WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈
Chapter 67: What’s Your Name, You Bastard? (5)
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* * *
Soldiers in black combat uniforms entered.
The Ironclad emblem was engraved across their chests.
Igor’s hollow eyes read the emblem.
‘Damn it. The Ironclad Special Task Force, of all people?’
They were a private military group famous in the underworld.
Every ordinary member had expensive magical inscriptions carved across their entire body and fired bullets without restraint.
The combat ability of one such soldier rivaled Boris.
And those soldiers moved in formation, like trained troops.
It was one hell of an obscene waste of money.
No wonder the black mages of the underworld avoided direct confrontations with Director Schun.
The moment they appeared, Igor had already finished calculating.
‘No chance of winning. Retreat.’
Why had he intended to kidnap those around Director Schun and offer them as sacrifices instead of assassinating Director Schun directly?
Because a head-on confrontation was hopeless.
Now that Director Schun had come in person, retreating was the best option.
Igor signaled Boris with his eyes.
‘We’re pulling out.’
Boris’s vertical pupils shifted slightly.
He understood.
The two took a step back at the same time.
But Captain Shen had no intention of allowing it.
The instant Igor’s heel lifted from the stone floor, Shen was already feeling for the controls of the magical tool strapped to his back.
With his left hand, he unfolded the gauge panel attached to its side.
Several readings lay side by side beneath the glass.
Remaining magic-stone charge, atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, and more.
Shen’s gloved index finger swept over the readings once.
His thumb turned the control valve beside the panel half a turn.
With a metallic shriek, vibrations from mana compressing inside the nozzle ran up his arm to his shoulder.
The gauge rose.
“Igniting.”
Shen calmly warned his allies and pulled the trigger.
Fwoooosh!
A raging inferno swallowed the corridor.
A crimson wave of flame, incomparable to the previous fire, surged toward Igor and Boris.
“What is this...?”
The students stared blankly at the overwhelming firepower.
They were considered geniuses in the High Division.
But the battles of real adults were on an entirely different level.
“This is... a battle between real spellcasters...”
The sweat on Freya’s cheek evaporated before it could reach the floor.
The stone walls glowed red, and the glass of the magic-stone lamps in the ceiling cracked under the heat.
Boris raised an arm to shield his face, standing as though to protect Igor.
“Igor! I can’t hold out for long!”
“I saw that immediately.”
Snap!
Igor snapped his fingers.
The flames, as though an entire furnace had been poured out, vanished like a candle being snuffed out.
The instant the fire went out, Igor sneered at Captain Shen.
“You used a flame spell that was far too basic. Combustion using oxygen and dust? Isn’t that a formula from a century ago?”
“...”
The gaunt spellcaster Igor feigned composure as he provoked him.
But Captain Shen did not rise to it.
He merely continued working the controls on his magical tool in silence.
Click.
No flame formed.
Click. Click.
Sparks only flickered from the nozzle.
Captain Shen narrowed his eyes.
“Dispelling.”
The ignition conditions of the magical tool had changed.
Bzzzz.
The wingbeats of insects flying through the air scattered the dust, interfering with the collection of combustible material.
On top of that, bugs crawling across the walls were rapidly altering the symbolic resonance of the place.
There was no way to properly ignite a fire like this.
But Captain Shen did not panic.
“I’ll identify a bypass route within five minutes. Cover me.”
The brief order was given.
The members immediately spread out.
Hearing the words five minutes, Igor clicked his tongue.
‘Five minutes is enough to break through.’
He had realized it from their two brief exchanges earlier.
That man was accustomed to battle.
His claim that he could find a bypass route within five minutes was certainly not a bluff.
That was why Igor needed to escape before then.
His gaze turned to Boris beside him.
“Five minutes, huh.”
Igor muttered around an unlit cigarette.
“You’ve worked hard, Boris.”
“What...?”
Before Boris could grasp the situation, Igor moved his lips and broke one finger.
Crack!
A sharp sound like colliding bones rang out.
At the same time, Boris clutched his own temple.
Something writhed inside his head, and the edges of his vision began to turn red.
His instincts told him something was wrong.
“Igor... you son of a bitch... Don’t tell me...”
Boris’s vertical pupils trembled.
He had known from the time he received chimera treatment from black mages.
There had to be something implanted in his body.
He had let it go because the strength granted by chimera treatment was too great.
He had prepared himself, and he had planned to run if necessary.
But now that it was happening, all he could do was curse.
“Fuck... This isn’t... right...”
Those were Boris’s final words before the light of reason vanished from his eyes.
In its place came a pure urge for violence.
Director Schun’s eyes narrowed.
“A berserker transformation using Toxoplasma gondii as a catalyst.”
“...?”
The gaunt spellcaster wanted to ask what those words meant.
