I wasn’t screwed.
This was the greatest opportunity of my life.
I looked at the blue interface floating in midair, [Dead Medical Scholars Gallery], and snickered.
Laughter burst out of me like I was a lunatic.
The wailing of these dead doctors could become the greatest textbook—and weapon—I could ever have.
Dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of specters from every field imaginable.
I could now browse, in real time, the knowledge and experience they had built over their entire lives through an internet community.
I steadied my thoughts, trembling with excitement, and began examining the gallery interface more closely.
Board list, write post button, search bar… everything that should be there was there.
Then my gaze caught on one tiny icon at the very top right of the screen.
Looking closer, I saw it was a small shopping cart, faintly glowing.
‘A shop…?’
Why was I only seeing this now?
No, had it not been there earlier?
With confusion and curiosity tangled together, I thought about clicking the shopping cart icon.
In the next instant, the gloomy blue gallery screen transitioned smoothly, and an entirely new interface unfolded before my eyes.
[Owned LP: 100]
LP? What was this? Legend Points? The moment I tilted my head, a small pop-up message appeared beneath the letters.
[Reward for successfully diagnosing your first rare disease! 100 LP has been awarded.]
“Holy shit….”
There was even a reward system.
Swallowing dryly, I slowly scrolled through the shop’s product list.
[Fatigue Recovery Tonic (Low Grade)]
Price: 50 LP
Description: A special drink that lets you forget all fatigue for 3 hours. Also excellent for hangovers.
[Concentration Enhancement Potion (Mid Grade)]
Price: 200 LP
Description: Keeps your brain in peak condition for 6 hours. Try using it when writing a paper or performing a complex surgery.
[Memory Palace (Single Use)]
Price: 800 LP
Description: Perfectly recalls everything you saw and heard over the past 24 hours as if it were a photograph. Find the clues you missed.
“Wow….”
My jaw dropped.
Every single one of them was like rain in a drought to me right now.
Especially that fatigue recovery tonic.
But I stopped myself from pressing the purchase button and scrolled farther down. I had a feeling there would be something even more incredible.
And my hunch wasn’t wrong.
Near the very bottom of the list, I found an item radiating an overwhelming aura that couldn’t even be compared to the others.
[Possession]
Price: 5,000 LP
Description: For 30 minutes, a designated gallery user may possess your body, or float beside you in midair and guide you in real time.
Penalty: After using the skill, you will fall into a state of severe full-body muscle pain for 12 hours.
“….”
I stopped breathing.
I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
Possession.
Possession?
The possession I knew?
My mind went blank.
The price of 5,000 LP didn’t even register.
A dead doctor could enter my body for 30 minutes?
Just imagining it sent goosebumps all over me. Wasn’t this literally a cheat skill?
‘…or float beside you in midair and guide you in real time.’
If possession felt too much, it meant I could also receive ghost tutoring.
I could have an invisible master beside me, guiding me move by move.
Of course, the penalty was horrifying.
‘Severe full-body muscle pain.’
But if 12 hours of pain could let me borrow the hands of a god for 30 minutes, there was no better deal than this.
The problem was the price. 5,000 LP.
I had solved one VEXAS case and only received 100 LP.
I calmed my pounding heart and grabbed hold of my reason again.
‘Calm down. First, confirm it.’
This shop, this LP system.
Could only I see it? Or did all the specters in this gallery share it?
I cautiously opened the gallery’s post-writing window.
After a brief moment of thought, I typed a single line.
Title: Let me ask one question
Author: HellJoseonSlave1
Do you guys have a shop icon in the top right?
The moment I mentally pressed the post button, comment notifications began ringing like mad before even a second had passed.
ㅇㅇ (210.94): So are you really alive or not!!!
PediatricsWraith77: Hey! Answer us! Are you really currently practicing? Are you in the ER right now?
AnesthesiologyPainMedicine: Shop? What kind of bullshit is that? Are you talking about changing the gallery skin?
ORWraith3: Stop talking nonsense and answer what laparoscopic equipment you use. Hurry up.
ㅇㅇ (1.234): This bastard only says what he wants to say. What year are you? Which hospital?
HippocratesDescendant: There is no such thing as a shop. You are firmly gripped by delusion.
ㅇㅇ (118.235): There’s no shit like that. Stop seeing things and tell us your specs. Which med school did you graduate from?
BoneFanatic88: What shop? All I can see is my beautiful bone collection.
The comment section became a battlefield in an instant.
But within that chaos, I was able to obtain one clear answer.
‘There’s no shit like that.’
No one else could see it.
Not a single one of them knew the shop existed.
…So it only appears for me.
I realized the rules of this insane world once again.
[Dead Medical Scholars Gallery] was a forum for everyone.
