Chapter 3 : The Protagonist of a Regression Story (3)
Chapter 3 - The Protagonist of a Regression Story (3)
“Lie down here for a bit.”
Upon arriving at the ward, Kim Seok-yong pushed Sihyeon into the stabilization room.
“I’m fine...”
He was still bewildered, but he held back, thinking that if he said he came from four years in the future and had been studying for the specialist exam in a hotel room until yesterday, he would truly be treated like a madman.
Since he was already in the closed ward, they might even suggest hospitalizing him then and there.
“Rest for now while getting the IV. There’s time until rounds.”
Meanwhile, he made a call to someone.
“Sorry to call so early. Could you take a look at a brain CT for me? Is it an urgent patient? Well, it’s not a patient, it’s... no, is he a patient? Anyway...”
It seemed he was asking a colleague in the radiology department for a reading.
Sihyeon watched his back in silence.
He was a consistently diligent and upright person.
The fact that he met with an accident yesterday was likely because he had stayed late in the ward to consult with the newly assigned patient, Jung Moon-su.
His heart felt heavy thinking of him hovering between life and death with burns in reality.
‘That patient... what on earth was he?’
He fell into thought as he watched the IV fluid dripping drop by drop.
‘The ward staff... the other patients too, I hope they’re safe.’
This was certainly no time to be dazed.
Sihyeon stood up from his seat.
Regardless of whether it was the unconscious or whatever, he wanted to escape this unrealistic situation right away.
‘I have to wake up. But how...?’
In movies and such, people sometimes return to reality by gripping sharp objects or jumping off a roof.
Unfortunately, this was the place safest from such threats: the stabilization room of a closed psychiatric ward.
In that case, there was only one method left.
Rip.
Sihyeon ripped off the adhesive bandage and IV line wrapped around his arm all at once.
Drip— drip—.
Bloody water, a mixture of IV fluid and blood, fell to the floor.
Normally, he would have applied pressure to stop the bleeding first, but now, it didn't matter.
Because he would be leaving this place soon anyway.
All that was needed was a shock strong enough to wake him from his deep unconsciousness.
‘Let’s do this!’
Sihyeon squeezed his eyes shut and threw his body toward the stabilization room door with all his might.
---
Thud.
“Sihyeon! What’s the matter!”
“Are—are you okay? What on earth is...”
Kim Seok-yong and the ward nurses, who had been at the station, rushed into the stabilization room.
“Doctor, what... are you doing right now?”
A nurse asked Sihyeon, who was slumped on the floor.
It hurt.
More in his heart than his body.
No matter how much of a dream it was, it was an incredibly vivid embarrassment.
“…….”
Now, rather than wanting to return to reality, he felt like he just wanted to cease to exist.
“That... well, I mean....”
“It’s your first official day of work, so it must have felt uncomfortable to just rest. So, it seems like you tripped on the IV line while rushing out to prepare for rounds?”
Kim Seok-yong said while looking at the IV set discarded on the floor.
“Ah, so....”
The nurses nodded.
So it gets spun this way.
Even so, the difference would only be between a plain crazy person and a diligent crazy person. But wouldn't the latter be better? Just a little bit.
“I feel much better after lying down for a bit. I’ll prepare for rounds,” Sihyeon said, standing up.
It wasn't quite... enough, but he thought it was natural in its own way.
“I’ll put this on for you.”
The nurse applied an alcohol swab and a bandage to the spot where the IV had been pulled out.
It was cold.
His right shoulder, where he had hit the door, began to throb with a dull pain.
The sight of nurses handing over shifts in the ward and patients watching the morning news felt more realistic than ever.
The sensations were too vivid to be called a dream.
‘Could it be...’
If I was hit by a truck and woke up at a point years ago, I should have realized it immediately.
It felt as if he could hear a voice from somewhere scolding him, asking if he was only realizing it now.
---
‘I regressed?’
Regression. The act of returning to the beginning and starting the story again after experiencing an event once.
Protagonists in novels accept it so easily in just the first chapter, but Sihyeon was still confused.
It was only natural, given his profession was a doctor—specifically, a psychiatrist.
Wouldn't it be stranger if someone with a purely STEM-oriented nature, who had done nothing but study medicine diligently since becoming an adult, just nodded and went along with it in this situation?
At first, he thought he was just dreaming. That he was wandering somewhere deep in his unconscious.
The result was disastrous. He newly learned that if embarrassment reaches its peak, death by shame might actually be possible.
Next, he suspected an illness. Schizophrenia or delusional disorder.
Or hallucinations caused by an organic brain disease.
A place like Samah University Hospital was where one could see all kinds of rare cases in Korea.
