An F-Rank Veterinarian Physically Heals an S-Rank Magical Beast - Chapter 43
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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 43
[10th Floor: World of Void]
[Anomaly: Identity Dissolution, Memory Formatting]
White. A space of absolute bleakness, as though every color in existence had been drained away. No sense of up or down, not even the ground beneath my feet—only an all-consuming void.
The man’s eyes opened, yet nothing came to mind.
‘Who… am I?’
My name wouldn’t surface. My profession, my age, why I was here—all of it gone, as if my mind had been ironed smooth, every wrinkle erased.
Glancing around, I found four others beside myself. A sharp-featured woman with black hair. An elderly man in a worn martial robe. A girl with pointed ears. And a bespectacled woman with a stern expression.
They too stood vacant-eyed, staring into the emptiness.
“Where… is this place?”
The black-haired woman murmured. Her hand reached habitually toward her waist, but found nothing there.
“I… I can’t remember my own name. Why can’t I remember?”
The pointed-eared girl’s voice trembled with tears.
A perfect reset. The trial of the 10th Floor was not combat with monsters. It was psychological torment—the erasure of ‘self’, designed to make one dissolve from within.
Then it began. Glimmering clusters of light drifted through the white void. Like dandelion seeds, or fireflies—tiny motes of radiance suspended in the nothingness.
“What is this…?”
Beris, the bespectacled woman, reached out instinctively. One of the light particles brushed against her fingertip.
Burst—!
In that instant, an image forcibly played across Beris’s mind.
[Memory #1204]
Setting: Han River Park at sunset.
A man sits on a bench while a woman hands him a lunchbox.
“Jin-hyuk, say ‘aah’. The rolled egg is burnt, but it’s delicious.”
“Ah, it’s hot! Hey, are you trying to assassinate me?”
“Quiet, just eat. It’s made with love.”
The two bicker, yet their eyes betray a sweetness that drips like honey.
“….”
Beris pulled her hand away abruptly. Her brow furrowed like crumpled paper.
“Ugh… I feel sick. My stomach’s turning.”
She understood instinctively. These memories weren’t hers. They belonged to that man standing vacant-eyed over there and the dark-haired woman. To experience someone else’s love story—in first-person perspective, no less. For Beris, with his obsessive nature, it was nothing short of torture.
But simultaneously, his instincts as the Head Librarian awakened.
“Can everyone… hear me?”
Beris called out in a measured voice.
“Those floating lights… they’re ‘knowledge’ and ‘memories.’ We need to capture them.”
“Memories, you say?”
The old man asked.
“Yes. I just witnessed someone else’s memory. It seems our five memories have been fragmented and scattered. If we gather them, we’ll be able to identify who we are.”
Beris adjusted his glasses as he continued.
“Especially… the ones fleeing are the genuine ones. The more important the memory, the harder it becomes to capture.”
At those words, everyone began to move. The primal instinct to survive. The yearning to reclaim their sense of self drove them forward.
Snap!
Yoo Yi-soo caught one of the lights.
[Memory: Luna’s Childhood]
“She’s a half-breed! How disgusting!”
A small girl huddled in the corner, weeping.
“Ah…”
Yoo Yi-soo found herself gazing at Luna beside her without thinking. The pain this child had endured transmitted itself entirely to her. Her heart ached.
“I have to protect her… I need to protect this child…”
Yoo Yi-soo unconsciously squeezed Luna’s hand tightly.
Snap!
This time, Baek Mu-young caught a light.
[Memory: Beris’s Library]
Bookshelves without a speck of dust. An obsessive compulsion so severe that even a single degree of misalignment in a book’s angle would rob him of sleep.
“Books are sustenance for the soul… no, the aesthetics of order itself.”
“Heh, living such a wearisome life, aren’t you?”
Baek Mu-young clicked his tongue.
Their memories intertwined and merged, flowing between them. Through this process, they began to gradually sense a ‘bond’ forming with one another. The act of understanding another’s life—not one’s own. This was the 10th Floor’s first trial and its first gift.
But there was one person. The man had yet to grasp anything.
‘My memories… where are they?’
The man grasped at empty air. Countless lights scattered and fled from him, weaving between the shelves. It felt as though they were mocking him.
‘That one.’
A single small light, distinctly faster and dimmer than the rest. Unlike the other brilliant memories, this one shone with a dull, ashen glow.
