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ArabicArknights: How Did I Actually Become the Doctor? — Chapter 34
Chapter 34: Do You See How Much I Resemble My Former Self?
The battlefield fell dead silent. Everyone watched in stunned disbelief as a colossal, armored shadow barreled out of the snowstorm, only to grind to an awkward, screeching halt.
Almost instinctively, the white-haired Sarkaz threw herself forward. Wis’adel spread her arms wide, shielding the fragile human behind her. The two red antennae atop her head, looking suspiciously like a cockroach’s feelers, shot straight up into the air. It was exactly like a street cat bristling at the sudden appearance of a massive, bloodthirsty hound.
‘How the hell is a Wendigo still kicking around here?!’Wis’adel’s antennae twitched frantically, her entire body language screaming intense, primal resistance.’Shouldn’t this towering freak have died ages ago?’
The Doctor behind her, however, was practically vibrating with excitement. He desperately craned his neck, trying to peek around her shoulder, only for Wis’adel to shove his head firmly back down.
“What are you rushing to your death for?!” she hissed, her voice tight. “Can’t you see how dangerous that thing is?!”
One pushing forward, the other shoving back. The two of them remained locked in a bizarre, awkward wrestling match right in the middle of the frozen wasteland.
Patriot found the situation equally awkward.
When he had charged out of the blizzard, he had braced himself with the grim determination to save the Commander and FrostNova, even if it cost him his last breath. He certainly had not expected the amnesiac Doctor to possess this kind of ridiculous personality.
‘What in the world has Kal’tsit been teaching him?!’ Patriot thought, his glowing red eyes narrowing beneath his skull helm. He knew that pretentious Feline, having seized the reins of Babel, would not just hand power back quietly!
In that split second of distraction, Patriot’s gaze drifted downward. The antennae of that white-haired Sarkaz, whose specific sub-race he still could not quite place, were pointing rigidly toward the sky, trembling with agitation.
‘What kind of species is this, exactly?’
Patriot mentally compared her slight frame to his own towering Wendigo physique and instinctively shook his massive head.
From Wis’adel’s perspective, this terrifying, legendary Wendigo had completely ignored her from the start. And now he was deliberately shaking his massive, terrifying horns at her! He was provoking her! Mocking her!
‘Why is he staring specifically at my antennae?! He has been mocking me this whole time!’
Just as you were excitedly trying to adjust your angle to get a better look at the legendary Patriot, you suddenly heard the ominous, mechanical whine of an ancestral grenade launcher spinning up. Smart as you were, you instantly deduced exactly what was going through Wis’adel’s chaotic mind.
“Holy crap, no!” This time, it was your turn to panic. You threw your arms around her waist, locking her in a desperate bear hug to stop her from rushing forward to blow herself up along with Patriot.
Still one pushing forward, the other pulling back. The two of you once again reached an eerie, ridiculous state of relative stillness on the snowy battlefield.
Patriot stood frozen in place. Suddenly, he felt the exact same deep sense of relief that FrostNova had experienced earlier.
It was as if all the wrinkled, stressed folds of his brain had been miraculously smoothed out.
The standoff had started out incredibly tense, but watching these two bizarre clowns grapple with each other made the reality much easier to accept.
Back when they had first crossed paths in the frozen tundras of Sami, Patriot had just witnessed his son’s tragic death. He was being hunted by the very Ursus army he had once commanded, reduced to a lost, disheveled fugitive.
At that time, the Commander, a name already infamous across Terra, had stood before him. Their dark trench coat had flapped violently in the biting snow, one hand casually tucked into their pocket. The Doctor had watched him and his demonic pursuers with eyes devoid of joy or sorrow, radiating a suffocating dominance that crushed everything in its path, a presence far more terrifying than the darkest nightmares of history.
And Wis’adel, acting as the sharpest, most ruthless blade of Babel, had stood right beside them. She had been yawning lazily, the fresh blood of demonic creations still caked beneath her fingernails. She stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Commander in an arrogant, languid posture, her eyes entirely empty of anyone else but her master.
Now, Patriot was still that same disheveled, lost old soldier. But the terrifying duo standing opposite him had devolved into an amnesiac idiot and a hot-headed, giant cockroach.
His own stagnation in life was certainly depressing, but witnessing the sheer regression of his former opponents was genuinely therapeutic!
Once a person finally lets go of their pride, many things they were once unwilling to admit become much easier to say. They learn to be flexible.
