Arknights: How Did I Actually Become the Doctor? — Chapter 64

Chapter 64: The Delivery Knight’s Debut

Barely half an hour had passed since Młynar clocked out for his mandatory overtime.

“Our Security Knight, who has already secured a staggering sixteen consecutive victories, has finally welcomed another overconfident challenger!”

Under the blinding, erratic spotlights of the underground Infected arena, a Perro host with a raspy voice was whipping the crowd into a frenzy. He leaned over the railing, practically barking into his microphone, enticing the adrenaline-fueled audience to throw handfuls of crumpled LMD notes into the betting pools.

“Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Kill him…”

Bathed in the hypnotic sway of neon lights, choking on the metallic stench of blood, cheap alcohol, and pressed bodies, the crowd had devolved. They were more compliant than a flock of sheep, entirely stripped of their empathy. All that remained was a primal, collective craving to see someone torn apart.

When the terrifying, towering silhouette of Patriot stepped into the staging area, the cheers erupted into a deafening roar.

They wanted this fierce, armored giant to twist the reigning star’s head off. They wanted to hear bones snap, to see the champion stomped into a puddle of blood and mud beneath those massive sabatons. Or, conversely, they wanted to see if the giant’s own blood could spray as high as a fountain when he inevitably fell. The longer these people were oppressed by the city above, the more twisted their desire to watch others fall into the abyss became. This morbid fanaticism paralyzed their trampled self-esteem like a cheap narcotic.

The Doctor patted the waist of the fully armed Wendigo standing beside him—mostly because reaching his shoulder would have required a stepladder. “Although I don’t think these low-level mobs can threaten you at all, I still have to give you a word of advice.”

He adjusted his coat, his voice dropping into a calm, measured tone. “If the opponent poses a desperate threat to you, it is perfectly acceptable to surrender and smash your way through the iron bars. It won’t affect my grand strategy in the slightest.”

Patriot slowly turned his head. The dense clusters of Originium crystals on his neck ground together with a sickening, creaking sound. “Need… to kill… them all?”

The Doctor smiled beneath his mask. “That is entirely up to your own will. I need the most authentic image of the Patriot to serve as our brand.”

Whether to kill or not, to show mercy or to crush—it all depended on the old general. The Doctor trusted Patriot’s judgment completely, convinced that his raw, unfiltered presence would draw the eyes of countless sponsors. As he thought this, he casually shoved a piece of hard candy toward the giant.

Patriot tossed it into his mouth without a second of hesitation. Instantly, a violently salty and spicy flavor assaulted his tongue, cutting right through taste buds that had long been dulled by severe Oripathy.

“Heh, a special flavor from my hometown!” The Doctor spouted absolute nonsense, tearing open another wrapper and popping a completely different, sweet strawberry candy into his own mouth.

The atmosphere in the arena had reached its boiling point. The massive iron gates of the dueling ring groaned open with a heavy mechanical thud. It was time for the Delivery Knight to enter the meat grinder.

“Good luck. I pushed all my chips on you.”

As the iron gate slammed shut behind him, Patriot slowly shifted his attention forward, his glowing red eyes locking onto the opponent standing across the bloodstained sand.

Weak. Truly weak.

Although it was highly impolite, this was the Wendigo’s immediate, unfiltered assessment. How had this man managed to secure a sixteen-match win streak?

He possessed no exceptional physique. He lacked tenacious willpower. He clearly hadn’t received a single day of proper military combat training. Relying on a crude, amateurish application of Originium Arts for physical enhancement, he had somehow scraped together a reputation in this underground pit.

Patriot reached out a massive hand. With a casual, almost dismissive flick of his wrist, he swatted the charging Security Knight.

The man, who weighed over three hundred pounds in his full armor, was sent stumbling backward like a discarded toy, nearly crashing into the electrified perimeter railing.

The audience outside the cage went absolutely feral. “Good! Kill him! Twist his head off!”

The gamblers who had bet their life savings on the reigning champion leaned over the rails, their faces contorted in ugly rage. “Are you trash?! Get up! Stab him to death! Pry open his armor and gouge out his eyes!”

Sitting in the front row, the Doctor tugged his hood down lower, feeling a deep, uncomfortable annoyance bubbling in his chest. ‘You do not flame my main tank.’

He quietly pulled out his terminal, contacted the arena’s underground manager, and dumped another massive sum of LMD into the betting pool. He artificially doubled the odds against his own operator, ensuring that every single one of these toxic hecklers would lose their life savings. He understood that they were all poor, desperate people caught up in a miserable system, but he wasn’t a saint. That was his Vanguard-Defender hybrid. Did their pitiable state give them the right to hurl slurs at him?

Inside the dueling ring, the knight who had just been swatted aside felt his blood run cold. The screaming audience couldn’t comprehend the true weight behind that casual slap, but as the one who had just absorbed the kinetic impact, he understood his reality perfectly.

