Arknights: How Did I Actually Become the Doctor? — Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Reunion, Fighting the Black Snake Again!

Your footsteps were heavy. Every single stride felt exactly like dragging a lead-filled corpse out of thick, viscous mud. Deep inside the freezing metal heating pipes of Chernobog, the emergency lighting flickered violently across your vision, bringing with it a nauseating wave of vertigo that threatened to drop you to your knees.

Your brain felt like an overworked Originium Arts processing unit—dangerously overheating, severely lagging, and constantly blaring harsh system alarms. At the very edges of your vision, non-existent static danced in the gloom, while a high-pitched ringing in your ears served as the eternal background track to your suffering.

‘Why do I still have to suffer like this even after transmigrating…’

The stagnant air was thick with the choking stench of rusted metal and stale machine oil, a foul combination that made a person instinctively tense their muscles. Beside you, Logos casually twirled his bone pen. Complex, glowing incantations flickered effortlessly at his fingertips, though a rare hint of worry shadowed his elegant eyes.

“Doctor, you are not in a suitable condition to face the Black Snake…”

“The Black Snake knows that too, which is exactly why she believes even less than you do that I would actually show up,” you interrupted hurriedly, waving off his concern. The beautiful male Banshee needed to remain stationed in Victoria; the shorter the time you kept him summoned here, the better. Without his Court-level combat power holding the line, the Rhodes Island branch over there could face total annihilation at any given second.

“Besides, with you here, synchronization isn’t that difficult.” You gave Little Lo’s shoulder a firm, trusting pat. “Do you have any idea how much peace of mind I felt when I checked your operator file and saw you were already Elite 2?”

Logos did not quite understand what sort of qualitative change this supposed ‘promotion’ entailed, but looking down at the hand of the person before him—still trembling slightly from sheer physical exhaustion—he simply accepted it.

The Doctor of the past would also suddenly do completely irrational things he couldn’t comprehend whenever their Sanity hit zero.

For instance, there was the time he mandated that all Babel personnel change their Originium Arts incantations to exactly four syllables, loudly complaining that five syllables caused too much system lag and would easily overheat the casters.

Or the time he cornered the young wandering Knight Młynar, who was merely an external contractor at the time, and absolutely demanded that the Kuranta shout “Ex—calibur—!” at the top of his lungs before drawing his sword.

Still, Logos mused, it was infinitely better than the night he completely lost his mind and tried to cook instant noodles directly inside his own mouth at three in the morning.

The Lord of the Banshee Court offered a gentle, benevolent smile. “Doctor, you have worked hard.”

He didn’t understand a single word of the gamer jargon, but he smiled anyway.

“Doctor, someone is coming!” Scout, who had been on high alert at the vanguard, suddenly stepped back half a pace. He instantly moved to guard your flank, his sniper rifle raised as he stared vigilantly at the faint, sickly light bleeding from the pipe entrance.

The silhouette drew closer, and everyone instinctively tightened their grip on their weapons.

“Damn it! I brought the person you wanted, didn’t I?!” Mephisto looked as though he had just swallowed a mouthful of live Originium slugs. He grudgingly stepped aside, revealing Amiya, who had been pressing a loaded weapon directly against his spine the entire trek.

To gain the trust of this crazy rabbit, he had been held at gunpoint the entire way down into the facility, and now that his duty as a guide was fulfilled, he was still being treated like a hostile target!

“Ahem. Everyone, this is my backup plan. Meet our special undercover agent for Rhodes Island, Mephisto.” You forced yourself to stand up straight, introducing the psychotic boy with a deadpan, entirely serious face.

Honestly, ever since Eblana came aboard the landship, your moral bottom line had become extremely flexible. Mephisto was, at the very least, a child who still had a marginal chance to reform. You hadn’t even considered recruiting Jesselton into Rhodes Island!

And it was absolutely, positively not just because Mephisto was a white-haired, crazy little boy wearing leg rings!

“He will serve as our squad’s main tank, aggro bait, dungeon guide, forward sentry, emergency medic, and mental damage dealer.” You confidently patted the utterly stunned Mephisto on the head.

Just because you didn’t want to kill him didn’t mean you were going to let him off easily. In your grand tower defense strategy, every single one of his infected zombies—The Herd—had a spectacular tactical use.

For the remainder of the infiltration, you remained in a state where your brain was basically crashing, yet you ruthlessly worked Mephisto like a rented donkey.

“Doctor, scout drones are approaching our sector…”

“Deploy two of The Herd to draw aggro.”

“Doctor, the scanner shows a structural collapse in the pipe ahead…”

“Fill the gap with two of The Herd.”

“Doctor, Talulah’s direct elite subordinates are blocking the corridor…”

“Use The Herd to clear the way. They won’t dare stop us.”

“Doctor, Mephisto is refusing to obey the next command…”

“Deploy two… ah, no, wait. Hey Mephisto, do you want me to deploy a ‘part’ of Faust over here to motivate you?”

“Doctor, Mephisto suddenly says he has a few better-functioning members of The Herd that he would love to contribute to the cause.”

Everything proceeded exactly as you calculated. The Reunion rear-guard personnel, cowards who hadn’t even dared to step foot on the Lungmen front lines, couldn’t even bring themselves to question Mephisto’s bizarre actions. They simply watched in terrified silence as your squad swaggered straight through the heavy blast doors and into the core command center.

The Reunion Movement, having suffered the back-to-back devastating blows of the Black Snake’s true identity being exposed and the total annihilation of their main forces in Lungmen, was in a state far beyond what a simple phrase like “weak defenses” could describe. They were entirely broken.

“Amiya, in a moment, you can try to use your Talent to communicate with Talulah.” Even though your physical reactions were starting to severely slow down, you could still sense the little rabbit’s spiking nervousness. The Black Snake’s oppressive aura leaking into the facility during the infiltration phase was indeed suffocating, but that wasn’t what was truly unsettling her.

“The relationship between Talulah and the Black Snake is highly similar to yours and the black crown. You can treat this as a practical drill.”

This was the exact reason you had brought Amiya along in advance. While your overpowered intervention certainly relieved much of the lethal pressure on her shoulders, it inevitably caused her to lose many crucial opportunities for growth—if being forced to mature through blood and trauma could even be considered growth.

“It doesn’t matter if you can’t wake her up. If diplomacy fails, we can always wake her up with kinetic force. You are only fourteen years old, Amiya; you have the right to retreat, and you have the right to fail. I will always cover for you.”

The Doctor’s fingers were freezing cold from the Chernobog air, but the palm resting against her shoulder was incredibly warm. That steady warmth traveled all the way through her jacket and into her heart, and suddenly, Amiya didn’t feel quite so panicked anymore.

“You will read many horrific images from her soul and hear an ocean of malice,” you warned softly. “But regardless of what you see in there, remember that you are Amiya, and you will never walk that dark path.”

Pitch-black Originium Arts energy began to gather and swirl rapidly between her hands. Amiya closed her eyes, her long ears twitching as she fully focused her mental energy.

Beside you, Logos snapped his fingers. His devastating incantation blasted the final reinforced steel door clean off its hinges, sending the heavy metal crashing into the room beyond.

The dust settled.

Talulah—no, the ancient entity known as the Black Snake—stood waiting in the dead center of the Chernobog control room. She was dressed in a pristine, century-old military uniform, her grip tight around the hilt of her blazing long blade, coldly looking down at your group from the elevated command platform.