Chapter 6 – Wait, I Can Use Healing Magic Now?—Slow Down, I Haven’t Even Removed the Stitches!
“Will he survive?”
Gret froze.
Then—like a dam breaking—memories that belonged to his body’s original owner flooded his mind.
He saw himself kneeling beside a corpse, crying uncontrolbly, with Uncle Karen holding him close, whispering, “Don’t be afraid, Little Gret. I’ll take care of you. No one will ever bully you again.”
He saw himself swinging a stubby wooden sword with all his might. Uncle Karen stood opposite, firm and strict, correcting his form: “Wrong stance! Again!”
He saw himself curled up in a cold little hut, gnawing on stale bck bread—until Uncle Karen pushed the door open and dragged him out, shouting, “Little Gret! Come to my house! Aunt Erin made stew!”
That was Uncle Karen. The man who raised him after his father died.
The one who never let him fall.
Gret’s gaze settled on Uncle Karen’s pale, unconscious face. His throat tightened, words catching in his chest.
Instinctively, he brought both hands together in front of him—a pose that looked like a prayer, but in truth was just an ER habit, keeping his hands sterile after surgery.
“…I don’t know,” he whispered. “I really don’t know…”
The surgery was done. Uncle Karen—his patient—was temporarily out of danger. But that didn’t mean it was over.
Not even close.
The wound had been crudely stitched with hemp twine. No antibiotics. No transfusion. He hadn’t even washed his hands before reaching in to cmp the liver.
Aside from the part magically healed with the potion, Wu Zhou had to admit: the rest of the procedure? It barely qualified as field surgery.
Back in his hospital, this would’ve been a mid-tier trauma case. Beyond the liver repair, everything else was routine—something a general surgery attending could’ve handled without breaking a sweat.
In modern conditions, he’d just prescribe antibiotics, monitor in the ward, and expect recovery in a few days.
But here?
Infection alone could kill the man.
And if not that—then blood loss.
And if he survived both?
There was still a long list of potential complications waiting to strike: Intestinal adhesions. Bowel torsion. Nausea, vomiting, hiccups, abdominal distension, urinary retention…
Any one of them could take Uncle Karen’s life.
And him?
He had no tools. No antibiotics. No drains. No imaging—no X-rays, no ultrasound, no CT. No bs. No meds.
If complications arose, he, Wu Zhou, a trauma surgeon from the 21st century… would be completely helpless.
Seeing him fall silent, the group’s hopeful faces turned grim. Karen’s nephew, Raymond, looked especially anxious. He took a step forward and grabbed Gret’s shoulder.
“You don’t know? Little Gret, are you saying there’s nothing more you can do?”
The desperation in his voice—it was the same Wu Zhou had heard a hundred times from family members in the ER.
Gret slowly shook his head.
“If I could… I’d want him to heal as quickly as possible—”
SHHHRING—!
Before he could finish, a brilliant white light burst from his csped hands.
It shot straight into Uncle Karen’s abdomen.
Everyone gasped.
Under the glow, the stitches—those ugly, coarse hemp threads barely holding the wound closed—began to twitch. The skin underneath writhed, pulling itself together.
The wound… was closing. Fast.
“WAAAHHHHH!”
The onlookers cried out in shock. John the freckled cleric practically screamed: “Healing Magic! That’s healing magic! Gret—you can cast healing magic now?!”
Gret: !!!
NO, WAIT—
SLOW DOWN! PLEASE! JUST SLOW DOWN A LITTLE!
I HAVEN’T TAKEN OUT THE STITCHES YET AAAAAHHHHH!
He didn’t even have time to process what just happened.
Didn’t have time to marvel at the magic, or celebrate that Uncle Karen was healing.
He lunged forward, scrambling in a panic.
In his right hand, a short dagger whipped into action—hooking, slicing, popping stitches one by one.
His left hand yanked the threads free, fast as lightning.
Remove the stitches! REMOVE THE STITCHES!
Before the skin sealed completely, before the light faded, before he ended up with hemp thread sealed inside a perfectly healed abdomen—
FASTER, DAMMIT, FASTER!!
If I leave the stitches in, they’ll cause infmmation. Might even lead to infection!
Gotta remove them. Fast. Before the wound fully seals. Before it hardens. He might even be able to leech a little more healing magic while the spell’s still active.
Gret held his breath, focusing every ounce of muscle memory into his hands.
Right hand: flicking the bde. Left hand: delicately pinching and pulling threads.
Both hands moved in perfect sync, a blur hovering over the patient’s abdomen like a ghost.
The ER had always been a pce where you fought the Grim Reaper for every heartbeat—suturing spleens, patching livers, reconnecting vessels—every stitch a race against death, with APM that could rival a pro StarCraft pyer.
But never in his life had Wu Zhou thought removing stitches would require this kind of hand speed.
Line ten—done! Right rectus abdominis incision—cleared.
Line eighteen—done! Right upper quadrant—clear!
Line twenty-seven— Twenty-eight— Twenty-nine— Thirty!
Done.
The white glow began to fade.
Both wounds—one vertical, one diagonal—vanished without a trace. The skin looked fwless, like nothing had ever happened.
And even more stunning—
The patient’s eyes fluttered open. Slowly, groggily… he began to sit up.
“Captain!”
“You’re awake!”
The others cried out in joy, rushing forward—
Gret’s soul left his body.
He lunged ahead and threw himself between them, arms wide like a human barricade.
“Don’t touch him!—Lie down! Lie down!!”
What the hell, guys?!
Sure, the skin had healed—but who knew about the inside?
He’d sutured three full yers of tissue:
The peritoneum
The superficial fascia
And the skin/subcutis.
And now the guy was trying to sit up?!
The internal yers might not have closed. And the omentum he’d stuffed back in? He hadn’t stitched it at all. What if the strain split something open again?
He had no imaging. No MRI, no ultrasound. And even if there was a hospital nearby, he’d crossed dimensions! There was nowhere to go!
Thankfully, the Captain—Karen—didn’t resist. He flopped back down with a soft thud.
But he did crane his neck, locking eyes with Gret.
That gaze was sharp. Deep. Disbelieving.
“Little Gret… you… you—?”
Gret’s heart skipped a beat.
I mean—fair.
If the kid you practically raised suddenly knew how to cut people open and sew them shut like a butcher-surgeon, you’d freak out too.
So what now? Ignore him? Py dumb?
No—this was Uncle Karen, the one who took care of him after his father died.
He deserved an answer.
Gret’s brain went into overdrive. Like a hard drive spinning at 7200 RPM, data started auto-sorting, indexing, searching…
And then—
Ding. Highlighted. Prioritized. Top result:
That white light that had burst from his palms…
It was the same as the one used by the little cleric, John.
Exactly the same.
Healing Magic.
Which meant…
Healing Spell = Divine Magic = Must’ve come from a god = It was divine guidance!
Perfect logic. No holes. Fwless cover story.
Without hesitation, Gret blurted:
“Uncle Karen, don’t worry—I… I received divine revetion!”
