They had no choice but to become aggressive for the sake of the patients under their care.
But the place was not occupied only by medical staff.
PKO soldiers, and the patients’ guardians.
They were even more frantic than the medical staff.
The guardians in particular saw nothing else, and since no one could hurt them, they were practically invincible.
That was how tangled and chaotic the scene was.
A general hospital emergency room was not even worth comparing to this.
At this level, it could be called a disaster site on the scale of an entire city.
Caught in the middle of it, Taesu and the other two were busy getting bumped and shoved from all sides.
“Ugh.”
“Whoa, I dodg—”
“Damn it. Guh. That bastard, hey. You step on my foot and just walk off?”
At this point, they had been reduced to complete punching bags.
But they could not even protest properly.
Everyone was transporting emergency patients.
In other words, they were people who could see nothing in front of them.
As he was being jostled this way and that, Jeong Minsu’s expression suddenly sank.
“Taesu, you were right.”
At those words, Taesu glanced at him.
At the same time, medical staff came charging toward them, pushing a stretcher cart like an enraged bull and shouting.
Rattle.
“Move!”
Taesu, spotting them as he turned his head, quickly twisted his body aside like a matador, barely dodging. At the same time, he shouted at Jeong Minsu, who had called him.
“Damn it. What the hell are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“Right now, we’re surplus personnel.”
“What?”
His voice was too quiet, so Taesu raised his own.
At that very moment.
“Doctor Choi.”
Thud.
Kim Hyeokgwon grabbed Taesu and pulled him aside.
And in that spot?
Rattle, rattle.
“It’s an emergency, clear the way!”
“Hwuaaang. @%@#$@#”
Another stretcher cart raced past with a guardian.
The traffic situation was at the level of a rotary during rush hour.
Forget conversation—it was hard even to move forward.
As if he could take it no longer, Taesu pointed to one side and shouted.
“First, over there. Uaaah, damn it. Ugh.”
Swish. Swish.
Taesu moved his body, twisting this way and that as though running an obstacle course.
Jeong Minsu and Kim Hyeokgwon, following behind, were the same.
The distance they moved was barely ten meters.
They reached it after dodging all sorts of obstacles over that short distance.
They had no idea which team’s medical tent it was.
Perhaps surgery was underway, because there was no movement in or out.
When they pressed themselves close to the tent, they were able to gain a little breathing room amid the chaos.
“Even downtown Mumbai isn’t this bad.”
Though Kim Hyeokgwon was from India, he shuddered at the terrifying movements around them.
Taesu, on the other hand, was looking at Jeong Minsu.
“What did you just say?”
“I said, like you said, we’re surplus personnel.”
“Yeah. Even in the middle of this mess, not a single place is looking for us, and not a single person is calling us.”
Taesu agreed with a bitter expression.
This was their current position within the NGO.
Even Taesu, who had been active from early on, was a dispatched specialist, so there were far more medical staff who did not know him.
With that bitter expression still on his face, Taesu opened his mouth again and asked.
“So, is that the end of it?”
“No, I really think I have to change.”
“Just in words?”
“No.”
Jeong Minsu answered, but it was not very smooth.
He was conflicted, yet still hesitating.
Taesu turned his gaze away.
He had nothing to say to Jeong Minsu, who still hesitated even after seeing reality.
But then.
‘Damn it.’
Taesu himself did not like the reality that, at this moment, he had to stand off to the side like this.
It was then.
“Hm?”
Taesu’s expression shifted into puzzlement as he looked somewhere.
Someone was standing at the crossroads where the passages intersected.
Judging by his clothing, he was a local.
He did not seem to have any particular injuries, nor any traces of having received treatment.
“He looks like a guardian.”
“That man? I was watching him too because he bothered me.”
Kim Hyeokgwon stood beside him, wearing the same serious expression.
That was how much the man drew the eye.
What made that guardian seem truly strange was his movement. He was not taking a single step in any direction.
It was as if a child had lost his way and become separated.
Naturally, it looked difficult for him to properly dodge the stretcher carts surging in from all directions.
Whether because he was standing exactly in the center of the crossroads, or because of his clothing, the stretcher carts quickly veered around him.
Like the eye of a typhoon, only the spot where he stood was calm.
Seeing that, Kim Hyeokgwon looked down at himself and grumbled.
“I’m dressed in plain clothes too, so why do they keep running into me?”
“Male in his fifties, face slightly pale.”
“Hey. Doctor Choi, this is all your fault, you know.”
“He’s turning his head left and right, but his reactions seem delayed by a beat.”
When Taesu only observed, Kim Hyeokgwon growled.
“Either take off your gown, or let’s walk a little apart. Are you listening?”
“No. I’m not.”
“So you are listening.”
Kim Hyeokgwon shouted.
However, Taesu’s gaze remained fixed only on the guardian.
Swish, swish.
He gestured vaguely and sealed his mouth.
“Be quiet for a bit.”
“Is he that strange?”
“Look.”
“He’s just a middle-aged man who got lost… No, he isn’t.”
Kim Hyeokgwon, who had been losing his temper, looked again, and all his fussiness vanished.
That was how abnormal the middle-aged man’s condition was.
No one passing by paid any attention to him.
There were only medical staff whose eyes had already gone wild over the emergency patients they were responsible for.
It was hard to blame them, given how severe their patients’ injuries were.
The only ones watching him now were Taesu and Kim Hyeokgwon.
No, there was one more person.
