The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint - Chapter 81

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

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◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈

Chapter 81: Good Healer (9)

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* * *

Archbishop Raymond Lailic.

His life could be summarized as follows.

He began by serving as an army physician on the western front.

His accomplishments at the front earned him recognition, and after serving as a military medical superintendent, he rose to become the imperial family’s contracted healer.

Then, five years after becoming a contracted healer, the imperial court released him from its service in response to his earnest request to care for ordinary people according to the Lord’s will.

Afterward, he became the diocesan head responsible for every healing center and church in the Imperial Capital.

People called him “the Lord’s most faithful servant.”

Archbishop Raymond liked that nickname very much.

Whether his knees were sunk in western mud or bent upon silk carpets, he had always carried one conviction in his heart.

‘A servant of the Lord must always remain among the Lord’s flock.’

His life resembled that of the eldest son who had worked most faithfully in the Lord’s courtyard.

Scripture said the eldest son must help his father protect his siblings.

The fine clothes and abilities granted to the eldest son were gifts from the father for precisely that purpose.

So Raymond had always guarded against pride and lived a life of serving others.

Scripture also said that the eldest son did not demand wages.

For the eldest son, protecting his father’s house alone was enough.

So Raymond had pursued the Lord’s will before wealth.

He had always tried to live according to that will and took pride in believing that he had done so.

He first heard the name Director Schun five years ago.

A man in a crow mask who kept accomplishing healing miracles that healers had failed to achieve.

The Church’s first response had been caution.

Someone outside the Church was trespassing upon their domain.

But Director Schun soon supplied every medicine he made exclusively to healers affiliated with the Church.

“Medicine can become poison depending on how it is used. Our trading company will strictly ensure that no one except professional healers can handle it.”

Director Schun also passed on every technique he developed solely to the Church’s healing centers.

The Church quickly lowered its guard against him.

The person they had thought would oppose healers had instead become their most reliable supporter.

Director Schun’s actions afterward continued to inspire goodwill.

Whenever he developed medicine, he always asked the Church to cooperate.

He hired healers with nowhere else to go at his clinics and spent his own money to treat commoners.

He taught countless secret techniques for free and without conditions, techniques that could easily have been kept as a family inheritance.

The Church had no reason to dislike Director Schun.

Before long, caution became gratitude.

As both a healer and a diocesan head, the archbishop admired and respected Director Schun.

But he also envied him.

‘Why him?’

Raymond had always been the Lord’s faithful servant and eldest son.

He believed the Lord had granted him his abilities because he had served faithfully.

But Director Schun was different.

He had never sat at the Church’s table.

He had never once spoken the Lord’s name.

He had never knelt in a holy place, opened a prayer book, or fasted.

And yet the Lord had granted him such abilities.

‘Why have You given greater abilities to that man than to me and the priests who have prayed our entire lives?’

It was as though the Lord loved Director Schun more.

That was why the archbishop envied him.

Like an eldest son jealous of younger siblings who had taken their parents’ love.

‘I have prayed for over fifty years, yet this vessel is still so small.’

Whenever such thoughts came to him, he would often place a hand over his heart and lament.

Then, as always, he covered the place where envy had been with prayer.

Ashamed of his own pettiness.

Then one day...

‘Triage...’

News arrived that a subjugation expedition had suffered devastating losses at the hands of a mutant magical beast.

As diocesan head, Raymond hurriedly sent official requests for cooperation to the other healing centers.

By the time he had secured their cooperation and checked the clock, two hours had already passed.

‘I must hurry.’

He urged his aging body onward and climbed into a carriage.

On the way to the northern gate, he heard about the situation from one of his attendant priests.

“They say Director Schun is holding the scene together in our place with the clinic healers.”

That man again.

“And they say he has introduced a new classification system called triage.”

Triage.

A classification method entirely different from the existing way of sorting patients.

Under the previous system, injured people were often prioritized according to Rank and title.

Strategically, one Rank 1 life was considered more valuable than three Rank 0 lives.

But Director Schun’s triage offered a completely different standard.

Treat the more urgent people before those who could hold on.

Treat a Rank 0 patient who might die soon before a Rank 1 patient who would not die immediately.

The logic was simple.

Reverse the order.

