Two days later.

The worst stigma of my life turned out to be far more persistent and stubborn than I expected.

Over just two days, the primitive nickname of “the guy who pulled a patient’s tooth” evolved into all kinds of bizarre and humiliating variations.

I got called a dentist, a guy who secretly wanted to go to dental school, and even Louis XIV’s personal physician.

F*ck.

Still, I had to go to work.

A wage slave bound by the shackles of a paycheck has no such thing as choice.
With empty eyes, I got dressed and boarded the bus.

Should I buy a car soon or something.

Ah right, I don’t have a license.

This shtty world and that shtty road traffic authority.

6:58 p.m.
A perfect time to go to work.

In two minutes, the night shift would officially begin.

Two minutes, short if you say it’s short, long if you say it’s… no, it’s definitely not long.
Yeah.

The automatic doors of the emergency room opened.
The familiar smell of disinfectant, unidentified screams, and the dead fish eyes of sleep-deprived medical staff.
Everything was perfectly, painfully normal.
I erased my presence as much as possible and headed toward the resident office.

Ah, another peaceful start to a night shift.
I wonder how many cases will mess with me today.

I forced myself to act cheerful, making a joke in my head that wasn’t funny at all, and set my bag down.
That was the moment.

“Oh~”

A voice I knew all too well came from behind me.

“Did Tooth-Extraction Man arrive?”

Chief resident, fourth-year Lee Minjae.

With his signature irritating smile, Lee Minjae slung an arm over my shoulder.

“So what are you pulling out today?
A patient’s kidney?
Or their gallbladder?
Once Han Hyunjae gets his hands on you, every organ gets harvested.
Hahaha!”

Is that funny.
Is that supposed to be funny.

I hid my decaying expression and gave an awkward laugh.
If I got serious here, I’d just earn another sh*tty title of “the first-year who can’t read the room.”

I don’t want to be a voluntary loner.
I have to survive by sucking up as much as possible.

Ignoring Lee Minjae, I sat down at a station computer and turned my gaze to the monitor.

[Adult Emergency Room Bed Status]
[23 / 33]

Wow, f*ck.

What a disaster right from the start.

Out of 33 beds, 23 were already occupied.
The previous shift hadn’t even clocked out yet.
This meant that if even a few more patients showed up tonight, we’d be treating people on temporary beds in the hallway.

As I sighed while checking the emergency status board, fourth-year Lee Minjae came up beside me.

“Han Hyunjae, come here.”

He seated me in front of the computer.

“From now on, we’re going to edit the emergency status message exactly as I say.
This is important, so don’t get a single word wrong.”

“Yes, doctor.”

“Alright, follow along slowly.”

His voice was low and serious.

“First, delete the message saying ENT night emergency care is unavailable.”

My fingers hesitated over the keyboard.

“What?
All of a sudden?”

“ENT changed something recently.
Duty roster, staffing, who knows.
Anyway, they’re very positive about taking night calls now.
For us, that’s a thank you very much.”

ENT was back on night duty.
I could practically hear the difficulty of my night shift skyrocketing.

I hurriedly accessed the emergency status board and started editing the message.

[ENT: 24-hour emergency care available]

The next order came immediately.

“And change hematology-oncology to accept emergency cases only for our hospital’s follow-up patients.”

“Yes, yes!”

[Hematology-Oncology: Emergency care available only for in-house follow-up patients]

Tap tap tap.

“Pediatric pulmonology isn’t available due to lack of staff, so write that.”

“Yes, yes!”

They say it’s a low birthrate era, but pediatricians are disappearing first.
Tonight, I could already picture myself arguing with parents as I sent wheezing babies to other hospitals.

[Pediatrics: Pediatric pulmonology unavailable (no attending physician)]

“And ophthalmology can’t accept any cases at all.”

“Yes.”

I replied soullessly while typing.
So the rumors were true.
Ophthalmology duty was completely wrecked.
Now every patient coming in with something in their eye or eye pain would have to be turned away by us.

[Ophthalmology: Emergency care unavailable]

All edits were complete.

Lee Minjae scanned the screen once and nodded in satisfaction.

“That’ll do.
Good work.”

At least the start was peaceful.

The bed status board still proudly displayed the sh*tty number 23/33, but there were no critically ill patients who needed immediate attention.

Most patients were stable, waiting for test results, or in the process of being admitted.

I sat in a corner of the station.

If only nothing happened until the end of my shift.