Just as your grip on Wis’adel’s waist was beginning to slip, Patriot finally broke the silence. He spoke with the heavy, resonant tone of a man who had just laid down a massive burden, his voice echoing with relief.
“Commander… I recognize you.”
That single sentence carried immense weight. It meant: I acknowledge your ideals. I submit to your rules. I accept your unequal terms of submit or die…
You nervously shrank back, waving your hands frantically. “What?! No, that is just a rumor! A vicious rumor! I swear, I am really not a white-hair lover, a loli lover, a gerontophile, a can-lover, an uncle-lover, or a married-woman lover!”
Patriot suddenly felt his Originium-infected glutes clench tightly. A wave of deep regret washed over him for agreeing to submit so readily.
‘Is this… is this really the same person?’
Having marched into Ursus, you had fully prepared yourself to solve every problem with overwhelming force and tower-defense violence. You certainly had not expected the two legendary figures you had been stressing over to be so remarkably sensible. You were in a fantastic mood. You even briefly forgave your past self for leaving behind such a mess. Pulling out your terminal, you opened that locked password file and casually punched in a string of 6666666.
As expected, the screen flashed red. Still no response.
You woke up PRTS again and opened the Rhodes Island Base Management interface. Tapping into the Reception Room’s surveillance feed, you saw the old cat, Kal’tsit, diligently organizing towering stacks of intelligence files, thoughtfully classifying them by category and threat level.
You watched for a moment; it looked incredibly complex and tedious. Only Kal’tsit would possess the sheer, mind-numbing patience to handle these inconspicuous little administrative tasks that built the foundation of Rhodes Island, bit by agonizing bit…
No. You suddenly realized something was off and toggled the terminal to the Game View overlay.
The next moment, the dignified Kal’tsit, who had just been working so seriously, transformed into a deadpan, mint-colored chibi kitten. She was holding a massive stack of Clue 7s, staring in utter confusion at the empty slot for Clue 4. She tried shoving them in, one after another, but none of the Clue 7s would fit.
You slowly nodded to yourself. Now you understood why the previous Rhodes Island was operating on the brink of total bankruptcy.
Shifting the camera feed again, you panned over to the Engineering Section. The place was in full swing. Complex, heavy-duty machinery was being dismantled, repaired, and recalibrated. The industrial foundation already carried the bustling, efficient air of the former Babel.
This time, you were much smarter. You bypassed the realistic feed and directly switched to the Game View.
On the screen, a pale-yellow little Elafia chibi was happily bouncing around the Workshop. She was enthusiastically synthesizing pure gold and construction materials from carbon bricks, selling the materials to manufacture furniture parts, using the parts to build ugly furniture, and then immediately tossing the furniture into the incinerator to break it back down into parts.
‘No wonder scientific research burns through LMD so fast… so this is how they are burning it!’
Meanwhile, far away in Kazdel.
Theresis, having realized that the legendary Commander had finally awakened, urgently summoned the only available Royal Court leader: Duq’arael, the Sanguinarch.
“I know that going undercover beneath that person’s gaze is bound to be extremely dangerous,” Theresis said, his voice heavy with solemnity. “There is a constant risk of your cover being blown at any moment. But if Rhodes Island lacks our eyes, the Sarkaz are destined to have no future.”
Theresis slowly, dramatically placed the flat of his heavy broadsword upon Duq’arael’s shoulder, knighting him for this dark task.
“For the continuation of the Sarkaz race… are you willing to cast aside your ancient name, hide your true form, and infiltrate Rhodes Island?”
Duq’arael sneered, his handsome, pale face twisting with aristocratic arrogance. He casually knocked Theresis’s blade away with a flick of his wrist.
“I will go to Rhodes Island. But make no mistake, I do not go because of your pathetic orders. I do this merely for… the glory of the Teekaz!”
At this tragic, sacred, and historically momentous occasion, Theresis’s desktop computer suddenly rang out!
“Good fortune comes~ Wishing you good fortune~”
The volume was so deafeningly loud that it felt as though the very glory of the Teekaz was vibrating along to the heavy bass.
“Good fortune brings joy and love~”
[Rhodes’s Note: “666” is Chinese internet slang for “awesome” or “smooth.” The Clue 7 and Clue 4 interaction is a notorious Arknights community meme, as players frequently receive an overabundance of Clue 7 (Rhine Lab) while constantly lacking Clue 4 (Ursus Student Self-Governing Group) for their daily Clue Exchange.]