This strength… it was absolutely not something a normal mortal could contend with. It felt like being disdainfully sideswiped by a Yanese heavy-duty transport truck.

The Security Knight was already regretting his decision to step into the ring tonight. Unfortunately, he was far too desperate for the prize money. The more he abused his Originium Arts, the more expensive his medical suppressants became. That required more money, which forced him back into the arena, squeezing his failing body even harder in a vicious, unbreakable cycle.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!” His eyes turned bloodshot. He raised his shattered long spear and charged forward again, a pathetic Don Quixote tilting at a mountain of iron.

The result remained simple and unadorned. Another casual slap.

Like a ping-pong ball bouncing off a concrete wall, the sixteen-win star was swatted around the arena like a spinning top by the unknown giant. The biggest injury the Security Knight sustained was from the shards of his own shattered spear cutting into his palms.

The audience began to lose interest. This wasn’t the slaughter they had paid for. “Do something! Kill him! Rip his arms off!”

They paid the entry fee to hear bloody wailing, not to watch a meaningless, one-sided game of kickball. If there was no gore, they might as well have stayed above ground to watch the glamorous, heavily regulated Major competitions, rather than huddling in a damp basement to watch infected wretches fight.

Finally, Patriot moved. He didn’t bother with any grand martial techniques. He simply reached out his large hand during the opponent’s next desperate charge, grabbed the man by his armored shoulder, and effortlessly lifted him off the ground, dangling him in mid-air.

“You… lost. Match… over.”

The audience initially fell into a hushed silence, but upon realizing that the giant was merely holding his opponent and hadn’t even crushed the man’s collarbone, they erupted into a chorus of deafening boos and jeers.

Soft-hearted trash!

A shadow materialized beside the Doctor’s seat. Gravel leaned in, her lips brushing against his ear. “Shall I silence the ones shouting the loudest, Doctor?”

He was genuinely tempted, but he held back. ‘No need to waste the cooldowns.’ After they dismantled the Commerce Union, these insane gamblers would naturally be crushed under the wheels of history, swept away in the new era.

In the ring, the knight dangling from Patriot’s grip turned completely red-eyed. ‘No, no, no, I can’t lose! I signed a betting agreement! If I lose, the debt will follow me to my grave. I’d rather die in this arena!’

He kicked upward violently, channeling every last ounce of his strength to strike the armor connection at the Delivery Knight’s wrist. A hidden, poison-coated blade snapped out from the sole of his boot. This soft-hearted giant had to die here, even if it meant using underhanded methods despised by the lowest of scum.

Clang!

This time, the armor plating on Patriot’s wrist finally cracked. The Security Knight kicked exactly where he aimed, driving the poisoned blade deep into the exposed gap.

But the blade didn’t pierce flesh. It was blocked by something far harder than tempered steel.

The entire arena stared in stunned disbelief at the exposed section of Patriot’s wrist. The flesh beneath the armor was completely crystallized, stained the pitch-black color of pure Originium. It was harder than the armor itself.

Just how severe was this monster’s Oripathy?

The underground pit fell dead silent for a brief second before an even greater uproar exploded. Most people were lamenting the fall of their star knight, while the gamblers who had bet heavily on the Security Knight began screaming vicious curses, praying for the giant to drop dead from sudden organ failure.

Gravel leaned in again, her voice dropping an octave. “Do you need me to kill them for you?”

The Doctor hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. If one couldn’t exercise patience in small matters, grand strategies would crumble. Having these people assassinated in the shadows would only tarnish Rhodes Island’s operational record.

Instead, he opened PRTS and switched to a highly encrypted frequency. ‘Oh great and powerful Wis’adel, you saw that, right? The toxic chat is bullying me…”I need to blow this entire group of hecklers to kingdom come in a spectacular, fiery explosion just to clear my mind!’

Back in the ring, the sneak attack had failed entirely. The Security Knight closed his eyes in utter despair, letting his arms fall limp as he waited for the inevitable execution.

As the saying went, a dying man’s words were sincere. He couldn’t survive this, but at least the giant who killed him would claim a massive bounty, perhaps enough to alleviate the agonizing pain of that severe Oripathy. At the very least, he was entirely convinced of his defeat.

But… his boots touched the sand again. Patriot had gently set him down.

The Security Knight collapsed onto the ground, his limbs entirely devoid of strength.

“Why… why don’t you kill me? If I live, the debt will be more painful than death!” he screamed, questioning the giant with his last remaining breath.

The overhead spotlights snapped to focus entirely on Patriot’s towering figure.

“I… have no intention… to deprive the Infected… of life. We… are simply… different… in philosophy.”

The Perro host’s microphone crackled to life, his voice booming through the speakers exactly on cue.

“The Delivery Knight! He has defeated his opponent with absolute, terrifying composure! Ladies and gentlemen, it feels as if we are witnessing the rise of a brand new star!”