They might have injected morphine, but he had still shoved surgical instruments straight into the wound without warning.
Agony that would have made anyone scream must have surged through him.
There wasn’t a trace of guilt on Taesu’s face.
Instead, he roughly urged the middle-aged patient on.
“Don’t scream. Cry.”
“Kkaaaagh……”
“You said you wanted to cry.”
“You, you…… @#^#$%$.”
The middle-aged patient suddenly shouted in the local language.
Taesu didn’t know what it meant, but from the intonation, he could roughly guess.
The things people said in situations like this were usually obvious.
Unconcerned, Taesu pressed him even harder.
“I said cry, not curse.”
“^$%^^#$%$^.”
The middle-aged patient kept bellowing something in the local language to the very end.
Taesu could tell it felt like cursing, but he didn’t know the meaning.
In times like this, not knowing was the best.
Since there was nothing to get angry about, his hands moved without hesitation.
Thunk, squelch.
The surgical instruments were spreading and digging through flesh.
The more they did, the more the middle-aged patient’s pain-filled curses rang out like desperate thrashing.
Taesu shut his ears entirely and focused only on the wound.
‘This way…… Hm?’
Clatter.
It caught.
The moment he felt metal, Taesu shouted loudly.
“Got it.”
It was then.
Swish.
Kim Hyeokgwon approached Taesu’s opposite side like a flying tiger.
As he took his position, he began by scolding him.
“A person ought to have at least some conscience, don’t you think?”
“What?”
“This gentleman is currently asking after Doctor Choi’s parents, then his in-laws, and even every relative eight times removed.”
“I injected him with morphine.”
When Taesu protested, Kim Hyeokgwon shot him a sidelong glare.
“But you didn’t give him a muscle relaxant, and you’re just doing it like this.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t sound so proud right now. Lidocaine?”
When Kim Hyeokgwon asked, Taesu named another local anesthetic.
“Bupivacaine.”
“You were going to the point of injecting that, but you were still ramming your head into bare ground? I’m ready. Injecting.”
Puk, puk, puk.
Kim Hyeokgwon evenly injected the powerful local anesthetic all over the thigh.
Bupivacaine took effect faster and more powerfully than lidocaine.
Still, it needed a little time to spread.
As if he had no intention of giving it that leeway, Taesu moved the surgical instruments again.
“Kyaaak, aaaaagh. #^@#$%.”
Screams and curses flew everywhere.
Even through that, Taesu pulled the bullet out to the end.
Ting.
“Disgusting bastard.”
When Taesu saw the bullet, now a mess with clots stuck to it, his gaze turned cold in an instant.
Knowing why, Kim Hyeokgwon calmly soothed him.
“That bullet wasn’t the one that threatened you, Doctor Choi, so let’s keep it moderate.”
“That wasn’t why I cut into raw flesh without waiting.”
“I know. You were trying to check responses in every direction—nerves, muscles, blood vessels, even bone.”
As always, Kim Hyeokgwon understood at once.
That was why Taesu found it easy to speak with him.
Even while they conversed, both his hands were moving.
Squeeze, squeeze.
He was wringing out the pus that had formed inside the thigh.
In the midst of that, he naturally continued with complicated orders.
“Put powdered hemostatic agent inside degreased cotton and wrap it.”
“And?”
“Sprinkle anti-inflammatory on it and hand it to me. After the inflammation goes down, the powdered hemostatic should naturally spread and harden.”
As Taesu hurried, Kim Hyeokgwon stopped him.
“Wait a bit. I’m explaining right now.”
“You can do that after it’s all over.”
“The patient will simply pass out.”
“That can’t be helped.”
“This is why I’m afraid to leave my post.”
Even as Kim Hyeokgwon grumbled, his hands moved quickly.
Soon, he prepared it according to Taesu’s order and held it out.
Tap.
Taking it with the end of a mixture forceps, Taesu gave the next step in emergency treatment.
“I’m going to set the fractured clavicle in position right away.”
“Will this man be all right?”
“Ask him yourself.”
Tap, swish swish.
Taesu had already entered the finishing stage of the gunshot wound emergency treatment.
Once Kim Hyeokgwon arrived, his speed had more than doubled.
This was why one needed a partner who matched one’s rhythm.
After Taesu moved his hands a few more times—
Having finished cleaning up the wound, Taesu called for Kim Hyeokgwon again.
“Compression bandage.”
“Here. I’ll hold him.”
Tap.
At the same time as he handed it over, Kim Hyeokgwon slightly lifted the middle-aged patient’s thigh.
Using that gap, Taesu wrapped it round and round with the compression bandage as he asked.
Since they were deliberately speaking Korean, the middle-aged patient couldn’t join the conversation.
“So, did you ask him?”
“Put your hand on your heart and think about whether you perhaps enjoy being cursed at.”
“I’m busy wrapping the compression bandage.”
Swish, swish.
Since this was the finishing step that required both hands, it was technically the right expression.
But that wasn’t what he meant, so Kim Hyeokgwon glared at him.
“In any case, you’re going to proceed with the emergency treatment, aren’t you?”
“We can’t leave it out.”
“Then I think you may become the last human being left on earth.”
“Good health is a dream, but I don’t particularly care about living ten thousand years…… Ngh. Tape.”
“I’ll cut it and stick it on. But start thinking about that ten-thousand-year life now. Because he looks like he’ll curse you for about as long as immortality itself.”
Tap, tap.
Kim Hyeokgwon calmly advised him as he began fixing the compression bandage in place.
Meanwhile, Taesu had already moved toward the patient’s shoulder.
The broken shoulder was hard to gauge while he was still wearing clothes.
