Just then, Squad Leader Sam’s voice came over the radio.
- This is Squad Leader Sam. Helicopter, do you read me?
They’d arrived?
Everyone pricked up their ears.
The pilot responded over the radio in a familiar voice.
“This is Captain Austin.”
“We’ve landed safely on the ground, and the rope is securely tied.”
Squad Leader Sam gave the brief report.
Only then did Taesu hear the pilot’s name for the first time.
But that wasn’t important.
If they’d landed on the ground—
The patient.
Taesu quickly pushed Kim Hyeokgwon’s helmet aside and cut into the radio.
“Sam, is the patient nearby?”
“There’s one civilian approximately seventy meters off to the side. Currently, visually… Hm?”
“What is it? Why?”
At Taesu’s urgent question, Squad Leader Sam’s subdued voice came back.
“There’s a considerable amount of blood around him.”
“Can you see where the bleeding is coming from?”
“It looks like blood is flowing from his mouth. He’s breathing, but there’s a difference in the height of both sides of his chest.”
Squad Leader Sam’s voice rose.
Taesu drew the picture in his head according to the explanation.
It resembled Caprene.
Flash.
Taesu’s gaze turned fierce in an instant.
Back then, all he could do was watch, unable to do anything.
Whoosh.
Taesu’s eyes turned toward the rear door of the helicopter.
At the end of his gaze was a rope stretching all the way down to the ground.
There was a way to go.
Then he would go.
There was no reason to think twice.
Taesu immediately walked toward the rope.
Thud.
He grabbed the emergency bag and slung it diagonally across his body.
Then he called out loudly for Sergeant Ryan.
“Ryan.”
“Sir, Doctor Choi.”
Rustle.
Sergeant Ryan also approached with a grave expression.
Then, moving deftly, he fastened the safety hook, carabiner, and descender to the rope and handed them over.
Taesu took them and asked first.
“Do I just jump backward like Sam?”
“You can jump however feels comfortable.”
“How do I use it?”
“Leave the descender alone, and brake only with the carabiner…”
Slide, slide.
Sergeant Ryan added a demonstration to his brief explanation.
There was nothing particularly difficult about it.
Taesu understood right away and took the carabiner.
“Then I’ll see you down below.”
Step. Step.
Taesu walked backward just like that.
Seeing him, Jeong Minsu and Kim Hyeokgwon shouted in alarm, trying to stop him.
“Taesu, no. That’s not it.”
“Get a hold of yourself. Calm down first.”
The two shouted again and again to dissuade him.
But Taesu’s mind was already made up to descend.
When he reached the edge of the rear door, Taesu stood with the soles of his feet half over the edge.
Then he looked down.
Whooooosh.
It felt like the whole world was beneath his feet.
A sense of liberation?
Bullshit.
The cold air and savage wind made his heart tremble. That fear was on a completely different level from what he’d felt watching from inside the helicopter.
The resolve that had hardened inside him was already trying to waver.
There was no time.
The monster called fear was aiming for the cracks in his heart from every direction.
If he allowed even a crack, he felt like he wouldn’t be able to do it.
It wasn’t a feeling, but instinct.
The fastest way to erase hesitation was to act.
So he muttered and kicked off with both legs.
“To hell with it. Let’s die.”
Pak.
That was how Taesu began his first helicopter rappel.
The moment Taesu vanished downward—
“Gasp, Taesu!”
“He told you to jump and you actually jumped?”
Jeong Minsu and Kim Hyeokgwon shouted in shock.
But they weren’t the only ones surprised.
Captain Austin, who had looked back, had a heavy glint in his eyes.
‘He really jumped.’
He was especially surprised by the fact that it had been one attempt, and a success on that single attempt.
Even soldiers had to train repeatedly before such an action became possible.
That was how much one had to fight against the fear of having one’s life threatened.
And yet Taesu had jumped on the first try.
The corner of Captain Austin’s mouth lifted slightly in admiration.
‘Looks like the rumors weren’t false.’
Meanwhile, Taesu was rappelling down the rope tied to the tree.
Rappelling, in name only.
To put it roughly, he was falling from the sky.
Had he used up all his courage when he jumped?
“Uaaaaaah!”
A violent scream he had never once let out before burst endlessly from his throat.
The speed of the rappel descent was beyond imagination.
Shu-shu-shuk.
Just as he thought he was finally escaping the fear of falling—
He opened his eyes and saw that he was already approaching the tree where the end of the rope was tied.
The speed was tremendous.
It even gave him the illusion that the tree was shooting upward.
Taesu barely gathered his senses and moved his hand.
‘To stop, like this?’
Slide.
Taesu moved the carabiner.
At that instant, his speed didn’t decrease—it increased.
Shweeeeeeng.
“Aaagh!”
Of the two explanations he’d heard from Sergeant Ryan, he had chosen one, and it was the wrong one.
At the sudden increase in descent speed, Taesu panicked badly.
He couldn’t even think to move his hand again.
Just as his mind was going blank—
Squad Leader Sam’s voice came through the radio in his helmet.
“Brake!”
“Huh!”
Startled by the shout, his reason returned.
But the tree was right in front of him.
“Damn it!”
Squeeze.
Taesu squeezed his eyes shut and reflexively gripped the carabiner.
