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ArabicArknights: How Did I Actually Become the Doctor? — Chapter 36
Chapter 36: Officially Sponsored by FrostNova
Old men are great. Old men are wonderful. The sheer utility of a veteran old man is simply off the charts!
At this exact moment, Patriot was sitting politely beside your office desk. Relying on the fact that his Originium-calcified hands were completely immune to heat, he held the fresh cup of coffee he had just brewed for you in one massive palm. He sat there honestly, perfectly still, like a towering monument of absolute obedience.
This arrangement came to be because, just a few minutes prior, you made a brilliant discovery. The legendary Wendigo was the ultimate document sorter.
The segmented gaps between his heavy armor plates were perfectly spaced to hold several file folders at once. Spread out in a staggered, fan-like formation across his broad shoulders and chest, the reports were incredibly easy to spot and grab. Compared to the unscientific filing cabinet in the corner that took up half the wall but only offered six measly compartments across three layers, this biological desk organizer was vastly superior.
A Doctor is a Doctor, after all. The wall clock already pointed to three in the afternoon, yet you were still tearing through the mountain of paperwork with boundless, terrifying energy. You were completely devoid of the heavy fatigue that should have followed pulling an all-nighter to chase down FrostNova the night before last, or the exhaustion from accidentally staying up until dawn improving the base’s factory rotations last night.
The greatest problem in the world of Terra was the fundamental conflict between the grim historical perspective of the masses and the individual heroism required by a gacha game’s revenue model. This philosophical conflict played out inside your brain every single day like a violent tug-of-war, and it was perfectly reflected in the daily decision-making system of Rhodes Island.
While you were required to make executive decisions on matters both massive and microscopic, almost every single operator on the landship had their own bright ideas. Worse, every single one of them had the clearance to stuff those ideas directly into your personal to-do list.
“Doctor, I recently learned a fascinating Yanese idiom called Tian Ji’s Horse Racing. In the upcoming joint tactical exercises, I strongly suggest we adopt this asymmetric warfare tactic to deal with the combat brackets we are not naturally good at.”
You glanced at the digital signature attached to the proposal. It belonged to a relatively unknown young Liberi reserve operator. You tapped the screen, replying in an exceptionally good mood.
“Thank you for your active suggestion. Your tactical input has been forwarded directly to your squad leader. For the next joint exercise, your vanguard team will be facing Ms. Saria of Rhine Lab. Good luck.”
You swiped the message away and pulled the next file from Patriot’s left pauldron.
“Doctor, due to severe combat stress, I used to secretly confide my deepest worries to a quiet, bookish grandmother in the library, thinking she was just an ordinary civilian logistics worker. But I recently found out that she is actually an Elite Operator, and she even has a dedicated Liberi messenger who helps her pass on classified intelligence! What do I do? I am terrified that all my embarrassing secrets are going to be leaked to the higher-ups.”
Grandma Istina, huh? This landship really was packed to the brim with extraordinary actors. You muttered under your breath while typing out a swift reply.
“This grandmother’s strength is formidable and her discretion is absolute. Those little adolescent worries of yours might just end up heavily damaging Theresis or even a certain Feranmut in some twisted, butterfly-effect kind of way. By the way, your embarrassing secrets will not negatively affect our island’s public reputation, right? If not, carry on.”
Swipe. Next document.
“Doctor, our engineering research team recently managed to successfully parse a set of highly abnormal Originium radiation frequencies using fission spectroscopy. When translated through the old decryption matrix, the resulting text string reads ‘Priestess’. Do you know anything about this?”
What the hell! Why are there people on this ship actively looking for trouble! You slammed your fingers against the keyboard, replying without a single second of hesitation.
“Shelve the project immediately. Lock the data. Wait for me to return to the engineering deck and handle it personally.”
Patriot simply watched blankly from his seated position. He observed this seemingly frail young man’s fingers flying across the terminal, clearing one complex dialog box after another with almost zero hesitation. The approved documents spat out by the automated printer came in a relentless stream. In less than two hours, this fragile tactician had completed a volume of administrative paperwork that would have taken Patriot an entire week to process in the Ursus army.
The Wendigo did not even dare to shift his weight, deeply afraid that a few of the papers wedged in his armor might slip and disrupt the Doctor’s terrifying train of thought.
Did Kal’tsit wake up a donkey to possess this man?
Suddenly, your hand paused mid-swipe. The next message was flagged with high priority, sent directly from the Ursus branch office. The tone of the logistics officer was rarely this relaxed, carrying a deep sense of pride.
“Doctor, the students from the Peterheim school we rescued have finally begun to step out of the heavy shadows of the war. There was a child named Gummy. When we first extracted her, her trauma was so severe she almost killed a classmate over a misunderstanding. Because of those survival instincts, she could never control the lethal force of her third chop when preparing vegetables in the kitchen. But today, she successfully managed to chop vegetables at a steady, normal rhythm for three whole minutes.”
“Vika and Istina are still bickering constantly, but at least now they do not actively resist cooperative field missions. Also…”
This Rhodes Island logistics officer seemed to be glowing with pride through the text, counting the psychological progress of the traumatized children on their fingers. They sounded exactly like someone who had suddenly become a doting parent without having to go through any of the actual pain of raising them.
You remembered the original lore perfectly. That school had been brutally blockaded. The granary was set on fire, and deep, bloody conflicts had erupted between the noble students and the commoner students. In the original timeline, only five children survived that hell, and every single one of them was left with crippling, lifelong PTSD.
