‘Why are they looking at me?’you thought, maintaining a perfectly still posture.’I didn’t shout Priestess out loud in my dream just now, did I?”Why aren’t they saying anything?’ Amiya wondered, her gaze shifting back and forth between the two adults.’Am I being a third wheel here?”Why does he keep looking at me?’ Kal’tsit mused, her expression completely unreadable.’He doesn’t think it is weird that I let him lean on my lap, does he?’
The three of you stared at each other in total silence for what felt like an eternity.
The heavy, dramatic atmosphere felt straight out of a White Album visual novel, but in reality, it was just the awkward undercurrents flowing between a single father, his teenage daughter, and the aloof family cat.
The standoff stretched on for so long that the sheer stiffness of your posture eventually jostled Ellie and Rosmontis awake.
“Doctor…?” the dazed little Feline murmured, rubbing her eyes.
Her soft voice broke the suffocating silence just in time.
Like a slippery loach escaping a net, you shot upright with a loud whoosh, scooping up the two children in one fluid motion.
“I am right here!
Wait up, kitty, I am taking you to play Annihilation right now!” You had never been so grateful for timely backup in your entire life.
Scrambling away from the break area as fast as your legs could carry you, you shouted over your shoulder, “We are going to clean up Chernobog one more time!”
What adults fear most in this world is not political intrigue or battlefield deception.
It is taking off the mask and suddenly realizing the terrifying truth: Holy crap, she really did trust me like a father once!
Kal’tsit watched your retreating back with a deeply complicated expression.
She opened her mouth to speak, but seeing you practically scrambling away on all fours like a startled animal, the words died in her throat.
“…”
‘Theresa,’Kal’tsit thought wearily,’did you actually delete his IQ?’
Hours later, having finally calmed your racing heart, you sat in the back of a covert transport vehicle bound for Lungmen.
Surveying the bleak terrain of the Outer Ring through the reinforced window, you glanced at Rosmontis.
You had grabbed the elite operator on a whim during your frantic escape, naturally making her your core combat protagonist for whatever lay ahead.
The scenery rolling past was grim.
Dilapidated tenement buildings leaned against each other like rotting teeth.
Sewage flooded the narrow, cracked streets, and shattered glass glittered darkly in the alleys.
It was painfully clear that even in the glamorous, wealthy metropolis of Lungmen, the Infected were only fit to scrape by in these filthy, forgotten corners.
‘Arknights really is a story about discrimination,’ you thought, resting your chin on your hand.
In all of human history, no disease had ever bred prejudice more easily than Oripathy.
The jagged Originium crystals erupting on the body’s surface made identification effortless.
The sheer physical danger the Infected posed to those around them, combined with the terrifying Originium Arts they often gained, eroded the last shreds of empathy from their own kind.
It even bred a twisted sort of jealousy.
The cruel randomness of the disease prevented the Infected from ever truly uniting.
An Infected person with healthy relatives or loved ones would almost always choose self-exile rather than risk infecting their family.
Even if a brilliant, charismatic leader occasionally emerged to guide them, they inevitably died early from the very disease that gave them power, making it impossible to form stable organizations or a lasting sense of belonging.
No matter how deformed or pathological the political systems of Terra were, they succeeded for one fundamental reason: there was always a desperate, marginalized group of Infected available for cheap exploitation.
“Doctor…
Rosmontis flicked her feline ears, pulling you from your dark thoughts.
With her unique perception, she could hear the complex rhythm of your heartbeat.
It sounded helpless, detached, sour, and astringent—emotions too heavy for her to fully understand.
The little kitty did not know exactly what was weighing on your mind, but she operated on a simple logic: eating candy made people happier.jpg.
You accepted the small orange candy from her outstretched palm and popped it into your mouth.
The sharp, sweet-and-sour artificial citrus flavor bloomed on your tongue, mercifully diluting the pervasive stench of rotting trash and rust that hung over the Outer Ring.
“I will have to trouble you again today, Rosmontis,” you said, your voice softening.
“We will try to keep the collateral damage of the battle as small as possible.”
You looked out the window again and spotted a Perro in tattered, grease-stained clothes.
He was carrying a heavy burlap sack, desperately rummaging through a rusted trash can for usable metal parts.
“This is not even a real war,” you murmured.
“It is just the Infected killing each other.”
The catastrophic Chernobog-Lungmen collision plan was already in motion.
