Arknights: How Did I Actually Become the Doctor? — Chapter 91

Chapter 91: People Are More Reasonable When They’re Embarrassed, and So Are Deer

Margaret, having finally escorted her guest to the temporary meeting room, and Viviana, who had barely survived the agonizing walk there, exhaled in unison. They parted ways with a silent, mutual understanding.

The utterly oblivious Maria was still trying to strike up a conversation with the elegant lady—the first person in history to praise her mechanics so enthusiastically. After receiving a well-deserved flick to the forehead from her older sister, who had finally reached the absolute limit of her patience, the young Kuranta was dragged away by the collar, looking thoroughly aggrieved.

‘I just wanted to hear a few more compliments, what’s wrong with that!’Viviana stood alone in the corridor.’Stay calm, Viviana…’The little deer rubbed her cheeks. Her facial muscles had grown stiff from maintaining an awkward, polite smile the entire way. She warned herself repeatedly:’Stay calm. It’s fine. Everything is fine. As long as you keep your mouth shut, no one will care about a minor slip-up…’

“Why the long face? You look exactly like Saria when she opens the company newsletter expecting to find overtime schedules, only to discover it’s entirely filled with trashy gossip.”

A teasing male voice drifted from behind her. Viviana instinctively shrank her neck, her ears twitching. “How did you know?”

“Wait, you actually read it?!” The voice behind her suddenly spiked in shock.

‘It’s over…’

My first reaction: It’s over, the elite Operator I had in the bag just grew wings and flew away.

My second reaction: Wait a minute, why does she look infinitely more panicked than I do?

As the old saying goes, those with nothing to lose fear nothing. When the person standing across from you looks like a deer caught in headlights, it’s time to stop reflecting on your own mistakes and start exploiting theirs.

In a fraction of a second, I pinpointed the crux of the issue. “Where exactly did you see our internal employee forum?”

Viviana’s face flushed a brilliant shade of crimson. “It was just… inadvertently. On the side of the road.”

Understood in a second!

Although I desperately wanted to savor the expression of this elegant little deer wishing she could dig a hole and bury herself in the floorboards, I immediately pivoted my strategy. I equipped the gentle, deeply troubled expression that served as an absolute critical strike against Terra’s little animals.

“I see,” I murmured softly. “Then, I must trouble the Candle Knight to keep this a strict secret for Rhodes Island.”

Viviana, who had already mentally prepared a frantic apology, blinked. “…Eh?”

I rapidly skimmed through Viviana’s personnel file in my mind and delivered a textbook response straight out of a PR script.

“The island’s forum strictly prohibits fabricating rumors about our ordinary Operators. But for the big, evil villains like Kal’tsit and myself, who force them to work overtime every single day, or for the dazzling idol stars on the ship… allowing a few wild rumors to circulate relieves their resentment. It livens up the atmosphere. It’s merely a psychological tactic employed by heartless corporate capitalists.”

I paused, letting out a soft sigh. “If what you saw was the dark history of some junior Operator, I would certainly mind. But as for the so-called ‘insider information’ leaking to the roadside? If you want to hear more, I can rattle off a dozen worse rumors right now.”

I tapped my terminal screen, pulling up my Level 6 forum account, and turned it toward her. “I trust the Candle Knight wouldn’t harbor prejudice against Rhodes Island over a few harmless tall tales.”

Viviana looked like she was on the verge of tears.

If I were playing a dating sim version of Arknights instead of the hardcore strategy version, I would absolutely be seeing Viviana’s affection meter shattering the ceiling right now. Her eyes already swam with approval, respect, and a heavy dose of gratitude.

But reality was cruel. I wasn’t playing a dating sim. The only thing floating above her head was her stat sheet: Elite 1, Level 60, Module locked.

An unfinished work of art.

Beauty aside, the sheer amount of time and resources it would take to grind her up to Elite 2 and unlock her module… I’d be better off saving my pulls for Minimalist. At least I could gamble on him having some broken cooperation talent with Ebenholz, dragging the two of them into the Tier 0 meta and finally restoring the lost glory of Casters.

I mean, I play a tower defense game where the strongest Caster in the entire roster is technically classified as a Supporter. The meta is a joke.

