I Was One Point Short
Since I’m a doctor, it only made sense that I’d overlooked it until now. Back when I first awakened as a Hunter Trauma Surgeon through the status window, there had been a tiny number beside the skill tab. [Lv.1.] At the time I hadn’t paid it any mind. The scalpel went in cleanly, the chest tube seated perfectly, and I could grip with forceps and close with sutures without issue. Even against a B-class hunter’s reinforced body, the surgery had somehow succeeded. So I’d naturally assumed, Ah, this must be enough.
Skill Level Up
Job equipment can be enhanced by consuming skill points.
Lv.1 → Lv.2 Required Points: 2P
Lv.2 → Lv.3 Required Points: 5P
Current Skill Points: 5P
A hollow laugh slipped out. Five points. It looked like a decent amount at first glance. In practice, it was anything but. Raising a single Lv.1 tool to Lv.2 ate two points. Even if I dumped every point I had, I could only upgrade two instruments.
The real problem was that Guild Leader Han Yura’s condition couldn’t be fixed with such half-measures. I would need to open an S-class hunter’s reinforced tissue, drain the abscess pooled around her spine, debride the necrotic areas, and relieve the compressed nerves. At minimum, the scalpel, suction device, and forceps all had to reach Lv.2.
But.
“I’m short by one point?”
Just one point. Yet in an operating room, the word “just” has no place. Without a proper scalpel I couldn’t reach the surgical field. Without adequate suction I couldn’t clear the pus. Without reliable forceps I couldn’t safely retract the tissue around the nerves. Miss even one, and it stopped being surgery. It became a gamble.
And I was not a doctor who opened patients on a bet.
The conclusion was brutally simple: with my current self, I could not save her.
“…I’m sorry.”
I kept my mouth shut for a long moment before the words finally came.
“It seems this is beyond my ability.”
Only after I spoke did the realization hit me. It had been a long time. Perhaps the first time ever. Admitting out loud, with my own mouth, that I could not treat this patient with my own skill.
Even pulling in every memory from my previous life, after countless hours in operating theaters surrounded by the smell of blood and disinfectant, I was withdrawing before a patient for the first time.
What returned was not resentment.
“…No, it’s all right.”
Han Sora lowered her head instead.
“I was the one who barged in uninvited. Thank you for examining her at all, Jihoo.”
She was smiling. Her lips trembled. The corners of her eyes shook as though they might crumble at any second. Yet she kept that smile on her face and thanked me to the end.
It was far more terrible than anger would have been. If she had shouted at me to try anyway, accused me of giving up after dragging her all this way, I could have closed my heart behind that rudeness. But Han Sora did none of those things. The unauthorized entry, the background check, forcing me to come here—she treated every one of her own actions as unforgivable and carefully escorted me out as though I were the one who had been wronged.
Three days passed like that.
The final day of the special observation program at Daehan Central University Hospital. If I could simply survive today, I would advance to second year next semester. I could attend classes, graduate step by step, obtain my license, and someday open a quiet little clinic in the countryside. I could check blood pressure for the elderly, prescribe cold medicine, and live a peaceful life.
No dying from overwork in a trauma center like my previous existence. No reopening the bellies of hunters who returned half-dead from dungeons. No clenching my teeth in helpless fury while staring at an S-class hunter’s rotting spine. A normal, safe remaining life. Just imagining it brought peace.
That was the future I should have been dreaming of.
“Teacher Na Hayeong. Do you have a moment?”
“Wha—huh?! Jihoo came to me first…?”
Inside the office of the Hunter Trauma Center at Daehan Central University Hospital.
“I’d like to ask a favor.”
“A f-favor?! From me?! Anything! The OR? The lab? Official recruitment to the Hunter Trauma Center? Or career counseling with marriage in mind?!”
“Could I view some hunter-related surgical records?”
“…Huh?”
Na Hayeong’s expression froze. I looked her straight in the eye.
“Infection status of high-rank hunters. Dungeon-type contamination. Chronic abscesses. Surgical records involving the spine. If possible, cases with nerve compression or osteomyelitis as well.”
The playful excitement drained from her face. Her eyes changed. Those were the eyes of the youngest Hunter Trauma Specialist in the country—the Golden Scalpel of the center.
“Jihoo.”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand what you’re asking right now?”
Her voice had dropped low.
“University hospital surgical records aren’t simple study material. Especially not hunter-related ones.”
She crossed her arms and stared at me.
“High-rank hunter surgical records contain their weaknesses in plain sight. Where they tore, which organs are vulnerable, where their mana circuits snapped, how long recovery took. Even the exact manner in which their bodies open under a blade. It’s medical data, yes, but it’s also military intelligence. To a guild it’s a power analysis chart. To a hospital it’s the accumulated surgical know-how of years.”
