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ArabicArknights: How Did I Actually Become the Doctor? — Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Mephisto, You Wouldn’t Want Faust to Be Bullied at Rhodes Island, Right?
‘Caught another one!’ I mentally crossed off one and a half names from my Reunion Movement executive collection list.
Why half? Because even though that little psycho Mephisto had managed to slip away, we had Faust. Given the unique, deeply codependent ‘Terra-style brotherhood’ between those two, I wasn’t worried in the slightest. Mephisto would inevitably clean himself up and deliver himself right to my doorstep.
Mephisto, you wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to Faust, right?
“We need to interrogate Faust the moment we return. We have to pick up the pace,” Instructor Dobermann stated, her tone clipping with military precision.
Beside her, Nearl looked entirely too eager. The Radiant Knight shifted her stance, clearly contemplating hoisting me over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes to expedite our march. My face drained of color. I subtly reached out and grabbed Amiya’s hand, anchoring myself to the safest person in the vicinity.
“…There is no need to rush quite that much,” I said, keeping my voice perfectly level.
Have you ever experienced the sheer blunt-force trauma of a Kuranta’s shoulder ramming directly into your stomach? The most terrifying part of the ordeal is that the ‘horse’ in question has absolutely zero self-awareness regarding her own monstrous physical strength.
“…After all, we still have one teammate who hasn’t linked up with us yet.”
Dobermann frowned, her brow furrowing in strict confusion. “I don’t recall any other squad being left behind. Doctor, have you orchestrated something else?”
“It is a secret squad,” I replied, allowing a faint, enigmatic smile to grace my lips. “And the secret is that, until the final curtain falls, even they are unaware of their own classification.”
Dobermann nodded, albeit reluctantly. Her eyes swam with blatant confusion at my absolute nonsense explanation, but she didn’t dare press the issue.
If this were the original storyline, Instructor Dobermann—acting as the Doctor’s initial guide—would be following Kal’tsit’s script to the letter. She would treat me with intense vigilance, constantly suspecting I was brewing some grand, malicious conspiracy in the shadows. The ‘naive and sweet’ amnesiac Doctor of canon would have spent this journey being traumatized by the endless tragedies of this wasteland, working himself to the bone without a single complaint while enduring constant suspicion just to turn the tide.
But now? Now, I was effortlessly exuding the suffocating aura of the Ghost of Babel.
Whatever memory loss I supposedly suffered seemed entirely irrelevant to them. To their eyes, I was still the same terrifying mastermind, looking down upon the suffering of Terra from an untouchable height. This familiar, high-level chess-master routine had instantly spooked every Rhodes Island operator right back into their Babel-era PTSD. Aside from Amiya, not a single person dared to ask how much I actually remembered, let alone question my tactical arrangements.
Give an inch, and they take a mile. Show a little kindness, and you get stepped on.
But now, facing this cryptic, riddler-esque version of the Doctor? It was their turn to be the ones getting stepped on.
The towering inner wall of Chernobog’s core sector finally bled through the smoke and ash on the edge of my vision. As long as we punched our way through this perimeter, the rapidly approaching Kal’tsit would be able to rendezvous with us.
Our current roster was still a bit too squishy for my liking. The optimal play was to retreat to the landship, pull a few high-rarity operators from the roster, and then drop back in to completely wipe the floor with the Reunion Movement.
Lost in my tactical musings, I absentmindedly patted the head of a little Ursus bear cub standing nearby.
Children hadn’t yet developed that deep-seated, societal terror of the Infected. When Rhodes Island had dropped into the city like a squad of superhero saviors, a few of the braver Ursus cubs had naturally gravitated toward us, chattering away without a care in the world.
“…Little Ellie,” I murmured, lowering my head and adopting a tone of deep, world-weary gravity to address the child who was so earnestly waiting to share my burdens. “Let me ask you a hypothetical question.”
“What is it, Doctor Brother? Did a bad guy bully you?”
“If a six-star character you’ve been desperately waiting for finally gets released from NPC jail, but his kit turns out to be a bottom-tier Caster… what do you do?”
“?”
Staring into the little bear’s crystal-clear eyes—eyes blessedly unpolluted by the toxic wasteland of DPS tier lists and meta-slaving—I pointed a sorrowful finger toward the north.
The trajectory of the Originium dust in the air showed a massive, unnatural shift in that direction, a clear indicator of a severe localized temperature drop.
“They wouldn’t actually let him get power-crept by Gnosis, right…?”
Little Bear: “…”
She didn’t understand a single word of what the strange man just said, but her childish intuition told her he was definitely a bit mentally ill.
“Hey! Hey, don’t pull! The hood—you’re going to rip my hood off!”
“Doctor Brother, let’s go quickly!” the cub urged, her tiny hands gripping my coat with shocking strength. “Mama always said that when someone acts like this, finding them some psychiatric medicine right away makes it all better!”
“Amiya, save me! How is this kid’s strength stat so high?! I literally cannot run anymore!”
“Doctor, you can’t rest just yet,” Amiya replied, her voice sweet and entirely unhelpful.
‘You’re laughing on the inside, aren’t you? I definitely saw the corners of your mouth twitch! Amiya, if you keep this up, your race classification is going to officially change to Sarkaz!’
Under the bleeding light of the setting sun, the little Ursus bear mercilessly dragged the Doctor forward. My soul was practically leaving my body from the forced cardio. Amiya simply covered her mouth, following along at a light, graceful trot.
