Chapter 17 - The Doctor #3
The Doctor #3
Translator : Elizabeth
Gazes piercing into me in an instant.
My body stiffens thud thud repeatedly due to tangled thoughts in a mess.
"Hic."
Anomalies are Anomalies, but enduring receiving gazes at one point in such a nonsensical scale of space was something impossible to bear.
Aaaaaah... Head is spinning round and round.
I want to go back, Director, Director...
It was a moment when the comfort inside the warm bed of the Daycare that embraced my body warmly was missed so much.
"Oh my! Our new nurse seems very surprised. Did everyone cheer too fervently, hahaha."
Stop.
However, like a lie, the actions of the Anomalies sending cheers and applause to me stop.
Silence settled once again in the cavity filled with noisy clamor.
"...."
Center of the cavity.
Looking at the Doctor giving a warning to everyone with a hateful attitude, resentment wells up for no reason.
'You did it...!'
"Now, shall you please come up to the podium once."
From the beginning until now.
The Doctor, who has been playing the drum and beating the janggu all by himself, is now calling me directly to his side.
"Ugh, eek..."
I forcibly moved my stiff legs unwilling to move and walked to where the Doctor was.
I felt gazes piercing from all directions at every single action, but just for now, I must follow that Doctor's words.
Above all, because he was presenting the situation clearly enough that even a passing mutt could know who the true owner of 'Sungjin Mental Hospital', the center of this Anomaly, is.
"Coming all the way here, you seem to have exerted truly a lot of courage and effort."
The Doctor gave an eye smile looking at me who approached close.
Actually, since the lower face is almost no different from a corpse, don't know if he's smiling or what.
...And, looking close up, it's much more terrible...! As expected of an Anomaly.
"Now, everyone, applause for the new nurse who mustered up courage and approached—"
Ah.
"—will make you tense again, so let's skip it this time, haha."
Phew...
Relieved, I instinctively discovered a 'living' person tied tightly on the experiment table since earlier.
"Ah, you are a truly motivated nurse. Are you already interested in the surgery target?"
"Uh..."
"However, you must not approach too hastily. Because surgery is, after all, an act performed within a collection of very sacred and precise techniques."
The Doctor who said so stared at me intently as he was, making me, standing still, embarrassed.
"Can, Can I go back...?"
"Oh my, I ended up committing a rudeness to a lady. I apologize. New talent visiting our hospital is truly after a long time so I unknowingly just."
New talent?
Does he mean people trapped here as Intern status.
Then where are those people now? Are they permeated there becoming members among nurses or patients on those countless seats.
"So, about that. This time, very specially, I intend to arrange a seat for our new nurse."
"Seat...?"
"Yes! The appearance of the new nurse running diligently on two feet for the hospital during intern days, I also saw impressively."
"You, saw me?"
"Of course. In this hospital, the Doctor's authority is that great."
Clack clack!
Moving the lower face with only bones remaining to express cheerful emotions, the Doctor looked at the target placed on this operating table only then.
"And this surgery is indeed presenting that there is my vision, and a vision our hospital must move toward."
So roughly, you're giving nonsensical justification for the massacre that will happen from now on, right now?
I swallowed saliva gulp and had to observe semi-forcibly the Doctor flailing his body here and there as if acting in a play.
"And in that honored seat, I intend to willingly place our new nurse in an assistant seat."
"Yes...?"
"How is it? Isn't it a truly fantastic moment! For our new nurse, I intend to open a field of education directly that might not happen again!"
Waaaaaaah!!
As if responding to such tension of the Doctor, cheers burst out from the audience seats once again.
Just what is this situation...?!
I worked hard for the taste of clearing quests for what it's worth, but I didn't wish for this extent...?!
"Of course, I also know very well the appearance of putting in 'special' effort for one patient."
Stop.
At the following words, my confused mind settled coldly.
Knowing everything happening inside the hospital meant he also knows that I cooperated with one agent and escaped civilians dragged into Sungjin Mental Hospital.
"The heart thinking of patients is the same for everyone. Me, and your Senior Nurses over there too. We want healing. We want to grant salvation to the injured. Therefore—"
Rattle...
When the Doctor beckoned, the test subject tied on the operating table comes out and approaches between him stealthily.
"Even if it's hard at first, let us. Move forward while getting used to it together."
"....."
Surgery is about to be executed.
From the test subject stretched out in a large '大' shape, no presence was felt.
'Dead?'
Not even breathing.
However, if there is a strange point, it was that the target had color on the skin as if really sleeping a deep sleep.
In my head, momentarily, the appearance of 'patients' located in the patient rooms here flashed by.
'It was that.'