Internal complaints aside, my terminal collector’s anxiety absolutely refused to let her slip away just because her DPS wasn’t improved. Channeling my utmost professional dedication, I leaned into the persona of a caring, reliable older brother.

“So,” I asked gently, “as stated in my previous letter, are you willing to travel with us for a time before returning to Leithanien?”

That’s right. I had previously secured Viviana’s written support with a single, calculated sentence: ‘Rhodes Island is highly interested in changing Leithanien.’

If she was only willing to offer paper support before, witnessing the absolute upheaval of Kazimierz with her own eyes left her with zero reasons to refuse.

“It would be my absolute pleasure, Doctor. I have heard of your reputation for a very long time. Please, just call me Viviana.”

She finally lifted the edge of her heavy cloak, revealing her gentle, breathtakingly beautiful face, and extended a hand. “The Candle Knight, Viviana, awaiting your command.”

With Viviana successfully recruited and sent on her way, I finally had a moment of silence to sort through the horrifying paranormal implications of my recent blackout.

There is a female ghost. There is absolutely a female ghost. And the female ghost is floating right next to me.

But the million-dollar question remained: where exactly was this ghost hiding before she popped out?

I immediately ruled out the PRTS system. Theresa was only able to enter the Originium network because the black crown resting on her head granted her administrative authority. The underlying computer architecture coded by the previous civilization was fundamentally alien to the current era. For her to learn it, someone from the previous era would have to hold her hand and teach her line by line.

And considering my own shattered mental state during the Babel era? Forget teaching her ancient coding languages. It was a miracle if she even understood how I was allocating the tech tree resources in my own hands.

Priestess… Priestess absolutely wouldn’t teach her.

Not just because the difference in coding manpower between one or two people was statistically irrelevant for the massive simulations we used to run. But more…

The machine language of the previous civilization is a dead tongue in this era. We are the only two people left in the entire world who speak it. Even if she formed an alliance with Theresa, Priestess would never, ever hand over something that intimate to a local Terra native.

That language is a secret garden belonging only to the two of us.

Reaching this conclusion made a sharp pang of guilt twist in my chest.

Look at the stark contrast in our attitudes toward each other.

‘You will understand me, Priestess…’

What the hell! What kind of absolute scumbag was I?!

No, no, stop. Do not spiral into the abyss of past relationship drama. Focus on the immediate tactical threat.

If PRTS is ruled out, what other storage medium on this planet possesses the sheer capacity to house an entire human consciousness?

The answer was glaringly obvious. There was only one option left. Originium.

An Originium source that could follow me absolutely everywhere without triggering my paranoia…

I froze. A sudden, horrifying realization crashed over me. I let out a long, deeply emotional sigh.

Oh, Wis’adel. Wis’adel, you poor, tragic fool. You keep Her Highness locked safely in your heart, but Her Highness uses you as a stepping stone and kicks you straight into the ditch.

No wonder I was so confused about what kind of miracle drug W took to evolve into her Wis’adel form so early in the timeline, all while keeping her Oripathy under perfect control. It turns out she had a literal ghost living inside her Originium crystals, doing the internal maintenance!

Hahaha. Tell me, how is the universe this funny? Just a few days before Theresa manifested, I had conveniently remembered the exact method to make Originium bloom. It really is just too much of a coincidence. Hahahahaha…

Hahahahaha. Babel is still haunting me…

Hahahahaha…

Wait. Working backward from this terrifying revelation… is it actually possible that Priestess moved her consciousness into PRTS because she couldn’t control my actions through standard programming?

If that’s true, the current state of affairs inside the PRTS mainframe is beyond terrifying. And to think, I specifically dedicated five minutes every single day to secretly whispering sweet nothings into the PRTS terminal!

Doesn’t my past self feel physically ill listening to my future self spout that romantic garbage? Did the system actually follow my administrative requests, or was it just doing Priestess’s dirty work all along?!

No, past me, I am begging you. Can you please just let Wis’adel go? How is your behavior any different from a toxic ‘if I can’t have it, I will destroy it’ mentality? Are you physically incapable of independent thought without dragging Wis’adel into your schemes?

Damn it. I forgot. The previous me actually was capable of that.

