A Hospital in Another World? C.174

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l

"Using magic?"

"Magic can do that?"

The two elders turned simultaneously. Master Tolga, tugging at his beard, gave Garrett Nordmark a thorough once-over with a fresh perspective before turning to Elder Wood and asking, "Old Wood, your student?"

"My friend’s student, here to study at the council headquarters, asked me to look after him a bit." Elder Wood explained, then turned to Garrett. "Are you sure? Magic can really do this?"

"It should be able to." Garrett Nordmark stepped forward slowly, explaining to Elder Wood and Master Tolga, "It’s a new magic I just improved, and the paper has been approved. Let’s see if we can determine whether there’s a pregnancy or not."

With that, he rummaged through his backpack, found the paper, and handed it over. Master Tolga eagerly snatched it, scanning through it rapidly. As he read, his pace slowed, his left hand twirling his beard from his layered chin to the nearly all-white tip, then releasing, moving up, and repeating...

Garrett Nordmark waited patiently, feeling no impatience whatsoever. Dealing with patients’ relatives, or the patients themselves, was much more drawn-out than this. Pre-op instructions, repeating them once, twice if they didn’t understand, making them think, calling relatives, pulling out the phone to Google right then and there...

Compared to that, having someone read a paper on-site and trying to understand what an ultrasound was, these patients’ relatives were simply adorable.

"Hmm... It seems to make sense." After a while, the old mage finally flipped to the last page of the paper, satisfied, stroking his beard. "Let me try! Old Wood, pass me the oil—"

"I should do it first!" Garrett Nordmark exclaimed with a wry smile, hastily intervening. "Let me finish, I’ll tell you what areas to pay attention to, then you can take another look—"

After calming the patient’s relative, Garrett turned to reassure the patient. Iris was teary-eyed, one hand clutching the female knight while the other reached for Garrett’s sleeve. "I really am not pregnant... please, give me proof, I haven’t done anything wrong... I haven’t been with any man... sniff..."

"Don’t worry, as long as you’re not actually pregnant, this magic will definitely prove it." Garrett tried to comfort her as gently as possible. Although he said this, he had no certainty in his heart. A young female patient, abdominal swelling, denying any sexual history... how credible was that? Who knows.

For women of childbearing age, any abdominal pain, bloating, or acute abdominal symptoms should not be taken lightly. Send them all for an HCG test! Otherwise, you might think it’s appendicitis, confidently make an incision, and it turns out to be an ectopic pregnancy...

Stupid, isn’t it?

Immediately call the obstetrician to the rescue, then, if you’re lucky, get scolded by the chief physician, if you’re not, torn apart, your credentials lost...

Of course, this is a different world, without HCG to rely on. Garrett could only be on edge, murmuring "Please don’t be ectopic... Please don’t be a molar pregnancy..." while coaxing the patient inside. Amidst all the busyness, he still had to keep a smiling face for Elder Wood:

"Elder, is there any sister available right now? Please ask her to come and accompany me. It’s not very convenient for me to examine a girl alone..."

"Freya went to Duylin Land, she won’t be back until tomorrow. Annie has gone home." Elder Wood hesitated, glancing at the old mage and then at the female knight. "How about asking this young lady to accompany you?"

"I have no problem." Seraina immediately responded. She reached back and patted her companion’s arm. "Don’t be afraid, I’m here with you!"

Well... I don’t have a problem either. A male doctor examining a female patient, with no female nurse, and the patient’s relative accompanying is fine... If I can’t help, I can’t help. I’ll just provide proof and be grateful...

Garrett hurriedly followed. Finding a bed, he helped the girl lie down and drew the curtain. The female knight stood at the head of the bed, Garrett held the patient’s hand, and tried to look into her eyes as gently as possible:

"Don’t be afraid, this magic won’t hurt you or make you feel pain. I’ll just use a finger, on your stomach—"

He stood straight, drawing a circle on his own abdomen, up to the sternum and lower rib edge, down to the pelvis, left and right to the side axillary line:

"I’ll move back and forth here, using magic to take a look."

Iris’s gaze followed his finger, shrank for a moment, then she forced a smile. Garrett tactfully pretended not to notice her little movements, softened his voice, and continued to explain to her:

"I might press a little inside, but not too deep. If it hurts, just tell me. To make the magic work smoothly, I need to lift your shirt and pour some oil on your skin, it’ll feel a bit cold, bear with it.

You can lie flat, if I ask you to bulge your stomach, you bulge it, if I ask you to lie on your side, you lie on your side, don’t worry about anything else. I won’t touch other areas, if you’re not comfortable, you can cover yourself with a blanket, leaving only your stomach exposed..."

