WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈
Chapter 82: Good Healer (10)
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“...Archbishop.”
“What is it, Helmut?”
An attendant priest approached Archbishop Lailic, who was busy saving patients.
“D-Director Schun has done it.”
“Done what?”
“They say Director Schun saved three patients whose abdomens had been pierced...”
The archbishop checked his watch without thinking.
10:41 a.m.
About an hour had passed since the black-flag patients had been sent away.
“Ha ha...”
He did not know what kind of magic trick Schun had pulled.
But Director Schun had somehow done it.
In a situation where resources, time, and everything else were scarce.
“Director Schun says they will soon save a fifth patient as well. They say to keep sending patients.”
“You mean they truly did not use Regeneration?”
“They say low-grade Heal is enough... Ah, the divine power of the healers already there may soon be exhausted, so they request a few priests who can use low-grade Heal.”
Of course I should send them.
The words rose to the archbishop’s throat.
Schun was producing miracles close to Regeneration with low-grade Heal.
There was no reason not to send people.
If he asked who wanted to go, the priests would probably compete for the chance.
He did not have to look far.
The attendant priest reporting to him was already fidgeting anxiously.
“Um, Archbishop...”
“Helmut, go. Learn as much as you can there, then tell me about it as well.”
“Thank you, Archbishop!”
The archbishop watched his excited attendant priest bow and smiled bitterly.
That reaction was only natural.
Divine magic was, in the end, another branch of magic.
Just as Magic Towers and noble houses did, each healing clinic had its own trade secrets.
The results of divine magic changed depending on which symbols, catalysts, nerves, tissues, and principles were used.
Even the treatments in which each denomination specialized differed slightly.
That was why healers trained at those clinics to learn their secrets. In some cases, they even sent spies into rival clinics to steal them.
Some clinics refused to admit outside healers even during emergencies like this.
There was no need to explain just how exclusive they were.
But Director Schun was different.
‘It almost seems as though they want other healers to learn.’
No, it was not a guess. It was certainly true.
Ordinary clinics strictly prohibited healers who left from joining a rival clinic.
But Merkuer Clinic was different.
It did not stop people from coming in, and it did not hold on to those leaving.
Rival clinics had no need to send spies.
If someone wanted to learn, Merkuer Clinic welcomed them with open arms.
Ironically, so many applicants competed to enter that people who wanted to join often could not.
Still, Director Schun’s conduct was on an entirely different level from that of other healers.
‘Hah... Perhaps our priests should watch and reflect on themselves.’
With that thought, the archbishop began selecting priests to send to Merkuer Clinic.
If he had his way, he would have filled the group entirely with his own people.
But that would only insult Director Schun’s noble goodwill.
So the archbishop chose available healers at the site at random and dispatched them evenly.
‘...Ha ha. I want to join them myself, despite my age.’
The archbishop wanted to naturally slip into that group as well.
Part of him wanted to learn many things as a healer.
Another part wanted to witness a miracle as a man of faith.
Naturally, he did not act on that desire.
He had work to do here.
“Helmut. Learn well, then tell me all about it when you return.”
“Yes, Archbishop.”
The archbishop smiled fondly as he watched his attendant priest board the carriage with the excitement of someone being sent to study in the Holy City.
Rattle, rattle.
After sending the priests to D-1 Clinic, the archbishop checked the black-flag patients once more.
Then...
“Director, can you save someone whose lower jaw and a quarter of their head are missing?”
[Is the brain intact?]
“Only the skull appears to be broken. The brain seems intact.”
[It will be difficult, but possible. Please classify head-trauma patients with preserved brains, as well as patients with destroyed lower jaws, as red and send them over.]
“Understood.”
[Ah, make sure they are transported facedown.]
“...Understood.”
The archbishop answered, though he looked hesitant.
A patient with a shattered lower jaw and an exposed brain.
Why was such a patient classified as red?
How did Schun intend to save them?
Countless questions followed one after another.
But the archbishop set them aside.
A genius chosen by God must have some method I do not know about.
Thinking that, the archbishop began sorting patients again.
* * *
After patients who had been classified as black began to be reclassified as red, increasingly unusual cases arrived from the field.