No, what kind of deranged nonsense am I focusing on? This isn’t a matter of tactical capability. This is about emotional damage! Wis’adel is my most trusted brother-in-arms. Theresa is the unattainable white moonlight of Terra. Can the sacred bond between us truly be measured by cold, hard interests?

The elegant, untouchable Theresa has been compressed into a warm little Originium ingot…

Stop! What the hell is wrong with my brain?!

When normal protagonists uncover clues about their forgotten pasts, they experience deep pain, emotional struggle, heavy moral choices, and deep self-reinvention.

When I find clues about my past, I experience sharp auditory screeching, hellish memes, and a relentless barrage of dark humor.

A dead white moonlight is the best kind of white moonlight. By the exact same logic, a male ghost that stays quietly in his grave is the perfect male ghost! You ancient bastard, you’ve hijacked my body so many times already. Can’t you just manifest normally, sit down for a cup of tea, let’s pet some cute animals together, and discuss optimal DPS rotations?

I used to be terrified that Priestess was hiding inside PRTS. Now, I am desperately praying that the entity inside the mainframe is still her. Prisoner Priestess, please hold the line! I really, really do not want to end up in a schizophrenic screaming match with my own past self!

I pulled up an image of traditional Yanese burning incense on my mobile terminal, set it on the desk, and bowed piously toward the three glowing electronic sticks.

“Doctor. What, are you, doing?”

The heavy doors of the conference room had slid open at some point. Patriot stood in the doorway, staring down at me with a deeply disapproving gaze. “Heard, you stay up late. So many, days. Is it, psychological pressure?”

According to the online parenting course he had recently purchased for three thousand LMD, this exact type of isolated, muttering-to-oneself behavior was a textbook precursor to severe psychological stress or childhood depression. The course explicitly stated that most parents foolishly ignore the lack of companionship during this critical developmental period! Patriot found the logic absolutely flawless!

I saw straight through his armored skull and read his exact thoughts. But if I accepted the label of ‘psychological pressure,’ I would just be sent off to be depressed in a corner by myself. If I told him the absolute truth—’I’m not crazy, the ghost of the Babel era is literally floating next to me and judging my life choices’—the entire Rhodes Island landship would probably sink into a collective depression with me.

“Doctor,” Patriot rumbled, his expression deadly serious, though it was incredibly difficult to read any emotion through the jagged Originium crystals encasing his skull. “A tenacious, warrior. First needs, sufficient, sleep.”

This time, I stood my ground and retorted with absolute righteous indignation. “I just woke up! Who is spreading these malicious rumors that I’m grinding overtime in the middle of the night?!”

Smashing my forehead into the floorboards and passing out cold absolutely counts as sleep! That was a solid five hours of unconsciousness! Time waits for no man, and I haven’t even unlocked the production line for the Colossus factory yet…

Wait.

Theresa wouldn’t deliberately manifest just to sabotage my base construction progress, would she?

The realization hit me like a delayed shockwave.

If I were Theresa, and I woke up from the dead only to discover that the exact same lunatic who nearly dragged the entire universe into the abyss was enthusiastically executing his Plan B—’blow up the world early so we don’t have to worry about the apocalypse’—and was dangerously close to succeeding…

Hiss. Even after witnessing all my deranged behavior, she was still willing to smile at me with such gentle warmth. She truly does hold me in her heart!

“——Doctor?”

I snapped back to reality, met instantly by Patriot’s unconcealable aura of deep suspicion. “You really, did not, stay up late?”

If he hadn’t stayed up late losing his mind, why would he suddenly make such a horrifyingly weird, yet deeply gratified face?

[Operators with relatively rich experience in personnel management are as follows:…]

[Development plan log for the next two months (Note: Not a single word is allowed to be changed. If you don’t understand something, send a secure transmission to headquarters and ask me directly!)]

[12 contingency plans for emergency situations are as follows:…]

[Revision process for the new corporate law and business management methods…]

In the span of just half a month, I had forged a deep, unbreakable bond with my future colossus—ah, excuse me, my dear brothers and friends in Kazimierz.

I stood at the city limits, reluctantly clutching the hands of Nearl, who had been designated to stay behind and manage the territory.

