Episode 65:
Around 7 a.m.
Some of the group got up from where they were lying with frowns on their faces.
I woke up at a time similar to the time I usually wake up, and unlike in the beginning, it was because I had become somewhat accustomed to the unpleasant influence of the other side of the world.
Of course, there were some who didn’t wake up. Garam Yoon, the owner of his own flower shop, and a pair of siblings who are still just students. And Manager Lee Jae-heon, who must have been very tired, was one of those people.
Among them, Dr. Ha Seong-yoon was the first to notice something strange.
“…Mr. Jeong In-ho.”
“yes?”
“The manager won’t wake up.”
“….”
Jeong In-ho, who was about to say, ‘I guess he was deep asleep because he was tired,’ soon closed his mouth. Due to Ha Seong-yoon’s personality, there was no way he would say something useless, and Jeong In-ho did not have any better medical knowledge than him in the first place. There was little chance that the words of an experienced doctor who had observed Director Lee Jae-heon’s condition so far were useless.
Jeong In-ho clenched his fist once and looked at his surroundings in as natural a manner as possible.
“I think it would be good to fetch some water today.”
“Then, shall we go to the small lake? There may be other fruits nearby…”
“I’ll also check to see if there’s a container that can hold water.”
The group was still calm.
“….”
At that moment, he felt an eerie feeling.
Director Lee Jae-heon took care of everything that required injury or pain, but passed on everything that they could solve with difficulty. Jeong In-ho, who knew a little about his past, guessed that Manager Jae-heon Lee was hoping for our growth.
Sure enough, during the evening when Director Jae-heon Lee disappeared, Director Min-ah Kang picked up a hammer. There was not a single member of the group who did not know how to make a fire, and Doctor Ha Seong-yoon, who showed a contemplative attitude, tried to manage the group as much as possible with a sense of duty as a doctor, even if he seemed to be half-pushed.
Even though they couldn’t solve very many things, they were able to fetch water to drink, fill their stomachs, and learn how to manage their emotions through proper deep breathing. I knew what they needed. This means that a basic system that was not visible at first was established.
It would probably be a perfect sight for Director Lee Jae-heon, who had hoped for this kind of result, but…
“… I’ll take a look too.”
A cool breeze crept up my spine.
Not only right now, but sometimes, In-ho Jeong felt like he was preparing for ‘a situation without Director Jae-heon Lee.’
Actually, it wasn’t wrong. From the beginning, wasn’t Lee Jae-heon’s goal to protect his mind and body and gain wealth? To be precise, the intention was to create a ‘comfortable situation without Lee Jae-heon’s involvement’.
However, if there was a problem, it was Manager Lee Jae-heon’s attitude so far.
Doctor Ha Seong-yoon said that he had inflicted a long and deep wound on his arm with a precise touch, and that he could no longer hide it, so he showed that he was accustomed to the pain. As can be seen from the death that In-ho Jeong showed before returning to the past, it felt like he was wishing to die himself. That is.
Jeong In-ho’s thoughts were already hardened by the flood of information that was difficult to call true or false. In his view, Director Lee Jae-heon was a person who would die immediately if there was a suitable cause.
One day, after handing over everything to Jeong In-ho…
“….”
He looked at Manager Lee Jae-heon, who was lying so quietly that he couldn’t even hear him breathing.
“…Ha…”
If it had been before, I would have thought it was surprising to see him sleeping so quietly.
The Manager Lee Jae-heon he knew was never a quiet person. I quickly became upset over small things and gave too much meaning to even trivial things. In his condescending manner, belittling and disparaging his opponents, Jeong In-ho never once thought of tranquility.
But unfortunately, I couldn’t help but think that this silence suited me very well right now.
“…Boss.”
“….”
“Chief?”
Kuuk.
I grabbed him while he was lying down and shook him gently, but there was no response.
“….”
For a moment, Jeong In-ho thought he had stopped breathing.
He suddenly remembered the first time Director Lee Jae-heon woke up after fainting. He remembered a moment of silence as he let out a loud moan and scratched his throat.
I remembered an empty place filled with blood without a single body….
“Chief.”
My hands felt strong.
Anyway, if it was true that something was wrong with him, the group shouldn’t have known about it either. That was a separate story from In-ho Jeong and the doctor keeping quiet despite knowing Director Jae-heon Lee’s past. So, I deliberately raised my voice so that the group could hear.
Even so, well.
