Rhodes Island does not exist.

The sturdiness of these bio-tanks exceeded the doctor's expectations.

This also exceeded the doctor's pain tolerance level in a short period of time, causing him to groan.

However, for that half-fish, this was its only remaining attack.

Because the moment its headbutt sent the Doctor flying, Skadi slashed down with her greatsword.

This time, it's a vertical cut from top to bottom.

Amidst the fierce sword light, Skadi cleaved the fishbone in two along the spine, leaving it sprawled on the ground.

It's completely dead now.

Unless you put it back into the terrarium, it's basically finished.

"I really don't know how it grew so big in these tanks."

After confirming that the creature in front of her would not repeat itself, Skadi slowly uttered a complaint.

However, the doctor's condition did not seem to be very good.

"Hey, you're not going to die like this, are you?"

Skadi's tone carried a faint hint of concern, but at least there was some.

Seeing that the Doctor did not respond, she placed the greatsword in her hand diagonally beside her feet, then slowly squatted down in front of the Doctor, gazing at the man whose eyes were covered by a hood.

"Doctor, say something?" she asked again.

This time, the doctor responded.

"I seem……"

The voice was weak.

Even the doctor himself found it unbelievable.

The force of the fish head hitting me just now wasn't that great, so why did it feel like I couldn't exert any force?

"What do you look like?" Skadi asked, puzzled. "Hey, don't try to scare me with your mysterious act. If you suddenly become like one of those weirdos, I'll just draw my sword and kill you."

She's capable of doing something like that.

Of course she can do it.

In fact, just a short while ago, she almost dismembered the doctor with a single sword strike.

But the doctor clearly didn't have the luxury of bringing the matter up again. He could only shake his head, then reach into his coat pocket and weakly pull out a handful of something.

"Crack."

Shards of glass, mixed with amber liquid, splattered on the ground, along with blood seeping from the doctor's cut hand.

Now Skadi understands.

The violent impact of the animated fish head just now hit the spot where the doctor placed the glass tube, shattering it.

Moreover, judging from the Doctor's appearance, it's likely that it wasn't just smashed. Rather, after the impact, the shattered tube fragments were embedded directly into the Doctor's flesh through his clothing.

"I feel a little dizzy right now."

He let his limp hands fall limply to his sides, letting them lie on the floor tiles covered with a pool of blood and fragments of internal organs, while his breathing became rapid.

Did the shattered tube puncture the doctor's aorta or a vital organ, causing him to lose too much blood?

No, that's clearly unlikely.

But no matter how impossible it may seem, Skadi still needs to check the severity of the wound.

"Lean against this spot and sit still."

She remained crouched, moving closer to the doctor.

The doctor responded with silence.

After all, he can't move even if he wanted to now.

"laugh--"

Her seemingly slender, pale hands channeled kinetic energy into the opposite vector, tearing the doctor's coat open along the center zipper.

"Can't you... zip it up?"

With a listless tone, the professor uttered a complaint.

“I only care about efficiency; if your clothes get ruined, that’s your problem,” Skadi replied coldly.

The doctor then fell silent again.

He had nothing more to say.

But in Skadi's eyes, the situation had become somewhat unclear.

Because the doctor only suffered minor injuries.

On his pale body, which was comparable to his own, only a few tiny shards of glass were embedded in his flesh, and the amount of bleeding was minimal.

For a fleeting moment, Skadi even wondered if the mysterious man in front of her was faking it.

What made her abandon this hypothesis was some amber-colored liquid clinging to the skin near the doctor's wound.

—That was something that was originally contained in a glass tube, and that made her feel resistant to it.

She didn't know what it was.

However, she knew one thing—the Doctor's current predicament must be related to these liquids.

Undoubtedly, in this accident, the glass tube broke and cut the doctor's skin, directly causing the doctor to come into blood contact with the liquid inside the tube.

This might mean that the liquid is toxic, and that the doctor was poisoned by it.

Is this a deadly toxin?

Does a method exist to neutralize this toxin?

Why is it placed in this room?

Problems kept arising and lingering in Skadi's mind.

She is quite bad at thinking about the unknown; after all, she is better at using a sword than using her brain to solve problems.

But the problem we're facing now isn't something that can be solved with a sword.

Unless she wants the doctor to suffer a short, sharp pain rather than a long, drawn-out one, and to enjoy the peace of his afterlife sooner rather than later.

