Chapter 115: Rim Billiton Great Adventure (III)

“Brother, can you perform that act from the beginning again? You know, the one where you’re super serious, gentle, considerate, and pulling off the whole ‘man of few words but ruthless action’ vibe?”

You crossed your arms, studying the glowing fragment of your own consciousness. “Honestly, even the ‘silent mastermind planning something terrifying’ look would work. I’m suddenly realizing that a gravity-manipulating edgelord persona is vastly superior to whatever chuunibyou phase this is.”

“I can’t. I was only acting serious because I was under immense pressure. Now it’s your turn to handle the stress, Brother.” Fragment 0325 relaxed his shoulders and pulled back his hood. He wore your exact face, flashing a brilliantly genuine, carefree smile right at you.

Excellent. The time-honored Doctor tradition of ‘I screw myself over, and then I laugh at myself’ was clearly alive and well.

“…Setting everything else aside, can you stop calling me ‘Brother’?” You rubbed your temples. “I don’t recall reading Dragon Raja anytime in the last few years. If you keep trying to pull that Lu Mingze routine on me, I’m going to have to physically demonstrate who the boss is around here—”

“In my worldline, it seems there’s still a half-scrapped Colossus-class World Cracker lying around.”

“—My dearest Brother!”

You grabbed his shoulders, eyes wide. “I finally get to play Stellaris in real life?! Let’s boot that thing up and fire a test shot at Kazimierz… Oh, wait. Right now, Kazimierz technically belongs to our faction.”

You stroked your chin, gears turning rapidly. “How about taking a shot at the Yen Empire first? Their borders should be a bit sturdier. At worst, we can just dial down the output power a bit…”

Fragment 0325 watched helplessly as your image instantly shifted from a solemn patriot worried about the future of Terra to a trigger-happy madman desperate to fire a superweapon in any random direction. He sighed, rubbing his forehead in exasperation.

“Bro, how about we reconsider? The first time I used that thing, I had nightmares for over a month. Every single day, I couldn’t stop washing the hand that pressed the firing button…”

“I’m not you! Trust me! I just want to try it out!”

“I’m saying this precisely because I know you’re not me. You are the most extreme, unhinged storyline among all of our variants, and you still refuse to believe it…”

“I believe you, I believe you. So, where is the World Cracker?” You immediately cut off his complaining—or was it genuine concern?—and stared at him with sparkling, expectant eyes.

0325 reacted like a startled cat, taking a half-step back. “I’m not just going to tell you! I know your tricks for manipulating small animals all too well. It won’t work on me!”

You let your hands drop in exaggerated disappointment. Withdrawing your eager gaze, you lowered your head, looking deeply hurt. “Fine… I just thought that after everything we’ve been through together, I could finally understand you. Maybe I’m just too homesick, and my tone was too urgent…”

“—I left it in Rim Billiton. I’ll give you the coordinates once this last memory sequence is finished.” Fragment 0325 squeezed the sentence out through gritted teeth, his willpower crumbling in record time.

You smirked internally. This fragment was way too green; he couldn’t even hold out against a basic guilt trip for two sentences. He desperately needed more training. Oh, wait. He was a memory fragment. He wouldn’t exactly get another chance to grow up.

It sounded a bit tragic on paper, but when you realized this poor, easily manipulated sap was literally just yourself, you couldn’t help but want to laugh.

You continued to tease him, keeping your tone light and breezy. “Sigh. Nobody trusts me. I drop into this world with nothing but my silver tongue, my entire survival depends on gambling the plot, and now I’m even making things difficult for myself. I finally get a chance to uncover the past, only to find out that the ‘mastermind’ who left me a backup plan is just a little brat.”

“Who are you calling a little bra—” 0325 retorted reflexively, before freezing as he realized what he had just admitted. “Wait. How did you figure it out?”

You shrugged, completely honest. “At first, it was just a few minor inconsistencies. Fortunately, this upgraded brain of mine is highly efficient. Since I have absolutely nothing better to do in this ghostly spectator state, I combed through all my past experiences. And I mean everything.”

It was a simple application of reverse logic. All the behavioral inconsistencies he had displayed were built on the foundational premise of an ‘amnesiac Arknights content creator who transmigrated into the game’.

But what if the timeline was flipped? What if the reality was a ‘transmigrator who returned to Earth, and then became an Arknights content creator based on his own repressed, subconscious memories’?

The cryptic hints your past self had left behind were entirely focused on how he died, how he lost his memory, or how he went mad. But he never once explicitly stated that he lost.

