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ArabicArknights: How Did I Actually Become the Doctor? — Chapter 10
Chapter 10: A One-Sided, High-Stakes Mind Game
9:30 PM / Overcast / Visibility 12 km
The jagged edge of Chernobog.
Kal’tsit and Mon3tr had already been waiting in the desolate ruins for quite some time. The night wind howled through the shattered concrete, carrying the faint scent of ash and Originium dust.
Seeing Mon3tr’s towering, dark green silhouette looming in the distance, the atmosphere within the extraction team chilled once more. The operators tensed, their hands hovering near their weapons. The Doctor, however, remained entirely unruffled. He turned his head, his voice calm and steady.
“Amiya, can I leave the matter of settling these refugees to you?”
Amiya nodded earnestly, her long ears twitching in the cold wind. “No problem. Please take care of your health, Doctor. Dr. Kal’tsit is the one over there—do you remember her?”
Back then, the young Amiya had known absolutely nothing of the dark history that had transpired between them.
“I remember a little,” you sighed, adjusting the collar of your heavy coat. “Thank you for your hard work, Amiya, and everyone else. See you in a bit.”
The operators gradually dispersed to secure the perimeter, leaving only a few elite veterans standing their ground, refusing to move a single inch.
This was a silent show of absolute allegiance. They were the blood-soaked veterans of the Babel era. They understood Kal’tsit’s deep-seated wariness of you, yet they chose to believe in their old commander unswervingly.
“Do—Doctor, you go ahead. We’ll stand right here for a while; they aren’t short-handed over there for now,” Stormeye explained, his expression somewhat stiff as he gripped his bow.
You wanted to laugh, but a strange warmth swelled in your chest. You felt more moved than anything else. Regardless of whether their defensive tension was actually meaningful against a monster like Mon3tr, at least their hearts were in the right place.
“Scatter, scatter. There’s nothing to overhear; we’re just going to exchange some basic intelligence.” You waved them off again, finally shooing the stubborn elite operators away into the gloom.
Turning around, you found Kal’tsit already standing right in front of you. Her cold green eyes stared at your visor, unblinking and utterly unreadable.
“You… are back?”
You looked closely and noticed a subtle detail. Her feline ears were pressed flat against her head in a defensive posture. She had her ‘airplane ears’ on.
“What do you mean? So I really have been to this land before?” You studied her curiously, a sudden playful urge rising within your chest.
‘Come on, this is the Old Cat that we Arknights players love to tease the most! I can’t just let this opportunity slide.’
Kal’tsit, suddenly realizing she had just given away crucial information with her very first sentence, stiffened.
“How much do you still remember?” To avoid leaking more intelligence the more she spoke, Kal’tsit decisively handed over the initiative of the conversation, her tone dropping into a guarded baseline.
“…It can’t exactly be measured by ‘how much’,” you said, gently patting away a little Ursus bear child who had just run over to fearfully seek comfort against your leg. “Think of it as fragmented flashback memories. Hazy and blurred.”
You paused, letting the silence stretch to build the pressure. “This feeling of a moon in the mirror, a flower in the water… could someone have tampered with something inside my head?”
You reached up and slowly pulled down your mask, finally seeing your own reflection clearly in Kal’tsit’s widening green eyes.
White hair and grey eyes. The image of an excessively thin, almost fragile young man. He looked like the exact type of person who would subconsciously inspire goodwill, appearing as gentle and flawless as polished jade when he smiled.
‘Is this the official anime avatar? Damn, that’s actually quite tasteful.’
“I… I don’t know.” Seeing your bare face, Kal’tsit was clearly placed under even more psychological pressure. Her usual absolute composure was fracturing. “At the end of your last awakening, I arrived too late. I don’t know what happened to you…”
“The reason you woke up last time was…”
Just as Kal’tsit was about to reveal something critical, you reached out a gloved finger and made a slow, deliberate “shh” gesture.
“I will judge the truth for myself, AMA-10. Ah, no, I suppose I should call you Kal’tsit now, right?” You flashed a smile. To Kal’tsit, that gentle curve of your lips looked exactly like the smile of a devil. “In my flashing memories, the situation is very complex. Your political maneuvering is still a bit green… I seem to have forgotten who was responsible for this specific part of your design.”
He forgot Priestess?
A violent storm surged in Kal’tsit’s heart once again, yet she forced herself to merely lower her head slightly. Just like in the old days, she looked at the Doctor with a complicated gaze filled with a painful mixture of confusion, wariness, and deep-seated trust.
Regardless of the mind games, both of them were well aware of the grim reality. The situation across Terra was becoming increasingly chaotic, and Theresis’s grand invasion plan was imminent. Now that the Ghost of Babel had been awakened, no one could possibly bypass the Rhodes Island collective to stuff him back into the sarcophagus.
“Tell me about the current development of Rhodes Island.” You didn’t push her any further, gracefully stepping back to grant Kal’tsit the comforting trust of an old father figure, just as you had done in the past.
As they engaged in a rapid-fire Q&A regarding logistics and operator deployment, the freezing atmosphere became strangely harmonious and warm.
Meanwhile, as the ‘foul’ adults were putting on a flawless show of warmth behind their respective masks, a pure child on the other side of the camp was crying and shouting in an absolute panic.
“I need to find the Doctor! The Doctor hasn’t eaten yet!” Little Bear Allie held a heaping lunch box high above her head with both hands, nimbly weaving left and right as she tried to break through the blockade of several Rhodes Island medical volunteers. “There’s meat in this meal!”
She had heard it clearly. Those volunteers said there were only three portions of the hot rations left, and that very, very thin big brother who saved them hadn’t eaten a single bite yet!
Holding back their laughter, several volunteers tried their absolute best to stop this little girl. She wasn’t very old, but being an Ursus, she possessed immense physical strength. “He has food, sweetie. You just came out of a terrifying danger zone; you need to eat your own food first. Eat up and get your strength back.”
“You’re lying!” the little girl shouted loudly, her eyes welling with tears. “He clearly hasn’t eaten! You just said there were only three boxes left! They’ve all been taken!”
Just as everyone was caught between laughter and tears, unable to calm the frantic child, a small figure stepped forward from the shadows of the medical tents.
“This portion… is mine… we can… wait for him.”
Allie looked up, blinking away her tears. A white Feline stood there, wearing an oversized jacket. She was surrounded by several giant, floating… refrigerators?
“Rosmontis… has food.” The Feline stammered softly as she reached out and gently took the little bear’s wrist. “Rosmontis… also wants… to see the Doctor.”
“Really?” Allie stopped struggling, looking at the older girl with half-doubting eyes. “You’re not going to lie to me too, are you?”
The Feline slowly took out a small, worn notebook from her pocket. She used a pencil to forcefully and carefully write down the words: ‘Wait for Doctor to eat’.
“I… have a bad memory…” Rosmontis explained, her voice quiet and airy. “If I write it down, I won’t forget.”
Allie finally quieted down, her grip on the lunchbox relaxing. “Hello, Rosmontis. My name is Allie. I’m from Chernobog.”
“Hello. My name is… Rosmontis. I’m from Rhodes Island.”
“Are those big metal things next to you refrigerators? Why do they fly?”
“No, not refrigerators… they… can listen to me.”
“That’s amazing!”
When you finally finished your tense psychological warfare with Kal’tsit and returned to the camp, what you saw were these two little cuties huddling together on a supply crate. They were obediently watching over three stacked lunch boxes, welcoming your return with bright, sparkling eyes.
“Doctor! You’re back!” Allie cheered.
“Doctor… I am Rosmontis,” the Feline greeted softly.
You stopped in your tracks and squeezed your eyes shut tightly.
‘Priestess… my dear alien female agent, you are ruthless, but I can’t resist this kind of critical hit no matter how hard I try. I’ll defect for three minutes first. I promise, only three minutes… really, believe me…’
[Rhodes’s Note: “Airplane ears” is a common term used to describe when an animal (usually a cat or dog) flattens its ears horizontally against its head, resembling the wings of an airplane. It is typically a sign of fear, anxiety, or defensive aggression.]