The man ran on instinct. His breath came in ragged gasps. His legs felt ready to give way. But he could not stop. He had to seize it. This was the beginning of ‘me’.
“Got it!”
The man hurled himself forward and clenched the ashen light in his fist.
Whoooosh—!
A flash erupted inside his mind.
[Memory: F-Rank Burden]
Rain poured at the Dungeon entrance. The man stood there, a heavy backpack strapped across his shoulders. A shabby nameplate reading ‘F-Rank Porter’ was pinned to his back.
“Hey, Kang Jin-hyuk! Why aren’t you moving the supplies? Going to dawdle all day?”
“My apologies! I’ll get right to it!”
The party leader’s boot. His face driven into the mud. No one treated him as a Hunter. He was merely consumable—a porter to be used and discarded.
Yet even in that mud, the man’s eyes remained alive.
‘That monster… it’s limping on its right leg. A ligament strain.’
‘That party leader bastard, his mana circuits are unstable. If he keeps that up, he’ll suffer a backlash when casting skills.’
He observed. Lacking strength, he had to watch to survive. The habits of beasts others overlooked, the physical conditions of Hunters, the structure of the Dungeon—he absorbed all this data into his mind and analyzed it.
‘I am weak. But… if I understand, I can prevail. If I can correct it, I can dominate it.’
The man’s pupils trembled as reality crashed back into focus.
“Ah….”
I gazed down at my hands. Callused palms etched with the wear of countless burdens. Roughened by the touch of so many beasts, scarred by the weight of endless labor.
In that moment.
Ding—!
A crisp notification chimed within my mind. Not a System Message. This was the instinctive voice engraved upon my very soul.
[Unique Skill Activated: Eye of Divine Judgment]
Crimson text materialized before my eyes. The subject was myself.
[Patient: Unknown Identity (Self)]
[Symptoms: Dissociative Amnesia, Identity Confusion, Severe Psychological Stress.]
[Etiology: Forced System Reset via External Pressure (10th Floor System).]
[Treatment: Reconstruction of Self-Awareness and Memory.]
“Diagnosis… memory loss.”
I laughed softly. I was examining myself. The absurdity of it—the familiarity—struck me as hilarious.
“That’s right. I was a doctor. From a charlatan porter dismissed by everyone, I became the one who holds life and death in his hands.”
The moment I recognized myself, a miracle unfolded.
Whoooooosh—!
Thousands of lights drifting through the void halted in unison. Then, drawn like iron to a magnet, they surged toward me.
Memories with Yoo Yi-soo, a duel with Baek Mu-young, an encounter with Luna, a quiz battle with Beris. And countless moments of communion with the beasts I had healed—earning money, deceiving others, sometimes risking my life to protect my companions. Every single moment crystallized into light.
Those lights enveloped my body and constructed a towering [Tower of Memory].
“Aaaaaaahhh!”
I opened my eyes within the tempest of light. Information cascaded into my blank mind like a waterfall.
‘I am Kang Jin-hyuk.’
‘Director of Arcana Hospital.’
‘A Tamer who commands beasts.’
‘And… the sole predator destined to conquer this Tower.’
The light faded. I stood breathing heavily, my eyes no longer hollow. That distinctive gleam had returned—golden intellect and bestial savagery coexisting in a single gaze.
“Director…?”
Luna called out cautiously. She, Yoo Yi-soo, Baek Mu-young, and Beris—all of them had recovered their complete memories in the aftermath of Kang Jin-hyuk’s recollection.
Kang Jin-hyuk gazed silently at his own palms.
‘Why do I heal?’
A profound insight flickered through his mind. During my days as an F-rank porter, no one had ever healed me. I knew intimately that misery of injury and illness without money—the certainty of death. No one understood it better than I did.
And so I had resolved: to heal all life. Whether cursed beasts abandoned by the gods, fallen heroes, or porters without a coin to their name. Everything within reach of my hands, I would mend and place beneath my feet.
It was arrogance and mercy intertwined. And it was the very foundation that sustained Kang Jin-hyuk as a human being.
“Ah… how moving.”
Kang Jin-hyuk murmured in a trembling voice. Yoo Yi-soo approached with a worried expression.
“Jin-hyuk, are you alright? Are you crying?”
“Yeah, tears are coming out.”
Kang Jin-hyuk wiped his eyes. Then he lifted his head and grinned wickedly at whoever had created this 10th Floor, or at the Tower’s system itself.
“Arbitrarily erasing and restoring my precious memories… severe neural damage.”