“Manager, you need to wake up soon.”
“…Mr. Inho?”
“Get up.”
Jeong In-ho admitted that he felt a bit of fear.
“I told you to get up, manager.”
Clink.
My auditory hallucinations ring so loudly that my ears hurt.
It was the sound made when blood flowed.
* * *
Director Lee Jae-heon did not wake up.
“….”
Of course,
that didn’t mean he was dead.
Although he was sleeping so peacefully that one wondered if he was really dead, Director Lee Jae-heon was still alive. I just didn’t open my eyes as I slowly inhaled and exhaled so shallowly that I couldn’t even hear.
However, he did not remain quiet as he fell asleep.
“…Cough cough. “Hehe ah.”
“Teacher, please breathe.”
“Huh keek….”
“I can breathe. I can.”
Doctor Ha Seong-yoon’s expression was noticeably angry.
“It doesn’t mean that someone stopped it.”
Even Jeong In-ho didn’t know whether that was the doctor’s feelings toward the patient or whether he was seeing someone else.
However, Manager Lee Jae-heon groaned as if he had encountered a disaster that left him unable to breathe. Unlike usual, when I slept like I was dead, I couldn’t breathe in or exhale properly. He was clearly not breathing normally.
At that moment, or after that moment, Manager Lee Jae-heon scratched his neck.
He was squeezing me or pressing me with a strong grip as if he wanted me to die. Unlike when he fainted and immediately woke up and put down his hand to grab it, Director Lee Jae-heon’s struggle became stronger as time passed.
And if you forget,
“Cough.”
“….”
“Kek huok….”
He vomited blood.
“…Ha fuck.”
The doctor eventually started swearing.
In fact, it was an extremely frustrating situation for Dr. Ha Seong-yoon. This is especially the case in this situation where only the minimum measures must be taken as it is neither possible to conduct a proper examination nor to provide treatment.
When I called him aside and asked him about it, the doctor expressed his frustration.
“At first, I thought there was an internal problem, that’s right. “It’s your internal injury.”
“…sure?”
“Think about it, didn’t you, Manager, get dragged away by that monster surrounded by green algae? “The time I was dragged away was quite long, and any number of foreign substances could have entered my body during that time.”
“….”
“The trauma was so severe that I didn’t even think about it during the first treatment… but when I saw him vomiting blood later, I thought it was a mistake. “I was wondering if there were any internal injuries.”
“now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”
The neat and gentle face was broken and distorted with frustration and self-destruction.
“This is no place for a doctor.”
In any sense.
There is no equipment. There was no medicine, and at least it was impossible to find a bed to lay the patient on. This is an extremely harsh environment for a doctor who values hygiene.
Of course, there are many officetels outside the park, so it would be possible to find a room with a bed, but it was not possible to transport an unconscious patient of this size. Besides, how on earth did he go into the building knowing there would be some kind of monster there? Isn’t this the reason why they didn’t even stop by the pharmacy right away, even though they knew of the existence of a convenience store right outside the park?
“…Is it too much to stop by the pharmacy right now? “It may be due to physical limitations, at least in this world.”
“…I wonder when the manager will wake up.”
“Well, the problem is who else will die in the meantime. “How much will that person blame me when he wakes up?”
“….”
“You couldn’t do something so stupid, but….”
Patient Lee Jae-heon was no longer conscious.
“This is truly terrible.”
He couldn’t breathe, whether for psychological or physiological reasons. He was tormenting his neck as if he had a grudge, perhaps due to some kind of stress or trauma, and for some reason he often vomited blood. Even the amount varied greatly from time to time, making it impossible to clearly define the condition.
So, in the end, the underworld was no place for a doctor.
This was not a place for doctors who were not allowed to have any personal feelings toward patients, who had to develop hypotheses based solely on accurate and objective medical knowledge, and who had to treat patients with a more dispassionate attitude.
An indescribable feeling filled my lungs.
“Because I don’t know what kind of thing this world has done to the patient.”
“….”
“I understand the existence of the other world, not the origin and process. do you know? “All I know how to do is write notes on charts with a pen, find drugs, and pick up a scalpel.”
“I’m sorry.”
“All these abilities are probably useless here.”
All of that couldn’t be done in this world.
It was absurd. He dedicated 90% of his life to gain fame, power, and ability as a doctor, but in the other world, he was just a fool who couldn’t even figure out what disease his patients were suffering from and what measures he should take right away.
existence was denied.
