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ArabicArknights: It Can't Possibly Be My Fault... Right? — Chapter 6
Chapter 6: Taking Human Form
“Protect yourself, Ama-10. Survival is an instinct that life has possessed since its inception.”
The voice echoed through a dark, oppressive void, followed by another, heavier tone.
“The Demon King is the key, it is… ‘The Continuation of Civilization’.”
Then, a bitter, hollow scoff cut through the darkness. “Rights for the Infected? Heh, we don’t deserve such a thing… we never have.”
“Holy crap!” Kai jolted upright, tearing himself from the endless nightmare. He gasped for air, his chest heaving as his fingers dug into the cold metal railing beside him. His hospital gown clung uncomfortably to his sweat-drenched back, the phantom weight of a thousand years of history slowly peeling away from his mind.
Railings? Since when did his bunk have railings?
He blinked against the harsh fluorescent lights, his vision slowly coming into focus. The sterile scent of antiseptic and the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor confirmed his location: a private room in the Rhodes Island Medical Department. The digital clock on the wall glowed with a late-night hour.
“Hiss… why does my head hurt so much?” Breathing a sigh of relief, Kai reached up to rub his aching skull, only to wince sharply as his fingers brushed against a massive, tender knot at the base of his head.
The sudden spike in his heart rate drew immediate attention. The sliding door hissed open, admitting a striking medical operator. Y.P. stepped to his bedside, her eyes scanning the readouts on the surrounding instruments with clinical efficiency.
“You are finally awake,” Y.P. noted, her tone professional. “How are you feeling? Is there any lingering discomfort?”
Kai rolled his shoulders, testing his joints before answering. “Aside from my head feeling like it got hit by an Originium slug, I feel fine.” He twisted his waist, a faint look of surprise crossing his face. “Actually, there is one thing. I feel like my body is stronger? It is hard to describe, but there is a weird sense of vitality.”
“Oh, I see.” Y.P. lowered her head, jotting down a few notes on her clipboard. “I cannot do much about the concussion, but the rest is noted.”
The room fell quiet again, save for the scratch of her pen and the low hum of the medical machinery. Kai looked around the spacious private ward, his confusion mounting.
“Um, what exactly happened to me?” he asked. “I remember eating dinner in the cafeteria. How did I end up in the ICU all of a sudden?”
Y.P. paused her writing. “I am not entirely sure. I am merely observing your vitals under Dr. Kal’tsit’s direct orders and recording any physiological anomalies. You can ask her yourself. She should be here shortly.”
Kai’s head was still a bit foggy, and he struggled to process the information. Right on cue, the electronic lock chimed. Kal’tsit strode into the room, her signature green coat sweeping behind her. But Kai’s gaze immediately snapped to the figure trailing in her wake.
“Holy crap, M3?!”
Seeing the familiar black-haired girl wearing an outfit with comically oversized moe sleeves that swallowed her hands, Kai blurted out the name, his brain completely short-circuiting.
Kal’tsit stopped at the foot of the bed, her sharp emerald eyes narrowing. “You recognize her?”
Kai cursed his loose tongue. His groggy mind had completely betrayed his filter. “Wait, listen to me, it is like this… I thought she looked a lot like you at first glance, and then the outfit… you know what, forget it. I am just going to come clean. I just know she is M3.”
Seeing him admit it with zero resistance, Kal’tsit stared at him for a long, silent moment. Without a word of reprimand, she gave a slight nod to Y.P., dismissing the medical operator from the room. She then stepped closer to the bed, carefully reviewing the fresh data report Y.P. had just compiled.
Kai kept staring at the black-haired girl. M3 caught his gaze and tilted her head in a distinctly inhuman, avian manner. Realizing her odd posture, she quickly straightened up and offered a polite, if slightly forced, cough.
“First time meeting you. I am Mon3tr.” She then muttered under her breath, “Um… or should I say long time no see? But it hasn’t been that long…”
Kai ignored the greeting, his mind racing through the lore. Kal’tsit was standing right there, alive and reading a medical chart. Yet Mon3tr was standing beside her in a human body. This completely shattered the established timeline.
“It seems you have quite a few questions,” Kal’tsit remarked, setting the dense medical report aside.
Kai hesitated, bracing himself. “Are you… alive or dead?”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Kal’tsit’s jaw tightened, a dangerous glint flashing in her eyes. “Unfortunately for your theories, Rhodes Island still requires my presence. I will not surrender my life so easily, nor will I suddenly collapse in the middle of the cafeteria and become unconscious like a certain someone.”
