Arknights: How Did I Actually Become the Doctor? — Chapter 97

Chapter 97: The Last Two Chapters of Warm Little Daily Life

Rhodes Island is loaded. By now, this is a universal truth acknowledged by every single one of our partners.

After all, just because the Great Knight Territory suffered a brief communications blackout doesn’t mean you can permanently tape shut the mouths of every wandering traveler passing through its borders. Attempting to do so would be an exercise in futility.

Thanks to the long-term “art of deception” masterminded by the Kazimierz General Chamber of Commerce, the main forces of the Silverlance Pegasi remain blissfully isolated from the truth. That forty-man squad of elite Pegasi currently sitting as hostages on the negotiating table served as the perfect distraction, completely diverting their attention.

All this time has passed, and those proud knights still haven’t realized their home base was entirely compromised.

The rumor that “Rhodes Island has taken over Kazimierz” has been quietly circulating through elite underground circles. Rather than causing trouble, it acts as a massive deterrent, greasing the wheels for our field operators stationed in branches across various nations.

If these foreign factions don’t make things convenient for Rhodes Island, they better sleep with one eye open—lest the Ghost of Babel decide to “take over” their homes next!

To most factions, that kind of news is a naked, terrifying threat. But to a select few, Rhodes Island presents a completely different, almost benevolent face.

“We have established brand-new medical facilities and a Rhodes Island-affiliated academy right in the heart of Kazimierz. Given the sheer enthusiasm Karlan Trade has shown in our joint ventures, and your high degree of trust in us, we formally invite you to engage in an even deeper level of cooperation.”

You delivered this cheerful, perfectly polished corporate pitch while sitting comfortably in SilverAsh’s office, both arms wrapped securely around Pramanix’s tail, taking a deep, indulgent breath of the fur.

‘Ah… so incredibly fluffy. So soft.’

Pramanix flushed a brilliant shade of pink. She obediently lifted her massive tail, wrapping the plush length of it around your arm to give you a better angle with the grooming brush.

In the private, hushed discussions of the Silverash family, your tail-brushing technique had already achieved legendary status among the snow leopards. You had a specific method—especially when brushing down to the very last inch, cleaning out the stray hairs at the tip. A casual, perfectly timed scratch right at the tail’s end was enough to make a snow leopard want to stick their rear in the air from sheer pleasure.

…That last glowing review was actually provided by SilverAsh himself, a comment that instantly earned him looks of deep shock and disgust from his two younger sisters.

Some things are like underwear. Everyone has them, but dragging them out into the open to discuss them at length is just plain perverted.

Sitting across from you, SilverAsh gripped the newly drafted, highly generous contract. His hands trembled slightly, betraying his underlying excitement.

Rhodes Island really was a charitable enterprise!

“My ally, you truly… never fail to exceed my expectations.” SilverAsh’s voice was smooth, rich with genuine respect. “Karlan Trade will never betray Rhodes Island’s trust. Just as I will always follow in your footsteps.”

Without missing a beat, SilverAsh smoothly relocated himself, sitting down closely on your other side. He subtly shifted his posture, attempting to casually drape his own large tail across your lap so you could brush both snow leopards at once.

You paused. You weighed your options. On one hand, you could shift to the left, rejecting SilverAsh’s unspoken plea for affection and forcing him to go sulk in the corner. On the other hand, you could spend the entire afternoon drowning in two massive, fluffy leopard tails.

You decisively shifted your weight toward Pramanix, leaving SilverAsh sitting completely alone on the sofa cushion.

SilverAsh’s ears drooped a fraction of an inch. “My ally…”

Pramanix leaned into your shoulder, casting a sidelong, triumphant glance at her older brother. “Doctor, please don’t mind him. My brother is always like this. He acts shamelessly on purpose. You already promised to brush my tail today, didn’t you?”

Poverty and desperation are the roots of all conflict. Years ago, when Kjerag was a fractured mess of opposing political forces, SilverAsh had no choice but to force Pramanix into the brutal competition for the position of Saintess. It was a near-death crucible that caused a deep, lingering rift between the siblings for years.