And give up on neither Rank 0 nor Rank 1 patients.

It was a perfect answer strategically, doctrinally, and academically.

So perfect that he wondered why no one had proposed it before.

‘Why did I never think of something like this?’

Envy rose again.

He wanted to claim this accomplishment as his own.

A method came to mind as well.

All he had to do was take command in his capacity as diocesan head.

If he took command at the scene today, history would record Archbishop Raymond, rather than Director Schun, as the person who first applied triage in the field.

After all, history and records tended to focus on what was visible.

As an archbishop who had studied Scripture deeply, he knew that well.

But...

‘Good heavens. The serpent raises its head again.’

He shook his head and cast away the temptation.

He could not do such a thing.

It would disappoint the Lord, both as the eldest son and as His servant.

Raymond steadied himself.

‘At this scene, I must be a healer.’

After reassuring himself again and again, he arrived at the site.

It was utter chaos.

Too few people. Too few resources.

Yet the healers and rescue workers continued struggling on.

Reflecting once more on how he had been blinded by his desire for renown, the archbishop headed into the guild building.

“Move! I said move!”

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

Walking down the path his attendant priests opened, the archbishop entered the guild building.

And when he stepped inside, he finally saw him.

The man wearing a crow beak mask: Director Schun.

‘This is the first time I have seen him in person.’

Suppressing the emotions swelling within him, the archbishop spoke to Director Schun.

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

Hand over command to me.

I am the diocesan head of the capital archdiocese.

I used to be the imperial family’s contracted healer.

I want my name to remain on the first page of this historic moment.

I have devoted my entire life.

I am growing old.

I want to be remembered by history.

Barely suppressing his ugly desire for renown, he continued.

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

After asking, he felt relief.

He had managed not to give in to temptation today as well.

Then, in the next moment, Director Schun made an unbelievable proposal.

“Archbishop.”

“Please speak.”

“Would you command the field triage from now on?”

“...?”

Raymond stopped breathing for a moment.

Had Director Schun somehow read his mind?

The archbishop could not help asking.

“Then what about you, Director?”

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

The crow beak turned briefly toward the red and black flag areas.

The archbishop could not speak for a moment.

His heart wanted to accept at once.

It was a chance to leave his name in that historic moment.

But as a religious man, he could not accept merely because he was swayed by a desire for renown.

So he refused once.

“Director, I do not know your reasons, but I do not believe this is a position for me. You created this system, so would it not be right for you to continue leading it?”

“No. I created the system, but I am lacking in too many ways to apply it to reality.”

However, the Director was resolute.

“I do not know the full extent of what healing magic can accomplish. I cannot use divine magic. My perspective is not especially broad, either. I have never commanded on a battlefield, and I do not properly know how resources should be distributed.”

He meant it sincerely.

He had somehow managed to command the scene so far.

But that had reached its limit.

Director Schun knew exactly how inadequate he was as a triage officer.

His triage system was based on twenty-first-century South Korea, where divine magic did not exist.

But in this situation, those standards were not correct.

The equipment, the personnel, the miracles available.

The criteria for classification differed in every respect.

“I could create the outline of triage, but I cannot complete it. That is why I need your help, Archbishop.”

The triage officer needed now was not a twenty-first-century doctor.

They needed someone who had experienced countless battlefields in this world and led numerous healers.

“And besides, I suppose directly saving people with my own hands suits me better.”

But above all, there was one greater reason.

He could shine far more as a treatment team leader than as a triage officer.

“So please classify the patients in your own way, Archbishop. I will save the people under the red flags.”

“...”

The archbishop silently looked at Director Schun for a while.

‘I misjudged him.’

He had thought Director Schun was merely a lucky genius.

He had envied him, wondering why the gods had given him abilities greater than Raymond’s own.

But...

‘Perhaps he never needed to belong to the Church.’

Now he understood.

Why the gods had granted that man such brilliance.

Humanitarianism.

Director Schun naturally practiced the spirit that doctrine emphasized so strongly.

Rank, fame, title.

He cared for none of those worldly things and only wished to save people.

How could anyone not respect such nobility?

Now Raymond understood why the gods loved him.

It did not matter that he stood outside the Church.

