Arknights: The Prophet of Penguin Logistics — Chapter 91

Chapter 91: First Aid

An hour later, deep within the subterranean emergency ward of Louvre Hospital.

“Instead of prepping for the scalpel, we need to secure a massive influx of life-support machinery and hormonal stabilizers. We have to force his remaining organs to regain baseline function before we do anything else. Otherwise, I have zero doubt his body will cascade into total, unpredictable failure.”

The attending physician stood before a massive, reinforced glass cylinder. Inside, submerged in a viscous, bubbling culture fluid, floated a mangled humanoid figure. Countless intravenous tubes and monitoring wires pierced his pale flesh, while the soft, pulsing glow of healing Originium Arts flickered through the murky liquid, obscuring the worst of the trauma.

The elderly doctor tore his gaze away from the tank, his brow furrowed deeply as he turned to Shining and Nearl. Both women stood in grim silence, their expressions heavy with worry.

“It is as if this young man was subjected to an impossibly delicate, macroscopic vivisection,” the doctor continued, his voice tight. “He has lost exactly one-third of his physical tissue mass. But incredibly, that isn’t the primary issue. His core bodily functions remain intact. All other vital indicators are stable. Do you understand what I am saying? Let me put it plainly: the metabolic burn and activity indicators of all his surviving organs have spontaneously decreased by exactly one-third to match the missing mass. What does this mean? I know certain extreme pathologies can cause systemic imbalance, but for this patient, despite catastrophic trauma, his decaying organs have negotiated a bizarre, perfect equilibrium.”

He paced a short distance across the sterile tiles, gesturing wildly. “Are you familiar with the concept of ‘post-mortem genetic unbinding’? After a living organism dies, its genetic structure releases its natural suppression, unlocking previously dormant sequences to undergo a chaotic, desperate reshaping. When you first brought him through those doors, I would have bet my license he was already a corpse. Yet he breathes. He maintains all physiological functions at a terrifyingly precise two-thirds capacity. What we need right now isn’t a team of elite surgeons. We need a warehouse of bio-equipment and raw hormones.”

The doctor paused, wiping a bead of sweat from his temple. “We need to purge these chimeric, anomalous gene sequences from his system, then artificially stimulate his regenerative baseline to wake him up. Or, the blunter method: we cultivate entirely new viscera in a lab and transplant them. But that introduces an entirely different nightmare. May I speak freely?”

“…Please, speak plainly,” Shining said, her golden eyes fixed on the doctor. “I am already aware of some of his… unique abnormalities.”

Shining nodded encouragingly. Beside her, Nearl, though clearly out of her depth regarding the dense medical jargon, offered a solemn nod of agreement.

Receiving their quiet assent, the elderly doctor pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He cast a highly apprehensive glance at the floating body behind the glass, then at the heavy external blood-circulation pumps chugging in the corner. He coughed, his hands trembling slightly as he pulled a crumpled medical readout from his coat pocket and offered it to Shining.

Medical professionals often understood the grim reality of a situation with a single shared glance. While Nearl relied on her radiant Arts to bolster and protect her allies on the front lines, Shining was a deeply educated, master-class physician in her own right. The moment her eyes scanned the data on the old man’s chart, her brows locked together in a severe frown.

“His internal structure is colonized by alien cellular clusters and vestigial organs that seem simultaneously vital and entirely useless,” the doctor whispered, as if afraid the tank might overhear him. “We all know that across the lands of Terra, our bodies are distinctly differentiated by race. Interbreeding across distinct racial lines only produces short-lived, unstable chimeras. We consist of dozens of distinct populations separated by massive genetic gulfs, leading to strict reproductive isolation. But the problem here… based on this marrow extraction, I suspect this boy is an artificially engineered ‘primordial template’.”

“…The most primitive evolutionary state, correct?” Shining asked softly.

“Exactly. Similar to the biological structures found in the deep sea, by the ocean’s edge. But fundamentally different.” The doctor swallowed hard. “I know this is a highly taboo subject. The Inquisition would have my head for even entertaining it, but those of us practicing medicine in this era have brushed against it. I have a rather complicated past myself, though that hardly matters now. The real issue is the contamination.”

“What kind of contamination?” Nearl interjected, her grip tightening on the handle of her warhammer.

“A systemic anomaly that is practically impossible to excise,” the doctor explained grimly. “We have no idea what catastrophic chain reactions we might trigger if we try to repair him using conventional medical facilities, standard pharmaceuticals, or traditional Originium Arts., his biology exhibits a terrifying, autonomous guidance system. The raw nutrients and oxygenated fluid we pump into the tank are being mysteriously and spontaneously routed directly to his damaged tissues. The process is agonizingly slow, and he remains hovering in a semi-dead state, but… I suspect he might actually revive on his own, given enough time and an ocean of raw biomass.”

The old man looked back at the boy suspended in the massive culture tank, his eyes reflecting a deep, clinical regret.

