Chapter 162: Theresis Skillfully Executes a Chain Stratagem, Sugar Cat Accidentally Steps onto the Guillotine...?

I shoved the Rhodes Island insignia directly into Theresis’s calloused palm, patiently guiding his rigid frame. “Lower your head. Look at this thing like it is a live explosive. Now, strike a pose like you are winding up for a desperate, all-or-nothing assault.”

Theresis, surprisingly compliant, dipped his chin and arched his broad back. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the triangular badge, treating the small piece of metal as if it were a catastrophic Originium bomb on the verge of detonation.

‘He understood. He completely understood!’Theresis thought to himself.’To the Doctor, Rhodes Island was no longer a sanctuary; it was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. If they were going to sever ties with Rhodes Island, they had to commit entirely. A preemptive strike, a raid to extract the Doctor before the inevitable internal conflict swallowed them all!”Wow, he is actually doing it?’ I marveled internally. As expected of a Sarkaz warlord who had probably just finished cleaving someone in half; his posture naturally radiated an oppressive, iron-and-blood killing intent. Amazed by the sheer quality of the cosplay, I snapped two quick photos with my terminal before immediately adjusting his stance for the next shot.

“Yes, yes, perfect! Now, what about the backpack? Can we use the jetpack? Give me a pose where you are using the thrusters to dash forward, blade drawn in one hand!”

‘Is the Doctor hinting that a forced entry into Rhodes Island requires an aerial assault?’Theresis analyzed.’Does he already know about the Sarkaz Airship Project? Or are the ground defenses of the landship so heavily fortified with lethal ambushes that a frontal assault is suicide?'”Excellent,” I praised, nodding in satisfaction. “Now, do we have a vase anywhere? Strike a pose like you have just pulled a Big Red from the gacha and you are losing your absolute mind with excitement!”‘What does vase mean?’Theresis wondered, his mind racing.’Fragile goods? And Big Red… does that refer to blood? Is the Doctor implying that Rhodes Island is secretly conducting horrific human experiments, hoarding a batch of fragile, highly valuable test subjects? No wonder they act with such unbearable arrogance…’

Overwhelmed by the sheer weight of these grim revelations, Theresis slumped against the corner of the room in utter despair. He slowly slid down the wall into a crouch, burying his weathered face in both hands.

He just could not keep fabricating these terrifying interpretations anymore.

He felt like the pitiful, honest protagonist in some tragic NTR novel. The once cold, aloof Regent of Kazdel had been reduced to a comical jester, forced to strike bizarre poses and imitate others just to serve as a substitute. Yet, even now, he was desperately self-medicating, hypnotizing himself with a single, fragile thought. ‘The Doctor must have some deep, overarching strategy. Isn’t he here to find me? He must still have a place for me in his heart.’Should they not share a bond forged in blood and fire, entrusting their very lives to one another, a connection so deep that even amnesia could not erase it? Why did the Doctor wake up with absolutely no memory of him, yet immediately start reminiscing over random objects and staring at these strange clothes?’Just who the hell is this Willdragon anyway?!’

“Ahem…” I shifted my gaze, suddenly feeling a sharp twinge of awkwardness. Okay, maybe I had taken the gamer-brained playfulness a step too far. I genuinely had not expected my image in Theresis’s mind to be this overwhelmingly serious. Did I just shatter his worldview?

Refusing to give up the ghost, I probed cautiously, “Was I… a very silent figure in the past?”

Theresis slowly shook his head, lowering his hands. His next words made my chest loosen with relief. “You used to be very silent, yes… but later, you changed.”

‘I knew it!’I cheered internally.’Then he definitely understands my abstract, chaotic nature!’

He must understand my hobby of acting like a complete lunatic from time to time. There was nothing to worry about.

“For example,” Theresis continued, his voice heavy with dark memories, “in the later, bloodiest stages of our war, you would suddenly burst into manic laughter while staring out over a battlefield carpeted in corpses. You would turn to me, eyes wide, and ask if I believed in a utopia where discrimination and Oripathy did not exist. And then… you would ask me why people always tried to stop you from taking us there.”

He looked up, his gaze haunted. “You laughed so hard, so terrifyingly, that not a single one of us dared to step within ten paces of you.”

‘Is this freaking depression mutating into bipolar disorder?!’I screamed in my head.’Is this the kind of cheerful you meant?!’

Theresis nodded slowly, his face etched with genuine concern. “So, when I see you smiling now, I feel… subconsciously terrified.”

The effect was instantaneous. One second I was ready to cackle, and the next, my facial muscles locked into a deadpan, stony glare.

Well, it was not like I was actually that happy anyway.

Theresis’s expression remained grave, but I noticed his rigid stance relax ever so slightly. It was not obvious, but the suffocating psychological pressure radiating from him had clearly lessened.

Me: “…”

He had not said it out loud, but my own internal analysis was infinitely more hurtful.

He was the first little animal I had met who, upon seeing me pull a long, menacing face, did not tense up in fear but actually relaxed! Was this the unique perk of being a fellow war criminal?

