Chapter 34
Chapter 34
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Possession (1)
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I left the consultation room, leaving the patient's mother’s thanks behind me.
It felt like every last drop of energy had been drained from my body.
On the way back to the station, I leaned against the corridor wall and closed my eyes for a moment.
My head was spinning.
My brain felt like it was about to burn out from overload.
‘Yeah, after all this chaos… at least check the rewards.’
The one and only reward given to me in this hellish life.
My sole measure of growth.
I barely clung to my tattered mind and opened the blue interface in my head.
I’d racked up a good amount from the myocardial infarction case, and the intubation just now had gone perfectly…
At least a few hundred points, right?
Half hopeful, half resigned, I tapped the shop icon to check my balance.
The moment the number appeared on the screen, my brain froze.
[Owned LP: 5,021]
…
..?
I blinked.
Did I see that wrong?
Was I hallucinating from exhaustion?
I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
The number hadn’t changed. It glowed sharp and clear.
Five thousand twenty-one.
“…I’ve got the full 5,000?”
Thank God no one was around.
I’d almost looked like a lunatic talking to myself in midair.
Or maybe I already did.
“When the hell did I rack up this much?”
My head filled with confusion.
What had I even done?
The tonsillar hemorrhage patient just now—intubating right before airway closure saved her. That must’ve been a big one.
Plus all the pocket change from playing human update patch on smaller cases piling up…
“Let’s check the shop.”
I opened the shop list.
Scrolled all the way down.
There it was—the overwhelming aura that dwarfed every other item. The final destination of all my suffering.
[Possession]
[Price: 5,000 LP]
I hit purchase.
A warning popped up in the center of my vision.
[Purchase Possession skill? Price: 5,000 LP. Cannot be undone after purchase.]
[Y / N]
Y or N.
Y. Obviously Y.
[Acquired new skill: Possession!]
[To use the skill, designate a possession target.]
God's Scalpel (Trauma Surgery/Thoracic Surgery / Specialties: Abdomen, Chest, Vessels, Trauma)
Cardiology Ghost (Circulatory Internal Medicine / Specialties: ECG, Echocardiography, Interventions)
Anesthesiology Pain Medicine (Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine / Specialties: Airway Management, Pain Control, Critical Care)
Latte is Horsecrap (Gastroenterology / Specialties: Endoscopy, GI Disorders)
Hippocrates' Heir (Infectious Diseases? / Specialties: Unclear. Miscellaneous.)
Bone Freak 88 (Orthopedics / Specialties: Fractures, Bone Marrow Diseases, Sports Medicine)
…
“…Jackpot.”
Standing alone in the empty corridor, I stared at the list unfolding before my eyes and shivered.
This was my new weapon.
Ghosts from every obscure specialty.
No patient could scare me now.
Traffic accident with ruptured organs? Call in God's Scalpel.
Worst-case airway like just now? Let Anesthesiology Pain Medicine descend into my body.
Hands are trash? Skills are trash?
Doesn’t matter.
These hands aren’t mine anymore!
Muahaha.
I slowly scrolled through the list.
Burning each name and specialty into my brain.
Hippocrates' Heir’s specialties being ‘Unclear. Miscellaneous’ felt a bit iffy, but whatever. Joker role, probably.
Clutching my swelling chest, I closed the skill window.
I wasn’t a half-baked doctor anymore.
I was…
‘Oh right. The penalty.’
The last line of the skill description flashed in my mind.
‘After use, suffer extreme full-body muscle pain for 12 hours.’
The boiling excitement cooled instantly.
Yeah, no such thing as a free lunch.
This wasn’t me getting stronger.
Just handing me a powerful weapon.
Like a one-shot bazooka in a game.
I stared into space.
God's Scalpel, Cardiology Ghost, Anesthesiology Pain Medicine… names alone made them reliable—no, just thinking about them spiked my blood pressure. That legion of mad ghosts.
‘Will I ever actually need to use this?’
Dizzying thought.