“Male patient in his twenties. Severe craniofacial destruction caused by magical beast claws. Multiple comminuted fractures and defects of the mandible and skull. In particular, there is a large skull defect roughly nine by eleven centimeters in the right parietal and temporal region, with direct brain exposure. The left mandibular ramus and body are comminuted and missing, while the soft tissue inside the mouth is severely torn, exposing the airway.”
This was a head-trauma case.
His lower jaw and skull had been destroyed.
Normally, someone like this should have been classified as black.
But after operating on cases like this with Ayla, I thought we could classify them as red.
“He was anesthetized with cocaine, right?”
“Yes, he has been anesthetized.”
We started the operation immediately.
“Student Joel.”
“I’ll begin the time-out. 12:08. We’ll now begin the operation.”
The first thing I checked was the tongue.
Normally, the tongue was supported by the lower jaw and a bone called the hyoid.
The genioglossus, a muscle attached to the lower jaw, pulled the tongue forward.
All the other muscles pulled it backward.
What would happen if the lower jaw was gone?
‘No matter how hard he tried, his tongue would curl backward.’
With the lower jaw gone, nothing pulled it forward.
Gravity would make the tongue curl backward.
Then it would block his throat and suffocate him.
That was why I had told them to transport him facedown.
So gravity would not make his tongue curl backward.
It changed the direction of gravity to forward from the patient’s perspective.
Of course, that was only a temporary measure.
We needed to resolve the problem first.
“Hold the tongue securely.”
I stitched a loop into the tongue and secured it forward.
Then, so he could breathe even if his tongue curled backward, I made an opening in his neck through a tracheostomy.
I inserted a tube into his neck so he could breathe.
“Now, let’s handle the head.”
What needed to be done to his head was the same as usual.
Crack open the skull.
A craniotomy.
I only had to adapt it slightly.
The broken edges of the skull were sharp enough to pierce the brain, so I smoothed them down.
Then I incised the meninges to relieve the brain swelling.
There was one difference from an ordinary craniotomy.
“Director. There isn’t enough skull or flesh to cover the brain...”
Kou, a healer who had watched countless craniotomies in the past, spoke.
That was right.
This patient lacked enough bone and flesh to cover the brain.
“Should we use divine magic...?”
“There’s no need. Bring me Goldbeater’s skin.”
Goldbeater’s skin.
It was a cloth used by gold leaf artisans.
When they hammered gold leaf for gilding, they placed it over the gold leaf to protect it.
I would cover the head with it.
After the brain swelling subsided, I would replace the skull with iron. For the scalp, I planned to use tissue from the buttocks and thighs.
Transplants were much easier in a world with divine magic.
Snip, snip.
I cut the cloth to fit the brain and attached it.
Then I covered it again with oiled silk so cerebrospinal fluid would not leak out.
“Now, let’s take care of the lower jaw.”
This part was not difficult either.
I only had to work with the leftover Goldbeater’s skin and some wire.
That sounded too simple, so to explain it in a little more detail...
“Student Ayla, Refresh.”
“Yes! Refresh!”
First, we removed the necrotic tissue without hesitation.
Then we washed the area once with holy water.
“One more Refresh.”
“Refresh!”
Next, we covered the wounds with scraps of cloth to keep bacteria from entering.
Finally, I wrapped the wire in a figure-eight pattern to stabilize what remained of the jawbone.
Then I tied the remaining jawbone to the tongue with thread to secure the tongue as well.
That finished this patient’s operation for today.
Tomorrow and the day after, we would reconstruct the lower jaw.
I would have to think about whether to use ribs or a steel jawbone made by dwarves.
Either way, the surgery was complete.
“Please do the sign-out.”
“I’ll do the sign-out. Total operation time: thirty-eight minutes. Time: 12:46.”
Thirty-eight minutes.
Not a bad time.
It was about as much time as could normally be spent on one patient in a Code Black situation.
This was a major operation that would usually require at least an hour.
The neck was full of blood vessels and other structures, so blood poured everywhere.
You could not see anything, which meant spending half the operation just stopping the bleeding.
But with divine magic, we could shorten the operation this much.
‘Of course, the teams did well too.’
I looked around the operating room.
Joel and the other healers, now accustomed to surgery, simply nodded calmly.
