An F-Rank Veterinarian Physically Heals an S-Rank Magical Beast - Chapter 106
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 106
Whirrrr—clank.
The heavy specialized alloy cargo door sealed shut, and the Arcana Medical Center’s private freight elevator descended toward Basement Level 3.
Inside the elevator, cut off completely from external noise, only the ragged breathing of a beast and oppressive silence hung in the air.
The elevator’s interior was spacious enough to fit an entire apartment living room. In the center sat a floating transport pod that released specialized anesthetic gas in fine mist, and inside that pod lay Thunder Wolf, sprawled motionless.
Lee Shin-woo’s Thunder Wolf had regained consciousness, but its condition was catastrophic. Blue lightning residue still crackled and charred at the tips of its fur, and its rib cage heaved abnormally large and rapid breaths, then collapsed, over and over—a rhythm born of suppressed agony.
Lee Shin-woo sat crumpled on the cold floor beside the transport pod, his face buried in both hands. Gone was the composure of a man who once stood at the apex of South Korea’s martial power, who hadn’t blinked before S-rank Gate boss monsters. Once called the “Thunder Emperor” alongside Balakas, Lee Shin-woo now bore that title with Thunder Wolf, yet his current form belied the name entirely. The terror of potentially losing his family and soul partner forever, combined with bone-grinding exhaustion, seeped from his hunched back and trembling shoulders.
In contrast, Kang Jin-hyuk was utterly serene. He leaned diagonally against the elevator wall, his indifferent fingers scrolling through a tablet displaying an electronic chart.
Neither the beast’s anguished whimpers nor the despair-laden sighs of South Korea’s most powerful man registered on his nerves. Only the itemized invoice on the screen—a 50-billion-won medical bill—coaxed a faint smile to his lips. Had he charged 500 billion when treating Balakas initially? This amount was lower, yet it still brought him a satisfied smile.
“Um, Director Kang.”
Unable to bear the suffocating silence, Lee Shin-woo opened his mouth with a fractured voice. His eyes flickered with gossamer-thin hope tangled with immense dread.
“In the lobby earlier… you said you’d have to completely decompose the bones and reassemble them from scratch. What exactly did you mean by that? Our Zeus Guild’s exclusive healers—the highest-ranked healing mages in all of South Korea—they definitely used top-tier regeneration magic to firmly reattach the broken bones. So why are you talking about breaking a fully healed leg again?”
Jin-hyuk kept his eyes on the tablet, wiping his glasses with his gown sleeve as he answered flatly.
“Fully healed? That’s merely an illusion in your eyes, Guild Master. That’s precisely why this beast went mad.”
“An illusion? The bones clearly fused and the wounds closed…!”
“Guild Master. Have you ever once considered, from a medical standpoint, the fundamental principle behind how that noble and sacred ‘healing magic’ of yours actually functions?”
Jin-hyuk’s pointed rebuttal left Lee Shin-woo stammering.
“Well, that is… it’s a miraculous ability that converts sacred mana into the beast’s life force, accelerating cellular division and tissue regeneration to their absolute limits, isn’t it? Thanks to that, Thunder was able to stop the immediate bleeding and save his life.”
“Correct. The healers’ magic is unparalleled at accelerating ‘speed.’ Excellent emergency treatment, truly. However,”
Jin-hyuk lifted his head, regarding Lee Shin-woo with cold eyes.
“They provide absolutely no guideline for the direction in which cells should grow. Healing magic is like construction—it’s the crude act of dumping hundreds of tons of cement onto the rubble of a collapsed building and hardening it in a single second. Bone and flesh tangle however they will; it’s merely ‘welding’ that patches the surface to stop bleeding, indifferent to the chaos beneath.”
Jin-hyuk tapped the tablet screen to activate a 3D hologram, then swiveled it toward Lee Shin-woo. The hologram, projected in blue light into the air, displayed the X-ray and mana circuit CT scan of Thunder Wolf’s right hind leg, scanned moments earlier in the 1st Floor Lobby—raw and unsparing.
“Look directly with your own eyes. The bone around the kneecap was fractured into three pieces—a severe compound fracture. Any competent veterinarian would have first performed surgery to pin those bone fragments and realign them to their original angles. But those celebrated healers of yours? They dumped high-powered healing magic directly onto the area before the bones even returned to their proper positions. What do you think happened?”
The bone in the hologram was twisted into a grotesque mass almost unbearable to witness. The three fractured pieces clung together at jagged angles, and the surrounding red muscle fibers and yellow nerve bundles were hopelessly tangled like a spider’s web, forming one massive lump of tissue.
