The Patient Who Refused to Stay Down
I wondered how much time had passed. Every surgeon experiences it at least once—the strange distortion of time inside the operating room. It feels like only an hour has gone by, but when you finally look up, half a day has vanished. Or the opposite: your body feels like it's about to collapse from exhaustion, yet only a few dozen minutes have actually passed. When you sink too deeply into a procedure, time loses all meaning. That was exactly what was happening now. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd checked the clock. But one thing was certain—the surgery was nearly over.
“If we handle this part like this…”
Click. The tips of the Kerrison rongeur closed with delicate precision. The final piece of necrotic tissue pressing on the nerve peeled away in tiny increments. I hadn't cut it out in one large piece. Doing so risked damaging the already compressed nerve root. I'd created a path with the scalpel, first drained the pressurized high-concentration mana abscess using the dungeon core discharge needle, then carefully debrided the necrotic tissue. After irrigating the contaminated area, I'd separated it from the toxic fibrotic tissue clinging around the nerve. All that remained now was closure—layer by layer.
Thankfully, the dungeon core discharge needle had let us clear the most dangerous hurdle at the start. By draining the trapped pressure from the mana abscess first, the subsequent decompression with scalpel and rongeur had gone far more smoothly. Of course, that didn't mean her condition was good. How could it be? The patient had essentially been a vegetable, bedridden for eight years. Her muscles were atrophied, her nerves had been compressed for far too long, and her body had burned through an enormous amount of energy just to endure the poison and infection.
Removing the toxin, draining the abscess, completing the decompression—none of that meant she could suddenly sit up and walk around. No, the real treatment was only beginning now. Infection control. Nerve regeneration. Rehabilitation. Nutritional support. Muscle recovery. Only after all of that could she hope to return to daily life.
“Haa… The surgery is complete,” I exhaled deeply. “At the very least, when she opens her eyes, there should be a sufficient chance she'll return to normal daily activities.”
The moment those words left my mouth, the strength nearly drained from my fingers. When I finally came to my senses and checked the recording device, the surgery time read a staggering 58 hours, 21 minutes, and 5 seconds. It was an insane duration. With this body's current limits, it wouldn't have been strange if I'd collapsed on the spot. But if I factored in my previous life… well, I suppose it was actually on the faster side. I gave myself that pathetic consolation and performed one final check on the suture sites.
I hadn't simply closed the skin. I'd sealed everything from the deepest layers outward—fascia, subcutaneous tissue, then skin. I'd left the drainage tube in place and secured an exit route so infection wouldn't build up again. Now all that mattered was keeping the patient completely still. Absolutely still.
I slowly lowered my gloved hands. The surgery was over. That meant there was only one thing left for me to do as a doctor: tell the anxious family waiting outside that she had survived.
I forced my heavy body to turn. And then—
Grab.
“?!”
My heart plummeted. Someone had seized my wrist. No—someone? It was the patient who had been lying on the operating table just moments ago.
“Doctor… sir…”
“Mom?!”
In my shock, a ridiculous sound slipped out.
“Mom, huh… To hear a boy call me Mom… that was actually one of my little wishes…”
Maybe because she'd only just woken up, her words seemed a bit jumbled. But that wasn't what mattered right now. I quickly looked down. Between eyelids that had lifted with obvious effort, a hazy gaze was fixed on me. The eye shape resembled Sora's, but these eyes carried far more depth, an antique dignity, and the weight of true adulthood. One of South Korea's only three S-class hunters—Han Yura. And right now, she was a patient who had just undergone major surgery.
“Patient, close your eyes again,” I said, deliberately making my voice firm. It might have sounded cold, but what she needed now wasn't comfort—it was stability. “Rest is the absolute priority. The surgery is finished, but your body can't handle movement yet. If you move, the suture sites could rupture and bleeding might start again.”
Surgery was an act of repairing the body, but from the body's perspective, it was also massive trauma. Cutting through skin, spreading muscle, removing inflamed tissue, disturbing the area around the nerves, then closing it all again. No matter how necessary the process was to save a life, the body didn't register it purely as healing. It registered it as injury. That was why patients right after major surgery needed strict stabilization in a recovery room or ICU. We had to monitor whether blood pressure dropped, whether bleeding resumed, whether breathing remained stable, whether infection markers spiked, whether neurological symptoms worsened. Especially for someone like Guild Leader Han Yura, the university hospital data clearly stated that this level of patient required several days of intensive observation at minimum. Even if she was an S-class hunter—one of the strongest of the strong—that rule wouldn't change. Just because her recovery rate was monstrous didn't mean her body would be fine immediately after surgery.
