The Power Of Radiation 10 Tragedy

Mark gradually wakes up the next morning refreshed. This an unusual feeling for him because of how he normally goes to bed tired from practicing with his powers to expand their scope slightly. His grandfather once explained how beneficial this training was when you had no other resources to help you. It took his grandfather 10 years to go up a half rank when he spent 1 hour each night practicing with his power. From his time in college and hearing other rumors on the internet, Mark has learned that resources such as special fruits from beyond the cities and even mutant beast cores and flesh can both help increase the scope and overall strength of each individuals' power. Mark has none of these rumored resources so his ay of boosting his power is the same as his grandfather and the many other F rank civilians, train harder.

Mark gradually stretches and gets back on his feet, shaking off the leaves that covered him in the night as he did so. A horrid stench wafts in his direction from a few meters away which prompts Mark to think something died near him while he was sleeping soundly underneath the oak tree. Mark walks in the direction of the stench and discovers what seemed to be a battle. A ragged shack on wheels which is probably considered a carriage, surrounded by the corpses of 2 horses and at least 10 armed men. Mark gags as he looks over the carnage which seemed to have happened at least 6 hours ago. The picture it paints is that 3 of the men were guards of the carriage with a slightly better dressed man being the merchant owner of the carriage and they were attacked by the 6 remaining armed men who were probably bandits. The majority of the armed men were equipped with swords and boiled leather armor, the only exception to this is a small handheld crossbow near the ground next to the merchant. As Mark finishes throwing up from seeing the carnage and the stench that is still present, he sees movement. A bandit seems to have not died instantly because of a crossbow bolt but instead taken a wound to his stomach and is only barely alive.

Mark rushes to his aid, even though he is a bandit. Mark's whole point of coming to this VR world is to fulfill his training as a doctor and help people in need, just like this man, regardless of his former profession. Mark's first action is to try to stop the slow bleeding of the man's stomach wound with some clean cloth he found in the carriage. This seems to do almost nothing because of the weakness already shown by the man and how he has already spent most of his energy just trying to live this long. Mark's next step after this fails is to use the only tool left to him. His powers.

Mark is actually very nervous, even though he knows that the man is just bits of code made by the VR world's AI. Mark has only practices using his power on inanimate objects and small animals but never on a human because of how inexperienced he is and his lack of training in a real hospital. Mark starts with using both his ultraviolet or UV radiation and his gamma radiation to kill all bacteria and foreign matter in the wound and to also feel how deep and damaging the wound is. The results shock him as this man was stabbed almost directly in his pancreas by the small crossbow bolt. Mark is afraid of removes the bolt because it could be the final straw that ruptures and breaks the lining of the man's pancreas. Mark then closes the wound using his infrared radiation to cauterize the skin back together in the hope that the man can pull through while Mark goes for help. The pain from the infrared radiation and the burning of the skin seems to give the man a final moment of lucidity from his unconsciousness as he screams in pain and seems to look off into the distance. The man's eyes then glaze as his body finally can no longer support the stress the wound has caused on it. The former bandit and Mark's first patient in the VR world, dies.

Mark stressed and nervous face stares at the man in shock. 'He died? He was my first patient; how can he die just like that? Why was I not enough to save him?' Mark thinks. Mark's thoughts ramble back and forth as he equally blames himself and feels immense sadness and anger at his first failure as a doctor in training. Mark is finally able to steel himself and thinks that he must get better with both his medical knowledge and his powers so this kind of thing can never happen in front of him again. To see someone, he could have saved if he knew more or was someone with stronger or had different powers give Mark a resolve unlike any other he could have gotten because of how he has been sheltered in a modern world where people do not die from minor injuries like wounds anymore. The majority of people in his mega city growing up either died from a disease or virus where there is still no cure, going outside the walls or from old age and stress from working hard and demanding jobs. The average human life expectancy for pampered people is 200 years but working cla.s.s F rank citizens have so much stress and burdens placed on them they are lucky to live to 150.

As Mark's resolve has been strengthened he no longer looks at the sadness from the situation in front of him but is more inclined to use this as motivation to help even more people down the road to make up for his shortcomings now. Using a shovel, he found in the nearby carriage he proceeds to bury the men in a ma.s.s grave next to the carriage. The valuables and money the people has on them along with the swords, Mark bundles up to give to the nearest village or place with people so that any of the people's family could at least have some support. Once done with this exhausting and thankless task, Mark attaches the hand crossbow to his wrist and goes to sleep up in the branches of the oak tree he stayed earlier so he doesn't end up like any of the dead men he just buried. Mark for the first time in 2 years doesn't practice his powers and goes right to bed. His dreams that night are haunted with the dead men's faces crying out to him to help them and how they do not want to die as he sleep fitfully through the night.