Chapter 37
Chapter 37
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Possession (4)
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“You lunatic! This isn’t an operating room! It’s not even sterile! You could get an infection and die right now! No, before that, the second you cut into him, your medical license is gone! You hear me?”
Park Se-young practically screamed it like a plea.
Her voice was desperate.
‘Chattering away like a damn bird.’
God’s Scalpel muttered to himself.
The me inside me recoiled in shock at that cold inner monologue.
Is that what a human thinks?
Oh right. That bastard isn’t human.
He’s a ghost.
God’s Scalpel gripped the #10 blade lightly like a pen.
Then he brought the tip of the knife right up to the skin just below the patient’s xiphoid process.
And... he cut.
Swish—
The sound was barely audible.
The blade sliced through the skin without a hint of resistance.
A long, straight incision from the pit of the stomach, curving around the navel to the upper pubis, without a single hesitation.
The skin parted, revealing the subcutaneous fat layer beneath.
“……!”
Everyone who saw it swallowed hard.
He’d crossed the point of no return.
God’s Scalpel tossed the bloodied #10 blade onto the tray like it was trash and picked up the electrocautery.
With that, God’s Scalpel pressed on relentlessly, searing the spurting small vessels as he delved deeper.
When the tough fascia appeared, he picked up the scalpel again and sliced a long line straight down its center.
Finally, the peritoneum.
Beyond the thin, transparent membrane, silhouettes of organs writhed in pools of bloody fluid.
God’s Scalpel carefully nicked the peritoneum with the scalpel tip, creating a small hole.
Dark red blood erupted from that tiny opening, unable to withstand the pent-up pressure.
But God’s Scalpel didn’t stop.
He used Metzenbaum scissors to rapidly extend the peritoneal incision to both sides.
At last, the gates of hell swung open.
The patient’s abdominal cavity was already filled with a massive pool of blood.
Bright red arterial blood mixed with dark venous blood, making the organs float in it like unidentified islands.
“Ah….”
Nam Joo-hyun let out a short groan at the horrific sight.
The temporary master of my body didn’t so much as blink at the infernal scene.
God’s Scalpel grabbed a large suction tip with one hand and jammed it into the blood.
With a roar, the suction started gobbling up the blood.
With his other hand, he jerked his chin toward Nam Joo-hyun, who was staring dumbfounded at the spectacle.
“Hey, assist me.”
“Retractor. That one over there. Grab it and pull.”
Nam Joo-hyun picked up the abdominal retractor he pointed to, as if entranced.
With the view secured, God’s Scalpel wasted no time grabbing a sterile gauze pad.
One, two, three, four.
He stuffed pads into the four quadrants of the patient’s abdomen with insane speed and expert precision.
His movements were artistry itself.
He slipped them precisely into the narrow gaps between organs, packing the spots where bleeding was likely. It all happened in the blink of an eye.
Moments later, the flooding blood in the abdomen visibly slowed.
God’s Scalpel first carefully removed the pad from the right upper quadrant, where the liver sat.
No fresh blood welled up.
Not the liver.
Next, the left upper quadrant.
The spleen.
The instant he pulled the pad blocking that area—
Whoosh—a clear jet of arterial blood sprayed up like a fountain again.
Found it.
God’s Scalpel grimaced and repacked the spot with fresh gauze.
Then he plunged his left hand deep into the abdomen and began palpating around the spleen.
I shuddered at the alien sensations transmitted through my fingertips.
A spleen completely shattered.
God’s Scalpel quietly withdrew his hand. Then he clicked his tongue softly.
“Tch. Gotta take it.”
At those words, Yoo Sung-hoon and Park Se-young went pale as ghosts.
Splenectomy.
Here?
In this resuscitation bay?
By that madman?
God’s Scalpel sensed their terrified stares and turned his head irritably.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that? Even I’m not crazy enough to resect a spleen here.”
He pressed the bleeding site hard with fresh pads and continued.
“Just gotta hold him till we get to the OR. Tie off the splenic artery and vein, pack everything around it, control the bleed.”
The me inside me couldn’t take it anymore.
My license was a secondary issue.
Right now, I had a far more fundamental problem.
‘Use respect, damn it! Respect!!!! Respect!!!!!!’
That crazy ghost bastard was barking half-assed informal speech at a fellow and a fourth-year senior!
My hospital life was about to shatter first!
***
The resuscitation bay fell silent.
The temporary master of my body, God’s Scalpel, stared motionless at the patient’s blood-soaked abdomen.