Ace, who had been securing the rear guard of our formation, silently listened to the entire pathetic exchange over the comms. The veteran defender said absolutely nothing, but his broad shoulders shook with suppressed laughter as he lengthened his strides to keep pace.
At this exact moment, the countdown to the Catastrophe’s arrival sat at precisely two hours.
“Slow down, slow down, Little Bear! I can’t run anymore! Have some basic human decency for the sick—if we keep sprinting, I’m actually going to die!”
“Then you might as well just die.”
Talulah stood with her arms crossed, her crimson eyes locked expressionlessly onto the Rhodes Island sniper bleeding out in front of her. Scout had been completely intercepted, pinned down by the combined assault of Ines and Hoederer.
“What kind of poison did that Doctor feed you to breed such blind, pathetic loyalty?” the Draco demanded, her voice as cold as the ashes drifting around them.
Hoederer’s massive greatsword clashed brutally against a standard tactical knife. The sheer difference in kinetic force was absolute. Scout was launched backward, skidding over a dozen meters across the broken concrete.
“Cough… urgh…” Dark blood spilled past his lips, staining his collar. The Sarkaz sniper’s left horn was sheared halfway off—the brutal result of a flawless shadow ambush by Ines.
It was an old wound, that horn. He had personally told Ines the story behind it years ago, back when they were huddled in the muddy trenches of Babel, fantasizing about the dawn of a new Kazdel while artillery fire screamed overhead.
“…Because he is the Doctor. What other reason could I possibly need?” Scout rasped. His signature sniper rifle had already been reduced to a lump of useless molten iron by the Red Dragon’s blistering Arts. All he had left in his arsenal was a sidearm with an empty magazine and a pair of heavily chipped tactical knives.
“He’s back. Tell me… aren’t you afraid?” Scout’s sharp, unwavering gaze swept over Hoederer and Ines. Even backed into the ultimate corner, staring death in the face, a faint, genuine smile graced his bloodied features at the mere mention of that man.
“Because it’s him… it’s all worth it, isn’t it?”
Running entirely on fumes and sheer willpower, the exhausted sniper charged forward once more in a seemingly suicidal rush. He didn’t make it three steps before Ines’s Originium Arts flared, binding his limbs securely in place with creeping shadows.
“…He has returned! What is there left to fear?!”
Hearing his kinsman’s desperate, roaring conviction, Hoederer subconsciously lowered his gaze, unable to meet the sniper’s eyes. Ines stepped smoothly in front of the towering mercenary, her expression unreadable.
“The ghosts of Babel are still lost in the fog. Even if you place all your faith in him, it changes nothing here.”
‘Don’t expose us.’ Scout read the silent, desperate warning hidden deep within the Caster’s eyes.
The Doctor wouldn’t make it in time. Not unless he could somehow move with absolute impunity, crushing every obstacle in his path in a straight line. And even if he did arrive, an amnesiac tactician couldn’t possibly dismantle the Reunion Movement’s overwhelming numbers alone.
If they hesitated now, Talulah would realize they were traitors.
Scout let out a long, quiet sigh. He threw his weight forward, straining against the shadows without looking back.
‘I’m sorry I can’t serve you anymore, Doctor.’A flicker of deep reluctance crossed Hoederer’s scarred face. He raised his greatsword, the heavy, blood-stained steel descending with unstoppable momentum. The blade effortlessly shattered Scout’s crumbling tactical knife, continuing its lethal arc directly toward the sniper’s head.’So this is it?’Scout closed his eyes, his heart entirely calm.’It’s just a bit of a pity… I won’t get to see your true awakening with my own eyes.’
The killing blow never landed.
Instead of the cold bite of steel, a warm, blindingly bright light bled through his closed eyelids.
“Scout, catch!”
An emergency life-support drone deployed directly in the center of the kill zone. A cascading wave of high-tier medical Arts slammed into Scout’s battered body, knitting flesh and stabilizing his vitals in an instant.
His eyes snapped open. Ace and Sharp stood like twin mountains on either side of him, their combined strength deadlocking Hoederer’s supposedly unblockable strike.
Along the perimeter, Crownslayer’s elusive shadow flickered into existence. Her unpredictable, weaving blade forced Ines to step back, effectively cutting the shadow caster out of the immediate clash.
Scout’s battered earpiece crackled violently, fighting through the static before locking onto an exceptionally clear, encrypted signal.
“…Huff… huff… I finally made it. That stupid run nearly killed me.”
The gentle, slightly exasperated male voice—a voice so deeply familiar it was practically woven into Scout’s DNA—echoed in his ear, still carrying the heavy breathlessness of a dead sprint.
“Scout, welcome back to the squad. Are you still capable of following orders?”
Despite being painted in his own blood, Scout had to bite his lip to keep from laughing out loud. “I never forgot how.”
“Fall back immediately and take up Amiya’s rear-guard position. When we get back to the ship, I expect an eight-thousand-word self-reflection report on my desk.”
“Reflecting on your unauthorized solo actions. Is that clear?”
“Crystal clear. I await your command.” The sniper felt his spine straighten, the heavy weight of impending death vanishing like smoke. Gripping the fresh replacement rifle Ace had just tossed him, a surging wave of new strength flooded his scarred, exhausted body.