More horrifying still was that the blue “mana circuit”—the very source of the beast’s power—was twisted and crushed against the sharp edges of the bone.
“The misaligned bone fragments fused without finding their proper positions. Extremely solidly, too. But the real hell isn’t the bone. The thin membrane torn between the bone fragments—the ‘fascia’ wrapping the muscle, the sensitive nerve bundles, even the mana circuit that channels the lightning power—all of it became hopelessly tangled together. In medical terminology, we call it the worst kind of ‘adhesion.'”
As Jin-hyuk’s explanation continued, Lee Shin-woo’s eyes trembled finely as he stared at the hologram.
“This is equivalent to carrying hundreds of time bombs inside your body. Every time that beast moves its hind leg even a millimeter—every breath it takes—those misaligned bone fragments are grinding like saw teeth across the nerves and fascia, causing excruciating pain. All thanks to your healers’ blind and crude magic.”
The color drained completely from Lee Shin-woo’s face. Jin-hyuk’s merciless diagnosis was a humiliating negation of the Zeus Guild’s state-of-the-art medical system, built at a cost of hundreds of billions.
Under normal circumstances, he would have seized Jin-hyuk by the collar immediately. But the irrefutable scientific evidence before his eyes and the beast’s horrifying rampage state cruelly proved that every word Jin-hyuk spoke was absolute truth.
“No… you’re lying. Are you saying our people didn’t heal Thunder, but instead implanted a permanent torture device in his body…?”
Lee Shin-woo exhaled despair in a hoarse voice. Yet Jin-hyuk’s barrage of facts was far from over.
“Moreover, it’s not merely physical pain that’s the problem. What truly concerns me is the terror etched into that beast’s cerebral cortex.”
Jin-hyuk switched off the tablet screen and fixed his gaze directly on Lee Shin-woo’s wavering eyes. Behind his silver-rimmed glasses, Jin-hyuk’s eyes gleamed with the sharpness of a shaman’s.
“Guild Master. Answer me this: when that beast’s leg was shattered, wasn’t it in a narrow, dark place—perhaps a collapsed underground cavern or canyon? A place with such oppressive pressure that oxygen was scarce?”
“…! How on earth could you possibly…”
Lee Shin-woo’s eyes widened. A veterinarian who hadn’t even been present was describing the situation with the precision of an eyewitness.
“You’re right. It was ten days ago. An A-rank Ant Demon Gate that erupted in Gangwon Province. During exploration, the ground suddenly collapsed, and Thunder tried to shield me but was crushed under a massive falling boulder. We were trapped in a narrow, pitch-black cavern barely two meters wide for hours. The moment the rescue team finally broke through the debris, Thunder’s breathing was failing, so the healers hastily cast life-extension magic. Why would that be a problem?”
At Lee Shin-woo’s urgent question, Jin-hyuk clicked his tongue softly and shook his head.
“Just as I thought. A textbook case of post-traumatic stress disorder combined fatally with claustrophobia. The absolute worst conditions are perfectly aligned.”
Jin-hyuk tapped Thunder Wolf’s forehead with his finger as the beast slept, continuing his explanation.
“Canine-type magical beasts possess an instinctive nature to gallop across vast plains, to seek the scent of wind and yearn for freedom. For creatures like these, confined spaces represent death itself. Yet this one endured the horrific agony of bone-crushing pain while trapped in a pitch-black, narrow cave. Suffocating in terror where even breathing became a struggle, and to make matters worse, strange humans approached and mercilessly bombarded it with the cruel light of bone-fusing magic.”
Jin-hyuk’s gaze turned cold as he addressed Lee Shin-woo.
“The conditions of ‘darkness, confined spaces, oppression, and the scent of healers’ have been burned into its brain as the perfect terror of slaughter. For this beast, human healing magic is no longer salvation—it’s merely the signal flare that begins torture.”
“Ah… Thunder… you foolish, stubborn creature… trying to save me….”
Lee Shin-woo stroked Thunder Wolf’s coarse neck fur, tears streaming down his face that he could no longer contain. The sight of a massive man embracing the beast while sobbing was utterly devastating.
“The uncontrollable rampage in the hospital lobby earlier was likely caused by the same trauma. Restrained by a leash in a state of intense suppression, surrounded by countless reporters with his vision blocked, the psychological wound from that narrow cave resurfaced, causing his sympathetic nervous system to explode. From a behavioral standpoint, he isn’t a crazed beast at all—he’s merely a pitiful patient desperately struggling for his life, terrified beyond measure. And all of it stems from his owner’s foolish and hasty mishandling.”