She even considered whether she could throw the doctor into those bio-tanks and use the bio-tank technology to help him detoxify.

Of course, that was until she realized the magnitude of the difference in size.

On the other hand, the Doctor faces many more serious problems than Skadi.

One of the things that bothers him most is not that he is now unable to use his strength, but that he is starting to lose sight of Skadi.

To be more specific, Skadi's figure, form, voice... even the scent of the sea breeze emanating from her was slowly fading from his memory.

In the world before his eyes, the female hunter with long white hair and blood-red eyes appeared and disappeared like a slideshow filled with many blank pages.

This is the strangest thing—because only she disappeared, and everything else was normal.

"Skadi?"

He tried to call out, but the woman could no longer hear him.

She is appearing less and less frequently.

The number of blank pages haphazardly crammed into the slides grew exponentially, to the point that he could only capture a few frames of her image within a second.

Skadi is disappearing.

Or is it possible that I am disappearing?

Perhaps it's not that I'm about to lose sight of Skadi, but rather that I'm about to become isolated from the world.

So that's how it is. I was poisoned to death by this unknown amber liquid.

It seems that this time, we'll see Specter again sooner than expected.

Skadi's image bursts like a soap bubble into water.

Chapter 16, Part 16: A Young Man Listens to the Rain in a Pavilion, Red Candles Dimly Light the Silk Curtains

The doctor woke up.

Before me was an unfamiliar ceiling—oh well, this kind of trope has been used far too many times, and using it again would seem rather cliché. It's better to come up with something different.

Then, the doctor woke up.

Before me was an unfamiliar ceiling.

And two people I don't know very well.

One of the older women, with a sour expression, had cat ears, while the younger woman, with a rather worried look, had rabbit ears.

Is this reasonable?

This is not reasonable.

"Doctor? You're awake?"

The girl with rabbit ears was the first to notice the doctor's condition and immediately spoke up in a cheerful tone.

The doctor figured she must be someone he knew well, otherwise she wouldn't have reacted so enthusiastically.

But what exactly is the situation right now?

He was just now...

What is Mingming doing?

The doctor tried to recall what happened before he fell into a coma, but could only see a blurry, chaotic scene.

It's like a fog gate.

Conversely, everything before his eyes began to gradually become clearer.

Unfamiliar memories were smeared with familiar scents and poured into his brain, which was in turmoil.

The cat-eared eldest sister is no longer the eldest sister, but has become Kal'tsit, a character with a real existence and real experiences.

The girl with rabbit ears was also given the name Amiya.

He recalled how many times he had angered Kal'tsit, and how many times he had stroked Amiya's forehead when she was down.

These memories, which I had no recollection of before, now arrogantly assert their dominance in my mind, leaving a strong imprint of familiarity on the doctor's mind and penetrating his skin.

Then he realized.

Ah, this is Rhodes Island.

It is the hospital where I work, the home of my soul.

Although he had no recollection of what had happened recently or the various details, the doctor was clear about his own identity and the origins of the people around him.

"Why am I lying here? What happened before?" he asked.

Of course, the question was directed at Amiya.

"Doctor, don't you remember what happened?" Amiya's face turned worried again. "We heard from a logistics operator that you were found unconscious in the warehouse on the tenth floor, so we moved you here."

"The medical staff said you collapsed from overwork... Honestly, Doctor, I know the situation is urgent, but you need to take care of yourself! You need to rest so you can work properly! Otherwise, Dr. Kal'tsit and I will be worried!"

The little rabbit spoke a little fast, and her words were full of gentle reproach and girlish coquettishness.

"So, I fainted while checking the inventory in the warehouse?" He tried to recall what happened before he lost consciousness, but he couldn't.

"Yes, Doctor, you said you were going to check if the warehouse supplies could keep up with the demand because you received too many wounded soldiers, so you went up there, but you didn't come back for a long time." Amiya pouted.

"Get some rest." Kal'tsit finally spoke up. "I'll temporarily take over some of the work on the wounded refugees, but once you've recovered, you'll still have to handle it yourself, since I have my own medical duties to perform."

"Thank you so much, it's kind of you to care about me like this." The Doctor forced a smile at Kal'tsit.

"No, it's just business. I'll be going now."

Kal'tsit left a message and turned to leave the ward.

She was always so cold.

In the doctor's memory, she probably really had never been kind to him.