About the time I was picked up and adopted by Tallulah

Crack! !

Flashing sparks of electricity burst out in front of Kal'tsit, and Orson immediately manipulated Pause to pull Kal'tsit away from the generator.

There was a strange noise coming from inside the generator. At the same time, because of a short circuit in the generator line, the only reinforced door leading to the room behind the two of them suddenly closed again by itself, and the light tube providing the light source exploded with a loud bang.

In an instant, Orson and Kal'tsit were trapped in a secret room without any light source.

"..."

Orson looked at Kal'tsit. Although it was pitch black now, Kal'tsit could still feel Orson's slightly dazzling gaze.

"Even I make mistakes occasionally, like connecting the wrong line."

Kal'tsit sighed and admitted that her mistake had caused the generator to overload and the two of them to be locked in the room.

"What should we do now?"

"Wait for the engineering operators to come and fix it, then enjoy Klothir's mocking expression."

Kal'tsit's tone remained calm, and then the sound of a lynx sitting on the ground was heard.

"Dr. Kel'tsit, you're... too tense. I haven't been here long, but even so, I've seen you inject yourself with drugs to stay awake at least three times."

Orson sometimes saw Kal'tsit injecting herself with medicine. Later, when Orson went to ask the medical department, he found out that the medicine she injected was not to suppress the infection of mineral sickness, but simply to keep her consciousness awake.

"I need to stay awake, and I understand my body's condition."

"Do you really understand, Dr. Kelsey? Or are you just stubbornly trying to take everything on yourself?"

Orson was a little worried about Kal'tsit's condition. Her current "melody" was somewhat similar to when he first met Tallulah.

That tense and shaky feeling, that despair of being able to collapse at any moment but having to keep going.

"…Because I have no choice, Orson. Let's leave it at that. The engineering team will be here any minute."

Kal'tsit unilaterally ended the conversation, and Orson didn't even get to ask her what she meant by "I don't know what Rhodes Island is pursuing."

25 minutes later--

"Ha...ha...I want to confirm, Dr. Kel'tsit, is the engineering team really going to arrive 'at any moment'?"

Orson asked while wiping the sweat off his face. At this time, the two were still trapped in the closed power room. The only problem was that the excess heat from the surrounding generators continued to dissipate, making the temperature in the room hotter and hotter.

"... Let's try to solve the problem ourselves first."

Kal'tsit got up from the ground and walked to the side of the generator, trying to find a way to force open the door, but because there was no light around, she couldn't see what was going on inside the generator at all.

"Orson, do you have anything that can illuminate?"

Kal'tsit took off her soaked coat and asked Orson.

"Let me look... No, I only have beef jerky to lure Red. By the way, Dr. Kelsey, your Mon3tr is green. Does it have a lighting effect?"

"I'll try—come out, Mon3tr"

An indescribable monster emerged from behind Kal'tsit, but the surroundings were still pitch black. The only change was that Orson suddenly let out a short, mournful cry in the darkness, as if he had been eaten by something.

It seems that mon3tr is not very good either.

Later, Orson also summoned the Rest, but because the door was surrounded by thick metal plates, even the Rest could not pry it open.

After another 20 minutes, the temperature in the secret room had reached over 70 degrees. It should be noted that the previous highest record of Orson was 80 degrees and it was almost cooked in 3 minutes.

"I suspect... the engineering operators are all slacking off, Doctor Kal'tsit..."

Orson stuck out his tongue and complained quietly, but this time Kal'tsit's subtle complaint did not appear.

"…Doctor Kelsey?"

Orson realized something was wrong. He stood up from the ground and the hot air instantly hit his face, but he didn't care and immediately moved to Kal'tsit's side.

“Kal’tsit…!”

Kal'tsit, who seemed fine before, was now in a semi-comatose state. Her body was soaked, her eyes were slightly closed, her gas mask had been thrown aside, and her body was rising and falling gently.

It was obvious that what Kal'tsit said before was a lie. Her body had been in a state of overload, so she had no extra energy to resist the erosion of the high temperature.

"Why do I always meet this kind of guy who likes to show off..."

Orson sighed, then gritted his teeth and took off all the remaining clothes on Kal'tsit.

Because it was dark all around, Orson couldn't see the lynx's thin body hidden under the medical attire.

But because of the darkness, Orson could only stretch out his hands and caress the other person slowly and carefully in order to take off his clothes.

——That’s not enough… I have to lower the temperature around her.

Orson was thinking about what to do. At this time, Kal'tsit whispered something like a dream.

"Doctor... why... me? Why... I'm just a walking corpse... How long can I lead Rhodes Island forward...? You are clearly her choice... You are clearly... the leader of Rhodes Island..."

Whispers kept coming out of Kal'tsit's mouth. The lynx kept murmuring as if it had been abandoned.

Dr. Kelsey is afraid? No, now is not the time to think about that—

"pause"

Orson called out the Rest, commanding it to gently wrap around Kal'tsit.

Of course, this is not a plot twist.

A rest can accept its own tuning, can make it hard and hot, and likewise, can make it icy cold.

Orson controlled the rest that was close to Kal'tsit to lower the temperature, so as to prevent Kal'tsit from continuing to sweat and become dehydrated.

This trick was very effective, and the temperature around Kal'tsit immediately dropped, but the only problem was -

"Well……!"

A feeling of dizziness spread from Orson's head. Continuously manipulating the pause in such an environment was a huge burden on his brain.

——Looks like we have to try some traditional arts...

