Chương 5: CHAPTER 4: THE PRIMITIVE OPERATING THEATER

The silence that followed my command was suffocating. Jax blinked, his tear-streaked eyes widening as he looked from the resident alchemists to a fifteen-year-old kid in tattered, blood-stained hemp clothes." What did you say, brat?" Jax rumbled, his voice shaking with a volatile mix of grief and rising fury.

"My sister is dying of the Iron-Vein Rot, and a markedless vagrant wants to play games with the Iron Aegis?"

"I said, lay her flat on the table if you want her to breathe past the next six minutes," I snapped. I didn't stagger, and I didn't stutter. I stepped directly into his space, my eyes locking onto his with the cold, absolute authority of a chief ER surgeon who had overridden panicked family members a thousand times before.

"Her lungs are already filling with fluid because her vascular system is clogging up. Every second you spend glaring at me is a second closer to her cardiac arrest. Choose." The raw intensity in my voice caught the seasoned veteran completely off guard. In a world governed by status and levels, a Level 5 orphan commanding the leader of the 3rd most famous party in town was insane—but clinical confidence is a universal language.

"Do it, Jax!" Kenji shouted from the crowd, stepping forward to back me up.

"The kid speaks the truth! He dragged me out of a collapsed carriage and knit my shattered chest back together in seconds without a single incantation. If he says he can fix Kiran, he can fix her!" Jax gritted his teeth, let out a desperate roar, and slammed his sister onto the nearest guild table, shattering beer mugs and parchment manifests everywhere.

"Move back! Give him room!" Jax bellowed, drawing a massive iron dagger and planting it into the wood to keep the stunned crowd from crowding the perimeter. The lead alchemist scoffed, stepping forward with an aggressive glare.

"Before you touch her, boy, answer me this: how did she even contract this level of crystallization? She has no open wounds! If you don't even know how the parasite enters the bloodstream, you are just blindly desecrating a corpse!" I didn't even look up as I began prepping my tools, my clinical brain answering automatically.

"She didn't need an open wound. Look at her shredded leather gauntlets. She was harvesting or mining a high-density metallic mana core without proper protective insulation. The parasitic spores are transdermal; they breached her skin via microscopic friction tears on her palms and hitched a ride straight into her cephalic vein. Once inside, they mimic a massive thrombotic occlusion. Any more stupid questions, or can I save her life now?"

The alchemist choked on his words, stepping back in absolute, tongue-tied shock. He had spent ten years studying texts, and this kid had just diagnosed the precise biomechanical vector of the disease in ten seconds. I slammed my hand on the table.

"The items I asked for. Now!" The terrified guild receptionist who had just handed me my copper token scrambled forward, placing a bottle of high-proof, unrefined rice liquor, a small hunting dagger, and a steaming iron bowl of boiling water onto the table. I didn't have time for proper sterilization, but I had to improvise. I poured the burning liquor over my hands, ignoring the stinging heat, and then thoroughly doused the blade of the dagger.

I pulled three clean steel sewing needles from my pouch and dropped them into the boiling water alongside a length of strong silk thread. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.' No anesthesia, no muscle relaxants, no proper clamps,' my mind calculated coldly.

'I have to perform a localized venotomy to mechanically flush out the parasitic clusters before they reach the superior vena cava.'

"Jax, hold her shoulders down," I ordered.

"She is going to seize, and if she moves by even a millimeter while I'm inside her neck, I will slice her carotid artery wide open." The massive warrior paled but slammed his heavy gauntlets onto Kiran's shoulders, pinning her to the oak planks. I positioned myself at the head of the table. With my left hand, I palpated her neck, locating the major silver vein throbbing violently against her skin. The metallic parasite was dense, forming a hard, tangible ridge beneath the epidermal tissue.' Right there.

The internal jugular.'

"Hold her." With a swift, practiced movement of my right hand, I brought the tip of the sanitized dagger down. I didn't slash; I made a precise, micro-incision—exactly three centimeters long—parallel to the muscle fibers. Kiran's body instantly convulsed, a muffled scream tearing through her clenched teeth, but Jax held her down like an iron vise. Dark, unnaturally thick blood—flecked with shimmering, metallic silver shards—began to ooze from the wound.

"He's killing her!" a mercenary in the crowd gasped.

"Shut up!" I snapped, not breaking my focus for a fraction of a second. I dropped the dagger and extended my fingers over the open incision.' System,' I commanded internally.

