Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 435

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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 435
In Danmok Fortress, I treated patient after patient after patient.
A field hospital during wartime is brutal.
I once witnessed a high-speed bus accident in a Korean emergency room.
Passengers from the bus and vehicles caught up in the collision.
I remember stretchers and people flooding in all at once.
Watching that torrent of humanity surge in like a current, I momentarily lost my composure.
When work suddenly piles up like that, your mind simply can’t keep pace with what to prioritize.
‘And this is happening every single hour now. Heh heh.’
I laughed bitterly and continued moving my hands and mind.
Though I did everything within my power, countless patients still died—it was inevitable.
This was despite the fact that most soldiers died on the battlefield, and it was already difficult enough for the wounded to even reach the rear lines.
‘There’s no time even for mourning. It’s a luxury.’
Everyone moved like medical machines stripped of humanity.
The only consolation was that patients in the Baekrin Medical Guild’s encampment had the lowest mortality rate.
For trauma, Buseul is the most suitable treatment.
Combined with antibiotics and sanitation, our survival rates far exceeded those of the Hwaju Medical Institute and smaller clinics, and increasingly more soldiers began requesting treatment at the Baekrin Medical Guild.
“They say it’s about five times higher.”
“Pardon?”
“If you go to the Baekrin Medical Guild, your chances of survival are five times better. Of course, that’s just what people estimate by eye.”
The soldier said this to me with a laugh.
“Doctor. My leg… is there no hope?”
I nodded at his words.
“Yes. It appears amputation will be necessary.”
“So I’ll have to live my whole life as a one-legged man?”
“Unless you’d rather die as you are.”
The soldier washed his face with a dry hand.
“Wow… I somehow made it to the finest Baekrin Medical Guild encampment, and still I have to lose my leg. If I’d gone to another encampment, I’d be dead, wouldn’t I?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Doctor. Between a one-legged son and a dead son, which would a mother prefer? When it’s already so hard just to put food on the table…”
“Of course a one-legged son.”
“…”
“I’ll make sure you get a generous reward. Just trust me!”
As I thumped my chest, the soldier suddenly laughed with tears streaming down his face.
“You’ll really write down everything, real or not? Since I can’t use this leg anymore… I’ll have to ride a horse to get back.”
“Ah, because of Sohyeop, I’ve even forged official documents before.”
I said this with exaggerated complaint.
The soldier cried for a long time. Laughing while crying.
Soon he spoke.
“Right. Even if a one-legged son isn’t ideal, a one-legged son with a reward might look a bit better to her. Don’t you think?”
“Sigh, now you’ll be showing off that prosthetic leg at every drinking session, bragging about the old days.”
The soldier laughed heartily at my jest.
A leg reduced to rags.
It had already lost all sensation, and the color had turned an unnatural shade.
“With this leg, I walked, ran, sprinted, fell, and got back up….”
There’s no going back.
The human body is like porcelain—once broken, it never returns to its original form.
Either the crack remains, or some pieces are lost forever.
People called that “life.”
I heard someone calling from behind, “Patriarch.”
The Doctor before me was in high demand.
Which meant the time allocated to him was running short.
“Let’s cut it. Cut it off!”
He shouted with deliberate courage.
I nodded in acknowledgment.
“Yes.”
“Make sure you forge the official documents properly.”
“You’re saying something dangerous. But…. I’ll do my best with it.”
I smiled and began writing something diligently on the bamboo slip.
‘Now that I think about it, soldiers said the second place they choose is the barracks of doctors dispatched from the Heukjeon Medical Institute, right?’
Since the Heukjeon Medical Institute is entangled with the demonic sects….
They didn’t come under the Heukjeon Medical Institute name directly, but rather arrived as heterodox practitioners.
The reason soldiers chose the Heukjeon Medical Institute second was simple.
Just like before, when the Baekrin Medical Institute determined amputation was necessary or deemed a patient incurable, those patients would head to the Heukjeon Medical Institute.
Then they either died, survived with side effects, or in rare cases, recovered without complications….
It was one of these three outcomes.
Of course, if the condition was severe enough that even the Baekrin Medical Institute couldn’t treat it, the mortality rate there was also high.
Yet rarely, fingers would increase to eight, or a tongue would elongate like a frog’s, or a third leg would sprout between two legs.
And occasionally, like winning the lottery, there were cases of survival without side effects.
I roughly understand how it’s possible through medical exchanges with the Heukjeon Medical Institute.
But the more I studied, the more I gave up trying to understand.
‘Hmm, I see. They mix demonic cultivation with sorcery, and then leave it to chance.’
I cannot learn this.
Learning and practicing this would itself be a violation of medical law in modern terms.
The practitioner doesn’t know if the patient will live or die, and the patient doesn’t know if they’ll live, die, or grow an extra arm in that desperate situation—so I’d rather place my hopes on the advancement of surgery.
However, I don’t deny the act itself.
If treatment is possible even that way, it’s a blessing.
‘If one reaches the extreme like Hyeolsaeng Nogoe, it could be different….’
To reach that level, one truly needs to treat countless patients, rolling the dice with their lives and quality of life.
In game terms, it’s like using people as material to strengthen weapons.
has the highest mortality rate.