The newly arrived healers sent by the archbishop, on the other hand, could not close their mouths.
It was a very satisfying reaction.
‘Good. Watch my surgery and spread it far and wide.’
That would lessen the burden of me having to put on a one-man show.
And it would be even better if they incorporated these surgical methods into divine magic and developed them further.
It would be even better if Director Schun’s name became widely known.
“Shall we move to the next operating room?”
With that thought, I stripped off my surgical clothes.
The shirt beneath them was soaked through with sweat.
“...I’ll change clothes first, then come back down.”
Not only was my shirt drenched, the inside of my crow mask was full of sweat.
I wanted to take off the mask too.
But even in this situation, I could not because of Director Schun’s identity.
‘Should I install an air-conditioning function later?’
Maybe I should enchant it with something like ice magic.
Then I felt warmth behind me.
When I turned around, Ayla was casting Refresh on me.
“...Student Ayla?”
“Um... Director, you looked a little tired, so... I’m sorry if this was a waste of divine power...”
“No, thank you.”
A waste?
She had used Refresh nearly hundreds of times by now.
Yet she still seemed to have divine power to spare.
At this point, it would not be unreasonable to say she possessed divine power comparable to a high-grade healer.
‘Well, by now, I should probably say she has awakened the talent of a saintess.’
More than that, I believed Ayla could rise beyond a high-grade healer and contend for the position of saintess.
So one Refresh was nothing.
If it reduced my fatigue, why not use it freely?
“Are you all right? I worry I’m pushing you too hard.”
“I’m fine, Director.”
“That’s good. I’ll change clothes and return, so you rest for a while too.”
“Yes, Director!”
As the healers and students saw me off, I headed for my office.
* * *
A week passed like that.
For the patients with abdominal injuries, we reconstructed their internal organs and closed their abdomens.
For patients with head injuries, we reconstructed their skulls and lower jaws with ribs.
There were also people whose esophagi had been damaged by caustic poison, people whose lungs had been pierced, people whose hip bones had been smashed, and more.
There had been an incredible variety of patients.
The one who left the strongest impression was the electrocution patient.
‘Wow. This one lived.’
The patient was an A-rank adventurer who had gotten into an all-out brawl with a lightning-spewing magical beast and arrived looking like a whole roast.
Normally, the chances of saving someone like that would have been low enough that we would not treat them.
But most patients had already been treated, so we had room to spare. And the adventurer was a superhuman with high strategic value.
So we took a chance and treated the patient.
A week passed.
‘Divine magic really is the best.’
In the end, the patient survived.
More precisely, I had not saved the patient alone.
I had only provided the initial treatment, and the priests had poured low-grade Heal into the patient every day.
Still, the patient survived.
I had handled the initial treatment incredibly well, so my contribution was by no means small.
‘I’m hitting a career high in another world.’
Even in trauma surgery, saving a high-voltage electrocution patient was difficult enough to make the news.
In my previous life, this probably would have been published in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery.
I could have become a professor right away.
...The more I thought about it, the more unfair it felt.
Of course, it would have been impossible in my previous life.
The patient had survived thanks to divine magic, after all.
And there was another person who deserved credit.
“Kou, you saved this patient.”
“No, Director. I merely followed what you taught me.”
“Even so, I could never manage blood glucose this well.”
Kou, our healer in charge of blood glucose.
Kou had pulled the electrocution patient back from the Jordan River.
When an electrocution patient’s cells were seared throughout the body, a systemic inflammatory response occurred.
As a result, the body continuously secreted cortisol and catecholamines. Blood glucose rapidly rose, and the inflammation worsened further.
Blood glucose control was the most important thing in that situation.
And Kou had accomplished it.
“Please manage that patient until the end, Kou. I need to see the other patients.”
“Understood, Director. You should get some rest now.”
“Yes. Good work.”
It was a shame, but I handed my career-high patient over to Kou.
Soon, that patient would return to daily life like the others.
Once we had kept alive the emergency patients who flooded in during the first few days, the rest was easy.
As long as they were alive, they could be restored with God’s miracle, divine magic.
We only needed to cure them completely in order of Rank and send them back to the battlefield.