However, none of the illnesses Sihyeon knew could explain what he was currently going through.
‘How can I understand this?’
He wondered if this was even within the realm of understanding, but he considered two hypotheses for now.
First, first-year Cheon Si-hyeon experienced everything that would happen over the next four years in a dream. (Precognitive Dream Hypothesis)
Second, fourth-year Cheon Si-hyeon transferred all the experience and information he had gained to first-year Cheon Si-hyeon. (Knowledge Transfer Hypothesis)
‘Oh! Thinking about it this way, it’s possib... like hell it is!!!’
Sihyeon shook his head. Both were physically impossible to begin with.
Predicting and experiencing everything for the next four years in a single night is something that exceeds human computational power.
Furthermore, technology to directly transfer knowledge from brain to brain had not yet been developed.
In this case specifically, there was the difficult problem of needing to transmit across time and space.
‘Let’s just think of it as a novel.’
This was the conclusion Sihyeon reached after thinking for a long time.
Wasn't it a setting that appeared to the point of boredom in the web novels he usually enjoyed?
There was no other answer besides that.
Thinking about why such a thing happened was simply a meaningless task.
Scenes from the countless novels he had read flashed through his mind.
If the previous life Sihyeon lived were the original work, it would be something like a very realistic medical novel.
Whatever the reason, since he had returned to four years ago, the basic genre of the new story unfolding would be fantasy.
A regression story at that.
Since things had turned out this way, it didn't seem bad to live like a novel's protagonist.
‘Is identifying traits first?’
The reason protagonists of regression stories grow explosively in a short period.
It was because they exquisitely utilized future events and their own advantages to roll a snowball from the start.
For example, a protagonist with a good memory as a strength secures hidden items to level up at the speed of light in advance and prepares for extreme difficulty quests that occur later.
Inheriting the money collected in previous rounds to start the story with 999,999,999 gold from the beginning, or forming ties in advance with someone who is currently insignificant but becomes a big shot later, were also common developments.
‘My traits are...’
Sihyeon took out the notebook he always carried in his gown pocket and began taking notes.
He decided to first write down his traits as a regressor.
Strengths and weaknesses, and threats and opportunities.
It was a kind of character analysis.
[Strengths]
– Information about the patients I will be treating over the next four years
From the very first line, a smile naturally formed on his lips.
Because with this alone, he would be able to successfully complete his residency without major trial and error.
‘But surely this isn't it?’
He thought for a long time, but contrary to his expectations, not much came to mind when he actually tried to write.
Other than diligently living through hospital life while putting out fires right under his feet.
‘I'll think about strengths later; first, the points of caution, starting with weaknesses...’
[Weaknesses]
– The lowest rank among doctors in the hospital
– Ignorant of the ways of the world outside hospital work
– No significant network outside of hospital staff
– No special abilities other than patient care
[Threats]
– Lack of sleep
– Chronic fatigue
– Poor physical stamina
[Opportunities]
– ???
While there was only a measly one line for strengths, there was no end to the negative points when he looked for them.
The smile gradually disappeared from Sihyeon's face.
To make matters worse, the resident on-call schedule posted on the ward wall caught his eye.
‘This... how did I do this?’
At least 100 hours a week.
And that’s the story when putting it conservatively.
It might have been possible back when he didn't know any better, but for Sihyeon, who had made it right to the brink of the specialist exam, it was a condition that was not easy to accept.
To think I have to do my first year again.
Would it feel like this if a sergeant, just two days away from discharge, woke up in the recruit training center?
‘At this rate, I’m not an OP character; it feels like I’ve been scammed.’
The story Sihyeon was about to create seemed far removed from typical regression stories.
……
“What are you thinking about so deeply?”
Kim Seok-yong spoke to the despondent Sihyeon.
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
“I checked the CT reading, and nothing seems to be wrong. The blood test results that have come out so far are fine too.”
In conclusion, no abnormal findings were observed.
The cerebral blood vessels were clean, and no traces of acute cerebral hemorrhage or infection could be found.
“You seem fine for now, but... if your head hurts or you feel dizzy, tell me right away.”
“I feel a bit better now.”
“That’s a relief. First, let’s make the daily patient list. If there are patients whose diagnoses have changed recently, you must reflect them on the list.”
Kim Seok-yong explained the tasks step by step.
“If it’s too hard, let me know. I’ll do it today.”
“No, sir. I’ll prepare right away.”
Sihyeon quickly regained his sense of reality.
Whatever the situation, that was the nature of residency work.
If it wasn't me, someone else had to do it.
