She was a girl of strong will and seriousness.
Once she set her mind on something, she would see it through even if the heavens turned upside down.
Yet, she had never been stubborn over trivial matters.
Without a word, Jin Cheon-hee stood up.
"I'll get ready right away. And I don't need money."
She wasn't the type to put a price on a friend's desperate request.
She ran swiftly through the forest.
Her small figure scattered and reappeared in the shadows of the light, repeating the cycle.
Following Wang Gak-yeon, Jin Cheon-hee kept up without falling behind.
"You can run faster if you want."
"How did you know?" Jin Cheon-hee didn't run at full speed, fearing she might tire out.
If Jin Cheon-hee got too tired, she planned to carry her on her back and run.
Jin Cheon-hee calmly replied, "I heard from Uncle Gung-gwi that the secret technique passed down in the Pasa Divine Palace is called Iljeol. I have plenty of energy, so let's run."
Gung-gwi, Wang Chae-baek, had always wanted Jin Cheon-hee to call him Gung-gwi.
He said his nickname was a testament to his achievements.
Since he insisted so much, Jin Cheon-hee had no reason to refuse.
Even his daughter, Wang Gak-yeon, didn't make a big deal out of it, as it was something her father had decided.
"Alright."
She nodded and then put strength into her legs.
Thud! As soon as she took the first step, her afterimage scattered.
It was as if she had vanished without a trace, like a dream. 'Wow, impressive.' Jin Cheon-hee whistled softly and circulated her inner energy.
She focused the Five Elements Divine Art, Wind Knot, and the recently realized Ice Knot into her legs.
The enlightenment of the Three Talents Technique awakened the boy's body.
Tap.
Jin Cheon-hee followed Wang Gak-yeon with minimal movement.
Seeing this, Wang Gak-yeon's eyes filled with amazement.
"You haven't been learning martial arts for long, have you?" "Half a year."
"And you can do that?" Her friend's achievement seemed astonishing.
The place the two children arrived at was a small cave nestled between two gorges.
It was hidden by tree roots, making it impossible to find unless you knew where to look.
Even if you did, it looked like a den dug by a wild animal, unremarkable in appearance.
Moreover, it was a narrow earthen cave that adults couldn't enter.
The two stopped in front of it.
"Is the patient here?" "Yes."
Wang Gak-yeon bent down and crawled into the cave on all fours.
She didn't care how dirty her expensive silk clothes got. 'Oh no, Uncle Gung-gwi will cry...
No, he might actually be proud.' If her clothes got ruined, he'd have a reason to buy her new ones.
He had been itching to buy her new clothes anyway, unable to due to her constant nagging.
What's good is good.
Jin Cheon-hee followed Wang Gak-yeon into the cave.
The two children crawled down for a while, grunting and groaning.
At the end, they saw light.
A narrow room with a low ceiling.
But the reason they could see inside was because of the expensive night pearls embedded in the walls.
From the outside, it was impossible to tell, but this place was man-made.
It seemed like something an ancient master had created long ago.
Squeak— Under the light of the night pearls, the sound of an animal was heard.
Wang Gak-yeon said, "We're here."
Following Wang Gak-yeon, they went deeper into the room.
Inside, a dog was crouching.
The dog smelled of blood.
Jin Cheon-hee asked, "Is this the dog you wanted me to treat?" "Yes."
It didn't look like an ordinary dog.
Jin Cheon-hee scooted closer to the dog.
Around its neck were three ropes tied.
They weren't nooses meant to strangle.
They were a kind of mark, made to be used as a dog collar.
The knot pattern was peculiar, so Jin Cheon-hee examined it closely.
What the Medical Hall teaches isn't just medicine.
It's basic to learn various common knowledge used in the martial world.
In that sense, this knot was one she had seen before.
"The Dog Faction...? And three ropes with five knots? Isn't that the symbol of the faction leader?" A top-tier messenger dog.
Moreover, a top-tier messenger dog carrying the faction leader's messages.
Ordinary sects use messenger birds, like pigeons.
They're fast and hard for other sects to intercept.
Depending on the sect, they might use hawks, crows, or magpies instead of pigeons.
Ordinary messenger birds only move to predetermined locations.
Among them, birds with high intelligence, raised with special techniques, become quasi-spiritual creatures, able to travel to various places.
They can even understand human speech.
Here, the Dog Faction uses dogs alongside birds.
They're slower than birds but move in groups, able to traverse complex routes at once, and are useful for tracking due to their sense of smell.
They also have a knack for begging for food, using their identity as dogs.
The Dog Faction begs not only with people but also with dogs.
And the messenger dogs used by the faction leader are bound to be extraordinary.
"It's a spiritual creature, isn't it?" Not a quasi-spiritual creature.
Just a spiritual creature.
Jin Cheon-hee said, "I don't know how to treat dogs."
"I thought you'd ask what the story was."
"I'll ask after saving it."
Despite saying she didn't know how to treat dogs, Jin Cheon-hee immediately disinfected her hands with medicinal alcohol. 'First, the body temperature.' Jin Cheon-hee's index finger probed the messenger dog's anus.
Yelp! "Stay still."
Whether it understood Jin Cheon-hee's words or not, the dog stopped barking. 'What I know is very basic.
What should I do?' She had studied a bit in the past.
Unlike humans, dogs measure body temperature through the anus in emergencies.
Without a thermometer, she had to judge by touch.
A dog's normal body temperature is 2-3 degrees higher than a human's. '...
But it's excessively high.