A massive influx of Reunion Movement extremists had infiltrated the Outer Ring, blending smoothly into the local population of ordinary, desperate Infected.
This was exactly why Wei Yenwu’s first instinct upon learning of the threat was to amputate the Lower City entirely.
In this chaotic melting pot of misery, the logistical cost of filtering out hidden terrorists was simply too high.
It was an impossible task unless someone possessed a highly abnormal Originium Art capable of seeing through disguises at a single glance.
Naturally, you did not possess any magical lie-detecting Arts.
But fortunately, you still had the legendary Doctor’s brain sitting inside your skull.
‘It is so incredibly useful!’
When you pushed your mind to full capacity, the grimy world outside the window transformed into cascading strings of analytical data.
Abnormal behavioral logic lit up in your vision as strikingly as a neon beacon in the dead of night.
You could instantly calculate walking postures, muscle tension, micro-expressions, and even the subconscious unease in a target’s gait.
It was a real tragedy you had not been born into the cast of Detective Conan.
“Shh, follow him,” you whispered, tapping the driver’s shoulder to stop the vehicle.
In a mere ten seconds of observation on the street, you had completely seen through the disguises of three Reunion undercover agents and one mid-level squad leader.
“He is injured.
He will definitely be taking the fastest route back to their local base.”
Jedra was an ordinary Reunion squad leader whose luck seemed to have hit absolute rock bottom over the past week.
First, Lord Mephisto had forcibly requisitioned the vast majority of his subordinates, nearly leaving him a commander without an army.
Then, while carrying out a routine order to intercept a secret Rhodes Island scouting squad, his remaining forces were brutally torn apart by a weirdo commander wearing a hood pulled tighter than a tin can.
The enemy carved a bloody path right through his defensive line.
If Jedra had not run away as fast as humanly possible, he would have lost his life in that alleyway.
The nightmare did not end there.
On the grueling trek back to the safehouse with his three surviving subordinates, they were caught in the crossfire of their own side.
Two of his men failed to dodge in time and were instantly incinerated by the massive, apocalyptic fire rain unleashed by the Leader.
Why had Jedra not burned to death? Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Because his survival instincts kicked in, and he had violently dragged his last remaining lackey in front of him.
That young man, who had always been his loyal confidant, died with his eyes wide open, staring in absolute disbelief at the commander who had just used him as a human meat shield.
Fortunately, these agonizing, humiliating days of having no one to command were finally coming to an end.
As long as he returned to the forward base and verified his identity, he would be reassigned fresh troops.
He would once again be a Reunion squad leader feared by all!
Finally, he was free from the suffocating shadow of that terrifying hooded man from Rhodes Island!
Finally!
Staring at the rusted iron gates of the hidden base just a few yards away, Jedra almost burst into tears of relief.
“What kind of miserable life was I living be—”
Thump!
A massive, rusted refrigerator plummeted from the sky with a sickening thud, slamming directly onto Jedra and burying him face-first into the dirt.
A thin figure stepped out from the shadows, quickly stripping the unconscious squad leader of his signature Reunion coat.
You disgustedly brushed the grime off the fabric before throwing it over your own shoulders.
“PRTS, help me call the three nearest special ops squads,” you commanded, adjusting the stolen collar.
“Have them assemble at these coordinates within two hours.
Can you do that?”
[Following your instructions.]
“Doctor, dangerous…” Rosmontis whispered, stepping out from behind a pile of rubble.
She looked uneasy, her small hands carefully tugging at the hem of your newly acquired enemy coat.
“Shh, keep your head down and do not talk once we are inside.
They have not seen my face,” you instructed, tossing your iconic Rhodes Island mask into a nearby dumpster.
You blinked your grey eyes and offered Rosmontis a bright, reassuring smile.
“Remember, I am just an ordinary college student of the Reunion Movement now!”
With that flawless logic established, the two figures, one tall and one short, swaggered confidently right through the front gates of the Reunion Movement base.
A few rooftops away, Crownslayer watched the entire sequence of events unfold in stunned silence.
She had been waiting patiently at the Rhodes Island outpost for you to finally take her to see Kal’tsit.
After several chapters of being completely ignored, she had lost her temper and tracked you all the way to the Lungmen Outer Ring, only to witness you casually mugging a squad leader and waltzing into a Reunion base as if you owned the place.
“…”
Had she missed a chapter?
[Rhodes’s Note:
Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?
(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent!
to use the links!)