As someone who studied black magic, the knowledge Director Schun possessed was immensely desirable.
But now was not the time.
“Boris. I’m counting on you. Buy as much time as you can.”
Igor snapped the fingers that had not been broken.
The beetles surrounding the spellcaster’s body wrapped themselves around Boris.
Their bluish-black shells gleamed like oil in the remaining light of the magic-stone lamps.
“Grrr...”
Boris’s vertical pupils swept across the corridor.
The reptilian instincts and violence remaining within him gave one clear command.
Destroy the most dangerous thing first.
And the most dangerous thing here was Captain Shen’s flamethrower.
“Graaah!”
He gripped his sledgehammer and charged.
Each time his scaled legs struck the stone floor, cracks spread through it.
“Fire.”
Rat-a-tat-tat!
The squad members’ guns flared all at once.
When bullets struck Boris’s shoulders, two beetles were crushed and thrown away.
Blood occasionally sprayed from punctured skin.
But Boris did not stop.
His pupils never left Captain Shen.
Shen took his hands from the magical tool he was dismantling and looked up.
“...Tough.”
As the sledgehammer rose, its shadow fell over Captain Shen’s gas mask.
Then, without any technique at all, relying solely on gravity and brute strength, the hammerhead descended toward Shen’s crown.
But then,
Clang!
Before it could reach him, the hammer stopped in midair.
A hand axe had wedged itself between the hammerhead and Captain Shen’s skull.
At the end of its handle stood a red-haired girl wearing a gas mask.
Boris’s vertical pupils widened.
He sensed a greater threat from the girl than from Captain Shen.
Scrape!
The hand axe slid along the sledgehammer’s handle.
Hooking the axehead around it, the red-haired girl, Erika, drove it down with all her weight.
“Hup!”
Still gripping the handle, Boris’s upper body folded forward.
Watching this, Captain Shen was astonished.
“Using mana and battle aura at the same time. Wouldn’t it be fair to call her a knight apprentice already?”
The lizard-like body toppled forward.
Using the recoil from her downward strike, Erika vaulted over the lizard’s head.
Her hand axe hooked beneath Boris’s thick jaw.
“I was told not to kill you.”
Crack!
The lizard’s neck twisted at an angle unlike a human’s.
The scream of vertebrae beneath the scales echoed through the corridor.
The focus vanished from Boris’s eyes.
His enormous body collapsed to the floor with the sledgehammer.
Thoom!
The red-haired girl lightly jumped down from Boris’s back, then swung her axe once as though shaking dust from it.
“Where’s the spellcaster?”
Erika looked toward the stairs at the end of the corridor.
Igor’s back was visible as he ran toward them.
“Where do you think you’re going? <Cruor>”
Sssshk.
Erika drew her palm across the axe blade.
Bright-red blood ran down its edge.
Erika took her stance and threw the axe.
The axe, coated in dark-red battle aura, tore through the air.
Thud!
As Igor rounded the corner toward the stairs, the axe blade grazed his thigh and buried itself in the hem of his robe.
“Hngh!”
Igor clenched his teeth and hurried onward.
Casting off the robe pinned firmly to the wall, the black mage disappeared down into the basement.
Erika clicked her tongue as she watched his back vanish into the darkness.
“I’m sorry, Director Schun. He got away again.”
Irritation and self-reproach mixed in Erika’s voice.
But Director Schun waved a hand at her.
“It’s fine. He won’t escape this time.”
His gaze fell on the robe lying on the floor.
He approached it, muttered a few words, then turned toward Captain Shen.
“Captain, continue the pursuit. If the mage disappears, don’t pursue him. Return and report.”
“Understood.”
Captain Shen gave a short nod.
The enhancement circuits inscribed beneath his combat uniform glowed red.
Two squad members followed behind him.
The three-person pursuit team vanished into the darkness, following Igor’s blood trail.
Director Schun watched their backs for a moment.
Then he adjusted the brim of his fedora and walked toward the students slumped against the wall.
His gaze remained fixed on one student.
“Student Kal.”
There was no response.
What came from Kal’s mouth was not speech but a metallic rasp.
His lips were turning purple, and cold sweat streamed down his forehead.
Director Schun quickly diagnosed Kal’s condition.
“It’s a pneumothorax. Were you hit in the chest?”
Kal nodded with difficulty.
Director Schun knelt beside him.
“Fortunately, you’re still conscious.”
His gaze settled on Kal’s left chest.
“Student Eli.”
Eli.
An alchemy student on scholarship.
Her hands covered in blood, she was inserting a quill shaft into Kal’s chest.
Her glasses sat crookedly, and the fingers holding the tube trembled.
“Director...!”
Eli called out to him tearfully.
