Chapter 161: The Loop is Established!

Ugh, my heart!

Just look at that exquisite paint job. The heavy, realistic metallic texture of their armor, their towering statures, and even the gun strapped to their back—that wasn’t some cheap plastic prop, it was a carefully modified firearm! Compared to this masterpiece, the cosplays trending on the forums in my previous life looked like flimsy children’s toys. You took a deep, shaky breath. You desperately needed this. Please!

“Let’s go, Thorns. We’re intercepting them backstage!”

Seeing the three figures suddenly speed up their instrument packing to slip off the stage, your anxiety spiked. “If I don’t get to collect their photos today, I really won’t be able to rest in peace! Even if pulling off their masks reveals a familiar face, I’m still going in!”

Hearing this, Thorns carefully sized up the strange, heavily costumed mercenaries retreating from the stage. He looked left, then right, but for the life of him, he couldn’t see the appeal. Tin can fetishes, knight fetishes, white hair fetishes, gerontophilia… what kind of cursed new-era preferences were these?

Thorns didn’t understand the appeal, but his hand had already tightened around the hilt of his sword. He was fully prepared for the very real possibility that if the Doctor’s itchy hands triggered some hidden Dosoles explosive, he would have to rush in. He mentally reviewed his kit: he’d activate Destreza—which required two agonizingly slow warm-ups and relied on modules that dealt decent damage but couldn’t break enemy shields—to trade blows with this three-man raid boss squad. Then, he’d rely on his Lord Guard archetype’s second talent—the one born from left-and-right brain conflict that provided out-of-combat health regeneration and long-range anti-air capabilities—to desperately heal himself!

Could he win? He would win!

Winning the argument in the community forums counted as a victory too!

Just kidding. Fortunately, you didn’t actually plan to pick a fight with such hyper-realistic cosplayers. Instead, your mind was racing, frantically recalling the highest etiquette of the 2D otaku world. You needed to make sure you didn’t accidentally terrify these otherworldly cosplayers.

You reached into your pocket, bypassed the first two items, and pulled out a pristine Rhodes Island employee badge.

Perfect. The ‘Freebie’ peace offering was ready.

The next critical question was whether a ‘Martial Approach’or a’Literary Approach’ would convey more respect.

The Martial Approach involved rushing up, slinging an arm around their shoulder, and loudly praising them: “Wow, bro, you look so fucking cool! Can you strike a pose for a photo with me?” The advantage was its sheer sincerity and convenience. The disadvantage was that you couldn’t make too many specific pose demands, it was overly familiar, and if you pulled off the helmet only to find out the cosplayer was actually a woman, you’d instantly be branded a total creep.

The Literary Approach involved rushing up, offering the Rhodes Island employee badge with both hands bowed, and saying: “Ahhh, Teacher, your portrayal is so incredibly accurate! May I ask if I can ‘collect stamps’ with you? Teacher, this is my terminal ID, I can send the high-res photos back to you!” The advantage was a rock-solid social floor that guaranteed you wouldn’t offend anyone. The disadvantage was… holy shit, you absolutely could not bring yourself to say those words out loud! The disadvantage was that everything except the advantages was a massive disadvantage!

Why did you still have to agonize over trivial social interactions after becoming an otherworldly war criminal?! You lifelong, introverted, socially awkward otaku!

You and Thorns successfully cornered the bridge—ah, wait, cornered the targets—in the backstage hallway. But you still hadn’t finalized your photo-request strategy.

As everyone knows, when the person you desperately want to talk to is standing right in front of you and you haven’t prepared a conversation starter, it is physically impossible to smile naturally. And as everyone in Rhodes Island also knows, the Doctor usually maintains a pleasant smile… because when he stops smiling, he looks absolutely terrifying.

Imagine, for a moment, that you were a weak, helpless Sarkaz mercenary. You were nothing special, just a bit larger and slightly harder to kill on the battlefield than the average grunt, usually spending your downtime planting potatoes in the desolate outskirts of Kazdel.

Recently, you heard a rumor that the Ghost of Babel—the demonic tactician who used to beat your squads into bloody rice cakes—had lost his memory. So, for the future of all Sarkaz, you plucked up your courage to take advantage of his amnesia. Everyone guaranteed you that he was a changed man. And when you saw him on stage earlier, jumping around with a sunny, harmless smile, he indeed looked different. You had let out a long sigh of relief, planning to casually find him after the show.

Then, you pulled open the door to the performers’ private backstage passage.

The Ghost of the past stood there. His arms were crossed, his posture relaxed but completely blocking your only path forward. That sunny, harmless smile from moments ago was entirely gone. Half of his face was tightly obscured by his high collar, leaving only a pair of cold, dead grey eyes staring straight through your soul. The narrow hallway was instantly plunged into a suffocating, deathly silence.