Such a specimen was a once-in-a-lifetime impossibility. He had practiced medicine for decades, serving as the chief of the trauma team in the prosperous heart of the Kazimierz Knight-competitions. He had seen every injury, every racial quirk, and every Originium mutation imaginable. Yet, the boy floating before him shattered every established law of Terran biology.

To the naked eye, he appeared human. But at his core, he was entirely alien to the conventional definition. If the terrifying oceanic depths operated on one biological system, and the terrestrial races of Terra operated on another, then this boy possessed a horrific architecture that overlapped both. There were faint, gill-like micro-fissures hidden behind his ears. The distinct remnants of a prehensile tailbone fused to his lower spine. His skull was perfectly smooth, yet his hyper-active pineal gland suggested that some sort of appendage—horns or perhaps a halo—was meant to exist there.

Yet he possessed none of the standard markers. No animal ears, no horns, no hooves, no distinct racial scent, and no inherent biological flaws.

He was an idealized, perfectly mixed canvas. Billions of unknown bacteria and aggressive antibodies warred in his bloodstream, maintaining a grotesque, fragile harmony. This made external treatment a nightmare. Cultivating replacement organs was a non-starter; if they couldn’t even map his baseline genome, how could they grow parts for him?

It was impossible to definitively classify him as alive or dead. His mangled flesh was simply devouring the nutrient bath, aggressively proliferating to bridge the massive physical gaps. Leaving him to heal naturally truly seemed to be the only viable option. During the initial scans, the doctor had also noted layers of ancient scar tissue and the distinct, surgical absence of several internal organs. All these impossible phenomena piled up to form the broken boy floating in the tank.

“Ah, one more thing,” the doctor sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. “If you extracted him from some underground black-site experimental platform, don’t forget to hunt down the chief surgeon who did this to him. At the very least, try to preserve the raw data in that butcher’s brain. It might save his life.”

“He sustained these injuries on an open battlefield,” Nearl corrected, her voice flat.

The attending physician stared at Shining and Nearl with an indescribable, deadpan expression, looking at the two seasoned warriors as if they were absolute lunatics spouting fairy tales.

Before the doctor could voice his disbelief, Shining’s ear twitched, and Nearl offered a quick, apologetic grimace. The blonde knight pulled a vibrating phone from her pocket, stepping out into the sterile hallway as she pressed the answer button. Before Nearl could even offer a greeting, a panicked, breathless voice spilled from the speaker.

“Lady Nearl! Someone… someone is down at the lobby inquiring about the exact whereabouts of that nameless hero!”

“Tell them to leave the premises immediately,” Nearl commanded, her tone shifting into absolute authority. “The hospital’s subterranean levels must remain fully locked down. This is a medical facility; do these people have no common sense?”

“No, it’s not that! How should I put this, they—”

“Alright, alright, step aside. Let me talk to her.”

A frightened yelp echoed through the receiver, followed by the chaotic friction of a struggle. A moment later, a clear, distinctly feminine voice took over the line.

“Radiant Knight Nearl, right? I hear the lapdogs of the Knights Council are currently hovering around Lynn while he receives treatment. And it seems Shining is playing nurse, too? You’ve both taken care of him quite a bit in the past. For that, I thank you.”

It was a familiar voice. Usually, it was a frivolous, energetic tone that Nearl associated with upbeat chatter and foolish giggling.

But right now, that voice was stripped of all its warmth, replaced by a chilling, dead-eyed absolute zero.

“Given that we’ve shared a battlefield and looked out for each other fairly well,” the voice continued, smooth and lethal, “I am going to give you exactly three minutes to explain why he is bleeding in a basement. If you fail, I cannot guarantee what we might do to this building. This isn’t business. This is a purely personal grudge, do you understand me? Give him back to us. Completely intact. Within three minutes. I’m keeping a relatively level head right now, but there is a crazy little wolf beside me, along with a few others, who are currently failing to maintain their sanity. I highly advise you to be rational.”

“And if we refuse?” Nearl asked quietly. “Even if moving him means he dies?”

“Are you… threatening me?” the voice whispered, the sheer killing intent bleeding through the encrypted signal.

“No,” Nearl replied, her golden eyes narrowing as she looked down the long, empty corridor. “You’ll understand if you come down to the third basement level. Just give the guards my name.”

“…Alright. We are on our way down.”

The call terminated with a sharp click.

Lowering the phone, Nearl looked back toward the sealed blast doors of the emergency ward. She let out a long, quiet breath, feeling a sudden, strange pang of envy settle in her chest.

If she were ever dragged off a battlefield, broken and bleeding out, would anyone ever care enough to tear down a city for her?

Planting her boots firmly on the sterile tiles, Nearl rested her hand on the heavy haft of her warhammer. She stood silently by the doorway, her eyes locked on the heavy steel doors of the elevator at the far end of the hall. The digital floor indicator ticked downward, bringing with it a suffocating, freezing wave of pure killing intent.

Watching the numbers drop, Nearl couldn’t help but let out a weary sigh.