This test subject right now must have been clearly human. A person in a state right before being reborn as a patient in the true sense.
Don't know just what they are committing here, but all Anomalies in the entire hospital gathered and are celebrating watching the sight of their colleague increasing.
The patient whose surgery is ended craves treatment endlessly like seen in the patient room, and lies on the patient bed endlessly like a doll waiting for a nurse.
「▶ You have found out the gloomy secret of 'Sungjin Mental Hospital'. Even so, is there anything that changes?」
"...."
As the status window says, the current me is just a nurse of Sungjin Mental Hospital who works well.
Then, right here.
Defending this terrible act, shall I commit a cruel massacre together with the Doctor here for the duty of a nurse?
.. ... ....
'I don't want to.'
Dying is scary. I hate being in pain too.
I am grateful that the Doctor looks upon me favorably but... I didn't want to hurt others here right now either.
This was a primal instinct of a human I felt even when facing the crisis of death at the very beginning.
What was I doing, what did I come here for.
In the Daycare, the longing and warmth I wanted were imbued.
I want to go there and be by the side of those who gave me a place.
The Director was also scary at first, but actually was a very, very pitiful person...
Even so, I can't justify the terrifying appearance until now, but whatever happens, isn't right now important.
"Now, we will begin the surgery. Nurses in the seats, and our new nurse."
Standing with a blank mind for a moment, the Doctor's voice informing that surgery will begin subsequently was heard.
"Please watch clearly with two eyes and learn. Because this is the way we 'treat' patients."
Shing.
What he took out with eyes full of determination was a knife of a form that could not be thought of as a surgical tool at all.
I would believe it if he said he took it out to butcher a lump of meat rather.
Whether he slashed something just a moment ago, on the other side of the huge blade where blood is dripping—
Unknown lumps of meat are attached thickly, beating thump thump.
Is he going to do 'something' to the patient in a half-dead state with that weapon.
If that happens, the patient tied helplessly to the operating table will be in tremendous pain.
Screams will act as pleasure to them, and the struggle to live will become entertainment located here like a piece of work.
What if a lot of blood comes out?
The appearance of the corpse that ended its own life inside the patient room flashes by.
"...Can't do that."
"Yes?"
When I muttered, the Doctor heading to the surgery target looked back at me at a glance.
"If you do it with that, I think the patient will be in a lot of pain."
"...Haha, everyone is flustered at first. But do not worry, I am a famous doctor—"
Coming this far and acting against the Doctor, the owner of this Anomaly.
Might act really dangerously.
But, but...
"Hic, c, can't we not do it...?"
Someone being in pain in front of my eyes, I hate it...
"...."
Tears keep welling up.
Flowing along the source of such emotion, there was an emotion overflowing endlessly from deep inside the heart.
That thing, making my heart stuffy and tingling while feeling choked, kept trying to stop the Doctor trying to head to the patient.
"Stopping surgery is an act considered taboo in our hospital."
"I don't know such things... Just, can't we not do surgery...?"
Tears keep coming...
I shouldn't be like this either but suddenly became too sad, holding back the crying trying to burst out sob sob strongly is all I'm doing.
「▶ You seem to have something you want to say to the entity in question, the owner of this Anomaly and the Doctor.」
Something I want to say.
Reading the phrase inside the status window that popped up suddenly, the moment I felt doubt—
"Oh dear."
The Doctor, putting down the huge surgical saw for a moment, walked toward me slowly.
"It seems there is a need to make our little nurse understand properly before entering surgery."
"Hic, heuk."
"In the seats right now, there are patients who are very happy after receiving the surgery I performed. Now, look."
Following the pointing hand gesture, I saw patients of Sungjin Mental Hospital smiling brightly with white bleached skin without a drop of blood.
They seemed to be really happy.
...Is it correct that they are really happy?
'No.'
Happiness is not with them. It was not with the members of the hospital.
"I wish everyone was happy. To do so, I am leading this hospital, and that, that is my dream and wish."
Therefore I wanted to say.
"Then, you know..."
"Yes."
"Doctor, why aren't you happy...?"
"...."
"Why are you angry, and sad...?"
At my words, the Doctor's relaxed gestures stopped—snap.
**「Currently Possessed Titles
▶ Lowest-Ranking Prey
▶ Graduate of Sunshine Daycare」**
「Quest complete.」
**「▶ Check Patient 107 (Complete)
▶ Bring the patient wandering in front of Room 203 to the ward (Complete)
▶ Give a warning to children running around the hospital (Complete)
▶ Put the 'body part' fallen in the hallway into the disposal bin (Complete)
..
...
....
▶ Interview with the Doctor (Complete)」**
「Receiving rewards.」