Rehabilitation

September 16, 2016.

"This is truly a miracle..."

Inside the Toito University Hospital, Doctor Daimon Michiko looked at Shiraishi Kuro, who had made a full recovery, with a look of utter amazement.

When he was first transferred, his sensitive status and critical injuries left Toito Hospital in a dilemma; from the director down to the chief of surgery, no one wanted to touch the case. However, Daimon Michiko, who was a freelance doctor to begin with, felt her hands itching and volunteered for the job...

At the time, as the lead surgeon, Daimon had extracted over forty bullets from Shiraishi. Known for her "never fail" and "lightning fast" surgical skills, she had actually spent an entire day just connecting blood vessels, suturing nerves, and stitching up wounds—and even had to go back and redo parts of it several times over the following week!

"It is all thanks to Doctor Daimon's skills," Shiraishi said gratefully.

During those 24 hours at Lv11, his vitality and recovery rate were also at Lv11, allowing him to survive the most dangerous day, and he maintained Lv10 thereafter. However... that level of injury was not something that could be healed by "self-healing" alone!

It was indeed thanks to the superb craftsmanship of this female surgeon...

"No, it is true that I never fail, but... I honestly thought you would, at best, recover to the point of being able to walk," Daimon admitted truthfully.

"After all, your injuries at the time... over forty gunshot wounds, more than twenty knife wounds, eight of which were stabs, and the blunt force trauma was too numerous to count... While I was extracting the bullets, I was thinking of a four-character idiom to describe your condition. How did it go... Right! It was... Borrowing Arrows with Straw Boats!" Daimon came up with a fitting idiom.

Shiraishi Kuro: ...

"It is fortunate that those firearms must have been defective; the bullets were almost all lodged in your muscle tissue. Combined with your thick musculature, they didn't directly damage any vital organs. Even so, many of your nerves were severed." Daimon recalled just how troublesome it had been at the time.

She had once served as a field doctor in a Caribbean island nation and was very well-versed in gunshot wounds, so she could tell at a glance that those bullets lacked power!

Of course, the quality of the 3D-printed pistols was one factor, but on the other hand, after Shiraishi Kuro's [Physique] reached Lv11, his entire body's musculature underwent a qualitative change. He could control his muscles to tense up, and when he remained perfectly still, he could achieve a level of protection nearly equivalent to "low-quality bulletproof vests, stab-proof vests, and shock-absorbing gear," which was why the bullets all got stuck in his muscles.

It was just that...

Even so, Shiraishi Kuro had not looked like someone who could survive at the time!

Beyond Daimon's superior surgical skills, it was also because his Lv11 vitality was unusually tenacious, allowing him to pull through the initial emergency rescue...

In fact, it was only twenty hours after his transfer that his vital signs began to turn critical!

Yet, despite all that, he eventually pulled through without further incident, emerging from life-threatening danger after three days and regaining consciousness.

When he first woke up, everyone in the hospital besides Daimon had broken into a cold sweat—because... not only were there multiple fractures, but several knife and gunshot wounds had damaged his nerves. Normally, in such cases, they could only comfort the patient by saying, "Work hard on rehabilitation, and there is a chance you might recover your mobility."

By then, the case involving the Minister of Justice had already been settled. Regardless of what some people might think, Shiraishi Kuro was nominally a "great hero," which put significant pressure on the hospital.

In the end, only Daimon dared to take the knife to him...

On one hand, Shiraishi Kuro's nerves seemed to regenerate autonomously, as if guided; on the other hand, Daimon coordinated with his self-healing to perform multiple autologous nerve grafts, transplanting healthy nerves from one part of his body to the completely non-functional areas.

With these two factors combined, and accompanied by rehabilitation, Shiraishi Kuro miraculously and rapidly regained his motor functions!

Until now...

On the twenty-eighth day of Shiraishi Kuro's hospitalization, apart from the many scars left on his body, his motor functions had fully recovered, and all his physical indicators were in excellent condition!