Using selective truths to lead an opponent’s deduction down the wrong path was a classic tactic. You knew it well, because it was your favorite trick.

“Compared to the possibility of you being outplayed by some unknown mastermind and beaten so badly you couldn’t even retain your memories, I’m much more inclined to believe you chose amnesia as an acceptable tactical price,” you explained, pacing around the glowing white void. “In that scenario, aside from finding a way back home to Earth, I can’t think of a single reason that would make me willingly give up resistance and place my life in someone else’s hands.”

You ticked off your points on your fingers. “With the exact same setup, I managed to produce Stellaris-level technology, while the original Doctor—who should logically be much better at this—couldn’t. This proves my transmigration wasn’t controlled by Terra’s Precursors. I strongly suspect my success stems from the fact that Earth exists in a higher dimension, making my administrative authority on this land ridiculously high.”

You stopped pacing and looked directly at 0325. “Your attitude toward Babel and Amiya locked in my final theory. You actually transmigrated right when Arknights first launched, didn’t you? I’m the version who read the entire script and is pretending to know nothing. You were the version who knew absolutely nothing, but had to pretend you knew everything. That’s why you missed almost every major plot point and were too terrified to trust anyone.”

0325 fell silent for a long moment. Finally, he let out a long, conceding sigh. “Well… I didn’t expect to hide it from you forever, but your reaction speed still leaves me feeling a bit defeated.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “For the first few years after I crossed over, I genuinely thought I was in a standard ‘mysterious game transmigration’ scenario. Before I woke up here, my only exposure to Terra was the initial concept PV for the game.”

“At first, I was even paranoid that Kal’tsit would try to assassinate me.”

“The concept PV only featured Talulah, and they both had white hair. My eyes played tricks on me.”

You stared at him. “…”

How could such a genuinely tragic backstory sound funnier the more you listened to it?

“I almost forgot that PV even existed. After all, when I transmigrated, I hadn’t even played the closed beta. You should be praising me just for remembering Amiya’s name,” 0325 said, spreading his hands with a candid, entirely unearned sense of pride.

You opened your mouth to ask for more details, but the space around you suddenly warped. The two overlapping worlds—the meta-space and the memory layer—began to fluctuate violently before resuming their normal temporal flow.

“I can’t maintain this isolated immersive experience anymore,” 0325 warned, his form flickering. “The point where my ‘if’ timeline overlaps with your actual history ends at Rim Billiton. Let’s go. We can walk this final stretch together.”

The scene materialized around you.

A young Amiya lay on a makeshift bed, her eyelashes trembling. Finally, under the intense, hovering gaze of three different Doctors—wait, why are there more of me now?!—she slowly opened her deep blue eyes.

She didn’t yet realize she was entirely alone in this harsh world. She only felt the gnawing emptiness of hunger and the dull ache of pain.

A hand clad in a sleek black glove suddenly reached into her field of vision, offering a piece of sweet preserved fruit in its palm. Amiya’s gaze tracked upward along the dark sleeve, landing on a figure wrapped tightly in a heavy coat and a concealing mask. Only a few stray strands of white hair peeked out from beneath the hood.

“Nice to meet you. I am the Doctor of Babel.” The masked figure’s voice was deep, smooth, and perfectly controlled. “I’m sorry to have found you in this state… Little rabbit, eat something first. Then, I’ll explain everything that happened.”

Amiya blinked, staring up at the incredibly mysterious, impossibly cool stranger looming over her.

Her little mouth puckered.

Then, to the absolute horror of the ‘cool stranger’, she let out a deafening “Wah!” and burst into hysterical tears.

“Eh? Wait, hold on! Shouldn’t this little rabbit be completely awestruck by my presence and listen obediently?!” The hooded figure’s imposing aura shattered instantly, replaced by sheer, flailing panic. “Professor Shapeshifter, what do I do now?!”

Amiya only cried harder at the sudden shouting.

Amidst the chaotic, ear-piercing bustle, the Shapeshifter Cluster’s monotone voice echoed from the shadows, perfectly calm. “I have queried three related web pages regarding ‘how a Cautus should coax a crying child’ for you. Ah, correction. Three related Shapeshifters. Please allow me a moment to analyze the user’s underlying intent for asking this specific query…”

Shapeshifter, you’re an ancient Sarkaz horror, not a damn search engine AI!

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent! 🙇‍♂️):

Massive thanks for reading and supporting the operation!]