Ring ring ring—

The phone started ringing.

Without thinking, I picked up the receiver.

“Yes, this is the emergency room.”

“Uh… I’ve had athlete’s foot really bad for three days now….”

On the other end of the line was a man’s very serious, very desperate voice.

“…”

I was momentarily speechless.

Athlete’s foot.
Calling the emergency room because your athlete’s foot is bad.
Is this guy for real.

This was on the same level as, ‘Hello, is this 911?
I got bitten by a mosquito.’

“This is the emergency room.”

In a voice as cold as an AI, I expressed my refusal and hung up before he could say anything else.

Click.

Yeah.
So peaceful.
F*ck.

Less than a minute after I started staring blankly into space again.

Ring ring ring ring—

The phone rang again.
I didn’t want to answer.
But I couldn’t ignore it either, so with a deep sigh, I picked up again.

“Yes, this is the emergency room.”

“Hey!
This is bad!
My friend was messing around and shoved a grape jelly candy into my nostril, and now it won’t come out!
I can breathe though!”

On the other end, a young man’s frantic voice was on the verge of tears.
Behind it, I could faintly hear his idiot friend laughing and saying, “Hey, sorry!
Hahaha!”

Grape jelly.
Nostril.

I pressed my temples hard.
Looks like the new ENT professor would have something to enjoy already.

This was an emergency.
A foreign body blocking the airway counts.

I answered in the most businesslike voice possible.

“…Just come in.
But the wait will be very long.”

That wasn’t a lie.
There were already more than twenty patients waiting.
That grape jelly wouldn’t be coming out until we saw all of them.
Hopefully it didn’t melt into nasal discharge by then.

I hung up and looked at the ceiling.
God, Buddha, Allah.

Why are you giving me these trials.

My prayer went unanswered.
Instead, God sent a third call.

Ring ring ring—

What kind of idiot this time.
Completely resigned, I picked up the receiver.

“I’d like to get an IV vitamin shot to cure my hangover.
Can the emergency room prescribe that?”

This time, it was a very polite and calm middle-aged man’s voice.
But the content was anything but polite.

I didn’t even feel like it deserved a response.

“…This is the emergency room.”

Click.

I put the receiver down and sank deep into my chair.

Why are there so many phone-call villains today.

Shaking my head, I once again reflected deeply on this insane world.

‘If I keep rolling around like this, does anything even remain.’

With a hollow laugh, I suddenly remembered my one and only reward system.

Haah… I should check how many points I’ve got.

I opened the gallery window out of habit.

Considering what I’d done, there should be quite a lot.
That myocardial infarction case was big.
Maybe around 800 LP?

I looked at the [Owned LP] section.
And doubted my eyes.

[1,522 LP]

…Huh?
Oh?

I was happier than if fifteen million won had appeared in my bank account.
No, maybe not that much.
Anyway, I was f*cking happy.

What did I even do again?

I retraced the memories of the past few days.
In my head, the faces of the patients I dealt with flashed by like a panorama.

Oh right, the myocardial infarction…

That man who complained of a sore throat.
A ticking time bomb with inferior wall infarction and right ventricular infarction, who I almost sent home with cold medicine.
That probably made up most of the points.

Seaweed Man…

The guy who ate a whole bag of dried seaweed like snacks and turned the ER upside down.
I panicked thinking it was a bowel obstruction, then handed him off to gastroenterology.
Still, it counted as medical care.
I learned that even ridiculous cases earn points.

Fire Chicken Man…

The lunatic who tried to self-harm with capsaicin.
What did I do for him again?
Ah, right, I couldn’t even place an IV properly and handed it off to the nurse.
But I did order fluids, gave pain meds, and kindly showed him where the bathroom was.
Looks like the system is pretty generous.

Staring at the number 1,522, I fell into a brief but happy dilemma.
What should I do with it?
Chug a fatigue recovery potion or something?

No.

Here’s my plan.

First, I need to save up 5,000 LP.

[Possession]
Cost: 5,000 LP
Description: For 30 minutes, a selected gallery user can either possess your body or float beside you, giving real-time guidance.

An overpowered skill.

You never know.
There might come a time when I desperately need technique, when things are truly critical, and my hands are completely useless.

I’m still only half a doctor.
I can borrow brains, but I can’t borrow hands.

Even just 30 minutes would be an enormous amount of time for both me and the patient.

5,000 LP is not an expensive price to pay for that.

Until that day.

I’ll just have to work hard.

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