The Doctor With a Diagnosis System

CHAPTER 10: System Offline

The moment the patient's weight left my hands, my legs simply gave out. 

I collapsed backward. My shoulders hit the tiled wall of the OR, and I slid down until I hit the floor. The cold tile seeped through my thin jeans. My arms dropped heavily to my sides. I couldn't move my fingers. The muscles in my forearms were twitching uncontrollably, spasming from the sheer, violent effort of the manual thoracotomy. 

The blue screen flared to life in front of my face. 

[Mission Update: Objective Completed]

[Patient Survival Probability Increased to 82%]

[Reward Processed: Reputation Points +50]

I let my head fall back against the wall. I closed my eyes, listening to the organized chaos of the room. The rhythmic hiss of the mechanical ventilator took over for the manual bag. The rapid tear of sterile plastic packaging. The metallic clatter of surgical instruments being dumped onto the Mayo stand. 

I opened my eyes just in time to see Kang Min-Jae stepping up to the surgical table. He had scrubbed in less than two minutes. He wore a sterile blue gown, double gloves, and magnifying surgical loupes over his eyes. 

He didn't look like a human being. He looked like a machine built entirely for the purpose of cutting and sewing. 

"Scalpel," Kang demanded, holding out his hand. 

The scrub nurse slapped the instrument into his palm. Kang didn't hesitate. He looked at the ragged, brutal incision I had made with the trauma shears. A look of profound disgust crossed his eyes. 

"Suction the pooling blood," Kang ordered. "I need to clean up this butcher's work before I can even see the graft site."

He worked with blinding speed. Where my movements had been desperate and forced, governed by the temporary System skill, Kang’s hands were a blur of fluid, natural grace. He extended my incision cleanly. He placed the heavy cannulas into the heart, connecting the thick plastic tubes to the cardiopulmonary bypass machine. 

With a loud, mechanical whir, the massive machine kicked on. It began pulling the dark blood out of Mr. Han’s body, running it through an artificial oxygenator, and pumping it back in. 

The heart monitor flatlined again, but this time, it was intentional. 

"Heart is arrested. We are on full bypass," the perfusionist called out from the corner of the room. 

Kang reached into the chest cavity and removed my heavy steel clamp. He dropped it into a metal basin.

I sat on the floor against the wall, watching him. I was a spectator in my own nightmare. The blood drying on my skin felt tight and itchy. The metallic smell was permanently burned into the back of my throat. I had saved the man’s life. I had defied fate, defied the hierarchy, and broken every rule in the hospital. 

And yet, watching Kang work, I felt incredibly small. The System had given me a fifteen-minute cheat code. Kang had spent a decade building that exact same skill with his own two hands. 

Two hours passed in a blur of sterile lights and the steady, rhythmic hum of the bypass machine. 

[System Alert: Host Physical Exhaustion at 95%]

[Warning: Cellular breakdown imminent. Immediate sleep required.]

I ignored the flashing yellow text. I couldn't sleep. Not until I knew. 

Finally, Kang stepped back from the table. He peeled off his bloody outer gloves, letting them snap against his wrists, and threw them into the biohazard bin. 

"Off bypass. Normal sinus rhythm restored. Graft is holding perfectly," Kang announced to the room. He rolled his shoulders, stretching the stiff muscles in his neck. "Close the chest. Transfer him to the Surgical ICU."

He walked away from the table, pulling off his surgical mask. He stopped in the center of the room and looked down at me. I was still slumped against the wall, a pathetic, blood-soaked heap of gray cotton. 

Kang stared at me with an expression I couldn't read. It wasn't anger anymore. It was something colder. It was calculation. 

"You think you're a savior, Intern Ryeong?" Kang asked quietly, his voice cutting through the hum of the machines. 

I didn't have the strength to speak. I just looked up at him. 

"You aren't a doctor," Kang said, his tone dripping with absolute, freezing disdain. "A doctor follows protocol because protocol prevents chaos. You are a reckless butcher who got lucky. If that clamp had been a millimeter higher, you would have crushed the pulmonary valve. You broke into a room, mutilated a patient without a sterile field, and risked the entire reputation of this hospital."

He leaned down slightly, his dark eyes boring into mine. 

"You are still suspended," Kang whispered. "Do not mistake my finishing your surgery for an endorsement. I saved him. You just bought him ten minutes of agony. Get out of my operating room."

He turned and walked out the automatic doors. 

The silence he left behind was heavy. The scrub nurses avoided looking at me as they began packing Mr. Han’s chest with sterile gauze. 

I forced myself up. My knees popped loudly in the quiet room. I braced my hand against the wall, leaving a faint bloody smudge on the white tiles. I dragged my feet toward the exit, pushing through the doors into the hallway. 

The adrenaline was entirely gone. I felt dizzy, nauseous, and incredibly hollow. I just wanted to go home. I just wanted to close my eyes. 

As I stumbled toward the elevator banks, the harsh, electronic chime of the hospital intercom suddenly blared overhead. It was a sound I had only heard during drills. Never in reality. 

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"Code Black. Code Black. Emergency Room," the automated female voice echoed down the empty corridor. "Mass casualty incident. Multi-vehicle pileup on the Olympic Expressway. Fifteen inbound traumas. All available medical personnel report to the ER immediately. Code Black."

My pager, still clipped to my blood-soaked jeans, began vibrating violently. 

I stopped walking. Fifteen inbound traumas. A pileup. 

A sharp, searing pain suddenly exploded behind my eyes, entirely different from the headache of exhaustion. It felt like a hot iron pressing into my brain. 

I collapsed to my knees on the linoleum, clutching my head as the digital ringing grew deafening. 

The translucent blue screen violently manifested in front of me. It wasn't blue or green or yellow. 

It was a stark, terrifying, flashing crimson. 

[System Overload Detected.]

[Host Physical and Mental Limits Exceeded.]

[Emergency Shutdown Initiated to Prevent Host Brain Death.]

"No," I gasped, staring at the screen as my vision began to blur at the edges. "No, not now. The ER needs—"

[System Cooldown Active.]

[All System functions, including Death Probability Vision, Skill Rewards, and Medical Scans, are locked.]

[Duration: 24 Hours.]

[You are on your own, Ryeong Bin.]

The screen shattered into a million pixels of light and vanished. 

The intercom kept blaring the mass casualty warning. Footsteps began thundering down the nearby stairwells as nurses and doctors scrambled toward the ground floor. 

I knelt on the floor, perfectly alone, stripped of the System, staring at my trembling, blood-stained hands as the world faded to black.