WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈

Chapter 80: Good Healer (8)

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* * *

I led the count I had met in front of the green flag camp into a tent.

It was cramped inside.

“What is this place...?”

“It was set up for people who might feel embarrassed about receiving treatment.”

You might think privacy was the least of anyone’s concerns in a disaster like this, but it still mattered.

Especially for patients who needed treatment below the waist.

And I would rather not go into specifics, but sometimes trash took advantage of situations like this to do sexually horrible things.

Having separate privacy rooms was standard practice even at disaster sites.

“Please sit here.”

There was a cot inside the tent.

Though calling a blanket spread over wooden boards a cot was rather generous.

The count sat on the makeshift cot.

Keeping their back excessively straight.

“Does it hurt when you lean your back against something?”

“...I have been listening to you since earlier, and I must say, it is remarkable. How did you figure it out?”

“Simple observation.”

As I arranged the surgical tools on a wooden crate beside the cot, I spoke.

“You have difficulty leaning against anything, and there are pauses between your words. Whenever you make a harsh sound, you reflexively suppress a cough.”

Spritz, spritz.

I poured disinfectant onto a wad of cotton.

I prepared the antiseptic cotton and set out a sterile needle and tube.

“I also noticed distention of the jugular vein on the right side of your neck. That indicates your mediastinum has shifted to the right. Your left chest barely moves when you breathe, while the movement on your right side is pronounced. Your accessory breathing muscles are overly tense as well.”

“...?”

The count looked like they had no idea what I was talking about.

So I explained it more simply.

“You have a pneumothorax. Your lung has torn internally. You are enduring it because you are a superhuman, but if you return home like this, you will quietly close your eyes tonight.”

“...”

After giving a rough explanation, I approached the count.

“Please take off your shirt. I will perform a simple operation... no, treatment.”

“Why would treatment require a needle? Is this perhaps an excision?”

The count spoke warily.

Healers’ excisions had a terrible reputation.

They cut off the problematic part, then regenerate it.

However, the method could only be used on limbs.

There was no such thing as excision on the torso.

That was why the count was wary of me.

They suspected I might be taking advantage of the situation to assassinate them.

But the treatment I intended was not an excision.

“It is not an excision. I only intend to make a simple hole in the space around your lung.”

“What?”

“There should not normally be air inside your chest cavity, but when the lung tears, air can accumulate there. Once that air compresses the lung, it becomes difficult to breathe.”

Not that the count would understand even after hearing that.

But I did not have time to explain it to the count as though they were one of my students.

“I have already saved many people with this.”

I lifted the entrance flap slightly.

The red flag area was visible outside.

People there had needles and tubes inserted into their chests.

Hemothorax or tension pneumothorax.

People whose lungs had been injured, like the count.

“If this were an assassination attempt, how would you explain those people moving to the yellow area after receiving the treatment?”

Pneumothorax was one of the kinder extreme emergencies. Once treated, the patient could immediately move from the red area to the yellow area.

All I had to do was insert a needle in front of the lung.

And it took thirty seconds at the shortest, or two minutes at the longest.

There was absolutely no reason not to do it.

“Count, please remove your shirt. The longer you delay, the more danger the people who have not yet received treatment may be in.”

“...”

Looking dissatisfied, the count lifted their clothes.

Before treating them, I checked several things against their chest.

I percussed it, listened with a stethoscope, then felt for vibrations once more.

‘Tension pneumothorax.’

I scrubbed the fifth intercostal space with an alcohol swab.

Then, a quick prick with a fourteen-gauge needle.

Yes, it was that procedure medical dramas showed all the time.

The one where patients who could not breathe suddenly could after someone stuck in a ballpoint pen refill.

I had merely performed it more hygienically.

“Try breathing.”

Hiss.

Air escaped through the needle.

The count’s expression relaxed considerably.

“...Amazing.”

“Good.”

As I put away the tools, I spoke.

