Swish.
He stopped hurriedly and jabbed the military morphine syringe straight into the patient’s buttock.
“We’re an NGO. Administering morphine first.”
This was the same concept as treatment before report.
For blast exposure patients, morphine injection was the priority.
Grenade fragments not only tore through flesh but were accompanied by tremendous heat.
That heat caused secondary damage in the form of severe burns.
So the pain had to be reduced before any other treatment was possible.
The morphine took effect immediately.
“Kkuh, uuh, uuuh…….”
The patient’s groaning visibly subsided.
Taesu quickly backtracked the wound’s trajectory to estimate the blast distance.
‘Seeing a piece of shrapnel in the right arm… Minimum thirty meters, six o’clock direction?’
Whoosh.
Even as he estimated, Taesu reflexively turned his gaze.
Perhaps his backtracked calculation was roughly correct, for the traces of the explosion were clearly visible.
That was confirmation enough.
Taesu’s gaze, returning to the patient, halted at one spot.
“….”
At the sight before his eyes, Taesu froze solid.
There was no time to linger like this.
Even so, staring at that spot, he bit his lip hard.
“Damn it.”
What held his gaze even amid his anger was a mother and child.
The mother had taken the grenade blast head-on; her entire body was mangled, and she was dead.
The child was still alive.
She looked about five years old.
Perhaps from shock, her expression was blank.
Her injuries were considerable, too.
But the child did not leave her mother’s embrace.
She clearly could not believe that her mother was dead.
She wasn’t even crying.
She simply held her mother’s blood-soaked hand.
Taesu apparently wasn’t the only one who had witnessed this horrific scene.
Soon, Kim Hyeokgwon’s voice, full of rage, came through the in-ear.
—*Click.* Two deceased discovered…… Presumed to be a couple. Embracing each other…… They’re gone.
—*Click.* This is seriously fucked. Over here it’s an entire family. A middle-aged couple and men presumed to be brothers…… They died trying to protect each other……
sorrow surged in Jeong Minsu’s voice as well.
They must have discovered it while opening a container.
The deaths they had each confirmed now would not be the end.
From now on, they would be discovered every passing moment.
He couldn’t even guess what that number would reach.
Taesu’s chest heaved violently.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
So much blood rushed to his head that it grew dizzying.
This wasn’t even the fear that bullets brought.
The helplessness and misery felt in the very heart of war crept over him.
“Why, why on earth.”
He couldn’t understand why these people had to suffer such things.
Suddenly, he was beginning to hate everything.
He even began to doubt what they could possibly do, or how much, in this living hell.
The stench of gunpowder and blood stinging his nose seemed to hasten the confusion.
Ijambakeu, Nepal ABC, Sahadeu…….
All the villages he had passed through until now couldn’t even qualify as a taste.
This moment, this place, this spot was the true field of battle.
He was gradually soaking into confusion.
“….”
*Grit.*
Taesu suddenly bit his lip.
It was no light nibble; blood was faintly visible through the gap in his lips.
Then he reached out with a hand trembling slightly at his waist.
Pressing the button as if squeezing it, he spat out each word.
“A person is born a person, and saves another person……. What reason is needed?”
—No.
“Then let’s just save them, no questions asked.”
*Click.*
Taesu released the radio button and took a deep breath.
He poured all his confusion into the exhale.
“Hoooo.”
Only then did the trembling in his gaze disappear, replaced by unwavering resolve.
It was a strong gaze unlike any before.
It seemed that overcoming the grueling training had conditioned more than just his body.
And Taesu wasn’t the only one who had overcome it.
—*Click.* Don’t try to stop me today. If I hold anything back here, I think I’ll have nightmares for the rest of my life.
—*Click.* Fuck taking apart the containers, let’s just save the people first.
Having heard the two’s resolve, Taesu pressed the radio again.
“Let’s go.”
Warm-up?
There was no need for such things.
His entire body was already burning like a ball of fire.
Only saving lives, again and again, would be able to soothe the boiling in his chest.
At least for today, he didn’t think of tomorrow.
He would pour out everything in this moment, in this place.
With that resolve and determination, Taesu immediately began to move.
Taesu’s first patient was right before his eyes.
He had suffered indirect blast exposure from a grenade and had just been given morphine for the pain.
Perhaps because of that, his groaning had already faded.
“….”
Even now, the young man was covering his injured face.
Taesu confirmed once more that his right arm and leg were covered in blood.
It was definitely no minor wound.
But this was not a situation where he could invest much time.
Taesu began with a short, pointed question.
“Do you speak English?”
“….”
The young man gave no answer.
There was no need to worry about being unable to communicate.
In times like this, there was body language.
*Tap, tap.*
Taesu lightly touched the young man.
Perhaps because pain and a dull sensation are different, the young man slightly turned his head to look.
He was looking at the world with only his left eye, covering the right side of his face.
The moment their eyes met, Taesu paused.
Tears hung in the young man’s left eye.
In that moisture-filled gaze were resentment, hatred, and anger at the present reality.