Yet the hope that what cannot be cured might somehow be healed drives people to madness.
In any case.
The Heukjeon Medical Institute, the Hwaju Medical Institute, and all the other smaller medical factions.
All of them were beginning to reach their limits.
And I, who commanded them all, was no exception.
“Soggakju, hehehehe… Why are you tilting your head to the side like that?”
“Ah, even Soggakju’s mind has gone from overwork.”
My vision had already begun to spin.
But everyone was so mentally exhausted that they couldn’t even notice it.
‘Besides, Master seems to be in contact with the military about something.’
Master might be leaving strategic advice while prepared for unforeseen circumstances.
‘With Master’s mental fortitude, he should be better off than I am.’
Perhaps if it were just warriors fighting each other, it would be somewhat better.
But this is undeniably a real war.
Master would at least be able to view the military situation coldly, unlike myself suffering from PTSD.
That would be a blessing.
* * *
Another patient had died.
I habitually reached for my wristwatch before lowering my hand.
The habit of pronouncing death still remained.
No, when PTSD worsens, this habit emerges without my awareness.
There was no time to grieve.
Even the feeling of sorrow was gradually wearing away.
The surrounding doctors rushed toward the next patient rather than mourning.
It was important to draw a certain line between one’s own heart and the patient.
Especially in urgent situations like this—if one collapsed, it could cascade into disaster.
Chuna Dangju approached me as I, with an expressionless face, closed the patient’s eyes and covered their face with cloth.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.”
“Your heart is truly warm. To still have the strength to close their eyes in this situation.”
“… Well, what must be done must be done. Whether we cremate them or send the body as is, we still must close their eyes.”
“It seems Soggakju still finds the death of patients difficult. Is my assumption correct?”
“Wouldn’t anyone feel the same?”
“Hmm… I’m not sure. I don’t suffer as much as Soggakju does. Likely the other doctors feel the same way.”
Perhaps my distress had shown on my face. I touched my cheek.
“Hahaha, please don’t worry too much. I know this because I’ve watched Soggakju since childhood. The other doctors wouldn’t notice, and they wouldn’t have the energy to anyway.”
“… I see.”
“Soggakju, having chosen to live in Gangho, a doctor of Gangho must become accustomed to death.”
“I understand.”
“That’s not what I mean. Do what you can, and if it doesn’t work out, just let it go.”
…Can I really do that?
My eyes trembled slightly.
“If it gets too hard, just have a drink.”
She burst into hearty laughter, gave my back a few encouraging pats, and left.
‘In this world, death is inevitable, after all.’
To survive in Gangho, one must become numb to death.
That applies not only to warriors but to doctors as well.
No, anyone who grew up in this world naturally carries such a perspective.
If you look at it not emotionally but statistically—the infant mortality rate.
If you consider the probability of that infant surviving to adulthood.
And if you examine the average lifespan of those adults.
‘…There’s no choice but to become numb. I know that.’
Suddenly, I longed for a sedative.
After hearing that prophecy about death and someone manipulating my fate, my heart wouldn’t settle, accompanied by a dizziness that felt maddening.
The herbal concoction I had smoked back then was terribly potent, but it had at least calmed my self-destructive impulses for a moment and restored my sanity.
Do I truly exist?
Is my self truly mine?
This body itself was never mine to begin with—can the human Jin Cheon-hee truly claim to exist on his own?
What proves my existence?
‘No, not now.’
For some reason, I feared that if I reached for it now, I would become dependent, so I simply endured.
* * *
Chuna Dangju comforted me and then left.
She too has mountains of work piling up.
In the first place, coming to visit and worry about someone else in such circumstances is a kindness given while cutting away at one’s own flesh.
Thanks to her, I felt somewhat calmer.
‘Oh, the sun is already setting.’
It’s time for rounds.
These days, my sense of time has become blurred.
It must be because patients keep flooding in.
When my meditation time overlaps with other duties, I often have to skip it, but fortunately I’ve had some breathing room.
Just as I was making rounds with a heavy heart, my eyes met those of a patient.
He was a patient with severe burns on his arm, crying out in agony throughout the night.
The other patients sharing the same bed couldn’t sleep either, so we made partitions with tent cloth.
Still, the sounds leak through, but it’s better than doing nothing.
The patient reached out and grasped my wrist.
It was a hand wrapped in bandages.
‘It must hurt terribly.’
I could have avoided it, but I deliberately let him hold my hand.
In that instant, the patient’s eyes gazing at me began to glow a deep crimson.
‘Hmm?’
Had he cultivated demonic arts?
If the patient hailed from the Demonic Cult, it made sense. He wouldn’t be conscripted if he were at the Cult’s main headquarters, but if he belonged to some branch of the Divided Pagoda Merchant Alliance, there was nothing to be done about it….
‘Yet he said nothing of such matters before treatment… Ah, such things are commonplace in Gangho.’
Just as I was about to urge him to disclose any medications he’d taken and his martial cultivation history before treatment, the patient opened his mouth.
The voice that emerged from the patient’s lips was utterly unrecognizable as his own.
“Are you enjoying yourself, Veiled Madman?”

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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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