Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 431

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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 431
‘My Master is no different.’
The fact that even his mountain-like physique wavered for a moment said everything.
With martial prowess at my Master’s level, it would be far easier to simply unleash sword energy in torrents across the martial realm and slaughter them all.
After all, saving lives has always been far more difficult than taking them.
‘Our work is fundamentally about pouring spilled water back into its vessel.’
We strive to pour life itself back into that vessel.
‘Baekrin Uiseon treated 151 patients yesterday. As for aftereffects… I tried to minimize them as much as possible, but I’m uncertain.’
Based on 2019 standards, South Korea had 521 emergency rooms.
Roughly fifty patients per day… 151 patients is naturally excessive for this level of medicine.
Modern medicine is the medicine of statistics, but it is also the medicine of machines.
We don’t have them. We don’t. We don’t!
To make it work, I’d need to invent coils first, then progress all the way to transistors. At minimum.
In the end, it falls to people to take a patient’s pulse.
And if this were Earth, AEDs would hang on the walls of every government office, but they certainly don’t exist here.
When situations arise requiring such devices, a doctor trained in the Five Elements Divine Art’s brain energy must step in and do it manually.
‘There are specialized techniques experts use.’
But the core principle remains the same.
Electricity is necessary.
However, if a doctor expends too much brain energy, they risk falling into demonic cultivation deviation, so they must rest and circulate their energy.
This is the flavor of East-West fusion. Hehehehe.
‘And saving lives through this insane work is my job.’
Even divided among other medical institutes, it’s clearly overwork.
Once patients stabilize, I could transport them to larger medical institutes in the rear, but transporting patients on this front line is impossible.
“I’ve heard the Suksin Tribe’s southern forces number three hundred thousand… Is that true?”
A soldier asked, grabbing the military physician.
A general lying nearby answered instead.
“Why worry? We have equal forces. The Emperor watches over the empire.”
I don’t know. As someone from Earth who understands how the Mongol Empire efficiently consumed neighboring nations, I can only hope this Suksin Khan isn’t on the level of the Mongol Empire.
‘This is hell.’
When it ends, I’ve already grasped the outline of how to compile statistics and write a paper.
Once I complete this paper, however this hell concludes, military physicians who read it will utilize it better in the next war.
It’s insane, but that’s how it is.
Because that’s how humanity progresses.
Since the invention of writing, humanity has continuously read the records of those who came before, and those who come after leave their own records.
Records accumulate and accumulate until they form rivers, and finally become seas.
I hoped the next military physician would be better than me.
That they wouldn’t experience these same trial-and-errors.
So I had no choice but to record.
If only I could save one more soldier and send them home.
* * *
Five more days had passed.
Doctors from Baekrin Medical Institute, Hwaju Medical Institute, and other medical guilds and smaller clinics who had been summoned by requisition orders continued to sharpen their skills and treat the wounded.
Of course, that didn’t mean they were fully healed.
It simply meant they were still breathing.
In a field where one had to first deliberate whether to amputate limbs or not, full recovery was a luxury reserved only for patients with minor injuries.
And even patients who had completed treatment sometimes experienced sudden deterioration at night.
The human body, unlike a machine, doesn’t move according to a doctor’s will.
That’s why statistics exist.
Following the spirit of Florence Nightingale, I continued to compile statistics even in this moment.
Though I couldn’t wield statistics and politics as dual weapons like she did, at least I should try to wield even one weapon.
During lunch, I stuffed rice into my mouth while simultaneously reviewing documents.
Not paper documents, but records hastily scrawled in charcoal on bamboo strips.
“So we’ve treated roughly two thousand people over these five days.”
“Yes. Including Baekrin Medical Institute, we have approximately four hundred doctors total. That’s about five patients per person, but the mortality rates vary significantly between barracks, so it’s difficult to think of it that way.”
“Still, it’s fortunate that the basic techniques have spread widely enough that even ordinary doctors can now suture wounds.”
However, anything beyond moderate severity could only be treated by Baekrin Medical Institute.
It seemed the key personnel from Hyeolsaeng Medical Institute hadn’t arrived.
‘…Hyeolsaeng Nogoe. Is this really how you’re going to be?’
Even if I beat my chest, that place was intimately connected to the Demonic Cult anyway.
From Hyeolsaeng Nogoe’s perspective, she probably didn’t want to leave the medical staff she commanded like limbs and conduct research elsewhere.
Tsk. This is selfishness. Pure selfishness.
But what right did I have to criticize selfishness from someone who created three arms, three eyes, and three nostrils for people?
Wasn’t she already a mad scientist of a Cheonma?
There was no point lecturing a mad Cheonma about morality.
My Master spoke.
“If the number of doctors doesn’t increase by roughly three times more, it seems we’ll struggle to handle the growing patient load.”
“How much will it increase?”
“At least five to ten thousand or more patients will appear all at once. After the next battle, that is. And far more will die than that.”
“…”
It was horrifying.
When I encountered stories of the Battle of Red Cliffs with a million-strong army in text, I just thought, ‘Wow, that’s a lot!’
How many people would actually wonder how many wounded were created in that battle?
