The First Button

"You're going to put ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠something like that in there?!" The door closed. The surroundings fell silent. A cold light shone down solely on the patient. According to Sora, this space was normally maintained at a level equivalent to a sterile room for the Guild Leader's treatments. In other words, even if I performed major surgery here that involved cutting into flesh, infection control itself wouldn't be a major issue. Of course, it couldn't match the perfection of a formal operating room, but this wasn't the time to nitpick such details. The Baekho Guild's medical staff who had been inside all withdrew. I knew they were all highly skilled. But right now, they were more likely to get in the way. This surgery wasn't a standard hunter trauma procedure, after all.

The equipment from the status window. The hints I'd gained from Professor Na Hayeong. And the surgical strategy I'd built myself. It was a treatment that could only be attempted when those three elements aligned perfectly.

“Scalpel, level up.”

I finally started spending my points. First came the scalpel—the foundation of every surgery. The moment the words left my mouth, a thin blue light rippled across the scalpel that had been summoned into my hand. On the surface, it didn't look much different. Still thin, cold, and razor-sharp. But the sensation against my fingertips had clearly changed.

I can cut it.

Call it a surgeon's instinct. In my previous life, I'd sliced through countless layers of skin. I'd opened fascia, passed through peritoneum to expose organs, and plunged my hands into blood-filled thoracic cavities. The feeling of a blade entering tissue. The resistance of flesh fighting back. A surgeon knows with their fingertips whether the body will yield or push the blade away.

With this scalpel, I could now carve a path even through an S-class hunter's flesh.

That left me with 3 points. Originally, to handle abscesses and infectious necrotic tissue around the spine of this severity, I would have needed to upgrade both an aspirator and forceps. An aspirator to suck out the pooled fluid. Forceps to safely grasp and retract tissue near the nerves. I'd need both.

But I didn't have enough points to raise them both. So I chose another route.

“Purchase the Hunter's Kerrison Rongeur from the shop.”

A new instrument settled into my palm. The Hunter's Kerrison Rongeur. Originally a tool used in spinal surgery. Simply put, rather than slicing through bone or hardened tissue in one go, it was a device that bit away and removed it gradually, like small forceps.

If the scalpel was the blade that opened the path, the Kerrison Rongeur was the equipment that gnawed away at the hardened tissue pressing on the nerves at the end of that path.

And right now, what Guild Leader Han Yura needed was exactly that.

Eight years of continuous infection. Dungeon poison and mana contamination. As a result, the tissues around her spine had hardened, adhered, and in some places transformed into something like infected bone. Cutting that out in one go with a scalpel would damage the nerves along with it. So I couldn't make large incisions. Only exactly what was necessary. Leave the viable tissue and remove only the dead.

That's why I needed the Kerrison Rongeur.

“It's not the standard approach, but this should work for nerve decompression too.”

Again, this wasn't its original purpose. The Kerrison Rongeur was meant for gradually removing bone or hardened tissue during spinal surgery. It could be adapted to detach infection-adhered tissue or clear hardened areas pressing on nerves, but it hadn't been designed to organize a region where abscesses and necrotic tissue were tangled together right beside the spinal nerves.

In other words, misuse wouldn't lead to decompression—it would lead to nerve damage. If my fingertips sank even slightly too deep, the lower-body paralysis would become permanent, and the already faltering bladder function would lose any chance of recovery.

Moreover, even if the surgery succeeded using only the Lv.2 scalpel and Kerrison Rongeur I currently possessed, the answer to whether that alone could fully save Guild Leader Han Yura was no. What ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I could do now was emergency decompression at best—draining the pooled abscess to reduce pressure on the nerves and removing some of the necrotic tissue. If it succeeded, her condition would improve far beyond its current state, but it was still a long way from a complete cure.

If I scored the surgery, it would be 70 points at best. No, if I factored in recovery, it might only be around 50. Old infections would still linger inside the patient's body, and there was no way to guarantee how much the already damaged nerves would recover.

Stabilization around the spine and pelvis would still be needed. Antibiotics would have to be administered. Rehabilitation would be required. In short, this wasn't the final surgery. It was the first surgery that forcibly diverted the flow heading toward death.

Originally, as a doctor, this wasn't a choice I should make lightly.

Yes. If I hadn't had the materials Professor Na Hayeong—no, Teacher Na—had shown me back at Daehan Central University Hospital, this surgery would have been nothing more than unstable emergency first aid.