She wasn’t wrong. Even ordinary patient records couldn’t be viewed casually. For hunters—each one a national asset beyond any guild—the stakes were higher. Bodies of B-class or above were practically strategic resources. An outsider reading them could be stealing hospital techniques or exposing guild vulnerabilities.
But.
A patient who could neither die nor heal, slowly rotting from the inside. After seeing that body, I could not simply return to classes, think about graduation, or smile while dreaming of work-life balance. Because I was a surgeon who had lived by ripping open bodies to save lives.
I had seen the patient. I had seen the wound. I had seen exactly where death was crawling upward. And I had done nothing.
That sensation had lodged in my throat for three full days. Meals tasted like sand. When I lay down, the abscess around Han Yura’s waist and pelvis floated before my eyes. If I could pretend not to notice that, then I was no longer a doctor.
The people who had opened hunters’ bodies. The physicians who had treated dungeon-type contamination. The records of those who refused to give up in front of mana abscesses and infectious osteomyelitis. Somewhere in that mountain of failure and success there might be a single hint.
Thud.
I dropped to my knees right there.
“The hunter-related surgical records.”
“H-huh?!”
“I must… I absolutely must see them.”
I bowed my head. Pride meant nothing. On the surface they looked human, but their bodies were fundamentally different. As rank rose, skin and muscle hardened, mana circuits grew labyrinthine, and surgery drifted further from ordinary medical common sense. Hunter medicine must have forged its own path—cutting, spreading, piercing, blocking, sometimes taking entirely different detours to open bodies that refused to open.
What I needed was that knowledge. My past-life surgical experience was not enough. The tools from the status window were not enough. My current self required the accumulated failures and triumphs of this world’s hunter medicine.
Of course, even kneeling like this the odds were slim. The Hunter Trauma Center’s records were off-limits even to most internal staff. A first-year medical student in a special observation program had no right to view them.
But the only person who could help me now was her.
Always refusing to become my assistant, yet here I am on my knees the moment I need something. Even I could see how shameless it was. I was ready to be cursed at. Ready to be thrown out. It didn’t matter.
As a doctor. As a surgeon who saves lives. I had already turned away from a dying patient once. That was enough.
So even if I had to beg like a dog, I would do it to catch even a glimpse of those records.
But.
“Jihoo. One thing, though.”
The voice that answered was unexpectedly gentle.
“I’ve been wondering for a while. Why do you call me Na Hayeong?”
“Pardon?”
Na Hayeong’s fox ears perked up.
“Don’t medical students usually say ‘Teacher’?”
“……”
For a second I was speechless. Is that really what we’re focusing on right now? The words rose in my throat but I swallowed them.
Na Hayeong circled behind me, then lifted me as easily as if I were a child and set me down in a chair.
“Kneeling is unnecessary. Sit.”
“Ah, yes…”
“And fix the title while you’re at it.”
“The title?”
“Not Na Hayeong. Teacher Na. In official settings you must call me that.”
“…Now that you mention it, that’s correct.”
Come to think of it, ordinary medical students did address hospital physicians that way. Teacher Na. Teacher Kim. Professor Park. In my previous life I had always been on the receiving end. Juniors called me teacher, nurses called me teacher, even seniors with more experience greeted me respectfully as teacher.
So that was why. I hadn’t expected to feel the reality of starting over as a novice medical student from something as small as a title.
“I’m sorry. I was rude.”
“Goodness. Even if our ages aren’t that far apart, still. In private maybe, but normally you should call me Teacher Na!”
“Yes, understood. Teacher Na Hayeong.”
“Too long. Teacher Na.”
“Yes. Teacher Na.”
At that, Teacher Na shrugged with a strangely satisfied expression. It reminded me of my past-life juniors who, upon gaining their first assistant, suddenly wanted to play the senior. A small smile escaped me.
But the light mood didn’t last.
“So.”
Teacher Na’s voice dropped again.
“Why do you suddenly need hunter-related records?”
It was a question that struck the heart of the matter. I closed my mouth for a moment. I could not reveal Guild Leader Han Yura’s condition. That was a top secret the Baekho Guild had concealed. Above all, disclosing a patient’s status to someone the patient had not permitted was something a doctor must never do. Even an unlicensed medical student could not cross that line.
After a brief hesitation, there was only one thing I could say.
“Because there is a patient I must save.”
“…!”
Teacher Na’s eyes widened a fraction. I lifted my head.
“I cannot tell you the patient’s name, affiliation, or condition. That is not within my right to disclose.”
“……”
“But I must save them.”
I clenched my fist until it hurt.
“Without fail.”
I am a doctor. A doctor is someone who must do everything possible for the patient.