“Hoo, hoo.”
Suddenly, Jeong Minsu’s breathing sounded harsh beside them.
Taesu glanced at him and asked.
“What’s with you all of a sudden?”
“His breathing. I think that’s how that man is breathing. Hoo, hoo, like this.”
“Tachypnea?”
Another observation came from Kim Hyeokgwon.
“Don’t his eyes look a little unfocused?”
“Consensual pupillary reaction decreased, paradoxical pupillary reaction impossible to judge immediately.”
“His responses are definitely delayed by a beat too. Mm, I’m sure.”
“Even his neural reflex response…”
Taesu chewed over the information coming from both sides.
He himself was also watching the middle-aged man.
Seeing together, judging together.
The habits they had developed in Sahad continued unchanged here in the NGO camp.
Then, at that moment.
Thud.
The middle-aged man raised a hand and clutched his chest.
No, he squeezed it.
The instant they saw that, Taesu’s and Jeong Minsu’s eyes went cold at the same time.
And in their ears, the auditory hallucination of Chief Park Seongmin’s words, so often repeated that they had become calluses, rang out—You little chirpers, whether awake or asleep, sitting or standing, make sure you memorize the priceless teachings of the great Chief Park Seongmin no matter what.
If, while walking down the street or looking around, you see someone clutching their chest, rolling their eyes back, and breathing rapidly, that is without question…
As if he had recalled the same advice, Jeong Minsu spoke first.
“Angina pectoris. The causes of angina are…”
“Coronary sclerosis, coronary aneurysm occurrence.”
Taesu, who had learned it with him, added the rest.
Chief Park Seongmin’s teachings had been etched into their minds deeply enough to be applied in real practice like this.
It was something to be grateful for.
But he set that gratitude aside for the moment.
That was not what mattered right now.
Taesu’s and Jeong Minsu’s faces turned pale.
“Damn it.”
“That man, emergency.”
“You think anyone will listen if you shout? Run.”
Tap, tap.
After hurling that hard fact at him, Taesu ran forward first.
“Damn it.”
Annoyed by his own pitiful reality, Jeong Minsu chased after him.
Tat-tat.
And Kim Hyeokgwon was left behind.
Just as he was about to run, Kim Hyeokgwon hesitated and glanced around.
“This is the camp, isn’t it? Go on, then. Take care.”
“Hurry up and come.”
“Damn it, I’m coming, I’m coming. Allowance—no, patient, wait for me.”
In the end, Kim Hyeokgwon also broke into a run.
Once again, danger came rushing toward Taesu at the front.
Rattle.
“Move!”
“It’s an emergency. Move!”
Swish, swish.
There was shouting and hand-waving chaos.
A moment ago, Taesu had somehow moved his body and yielded.
But not now.
If they were bulls?
Taesu was a bulldozer.
“You move.”
Tap-tap-tap.
As Taesu ran roughly, there was nothing in his eyes but the angina patient.
His momentum was fierce.
His expression was full of resolve to crash into them if that was what it took.
In the end, the medical staff pushing the stretcher carts flinched and had to give way.
Whoosh.
“What the hell, who’s that doctor?”
“I don’t know, hurry up and move again.”
“Uh, uh… Stop.”
Whoosh, whoosh.
Two people passed by like lightning.
“What the hell are those bastards?”
“Up ahead, let’s get going already.”
“Damn it. Move quickly. Hurry.”
Unable even to vent their irritation at being delayed by the intruders, they had to set off again.
Taesu was approaching while opening a path.
The angina patient staggered heavily.
“Guuugh.”
At his side, a stretcher cart came racing fiercely.
“Move. Move!”
But the patient could not react to the sound.
“Guhh. Guuuh…”
“I said move… Huh, huh?”
The medical staff, who had naturally assumed he would dodge, panicked as the distance narrowed.
They were truly one step away from collision.
At that moment, Taesu’s hand snatched the angina patient away, and they tumbled sideways.
Crash.
“Kaaagh.”
“Guk. Patient.”
Taesu forgot that he himself had rolled across the ground and checked the patient first.
Perhaps because it was the early stage of angina, the patient still reacted.
“Guuuh. @#%@#$%……”
“It’s your chest, right? Your chest hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Guu, guh.”
Suddenly, the patient twisted his body violently.
Then the hand that had been clutching his chest moved to his shoulder.
Grip.
It was vividly clear how badly his shoulder hurt from the way he clenched it as though he would crush it.
His shoulder, all of a sudden?
That reaction seemed strange.
But with that reaction, Taesu became even more certain.
“Damn it. It really is angina.”
“What are you talking about? He says his shoulder hurts.”
Swish.
Kim Hyeokgwon arrived and translated.
Taesu quickly placed his hand on the patient’s carotid artery and spoke.
“With angina, the pain originally travels around the chest, shoulder, neck, and so on.”
“But it’s the heart that hurts.”
“Argue about it later and translate first. Personal information, how he came here, and any signs before the attack.”
Taesu shouted.
Since Kim Hyeokgwon knew nothing about medicine, he was probably curious, but the patient came first right now.
Kim Hyeokgwon immediately grasped the situation and spoke to the patient.
“Hey. Mister… Damn it. Ahem. .%##@$#.”
He was only momentarily flustered by the Korean that had slipped out, then moved into proper questioning.
Taesu quickly began unbuttoning the patient’s shirt.
He had to loosen everything that was constricting him so his breathing could become smooth.