[Time Remaining: 00:06:51]
At this rate, in seven minutes, I'll lose 1,000 LP and a hidden trait right before my eyes.
This won't do.
I have to grasp at straws.
I finally decided to reach for my last resort.
I can't pass up on the wisdom of the crowd.
Once again, I conjured [Dead Doctor Gallery] in the empty air.
Title: Urgent) Male Patient in 50s, Sensory Abnormality
Author: Hell Joseon Slave 1
R/O acute gastroenteritis patient. C/o N/V/D, abdominal pain. Vitals stable, no specific lab findings. But showing cold-hot reversal (*temperature sensation reversal) findings. Feels cold water as warm. What do I differentiate first? No time.
Post.
The moment I hit the button, comment notifications started flooding in like crazy.
ㅇㅇ (210.94): No, but are you actually alive or not!!!!
HippocratesDescendant: A sensory abnormality—could it not be a stroke? Describe the physical examination findings in further detail.
PediatricsGhost77: Hey, you bastard, say something!!!! Are you not planning to communicate with us!!!!
As expected.
These ghost bastards had no interest in my question. They were just obsessed with me and me alone, like lunatics.
Right then, that IP appeared again.
ㅇㅇ (118.235): Are you r*tarded? Ask if he’s traveled to Southeast Asia or what fish he ate, go go. Re-questioning, go go.
Huh…?
Fish…?
All of a sudden…?
I narrowed my eyes.
Southeast Asia travel? Fish? What the hell did these two things have to do with gastroenteritis symptoms and temperature sensation abnormality?
Even after mobilizing every scrap of medical knowledge in my head, I couldn’t grasp the connection.
HippocratesDescendant’s comment suspecting a stroke sounded far more plausible.
The gallery—no, that floating IP 118.235—seemed suspicious.
But I had no choices left. Four minutes remaining. Nothing to lose.
I headed back to bed B-17.
The patient, groaning with a face paler than before, opened his eyes with difficulty when he saw me.
“Doctor sir, what is it this time…?”
“Patient, I’ll ask you a few more things. It’s important.”
“Have you traveled to Southeast Asia recently?”
The patient shook his head.
“Southeast Asia? I’ve only ever been to Jeju Island my whole life. What Southeast Asia.”
The first clue missed.
“Then have you eaten any sashimi or unusual fish dish yesterday or today? Something you don’t usually eat?”
At my question, the patient’s eyes faintly brightened.
“Ah, fish!”
“Yesterday at lunch, our company president came back from the Philippines and brought a braised fish dish… What was the name? Lapu… something Lapu. Three to four hours after eating it, my stomach started churning and this mess happened.”
Philippine fish. Lapu-Lapu.
I shouted “Understood, please wait!” to the patient, then ran like mad back to the station.
And immediately posted a second thread in the gallery.
Title: Hey Floating IP, Get In Here ㅇㅇ
Author: Hell Joseon Slave 1
No, I got the answer, but why did you tell me to ask?
Patient says he recently ate Philippine fish (Lapu-Lapu). No travel history; says an acquaintance brought it. What is this?
And
Before even one second had passed since my post went up.
The gallery exploded.
ㅇㅇ (210.94): hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
PediatricsGhost77: You r*tarded bastard, what are you doing hahaha they laid out the whole meal and now you're asking them to spoon-feed you hahaha
ORGhost3: hahaha I’m going crazy, seriously hahaha is this bastard really a doctor? hahaha
HippocratesDescendant: So you are indeed alive. And it has become clear that you are more foolish than I imagined.
ㅇㅇ (1.234): Alive for sure, and this bastard is definitely r*tarded haha
Had all these crazy ghost bastards lost their minds collectively?
Then, amidst all that ridicule, the answer I wanted finally appeared.
ㅇㅇ (118.235): It’s Ciguatera (*a type of tropical food poisoning), you moron.
ㅇㅇ (118.235): Starts with GI symptoms, then headache, muscle pain, and the temperature sensation abnormality you saw is a f*cking characteristic symptom. It’s something you learn in toxicology class, you bastard.
Ciguatera. Ciguatoxin.
Yeah, that existed.
That rare toxin I’d only underlined roughly in my textbook, thinking I’d never see it in Korea my entire life.