“Please take good care of my Kazimierz,” I pleaded, my voice thick with emotion. “Think of our staff dormitories! Think of those expensive electronic keyboards that Kroos has been eyeing! Think of Eyjafjalla’s medical subsidies! Whether or not I can afford to Elite 2 Swire entirely depends on your profit margins!”

Nearl stared at me. She genuinely could not comprehend why, if the Doctor supposedly didn’t want Swire to get a promotion, he kept bringing her up in every single financial meeting. Still, the Radiant Knight nodded with earnest loyalty.

“Do not worry, Doctor. As long as I draw breath, I will absolutely not let anything happen to Kazimierz!”

“…Uh,” I immediately chickened out, my corporate bravado crumbling. “Actually, if a catastrophic accident happens that even my galaxy-brain strategies couldn’t predict, just run. Drop everything and run. Money can always be earned back. Lives can’t.”

Nearl: “…”

In that exact moment, she suddenly understood why her younger sister spent every waking hour agonizing over losing her professional knightly ethics after joining Rhodes Island.

As the massive silhouette of the Rhodes Island landship grew clearer on the horizon, slowly rolling in to pick everyone up, the crew knew that this utterly deranged operation—an operation that had permanently altered the trajectory of all of Kazimierz—had finally drawn to a close.

Looking back at the Great Knight Territory, the streets were no longer suffocated by the shifting, blinding neon lights of corporate greed. The tattered clothes of the pedestrians and the dark moss stains left by years of rotting in the underground sewers were laid bare under the open sky. But they no longer had to curl up in the shadows where the light couldn’t reach.

An old man with deeply wrinkled skin dragged a dilapidated sun chair out onto the pavement. He gestured wildly with his cane, desperately trying to tell every single passerby the legendary story he had heard in his youth—the tale of The Radiant Knight crushing the Lord of Wolves in Siracusa.

“And there’s more! She also fought a colossal Feathered Beast named ‘Sui’ in the heart of Yan! The thing could even fly! But The Radiant Knight jumped fifty feet into the air and hit it with a slide tackle!” The old man swung his arms frantically, speaking with the absolute conviction of an eyewitness.

A passing Kuranta youth grinned, teasing him mercilessly. “Old man, haven’t you lived in Kazimierz your entire life? How do you know the details so clearly? And a Feathered Beast that can be defeated by a slide tackle? The more you talk, the more outrageous the lore gets!”

The old man was so furious his beard practically stood on end. He glared at the youth. “I saw it with my own two eyes in the Rhodes Island Weekly! And the high-level insiders have already leaked that her next step, right after winning the second championship, is to fight a terrifying opponent named ‘Sukuna’! The Radiant Knight is already warming up for the bout!”

The passing youth’s smile vanished, replaced by deadly seriousness. “The Rhodes Island Weekly, huh? Well, then I have to believe it! No, I need to start jogging to work today. I have to warm up too.”

Just hearing the name ‘Sukuna’ inexplicably filled him with a suffocating sense of oppression. What if The Radiant Knight couldn’t beat this monster? He suddenly felt a burning urge to train. If The Radiant Knight fell, maybe it would be his turn to step into the arena!

Nearl stood side-by-side with me, watching the vibrant, chaotic changes rippling through her city with a soft smile. After a long, comfortable silence, she spoke.

“Doctor. After I finish this tournament… you will come back to pick me up, right?”

“Of course. I’m off. No need to see me out.”

I waved my hand with practiced, dashing flair. Without looking back, I walked toward the slowly approaching landship, my back framed perfectly by the bleeding sunset.

The dying light stretched my shadow across the dirt. The wind whipped my heavy coat around my ankles, making me look incredibly cool and mysterious.

In the glow of the setting sun, I could just make out Kal’tsit sitting in the driver’s seat of the massive base vehicle. Her eyes were as bright as burning clouds.

The landship did not come to a slow, majestic stop.

Instead, the engine roared, and the massive treads accelerated dashingly straight toward me—

“I’ll [Victoria swear word] run you over, you ancient bastard—!”

Wait. Something’s wrong!

That wasn’t a poetic metaphor just now. Kal’tsit’s eyes were literally burning with homicidal rage!