“Though I should have asked sooner, why did you hide your symptoms?”

“It may be difficult for you to understand, but a count cannot show weakness.”

The count gave a bitter smile.

“If it became known that a Rank 3 superhuman was injured by nothing more than a troll’s club, some might begin questioning my abilities.”

Oh dear.

It seemed counts had hardships of their own.

To think they had to conceal even internal injuries so as not to reveal a weakness.

It was lamentable that, when focusing entirely on magical beasts was already difficult enough, they had to worry about things like that too.

“Then let us finish this.”

I inserted a tube through the spot where I had placed the needle.

Then I took a surgical rubber glove from my bag.

‘Tch. It is still thick.’

While producing condoms, I had also asked them to make surgical gloves.

Naturally, I had ordered surgical gloves thin enough to preserve sensation in the fingertips.

The trading company was trying to make the condoms thinner while making the gloves thin as well.

But the gloves remained thick because the technology was still lacking.

Whenever I saw them, I found myself missing the ultra-thin(?) latex surgical gloves of the twenty-first century.

‘Well, these will do for now.’

I cut off the glove’s index finger with scissors.

I fitted the severed rubber finger over the end of the tube in the count’s chest and tied it firmly with thread.

Ta-da.

A one-way flutter valve, complete.

It was a technique I had learned at a disaster site in my previous life.

...I had been told it was a safe and rewarding summer medical volunteer trip.

That insane professor took me to the site of an overseas explosion accident.

Apparently, it was safe because the explosion had already happened once.

Lastly, I tucked the tube inside their shirt and straightened their clothing so it could not be seen from outside.

From the outside, nothing looked any different.

“Normally, I would prefer water-seal drainage, but you did not want anyone to see, so I did this instead.”

“It is completely inconspicuous. Thank you.”

“Still, if you keep the tube under your clothes for too long, you may have trouble breathing again. I recommend resting alone in a carriage or somewhere similar.”

“Understood.”

The count got down from the cot.

As I cleaned up the tools, I said,

“Unfortunately, I would like to cast Heal immediately, but that will be difficult.”

Patients who could be treated with twenty-first-century procedures, including pneumothorax, did not receive divine magic.

It had to be reserved for patients who could not be saved without divine miracles.

“I know.”

The count’s response was calm.

“For someone of my Rank, this treatment is sufficient. God’s miracles should go not to me, but to others who are more desperate. On the battlefield, divine miracles and potions were always in short supply.”

“Thank you for understanding.”

The count’s pneumothorax would likely improve in a few days.

The count reached for their armor.

But I did not permit it.

“Do not wear your armor. It may compress the tube and prevent it from working properly.”

“I will remember that.”

Holding their breastplate in one hand, the count spoke.

“Director Schun.”

They gave me a small bow.

“I respect your dedication.”

I shook my head.

“I am, if anything, even more grateful.”

“For what?”

The count asked back with a puzzled expression.

I did not answer.

My eyes remained fixed on the rubber glove fingertip I had just cut off.

“I am fine. Please see the other civilians first.”

In an old, worn memory.

A medical fellow, tricked by a lying professor into being dragged to the site of an explosion accident, was speaking with a firefighter.

“I am only short of breath because I exercised intensely.”

“Your physical examination is completely normal.”

“Right? So please go see the others quickly.”

Me, the professor, and the firefighter.

We all diagnosed him as green.

And when it was all over,

what greeted us was the cold corpse of that firefighter.

The cause was blast lung injury.

It was a condition where the inside of the lungs was devastated by blast pressure.

Immediately after an explosion, this condition showed no symptoms or abnormalities at all. Then, twenty-four hours after the blast, fluid and blood suddenly began filling the lungs.

The patient quietly drowned in their own bodily fluids.

There had been countless people at that accident site who quietly closed their eyes like that.

But that firefighter remained in my memory the most.