That A-rank adventurer was a valuable strategic resource, so they would be among the first to receive high-grade divine magic.
That was why all we needed to do was keep them alive.
‘Should I get some sleep?’
The immediate crisis had passed.
I should be able to sleep deeply tonight.
I headed toward my office, which also served as my on-call room.
When I opened the door, I found Ayla and her friends asleep on the sofa.
‘They really didn’t go home until the end.’
They were truly excellent students.
They had stayed beside me and helped for a week.
They had no obligation to do so, but they contacted home, remained here, and saved patients.
Sometimes their parents even came to the clinic with lunchboxes.
This was why I liked an age where that kind of romantic spirit was still alive.
Then Ayla rubbed her eyes and sat up from the sofa.
“Mmm... Director?”
“Student Ayla. Why are you awake?”
“Ah, um...”
She checked the time.
Then she said,
“It’s time to cast Refresh on the patients...”
“Have you been doing that this whole time?”
I had been in the operating rooms the entire time, so I had not known.
Ayla nodded.
“Yes... I thought it might help... Ah, I should have asked for permission first...”
“No, you did very well.”
In the end, stamina was the most important thing before and after surgery.
A doctor’s skill mattered only during the surgery itself.
What ultimately determined survival was the patient’s stamina.
There was a reason doctors checked whether patients ate properly and exercised before and after surgery.
‘No wonder the survival rate seemed too high, even for a fantasy misunderstanding story.’
Of course it was.
Ayla had been casting Refresh every night.
It felt like I had found another piece of plausibility for a misunderstanding story that I had not known about.
Or was that unrelated to the genre?
Either way.
“Good, Student Ayla. It’s time for rounds anyway. Shall we go together?”
“Yes, Director!”
I began walking beside Ayla.
I made rounds while checking the patients’ details, which the other students had organized.
“Ah, Theodor. How is your abdomen? Are you digesting food well? Your wound hasn’t opened up. You’re recovering well. You know Student Ayla? Ah, she cast Refresh on you every night.”
“So you’re Cordelia’s betrothed. The patient is worried that they will no longer be able to have children? Tell them not to worry. The uterus was preserved, so there will be no problem once recovery is complete. Thanks to Miss Ayla’s help, we did not have to remove the uterus.”
“Casimir, you woke up yesterday, correct? Do you remember where you are? Ah, this student looks familiar? What? She resembles the angel who appeared in your dreams... Is this delirium...?”
I thought the last patient’s condition was a little strange.
Fortunately, it was a misunderstanding.
Casimir had unconsciously remembered Ayla’s nightly visits in the form of dreams.
After finishing my rounds, I took Ayla somewhere other than the office where her friends were.
The conference room.
The name was grand, but it was really just a space where desks and supplies had been thrown together.
“I have a gift for you.”
There, I took out five medals.
One each for Ayla and her four friends.
“These are for honorary healers of our trading company. I would normally like to hold a proper award ceremony, but I do not think we will have the capacity for that for several months.”
“M-Me?”
Ayla pointed at herself, her eyes round.
She looked back and forth between the five medals on the desk and me.
“I... I didn’t really do anything... Compared to the other healers, I only cast Refresh...”
“Hmm, Student Ayla.”
“Yes!”
“Do you remember what I taught you at D-3 Clinic?”
“Small and trivial facts come together to become knowledge...”
“That’s right.”
There was something I had emphasized repeatedly at the time.
The personal information of each individual patient might not be valuable enough to warrant a discount on their treatment fee.
But when those countless pieces of information came together, they became one research result.
And when those research results accumulated, they became knowledge.
Knowledge that could not be replaced even with a thousand gold.
And that same logic led to what I wanted to say now.
“Student Ayla. Why do you think miracles happen?”
“Pardon?”
“People believe miracles happen only when some great being intervenes.”
But I thought differently.
“I don’t. A miracle begins with every small thing.”
“Every small thing...?”
“Yes.”
In trauma surgery, you could witness countless miracles.
From the patient shot in the heart, whose story I keep milking,
to the patient who fell off a motorcycle and had the front half of their body scraped away,
to the patient who fell from a Mount Bukhan hiking trail and broke their neck.
Trauma surgery was a place where patients like those survived at roughly a thirty percent rate, provided they arrived in time.