Surely it meant the gods wanted him to achieve something beyond the Church’s walls.

“...Understood, Brother.”

His envy melted away like snow.

In its place remained pure respect.

“I will command the field. May God’s will be with you, Brother.”

* * *

Before Julian, Director Schun, switched roles to become treatment team leader, he gave the archbishop several instructions.

“Since the criteria have changed, you and the other healers must classify the patients again.”

“Understood, Brother.”

Triage was an extremely fluid classification system.

It was not strange for patients to move back and forth between yellow and red depending on conditions at the scene.

“Classification must be repeated at least once every ten minutes.”

A triage officer also had to regularly check the patients again.

A patient in yellow could suddenly worsen, while a red patient could receive treatment and become yellow.

This was also why Director Schun had struggled to focus on treatment.

He had to classify, treat, command, and classify again.

Of all those tasks, reclassification had held him back the most.

But now, that was over.

“One last thing. This is the most important part.”

Director Schun pointed at the black flags.

“Before you classify anyone as black, if they are still breathing, contact me at least once.”

“What?”

“I trust your judgment, Archbishop. Even so, I do not wish to give up on a patient I can save.”

“You mean...”

“I mean that patients I would classify as red should be sent to me.”

It was a bold declaration.

He was confident that he could save patients whose surgeries other healers had to abandon.

“Will that be all right?”

“I have handled worse patients than this.”

Julian was confident.

Obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, internal medicine.

Those were not his specialties.

That was why he had relied on the conventions of a misunderstanding story.

But trauma surgery was different.

‘This is no misunderstanding.’

He had even operated on a patient with a bullet lodged in their heart.

And he had done so in a world without miracles like divine magic.

How much more could he accomplish in a world where miracles existed?

“So even if a patient appears hopeless, please contact me once.”

“Understood, Brother.”

“Then I will prepare at my clinic.”

Leaving those words behind, Director Schun headed to D Sector, where his clinic was located.

Along with the students they had brought.

Afterward, Archbishop Lailic began sorting patients with his attendant priests as the triage officer.

“Send this yellow patient to the Plenilunium Healing Center in Sector 3.”

“They say the Reinfeld Healing Center in Sector 2 has room now. Send only three injured people there.”

“Please contact the Merkuer Clinic in E Sector and tell them we are sending two people.”

When an injured person arrived, he classified them first.

Then he transported them to healing centers according to urgency.

If necessary, he treated them on the spot with divine magic.

The healers had worried whether Archbishop Lailic could replace Director Schun.

But the archbishop quickly dispelled those concerns by successfully carrying out his role as triage officer.

His command was even smoother.

“Cast high-grade Heal on this patient, then classify them as green.”

“Those of you here, rotate with the people in the prayer room. Even if you have not completely exhausted your divine power, go and pray.”

Unlike Director Schun, he actively incorporated divine magic into triage.

He had spent more than enough time on battlefields properly allocating the limited resource called divine power.

The archbishop felt rather proud as well.

He was merely adding his own spoonful, but he was still able to build upon the foundation Director Schun had laid with his accumulated experience.

Then, as the treatment of the injured gained momentum...

“This patient...”

While reclassifying patients, the archbishop’s gaze stopped briefly on one under a black flag.

The patient had enormous claw marks carved across their abdomen.

Intestines were spilling out through the open wound.

Regeneration could save them.

But using it would mean giving up on a hundred patients who could be saved with high-grade Heal.

That was why the patient had been classified as black.

But...

‘If it is Director Schun...’

With hope in his heart, he contacted the D-1 Trauma Specialty Clinic.

An answer came back immediately.

[We can take up to three.]

If another healer had answered that way, he would have scoffed.

As though divine power grew on trees.

As though some young hothead had lost their mind.

But when Director Schun said it, it did not sound like a boast.

The archbishop did not deliberate for long.

“Reclassify every black-flag patient with these injuries as red, then send them to the D-1 Clinic.”

His heart pounded as he gave the order.

With the hope that the tragedies he had been forced to abandon on battlefields until now might become stories of the past as of today.

* * *

Inside the D-1 Trauma Specialty Clinic.

Before the trauma patients sent by the archbishop began flooding in, I gave rapid instructions to the healers under my command.