Nietzlei: (ಥ⌣ಥ)…

Eek. Can I apply for an early retirement settlement?

The tall mercenary slammed the brakes on his boots. Theresis and the Shapeshifter Cluster walking right behind him also had to execute an emergency stop to avoid a three-man pileup, shifting awkwardly from a single-file line into a tense, parallel defensive formation.

They’re all here! The whole squad is here! And it’s so incredibly accurate!

You were screaming with excitement internally and desperately wanted to stare at their armor details, but gawking directly wasn’t very polite. You could only hurriedly lift your eyes for a quick, sweeping peek before immediately lowering your gaze back to the floor.

Thus, the three Sarkaz elites watched in cold-sweat nervousness as the white-haired youth blocking their path gave them a single, chillingly dismissive sweep of his eyes, then calmly lowered his gaze, his dark thoughts entirely unreadable.

Since the Ghost didn’t make a move, the three of them were paralyzed. If they pretended to ignore him and just walked past, it would be a tragically stupid way to lose their lives tonight due to a sudden, ‘accidental’ acute onset of Oripathy!

So accurate! Even when encountering an uninvited backstage audience member like you, they actually cooperated by assuming flawless combat-ready stances without breaking character or laughing. Truly professional!

The Old Doctor’s Gaze of Approval.JPG

The more accurate their cosplay was, the more excited you became. The more excited you were, the more nervous you got about messing up the interaction. The more nervous you got, the less you could smile. The less you smiled, the more terrified they became. The more terrified they were, the more guarded and lethal their movements became. And the more guarded their movements… the more accurate the cosplay appeared!

Therefore, the more accurate the cosplay, the more accurate the cosplay.

A round of applause for the flawless logic!

Thorns held his sword loosely in one hand. Seeing that you weren’t making a move, he quietly took up a guard position at the rear, ready to rush in with lethal support at a moment’s notice. Aya, possessing a remarkably strong awareness of her role as emergency rations, didn’t move a single inch, trying her absolute best to blend into the wallpaper and be ignored by everyone present. For a long, agonizing moment, the six people in the hallway stood as silent as stone statues.

Theresis:…

Drawing upon his vast experience of handling deadly political bluffs, ‘Teacher Theresis’ finally reacted. He furrowed his brow, his deep voice breaking the heavy silence. “Doctor, between us… there’s no need to be so serious, is there?”

“You’ve frightened us.”

Holy shit, he even sounds exactly like Teacher Theresis! Your heart fluttered with pure fanboy excitement, but you quickly forced yourself to calm down. If they were playing along with the lore, then this was going to be easy…

“Is that so? Then what exactly is the relationship between us? Collaborators who parted ways peacefully, or a mutual betrayal that ultimately came to nothing?”

The youth who had been leaning silently against the wall finally spoke. His slightly raspy, measured voice echoed down the dead hallway. When he deliberately emphasized the word betrayal, his tone even rose slightly, carrying a faint, dangerous hint of excitement.

“I haven’t even found any photos related to you in my archived records. Or perhaps… we need to take one right now to make up for it?”

As expected! Theresis’s mind raced, instantly connecting the dots. Kal’tsit and the Doctor were not of one mind—he had suspected as much! The cryptic suggestion to ‘make up for a photo’—didn’t that symbolize re-establishing their old, undocumented cooperation?! The Doctor was directly hinting to him that the foundation for their previous collaborative stance still existed!

But why? Was it because the Doctor hadn’t achieved his true, hidden goals during the Babel incident back then either? It had to be. Otherwise, the great tactician wouldn’t have ended up sealed inside the Sarcophagus in such a sorry state, stripped of his memories. Theresis always knew that wretched woman Kal’tsit was just pretending to be a harmless, tame feline back then, while secretly hoarding her own trump cards!

The basis of cooperation between us… Does the Doctor want to completely break away from the sinking ship that is Rhodes Island? To ‘make up’a new picture rather than’restore’ an old one—what kind of internal crisis was forcing the Ghost to abandon his current faction?

Teacher Theresis’s political brain worked at absolute maximum capacity, and the more he analyzed the Doctor’s cryptic words, the more terrifyingly reasonable it all seemed.

Meanwhile, you were cheering internally: Hooray! I don’t care what lore he’s cooking up in his head, I’m finally getting my stamp!

[Rhodes’s Note: “Collect stamps” is a common otaku/convention slang term referring to the act of going around a convention floor and taking photos with various specific cosplayers, treating the photos like collectible stamps in a passport.]

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent!