Sure, patients can feel anxious.
Even in the 21st century, they say all sorts of things before surgery, don't they?
Some people even ask the surgeon, "Are you sure you're good at this?"
And that's coming from people who should know how rude that is.
Which means, as long as they don't cross the line, I can understand it to some extent.
"No! No! You can't cut my nose off!"
Now, what should I call that?
"No! Save me!"
That's… pushing it a bit too far, isn't it?
Nobody—huh?
Nobody said anything about cutting your nose off.
There's a knife, yeah…
But it's small.
With this, I could cut gums, maybe, but I couldn't cut a nose off even if I wanted to.
"People of the town! These bastards are after my nose!"
Yeah, okay. We can't just leave this situation as is.
I mean, there's another person right next to him who actually needs surgery right away.
The exact same surgery, in fact…
Would you want to go through with it after seeing this guy losing his mind?
"Uh…"
See?
He's already getting scared.
This can't go on.
So, I stepped in.
"Sir, you're saying some weird things. We are not cutting your nose."
"Then… then what's with that knife?"
"We're just making a small incision in the gums."
"You're cutting my mouth?"
"No, that's not—"
It was useless.
Thinking about it, though, I kind of understood why.
The only kind of surgery these people knew was…
You know.
Chopping off arms and legs.
Oh, and I saw someone get their jaw cut off too. That was our dear Dr. Liston…
No mention of whether the patient lived or died.
"Let me handle this. Even a genius like you can't deal with everything without experience."
I didn't know what to do.
In Korea, when you tell someone they need surgery, they usually nod and sign the consent form.
Sure, sometimes the details in the form can be a little terrifying, and complications can cause complaints, but this never happened.
I was starting to panic a bit when Dr. Liston stepped in.
"Ah, yes."
Right.
If anyone could handle this, it was him.
"Turn on the gas."
"What?"
That… was not what I had in mind.
Liston, apparently, had no intention of talking things through.
His assistants, however, reacted like this was completely normal.
They immediately turned on the laughing gas, held the struggling patient down by the forehead and shoulders, and knocked him out.
'Wow… This is insane.'
What kind of hospital is this?
This is kidnapping.
No, not even that…
This feels more like an execution.
"That's done, right?"
I should have said this was not okay.
But before my brain could even process what was happening, I opened my mouth and said:
"Yes."
"Good. Let's go."
And just like that, the patient was taken away to the room of truth—no, the operating theater.
'Actually, it's not even a theater…'
It wasn't a proper operating room.
What should I even call it?
A surgery plaza?
The idea of performing a surgery—something that should be done in a sterile environment—in an open square was ridiculous.
But this was their reality.
So, I kept my mouth shut.
—But I think I might mess up if too many people are watching…
At least that concern was taken seriously by Liston.
So, instead of the public square, we headed to a lecture hall.
You might think there wasn't much difference between an operating room and a lecture hall, but trust me—compared to an open-air plaza, this was a huge improvement.
At least we weren't outside.
And there were only about 20 people watching.
Of course, none of them were wearing masks.
Total disaster.
"Alright, put him up there."
"Yes, sir."
Before I knew it, we had arrived.
Following Liston's orders, we placed the patient on a makeshift table—a few desks pushed together.
Not a proper surgical bed, just… desks.
'This definitely needs to change.'
Without anesthesia, this setup worked fine.
Patients would move anyway.
Actually, the problem was too much movement.
But a patient under anesthesia can't move on their own.
They'll just stay still.
'That's gonna cause bedsores, you idiots!'
The problem was that patients, after undergoing long surgeries, often complained about pain not where they were operated on, but elsewhere—because they were stuck in uncomfortable positions for too long.
Modern medicine had already realized this and addressed it.
Surgeries were no longer just about what was easiest for the surgeon but also about ensuring the patient's safety and comfort.
Of course, that hadn't always been the case.
At first, everything was done for the surgeon's convenience.
'I need to finish this quickly.'
Thankfully, this wasn't a surgery that could drag on.
And with their primitive anesthesia, if I took too long, the patient would probably die from respiratory suppression anyway.
"Joseph. Alfred."
"Yeah?"
"Mm."
I took a deep breath and positioned my assistants—Joseph and Alfred.
We had practiced together many times on cadavers, so even though this was their first real operation, they moved as if they'd done it before.
Now, it was all on me.
I had to do this right.
Hoo…
I took another deep breath.
I focused—not as Kim Taepyeong, but as Joo Hyuk.
I had performed how many surgeries in my past life?
Sure, this was my first in this body, but my soul had already done this hundreds of times.
"Scalpel."
My hand stretched out, steady.
Another assistant, Colin, stepped in.
He had grumbled endlessly about why he had to be an assistant, but now that the patient was alive, he wasn't complaining.
A real doctor wouldn't joke around in this situation.
"Here."
Colin handed me the scalpel.
It was a specially made blade.
About the size of a modern scalpel, but since metallurgy wasn't advanced enough for replaceable blades, these had to be re-sharpened for every use.
Ziiiip.
It felt perfect in my hand.
"This is supposed to be a scalpel? How do you cut someone with something so tiny?"
Liston had scoffed at it, but to me, it was ideal.
I made the first incision.
A clean,
precise cut.
If this were a different kind of surgery, I could have kept using it, but…
That was the only cut I needed to make today.