“First, when patients arrive, the apprentice healers will cast low-grade Heal and focus on keeping them alive as long as possible before surgery. Use chloroform for preoperative anesthesia.”

Chloroform.

It was the second anesthetic I had introduced to this world after cocaine.

Chloroform had been created quite some time ago.

During the star anise incident, the anticonvulsant I had used while administering an enema to a count’s newborn had been the anesthetic’s sibling.

That anticonvulsant was called chloral hydrate.

It had originally been created by accident while attempting to produce an anesthetic.

And after repeatedly improving that anticonvulsant, I had finally completed the anesthetic I wanted.

“You must finish preparing the patients before I begin surgery. Time is life, so I need everyone’s cooperation.”

“Yes!”

The healers immediately began preparing to receive the flood of patients.

Then, amid that chaos, I gestured to Ayla.

“Student Ayla, how much longer do you think you can use Refresh?”

“I’m not sure, but I think I can keep using it as long as I have strength left.”

“Good. Then come into the operating room.”

Ayla still had divine power to spare, so she went into the operating room.

Her friends whose divine power had been depleted had work to do as well.

I brought one of them in to assist in the operating room, then stationed the remaining three beside the healers in the emergency room.

In a situation like this, there was no such thing as too many hands.

Ayla had stood in the corner of the operating room like a folding screen for only a few minutes when patients sent from the field began flooding into the D-1 Clinic.

“Director, we have a patient! Male patient in his thirties with multiple penetrating wounds and lacerations across the abdomen caused by magical beast claws. There are four deep lacerations, especially in the right upper abdomen and left flank, and a substantial portion of the small intestine is protruding outside the abdominal cavity.”

Healer Kou gave a rapid briefing.

Normally, Kou was assigned to diabetes care.

But that did not mean Kou could not treat other patients.

Every healer at this clinic had to spend time in the emergency room as a basic requirement.

Kou had worked in the emergency room with me once as well.

That was why I made Kou my surgical assistant.

“Extensive bruising and swelling consistent with blunt trauma are visible on the back, likely from striking a wall or floor hard while being thrown. The patient is semiconscious. There has not yet been a massive leakage of bowel contents, but claw fragments are highly likely to remain in the abdominal cavity. There is a high risk of rapid progression to multiple organ failure.”

“It has been a while since I worked with you, Kou. Your briefings are as neat as ever.”

“Thank you, Director.”

“We’ll perform a laparotomy immediately.”

The moment I confirmed the patient was anesthetized, I prepared to cut into the abdomen.

But there was something I needed to do first.

“Student Ayla’s friend. What was your name again?”

“Joel, Director.”

“My hands are full right now, so I need someone to conduct the time-out. Can you record the time?”

“Understood!”

“Then we’ll begin the time-out. Male patient in his thirties. 9:14. We’ll begin surgery.”

First, rather than forcing the eviscerated intestines back inside, we wrapped them in moistened gauze and set them aside to the right.

Then my scalpel began cutting into the patient’s abdomen.

“Student Ayla. Refresh.”

“Yes. I’ll cast Refresh.”

The minor bleeding caused by opening the abdomen stopped under her Refresh.

Ordinarily, I would use a Bovie, an electric cautery, to burn the tissue and stop the bleeding.

Here, Refresh replaced it.

That saved one minute.

“Kou, suction the blood. I’ll pack.”

“Suction.”

While Kou drew out the blood pooled in the abdomen, I pushed four pieces of gauze inside.

Upper right, upper left, lower right, lower left.

Severe bleeding frequently occurred in those areas, so we compressed them with gauze whether we could see the bleeding or not.

“Heal. Low-grade. Do not regenerate the blood vessels. Just stop the bleeding.”

“Heal.”

Normally, we needed to wait after compressing the area with gauze for the bleeding to stop.

But low-grade Heal let us skip that.

That saved three minutes.

“I’ll assess internally. Grade 2 splenic rupture, laceration of the right liver lobe, blunt trauma to the back, and an associated arterial rupture. Three lacerations in the small intestine. We’ll begin with the spleen.”

Should I perform a splenectomy?

It felt like a waste to remove it over a mere Grade 2 rupture.