His gaze transformed in an instant. The philosophical introspection from moments before evaporated, and a ruthlessly pragmatic, calculating ‘monster of capitalism’ awakened.
“Psychological trauma compensation, falsified medical records, illegal procedure—memory erasure….”
Kang Jin-hyuk snapped his fingers at the empty air.
“That’s going to be quite the bill, isn’t it?”
[Awakening: Incarnation of Capitalism]
[The trait ‘Taste of Money’ fixes Kang Jin-hyuk’s mental fortitude to MAX.]
The emotion was fleeting. The medium of ‘money’ had welded Kang Jin-hyuk’s fractured self back together perfectly—no, even more solidly than before.
“Well then, everyone. You’ve all recovered your memories, yes?”
Kang Jin-hyuk clapped his hands together.
“Then let’s get to work. We need to present an invoice to this floor’s master. We’ve got to secure a hefty settlement.”
Yoo Yi-soo burst into laughter as if dumbfounded.
“Honestly… there’s no stopping you. I thought you’d be moved, but it all comes down to ‘money’?”
“Money is life, and life is money.”
Kang Jin-hyuk adjusted his necktie and shouted toward the white expanse.
“Hey! You hiding in there! Come out! It’s time to settle the hospital bills!”
With my shout, cracks began spreading across the white space. Even Void itself couldn’t withstand my voracious vitality and was crumbling away.
Crunch!
Shatter!
The white space shattered like glass. Beyond it lay a magnificent Golden Hall with an enormous jade throne. And seated upon that throne was a being.
It possessed a human form, yet where eyes, nose, and mouth should be, a cosmos dwelled instead. The overseer of The Tower’s administrators—the true master of The Tower itself.
[Master of the 10th Floor: Creator God]
“Heh heh… to shatter my trials with ‘money’ and emerge victorious. Truly unprecedented in all of history.”
The Creator God’s voice was grand, yet somehow amused.
“Even with your memories lost, your essence remains unchanged. Your greed surpasses even divine authority.”
“I appreciate the compliment, but let’s not settle this with words.”
Kang Jin-hyuk strode forward purposefully. Behind him, Yoo Yi-soo, Baek Mu-young, Luna, and Beris took up combat positions.
“Are you the master who created this Tower?”
“Indeed. I created this Tower out of boredom and summoned heroes from countless worlds to test them. But you are the first of your kind.”
The Creator God rested his chin on his hand.
“Usually they desire power or immortality. But you… you seek to heal all things and possess all things.”
“That’s my way. So then, how will you pay the price for tampering with my memories?”
Kang Jin-hyuk extended his hand boldly. An audacity that would not falter even before a god.
“Fascinating. Very well. If you win our final game, I shall grant you everything you desire.”
As the Creator God raised his hand, the Golden Hall began to transform. A massive chessboard? Or perhaps an arena? Neither.
It was the operating room of a vast [Comprehensive Hospital].
“The final trial is ‘surgery.'”
The Creator God pointed to someone lying on the operating table. It was… [The Tower itself]. A massive, dying organism in the shape of The Tower.
“This Tower is diseased. For thousands of years, resentment and dark magic have accumulated, and the system is rotting away. That’s why bugs like the Unknown God—something I never created—keep popping up. That thing. I didn’t make it. It’s a bug. Don’t misunderstand. Ahem.”
The Creator God’s voice grew serious.
“Cure this Tower. If you heal it perfectly, I will transfer ownership of this Tower to you.”
“…!!”
The party gasped. Ownership of The Tower. That meant becoming a god. But Kang Jin-hyuk wasn’t surprised. Rather, he grinned as if he’d anticipated this all along.
“I knew it. The patient was bigger than I thought.”
Kang Jin-hyuk donned a surgical gown and pulled on latex gloves.
“Luna, prepare anesthesia. Beris, pull up the charts. Team Leader, secure the perimeter. Yoo Yi-soo, scalpel.”
“Yes!”
“Understood.”
“Okay.”
At Kang Jin-hyuk’s command, the party members moved in perfect synchronization. This wasn’t combat. It was the greatest and most dangerous surgery in the universe.
“Alright. Beginning surgery.”
Kang Jin-hyuk’s eyes flashed with golden light.
“I’ll tear apart this diseased Tower and rebuild it into… [Arcana Hospital Main Branch].”
The scalpel gleamed. Kang Jin-hyuk’s final consultation had begun.
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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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