Arknights: How Did I Actually Become the Doctor? — Chapter 86

Chapter 86: Wait, What Did You Just Blow Up?

To an outside observer, the command interface looked like a chaotic, thrilling blur of flashing red alerts and shifting tactical grids. In reality? The pressure didn’t even hold a candle to that grueling Annihilation run back in Lungmen. It felt exactly like a post-grad being forced to tutor a middle schooler in basic algebra; you couldn’t remember a single formula from the textbook, yet your hands just moved on autopilot, solving the equations through sheer muscle memory.

‘So complex…’A swipe to the left.’So easy…’A tap on the deployment grid.’So complex…’A rapid reassignment of firing arcs.’So easy!’Fingers dancing across three separate PRTS monitors, you effortlessly juggled the battlefield, even finding the spare mental bandwidth to maliciously roast your pre-amnesia self.’Seriously, was there some hidden, god-tier meta in Kazimierz I didn’t know about?’you mused internally.’Did these corporate suits disgust the old me so deeply that I sat in the dark, obsessively drilling these exact counter-tactics just to spite their precious Pegasi?’

The moment the thought crossed your mind, your vision suddenly swam. A violent wave of vertigo hit, pulling you into a fragmented abyss of a past memory.

The physical actions were identical, but the scene was entirely alien. A figure draped in a heavy black hood—rather than your current deep blue coat—stood before a staggering array of sixteen simultaneous holographic screens. Beside this figure stood no lone, blood-sucking Vampire girl, but a solemn coven of Sarkaz Banshees. Black mourning veils draped over their arms, their voices weaving together in a low, haunting dirge.

The hooded figure sat casually on the reinforced railing of a massive, high-speed landship, staring down with utter boredom at the dark, scorched earth below. The ground was painted with active Originium residue. It bloomed like crystallized, pitch-black snowflakes, their exquisite, deadly polygonal structures spreading outward in the wake of the landship’s relentless treads.

You had never seen so many silver-armored knights and Caprini casters in one place. They charged forward in a grand, desperate swarm, looking like nothing more than a tide of insignificant ants—and they died just as easily. Uniformed Sarkaz mercenaries guarded the landship’s flanks, executing formation shifts so dizzyingly complex they defied standard tactical logic. They became a meat grinder, effortlessly shredding every heroic figure that dared to charge their lines.

The colossal landship didn’t even bother to decelerate. It simply crushed its way through blood, iron, and bone, carving a straight, merciless line toward the west.

“Tch.” The Ghost of Babel—your past self—stifled an impatient yawn. “Why is there always someone trying to claim sovereignty over the industrial zones I’ve set my eyes on? They don’t even have human rights.”

“What a nuisance. These tribes of little animals just keep randomly spawning next to my borders, and they never seem to welcome me…”

At the tail end of the fractured memory, the hooded figure finally seemed to lose whatever thin shred of patience they possessed. They slowly peeled off a tactical glove, stood up, and spread their fingers wide. With agonizing slowness, they raised their bare palm toward the battlefield.

In that split second, the entire charging rebel army froze in their tracks.

Their bodies began to violently wither. Jagged shards of active Originium materialized out of thin air, rupturing through their skin and rapidly crystallizing along their bones and nervous systems. Using their living flesh and blood as fertile soil, and guided entirely by the casual flick of that raised hand, blood-stained Originium clusters—each half the size of a grown man—bloomed from their corpses within seconds.

‘Holy crap!’The memory shattered like cheap glass. You violently blinked, fighting the urge to slap yourself across the face.’The Ghost of Babel just made a limited-time gacha rerun in my head?!”I swear, I’ll never talk trash again! Please, have mercy! Stop jumping out of the void just to forcefully download these war-criminal POV cutscenes into my brain! And what do you mean the little animals spawned?! You’re the one driving a massive warship into their homes! It’s your border that spawned on top of them! Get a grip on reality, you absolute psychopath!”Aaaah! Stop shoving the forbidden knowledge of how to make people bloom into Originium flowers into my head! I don’t want to learn this cursed skill tree! What am I even supposed to do with this? Have a gardening contest with Theresa?! She uses her Lord of Fiends powers to decompose my Originium into beautiful flowers, and I use her people as fertilizer to grow new Originium crystals… What kind of hellish, twisted joke is that?!’

“…Doctor? Hey, Doctor? You [Sarkaz expletive] aren’t dead, are you?”

The sharp, static-laced voice of Wis’adel crackled through the earpiece. The chaotic mercenary had keenly sensed the momentary lapse in the command network and graciously offered her timely… well, concern was a strong word.

Still mentally reeling and half-traumatized by your own past self, your mouth moved entirely on autopilot, relying on the sheer muscle memory of the Babel era.