But after Rhodes Island forcefully intervened in Kjerag’s politics, the landscape shifted. There were no longer any stubborn fools left alive who dared to scream “this is ancestral tradition!” in the face of the new Khan of Terra. Especially not after they dug up the classified reports detailing exactly how many ancient Feranmuts you had slaughtered over the years.

The conservatives had wanted to protect their local gods. But rumors had already spread through the Kjerag populace like wildfire: if the terrifying Ghost of Babel woke up on the wrong side of the bed, he would use the severed heads of Feranmuts as bar snacks to go with his wine!

SilverAsh had effectively become the spokesperson for a demon. Let alone moderate political reform—if SilverAsh were to kick down the doors of a rival family’s mansion right now and slaughter eighty people, the other two ruling families wouldn’t even retaliate. They would first pull out a map to calculate the exact distance between Kjerag and Rhodes Island’s landship, trying to figure out if they could run far enough to escape your wrath.

With all external political pressure violently eradicated, the fractured relationship between the Silverash siblings naturally began to heal.

Well… mostly. Situations like this still happened on a daily basis.

Objectively, SilverAsh hadn’t made a tactical error when he sent Pramanix up the mountain to become the Saintess. He had just seized power. He was surrounded by internal traitors and external threats. Every single piece he could wager on the chessboard had already been sacrificed. His own sister was the very last card he had left to play.

In that bloody gamble for Kjerag’s future, SilverAsh’s greatest act of selfishness was simply racking his brain, stalling for time, and doing everything in his power to keep that specific card hidden until the very end of the game. Both of them knew this.

But just because Pramanix the Saintess could understand the logic, didn’t mean Pramanix the younger sister wasn’t still furious.

Especially now that she had joined Rhodes Island. Seeing the Kjerag opposition silenced and her brother’s stress levels plummet, why would she ever let him live comfortably?

When facing genuine threats, Pramanix was her brother’s absolute strongest pillar of support. But when there were no threats? Pramanix was SilverAsh’s greatest menace.

Faced with his sister’s endless barrage of petty “little revenges,” SilverAsh knew he was in the wrong and could only grit his teeth and endure it. Her sabotage included, but was not limited to: secretly slipping her own paperwork into his towering stack of documents; casually opening his office door at the exact critical moment he was trying to farm affinity with you, just to innocently ask, “Doctor, I’m a bit lost on the landship, could you walk with me?”; and, most devastatingly, waiting until it was finally his turn to get his tail brushed, only to wipe her greasy hands all over his fur right after eating a plate of roasted scales.

Seeing the vicious warning flashing behind Pramanix’s gentle, saintly smile, SilverAsh let out a quiet sigh. He disappointedly retracted his tail, wrapping it around his own arm. He sat there, maintaining the stoic dignity of a corporate warlord, while watching his sister enjoy the grooming with intensely longing eyes. She looked ready to hiss at him if he moved an inch.

You stopped brushing for a second. “…SilverAsh, are you okay?”

SilverAsh forced a polite, perfectly calm smile. “Of course, my ally. Do I look like the kind of man who would concern himself with such trivial matters?”

You wisely shut your mouth, deciding not to further provoke the poor snow leopard who had just suffered a double betrayal from both his political ally and his blood sister.

Relaxing times are always fleeting.

Just because you enjoyed playing house and petting the fluffy operators on the landship didn’t mean you actually intended to spend the rest of your life slacking off. Back in Kazimierz, you had made a hard resolution: you were going to dig up the absolute truth of your past.

Sitting alone in the central archives, you pulled up the terminal and ruthlessly targeted all the encrypted files Kal’tsit had locked away from your current permission level.

PRTS was entirely loyal to you. What kind of firewall could Kal’tsit possibly build that could keep you out?

The only reason you hadn’t bothered hacking these “top secret” files earlier was because you thought you already knew the game’s plot. You assumed the old lynx wouldn’t actually harm you, and that the files were just standard lore text. But now? The storyline had derailed so violently that if you still refused to read the damn files, you’d be acting like a literal bird-brained Liberi.