You scrolled down to the very last page, where the logistics officer had written their final note.
“They pestered me for hours to listen to the story of how the Doctor single-handedly crushed the Reunion Movement. The child named Rosa is much more reserved and gets embarrassed asking for it directly, but Zima’s eyes completely sparkle every single time she listens to the tactical breakdown. She even specifically recorded the audio log and plays it on loop every time she has a nightmare.”
You smiled faintly. The frantic clicking of your keyboard slowed down, your keystrokes becoming much gentler.
“Thank you for earning their recognition. Next time they wake up from a nightmare, you can tell them a different bedtime story. Try ‘The Doctor’s Late-Night Discipline of Mephisto’. Fighting fire with fire usually yields even better results for night terrors.”
That was enough paperwork for today. You pushed your chair back and stood up, stretching your arms high above your head and loosening your stiff shoulders. You stepped forward and began picking the remaining documents off Patriot’s armor one by one, neatly sorting them by category on the desk.
“Old man, it is time to clock out. Do you want to join me in the cafeteria? We are tasting some authentic Iberia-style seafood barbecue that was just flown in.”
This was premium loot that Elysium had specially smuggled back when he went home to visit his family!
Patriot, who had also been sitting completely stiff for the entire afternoon, suddenly displayed his age-defying vigor. He stood up in one smooth motion. His back did not ache, his knees did not pop, and he carried the towering, upright posture of a seasoned warlord.
“We are not on the same path, Doctor. You are far too slack. You lack basic vigilance.”
You tapped the stack of documents against the desk to align the edges perfectly. “Yep, you are absolutely right. I lack vigilance. Go ahead and assassinate me then.”
Patriot choked on his own breath. How could this legendary tactician be so incredibly lazy and defeatist?
“If you do not go to the cafeteria with me, someone else will definitely slip in and assassinate me while I am eating. I absolutely will not take any other combat operators out with me today. So, if I get assassinated by a random mercenary over a plate of grilled squid, it is entirely your responsibility, old man!”
You reached out and grabbed the heavy plating of the Wendigo’s armor with righteous indignation. You were determined to let him experience the unreasonable rebellious phase of a child, a phase he had never gotten the chance to properly experience when he was young because his own son had died far too early.
If Patriot had possessed rich, practical experience in raising difficult children back then, he would have known to coldly stick to his principles at this exact moment. But unfortunately, he did not.
He actually tried to reason with you.
“Doctor, I… am a prisoner of war. I cannot… be directly appointed… as your bodyguard…”
You crossed your arms and sneered dramatically. “I get it. You look down on me.”
For the very first time in his long life, Patriot truly hated the fact that his throat was so severely infected by Originium crystals, making it impossible to speak quickly. “No… I do not look down on… it is a matter of military discipline. Talulah would not…”
You interrupted him instantly, shouting the melodramatic line you had prepared for a long time at the absolute top of your lungs.
“As expected, you still cannot forget her!”
Out in the hallway, the office door creaked open a tiny fraction of an inch. It seemed like a random operator passing by had been so startled by the shouting they had almost bumped into the metal frame, and were now frozen in place listening.
“Talulah, Talulah! That Draco you are always thinking about can never go back to the way she was!” You recited the agonizingly cheesy lines you could never forget from watching ‘The Tyrannical Duke’s Little Miracle Healer’ in your past life, pouring deep, fake emotion into every syllable. “Why, after all I have done for you, can I still not catch up to the phantom the Deathless Black Snake left behind in your heart!”
Patriot’s tactical brain, already heavily burdened by decades of Originium infection, completely stopped functioning. But you were still going strong, riding the high of the soap opera.
“Silence! Why is it always silence with you! Is she really that good? Is she so wonderful that you are not even willing to tell a single, simple lie just to humor me?”
Patriot’s brain had completely fried into static. Why would eating imported seafood with you require a lie? I have never even eaten seafood with Talulah before either?
At the very climax of your performance, you did not forget to point an accusing finger and add the most classic line of all. “Woman… no, Sarkaz! You are playing with fire!”
Ah, that felt incredibly good. These kinds of trashy television lines were only fun when screamed at a completely honest, stoic person who had no idea how to react. You felt as if your entire spirit had been cleansed and sublimated.
Half an hour later.
Patriot was sitting honestly across from you at a table in the bustling cafeteria. He listened expressionlessly as a young reserve operator at the next table excitedly whispered a grand, tragic love story to their companion. It was a sweeping tale about the Doctor and a naturally airheaded, tsundere demon girl from the Reunion Movement named Patriot.
After a mere half hour of rapid evolution through the Rhodes Island rumor mill, the story version had already updated to ‘The Doctor and the demon girl Patriot working together to tragically defeat the Reunion Movement boss Wis’adel’. The gossiping operators had completely swapped Patriot and Wis’adel’s positions in the lore, and somehow, the narrative sounded even more reasonable to them!
Caught between losing his terrifying reputation as a warlord and simply eating grilled squid with you, the old man Patriot had ultimately decided to minimize his losses. He quickly selected the seafood and sat down to eat in silence.
How joyous. How congratulatory.
[Rhodes’s Note: “Tian Ji’s Horse Racing” refers to a famous Chinese historical anecdote where a general wins a best-of-three horse race by pitting his slowest horse against the opponent’s fastest, his fastest against the opponent’s average, and his average against the opponent’s slowest, securing two wins out of three. The Doctor uses this logic to send a weak reserve operator to get instantly crushed by Saria.]