Chapter 152: The Phantom Physician of Section 9
Following the incident in Akita, word of Natsuya's exploits spread far beyond
Sendai, drawing the attention of merchants and nobles across the entire Tohoku
region.
Inquiries and invitation letters began piling up in the entry hall of the
Karakura Pavilion, quickly filling three entire ledgers. Even the high-ranking
clans who had previously maintained close ties with the disgraced Zaizen family
hastily dispatched lavish gifts in an attempt to secure his favor.
As for the Zaizen clan itself?
They had effectively collapsed overnight, their assets absorbed and liquidated
by regional competitors moving with terrifying speed and ruthless efficiency.
For the most part, Natsuya accepted the stream of gifts without hesitation.
I earned these through hazard pay and hard labor. Am I supposed to return them?
Though he accepted the gifts, he refused the guests.
How those outsiders perceived him was of zero consequence to a gamer. However,
his aloofness only drove them to redirect their efforts toward the Slayers
operating out of his dojo.
To their collective surprise, those Slayers unanimously rebuffed every single
attempt at bribery or political alignment.
When regional factions tried to dig into the backgrounds of these mysterious
swordsmen, they hit a brick wall. Surveillance teams assigned to tail the
Slayers lost their targets the moment the targets stepped out of the dojo.
Attempts to pull strings through official administrative channels were quietly
blocked by powerful, invisible forces operating from above.
Eventually, the local elites concluded that this shadowy Tokyo organization was
simply "too big to touch."
As for the occasional whispers of "man-eating monsters" drifting through the
back-alleys? Most rational businessmen dismissed them as wild ghost stories.
However, that curiosity was soon eclipsed by a far more immediate and miraculous
piece of news:
The senior agent of "Section 9"—who was not only a master of lethal
swordsmanship, but also possessed a legendary medical touch capable of bringing
people back from the brink of death.
Initially, it was just a rumor about him resetting a few local thugs' fractured
bones on the street. Then came an outbreak of an aggressive, high-fever
poisoning in a working-class district. Local doctors had braced for a deadly
epidemic, only for the mysterious Tokyo expert to step in and clear the wards in
a single afternoon.
The mystique surrounding "Special Service Section 9" grew heavier by the day.
Yet the elite upper class didn't care about tactical units or secret police.
They cared about one thing: Can he cure my illness?
Suddenly, the pavilion's gates were besieged by wealthy elites—some carrying
dying relatives, others nursing chronic, decades-old ailments, all offering
fortunes that could buy entire city blocks.
Yet the "Grandmaster" maintained a bizarre, uncompromising rule:
He only treated Green-Name NPCs.
Anyone marked as [Yellow] (neutral, sketchy, or morally ambiguous) was
unceremoniously shown the door, barred from even approaching the main street of
the Karakura Pavilion.
As for those marked as [Red]—or outright hostile—he treated them with polite
indifference during the day, only to launch a stealth investigation at night to
verify whether they were collaborating with demons or violating basic human
decency.
As weeks bled into months, certain elites who received treatment quietly
recovered, while other, more nefarious syndicates mysteriously dissolved
overnight.
The awe and terror inspired by Section 9 solidified into absolute reverence.
Sendai Medical University Hospital. Surgical Ward.
"Is this really the miraculous doctor from Tokyo? Such a technique... how is it
even possible?"
"Not only is he fluent in traditional pharmacopeia, but he operates Western
surgical instruments and pressure equipment with the ease of a veteran
professor! Wait... is he using some kind of ancient Eastern acupuncture to stop
arterial bleeding?!"
"Mrs. Sato might actually make a full recovery..."
In the observation gallery behind a wall of reinforced glass, a gathering of
senior professors, doctors, and academic researchers watched in breathless
silence.
Natsuya was currently elbow-deep in a high-profile operation for Sato Mihoko,
the wife of the university's board chairman, Sato Wataru. She had contracted an
obscure neurodegenerative disorder that had left the hospital's entire medical
faculty utterly baffled.
