Arknights: How Did I Actually Become the Doctor? — Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Exposing Talulah, Kal’tsit’s Fur Stands on EndYou're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

Under the suffocating waves of heat, the Rhodes Island operators formed a silent, unyielding wall of flesh and steel. They stood between the heavily injured Scout and the sheer, crushing weight of Talulah’s killing intent.

“That… is the Rhodes Island Doctor?”

The Draco’s flames swirled around her body, licking the air with a hungry hiss. Her long blade trailed a ribbon of liquid fire as she strode past Hoederer and Ines, her boots crunching over the scorched earth.

Across the line of elite operators, whose muscles had drawn tight as bowstrings, she finally seemed to find something worthy of her attention. She stopped, her eyes locking onto the hooded figure, sizing him up with genuine, dangerous interest.

“I am familiar with your reputation, Doctor.” Her pupils narrowed into vertical, snake-like slits. The last princess of the Draco ignored the bristling weapons trained on her, lowering her chin only for him, granting him the rare honor of her pity. “The true core of Babel. The ultimate weapon wielded by the former Lord of Fiends. The man rumored to calculate the trajectory of every battle and see straight through the human heart.”

She tilted her head, the firelight dancing across her pale features. “If you were at the height of your power, would my Reunion Movement have been harvested like dry straw beneath your army?”

‘Not really,’you thought, keeping your face perfectly blank beneath the visor.’I’m actually just a casual tower defense gamer.’

“A pity,” Talulah continued, her voice echoing over the crackle of burning debris. “Sending a mere handful of operatives to wake you is the worst decision Kal’tsit has ever made. No matter how brilliant a commander might be, tactics are meaningless in the face of absolute, crushing force.”

She smiled—a proud, terrifying expression—and extended a gloved hand toward him. “Doctor, join the Reunion Movement. I require your wisdom.”

‘Damn it…’you screamed internally.’Why does this suddenly feel like a college recruitment pitch? Do I get dental?’

Even as your mind frantically churned out memes to cope with the sheer terror of standing in front of a walking natural disaster, your physical actions did not betray a single second of hesitation.

Under the watchful eyes of friend and foe alike, the Doctor appeared utterly calm, completely unhurried. The Red Dragon’s powerful aura of grace and lethal authority did not cause him to shift his weight or break his relaxed posture.

His vocal cords, previously dry and raspy from years suspended in life-support fluid, had fully recovered. When he spoke, his deep, lazy voice felt entirely out of place on the blood-soaked battlefield. His tone carried a faint smile, sounding less like a man facing his executioner and more like a noble making idle conversation at a banquet.

“Thank you for the recognition, unknown lady currently occupying Talulah’s body.”

The devastating statement slipped from his mouth as casually as a comment about the weather. In an instant, the battlefield froze. Every single pair of eyes snapped toward Talulah.

“In my spare time, Crownslayer shared a few stories with me about her esteemed ‘Leader,'” the Doctor continued, taking a slow, measured step forward. “In her tales, Miss Talulah was a genuine liberator. A rebel fighting for the infected.”

He paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough to build the tension.

“But how could Miss Talulah, a woman who never attended a formal military academy, subconsciously deploy the exact strategic formations taught by the Ursus Imperial Guard centuries ago?”

His voice remained gentle, yet every syllable was a surgical strike.

“Your tactical micro-adjustments, your marching habits, your rigid command structure… I am sorry, I can see you truly tried to disguise them. Even the current Ursus generals might not have noticed the archaic patterns.” The Doctor waved a hand in front of his face, a gesture of deep disgust. “But unfortunately, you met me. The scent of decay is practically overflowing from your soul.”

Talulah’s—no, the Black Snake’s—smile shattered.

‘Holy crap, I just doxxed her!’ you cheered in your mind.

Facing the deeply shocked gazes of the Reunion fighters, the ancient entity possessing the Draco found herself momentarily paralyzed. The Black Snake was a veteran of a thousand political storms, but she had just backed herself into a corner. Because she had spent the last minute publicly hyping up the Doctor’s legendary intellect and infallible judgment to show her appreciation for talent, she had personally cemented his prestige in front of her own troops.

Now that the legendary Ghost of Babel had spoken with such absolute certainty, not a single person present doubted his words.

Taking advantage of the stunned silence, you quickly took two smooth steps backward, genuinely terrified she might fly into a humiliated rage and separate your head from your shoulders.

Once safely behind the vanguard line, you pivoted your attention, locking onto the two high-rarity operators you were absolutely determined to poach.

“So, Hoederer, Ines,” the Doctor said, his voice dropping into a cold, mocking register. “Knowing all of this, do you honestly believe she will let you walk away alive?”

‘Hahahaha, you guys really boarded a sinking ship today.’

“Or perhaps, Miss Ines, you are confident that the shadow-woven escape route you just marked behind that rubble won’t be dug up and severed by me?”