Director Schun smiled reassuringly.
“You treated him well. Thanks to you, you saved Student Kal’s life.”
The tube was inserted through Kal’s second intercostal space.
Each time Kal’s chest rose and fell, a thin hissing sound came from its end.
It meant the improvised chest decompression device was working properly.
“You remembered what I said at the dinner table.”
“B-but why can’t Kal breathe?”
Director Schun did not answer. Instead, he lowered his gaze further.
Nothing appeared wrong at a glance.
But then,
Tap, tap. Thump.
When he alternately tapped Kal’s left and right chest, different sounds came back.
The right side made a clear sound, while the left returned a dull, heavy one.
“...Blood has pooled inside his chest. A hemothorax is progressing.”
Director Schun quickly opened his bag.
First, he took out a brown bottle with a Latin label.
[Erythroxylum Coca]
Pop!
After flicking off the cap, he filled a syringe with the medicine from the brown bottle.
As he expelled the air from its tip, Director Schun spoke.
“Student Kal. Don’t fall asleep.”
Kal’s left chest, between the fourth and fifth ribs.
Director Schun felt along the lower edge of the rib to find the right position.
Then he inserted the needle.
“This should hurt less now. Even so, don’t fall asleep. Student Eli, keep talking to Kal so he stays awake.”
“Pardon?”
“I mean the two of you should talk about the day you first met, or something like that.”
Even as he spoke, Kal’s expression grew much more relaxed.
The injection had anesthetized him.
Julian immediately prepared for the next procedure.
He opened his surgical instrument case, changed his gloves, and poured disinfectant over his hands.
Then he picked up a custom razor blade shaped like a scalpel.
“Student Kal. Don’t be startled now.”
The razor blade cut through the flesh between his ribs.
It passed through the subcutaneous tissue, making an incision along the grain of the serratus anterior and intercostal muscles.
It took less than a minute to open the pleura.
“Student Kal.”
“...”
“This will hurt.”
The moment he finished speaking,
Director Schun’s index and middle fingers forced their way between Kal’s ribs.
Then his hand slid into Kal’s chest up to the wrist.
“...!”
“...!”
The students and Ironclad soldiers all held their breath.
Hot blood soaked Director Schun’s sleeve red.
Relying only on the feeling at his fingertips, he began searching for the torn section.
‘It should be around here... Hm... Ah, found it.’
The lung had been torn.
A broken rib had ripped the lung, causing blood to pool in the chest.
The solution in a situation like this was simple.
If a faucet leaked?
You shut it off.
The human body was not all that different.
‘Here it is.’
Director Schun tightly gripped the pulmonary hilum, where blood was pouring from the lung.
Then he twisted it 180 degrees.
Creak!
“????”
“????”
A deeply unsettling sound effect came from Kal’s chest.
The students watching had their mouths hanging open.
One Ironclad member even dropped their gun.
But what was more astonishing was that Kal’s condition immediately began to improve.
“Gasp!”
Wheeze, wheeze.
Kal’s breathing, which had seemed on the verge of stopping moments ago, returned.
Color began to return to his purple lips.
“My God...”
While the students and soldiers rubbed their eyes at the unbelievable sight,
Director Schun had already finished suturing the skin.
“This should be enough. Once we return, healing magic at the temple will take care of the rest.”
Director Schun smiled brightly as he tidied his bloodied gloves.
For the first time in a while, he felt proud that he had been able to make use of his primary specialty.
‘As expected, I’m a Surgeon. I haven’t lost my touch.’
He had worried that he might make a mistake because it had been so long.
But perhaps because he had performed hundreds of surgeries in his previous life, Julian’s body moved on its own once he began.
Then Eli, tightly holding Kal’s hand, asked in a trembling voice.
“D-Director, was that just now...?”
“?”
“W-was it black magic? Like chimera treatment...?”
Director Schun shook his head.
“No. This isn’t within the realm of magic... Hm... Yes. It’s an elementary technique. Everyone here could learn it with practice.”
To Julian, surgery was something that could be achieved through effort, unlike magic.
It did not require ridiculous talents like sensing a symbol of pride or an aura of wrath.
In other words, surgery was a field that human-level effort could reach without superhuman talent.
That was the meaning Director Schun had intended to convey.
‘No. I don’t think we could, sir.’
‘Wasn’t that arcane magic?’
‘Brother, you’re amazing as always...!’
His meaning did not get across very well.
Author’s Note
The surgical procedure portrayed in this chapter has a little MSG added, but it is a real procedure.
It is a form of emergency thoracotomy.
The speed of hemostasis is different, but there really is a technique that twists the lung like that. A person can breathe with only one lung. Of course, it has to be untwisted later.
Naturally, anyone who is not a professional should never attempt this.
Footnotes:
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