“It’s really driving me crazy.”
This is the only value of the pain that led my life.
But that didn’t mean a proper diagnosis could be made. If Director Lee Jae-heon had been a patient who readily disclosed his condition, his words might have been a little different, but he was a patient who could never be loved by doctors.
“…You seem like a poisonous person who will die alone and silently even if he dies.”
Ha Seong-yoon eventually burst into laughter at the persistent resignation that had not been seen in any other patient.
“How can patients like that exist in the world?”
“…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s because it’s so amazing. It was so amazing and absurd…”
It was delightful.
“I can’t fix that person.”
There was a patient I couldn’t even touch.
Did you suffer internal injuries? What effect did the underworld have? What is the meaning of changes in the amount and frequency of hemoptysis? There has never been a more cruel situation for a doctor who must react sensitively to small changes in body temperature or coughing.
The knowledge you know is useless, or it could be useful, but it could have created the exact opposite situation. This means that the prescriptions that were previously believed to be correct without a single doubt could kill people here.
So surprising and mysterious.
It was easier if it was one of the two extremes. However, this extreme choice, in which the choice he made could be completely right or completely wrong, was very effective in making doctors like Ha Seong-yoon even more crazy.
The good news among the misfortunes was that Ha Seong-yoon was originally crazy.
“….”
“…Okay.”
I thought I would understand and accept it. Otherwise, he couldn’t have come to the other side of the world. Before he wasn’t crazy…
“I guess it can’t be helped, for me.”
Doctor Ha Seong-yoon, who was in a state of confusion, quickly returned to his usual self.
It was so neat and gentle that it caused a slight confusion in the companions, and soon the feeling of discomfort became a faint crack and seeped through them. It was because I began to notice traces of the mania that I had kept hidden under the pretense of being an adult.
Nevertheless, Jeong In-ho did not feel very anxious.
‘…I was just pretending not to know anyway.’
Wasn’t it just that I pretended not to notice because I couldn’t let go of this appropriate sense of distance that everyone was strangers?
Of course, it would be polite as an adult to hide an individual’s shortcomings or brokenness for a certain amount of time, but at the point where Manager Lee Jae-heon had already revealed his extraordinary common sense without even realizing it, it was no longer wrong to keep that kind of courtesy to each other. I had a premonition that a day like this would come someday.
Surprisingly, the person who was most calm amid all the chaos was none other than Chief Kang Min-ah.
“…Director.”
“yes.”
“You said it when you were comforting Yeonhee. “They say there might be fish in the small lake.”
“….”
“You said you were going to build a house.”
She hesitated as usual, but said everything she wanted to say and handed over the choice to Jeong In-ho, just like when Director Lee Jae-heon disappeared.
The gaze that I have seen many times somewhere is turned towards him.
“If you tell me what to do….”
“…if you tell me?”
“I will take responsibility.”
“Responsibility.”
“I could.”
What on earth?
“…okay.”
Even though Jeong In-ho asked himself that question, he did not say it because he was extremely tired.
In any case, Jeong In-ho was able to find a dark look on Director Kang Min-ah’s face for some reason. The cold, not yet hardened, soft blood that can only be seen on the body of a dead person…
the blood that seeped into the ground.
“….”
Blood.
dead body.
Darkness and
bright red fire.
“…Then let’s at least put up a wall.”
Hallucinations scratch my eyeballs.
Also, a piece of glass went into my ear hole and fluttered like a butterfly.
Jeong In-ho instinctively felt that something had changed in the person in front of him, but he could not feel any great emotion. Having experienced death and then returned to the past, the biggest surprise to Director Kang Min-ah was when he saw her alive.
That’s all.
All I had to do was stay alive.
If he doesn’t die, unless his thin limbs are bent like a doll. Those eyes looked into space, shed tears of blood, and as long as they didn’t look at me with emotionless eyes, I was full of them.
“A wall?”
If that were the case, Jung In-ho could not be as afraid as before even if she was killed by something or killed something. Just like before.
“I don’t know how to make a roof… so I think it would be okay to pile up wood or stones and if that’s not enough, tie it with vines or something like that.”
“…great.”
I hoped that kind of fear would only last once.
“I will do it.”
“Let’s do it together.”
“With whom?”
“As you wish.”
She
also had the right to do whatever she wanted.
“Please do whatever you want.”
Because I’m alive.
It was okay since he was still alive.