“Still, it seems the military strategist is quickly learning the ways of combat against the nomads.”
That was a small mercy in misfortune.
Watching me, Jin Cheon-hee, chewing on nut bars again in a daze, my Master, Jegalling, spoke.
“Cheon-hee. Don’t try to bear responsibility for every death.”
“…I know.”
“Yes, your mind knows. But your heart doesn’t seem to understand, which is why I’m saying this. You’re oddly someone with strong guilt over the deaths of others. However, this is not a responsibility a mere military doctor should bear.”
“Then whose responsibility is it?”
“It’s everyone’s responsibility. First, the Empire knew of the nomads’ movements yet failed to divide and weaken them. Had the Empire sown discord among them or conducted preemptive campaigns, this would never have happened.”
“…Well, that’s… quite….”
“It’s not a matter of good and evil, Hope. This is the principle of power.”
Couldn’t there have been peaceful diplomatic means to prevent war?
I couldn’t say beyond that.
My Master continued.
“Of course, there were methods using marriage alliances for control, as the Empire has traditionally done. But such approaches require understanding the political situation, and more importantly, the alliance centered on the Suksin Tribe is attempting to establish their own kingdom.”
“They’re seeking permanent expansion, then.”
“Precisely. For that, they need fertile lands with favorable climates and ports. Inevitably, they must occupy portions of the Empire’s territory. So peaceful methods like strategic marriages would have been impossible.”
In any case, it meant blood would be spilled.
I fell into thought.
“You understand this well, Master.”
“Haha, am I not the last head of the Jegal Family? To understand military strategy and tactics, one must know one’s opponent. They fundamentally live as nomadic tribes, and for nomads, pastureland is paramount. Perhaps they wish to burn everything and convert all land into grasslands.”
“They might not even consider agriculture at all.”
My Master fell silent in thought, then nodded.
“A skilled strategist might have dissuaded them. But I wonder. Even if they obtained the farmland they desired, I suspect they wouldn’t cease their wars.”
I was slightly startled.
On Earth, Mongolia had obtained sufficient territory.
There, they could have prioritized internal governance and established the nation’s foundations.
Yet the wars continued.
Westward, ever westward.
Massive city massacres occurred, and even surrendered nations and refugees were slaughtered.
Examining historical records from that era, there were many accounts of those who surrendered being dragged out for execution or hunted like game.
While Western exaggeration and fear of the Orient mixed into those accounts, at least forced conscription and plunder certainly occurred.
On the internet, one might joke that “humans are the primary cause of environmental pollution, so Genghis Khan, who massacred people en masse, is a true environmental protector.” But such remarks are only possible because it’s a single line from ancient history books.
‘It looked impressive when I only read it in history books.’
Wasn’t he like a symbol of conquest?
‘The spirit of Genghis Khan!’
Yet now, this martial world’s environmental protector 2.0 was a neighbor.
‘Fragile me is going to die.’
Simply falling onto this martial world had me living an extreme doctor’s life, and on that front, the ultimate environmental advocate was shooting arrows to prevent carbon emissions.
‘At least… Master’s speculation aligns with Earth’s history.’
Even if they conquered this city, the conquest wouldn’t end.
Many would die.
Cities would burn.
My Master spoke.
“Why was the Great Wall built?”
The Great Wall.
Before the Three Kingdoms period, the massive fortification built by Qin Shi Huang, who unified the Spring and Autumn period. The details might differ from Earth, but the fundamentals would be the same.
The details might be different from Earth, but the basics should be the same.
Nomadic tribes are formidable on open plains, but they struggle against fortified walls.
After all, one cannot ride a horse up a city wall.
‘Though that only applies to forces below a certain threshold.’
Once they deploy infantry and siege weaponry, there is no answer. And the Suksin Tribe has indeed deployed them.
If they are truly loading my Cheonlei into trebuchets and launching them as I predicted, then there is truly no answer.
“Then how should this war end?”
“Either the nomadic tribes are defeated and retreat, or the empire falls and the dynasty changes. However, either way, much blood will be spilled.”
‘In the original novel… how did it go?’
There were descriptions of the northern nomadic peoples suffering under hardship, with the common folk in turmoil and confusion.
There were also mentions of these foreign invaders stirring chaos and marching toward the imperial capital.
In the original work, Eun Wang-ya would have died, so it seemed Emperor Geum-wang alone was fighting desperately.
On Earth, the Jin Dynasty took approximately twenty-three years to collapse, while the Song Dynasty lasted forty-five years.
I cannot know how long this world can endure.
If I run through the optimistic scenario, unlike Earth’s history, perhaps they might have actually held out until the very end.
At that time, Yeo Ha-ryun was fundamentally a protagonist who didn’t even join the military and faithfully upheld the principle of non-interference in martial affairs.
So he simply captured the Hyeolseonggyo, ascended to the throne, and concluded the story.
‘…That’s not helpful.’
After all, the Jicheon Cheonma’s records didn’t even include this world’s tax system, did they?
The Cheonma pays no taxes, after all.
“I wish I were stronger.”
I exhaled softly.

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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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