The city certainly had a large population.
At this point, he was starting to wonder where all these patients were even coming from.
It was then.
Rumble.
The sound of a building collapsing rang out.
“Kyahhh!”
“What is it!”
“It’s a bomb!”
Inside the canopies, in the tents, everywhere.
The entire place filled with screams and turned into utter chaos.
Anxiety and agitation once again colored the faces of the patients who had barely managed to settle down.
Not only that, the people helping them were being shaken as well.
Taesu quickly stood up and shouted loudly.
“It’s all right. The war is over!”
“That must have been the sound of a building being torn down!”
“It wasn’t a bomb!”
“%$%@#$%!”
Jeong Minsu, the Korean medical staff, and even Kim Hyeokgwon stepped forward.
But no matter how much they shouted, their voices were not reaching people’s ears.
The commotion only intensified, and the anxiety grew even greater.
Fortunately, the same sound did not ring out a second time.
Perhaps that was an immense relief, because it did not develop into an even larger disturbance.
“…….”
Silence settled around the medical canopy and medical tents.
Everyone held their breath, unable to let go of the thread of unease.
Taesu also sensed that this was not something that could be solved by shouting.
Psychological trauma ran far deeper than physical wounds, and it lingered much longer.
They would not be able to shake off that anxiety right away.
But he could make sure the same sound was not heard twice.
Preventing a recurrence was important.
Sensing that, Taesu quickly asked Kim Hyeokgwon.
“What on earth was that sound?”
“Dust over there in the back!”
Point.
Kim Hyeokgwon pointed behind them with his finger.
Indeed, a large cloud of dust was rising behind the containers.
It was not a cloud of toxic gas from a fire.
Then what was it?
Just as he was about to think, Jeong Minsu’s shout reached him.
“That’s where I said there were a lot of dead people earlier!”
“They’re demolishing it now?”
“Already recovering the remains?”
“That can’t be it. Patients are still coming in!”
Everyone added a word of their own.
Perhaps because their experiences differed, their perspectives were different as well.
Combining those hints, Taesu formed a highly plausible hypothesis.
“It looks like there’s a survivor.”
“If there is, that’s a good thing. No, of course they have to survive.”
“The problem is, I’m getting the feeling it’ll be emergency surgery……”
Kim Hyeokgwon drew out the end of his sentence, leaving it hanging.
Taesu had a similar intuition.
More than two hours had passed since they arrived on site.
If they added the time from the initial report to the travel time, at least three and a half hours must have passed.
If someone had been pinned under the remains of a building, the chance they were unharmed could be considered zero.
Just then, someone came running over in a frantic rush.
Covered in dust, he was a local.
He shouted without caring that dust was flying off him.
“$@#$@#.”
“He says someone is trapped and the situation isn’t good?”
When Kim Hyeokgwon translated on his own, Taesu’s expression hardened at once.
“Tell him if this happened while they were working, I’ll kill them.”
“Hey! @$%#$$#!”
Kim Hyeokgwon shouted something at the man without hesitation.
It was so swift that it made one doubt whether he had actually conveyed Taesu’s words verbatim.
However, Kim Hyeokgwon was not the kind of person who would deliver such words directly.
Soon, an answer came from the man who had run over, and Kim Hyeokgwon translated.
“He says there’s someone buried.”
“Buried? Run!”
Thud, dadadak!
Taesu instinctively dashed off.
Seeing that response, everyone turned their gazes back to the patients they were treating.
In field medicine and emergency care, they all regarded Taesu as the foremost among them.
Only Kim Hyeokgwon moved.
Sasak!
“Good thing I packed it!”
He ran to the boxes of medical supplies, grabbed Taesu’s field bag, and followed after him.
Taesu, who had run ahead, chased after the white cloud of dust.
Perhaps the dust had been temporary, because it was quickly dispersing into the air.
However, since he had roughly noted the location while running, finding it was not much of a problem.
This was Taesu’s first time moving to another place since arriving here in Malnoi.
Everything he saw caught his eye.
Among them, what displeased him most was how the roads here and there had been wrecked, turning into rough terrain.
“Those mad bastards. How could they do this to civilians?”
Broken cars, debris from buildings.
Everything had turned into obstacles, blocking the way forward.
But it did not matter.
Whoosh, whoosh.
Taesu dodged this way and that, approaching the white cloud of dust.
Before long, after circling widely around a half-destroyed building, the site appeared in front of Taesu.
It was a fairly large two-story building, but it looked like a single-story structure.
Among its parts, a specific area of the first floor was especially full of dust.
At a glance, he could guess that the half-destroyed building had crumbled further over time.
Perhaps because of the risk of additional collapse, the people standing far back could not easily approach.
On the other hand, someone was shouting near the building.
“@%$#%!”
Whoosh, whoosh.
He was even adding rough hand gestures.
It seemed to mean that it was safe now.
Even so, most of the people were hesitating to approach the collapsed building.
At that moment, Taesu pushed through the crowd and popped out.
Then he arrived in front of the building without stopping.
“What is it, where is he?”
Whoosh, whoosh.
Taesu busily looked around to identify the location of the buried person.
Someone stepped up beside him.
It was the man who had been shouting at the top of his lungs.
He looked to be around his forties and was covered head to toe in white dust.
When he opened his mouth, dust tangled in his beard fell in clumps.
“Doctor!”
At the same time, Taesu’s ears twitched.
The man’s call was short and his pronunciation rough.
He was someone who had learned practical English, enough to communicate meaning through key words.