One of those lunatics entering my body?
Terrifying.
But at the same time, a strange sense of security I’d never felt before.
Like having a last bastion, an emergency escape hatch.
…Come to think of it, shouldn’t I tell these guys about it?
Sure, it’s my skill, bought with my points, so I can use it however.
But suddenly going ‘Hey, possessed now’ and yanking a ghost from the afterlife without warning? How bewildered would they be?
Basic courtesy—no, basic notification—is the least I owe as leader of this insane study group.
This is manners. Not because I’m curious about their reactions or dying to brag about my cheat skill.
Of course not.
Rationalizing it to myself like that, I familiarly opened the blue interface.
Title: Hey, wanna spectate real life?
Author: HellJoseonSlave1
Bought a skill called Possession. Don’t wanna freak you out if you suddenly get possessed. So here’s the heads-up.
A brief silence.
Then the gallery exploded way harder than I expected.
Anon (210.94): ?? What kinda bullshit is this?
First comment: short and punchy.
Latte is Horsecrap: ????? Possession? You kidding? You a shaman now?
Surgery Room Ghost 3: This dude finally lost it lmao Overwork wrecks brains like this folks lmao
Bone Freak 88: Possession? Me? Possible? For real? Wait what even is this?
Anesthesiology Pain Medicine: Sleep it off if you’re tired. Stop babbling.
I sighed and posted a clarifying reply.
└ HellJoseonSlave1: No, not you guys—there’s this shop only I can see. I earn LP points and buy skills from it. So if you suddenly wake up in my body, don’t panic. That’s what I’m saying, you idiots.
The gallery’s vibe shifted subtly at my details.
└ Anesthesiology Pain Medicine: What’s this shop? That thing you asked about last time when you posted?
└ HellJoseonSlave1: Yeah that one. Shop’s visible to me, told ya.
└ Latte is Horsecrap: ? It was real? Not a joke?
The mockery cleared, replaced by intellectual curiosity and confusion.
Hippocrates' Heir: A system of trials and rewards permitted only to the living! LP? A quantification of medical achievements? Most intriguing!
God's Scalpel: Hold up. Let’s sort this. You get LP for saving patients or nailing tough diagnoses, spend it on shop items. And we’re on that list?
As expected of God's Scalpel.
That guy grasped situations lightning-fast.
Anon (118.235): Holy shit. So we’re items now?
Hematoma Hell: Bullshit. Why would I be an item? You buying me like a card?
Cardiology Ghost: I see. A privilege of the living.
The ghosts huddled up, debating the essence of this bizarre system.
Latte is Horsecrap: Dead just a year and already listed in some blood-clot rookie’s skill menu. World’s fucked.
Surgery Room Ghost 3: But this is kinda badass, right? We can actually enter the guy’s body and operate! Grab a scalpel again? Scope? Laparoscope? I’m getting hyped.
└ HellJoseonSlave1: Try laparoscopy in my body and disciplinary committee’s waiting.
Bone Freak 88: How much for my possession? Points needed for me? Talents like mine gotta cost a fortune. Right?
I watched the ghosts’ debate like I was munching popcorn.
Complainers, hype men, price-checkers.
Varied reactions, but converging on one conclusion.
The ghosts were accepting it.
Hippocrates' Heir: All is clear. O living one, you are the sole vessel to manifest we dead ones’ knowledge and experience in this world. Possession is the ultimate form of that agency. Very well. Accepted.
God's Scalpel: My eyes were rotting watching those trash hands. Better this way.
And so the ghosts swallowed the fact that they’d become my skills under the banner of ‘living privilege.’
Some grumbled, but most seemed to enjoy it.
I quietly closed the gallery as the noisy debate wrapped.
My head was a mess. Felt like gaining solid allies, or loading up on unpredictable time bombs.
Staring at the ceiling, I muttered softly.
“Still, I probably won’t need the Possession skill much.”
This was my last resort.
How many times in my doctor life would I need that last resort?