Chapter 172: Extremity (2)

After finishing his advice, Master gave his orders.

“Bring some food.”

A hearty meal was prepared for me, who had been unconscious for the better part of a month.

Of course, since it was meant for a patient who hadn't eaten for a month, it was all porridge and finely chopped dishes.

As soon as I finished my simple meal, Master spoke up.

"Now that you've come to your senses, return to the Hall of the Demonic Way and focus on your training. Never forget this old man's advice."

He told me to avoid sword training as much as possible and focus only on external and internal energy cultivation.

Soon after, warriors came to the medical wing.

Escorted by the warriors, I wandered through the Tianshan Mountain Range for quite a while.

By the time the sunset began painting the sky, I was finally able to enter the Hall of the Demonic Way.

The gazes of my peers and juniors, who were training in the training ground, fixed on me.

But there was something oddly distant about it.

They only watched from afar.

Unlike before, I didn't see any of them coming over to talk or challenging me to duels.

‘Why?’

As I walked across the training ground and looked around, I made eye contact with some juniors who had been stealing glances at me, and I got a vague idea of why.

The way they looked at me was... how should I put it?

To use a modern-day analogy, it was like they were looking at some celebrity.

Of course, it wasn’t as if that feeling was entirely absent before, but it felt much more intense now.

If before their eyes showed they wanted to get closer, now they looked like they didn't dare approach me at all. It was the look one gives to a person from an entirely different world.

On the other hand, my peers' reactions were subtly different.

They would glance at me briefly, then quickly turn away and immerse themselves in training.

Every single one of them was giving off this stern atmosphere like they were all battle-hardened veterans.

‘Must've been quite a shock.’

I couldn't speak for the juniors, but I understood my peers' feelings to some extent.

No matter how brutal the Hall of the Demonic Way's education was, it was definitely child's play compared to this recent battle.

‘Those crazy fanatic bastards...’

Even now, I could still hear their screams echoing in my ears like tinnitus.

Those faces that kept laughing even while arrows and flames from our own allies pierced their backs, even while swords were stabbed into their guts.

Though the term doesn't exist here, it wouldn't be strange if I'd developed post-traumatic stress disorder from that experience.

‘I should have a talk with Physician Seo.’

I was worried about my own condition, and it seemed unlikely that the rest of my peers were all right either.

As I was walking through the training ground, observing the faces of the disciples—

"Young Master!!"

Someone called out cheerfully and came running over.

It was Ju Seo-yeon who had taken a scimitar to her side from the leader instead of me.

"How's your body holding up?"

"Thanks to the Demonic Physician's best efforts in treating me, I was able to return to the Hall of the Demonic Way a few days ago."

Hearing her answer, a thought occurred to me.

‘…If I was unconscious for longer than a person whose side was sliced open by Saber Qi, then just how serious was my condition?’

I thought I was lucky to have been unconscious, but her next words stirred some ominous feelings.

"Oh, speaking of which, the Demonic Physician said something. He said that just as I saved you, Young Master, you also saved me."

"Ahem. I just fought that fanatic because I wanted to live."

“Ah… that’s not what I was referring to. The Demonic Physician said that if you hadn't told him how to use some medicine, my treatment would have been nearly impossible."

"Medicine? What medicine?"

"What was it... Ah! I think he called it narcotics. He said my condition was so serious that they had to operate while I was on narcotics. And he kept disinfecting the wound area with something called... disinfecting alcohol? He said both of those were treasures that you discovered, Young Master."

It seemed they could now perform surgeries that were previously almost impossible—the kind where nine out of ten patients would die on the table—with relative safety.

But I didn't have time to feel any satisfaction from that.

‘That’s right. I did say it was okay to use narcotics on patients who might die. So wait, did they use them on me too? Was I unconscious for a month because I was high on drugs?’

It was unsettling in many ways, but I decided to let it slide for now.

‘As long as there are no withdrawal symptoms, I guess it’s fine. They do prescribe narcotic painkillers to critical patients anyway.’