He had smiled at the end and said he was fine, and I had sincerely believed that smile.

Perhaps that trust was why the tragedy struck even harder.

After that day,

both the professor and I stopped trusting patients’ words.

More precisely, we did not ignore them.

We simply stopped diagnosing based only on what patients said.

The small things the patient did not know, and everyone else could overlook.

It was probably then that I began obsessively focusing on such things.

“...Director?”

The count’s voice brought me back to my senses.

“Do you intend to tell me what you are grateful for?”

“...I meant that I am grateful I was able to discover your condition.”

“Why would you be grateful for that?”

“I do not know. It is just... when you do this work, there are times when you become grateful for everything.”

I was simply grateful.

Grateful that, this time, I had found it.

The count watched me for a long time, then quietly nodded.

* * *

After secretly treating the count,

I returned to the site and resumed sorting patients.

“This patient has airway obstruction from the tongue falling back due to mandibular destruction. It is urgent, so classify them as red. Keep the patient lying face down until they receive treatment.”

“Shrapnel is lodged in an eye. Bandage both eyes, students. The patient will not be able to see, but they must endure it. To save one eye, neither eye can move. Use a yellow flag.”

“A fractured patella from a fall. The blood vessels and nerves are intact, so classify them as green.”

While dealing with the injured, I checked the time.

It would not have been strange if it were already lunchtime by how it felt.

But the hour hand had only moved the distance of one number.

As the sun gradually rose, other assault teams began returning as well.

Bwoo, bwooo!

“Injured people, this way!”

“Follow all instructions, whether you are from the rescue teams or assault teams!”

Whenever the horns sounded, people poured in through the city gates.

The assault teams that had headed beyond the walls days ago, and the rescue teams that had left to save the isolated assault teams, arrived on stretchers.

At a glance, there were more than three times as many people flooding in as there had been at dawn.

Ayla’s complexion darkened as she watched them.

“D-Director... The injured just keep...”

“It was expected.”

At first, there had been equal numbers of assault teams and rescue teams.

Soon it became one assault team for every two rescue teams. In the next wave, it became one to three, then one to five.

As time passed, the exchange ratio reversed.

More people were being injured while going to save others than were returning after being rescued.

The reason was simple.

Saving one person generally required five people.

Even in that famous movie about saving a private, did not several people get chewed up trying to save one soldier?

Rescue operations always had terrible exchange ratios.

Even so, the guild continued dispatching rescue personnel to the isolated assault teams.

The stranded people included A-rank adventurers, heroes, and nobles.

Of course, as a doctor, I did not really understand the strategic importance of these rescue efforts.

Nor could I truly grasp how necessary it was for humanity to sacrifice people to save them.

But I knew they trusted us to continue the rescue operations.

So I could only focus on treating the exponentially growing number of injured.

Still...

‘I am getting a little tired.’

“Red. Send them to the surgery tent immediately. Next!”

“My arm... My arm has been cut off!”

“Tighten the tourniquet more! Blood is leaking! Yellow. Next!”

Bwoo, bwoo, bwooo!

The horn sounded one beat longer.

I knew without turning my head.

Another group must be pouring through the gates.

“Director! We need to change the criteria! From now on, open fractures must be classified as black instead of red!”

“Poisoned patients must now be moved from yellow to red!”

In proportion to the injured, people we could save were gradually pushed further down the priority list.

Triage was inherently a classification method that fluctuated wildly based on available resources.

If there were enough people to handle dozens of cerebral hemorrhage patients, even a patient with their skull split open could be classified as yellow.

But when personnel were insufficient, even a poisoned patient who only needed an antidote could be pushed from yellow to red.

In the end, reality was always a matter of resources.

“Director...”

Ayla, who had been following me, kept trying to say something before closing her mouth.

It was because I had just classified a patient with an amputated arm as black.

Ordinarily, they would have been red, a patient who could easily survive with treatment.

But there were far too few people.