That silence was broken by urgent footsteps from outside the bay.
The automatic doors slid open, and a group in scrubs burst in.
The trauma surgery team.
Leading them was a middle-aged man whose sheer presence dominated the air around him.
Professor Kang Hyun-jun of our hospital’s trauma surgery department.
Professor Kang Hyun-jun stopped dead at the sight before him.
“...”
The trauma fellow, surgical residents, and dedicated nurse trailing him gaped at the hellish scene.
The resuscitation bay reeked of blood.
The patient’s abdomen lay wide open.
And a first-year resident.
Professor Kang’s brow twitched.
“...What the hell is this?”
My body’s temporary master showed no sign of agitation at the chilling question.
God’s Scalpel glanced at Professor Kang and replied indifferently.
“Oh, packing.”
Without even looking away from the patient’s abdomen, he mechanically began the briefing.
“54-year-old male, penetrating abdominal trauma causing hypovolemic shock. Blood pressure bottomed out in the 50s. Confirmed massive intra-abdominal bleeding, so damage control laparotomy performed emergently. Spleen rupture Grade 4 confirmed. Packed around the splenic hilum to control bleeding for now. Vitals stabilized temporarily—need to get him to the OR fast and take the spleen.”
The briefing was flawless.
Concise, precise, even including the next steps in treatment.
But the content didn’t matter.
Professor Kang’s face hardened more and more.
“No... I mean...”
The professor stammered.
“You cut him? Here? In the emergency room?”
His voice held pure confusion, like ‘What am I seeing and hearing right now?’
At that moment, the master of my body looked up.
And from those lips came a single phrase that would shake my entire medical career.
“It’s not ‘Did you cut him?’—it’s ‘Get him to the OR now!’”
Silence.
Professor Kang’s eyes widened slightly.
Park Se-young and Yoo Sung-hoon went deathly white.
You crazy ghost bastard!!!!!!!!!!!
My soul screamed.
That’s the trauma surgery professor! A living god in this hospital’s trauma division, not some lowlife ghost like you, you social-skill-dead lunatic ghost!!!!!
My medical career! My reputation! Everything! Shattering because of your fucking mouth right now!!!!
Professor Kang stared at God’s Scalpel, who was borrowing my body, for a long moment without a word.
The professor pondered briefly, then shook his head with a deep sigh.
His eyes held a resignation like ‘I don’t know. Save the patient first.’
“...Take him up now.”
Professor Kang nodded to his team.
“Prep for transport.”
Time, frozen until then, began to flow again at his command.
The surgical team and ER staff bustled about, moving the patient to the transport bed, sorting monitors and IV lines amid the chaos.
At the center of it all, Professor Kang still hadn’t taken his eyes off me.
That gaze was still filled with ‘What the hell is this guy?’
Finally, the patient was loaded into the elevator headed for the OR.
Just before stepping in, Professor Kang paused and muttered under his breath.
“There’s no professor like that in emergency medicine...?”
Hearing that mutter, I wept blood tears and wailed inwardly.
‘Because I’m not a professor, fuck... I’m just a screwed first-year.’
***
The elevator doors closed.
God’s Scalpel was gone.
I finally regained control of my body.
‘...I wanna go home.’
That single thought dominated my mind.
At the station, the seniors were gravely discussing what just happened, but none of it reached my ears.
I needed to sit in a chair, at least for a bit.
Otherwise, I’d collapse right there.
I staggered toward the nearest chair.
That very instant.
The muscles in my right calf twisted violently.
“Ugh...!”
A cramp?
The sudden spasm drew a short groan from me before I knew it.
The cramp started in my calf and spread like a plague in seconds. Thigh, back, shoulder, arms, fingers, toes.
Every muscle in my body screamed, contracting and twisting wildly on their own.
Warning lights blared in my head.
I’d forgotten.
The last line of the skill description.
Severe full-body muscle pain for 12 hours.
I’d underestimated what “severe” really meant.
“Guh...”
I couldn’t even scream properly.
My legs gave out.
With a dull thud, my body crumpled to the cold ER floor.
“H-Hyun-jae!!”
Yoo Sung-hoon’s shocked voice echoed from far away.
Footsteps rushed toward me.
But I saw nothing. My vision had gone black.
“Guhk...”
Curled up like a shrimp on the floor, I barely gasped amid the agony.
Then I passed out.
In the abyss of hellish pain, the thread of consciousness snapped.
…
…