Whether it was a dream or reality, he didn't want to cause trouble for his senior, Kim Seok-yong, or his colleague, Hwang Jin-ho.
He immediately began reviewing the inpatient charts.
Tatap- tatatap-
Simultaneously, he opened an Excel file to compile the inpatient list and filled in the diagnoses of the emergency patients who had visited the previous day.
It was a level of skill that seemed practiced.
“Here it is.”
“Already? You didn’t do a sloppy job, did you?”
When the list was handed over, Kim Seok-yong tilted his head in wonder.
“Yes. I checked the recent records and updated the diagnoses. For the patient in room 903, Kim Gap-suk, an adrenal tumor was recently discovered, discovered, so I changed it to R/O Anxiety Disorder Due to Pheochromocytoma. For the patient in room 905, Kim Ki-su, I checked the Cardiology consult and...”
Kim Seok-yong's eyes widened at Sihyeon's explanation.
‘All this in such a short time?’
There is a kind of grammar in psychiatric diagnosis.
The representative one is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) compiled by the American Psychiatric Association.
Since it includes parts regarding the severity of symptoms, the cause, and the course along with the diagnosis, it takes quite a while to use it skillfully.
Even as a second-year who was quite accustomed to the work, Kim Seok-yong still had to consult the diagnostic classification manual separately to properly write diagnoses that matched the chart contents.
Kim Seok-yong looked back and forth between the patient charts and the diagnoses Sihyeon had entered.
[Schizophrenia, Paranoid type, Episodic With No Interepisode Residual Symptoms]
A patient with schizophrenia who had relapsed several times but fared very well in between.
[Bipolar I Disorder, Most Recent Episode Manic Severe Without Psychotic Features]
A patient with bipolar disorder who was hospitalized for severe mania but had no psychotic symptoms.
[Alcohol-Induced Sleep Disorder With Onset During Withdrawal]
And the patient who mainly complained of sleep problems related to drinking.
‘There’s... nothing to point out?’
Rather, even parts that were previously incorrectly described had been neatly corrected.
“Is there anything you would like to add?”
In fact, it wasn't a very difficult task for Sihyeon. Because he had been memorizing the psychiatric diagnostic system by heart as he was right on the verge of the specialist exam. Just by skimming the charts, he had finished entering the diagnoses in no time.
“N-no. The list can go out like this. We'll review the ward patients with the Chief first before the professors arrive. Even if you don't have assigned patients yet, take a look at the medications being given to other doctors' patients.”
“Yes. The patient in room 902 complained of indigestion, so I contacted the doctor in charge, and starting today, the Fluoxetine will be tapered, and Mosapride 5mg TID has been added.”
‘What is with this guy?’
He was worried because Sihyeon had been talking nonsense since morning, but surprisingly, the work was not bad. No, he was on the side of doing it quite well. Kim Seok-yong, having no way of knowing the circumstances, had a truly impressed expression.
“Yeah. Cheon Si-hyeon, you're good at your job. Why were you like that this morning? Did something happen yesterday?”
Something had indeed happened. He had literally died and woken up. Because he was hurriedly led to the emergency room by Kim Seok-yong, he hadn't had a chance to think about yesterday yet. Thinking about the truck that rushed toward him and the things his last patient said made his thoughts complicated.
‘The things that patient said... were they really not delusions?’
And for the first time, he began to think. About the human Jung Moon-su, not the patient. And about how frustrating a doctor he must have been to him.
‘If a similar situation comes again... will I be able to do well then?’
Even though he had reached the point just before the specialist exam when the time came, on the other hand, he felt he lacked a lot of insight when looking at patients.
“No. Nothing happened. It’s just that, perhaps because it was the first day, my dreams were a bit rough. I'm sorry.”
Sihyeon answered Kim Seok-yong's words with a smile as if nothing had happened.
“Right. Since the preparation for rounds ended quickly today, we have some leisure. I'll go check on a patient for a bit. I'll see you in the conference room later.”
“Um, Doctor.”
Sihyeon called out to Kim Seok-yong as he headed toward the hospital rooms.
“Hmm? What is it?”
“This time too... please take good care of me.”
Kim Seok-yong tilted his head slightly at the phrase 'this time too,' but soon answered as if it were nothing.
“Sure. Let's do well from now on.”
His heart felt strangely moved by Kim Seok-yong's words. Of course, until he heard the next words.
“Oh, by the way, there are a few things we need to do together after rounds. Entering the 4th-year seniors' research survey into Excel, creating outpatient statistics, and...”
“…….”
Did the regressors in novels feel like this? The thought of navigating another four years was daunting, but for now, he gained a strange sense of comfort from the thought that he was the protagonist of this story.