“That makes no sense. Why did M3 take a human form already? And wait, that ‘certain someone’ is me, isn’t it?” Kai demanded, thoroughly bewildered.
Kal’tsit simply countered, “Then under what circumstances do you believe it would be normal for Mon3tr to assume a human state?”
Kai was momentarily at a loss for words. “Uh… for example, if you passed away?”
Silence.
Kal’tsit let out a long, weary sigh. She pulled a sleek terminal from her pocket and tossed it onto Kai’s lap. “Watch this.”
The screen displayed security footage from the cafeteria. Kai watched his past self walking away from a table, deep in thought, completely oblivious to the bright yellow ‘Caution: Wet Floor’ sign. His foot hit the slick tiles. He went airborne, gravity violently introducing the back of his skull to the sharp corner of a dining table. He crumpled to the floor, a grim pool of blood rapidly spreading across the tiles.
Kai touched the scabbed knot on his head again, wincing. “So that is why I fainted. But what about M3?”
“Keep watching,” Kal’tsit instructed coolly.
On the screen, a crowd of operators gathered around his unconscious body. A nearby medic checked his pulse. Then, the massive, crystalline form of Mon3tr stepped into the frame. The summon scooped Kai up, preparing to carry him to the infirmary. But after taking only two steps, Mon3tr’s massive body suddenly ruptured with a bizarre popping sound. The terrifying beast instantly dissolved into a floating, green pyramid-like structure.
Without Mon3tr’s arms to support him, Kai’s limp body plummeted straight back down to the hard floor, bouncing off the tiles right on the exact same spot on his head.
The video ended. Kai felt a phantom throb in his skull. “What the hell happened? Why did M3 suddenly turn into a Reconstructed Form and drop me?”
“Based on our preliminary diagnostics, the reaction occurred the moment Mon3tr came into direct contact with your blood,” Kal’tsit replied.
Kai stared at his palms in disbelief. “Is my blood really that overpowered? Did I just one-shot Mon3tr? Do I have some hidden, corrosive power where anyone who touches my blood instantly dies?”
“Regrettably, no,” Kal’tsit stated, her tone dry enough to desiccate a desert. “Your blood is chemically indistinguishable from that of an ordinary human.”
“Alright, enough suspense. What actually happened?” Kai pressed.
Kal’tsit paused, organizing her thoughts, but M3 suddenly raised a hand swallowed by her oversized sleeve. “How about I explain the rest, Kal’tsit?”
Kal’tsit glanced at the girl, then nodded. “Proceed.”
M3 cleared her throat. “It goes like this. The moment your blood touched my outer plating, I fell into a deep sleep. We still do not understand the exact mechanism. However, while I was dormant, I sensed a very gentle power. It traced my consciousness, bypassed our standard neural links, and located the Dual-cycle System Core that Kal’tsit and I share. Once there, it triggered the Ultimate Protocol.”
She gestured vaguely with her floppy sleeves. “The technical details are difficult to articulate, but it relates directly to the Reconstructed Form. I was still disoriented, and when the protocol initiated, I subconsciously selected the human configuration. And now, here I am.” To demonstrate, she did a small, clumsy twirl on the spot.
“If I remember my lore correctly, that Ultimate Protocol is…” Kai trailed off, testing the waters. Since he had already exposed his meta-knowledge, there was no point in hiding it now.
“It is a final fallback measure I installed for Mon3tr,” Kal’tsit finished for him, her voice carrying a rare trace of solemnity. “But now it has been triggered prematurely.”
Kai pieced it together. In the original timeline, Mon3tr possessed the ability to assume a human shape, but never understood why Kal’tsit would want her to abandon her devastating combat form. It was only after Kal’tsit’s death that Mon3tr subconsciously chose the human guise. The gentle power in his transmigrator blood had somehow spoofed that exact trigger.
“Wait,” Kai said, looking between the two of them. “Is there a price for activating it?”
Kal’tsit fixed him with a long, penetrating stare. “Originally, there was a severe toll. Both she and I would have had to bear a heavy burden. But now… our diagnostics show absolutely nothing unusual.”
Kai let out a hollow laugh, sinking slightly into his pillows. “Let me guess. This is my fault too, isn’t it?”