Chapter 127: How Can People in Big Cities Be So Mean!

“Welcome! My name is Susie!”

The cheerful greeting chimed through the quaint little shop.

‘Ah, Susie,’I thought, taking in the sight of the pink-haired Feline.’Better known to the meta-slaves and lore-nerds of the future as Goldenglow.’

She was a legendary Rhodes Island Caster who loved the landship with all her heart. According to her lore, she left her mother and younger brother behind to carve out a living in this harsh city, working her fingers to the bone for years just to save up enough LMD to buy a humble barbershop. Only for it to be tragically burned to the ground the very next day. She was a super-unlucky girl who somehow ended up shouldering massive collateral damage for our beloved pharmaceutical company all by herself.

Rhodes Island’s risk management department truly did stellar work.

“Eh, catnip? I’ll go prepare some right away!” The pink Feline, who clearly had not saved up enough LMD for her own shop just yet, stood near the entrance. She clutched a black ledger in both hands, nodding earnestly with a shy, overly polite retail smile.

I pressed my hands together in a solemn, pleading gesture. “We need a large pot of lush, thriving catnip. The premium stuff. The kind that is suitable to give as a high-end gift for a very special pet!”

Susie diligently jotted the request down in her ledger. “Mm-hmm. And about how heavy is the kitty?”

“Oh, about one hundred and thirty pounds.”

“Oh, oh, a one hundred and thirty-pound kitty, that child is very healthy…” Her pen froze against the paper. The soft, gentle customer-service voice abruptly spiked an octave. “Wait… one hundred and thirty pounds?!”

She snapped her head up, staring at me with wide, horrified eyes.

“Of course,” I said smoothly. “Muro, show her our cat!”

I waved my hand dismissively. Muro obligingly hauled up the dead weight of the unconscious Phantom, propping the dark-clad assassin up like a giant, brooding plush toy to display him to the shop clerk.

“Look,” I said. “The Doctor’s cat.”

“This is clearly a person!” Susie’s face twisted into an expression of utter disbelief. “He is a living, breathing person!”

The Playwright adjusted his collar and nodded in sagely agreement. “That is right. It looks just like a person. It is a very intelligent little kitty.”

Susie took a step back, realizing she was surrounded by lunatics. “No! I was not complimenting him! I was just stating a biological fact!”

I nodded approvingly, completely ignoring her panic. “Indeed, it can fully be treated as a person. Look, even with so many people around, it does not get stressed and bite anyone. Very well-behaved.”

Susie looked like she was on the verge of a complete mental breakdown. “No, no, no, ladies and gentlemen! What I mean is, keeping a human as a pet is illegal!”

“Is that a law in this city?” Yato asked flatly. She reached out with one gauntleted hand, lifting Phantom’s chin to carefully display the black metallic band fastened securely around his throat. “Do not worry. We have put a collar on it.”

The Originium inhibitor was the final straw.

Did this entire group of people eat some kind of hallucinogenic mushrooms before walking in here? How could they unanimously, with perfectly straight faces, treat a grown man as a cat? And they actually collared him!

‘Rich people are truly perverted!’ Susie screamed in her mind.

She was just about to refuse outright, customer service be damned. But then, a heavy Rhodes Island insignia badge slapped onto the counter, accompanied by the heavy, obvious clink of two massive bars of pure gold. Susie swallowed her words.

The shop owner had given her strict, special instructions. If anyone with this specific badge makes a request, she must try her best to fulfill it, no matter what. She had assumed it meant covering up some dangerous criminal activity. So this was the kind of dark underworld activity the boss meant.

She knew she should stand up and stop this sinful, degrading display. But the shop owner had given her a home when she was at her lowest point in life. She could not bite the hand that fed her. And the poor victim had even lost consciousness. In such a dire situation, not only was she failing to rescue him, but she was actively providing premium catnip to his twisted perpetrators.

Susie turned and shuffled away in utter despair, clutching her little notebook to her chest. She began scouring the shelves for catnip suitable for a feline over one meter eighty tall, while I casually ordered a few extra bottles of iced sour plum juice.

There was no need to question the sheer absurdity of the inventory. The biggest specialty of Rhodes Island front-shops was that they sold absolutely everything. When I first walked in, I had immediately spotted the two black horizontal bars hidden beneath the Rhodes Island watermark in the corner of the signage. According to the branch management manual I had personally drafted a month ago, that marked this location as a Level 2 supply point.

In an emergency, I could requisition up to a full ton of Originium dust dirty bombs or high-explosive munitions right from the back room.

If anyone ever tried to burn this particular shop down, it would not just be Susie crying in the ashes. Half the city block would be vaporized.

I casually pried the cap off a bottle of sour plum juice from the shop’s display refrigerator and poured a full glass. I handed it to Rosmontis, who had been watching the exchange with eager, wide eyes.

“Go sit by the door and drink up,” I told her gently. “I remember you used to raise forget-me-nots with Perfumer. The floral varieties they have planted here are a bit different from the ones in our greenhouse on the landship.”

Rosmontis obediently took the cold glass. She padded over to the window seat, swinging her two fair little legs over the edge. Behind her, her four massive tactical equipments quietly descended to the floor, the heavy swords and shields resting silently as if they too were taking a moment to admire the vibrant colors of the flowers through her eyes.

For a fleeting moment, the chaotic atmosphere of the shop settled into something peaceful and serene.

Just then, I noticed a shift. The faint, sickly blackness marring Phantom’s pale face was fading rapidly. His beast-like, elongated fingers were retracting, returning to their normal human proportions at dozens of times their previous speed. The suffocating, oppressive characteristics of the shadow were completely stripping away from his body.

“Awake? Have a taste.”

Phantom’s dark eyelashes fluttered slightly. He slowly opened his eyes. He braced himself for the nightmare, expecting to see minced meat scattered across a bloodstained floor, or the maniacally laughing puppets of the Crimson Troupe.

Instead, his vision was filled with warm, golden sunlight and the gentle, melodic chiming of wind bells swaying at the shop’s entrance.

Standing over him was the white-haired young man, smiling down without a single trace of gloom. The Doctor held a cup of iced sour plum soup in one hand, bringing it close to Phantom’s nose. The faint, earthy scent of medicinal herbs mixed with the sweet, tart coolness of the juice, wafting into his nostrils and grounding him in reality.

Phantom closed his eyes, taking a slow, steadying breath.

It seemed he still had not woken up from the hallucination.

When he opened his eyes again, nothing had changed. The only difference was the young man’s expression, which had shifted into a pout of theatrical dissatisfaction.

“Am I really that scary?” I complained. “You actually closed your eyes to avoid looking at me. Do you have any idea how authoritative this great face of mine is? It is a face that could conquer any Banshee in the royal court!”

Phantom stared in absolute silence.

‘Truly an authoritative face,’ Phantom thought numbly. Had his mind’s hallucinations really degraded to this absurd level already?

[Rhodes’s Note: Goldenglow (Susie) is a Feline Caster operator in Arknights. Before joining Rhodes Island, she worked at a barbershop in Caladon that was tragically destroyed in a fire shortly after she purchased it, cementing her reputation in the fandom as an incredibly unlucky but hardworking character.]

[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!]