But [Shop] and [LP] were privileges granted only to me, the sole survivor of this world—the living player.
“All right, then how do I earn 5,000 points?”
I sprang up from the bed and stretched.
The fatigue pressing down on my shoulders seemed to ease a little thanks to my sense of accomplishment and excitement.
What should I do now? Should I run straight to the ER and search for a patient who was hard to diagnose?
Or should I spend 50 LP first and chug a fatigue recovery tonic?
That was when it happened.
A bright red warning window appeared in my vision, which had been aimed at empty air.
『Emergency Quest Generated!』
『Save the patient’s life and prove your qualifications!』
“…?”
A quest?
[Emergency Quest: Hidden Shadow]
Objective: Find the neglected patient and save his life.
Time Limit: 00:59:58
Success Reward: 1,000 LP, [Hidden Trait Unlock]
Failure Penalty: None
Save a life? What the fuck are you talking about?
Without even having time to chew over the contents of the quest window, I shot up from my seat.
Time limit: one hour.
It said there was no failure penalty, but the 1,000 LP and the reward called “Hidden Trait Unlock” shimmered before my eyes.
I urgently kicked open the on-call room door and ran out, hurrying toward the emergency room.
‘A dying patient. Right now, where?’
If it was the ER, then of course it would be the critical care area.
I ran like a madman and threw myself first into Area A, the critical patient zone. But what entered my eyes were neatly arranged empty beds and quiet monitors. Empty.
“Damn it!”
Then the resuscitation room?
The place you ran to when a cardiac arrest patient came in. I immediately changed direction and headed for the resuscitation area. Beyond the glass doors, Resuscitation Rooms 1 through 6 were all cleanly empty.
The isolation rooms?
Clinging to my last hope, I ran toward the isolation rooms. I looked through the thick glass windows, but no, they were empty too.
“What the hell is going on?”
I was gasping for breath.
In this sprawling emergency medical center, I had checked every place where a dying patient might be.
But there was no one.
No one at all.
Had the system malfunctioned?
Or was there a patient somewhere else I didn’t know about?
Clutching my confused head, I approached the central nursing station.
The nurses were busily checking monitors or walking around with papers in hand. But they didn’t look urgent. Just ordinary busyness.
I looked around the station, trying to grasp the current situation.
In the middle of the station, Choi Sumin, a third-year emergency medicine resident and known as the angel of the ER, was calmly receiving handover. Beside her, Park Seyoung, an emergency medicine fellow, was glaring at a pile of charts with a frown. An ordinary scene.
And then, at the sight of the man standing behind them, my heart sank with a thud.
‘Oh, fuck me. Why is the chief here again?’
Chief Park Ung.
The guardian of the conference room and a living disaster itself—why had he descended into the middle of the ER at this hour?
Please don’t look at me.
Please.
I am invisible.
I am air.
The moment I offered that desperate prayer in my heart, the chief’s head slowly turned this way.
Ah, fuck. Our eyes met.
Chief Park Ung looked at me with a slight tilt of his head for a moment, then pointed at me with his finger as if he had remembered something.
“Oh! Right, right. You’re that… Dr. Han, was it?”
Damn it. If you can’t avoid it, enjoy it?
No. If you can’t avoid it, crawl.
I moved at a speed close to a spinal reflex.
“Yes!!!! Chief!!!!!!!!!! I am Han!! Hyeon!! Jae!!”
Along with a reply that was practically a roar, I bent at the waist to a perfect ninety degrees.
I don’t know. For now, let’s try to survive this crisis by sucking up.
Whether my resounding answer satisfied him or left him dumbfounded, the chief cleared his throat once and spoke.
“Haha, right. I got a call from rheumatology earlier, and they were praising you to the skies, saying our Dr. Han studies so hard on a regular basis.”
I couldn’t exactly say, ‘No, sir. I cheated off the gallery for that,’ so I activated the only survival skill I had learned in my first year of social life.
I squeezed out the voice of an overwhelmed rookie burning with scholarly zeal.
“Yes!!!! That is correct!!!!!!! I believe it is a doctor’s natural duty to acquire the latest knowledge day and night for the sake of the patient!!!!”
My bootlicking, wrung from the depths of my soul, cut through the cold air of the ER.
I saw Choi Sumin’s shoulders tremble, and Fellow Park Seyoung buried his face in the chart.
That guy’s laughing right now, isn’t he?
The chief stared blankly at me with wide eyes, then couldn’t hold back and burst into hearty laughter.
“Hahahaha! Now that’s some spirit, hahaha!”
The chief’s heavy hand thumped my shoulder again and again.
Still bent at the waist, I simply waited for this cheerful storm to pass.
But where on earth had the emergency quest occurred?
My head was filled with nothing but that thought.
Where was the patient?