This time, it seemed he’d found the brake.
He must have gripped it with tremendous force, because he stopped dead on the spot.
The problem was that momentum still remained in Taesu’s body.
In the end, only Taesu’s body snapped forward hard.
Thud.
“Urgh.”
Taking the impact directly, Taesu let out a pained groan.
It was a shock that nearly made his consciousness blur.
At that moment, Squad Leader Sam’s voice dug into his ears.
“Slowly loosen your grip. Slowly.”
“Ugh…”
Taesu could only groan.
The shock had been so great that he couldn’t easily regain his senses.
That moment was brief.
Thud.
“Doctor Choi, you’ve arrived. Doctor Choi.”
Squad Leader Sam’s voice rang out powerfully.
Only then did focus return to Taesu’s eyes.
“Gasp, the tree.”
Taesu shouted and clutched the carabiner tightly again. Squad Leader Sam lightly wrapped a hand around Taesu’s and said,
“The tree is behind me. You’re safe now.”
“What?”
“You came down well. As expected, there’s nothing you can’t do, Doctor Choi.”
At Squad Leader Sam’s repeated praise, Taesu quickly looked around.
The whole world was white.
His legs?
Slowly.
When he lowered his gaze, he saw that he was buried in snow up to his calves.
He hadn’t even realized when both his feet had touched the ground.
But now that he saw it with his eyes and felt the cold sensation, it slowly began to feel real.
“Ah, uh.”
“Yes. You’ve reached the ground. Your rappel was a success.”
“Ah… Wow. Haha. This is ridiculous.”
Even Taesu found it absurd.
But Squad Leader Sam, who had watched the entire process, had a different opinion.
“You did so well it’s hard to believe it was your first time.”
“I know. How did I even jump… Right.”
The moment he remembered why he had jumped out of the helicopter, Taesu’s expression turned urgent.
Whoosh.
He simply let go of the carabiner with his hand.
Then he yanked the safety hook free as well.
Nothing else mattered.
Freed from the rope, Taesu immediately ran forward and shouted to Squad Leader Sam.
“Where’s the patient?”
“Not that way. Nine o’clock.”
“Nine o’clock.”
Whoosh.
Taesu nimbly changed direction.
Ahead, he saw a cliff, and near it, he saw the patient lying on his back, looking up at the sky.
That sight, too, resembled Caprene.
Taesu first steadied his wavering gaze.
‘This time… No.’
Crunch, crunch.
His legs pushed through the snow even faster as he headed toward the patient.
Reaching him in one breath, Taesu took off his bag and lowered himself at the same time.
The most prominent thing was, as expected, the bleeding.
Around the patient’s pallid face, the snow bore vivid red traces.
“Ugh… ughhh…”
Faintly, but he was conscious.
Thud.
Taesu placed a hand on the patient’s arm and shouted.
“We’re with the NGO.”
“…Ugh.”
Only groans came back, with no clear response.
The patient’s arm was terribly cold.
A textbook symptom of severe hypothermia.
He had been left here for nearly three hours in the dead of winter, so his body temperature could only have dropped.
Aside from that, what else?
Rustle, rustle.
Taesu did not touch him rashly and first checked with his eyes.
The patient was—
A handsome white man whose blond hair suited him all too well.
The funny thing was, even with his face in such a terrible state, the first impression was still that he was good-looking.
‘An entertainer?’
That was the thought that came to mind first.
Even if he were, the fact that he was an emergency patient did not change.
He looked to be roughly somewhere between his late twenties and early thirties.
Taesu judged him to be about his own age.
The reason he estimated the patient’s age was to establish a baseline for his vitals.
‘Good enough.’
Then he quickly scanned the patient’s body.
He was dressed in thick, tough mountaineering clothes. Those clothes must have helped preserve his body temperature even a little longer.
But now that they were caked with snow and soaked, they were undoubtedly having the opposite effect.
As the snow melted, it was actually stealing his body heat.
In this state, it would be far better for him to have no clothes at all.
The judgment and decision came at the same time.
‘Strip him? Yes, strip him.’
This was the standard procedure for emergency treatment.
There was no time to think or agonize.
Taesu’s hand went to the emergency response bag.
Riiiip.
He roughly opened the zipper and looked inside.
Inside the bag, various medical supplies were neatly organized.
It was a sight that brought Nurse Casey to mind.
Gratitude could come later.
For now, he had to take out what he needed first.
It was the first time he had looked inside this response bag, but Taesu’s eyes flashed.
‘If it were Casey?’
Taesu reached his hand somewhere.
When he pulled it out, bandage shears were in his grip.
As expected, they were exactly where he had guessed.
There was no time to celebrate finding them in one try.
Taesu quickly cut open the patient’s mountaineering jacket with the bandage shears.
Rip, rip.
The rough sound of shears came rapidly.
“Huuuh… Grrk, grrk.”
Something was strange about the patient’s breathing.
Flinch.
Taesu, who had been cutting the mountaineering clothes, immediately stopped and stared at the patient’s face. Red foam was rising from the patient’s slightly parted lips.
Bloody foam?
It wasn’t pouring out all at once; it was bubbling up inside his mouth.
One hundred percent, it was an internal problem.
Whether its starting point was the abdominal cavity or the thoracic cavity was difficult to confirm with the naked eye.