There was also a feeling of pushing everything away so that no one would touch him.
“….”
That gaze was chilling.
Taesu couldn’t understand that mindset one hundred percent.
What was certain was that he was a patient who needed treatment now.
If he lost in momentum, he couldn’t treat him.
This didn’t mean he would overpower the patient.
But for the sake of treatment, there were times to act somewhat forcefully.
Unfortunately, now was that time.
“….”
*Zzip.*
Taesu lowered his outerwear zipper and revealed the white doctor’s coat beneath.
From his response bag, he produced and showed a stethoscope.
Finally, Taesu locked eyes with the young man.
“….”
“….”
The young man glared back at Taesu.
But he didn’t push back completely.
He clearly seemed to know what a doctor was.
Taesu had heard that this place, Malnoi, was a border area where two factions confronted each other.
Judging by the damaged buildings, it seemed to have developed similarly to Mohareu, where he had first deployed.
It would be a medium-sized city, so the young man must have encountered doctors occasionally.
About five seconds had passed since they locked eyes.
It was a short time, merely enough to blink a few times.
Right now, those five seconds were more precious than a thousand pieces of gold.
This much investment was enough.
Taesu did not have much patience right now.
Even if the patient couldn’t understand, he asked for his forbearance.
Then he took hold of the patient’s right forearm.
“Excuse me.”
“….”
The patient resisted.
At that moment, sparks flew in Taesu’s eyes.
“Hurry up. I have too many patients.”
“Hup…… Hm.”
The flustered patient unknowingly relaxed his strength.
That was enough.
Taesu immediately began emergency treatment.
*Swish.*
As his hands moved faster, the patient’s eyes grew increasingly watery.
*Shudder.*
The patient’s arm, and indeed his entire body, trembled faintly.
Since Taesu was treating the arm, he could feel that trembling directly.
“Hm?”
This feeling.
It was somehow familiar.
No, it was the expression of an emotion he had felt often.
That was exactly ‘fear.’
From the pupil response to the trembling of the body, it was certain.
Realizing it intuitively, Taesu was greatly bewildered.
Why on earth…… Why?
Why would this person be on guard against him, who had come to this chaotic city?
Doctors and patients are friends.
At least, that was Taesu’s doctrine.
That he had become an object of fear to the patient was shocking.
‘It’s not like I look that scary…….’
His internal muttering of dissatisfaction trailed off unfinished.
He found the cause within the words he had just muttered.
It wasn’t the patient’s problem.
Taesu himself was exacerbating the problem.
His fierce momentum was making the patient cower.
Looking at himself from the patient’s position, Taesu was certain of his own failing.
A doctor with less composure than the patient?
‘Am I out of my mind?’
There was no worse worst than this.
He now realized that thinking of patients as friends had only existed in his head until now.
What would a real friend do at this moment?
What was certain was that the current Taesu wasn’t acting like himself.
It was then.
“For us, all is one person, and one person can be all.”
The advice he had heard from James suddenly came to mind.
Only then did Taesu realize what he had been missing.
In the current situation, the doctor indeed had a hundred patients to care for.
But to the patient, the doctor was not one of a hundred.
To the patient, the doctor was only one person.
That was Taesu’s mistake.
He had been trying to embrace all hundred patients at once, letting greed lead.
That urgency had even caused him to arbitrarily judge the pain of the patient before his eyes.
“Huu.”
He exhaled and calmed his mind.
He was in a hurry.
Even at this moment, someone was surely waiting at death’s door.
He knew.
But at least for this moment, only the young man before his eyes had to be the one and only patient.
When his mind changed, his expression changed first.
A small measure of composure appeared on Taesu’s stiff face.
In his gaze toward the patient, genuine pity was evident.
With that same expression, Taesu looked at the patient again.
“….”
He didn’t urge or rush.
Medical treatment without the patient’s permission was no different from inflicting pain.
He was truly acting according to the saying, ‘More haste, less speed.’
‘Yes, you’ll give me a signal when you feel at ease.’
With that bitter thought, Taesu slightly raised one corner of his mouth.
It was a habitual expression, made without much meaning.
But at that moment, the patient reacted for the first time.
“….”
*Slip.*
He relaxed his body and lowered his arm.
What he had hidden when pulled earlier, he was now revealing of his own accord.
Taesu felt that change as if it were an illusion.
It was absolutely not the feeling of having given up on everything.
A strong feeling of trust and entrustment emanated from him.
‘Huh?’
Taesu was bewildered by the patient’s sudden change.
It lasted only a moment.
Taesu vaguely guessed.
The patient changes according to the doctor’s heart.
He didn’t fully understand it yet.
He would need more time to think, but now was not the time.
What was clear was that the patient had shown permission through his actions.
Now was the time to begin emergency treatment.
As it was a moment he had waited for, Taesu’s hands moved nimbly.
First, he wiped away the blood and dust from the right side of the young man’s face with saline solution.
*Drip. Pat.*
“That’s it, just hold on a little longer…….”
Contrary to the mouth soothing with a calm voice, his hands were a bit fast and rough.