So he cut away part of the upper garment with scissors.
Snip, snip.
Just then, the middle-aged patient forced his prone body to move.
Then, with all his strength, he turned his head and glared at Taesu as if he would devour him.
“Nnngh.”
Prickle.
Taesu felt the back of his head sting.
Being stared at like this was burdensome even for Taesu.
Then all he had to do was divert the patient’s gaze.
Swish.
Soon, the shoulder distorted by the broken clavicle came into view.
At a glance, it was considerably out of alignment.
If he performed orthodontic therapy, it looked like it would hurt quite a bit.
Morphine wasn’t万能.
It suppressed pain; it couldn’t erase it altogether.
He definitely needed a countermeasure.
Taesu reached into the dispatch bag.
Clatter.
What he rummaged out was a compression bandage rolled into a circle.
Showing it to the patient, Taesu smiled brightly and asked kindly in English.
“Would you like to bite down on this, at least?”
“Uuuugh.”
“I think it’s going to hurt a bit.”
“You call that a question?”
Prickle.
The middle-aged patient radiated an even colder chill.
Taesu quietly positioned the compression bandage in front of his mouth.
“Now, bite dow—”
“Chomp.”
Snap.
At the middle-aged patient’s sudden action, Taesu barely managed to avoid it.
“I meant the compression bandage, not me.”
“Grrrr.”
“Anyway, since you’ve bitten it, I’ll begin.”
Even as the patient openly growled with bloodshot eyes, Taesu said everything he needed to say.
Just then, Kim Hyeokgwon, who had finished taping, arrived.
“I just need to press down on his back and neck, right?”
“If possible, turn his head the other way too.”
“You said it didn’t matter.”
When Kim Hyeokgwon spoke indifferently, Taesu shook his head.
“I’m not shameless to that extent.”
“You seemed plenty shameless. #%#$%$#%.”
After mocking him, Kim Hyeokgwon added something in the local language and turned the patient’s head the other way.
And the moment he took his stance again—
Taesu grabbed the patient’s shoulder and yanked it without mercy.
Crunch.
“Mmmmmmph.”
A muffled scream of pain sounded, and the patient writhed as though he might spring up at any moment.
Flail, flail.
Kim Hyeokgwon held him down with force and scolded him in Korean.
“Hey now. You said you had no strength, so stay still.”
“You have to say it in the local language or English for him to understand.”
“Do you think he can hear anything right now?”
“No. I’ll just finish.”
Crack.
No sooner had Taesu finished speaking than he twisted the shoulder.
At the same time—
“Urk.”
Tremble…… Thud.
The middle-aged patient must have reached the limit of his pain, because he finally fainted.
Taesu and Kim Hyeokgwon both shook their heads in the same way.
“He can’t even endure this much.”
“What a sheltered man.”
The standards of the two were quite ambiguous, but their opinions aligned perfectly.
Soon, the middle-aged patient’s emergency treatment was finished.
Taesu picked up the dispatch bag and stood.
When Kim Hyeokgwon rose after him, Taesu finally voiced his question.
“Have you already injected all the morphine syringes?”
“You only just noticed they were gone?”
“I’m asking now. And you came back quickly?”
Taesu asked with a look of anticipation.
Fortunately, Kim Hyeokgwon gave him the answer he wanted.
“I met the people hiding in shelters, and the lightly injured.”
“You found them?”
“No, I should say they crawled out. They said they’d been hiding in places like basements.”
Kim Hyeokgwon answered immediately, but Taesu still had many questions left to ask.
“How many in total, and how did you ask them for help?”
“What, were you afraid I grabbed them by the collar and shook them?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
The moment Taesu denied it, Kim Hyeokgwon cut in appropriately.
“I know what you mean, so enough. First, there were about twenty people I met. Men and women, old and young—the ages varied.”
“Yes.”
“They were all terrified and out of their minds.”
“The city’s been turned upside down, so that’s understandable.”
When Taesu showed understanding, Kim Hyeokgwon continued right away.
“So I started with the big ones and snapped them back to their senses.”
“You said you didn’t shake them by the collar.”
“I didn’t shake them by the collar. I slapped them across the face.”
“……Yes. Well done.”
“The ‘take down just one guy’ strategy was pretty useful.”
Kim Hyeokgwon looked extremely satisfied.
Taesu, on the other hand, smiled awkwardly.
“I suppose it would be.”
“After soothing them gently, I calmly suggested that we start with the recovery work.”
When imagined in one’s head, the contents didn’t match at all.
Taesu had no intention of asking deeply.
The result mattered more than the process right now.
“How are things proceeding?”
“I asked them to gather the injured into three broad groups.”
“That sounds about right.”
“And I told them to bring only the people whose wounds looked, at a glance, like they really shouldn’t be left as they were.”
“We’ll have to hurry before someone comes.”
When Taesu grasped the flow and set the standard, Kim Hyeokgwon nodded.
“That sounds good.”
“Let’s move.”
“Let’s.”
Having reached an agreement in an instant, the two immediately turned around.
Just before each of them was about to run off in their own direction—
Whoosh.
A wind blew from somewhere.
Since it was the wind touching their skin in the dead of winter, it was cold.
At that moment, Taesu paused, then quickly turned his head and asked Kim Hyeokgwon,
“What about heating measures?”
“That…… Damn it. The radio……”
Thud.
As Kim Hyeokgwon tried to press the radio, Taesu stopped him.
“What are you going to do, tell us?”
“We have to run again, don’t we. Tch.”
Tatadak.
As if irritation were his propellant, Kim Hyeokgwon immediately took off running.
They had no means of contacting the people here, so there was nothing they could do.