When I organized my thoughts and looked ahead, Ju Seo-yeon was still chattering away while looking at me with an expression like a puppy..

And I could easily figure out what she wanted.

"Don't worry. If Disciple Ju makes it into the Hidden Guard Pavilion, I'll definitely take you as my personal attendant."

"Thank you, Young Master!!"

She wanted confirmation about the promise from back then.

And I couldn't ignore the pure selfishness of someone who had been willing to throw away her life to save mine.

‘Sorry, Miss Jin.’

I offered a brief mental apology to clear away the faint guilt that remained.

With all her worries blown away, Ju Seo-yeon spoke with a bright face.

"Actually, while I was receiving treatment at headquarters, I even got to hear thanks from Miss Jin Hayeon thanks to you, Young Master!"

"Hm? Miss Jin came to visit?"

I didn't even get to see her though?

"Yes. While the Lord of Ten Thousand Demons was handling business, she took some time away from caring for you to visit me."

Hmm. So she was nursing me while I was unconscious.

‘That's actually a relief. If she went out of her way to express gratitude, they must have gotten pretty close, right...?’

As I organized this new information and looked ahead, Ju Seo-yeon's eyes sparkled as she spoke.

"Actually, I was so happy that I tried to get up and got my wound reopened, so I had to stay in the medical hall for a few more days. But that pain was nothing compared to the joy of hearing thanks from Miss Hayeon!"

Her expression was no less fervent than that of the fanatics we had just faced.

An expression not unlike those fanatics of Allah I'd encountered recently.

‘…Sh-She’ll be fine, right?’

Some inexplicable sense of dread crept up on me, but I decided to ignore it for now.

"Ahem. Even though I made a promise, you can't slack off in your training. Miss Jin might be disappointed."

"Yes, Young Master! I'll do my absolute best!"

"Well then, I have places to visit, so keep it up."

After spouting some well-meaning nonsense, I quickly walked away to escape from her.

And the first place I headed to was the Hall Master's office.

"...Did you say the Supreme One summoned me?"

"That's correct, Hall Master."

To get me exempted from the Hall of the Demonic Way's training schedule.

I didn't bother stating that reason out loud.

Hall Master Yeom Ga-hwi was quite the old-fashioned hardass himself, so I had to leave it entirely to Master.

Old-fashioned geezers should be dealt with by even bigger old-fashioned geezers above them. It would be hopeless for a young guy like me to handle one.

No matter what logic I presented, he'd inevitably reach the conclusion of "How dare a young punk!"

After briefly reporting my return to the Hall of the Demonic Way and conveying Master's summons, I left the Hall Master's office and headed to the infirmary.

"Welcome! Young Master Il-mok!"

Physician Seo Jae-pil welcomed me, but something felt off.

"Is something troubling you?"

His face looked somewhat depressed.

At my question, Seo Jae-pil smiled bitterly and answered.

"It's because of this recent attack."

"Ah..."

Being a psychiatrist, he must have realized that the disciples' mental states weren't good.

‘Huh. But he's feeling sad about it rather than happy, so he's a more decent physician than I thought.’

I naturally assumed he'd be celebrating having more patients to treat.

"There were so many seriously wounded from this incident that the medical wing performed major surgeries one after another. I heard that the revered Demonic Physician in particular conducted some truly fantastic and unconventional surgeries using the narcotics and disinfecting spirits you taught him about.”

"......"

“When I heard the story of how, by understanding the concept of ‘disinfection,’ they were able to sterilize a needle, attach it to a thread, stitch up Disciple Ju Seo-yeon’s damaged internal organs, and then reinforce it with qi… I nearly wept tears of blood, Young Master. I could not bear the fact that I was stuck in this Hall of the Demonic Way and could not witness a sight akin to the second coming of Hua Tuo.”

Yep, I was right about this guy.

This bastard was a madman obsessed with medicine.

After that, Physician Seo continued babbling about various surgeries he hadn't witnessed firsthand but had only heard about through letters.