Maybe a serious face really was the optimal buff for discussing serious business. My brain, which had been flying off the rails for dozens of chapters, finally snapped back to reality for a brief moment.

“Do you trust these two people you brought with you?” I asked, my voice dropping an octave into that cold, calculating register.

The subtext was clear. Let us talk strategy.

Theresis immediately caught the shift in tone. His expression hardened into the regal mask of the Regent as he nodded, gesturing to his companions. “I trust the Nachzehrer King. As for the Shapeshifter… I do not trust Him, but you once did.”

‘I trusted the Shapeshifter?’I blinked, maintaining my stoic facade while my mind reeled.’That is a bit hard to swallow.’

Beside him, the figure wearing the Medic Operator’s uniform suddenly began to distort. The face melted and rapidly reconfigured like warm wax, shifting back into that familiar, unsettling form with flowing green hair. The Shapeshifter offered a polite, almost amused smile, dipping His head in a graceful nod.

“Doctor, it has been a long time,” He murmured, His voice smooth and layered. “Have you finally found the meaning of life?”

‘Is the answer to that not just to go to the docks and get some fries?’ I quipped internally, fighting the urge to meme.

Knowing better than to trigger Theresis’s trauma again, I kept my lips pressed in a flat, emotionless line. I simply shook my head with chilling indifference. “I do not believe I would ever discuss such a trivial problem with anyone.”

To my surprise, the Shapeshifter’s eyes widened slightly. A flicker of genuine delight crossed His shifting features. “This… should I offer my congratulations?”

‘Congratulations for what? For my brain damage?’ The surprise vanished as quickly as it appeared. If I still had my naive mindset from earlier, I might have assumed His smile was mocking my amnesia. But for some reason, my gamer intuition told me otherwise. It was not malice. It was just different.

Honestly, if the atmosphere were not so suffocatingly tense, He looked like He wanted to drag me to a bar and buy me a drink.

Doubts swirled in my mind, but if the great Regent Theresis did not know the context, I certainly was not going to expose my ignorance. At worst, I would just kidnap a Shapeshifter later and interrogate Him directly.

Our positions were different now. If it came down to it, I would not hesitate to throw Him under the bus right alongside Theresa and Priestess.

Theresis, sensing the unspoken tension, wisely chose not to pry into the cryptic exchange. He smoothly steered the conversation back to the core issue.

“Returning to this land,” Theresis began, his voice echoing with the weight of Kazdel’s history, “and seeing that the conflicts remain unchanged, that discrimination has never been eradicated, yet the immediate flames of war have temporarily ceased… how do you feel?”

He paused, his piercing gaze locking onto mine. “Relief? Or hatred?”

This was the deciding factor. The answer would determine if our fragile cooperation could continue.

Standing silently in the periphery, Thorns instantly grasped the gravity of the exchange. His honed combat discipline screamed at him to record this monumental conversation for Rhodes Island.

Without a second thought, Thorns reached into his pocket and ruthlessly crushed his communication device. The faint crack of breaking electronics was swallowed by the heavy silence.

He had already made his choice. Whether by coercion or voluntary alignment, he was standing with the Doctor. The rigid rules of Rhodes Island had to yield to his current allegiance, unless, of course, he deemed the man before him unworthy of following.

I met Theresis’s gaze evenly and shook my head. “Forcing me to pick a side before I have even cleared the fog from the board? Then I am afraid I will have to disappoint you.”

“There is a traitor among those you trust the most,” Theresis interrupted, unhesitatingly dropping a tactical bombshell into the conversation. “Someone at least at the Beast Lord level of authority. We parted ways exactly three days before you entered the Sarcophagus. According to your own calculations and the preparations you had made at the time, there was absolutely zero margin for failure.”

‘The people… I trust the most?’

My mind raced through the roster. Kal’tsit? Amiya? The elite Operators of the old Babel? Or my current Tier 0 meta squad?

At that precise moment, an identical, horrifying thought struck both me and Theresis simultaneously.

‘Holy crap, do not tell me Kal’tsit actually played the sweet, loyal companion just to brutally backstab me in the end!’

Pushing past the terrifying implications of a rogue lynx, Theresis pressed on. “At the exact time of your accident, the original Originium in my possession…”

“Did it break?” I asked, my tone perfectly level despite the internal panic. It made logical sense; after all, it was glaringly obvious that Priestess and Theresa had clashed at the final moment. It was only natural that some of the Originium’s core permissions had been fractured or lost in the ensuing power struggle.

“You are correct,” Theresis confirmed grimly. “Do you remember when you once compressed Ananna? By all rights, it should only be about the size of a cannonball right now.”

“So… it expanded? It got bigger?”

“No.” Theresis’s eyes darkened. “It split. That single sphere… multiplied into an entire box.”

[Rhodes’s Note: “Big Red” refers to the red bag animation in Arknights’ gacha system, indicating a top-tier 6-star Operator pull. “Vase” is Chinese gaming slang for a character who is beautiful but useless in combat. “Go to the docks and get some fries” is a classic internet meme originating from a seagull’s supposed answer to the meaning of life.]

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

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