could not be troubled over this for a long time. Since, even at that moment, there were more wounded coming in.

The tent was quickly filled up with the wounded.

To add even more adversity, the energy within Shi-Hyeok’s body, even if there was much of it, was running out. He clutched his trembling hands, but no matter how many needles he placed, nothing happened. The wounded merely cried to treat them quickly and suffered.

The defensive battle was eventually gradually pushed back.

It was because there were by far more troops being killed by the demons than troops being replace.

Our troops’ position, like a wedge placed in one flank of the opposing side’s encampment, gave the advantage to the enemy.

Rain of fire fell down.

An infinite number of spheres burning with flames fell from the black sky. It shattered the defense and such with ease, and it put the entire fortress in flames.

The ramparts fell, and the towers burned in the fire, losing all functionality.

“Aaahhhhk!”

“Save me!”

If it has come to this, it is no different from being over.

The demons broke through the ramparts. They completely slaughtered the infantry, and they pushed into the fortress like a wave.

With that, it was the end.

Shi-Hyeok was not an exception.

He was bitten in the neck by a blood-red hound.

The blood-red hound shook its head. Shi-Hyeok’s tender throat was instantly torn out.

An intense pain, as if his whole body was crushed, an enormous agony pierced Shi-Hyeok’s soul.

At the same time, it became clear.

This torment.

This or intense pain, the fact that this would never happen in a simple dream.

It was impossible to consider this as only a dream for any longer.

The truth was obvious.

This was reality.

 

<Doctor> End

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