Ultimately, through a complex web of elite social connections, the Sato family
had begged a favor from the old peerage matriarch, who in turn used her standing
to petition the "Karakura Pavilion." Natsuya had accepted the case purely
because the reward payout and the subsequent medical XP were too juicy to pass
up.
Down in the surgical theater, Natsuya moved with mechanical precision. Every
incision, every suture, every adjustment of the anesthesia drip was calculated
to the exact frame.
Up in the gallery, most of the doctors were scribbling notes frantically. A few
older, more conservative professors, however, sat with folded arms, their
expressions tight with professional jealousy. They had spent decades climbing
the academic ladder in Germany and Tokyo, yet this teenage "specialist" was
treating major neurosurgery like an unskippable tutorial level.
"Professor To, do you think this boy is just a returning student from some
Western academy?" a bald, round-faced doctor whispered to his neighbor, flashing
a dismissive grin.
Without looking away from the glass, the thin, bespectacled doctor beside
him—Oishi Kujuro—shook his head slowly.
"I can't say, Professor Toru. But his medical logic... it defies conventional
textbooks. It's like watching an artist paint a masterwork without a sketch."
"Hmph. Probably just some parlor tricks wrapped in Western terminology," Toru
scoffed, though he leaned closer to the glass anyway.
Hours later, the red light above the operating theater blinked off.
Natsuya stepped out of the scrub room, wiping his brow with a sterile towel and
checking his status panel.
[Medicine LV.4 (1840/5000)]
Still a long way off from Level 5.
The XP curve for Level 4 is insane. Grinding this skill feels like trying to max
out a prestige tier in an old MMO.
As he walked down the corridor, a swarm of medical staff, academic elites, and
wealthy patrons immediately swarmed him, thrusting nameplates, research papers,
and apprenticeship applications toward his face.
Natsuya deployed his master-level evasion footwork, slipping through the crowd
with the fluid grace of a high-tier rogue.
Nod, smile, 'I'll take it under advisement, see you next time.'
He treated the sycophantic praise like unskippable tutorial dialogue.
Just as he was about to make a clean break toward the exit, a soft, scholarly
voice called out from behind him.
"Excuse me... sir! The surgical technique you used for the vascular occlusion
back there—"
Natsuya didn't stop walking. He just tossed a casual, textbook-accurate
physiological explanation over his shoulder—reciting verbatim what the System's
auto-diagnosis window had popped up during the surgery—and rounded the corner at
a brisk jog.
Left behind in the corridor, Professor Oishi Kujuro stood frozen. He clutched
his notebook to his chest, his eyes shining with the manic, terrifying light of
a lifelong academic who had just discovered the Unified Theory of Physics.
The vascular occlusion... of course! By temporarily shifting the local neural
feedback loop, you can bypass the tissue shock!
Brilliant! Absolutely revolutionary!
"Sir! Please wait! Allow me to invite you to the faculty lounge to discuss this
further!" Oishi called out, breaking into a desperate sprint after the vanishing
white haori.
Outside the hospital gates, a Kakushi runner was waiting by the steps.
"Lord Luminary," the operative bowed low. "The dispatches have arrived. The
swordsman you've been tracking—Yukibashiri Seiko—has completed her winter patrol
in Hokkaido and is currently crossing the Yamagata border. She should arrive in
Sendai by tomorrow."
Seiko is back?
Natsuya's gamer-brain immediately cross-referenced the name with his Mentorship
roster.
[Yukibashiri Seiko (Power Level: 83 -> ?)]
Wonder how much her stats have grown after braving the northern snowstorms.
"Alright," Natsuya said, tucking his hands into his haori sleeves. "Tell her to
report straight to the Karakura Pavilion the moment she steps into the city."
"I'll have a fresh batch of 'Stamina-Recovery Soup' waiting for her. And by
'stamina soup,' I mean she's going straight into the Group B sparring rotation."
☆☆☆
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