Every condition that saved those patients was small.
Did the wound become infected?
Was that tiny blood vessel still alive?
Was there a scratch on an internal organ?
Was the patient young?
A patient could die from one tiny hole, or survive because an injury barely missed something vital.
And when all of that came together, a thirty-percent miracle happened.
This time was the same.
“Student, your Refresh may seem trivial to fully qualified healers.”
It only relieved fatigue and stopped tiny bleeds.
But the story changed if it could be used nearly without limit and cast freely.
Refresh gave patients the stamina to wait for surgery.
It shortened surgeries by stopping small bleeds during them.
It provided a basis for deciding which organs to save and which to abandon.
And after surgery, it gave patients the stamina to recover quickly.
“One Refresh may be trivial, but when all of them come together, they become a miracle.”
The devil was in the details, after all.
All those small things came together and created the miracle of patients surviving.
In that sense, Ayla’s contribution to this miracle was by no means small.
“More than anything, the Refresh you cast on me along the way let me endure.”
The reason I had not collapsed for a week was thanks to her.
Having died from overwork once, I knew people could truly die while working.
Overwork did not wait its turn.
“So accept them. You and your friends. You were all a tremendous help.”
“...Thank you, Director.”
Ayla collected the medals for her friends as well.
“And this is a personal gift for you, Student Ayla.”
There was one more.
I handed her the cloak worn by the healers of our trading company.
A white cloak decorated with gold thread.
It was too cumbersome to wear while working, so nobody actually wore one.
But the cloak seemed to hold a different meaning for Ayla.
“...Thank you so much, Director.”
I placed the cloak over her shoulders.
That completed our small private award ceremony.
“I look forward to your future achievements, my disciple.”
“Director... No, Master. I’ll do my best not to tarnish your reputation.”
I gave her shoulder a light pat, and we returned to the office.
A few days later.
While the scent of blood that had flowed through the plaza at the northern gate still rose from the sewers, people dressed in mourning clothes filled the entire imperial capital.
Gloomy newspaper articles lay outside their homes.
Northern Subjugation Expedition of 2,000: Devastating losses confirmed
Rescue team fatalities at least twice those of assault force
Subjugation front beyond the wall shifts to defense for the foreseeable future. Emergency reinforcement of wall garrisons
The appearance of mutant magical beasts was enough to plunge humanity into fear once more.
It was history that had repeated itself for a thousand years.
Whenever humanity adapted somewhat to magical beasts, mutant magical beasts suddenly appeared and brutally crushed all hope.
Heroes, knights, and nobles were slaughtered all at once or suffered permanent disabilities.
Humanity hid passively behind the walls until it recovered from the losses.
Then, when a new generation once again headed outside the walls, they faced magical beasts that had grown stronger over the long years.
Those who had repeated such tragedies over countless years believed this time would be the same.
Until one piece of news arrived.
Roughly 2,000 injured. About 100 deaths. Far below the expected death toll.
Both the imperial family and the military had estimated that the failed expedition would result in 1,200 deaths.
Divine power had limits.
That was why it was naturally concentrated on high-Rank people, strategic resources valuable to humanity.
They believed it could not be helped if some people were abandoned in the process.
Some of the patients who were saved even died of unknown fevers afterward.
As a result, they believed a death rate nearing fifty percent among the injured was the cost of maintaining the front.
But...
Of roughly 2,000 injured, more than 100 returned to the front first in order of Rank.
The number of deaths was astonishingly low.
Not 1,200, but 100.
Low-Rank people had not been sacrificed so divine magic could be concentrated on high-Rank superhumans.
Nor had high-Rank superhumans been sacrificed.
Their return to the front had not been delayed, either.
There was even hopeful news that the wounded and people with permanent disabilities could somehow return one day after receiving divine magic.
It was a miracle.
People immediately began taking interest in the source of that miracle.
And amid that attention, the archbishop made a startling announcement.
“All of this is thanks to the Black Saint and the Saintess of the Lantern.”
A saint and a saintess.
In the dark days of the Empire, all eyes turned toward the two people behind this new miracle.
Author’s Note
Two days in a row, I have been dropping heaping bowlfuls on you.
Footnotes:
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