“First, we’ll check its responsiveness to divine magic. Student Ayla, Refresh.”

“Refresh.”

There was no response.

Unfortunately, we had to remove it.

If I clung to it for no reason and sent the patient across the Jordan River, that would defeat the purpose.

So I immediately began the resection.

I carefully lifted the spleen, then tied off the blood vessels.

I double-ligated the splenic artery and vein, then snipped.

Ayla’s Refresh immediately stopped the small bleeds along the way.

‘It is annoying to deal with all these tiny bleeds. This is so convenient.’

That was why I liked Ayla so much.

Who cared if Refresh was the only spell she could use?

Minor bleeding was surprisingly irritating during surgery.

It would be wasteful to use Heal on such minor bleeding when gauze compression would normally be enough.

But things were different with Ayla.

I had never seen her divine power run out.

That meant I could ask her to use Refresh without holding back.

Thanks to that, a splenectomy that would have taken fifteen minutes was completed in ten.

“Splenectomy complete. Now let’s treat the aortic rupture. Give me a bovine pericardium patch.”

The assistant healer handed me something like an adhesive bandage.

A bovine pericardium patch.

A patch made from processed cow pericardium.

It could repair a torn aorta or heart.

It had been something I relied on heavily in my previous life as well.

Snip, snip.

I cut the patch to fit the torn aorta, then stitched it into place.

And Heal again.

“Good. The aortic rupture is treated as well.”

Two serious problems had already been resolved in no time.

Next came the liver and small intestine.

Those were not difficult either.

Insert gauze, cut away the portions that could not possibly be saved.

Then Heal.

That stopped all the bleeding.

“Now, let’s irrigate.”

After rinsing the inside of the abdomen once with holy water, I continued.

“We’ll perform temporary abdominal closure. Give me gutta-percha.”

Gutta-percha.

I began heating the sheet made from tree sap.

When the heat softened it, I covered the open abdomen with the sheet and fixed it in place with sutures.

The reason I was not closing the abdomen was the same reason I had not put the skull bone back during the craniotomy.

The organs inside the abdomen were severely swollen.

If I closed the abdomen in that state, the organs would press against one another and undergo necrosis.

That was why we left it open and covered it with something.

At least until the swelling subsided.

“We’ll reconstruct in three days.”

I postponed the operation to reconnect the severed intestines for several days.

Surgery was burdensome to the patient’s body.

If we did everything from hemostasis to reconstruction in one day, the patient might not endure it.

So today, we would focus only on keeping them alive.

Damage control surgery.

A surgical method popularized by the GOAT trauma-surgery professor of twenty-first-century Korea.

“All right, we’ll finish the surgery. Student Joel, please do the sign-out.”

“...What?”

“I’ll do it. 9:35. Surgery time, twenty-one minutes.”

Every healer in the room except Kou stared at me in a daze.

They must not have expected me to save a patient who needed the miracle of Regeneration in only twenty minutes.

And with only low-grade Heal and Refresh.

At the center of their stares, I enjoyed a brief moment of exhilaration.

‘See? If I focus solely on treatment, I can save someone with their abdomen torn open in around twenty minutes.’

That was why I had told them to classify patients like this as red instead of black.

A surgery that would normally take forty minutes could be cut in half with divine magic.

And low-grade Heal was enough.

There was no reason to abandon them.

“Please finish up with this patient. Kou, Student Ayla, and Student Joel, move to the next operating room.”

If we ran the operating rooms in a factory-like system as well, we could save even more time.

The word factory might bring to mind the negative image of factory-style hospitals, but this was surprisingly the standard operating method in trauma surgery.

Staggered Operating.

It was an operating room management method used in trauma medicine.

While surgery was underway in one room, another team prepared the next patient in another room and began opening the abdomen.

Then I went into the next room to take the baton, while the preparation team moved on to prepare the next patient.

This could save another ten minutes or so.

For patients who could not spare a single minute or second, such small details could greatly improve survival rates.

“Student Ayla, change into surgical clothes and come straight to the next operating room.”

I urged the stunned healers on and moved to the next operating room.

And in that operating room, I felt a cool sensation against my fingertips and shivered faintly.

‘Yes. This is it.’

This cool, heavy sensation.

People should make a living doing what they are good at.