He did so with a face that looked like a man who had lost the woman he'd loved his whole life.

It was making my head spin.

I felt that if I listened to this bastard’s story any longer, the side effect that my Master had suppressed would run wild, so I quickly opened my mouth.

"Stop. Stop right there."

"But Young Master, you've created new history that unfolded in the medical wing."

I had no memory of creating any new history.

I had only ended up using drugs as painkillers when trying to stop this crazy bastard from using them as psychiatric medication.

And I'd only thought of disinfecting alcohol while trying to solve my damn hygiene obsession.

"Sigh. That's all in the past now. More importantly, wasn't Physician Seo assigned to the Pure Mind Hall, not the medical wing? So focus more on what you should be doing. The disciples didn't just suffer physical injuries; their minds were wounded as well."

"???"

As expected, Physician Seo looked like he hadn't thought of that at all.

“For nearly all of them, it was their first real battle. And in that first battle, they were surrounded and ambushed by hundreds of enemies, witnessing blood-soaked combat with guts spilling everywhere right before their eyes. Furthermore, there were many casualties on our side, and countless cases where they themselves were injured. After going through something like this, how could they not be in shock?”

I explained at length, but Seo Jae-pil still looked like he didn't understand.

"Isn't that something you naturally experience when learning martial arts? It's common even among the unbelievers in the Central Plains, not just in our Divine Cult, Young Master."

"......"

Come to think of it, this guy was a physician, but he was a Demonic Cult physician.

Though he was studying mental illness due to the side effects of Demonic Arts, he was still one of those crazy bastards who took killing and being killed for granted.

As I pondered how to deal with this lunatic, I sighed softly and spoke calmly.

"As Physician Seo says, it is something they'll eventually experience. But the problem is that they experienced it too early and too intensely."

"???"

"It's a simple principle. Humans are said to be creatures of adaptation, but they only adapt to things they can endure. What would happen if someone who had never trained in external arts in their entire life suddenly tried to lift a hundred-pound iron weight?"

"Well, their muscles would tear and they'd live as a cripple for life, wouldn't they?"

"The mind works the same way."

"Ah!!"

Only then did Physician Seo grasp my intent.

They were no longer the dead-fish eyes from a moment ago.

"So you're saying that the minds of disciples who received too strong a stimulus this time might be damaged. Like how muscles can tear and cause permanent disability from excessive training."

"Exactly."

"However, this kind of thing is quite common in our Demonic Cult. But everyone lives normally, don't they?"

"......"

I wanted to ask if the Demonic Cult bastards really looked normal to him, but I held back.

He'd probably think they looked normal anyway.

"Some people are naturally strong enough to handle heavy weights from the start, or only suffer minor injuries. The mind is the same. Some exceptionally strong individuals might endure it, but plenty will be broken by this incident. And unlike muscles, mental damage isn't visible, so it's hard to notice."

"You're saying the same experience can affect people differently. Haha. You truly are remarkable, Young Master. To think of comparing the human mind to muscles."

Seo Jae-pil excitedly scribbled something on paper with interest, then looked up with shining eyes.

"Hmm. Come to think of it, since the disciples are already suffering from the side effects of Demonic Arts, the danger would be even greater if their minds are damaged."

“That is precisely the point I was trying to make.”

"Hahaha. This definitely seems like a research topic worth pursuing, Young Master! I really made the right choice following you around!"

"......"

A shiver instinctively ran down my spine as the madman spouted such stalker-like lines with gleaming eyes.

***

By the time I left the infirmary, the sky had already turned dark.

I went to the cafeteria to get some patient food, then returned to the Black Dragon Pavilion to rest for a bit. It wasn't until late evening that I slowly got up and left my room.

By now, Jeong Hyeon should have returned to her room.

After crossing the corridor of the Black Dragon Pavilion and passing several rooms, I arrived at the door with a familiar disciple's nameplate and carefully spoke up.

"Disciple Jeong. Are you there?"