"Regardless, I have troubled Doctor Daimon these past few days," Shiraishi said in thanks.

He was to be officially discharged today, and he had already changed into his new uniform...

In truth, purely from a physical standpoint, he could have been discharged long ago. After all, one doesn't need to be able to kill a cow with a single punch to be fit for discharge!

It was only because his injuries were so severe that they had forced him to stay for observation, until yesterday afternoon's check-up... when there was truly nothing left to observe, and they finally let him go.

"If you really want to thank me, remember to come back to me the next time you get injured this badly!" Doctor Daimon said bluntly.

Shiraishi Kuro: ...

"It shouldn't... be that easy to get injured like this again!" Shiraishi Kuro said helplessly—wasn't that a bit too heavy-handed for an expression of gratitude?

Of course, Shiraishi Kuro finally said: "If such an opportunity really arises, I certainly hope to find Doctor Daimon again!"

Shiraishi Kuro understood the nature of his previous injuries...

Although this Doctor Daimon was only a freelance doctor, effectively a temp worker at the hospital, Shiraishi Kuro estimated that her surgical skills, if measured by levels, should already be at Lv10.

The primary attributes related to surgical skill should be [Insight] and [Control]. Shiraishi Kuro had already maxed out the former, and the latter was quite good due to his high [Physique].

Moreover...

While he wasn't skilled at operating on the living, Shiraishi had already mastered the techniques for operating on cadavers—after all, Shiraishi was a Master's graduate in Forensic Medicine from the University of Tokyo and had even passed the forensic examiner's exam!

In this regard, it would be relatively easy for Shiraishi to shift his points into [Surgery], but his points were limited, and Shiraishi Kuro hadn't yet considered "self-study."

Shiraishi's system allowed him to add points directly to "Basic Attributes," but for "Skills," he had to first make contact and get an introduction before he could start adding points!

Usually, Shiraishi's main method of earning points was to leverage his already high "Basic Attributes" to learn suitable "Skills," then learn and add points simultaneously, while "obtaining certificates" or "completing achievements" to harvest more points...

This was how he achieved "generating points from points"!

However, this time Shiraishi Kuro had exhausted his points in one go. With no capital left, it would be difficult to harvest points for the time being...

"Then... see you next time!" Daimon looked at Shiraishi Kuro with burning eyes—she was quite fascinated by such a rare human specimen.

Shiraishi Kuro: ...

Could she wish for something better?

After agreeing with Daimon that he would "come back to her next time he was injured," Shiraishi Kuro went to process his discharge.

After leaving the hospital, Shiraishi had no luggage to speak of and climbed directly into the car the Metropolitan Police Department had sent specifically to pick him up.

On the second day after Shiraishi Kuro had been hospitalized, before the bullets had even been fully extracted, Superintendent General Haku and the Director of the National Police Agency had already signed an exceptional promotion order—raising Shiraishi Kuro's police rank from Police Inspector to Chief Superintendent, a jump of two full grades, skipping the rank of Superintendent entirely!

Today, Superintendent General Haku was also set to formally commend Shiraishi Kuro...

And at the very moment Shiraishi Kuro stepped out of the hospital...

[S-Rank Achievement "Indomitable" Unlocked—Sustained over 20 fatal wounds and remained in a near-death state for 24 consecutive hours before making a full recovery. Reward: 10,000 points.]

Note: Police rank and position are two different things. In terms of rank, from low to high, examples include: [Patrol Officer (Koban bike patrol)] - [Patrol Sergeant (Takagi)] - [Police Inspector (Sato)] - [Chief Inspector (Megure)] - [Superintendent (Kuroda, Matsumoto before promotion)] - [Chief Superintendent (Matsumoto after promotion)] - [Superintendent General (Toyama Kazuha's father)] - [Deputy Commissioner General (Hattori Heiji's father)] - [Commissioner General (Hakuba Tantei's father)].