DNTMC 01

Chapter 1

“Has the broom not arrived yet?”

Irene stopped just as she was about to pull open the door to the break room. She had heard her own name from beyond the thin wooden door.

More precisely, it was not her name, but her nickname.

According to something she had heard once, the nickname had come from the fact that Irene’s hair was stiff and unruly.

She could still vividly remember the voices that had snickered that her extremely skinny figure looked just like the handle of a broom, making the nickname a perfect fit.

“Broom? Ah, you mean the Iron Wall? I don’t know. I haven’t seen her.”

The Iron Wall was another one of Irene’s nicknames. As far as Irene knew, she had several others besides that. The milder ones ranged from Ice Pick, Iron Mask, and Swordsman to the harsher ones like Freak, Witch, and Madwoman.

Whenever Irene heard her classmates talking among themselves, she found it quite fascinating. One person called her Ice Pick, another called her Freak, yet without any explanation, they immediately understood that they were referring to Irene, and the conversation continued.

It wasn’t as though Irene was hurt by her nicknames, though. They were even. Irene also thought of her classmates as sea anemones and jellyfish.

Sea anemones and jellyfish were types of cnidarians, the creatures Irene hated most in the world.

“But why are you looking for the Iron Wall? Do you have something to tell her?”

Only then did Irene realize who the two people inside the break room were. One was a furry jellyfish named On, and the other was a conceited sea anemone named Maxi.

The sea anemone answered casually.

“Ah, I’m in charge of preparing for anatomy today.”

“Ugh.”

On made a strange sound as though he felt nauseous just thinking about it.

Whenever On was bored, he would make a face as if he were about to throw up and go, “Ugh.” Whenever that happened, Irene would take a step away from him and point toward the door with her gloved hand.

—The restroom is downstairs.

Then, in place of On’s stupid expression, Maxi would sneer.

—You don’t seriously think On is actually going to throw up, do you? It’s just an expression of how disgusted he is.

Irene, who had been genuinely worried that On might actually vomit—or, more honestly, who simply didn’t want to attend a class in a lecture room that smelled of On’s vomit—would turn her head away with an indifferent expression.

“Hey, Broom! I told you to at least look at someone when they’re talking to you!”

Even the most optimistic person in the world could not say that Irene had a good relationship with her classmates.

It wasn’t simply that the few women who had entered the Royal Medical College were ostracized. Irene hadn’t managed to maintain particularly close relationships even with the other three female students.

Irene thought that perhaps there was something wrong with her. According to her younger sister Leticia, who would gnash her teeth whenever she saw Irene, Irene was a hopeless troublemaker beyond saving.

Well, whatever Leticia thought didn’t matter. Irene secretly called Leticia “Elegance.”

Elegance was a type of cnidarian classified among the stony corals. In other words, Irene hated Leticia too.

While Irene was briefly lost in thought, the jellyfish exaggeratedly shuddered.

“If you’re preparing for anatomy, you mean cutting open a corpse’s abdomen and taking out the organs before class, right? Ugh, I get goosebumps just thinking about it. I heard barbers used to do that work in the old days. Why they make students do it these days, I have no idea.”

“Barbers? What era are you talking about? Do you think just anyone can do this? You need both excellent grades and exceptional hand skills to be allowed to cut open a corpse in place of the professor. A student like me, for example.”

As the sea anemone boasted, the jellyfish added another comment.

“Yeah. You and one other person—the Iron Wall. You’re the two people the professor entrusts with that work.”

“Tch.”

Maxi clicked his tongue. The conceited sea anemone always seemed to dislike Irene. He would glare at her with narrowed eyes.

Whether he did or not was none of her concern.

Irene had no intention of standing in the hallway until the two of them finished their conversation, so she pulled open the closed door.

“What good are your skills? You’re strange as a person—”

Maxi stopped speaking and shut his mouth. The person they had just been gossiping about had suddenly appeared in front of them, and even someone as shameless as him seemed caught off guard.

An uncomfortable silence filled the break room. The sea anemone glared at Irene with a sullen expression, while the jellyfish scratched his head awkwardly.

Amid all of this, only Irene calmly walked forward.

Without even sparing the two of them a glance.

Maxi immediately frowned at the sight. Her attitude, as though she didn’t care who was talking about her, irritated him. That lofty demeanor, as if they didn’t even exist in her eyes, especially got on his nerves.

“Hey, when you see someone, shouldn’t you at least say hello?”

Irene took out her belongings from the corner. She put on her cleanly washed white apron and pulled on her equally clean gloves. Just in case, she also tucked several pairs of spare gloves into the apron pocket.

Maxi approached Irene with an agitated expression. On tried to stop him, but it was already too late. Maxi had already grabbed Irene by the shoulder and turned her toward him.

“Hey! When someone is talking to you, at least pretend to look at them—”

Smack.

Irene slapped the back of his hand with her gloved hand.

A warning alarm went off inside her head. The hair all over her body stood on end, and her breathing quickened slightly.

Irene concealed her pale face and calmly scrubbed the place where Maxi’s hand had touched her. It was closer to fear than discomfort.

But no one noticed.