“…I’m fine. I’m fine,” you murmured, your voice dropping into a chilling, mechanical cadence. “Focus maximum power output at your seven o’clock. That is a primary load-bearing pillar. Bring it down.”

A deafening roar shook the city block. More than half of the Kazimierz General Chamber of Commerce building instantly caved in on itself. Countless corporate assassins, completely unable to outrun the collapsing architecture, were instantly crushed, reduced to unremarkable bloodstains buried beneath thousands of tons of heavy concrete and twisted rebar.

Wait.

‘What the hell am I doing?’You suddenly snapped back to reality, staring at the tactical map in horror.’Didn’t I just want a surgical decapitation strike? Why did my subconscious muscle memory default to a structural wipeout massacre?!’

“Hiss…” A sharp intake of breath echoed through the comms. It was Degenbrecher.

Fortunately, Wis’adel and the others were already far too accustomed to your particular brand of ruthless efficiency to notice anything amiss.

Forcing your expression to remain utterly placid, you adjusted your earpiece. “What is it, Degenbrecher?” you asked, your tone perfectly flat. “Not used to this scale of operation? My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The Black Knight forced her breathing to steady, maintaining her stoic professionalism. “It is nothing. You have your own command style; you do not need to accommodate my sensibilities, Doctor.”

In her mind, she was already rationalizing it. Perhaps Rhodes Island had simply made too many powerful enemies while upholding their ideals across Terra. Perhaps the Doctor had to be this terrifyingly ruthless just to ensure their survival. Much like Karlan Trade, every organization that appeared glamorous on the surface hid a mountain of necessary corpses beneath it.

Noting that the structural integrity of the target zone was thoroughly compromised, you smoothly shifted gears. “You two can fall back now. Cease your assault. Wis’adel, take over the perimeter.”

Degenbrecher and the other operative retreated in tacit understanding, leaving only the sound of Wis’adel’s wild, unhinged laughter echoing through the earpiece.

For a dirty job like tying up loose ends and sweeping a ruined building for survivors, an experienced Sarkaz mercenary with a rock-bottom moral compass was infinitely better suited than a noble knight.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Exusiai and Texas were currently standing guard over a massive stockpile of commercial fireworks.

“Hey, Texas?” Exusiai tilted her head, her glowing halo buzzing faintly in the cool night air. “Do you really think those people are gonna come out and light our preparations like they promised?”

Given the desperate, hand-to-mouth lifestyle of the local Infected slums, it was entirely possible that the residents had simply chosen to dismantle the expensive firework racks and sell the gunpowder for scrap money.

Amidst the Sankta’s growing anxiety, the appointed time finally arrived. Biting her lip, Exusiai nervously struck a match and lit the primary fuse in her hand.

Whoosh!!!

A massive firework shot into the dark Kazimierz sky, detonating in a brilliant, deafening starburst of neon colors before slowly fading into drifting smoke.

Silence fell over the city.

No second firework followed.

“I knew it!” Exusiai groaned, her wings drooping. “Do you think the Boss has a backup plan for this?!”

Looking genuinely panicked, she grabbed Texas by the sleeve and started dragging the Lupo down the alleyway. “Come on, let’s go! If they won’t light them, we’ll just have to sprint around and do it ourselves! I just hope we can run fast enough to keep up with the Boss’s schedule…”

She silently prayed to the Laterano saints that the locals hadn’t completely dismantled the payload.

Whoosh!!

Whoosh!!

Whoosh!!!

Suddenly, as if the entire city had just experienced a collective delayed reaction, fireworks began to erupt from every single district in Kazimierz! The deafening staccato of explosions and the blinding flashes of crimson, gold, and blue completely dominated the night sky, instantly drowning out the hum of neon signs and the distant wail of sirens on the ground.

From the shadows of every street and alleyway, the silent, downtrodden Infected emerged. Like bamboo shoots springing up after a heavy spring rain, they stepped out into the open, tilting their heads up to watch the sky burn bright.

Exusiai’s frantic pace slowed to a halt. She subconsciously looked up, her eyes reflecting the dazzling kaleidoscope above, completely captivated by the rare, festival-like display.

‘So this is the grand explosion the Boss promised,’she thought, a wide grin spreading across her face.’It really is beautiful…’

Wait. That wasn’t right.

Exusiai whipped her head around, her angelic ears twitching as she filtered through the overlapping echoes. “Hey, Texas… did the sound of a massive, structural building collapse just get mixed in with the fireworks?”

Wait a minute. In the heart of Kazimierz, what else was there for the Boss to blow up?

The Sankta and the Lupo slowly turned to look at each other, both of them realizing the terrifying reality of the situation at the exact same time.