I could not perform a surgery that took over an hour.

“...Black.”

This time, it was a patient with a cerebral hemorrhage.

Someone I could treat within thirty minutes if I handled it myself.

But the moment I went into surgery for thirty minutes, thirty patients outside would be neglected.

So I had to classify this person as black.

‘It has not even been two hours, and it is already this bad.’

Within two hours of beginning treatment, the damage was spiraling out of control.

314/42

The number of injured and dead recorded on the guild’s notice board kept rising.

My chest felt tight.

It was not because I was despairing.

‘Damn it...’

It was because it pained me.

I knew how to break through this situation.

The current triage system was far from the proper method.

A triage officer who sorted patients and gave simple treatment.

A treatment team leader who focused solely on advanced care for sorted patients.

Emergency triage needed these two roles to be separated.

But right now, the healers of the Merkuer Trading Company and I had to perform both roles at once.

That was causing inefficiency.

I took a moment to catch my breath and turned my head.

“It is all right. This will make you a little more comfortable.”

Ayla was casting Refresh on black and red patients.

Ayla’s friends had already run out of divine power or mentally given up.

Yet Ayla continued casting Refresh.

Perhaps because of that, the patients’ time was being extended little by little.

“...Tch.”

Inside my mask, I clicked my tongue where no one could hear.

The student had not given up, yet I was already thinking of compromises.

‘What kind of compromise is that for a protagonist?’

Since I had transmigrated, I had never compromised even once.

And now I was thinking of that just because things were a little difficult.

It seemed I still had a long way to go before becoming a proper protagonist.

“We are rearranging the rotation order! Taking prayer time for those whose divine power is depleted into account, we will redistribute personnel!”

I had steadied myself and was shouting that to the clinic healers when a commotion arose near the guild entrance.

“Move aside! I said move!”

“It is the Church’s healing dispatch team! Please clear the way!”

The voices echoed in three, then four layers.

I stopped sorting patients and looked up.

Several carriages were lined up along the road before the guild’s main entrance.

White carriages bearing golden sun emblems.

The Church.

The carriage doors opened, and people in white robes leaped out.

Priests in pure white robes swiftly joined the healers from the clinic.

“Sorry we are late!”

Then, from the crowd pouring out, a priest in robes unlike the others’ pure white ones ran alone into the guild building.

“Archbishop Lailic has arrived! Guildmaster!”

A man wearing the purple epaulets that symbolized an archbishop pushed through the crowd.

Raymond Lailic.

Former imperial personal healer.

Current head of the Imperial Capital Diocese.

In twenty-first-century terms, he was roughly equivalent to the head of a public health center.

The moment he entered the guild, he looked around, spotted me, and strode over.

Then he bowed to me.

“I am Raymond Lailic, Director Schun. I was delayed because I had to deliver the mobilization order to every healing center.”

I shook my head.

“No. You handled it very well.”

It was not empty praise.

If he had come directly to the site, things would have been easier early on.

But only early on.

Afterward, the situation would have become difficult again.

What mattered most in a situation like this was the hospitals behind the front lines.

No matter how well patients were sorted in the field, it was useless without hospitals to support them afterward.

In that sense, the archbishop’s judgment had been appropriate.

He had mobilized every healing center in the Empire as rear hospitals.

Furthermore, this was an era where communications networks had not properly developed.

I could completely understand why he had arrived late.

“On my way here, I heard a rough explanation from the other healers. This triage classification method is truly excellent.”

The archbishop looked around the site as he spoke.

“Is there anything you need me to do here?”

He had not demanded command, but immediately placed himself within the command structure instead.

He was an exemplary reinforcement.

So I could speak while trusting the archbishop.

“Archbishop.”

“Please speak.”

“Then, would you command the field sorting from now on?”

“And you, Director?”

I shook my crow beak up and down.

“It seems I need to return to my actual work.”

It was time to return to the operating room.

Footnotes:

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