Another brief silence followed. It was far more uncomfortable and unpleasant than before. On covered his forehead with one hand, as though he had known something like this would happen.

“Hah.”

Maxi clenched his jaw. It wasn’t the first time he had been treated with contempt, but every time it happened, it felt just as unpleasant as the first.

After standing still for a while as though swallowing down his rising emotions, Maxi pulled up one corner of his mouth.

“How noble must you be to not even tolerate someone lightly touching you?”

Despite his sharp sarcasm, Irene’s expression remained like an iron fortress. Instead of answering, however, Irene merely shrugged with an expressionless face.

In truth, she had something to say too.

Who could possibly tolerate being touched by a conceited sea anemone?

Suddenly, Irene remembered why she hated cnidarians.

Cnidarians had existed since ancient times, and they were relatively primitive creatures. They did not distinguish between an anus and a mouth.

In other words, they pooped out of their mouths.

She had seen Maxi several times wandering around without even washing his hands after dissecting corpses. In the furry jellyfish’s words—

“Ugh.”

Among cnidarians, sea anemones possess venom in their tentacles. So there was no nickname more fitting for Maxi, who jabbed and stung with every word he spoke.

Of course, she had never once said that nickname aloud.

Only after a long while, when she was finally satisfied that it was clean enough, did Irene throw away the cloth she had been holding and take a fresh one.

Maxi delivered an even more biting criticism.

“What good are good grades and good hand skills? You won’t become a doctor anyway. I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous as a doctor who hates touching people. With such a noble body, how exactly do you intend to examine your patients?”

“And that’s not all. Fundamentally, you can’t even empathize with a patient’s pain, can you? You don’t have any emotions to begin with. If one of the two of us is going to become an excellent doctor, it’ll be me. You know that too.”

If Maxi had intended to hurt Irene, his plan had failed completely.

That level of criticism was as familiar to Irene as air.

Although she attended the Royal Medical College, Irene knew better than anyone that she would never become a doctor.

Irene hated touching people to an almost unbearable degree.

So much so that merely imagining it was enough to make her skin crawl.

Of course, Irene had not been like this from birth.

Everything had begun with a tragedy that occurred when she was seven years old.

Don’t think about it. Don’t bring it out. Leave it buried.

The Pandora’s box buried beneath a layer of dusty memories began to tremble.

Irene hurriedly shook her head, brushing away the thoughts floating through her mind.

Then she firmly locked the lock on the room of her memories.

No matter what happened, she would never open the door to that room.

No matter what.

After gathering all of her belongings, Irene turned around to leave the break room. Maxi’s eyebrows twisted.

It was always like this.

He was always the one who got angry unilaterally, while Irene never even bothered to respond.

From the beginning, Maxi simply did not matter to her.

Clenching his fist tightly, Maxi spoke to Irene’s back in a curt voice.

“The professor said you’re in charge of dissecting the corpse today.”

Only then did Irene stop walking and turn around to look at Maxi.

For the first time, Maxi’s reflection appeared in her transparent, glass-bead-like eyes.

Once again, Maxi’s chest boiled with anger.

He didn’t know why he became so angry whenever he saw Irene. Well, it wasn’t as though this had only been happening for a day or two, so at this point, trying to figure out why seemed rather pointless.

Lifting his chin slightly, Maxi spoke boastfully.

“I heard a very noble guest is visiting our school today. I have to accompany the professor and receive the guest on behalf of this year’s graduating class, so you’ll have to prepare for anatomy class. It’s not as though you can entertain a guest anyway.”

Instead of answering, Irene simply nodded once.

Unable to resist, Maxi added one more remark.

“Isn’t it better this way? You like cutting open corpses, after all.”

“I like it.”

“!”

It was the first time Irene had spoken.

Her tone was indifferent, devoid of even the slightest trace of emotion, but Maxi’s eyes widened in shock.

He stood there blankly, his lips moving slightly.

But his throat was so tightly constricted that no sound came out.

Only after wetting his parched lips several times did Maxi manage to stammer out,

“W-what did you say?”

“I said I like it.”

“No, I mean, I—”

“Dissecting corpses. I like it.”

For a moment, Maxi fell silent.

At last, he realized his misunderstanding and glared at her even more fiercely.

He stared into Irene’s blue eyes, which reflected him back at himself like a mirror.

“At least more than talking to you.”

With that, Irene turned her back on him.

It was the truth.

Irene found dealing with dead people much easier than dealing with living ones.

They never touched Irene without warning, nor did they demand a response to favors they offered unilaterally.

They simply existed where they were.

Behind her, Maxi called out her full name.

“Irene Rios!”

It was quite unusual for him to do so, but Irene never looked back.

The fact that this was not actually Irene’s real name was a secret no one knew.

A secret that lived vividly only within Irene’s memories.

Bang.

The door closed in front of them.

On, who had quietly stayed a step behind, lightly patted Maxi on the shoulder.

“You should let it go, Maxi. It’s not as though the Iron Wall has only been like this since yesterday.”

Maxi glared ominously at the firmly closed door.

As though the door itself were Irene.

As though Irene might open it and come walking back inside at any moment.