“I will now begin the surgery.”

The first step was decompression. Normally I would make a minimal incision with the scalpel here, then gradually clear the compressing tissue around the nerves with the Kerrison Rongeur. But that sequence carried its own dangers. If I drove the Kerrison Rongeur in before relieving the internal pressure, the abscess could burst and spread. If the pooled infectious fluid leaked into the surrounding tissues, it could destroy what little function still remained.

If I'd only had the two pieces of equipment currently in my possession, this would have already ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been an ordeal.

What I need to do first isn't scraping—it's extraction.

I had to lower the pressure pushing the tissues outward from inside first. So instead of the Kerrison Rongeur, I brought out something else. It was the hunter-use retrieval artifact used to extract cores from the heart of a dungeon.

The Dungeon Core Discharge Needle.

“At least it looks like medical equipment. That's a relief...”

Outwardly, it resembled a thick, long metal syringe. But it was nothing like an ordinary needle. The tip wasn't pointed like an awl; instead, it featured multiple layers of helical blades that engaged with one another. It looked designed not to simply stab, but to burrow slowly into a hard surface and release internal pressure.

A small transparent tube resembling a pressure gauge was attached to the handle, and inside it, blue mana fluid trembled faintly.

An instrument closer to a discharge valve than an aspirator. Insert it. Secure it. Then slowly draw out the trapped internal pressure without causing it to explode.

“You're going to use something like this in surgery?!”

When she first heard my plan, Professor Na Hayeong had shouted in utter disbelief. It was understandable. She'd gone out of her way to show me hunter surgery records and papers, only for me to ask to borrow dungeon raiding equipment instead of surgical tools. On top of that, I wanted to use the very tool meant for extracting the most critical core inside a dungeon on a dying patient's body. To her, it must have sounded like the ravings of a lunatic.

But I had seen a new possibility within that data.

“A dungeon core is ultimately a nucleus containing compressed mana, right?”

“That's true, but what does that have to do with a patient's body?!”

“It has everything to do with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it.”

Among the hunter surgery records Professor Na had shown me was a case involving a high-concentration mana abscess. Not an ordinary pus pocket, but a pressure lesion formed by the entanglement of dungeon-type contamination and a hunter's own mana.

It generated pressure from within. That pressure pushed surrounding tissues outward. The displaced tissues then hardened even further as a form of self-defense.

In other words, the reason Guild Leader Han Yura's waist and pelvic region had become so impossibly hard wasn't simply because she was an S-class hunter. It was because the mana abscess trapped inside her had been continuously producing pressure.

Therefore, I shouldn't try to open it right away. I had to extract first—the pressure that was hardening her body from the inside.

The Dungeon Core Discharge Needle wasn't originally designed for human bodies. But if it was equipment capable of piercing a dungeon core's tough outer shell and extracting its internal pressure without causing an explosion, there was a chance it could be applied to the mana abscess trapped inside this body.

Of course it was insane. But it wasn't blind insanity. It was calculated insanity, based on a thorough understanding of the pathology.

I carefully positioned the tip of the Dungeon Core Discharge Needle against the area just below Guild Leader Han Yura's waist—the point where the abscess was generating the strongest pressure.

The resistance transmitted through my fingertips was intense. It was hard. Insanely hard. But it felt different from before. Thanks to the incision feedback I'd gained from the scalpel, I could now faintly distinguish between the surface layers and the zone of internal pressure.

“Inserting now.”

Slowly. Extremely slowly. The tip of the discharge needle burrowed into the tissue. It didn't feel like a regular syringe stabbing in. The helical end gradually pushed the mana-hardened tissue aside, carving a path inward.

And then, at a certain moment—

Thud.

The resistance at my fingertips changed. The sensation of passing through a blocked wall and reaching a space filled with accumulated pressure.

I immediately opened the valve on the handle—just a fraction.

Pshuuuu...

A low, viscous sound leaked out. It was different from the sound of blood draining. Different from pus bursting. It was the sound of long-trapped pressure—something mixed with rotten mana and abscess—escaping along the narrow discharge channel.

“...!”

The monitor readings fluctuated slightly. At the same time, I felt the mana hardening that had been crushing Guild Leader Han Yura's waist and pelvis loosen. Just a little. A very, very little.

Success.

The first button of the surgery. The first crack that would turn around the flow marching toward death. That was the moment it clicked into place.