Taesu immediately pointed to himself, speaking at the other man’s level.
“Me, Doctor Choi. You?”
“Me Chakam.”
“Okay. Chakam, buried person where?”
“What?”
When the other man failed to understand “buried person,” Taesu immediately simplified the words.
“Sick person, where?”
“Oh, ohh! Come, come!”
Whoosh, whoosh!
Chakam went ahead, making big gestures for Taesu to follow.
Taesu was grateful that he had immediately received guidance.
“Everyday English is the best.”
As expected, the ultimate purpose of language was communication.
The method and manner were not especially important.
The distance Chakam guided him was short.
It was full of dust, but it did not seem to be the direction that had just collapsed.
And several people were gathered there.
Whoosh.
“There!”
Chakam shouted, gesturing to the location.
At the same time.
“Ghhh, uhhh……”
A faint groan came from among the people.
Even from the groan alone, it was far from ordinary.
Just as Taesu, approaching, furrowed his brow—
Chak.
Footsteps approached from behind, and Kim Hyeokgwon’s voice was heard.
“That’s where the buried person is?”
“Looks like it. But did you bring the medical supplies?”
“That’s why I’m only getting here now. What are you talking about?”
“Let’s hurry.”
Dadadak.
As Taesu quickened his steps, Kim Hyeokgwon also moved quietly.
When they approached the people, Kim Hyeokgwon quickly stepped forward and shouted.
“Hey, @%#$%#$!”
“%@#@$@!”
Only then did the people shout to one another and quickly move aside.
At last, the buried person who had been hidden came into view.
Only his upper body was visible; his lower body could not be seen.
From the waist down, his entire lower body was pinned beneath the building debris.
The moment they saw that situation, Taesu and Kim Hyeokgwon’s expressions turned grave.
Kim Hyeokgwon spoke first in a low voice.
“That means his lower body has been pinned for hours, doesn’t it?”
“You need to ask that.”
“Damn it. That’s my job, isn’t it?”
For an instant, Kim Hyeokgwon’s face changed as if his head was throbbing.
That was how hard a sight the patient’s condition was to look at.
Meanwhile, Taesu reached the buried person.
Sasak.
Right after him, Kim Hyeokgwon took his position.
At that same moment, the buried person, estimated to be in his fifties, moved his dry, cracked lips first.
“@#$……”
It was a faint voice.
Kim Hyeokgwon had to bring his ear close.
As he listened to the buried person’s words, Kim Hyeokgwon flinched and called Taesu.
“Doctor Choi.”
“What is he saying?”
“He’s asking us to kill him.”
As much as Kim Hyeokgwon’s voice trembled, Taesu’s eyes shook violently as well.
“What?”
“He says it hurts too much, that he doesn’t want to hurt anymore, and that we should just kill him.”
Seeing his expression and hearing his tone, Kim Hyeokgwon was severely shaken.
The buried man’s desperate wish was enough to paralyze the cold reason Kim Hyeokgwon possessed.
That darkness pressed in on Taesu as well.
He could not dare imagine what kind of terrible pain would make someone wish for death.
It was also the first time he had heard a patient say such a thing.
“…….”
It was enough to shake even Taesu’s steadfastness for an instant.
Just then, his hand, which had been in his gown pocket, gripped a stethoscope.
Thud.
The coldness of the chest piece snapped Taesu back to his senses.
A patient talking about death to a doctor first?
That could not happen.
Taesu was furious at himself for having been mindlessly swayed by the claws of death.
And that anger turned toward the buried person’s pain.
“If it hurts, you should ask me to make it stop hurting!”
Todok!
With rough hands, Taesu opened the snap pocket and took out a military morphine syringe.
Because there were multiple pockets, he had prepared emergency medicine in various places.
Taesu forcefully stuck the syringe into the buried person’s shoulder.
Puk!
“Like hell you’re dying!”
“…….”
Even as the needle dug in, the buried person did not move a muscle.
It seemed the pain of a syringe was not even enough to tickle him.
However, Taesu’s face darkened severely.
“This isn’t good.”
Taesu sensed that the buried person’s reaction was far too faint.
A single shot was not suppressing the pain.
Without delay, Taesu called for Kim Hyeokgwon.
“Mr. Hyeokgwon!”
“Huh?”
Kim Hyeokgwon still had a dazed expression.
The shock of hearing the buried person’s feelings directly still remained.
Taesu was not worried.
If it was Kim Hyeokgwon, there was no need to shout him down or press him.
One question alone would be enough to snap him back to his senses.
“Are you going to go crazy before even spending the money you scraped together so stubbornly?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Are you back to your senses?”
“What senses…… huh!”
Startled, Kim Hyeokgwon finally realized that he had been shaken by death.
Tremble.
His shoulders shook.
It was not an expression of self-reproach or reflection for being shaken.
Annoyance and rage surged up, making his shoulders tremble on their own.
That was how fiercely Kim Hyeokgwon’s eyes flared.
“This is the first time I’ve felt this damn awful since Ijambak. Damn it!”
“There’s no time to be angry!”
“I’m seriously so angry that……”
Kim Hyeokgwon continued speaking, as if he was about to explode with frustration.
Taesu awakened him once again.
“Check the buried person’s—no, the patient’s mentality first. Hurry!”
“Right. Let’s see if he asks us to kill him again. You! %$@#%#$.”
Kim Hyeokgwon glared at the other man as if he would devour him.
In that state, he began trying to draw out a conversation.