In the end, I found the answer again thanks to these crazy ghost bastards.
Of course, in the process I’d been treated like a quack r*tard.
[Time Remaining: 00:01:21]
No time now.
“Dr. Choe!”
I shouted toward my senior sitting at the station.
“Bed B-17, it’s ciguatera fish poisoning!”
Every sound at the nursing station stopped in an instant.
Chart flipping, phone ringing, even the chatter—it all died.
My senior’s eyes were full of bewilderment, as if to say, ‘What kind of bullshit is this kid spewing now?’
“Hyeonjae, hold on. Ciguatera? That tropical fish toxin?”
The reaction was completely normal.
Ciguatera.
A disease where case reports appear at best occasionally in the deepest south, places like Jeju Island.
A textbook disease that a clinician working in Korea might encounter maybe once in their entire lifetime.
And a first-year resident had diagnosed such a rare disease in a gastroenteritis patient?
I wouldn’t have believed it either if I were the senior.
I caught my breath and continued.
“The patient says he ate a dish made with a fish called Lapu-Lapu that an acquaintance caught in the Philippines yesterday. GI symptoms began a few hours later, and now he’s even showing cold-hot reversal findings.”
The moment I finished, my senior’s eyes shot wide open.
“…Ah, hey! That’s right!”
With a short exclamation, my senior turned without hesitation and placed both hands on the keyboard.
Clack-clack-clack-clack!
My senior began entering orders into the EMR at crazy speed, like a storm.
“Get another IV line, calculate mannitol 20% at one gram per kilo, and load it over thirty minutes! Right now!”
“Continue EKG monitoring, check blood pressure every hour! Watch carefully for bradycardia or hypotension!”
“Give gabapentin 300 milligrams immediately, and if pain control is inadequate, give more on schedule!”
“We need to monitor urine output so insert a Foley catheter right now!”
Holy shit.
I stared blankly at the scene, letting out an exclamation of awe.
A third-year isn’t a third-year for nothing.
That speed was on a completely different level.
I had merely tossed out the diagnosis name “ciguatera,” yet my senior was pouring out orders like a storm without even taking time to think.
Is this what experience is?
I would’ve had to look up each of those orders in a book, ask my senior, and struggle for ages to issue them one by one.
But my senior had finished that entire process in mere tens of seconds.
I truly came to respect my senior.
The savior who saved my life—no, my LP.
[Time Remaining: 00:00:12]
[Time Remaining: 00:00:11]
Just before the quest timer ran out, Choe Sumin finally hammered the enter key with force, confirming the last order.
Phew. I did it.
I let out a sigh of relief.
I hadn’t done anything beyond making the diagnosis, but the quest was a success regardless.
1,000 LP and a hidden trait.
What could the hidden trait be?
It was a moment to look forward to. Ehehe.
At that very moment.
Ding~!
With a quiet, cold notification sound, a new system window rose in my vision.
[You have handed treatment over to another physician!]
[Acquired LP decreases by 50%!]
[Final Reward: 500 LP, Hidden Trait Unlock (Locked)]
“….”
My brain stopped.
What?
Acquired LP decreased by 50%?
1,000 points had become 500 points in an instant.
And even after “Hidden Trait Unlock,” there was a f*cking parenthetical saying “(Locked).”
No, I was the one who asked the gallery and found out!
I found it!
For the reward to be halved just because my senior gave the orders—how irrational and absurd!
I heard something snap inside me.
Fatigue, tension, and anger at the injustice mixed together, paralyzing my brain, and without realizing it, I blurted out my inner voice without filter.
“This is fucking bullshit!”
Too loud to be a mutter, too quiet to be a shout.
The clattering of my senior’s keyboard stopped.
All the air in the ER froze.
Choe Sumin slowly turned their gaze from the EMR screen to look at me.
An unreadable expression—a face covered in shock and question.
My senior opened their lips and quietly asked me.
“…Hyeonjae, what did you just say?”
…Huh?
Did I just curse out loud?
Really? I let it out? A string of curses?
In front of my senior?
Am I really crazy?
That’s right.
Han Hyeonjae, first-year emergency medicine resident.
I, who was nothing but a fucking bottom-feeder, had become a lunatic who cursed out the orders given by the third-year known as the Angel of the ER, right in front of said senior.