The permission transfer progress bar shot up rapidly.

80%… 85%… 90%…

Then, it slammed into a brick wall. The progress bar froze completely, as if the network had flatlined. No matter what bypass scripts you ran, it wouldn’t budge a single pixel.

‘Wait. Does Kal’tsit actually know how to code?’

You stared at the screen in genuine shock. You hadn’t written your decryption program with maximum effort, but it was still built on logic that was centuries ahead of the locals on this rock. If Kal’tsit had actually managed to defend against a 21st-century cyber-attack, you would formally apologize and never call her a lazy cat again.

You leaned in, cracking your knuckles, ready to personally test Kal’tsit’s programming skills. But the moment you looked at the raw code blocking your path, you paused.

‘Hold on. Why does this firewall smell like amateur hour?’

From a purely technical standpoint, the person who wrote this defense protocol was an absolute genius. The logic, the sheer creativity, the wild imagination—you could practically feel the arrogant, spirited “genius pride” radiating from the syntax.

But in terms of actual coding standardization or structural aesthetics? It was absolute garbage!

The programmer clearly had zero patience, slapping functions together like a caveman who had just discovered fire. You squinted at the screen, harshly critiquing the messy architecture in your head.

Fortunately, raw genius was no match for an old veteran who had been thoroughly battered by the rigid standardization of modern software development. You analyzed the messy logic for a few minutes, found the structural flaw, and easily dismantled the remaining 10%.

With a crisp beep, the heavily guarded data finally revealed its true face.

[Welcome back to Terra, Dr. ■■]

[Do they miss you?]

You violently flinched, your elbow jerking back and knocking your coffee cup completely off the table.

‘What the fuck! A male ghost!’

You sat there panting for a second before the realization hit you. That messy, chaotic, genius-level code in the final 10%… that was written by your past self.

Wait a minute. Did Kal’tsit just slap her own 90% lock over the files because she couldn’t break through your original 10% encryption, and she was too embarrassed to let anyone know she was locked out of her own archives?

That had to be it.

‘Scared me to death,’you muttered, wiping the spilled coffee.’I actually thought Kal’tsit had a sudden breakthrough and started studying computer science.’

You quickly scanned the prompt. The “male ghost” of your past self had clearly just left that creepy message to jump-scare you. Pushing the lingering dread aside, you opened the main drive and began reading.

Most of the top-secret files were just casual, messy personal logs. The handwriting was erratic, jumping wildly between topics—hand-drawn maps, theoretical technological breakthroughs, optimal equipment swapping sequences, the physiological weaknesses of various enemy types… and some deeply unsettling speculations about the fundamental nature of the world.

The early records weren’t particularly useful to your current situation, so you skimmed past them. What actually made you freeze were the fragmented, chaotic short notes. They had no dates, no context, and read like the manic ramblings of a man losing his grip on reality.

The tone was terrifyingly similar to your own internal voice. There was no “ghostly” distance to it. It sounded exactly like you, just… broken.

[What I saw in Sami doesn’t seem to be an illusion. If they are some kind of ‘possibility’of mine, then am I not just a rather crazy’possibility’ to them?]

[Archive 167: Theory established. Sarkaz, Sami, Iberia, Troupe, Boundary Garden… their essence is connected. They are all just forms of expression for “entrances.” Rather than calling them hallucinations, it’s better to call them loopholes in the world’s code.]

[Archive 231: They will be affected by me, but I seem to be hard to be affected by them… It’s really strange. I increasingly feel that this place cannot be called a complete “world.” Who did this?]

[Archive 331: I have a bad premonition… Trying to force me to stop? Someone is watching me, but even Priestess can’t perceive it. How annoying.]

[Not enough matter… So annoying. Why can’t parallel worlds serve as fuel for me! Who the hell is doing things behind my back!]

[Archive 426: Conclusion confirmed. You owe the past a death.]

The final entry was entirely different. It wasn’t typed into the machine. It was a high-resolution scan of a physical note that had been violently torn into tiny shreds, then painstakingly taped back together.