Under Jin-hyuk’s merciless barrage of facts, Lee Shin-woo felt he could sink into a mouse hole. In that moment, the astronomical treatment fee of fifty billion won didn’t feel wasteful in the slightest—not a single penny of it.
Throughout South Korea, indeed throughout the entire world, only Kang Jin-hyuk possessed the ability to so perfectly penetrate a magical beast’s physical structure and psychological trauma, analyzing it with such logical precision.
“Ding—Basement Level 3, Special Physical Therapy Room.”
With a cheerful mechanical chime, the elevator doors slid open smoothly to both sides.
Lee Shin-woo wiped away his tears and looked ahead, inadvertently gasping at the tremendous sight before him.
“Wow… is this… really a hospital? It looks like some massive medieval torture chamber, or perhaps a mad alchemist’s experimental lab from The Tower.”
The landscape of Basement Level 3 was overwhelming in itself. In the center of an expansive space spanning hundreds of square meters with soaring ceilings stood a colossal tank crafted from transparent, specially reinforced bulletproof glass. Inside, crystal-clear water shimmered with a mysterious jade hue under artificial lighting, with countless fine bubbles continuously rising from below.
The ceiling was intricately woven with thick titanium cranes and steel pulleys capable of effortlessly lifting tens of tons, while an entire wall was densely packed with wickedly designed metal surgical instruments, high-voltage ammeters, and magical power measurement devices.
This was the magical beast-exclusive ‘Underwater Rehabilitation Center’ and Jin-hyuk’s ‘Fascia Release Operating Room,’ where he would raw separate patients’ bones and flesh.
“Patient entering! Laying out waterproof carpet instead of red carpet!”
“Boooaang! Ultra-premium VIP patient transfer protocol activated! Initiating optimal temperature, humidity, and dissolved oxygen settings in the tank!”
The moment the elevator doors opened, Ma Dong-tak and Kim Chun-sam, who had come down to the lobby earlier to wait, sprang into action. Ma Dong-tak, wearing only a white sleeveless shirt that showcased his explosive musculature, casually manipulated the heavy titanium crane’s control lever with one hand as if it were a toy.
“Director Kang! What exactly is that water in the tank? From the smell, it doesn’t seem to be ordinary hospital disinfectant or saline solution. There’s something that makes my head feel clear.”
Lee Shin-woo deeply inhaled the steam rising from the tank’s surface, asking with an astonished expression. A subtle yet refreshingly sharp herbal aroma enveloped the entire space. Merely smelling it created the illusion that the blocked energy in his lower dantian was opening up.
“It’s a special medicinal decoction brewed for three days and nights—a supreme elixir that the Murim Alliance elders personally harvested through blood and sweat from the barren forests of another world. I’ve blended the roots of ‘Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng’ and ‘Poison Spider’s Venom Gland’ in my own golden ratio.”
Jin-hyuk answered proudly while making minute adjustments to the water temperature controller’s dial.
“If we tried to forcibly realign the bones of such a heavy A-rank magical beast by laying it flat on the ground, the immense gravitational pressure from its own weight would shatter even its intact joints. That’s why I’ve adapted the ‘underwater treadmill therapy’ from modern veterinary medicine to suit magical beasts.”
Jin-hyuk removed his gown and hung it on a coat rack, beginning to change into waterproof surgical attire.
“The powerful buoyancy of water will reduce the weight burden on its body by over eighty percent. Combined with the appropriately warm water temperature and the herbal essence seeping through its pores, the beast’s muscles and nerves—hardened like stone—will be forcibly relaxed. The water pressure will compress its entire body without gaps, creating a psychological stabilizing effect as if it were in its mother’s womb. For a patient with claustrophobia, there’s no more perfect operating room than this.”
Meanwhile, Ma Dong-tak skillfully manipulated the crane, which emitted a whirring sound as it lifted the special harness connected to Thunder Wolf’s massive body. Then, slowly and with utmost care, he began lowering the beast’s body into the jade-hued medicinal tank.
“Grrrrgh! Yelp! Woof!”
Thunder Wolf initially tensed and struggled as the unfamiliar liquid touched its paws, but as the appropriately warm water temperature and the powerful essence of blood-circulation-enhancing elixir gently enveloped its entire body, it soon exhaled and ceased its resistance.
As the specially designed silicone platform pre-set in the tank stably supported the beast’s belly and chin, it relaxed all its muscles and gently closed its eyes.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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