His voice was calm and gentle, his gaze focused. As Iris listened, she gradually relaxed her grip on the cloak, and the edges of her nails gained some color. After Garrett finished explaining the precautions and was about to get up, his sleeve suddenly tightened. Iris propped herself up, her small hand gripping his sleeve tightly:

"I... I really am not pregnant, right? Last month, I drank water from his cup..."

"..."

"..."

Could it be, miss?!

Garrett Nordmark couldn’t help but chuckle wryly. Oh well, even in his past life, 21st-century girls had pulled off similar stunts, let alone here where the level of development resembled the Middle Ages. He gently patted the girl’s hand and said, "Don’t worry, as long as you’re really not pregnant, the magic will surely prove it. Ma’am, could you please help your friend prepare? Thank you. I’ll go get the magical materials and be back shortly."

With a bag of bat brains in his left hand and a bottle of glycerin in his right, Garrett had just settled down when the curtain behind him was lifted, and Master Tolga and Elder Wood entered. Garrett could only helplessly turn back and say, "Elder..."

She’s just a young girl, could you all leave first?

"I’ll watch, you do it." Elder Wood held onto the paper tightly, his gaze sharp. The old mage had only one thing to say, "I’m her father!"

Alright... Garrett made a gesture, indicating for the female knight to lift Iris’s belly blanket. The girl lay still, her abdomen rising upward from the navel, with no obvious bulging on the side abdominal wall, and her navel wasn’t protruding. Garrett breathed a sigh of relief:

Thank goodness, it’s not ascites.

If it were ascites, he’d be in trouble: conditions that cause ascites, such as cirrhosis with portal hypertension, heart failure, constrictive pericarditis, peritoneal metastasis, nephrotic syndrome, pancreatic ascites, and tuberculous peritonitis, none of them were easy to deal with! Without conducting a bunch of relevant tests, he couldn’t even make a diagnosis. Even if he succeeded in diagnosing it... he couldn’t cure it...

Garrett handed the glycerin to the female knight, indicating for her to apply a thick layer on her friend’s belly, while he himself held a bat brain, activating the ultrasound magic. With his right index finger pressing on Iris’s lower abdomen, the ultrasound waves swept over the pelvic area, observing carefully.

The belly seemed to be about five or six months pregnant. Garrett was extra cautious, holding his breath, searching diligently from top to bottom. Pelvic area, middle abdomen, upper abdomen, he even thought about the possibility of ectopic pregnancy, and finally confirmed that there was none—there was no fetus even as small as three months.

There was no choice, there were no facilities here to do an HCG test, so he had to be extra careful himself. 𝑓𝓻ℯ𝑒𝑤𝘦𝑏𝑛ℴ𝓋ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝓸𝓂

After searching carefully once again, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and confidently concluded, "Don’t worry, it’s not a pregnancy."

"Really?!"

"Let me see—"

"I want to see too!"

The two old men crowded forward quickly. Garrett had just shouted, "I’m not done with the examination yet," but he was already squeezed to the side, almost falling down. Master Tolga eagerly grabbed a bat brain, saying, "How do I see? Just send out ultrasound waves inside?"

Garrett could only step aside helplessly. Well, let them take a look. This was the advantage of magic—magic that any mage could learn and verify on their own. He nervously reminded them from the side:

"That’s right, move your finger forward a bit, then down a bit, right here! Activate the magic, and you’ll see that there’s no baby in her belly—surely you won’t mistake what a baby looks like!

Oh, and use a bit less magic! Just enough to see clearly, too much magical fluctuation could damage the intestines!"

"Emmmm..."

Master Tolga picked up a bat brain, then another one, his fingers moving back and forth, looking several times. Finally, he let out a long sigh, raised his right hand, wiped the sweat from his forehead:

"It’s really not..."

The glycerin on his fingers wiped onto his forehead, which was already covered in sweat, immediately sparkling and colorful. Garrett dared not laugh either, turning his head to watch the old mage out of the corner of his eye, seeing him look towards Elder Wood with anticipation written all over his face:

"Old Wood, you were right. The girl isn’t pregnant, she’s sick—so what illness is this? How should it be treated? You’ve watched her grow up, you must make sure to cure her!"

Hey, hey, your daughter isn’t pregnant, I just proved it to you!

If you have any questions, you should ask me!

Oh well, with a chief physician and an attending physician here, or even just a gray-haired attending physician and a young associate chief physician, the patient, the patient’s family, would definitely run to the senior doctor...

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