The image was dark and grim. The handwriting was frantic, the pen pressing so hard it had nearly torn through the paper. It was written in a chilling, dried, dark red substance. Only the very beginning and the end of the sentence were legible.

[…Liar, liar, liar, liar, liar, liar, liar, I owe the past a death.]

The next second, the terminal screen violently flickered. The final image vanished into thin air. You immediately ripped open the system’s recycle bin, running a deep diagnostic, but found absolutely nothing. It was as if that bloody note had never existed in the database at all.

‘…I take back my apology. Calling you a male ghost was entirely accurate! You creepy bastard!’You patted your chest, your heart hammering against your ribs.’Bro, you refuse to leave clear instructions and just force me to guess your riddles. You just want me to step into the exact same landmines you stepped on, don’t you? Do you really have to persecute your own future self like this?’You checked the timestamps. These manic, essay-like speculations came to an abrupt, dead stop after Archive 426. There were no more subjective diary entries after that. The only things left in the drive were increasingly bloody, hyper-lethal combat logs.’…Well then. Looks like I need to take a little vacation to Sami.’

You leaned back in the chair, staring at the ceiling. You genuinely couldn’t fathom what kind of cosmic horror could have beaten you—a bright, cheerful, optimistic gamer—into the manic, universe-destroying “male ghost” recorded in those files. But that missing data had hooked your curiosity entirely.

Everyone knows curiosity killed the cat. But come on. What kind of gamer could resist investigating a super-hidden, lore-heavy secret area that had completely broken the previous player?

According to the files, the Integrated Strategies you used to play on your phone manifested in this reality as literal physical entrances to parallel dimensions. With that much reality-bending mechanics at play, your past self absolutely had to have buried top-tier loot and intelligence in there!

You slammed your fist on the desk, a grin spreading across your face.

‘Roguelike! It’s a literal Roguelike! How could a hardcore completionist like me ever turn down a Roguelike run just because of a little mortal peril!’

Having firmly decided to challenge the Sami Integrated Strategies run, you pulled up your terminal and dialed a highly encrypted, off-the-books frequency.

“Wis’adel~ Are you there~”

The sound of rushing water echoed through the speaker. Clearly, the Sarkaz mercenary was currently surviving in the wilderness near a riverbank.

She would rather sleep in the dirt and eat bugs than step foot on the Rhodes Island landship. Just how much psychological trauma had you inflicted on Wis’adel in the past?

“What?” Wis’adel’s voice snapped through the comms, dripping with venom. “You better not be bothering me just because you’re bored, Doctor. Otherwise, I’m going to blow your hand off right through the terminal!”

On the other end of the line, Wis’adel had just managed to snare a wild Featherbeast in a trap. The humidity by the river was suffocating, her fire-starter was jammed, and she was currently at peak irritability.

“Um… would you be willing to accompany me on a trip to Sami?”

To your absolute shock, Wis’adel didn’t immediately scream at you. The line went dead silent for a long, heavy moment.

Then, she flatly refused.

“I will escort you to the very edge of the Sami border. But I am not stepping one foot inside.”

Before you could ask, she explained, her voice tight. “Sami was rigged by your past self a long time ago. You wove that entire region into a spider web. You don’t need to worry about any danger in there.”

“Then why won’t you come with me?”

“Because I don’t want to.” Wis’adel sullenly cut the connection, leaving the dial tone echoing in your ear.

Well. That was a shame. But her reaction only cemented your theory: Sami was hiding something massive.

‘Then who should I take as my DPS?’ You tapped your chin, running through the roster of operators in your head.

“…Doctor?”

A soft, hesitant voice broke your concentration. You looked up to see a small Feline with white hair and pale green eyes standing in the doorway. She was flanked by four massive, floating tactical equipments that looked suspiciously like giant metal refrigerators. She knocked lightly on the doorframe.

“Today, Thorns and I swapped assistant shifts.”

Your eyes lit up instantly.

The amnesiac kitten who forgets everything! How could you have possibly overlooked the perfect companion?