“I'm sorry, but… I don't think I can fall back asleep right now…”
“Pardon?”
The hand gripping my wrist tightened ever so slightly. The grip was absurd. It was hard to believe this came from someone who had just undergone major surgery. At the same time, her fingertips were ice-cold—like she wasn't exerting strength so much as desperately scraping together whatever scraps of energy remained.
“Something big… seems to have happened upstairs…”
“Something big, you say?”
“My daughter's presence… has become unstable…”
Guild Leader Han Yura's eyes trembled faintly.
“Sora… is in danger…”
I fell silent. Just opening her eyes was already a miracle, yet she wanted to move? And this was right after I'd drained an abscess around her spine, performed nerve decompression, and scraped away contaminated tissue. Medically speaking, it was complete nonsense. When a patient said something like this, a doctor was supposed to stop them without hesitation.
Don't move.
You need to rest.
You could start bleeding again.
It might worsen the nerve damage.
In the worst case, you could go into shock.
That was the correct response. And yet—
“I'm begging you… Doctor, sir…!”
Guild Leader Han Yura's hand tightened around my wrist even more firmly.
“Please… even if it's only for a short while… let me move…! At this rate… Sora might die…”
“D-die?!”
“Yes… In front of that child… besides the elder… there's something even more ominous than a dungeon monster…”
I clenched my teeth. Part of me wanted to knock her out by force. But there was a problem. Ordinary needles couldn't pierce an S-class hunter's skin. During the surgery, we'd only managed by opening the incision site and using specialized hunter equipment with mana assistance. In other words, safely administering a sedative again in this urgent situation wouldn't be easy. And if what she said was true… if Han Sora was truly in danger, that meant the guardian who should have been waiting right outside the operating room had already gone out.
“Haa…”
It was the worst possible decision for a doctor. But the patient before me wasn't just the Guild Leader of Baekho—she was Han Sora's one and only mother.
“I'm not letting you move. I'm keeping you from dying. Don't misunderstand.”
“…Thank you.”
“It's too early to thank me.”
I moved immediately. First, blood pressure. I checked the IV line and adjusted the vasopressor to the minimum dose. Raising it too much could rupture the sutures. But if it dropped too low, she'd collapse before she even made it out the door. Next, pain. I couldn't erase it completely. If the pain vanished, the patient wouldn't know her body's limits. So I left just enough—a thin veil of discomfort. Enough that she could move, but any overexertion would make her feel it immediately. Finally, the mana circuits. Residual mana still flowed inside Guild Leader Han Yura's body. The circuits that had been crushed by toxin and infection were now reacting, ever so faintly, after the decompression.
I placed the electrode pads not near the suture sites, but in the safer areas around her shoulders and pelvis.
“This isn't nerve stimulation. It isn't recovery. I'm tricking your muscles.”
“Tricking…?”
“I'm making your body temporarily forget that it's still broken. At most, it will last a few minutes.”
I looked straight into her eyes.
“And absolutely do not run. Do not explode your mana. Don't twist at the waist, don't bend your upper body, and don't even think about walking on your own.”
“You have… quite a few demands…”
“Because the patient is making an absolutely insane request.”
I pulled over the nearby support frame. It was less a temporary walking aid and more a metal structure designed to distribute the patient's weight.
“Hold onto this and stand. I'll support you from the side. If even one step looks wrong, I'll lay you down immediately.”
“Sora…”
“I know.”
I spoke quietly.
“That's exactly why you must not push yourself. If you collapse here, you won't be going to save your daughter—you'll simply die in front of her all over again.”
At those words, Guild Leader Han Yura's eyes darkened for a moment. Then she gave a very slow nod.
I checked the monitors one last time. Blood pressure was low but stable. Heart rate was fast but manageable. Oxygen saturation wasn't dropping. Blood loss was still within an acceptable range. The drainage tube was secured. I'd reapplied pressure dressings over the suture sites. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't safe. But it was the best I could do right now.
“All right. But let me say it again—do not push yourself. Understood?”
“I'll… try…”
“Not try. Promise me.”
“…I promise.”
I turned toward the operating room doors. I was doing the worst thing a doctor could do—making a patient get out of bed right after major surgery. If this had been my previous life, I would have screamed at myself for being insane.
“Exactly five minutes. I can't allow anything more than that!”