'Channel 'Micro-Cellular Suture' to act as a localized magnetic clamp. Target the metallic foreign bodies within the vascular lumen, but do not trigger cell division yet.' [SYSTEM: UNIQUE SKILL 'MICRO-CELLULAR SUTURE' - ALTERED PREPARATION] [MANA CIRCUITS TUNED TO BIOMECHANICAL EXTRACTION...] A faint, luminescent golden glow enveloped my fingertips. To the watching alchemists, it looked like a low-tier, nameless trick, but beneath the surface, my mana was acting as microscopic forceps.

I slid my energy into the incision, directly intercepting the silver-colored, parasitic sludge blocking her bloodstream. Using the fluid dynamics of her own heart pressure, I began to physically manipulate the clot, dragging the metallic parasite upward toward the opening of the incision.' Come on... flow...'

With a sudden, wet pop, a massive, coagulated clump of pure silver thread—pulsing with a faint, parasitic malicious mana—was forced out of the neck wound, splashing harmlessly into the wooden bowl of boiling water. The moment the main blockage cleared, a rush of dark, normal crimson blood erupted from the vein. [SYSTEM: VASCULAR OCCLUSION CLEARED] [HEMOGLOBIN SATURATION: RISING (88%)] [CARDIOVASCULAR COLLAPSE: AVERTED] Kiran's violent seizing stopped instantly.

Her chest rose and fell in a deep, rhythmic, desperate gulp of oxygen, and the terrifying silver veins pulsing across her face began to rapidly recede back to normal skin color." The... the infection is fading," the lead alchemist muttered, his jaw dropping so low it looked like it would detach.

"Impossible... he didn't cast a single cleansing spell... he just... he cut it out? Even the Solar Vanguard's high priest can't do this without a massive ritual!" I didn't waste a single breath celebrating.

"Needle and thread," I muttered. Using a pair of iron tongs, I fished a sterilized needle out of the boiling water, threading it with the silk line. My fingers moved with the blinding, automated muscle memory of a surgeon who had closed over ten thousand traumatic wounds. The internal jugular layer closed, and the vascular wall was sealed. Then, I applied a true burst of my SSS-Rank skill, allowing the golden mana to completely flood the localized tissue.

The skin edges knit together flawlessly, leaving behind nothing but a thin, clean pink line that looked like a week-old scratch. I stood back, wiping the sweat from my brow with the back of my sleeve. My arms were sore, and my baseline adjusted mana pool felt a bit drained, but my heart rhythm was perfectly steady. The entire guild hall was dead silent. Hundreds of eyes stared at me as if I were a ghost.

The receptionist looked at me, then down at the copper F-Rank token I had just pocketed, her mind completely short-circuiting. Jax looked down at his sister, who was now sleeping peacefully, her complexion flush with healthy, natural color. He slowly lifted his hands from her shoulders, his body trembling as he realized she was entirely out of danger.

He turned toward me, his massive iron frame shifting, and before I could even take a step back, the leader of the town's 3rd most famous mercenary party dropped heavily to his knees, slamming his forehead directly against the blood-stained floorboards at my feet." My life... my sword... the entire strength of the Iron Aegis belongs to you, young master," Jax choked out, his voice thick with raw emotion.

"Name your price. I will slay anyone, burn any house, or serve as your shadow until the day I die." Right on cue, the familiar, comforting digital chime echoed in my ears, and the transparent blue interface materialized before my eyes: [SYSTEM: SURGERY SUCCESSFUL. PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS COMPLETED] [PATIENT: LEVEL 24 VANGUARD ASSISTANT — SAVED] [EXPERIENCE POINTS ALLOCATED... LEVEL UP SUCCESSFUL] [CURRENT PROFILE] Name: Rudra Mishra (Shin) Level: 8 Mana Status: Stable Reputation Unlocked: The Ghost Medic of Mizugaon (Local Level) I looked down at the massive warrior bowing at my feet, then at the stunned alchemists who were already looking at me with a dangerous mix of awe and suspicion.

(Abey yaar, low-profile camouflage keep karne ka aur peaceful vacation lene ka plan to pehle hi hafte me khtm ho gaya, I thought, running a hand through my messy hair as a quiet, cynical smirk played on my lips. Chalo, ab is nightmare ko kaise handle karna hai, wahi sochna padega.) Oh man, the plan to keep a low profile, stay camouflaged, and take a peaceful vacation completely fell apart in the very first week. I thought, running a hand through my messy hair as a quiet, cynical smirk played on my lips.

Well, now I'll just have to think about how to handle this nightmare.