The pulse is also fast.' Jin Cheon-hee said, "This is something for a specialist. If you leave it to me, it'll just be quackery."
Wang Gak-yeon asked, "Then where do you take a dog for treatment?" 'Right.
This world doesn't have modern veterinary hospitals.' In an era where even human bodies aren't well cared for, finding a clinic that treats dogs is even harder.
Jin Cheon-hee sighed.
"Well... I don't know? I'll do what I can, then let's take it to the Medical Hall. They can treat it there."
Grrr! The messenger dog tried to bite Jin Cheon-hee at those words.
Startled, Wang Gak-yeon calmed the dog.
"Hwang-gu! Stop! Stop!" The dog's name seemed to be Hwang-gu.
A common dog name.
Wang Gak-yeon said, "It seems like there's something going on. It absolutely refuses to go anywhere else. I don't know the details."
"How did you find it... Never mind. I get it. The patient wants that, right?" In all her life, she never thought she'd have to treat a dog as a patient.
Jin Cheon-hee recalled the events that might happen to the Dog Faction in novels.
This is the Dog Faction leader's messenger dog.
Such a spiritual creature risking its life to deliver a message couldn't be carrying trivial news. 'There's too much to speculate.' Even so, there was too much.
The Dog Faction would face many storms ahead.
Each one would be fatal to the faction. 'If this dog lives, the Dog Faction lives.' If the martial world were a living being, messengers would be like red blood cells.
Instead of oxygen, they carry information, keeping every corner of the sect alive.
"Do you know how it got hurt?" "I don't know either. Honestly, if it hadn't cried for help, I wouldn't have known at all."
Wang Gak-yeon said.
Hwang-gu was a dog often seen around the neighborhood.
She knew it was friendly with the Dog Faction people.
Beggars and dogs are both competitors and symbiotic, aren't they? Hwang-gu is a large, yellow-furred dog.
A common dog.
"I knew it was a Dog Faction dog, but I didn't know it was the faction leader's messenger dog. It was just smart and fast, so all the kids liked it. The ropes around its neck were too shabby."
Jin Cheon-hee herself only knew because she had studied.
If she hadn't known, she would have thought it was just a country mutt. 'But it seems this dog often appeared in this neighborhood.
If the neighborhood kids knew it, then...' Wang Gak-yeon continued, "The kids I used to play with called it Hwang-gu. That's all. Then today, while hunting in the forest, I found it... It led me to this cave. And then it collapsed here."
It seemed like it had used its last bit of strength to find her and call for help.
In that vast forest, it tracked a familiar scent to ask for help.
A spiritual creature is indeed a spiritual creature.
Jin Cheon-hee sighed softly and took its pulse.
The Five Elements Divine Art seemed to flow into Hwang-gu's body but then got lost.
The meridians of a dog, not a human.
Jin Cheon-hee's knowledge of dogs, especially large breeds, was extremely limited.
Jin Cheon-hee made a difficult diagnosis. 'It's in a state of infection due to external injuries, with severe inflammation.
Patellar dislocation, tibial fracture, and biceps tendonitis?' First, biceps tendonitis.
In humans, it's a condition often seen in middle-aged people.
But in fact, this condition is also common in large dogs.
Obesity often damages the biceps tendon and synovial membrane, causing inflammation.
In this case, it's due to overuse.
That is, it happened from excessive use of the front legs. 'The fascia is also severely damaged.
Ah, I see.
It kept running through the mountains despite being injured.' It can also happen from using the front legs to their limit. 'The pain must have been extreme, but it didn't give up.' The tibia is fractured.
If the hind legs are broken, it's normal not to be able to run.
A wild dog would have found a place to rest.
But Hwang-gu was different.
Whether it was spiritual or loyal, it foolishly kept running.
But even that has its limits.
No matter how spiritual it is, there are things it can't do.
When it reached its limit, it tracked the nearest familiar scent to ask for help.
Then it hid in its own hiding place. 'You're better than a human.
Better than a human.' What message did Hwang-gu have to deliver, going to such lengths? 'The fracture...
Of course, it happened from the impact on the hind legs.' Fortunately, it's in better condition than the last time she treated Wang-ya's companion, the Wanderer Marquis.
But the severe inflammation is already a dangerous sign.
Infection prevents bone healing, and once it progresses to osteomyelitis, it becomes chronic and hard to cure.
There are three bone fragments.
Comminuted fracture! The wounds tell a lot.
A comminuted fracture occurs from a blunt force trauma.
Jin Cheon-hee could infer the enemy's appearance from the dog's wounds. 'The opponent didn't use a sword but fists or kicks.
They must have tried to capture the messenger dog alive.' Why? Wouldn't it be more efficient to kill it and take the message? Why try to capture it alive? Jin Cheon-hee told Wang Gak-yeon what she inferred from the wounds.
"That's... possible?" "Yes."
"Like the legendary Thousand-Mile Eyes?" "If I could do that, I'd be an immortal. I'm just making a little deduction from the wounds."
"A little?" Yelp! Hwang-gu also barked in surprise.
With a look as if she had seen a ghost, Jin Cheon-hee asked, "Does Hwang-gu understand human speech?" "Probably. Sometimes it pretends not to hear when it's annoyed, but it seems to understand everything. It understands what we're saying now, and before I called you, we had a simple conversation."
"Conversation?" "I talk, and it answers."
At least for yes and no, it's better than anyone.
Then...
Jin Cheon-hee locked eyes with Hwang-gu.