Ines’s breath hitched. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks. Her first instinct was to dissolve into the shadows and run, but she bit her lip, forcibly suppressing the rising panic.

‘I can’t run…’her mind raced.’He knows. He isn’t lying. What could possibly be hidden from the Ghost of Babel?’

“Enough!” The Black Snake roared.

She lunged. Her long blade, wrapped in a roaring inferno, cleaved down toward the Doctor’s head.

The strike never landed. Ace and Nearl moved as one, their shields colliding with the flaming sword in a shower of sparks and shockwaves.

“Dropping the act so soon?” you taunted, retreating rapidly.and support the real translator.Read at elysianreads.com This is a stolen translation. You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

At the exact same moment, Sharp darted forward, his blade catching the secondary blast. With Touch providing immediate Arts support from the rear, Sharp smoothly rotated into the vanguard position, taking the pressure off the Radiant Knight, whose gauntlets were already smoking from the intense heat.

“Ines, generate some DP.”

The Doctor’s command cut through the chaos. Ines, who was still technically standing on the enemy’s front line, instantly became the focal point of the battlefield.

Could the rumors be true? Did the Ghost of Babel possess such terrifying charisma that anyone on the battlefield would follow his orders unconditionally?

Ines’s face turned incredibly grim. Beside her, the honest, straightforward Hoederer still hadn’t fully processed the political whiplash. He instinctively tightened his grip on his greatsword and tried to step forward to defend Talulah, only to be violently yanked back to Ines’s side by a coil of dark shadow.

“Very well… Doctor, I will remember you.” The Black Snake pulled her sword back, the flames spiraling higher as she pointed the tip toward the ash-choked sky. “I will personally carve your epitaph.”

“All Reunion forces, advance!”

“Rhodes Island personnel, prepare for battle.”

The two orders clashed in the air. The two factions braced themselves amidst the howling gale and scorching heat. Talulah’s face flickered in the violent light, her slit pupils piercing through the smoke like cold steel.

“Ines, Hoederer, fall back! Change equipment!”

You raised a hand, tossing two standard-issue Rhodes Island tactical walkie-talkies through the air. The devices arced perfectly, caught instinctively by the two mercenaries.

This was the true art of language. If you asked mercenaries which side they were on, they would hesitate, weighing the risks of acting at all. But if you bypassed the question and gave them a direct, authoritative command, their combat-trained instincts would simply calculate how to execute it.

‘Meta-unit and her family, secured!’

In your mind, the PRTS interface chimed.

[System Update: Operator Roster Expanded.]

[Ines: Elite 2]

[Hoederer: Elite 1]

‘Ines is E2, not bad at all. Hoederer is E1… whatever, this isn’t Sarkaz Integrated Strategies, I’m not relying on him to carry the run anyway.’You shifted your gaze to the bleeding sniper leaning against the barricade.’And Scout, my Babel’s lost legend… let me see those stats.’The blue holographic panel flickered into existence.’Holy crap!’

Your eyes locked onto his third skill. Before you even bothered to calculate the damage multipliers, two specific modifiers burned themselves into your retinas:

[Skill 3: Infinite Duration. Camouflage.]

‘Oh, we are so winning this!’

As if sensing the shift in your killing intent, the tactical interface of PRTS slowly began to rewrite itself. The placeholder “Evacuation Operation 3” you had casually assigned to the mission earlier dissolved, replaced by a bleeding, dark red title:

[Mission Update: Heads Up, Feet Upon the Flames!]

The plan had changed. Today, you were going to bleed the Black Snake dry.

Meanwhile, miles away, the Rhodes Island mobile command center rumbled across the wasteland. Kal’tsit stood in the command bridge, rapidly coordinating the Chernobog extraction, when a high-priority encrypted message arrived from Amiya.

[As planned, we successfully rescued the Doctor. However, he appears to have lost a portion of his memories.]

Kal’tsit’s green eyes narrowed slightly. This was within her medical expectations. Cryo-sleep trauma often resulted in retrograde amnesia. But the phrasing bothered her. “A portion”?

A deep, instinctual unease began to coil in her chest.

[By the way, the Doctor asked me to forward a message to you.]

Attached to the text was a three-second audio file. Kal’tsit tapped the screen, raising the volume.

The voice that played was etched into the deepest, darkest corners of her memory. It was slightly slurred from the cryo-fluid, yet undeniably gentle, deep, and laced with a terrifyingly knowing smile.

“AMA-10. I seem to have forgotten something. Do you… still remember?”

In an instant, Kal’tsit’s feline ears flattened completely against her head, the fur along her spine standing straight up in sheer, unadulterated shock.

‘Your Highness Theresa…’Kal’tsit’s mind reeled, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the console.’What exactly did you delete?!’You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.