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ArabicArknights: How Did I Actually Become the Doctor? — Chapter 32
Chapter 32: A Bizarre Clash of Undercurrents
First of all, one must formally declare that watching women fight—pulling hair, throwing hands, rolling in the dirt—is vulgar, boring, and utterly shameful.
Then again, it is also incredibly entertaining.
Fists connecting with flesh, intense kinetic collisions, raw power without any bloated choreography. It was a solid punch for punch, complete with genuine battle damage. This was leagues better than those third-rate television dramas from his life before transmigration, where directors did not even dare to speed up a fake slap for fear of bruising some idol’s precious face.
Ah, but he could not afford to be a spectator anymore. Wis’adel had already shouldered her massive weapon and looked entirely ready to blow him into the stratosphere. He needed to save his own skin.
“Hahahaha, that was some hard work! Thanks to you, Wis’adel!” He forced himself to maintain a perfectly calm, mastermind facade as he stepped forward. He patted her shoulder as if nothing had happened, smoothly spouting absolute nonsense. “Sorry about that. I only specialize in overall macro-strategy. I really do not have any experience in close-quarters combat like this, and I was worried that speaking up suddenly would distract your rhythm…”
She did not even entertain his garbage excuses. Before he could finish, Wis’adel punched him square in the chest. To someone like Frostnova, the blow might have felt as light as a feather, but to his fragile tactician body, it hit like a collapsing mountain.
“You used that exact same line before you lost your memory!” Wis’adel glared at him, her anger spiking. “You said the exact same thing when you sent Amiya into hand-to-hand combat!”
Wait, Amiya is on the ship too?
If Amiya is on the ship and Wis’adel does not seem surprised by that fact, then what level must that mysterious operator he was left to guess actually be…
Off to the side, Frostnova was so thoroughly stunned by this spectacular display of nonexistent team spirit that she could not even form a sentence.
The next moment, the Commander—whose presence had just been so oppressive and terrifying that it was hard to breathe—suddenly slid to his knees. He threw his arms around Frostnova’s thigh and clung to her like a lifeline.
“Frostnova, Frostnova, please join the landship! I beg you… the freezing cooperation meta simply cannot work without you…”
Before this very moment, she had always firmly believed that a commander’s tactics reflected the true nature of their character. Patriot had warned her that Rhodes Island would use any means necessary to achieve their goals. On her desperate flight here, she had vividly imagined how this ruthless mastermind would torture and threaten her for information.
It turned out this was the kind of any means necessary he meant.
She had been fully prepared to die to prove her resolve, but dying at the hands of this absolute circus troupe really would not let her rest in peace.
He held onto Frostnova’s soft thigh for dear life. From this angle, he could not help but sneak a peek, his gaze following the line of her trousers upward past the hem of her coat, catching sight of her… DPS.
Wait, why is she classified as a Phalanx Caster?!
His heart suddenly raced with gamer excitement. Unfortunately, Frostnova had not undergone the landship’s official medical examination yet, so the system UI blocked him from seeing her detailed stat multipliers.
Wis’adel, on the other hand, looked ready to commit murder. With a sharp huff, she grabbed him by the collar and forcibly tore him away from Frostnova’s leg. “Where exactly are you looking, you pervert!”
He was looking at the skill multipliers! His eyes were practically glued to the UI beneath her feet. Arknights players were not foot fetishists; they were just carefully counting the seconds until the skill cooldown bar under an operator’s feet lit up!
‘[You have awakened the beast within me, bro.jpg]’
Frostnova tried desperately to keep a straight face and maintain her signature cold, untouchable demeanor. She blinked her frost-colored eyelashes. “…Doctor, please let me go first. I am not your operator yet.”
One had to forgive her. Her life experiences in the frozen tundra had been far too limited, and she had never, ever encountered a situation quite this abstract.
Not to mention, her little face was completely tense. The spot where Wis’adel had struck her with the butt of her gun was still stinging fiercely. The physical pain was entirely secondary; it was mostly the mental damage. The throbbing ache constantly reminded her that she had truly abandoned all logic just moments ago, engaging in an extremely unladylike, undignified street brawl with the Sarkaz standing opposite her.
Meanwhile, that very same Sarkaz unceremoniously spat a mouthful of blood onto the snow. Wis’adel stared at her, clearly buzzing with adrenaline from the fight, rubbing her hands together as if eager to dive right back in for round two.
…No. What was the point of all the suffering Reunion had endured these past few days? Eating snow and swallowing sand on a brutal forced march, just for this?
Did this count as her enduring the hardship?
Powerlessly, Frostnova let go. Her Originium casting unit slipped from her palm and clattered against the ground. She offered no resistance as the Rhodes Island operators approached to place handcuffs on her wrists.
‘Sorry, but this is a necessary security procedure,’ Frostleaf apologized silently in her head, though her hands did not hesitate as she bound the Yeti Squadron leader with heavy restraints.
The woman’s Originium Arts were simply too dangerous. With the Doctor’s carefree, eccentric temper, he would certainly never suspect a newly acquired companion. If they all woke up one night to find a lethal low-temperature field fully formed inside the landship, there would be nowhere left to run.
Frostnova did not object, allowing her hands to be bound without a single complaint.
However, at the very end, she caught sight of Wis’adel standing naturally by the Doctor’s side, arms akimbo in a posture of absolute triumph. Frostnova still could not quite let that go.
With a subtle flick of her bound hands, a piece of crudely wrapped candy traced a perfect parabola through the air, sailing straight toward the Doctor.
“A gift for you, Doctor…”
Sure enough, the very next moment, Wis’adel raised her hand and snatched the candy out of the air. She raised a provocative eyebrow at the captive Caster as she aggressively unwrapped the paper. “Doctor, you have to be careful around her. Let me test this for poison for you… Pfft—!”
The overwhelming, burning taste of raw ginger shot straight through her mouth and directly into her brain.
For Frostnova, whose body was plagued by extreme low temperatures year-round, the only thing she could actually taste was this intensely stimulating, spicy flavor. But for Wis’adel, who only loved eating mild roasted potatoes, the fiery taste was absolute torture.
In this final round of their clash, Frostnova had successfully won one back.
The Yeti leader looked at Wis’adel with an expression of perfectly innocent surprise. “What is wrong? You wouldn’t be angry at me just because you snatched the candy I gave the Doctor, would you?”
Wis’adel was already grinding her teeth, her mouth burning. ‘Damn rabbit, how come I have never seen you have so many dirty tricks up your sleeve before!’
[Rhodes’s Note: In the Arknights game UI, the yellow/green SP (Skill Point) bar that indicates when an operator’s skill is ready is located directly beneath the character’s feet. The Doctor is joking that players stare at operators’ feet not out of fetishism, but to aggressively monitor skill cooldowns.]