Ten minutes later, Kal'tsit opened her eyes. Although the surroundings were still blocked, the temperature had obviously returned to normal.

"Dr. Kel'tsit? You're finally awake. It seems the generator has burned out completely. It's finally not releasing heat anymore."

After noticing that Kal'tsit had regained consciousness, Orson breathed a sigh of relief and also let go of his white music score.

Just like the time when he and Tallulah were chased by the inner guards and later shot in the abdomen, Orson had been holding his soul music score, using the intense pain to prevent himself from fainting.

"Orson, did I just... say something?"

Kal'tsit asked Orson while wondering when she was stripped naked.

"Um...do you expect me to hear it or not?"

"Just tell me the truth."

"Dr. Kelsey, you said something, roughly the content was—"

"I am the one who is confused about the Doctor's choice, right?"

Kal'tsit sighed. The young man had seen her most embarrassed and vulnerable side. At this point, there was no point in hiding it any longer.

Lynx put on the wet clothes on the ground. Although she knew that the boy couldn't see anything, it still felt a little weird to be naked.

"Orson, do you know why the doctor entered the sarcophagus?"

"Doctor Kal'tsit, you said before that she was seriously injured because of a leak of intelligence and was subsequently hunted down, right?"

Orson still remembered that Kal'tsit had mentioned this before.

"That was the reason, and the reason she was fatally wounded, Doctor—was to protect me."

After a brief silence, Kal'tsit spoke softly. Even she was a little surprised that she would actually tell Orson.

Telling about the pain of the past that you had decided to take to the grave.

110. The favorability of the green cat head has increased

"I once followed a woman, the princess of the Sarkaz."

In the enclosed main power room, Kal'tsit leaned on the ground, weakly recounting the past that she had never told anyone.

"She's different from the other Sarkaz. That princess—she has a dream that sounds unattainable, as mad as Ikaros: [to save the people of this land from suffering]."

"It sounds crazy and unrealistic, doesn't it? But I was truly drawn to her radiance. I joined the princess's army and worked hard to achieve that dream. Looking back now, I don't even understand why I, who prided myself on being rational and realistic, would follow her."

Kal'tsit smiled bitterly in the darkness. She knew very well that she was far from being as cold and objective as others saw her to be.

"That princess possessed a wondrous charisma. Many people yearned for the future she described and joined her. Gradually, we acquired our own name—Babel."

"And the Doctor, she is one of the members of the Tower of Babel. The original Doctor wasn't as ruthless as she later became. She had excellent tactical planning skills, but she would also try her best to think of ways to keep everyone alive. But as time went on, the enemies encountered by the Tower of Babel increased, and the war we faced became more and more severe."

"Is your enemy Ursus?" Orson asked. He had no impression of the experience Kal'tsit described in the original work. In other words, this was Kal'tsit's most hidden past.

"The Regent of Kazdel, the Scourge, the Radicals, Ursus—if you set your goal to [save the world], the number of enemies you will encounter will be far greater than you imagine."

Kelsey sighed.

"As the enemy forces grew, the doctor's previous tactics became increasingly unworkable. Unable to keep everyone alive, sacrifices and deaths became increasingly frequent. For the sake of that unrealistic dream, the doctor had no choice but to sacrifice the very operators who had smiled at her only yesterday. Furthermore, she became increasingly adept at this act of sacrifice."

"Until a certain action later on, she—I don't like to use unconfirmed speculation, but all signs indicate that the doctor planned and led an operation with the goal of killing the princess."

Speaking of this, Kal'tsit frowned unconsciously. Even though so much time had passed, she still couldn't forget the cruel facts that happened that day.

"With the death of the princess, the Tower of Babel collapsed. The doctor led us to establish the present-day Rhodes Island on the corpse of the Tower of Babel. And after the establishment of Rhodes Island, the doctor also changed completely. She no longer communicated with anyone, and regarded everyone as a pawn to be used and discarded - including herself."

"Although most of our former enemies shifted their focus with the destruction of the Tower of Babel, some organizations still kept their eyes on Rhodes Island. During one operation, the doctor's presence was exposed, and we were hunted by the regular army. My entire team was wiped out, and even my mon3tr was on the verge of collapse. At that time, I was ready to be sacrificed as her pawn, but... she pushed me into a dead end in the ruins and rushed out herself, without any weapons, without any strategies or traps, simply using me, who had no fighting ability, as bait."

Kal'tsit stared at the empty darkness around her. The crossbows flying around her, the screams of the wounded operators, and the "look" of the doctor when he hid himself at the end were still extremely vivid, as if they happened just yesterday.

"In the end, the doctor was seriously injured and had to be put into a sarcophagus to maintain his life. And I became the executor of Rhodes Island. I couldn't understand her behavior. Although I worked hard to train Amiya and maintain Rhodes Island, I knew that I was not suitable to lead them."

Kal'tsit got up from the ground and moved weakly and staggeringly towards Orson.

"I've always been a reckless person chasing after the light... The princess can bring hope and faith to others, the doctor can bring victory and survival to others, but... I, alone, don't know what I can offer these operators. A hopeless future? Aimless wandering? I—I don't even know how Rhodes Island should move forward now."

Kal'tsit fell down next to Orson, who barely detected Kal'tsit's position using frequency reflection and summoned Rest to gently drag the fallen Lynx.

"When I saw you, Orson, I thought she had 'returned.' I was filled with both anger and joy. Angry at 'her' decision to sacrifice herself, happy that I no longer had to bear the burden of Rhodes Island's bleak future. But... you are not her. She is truly gone, and I ultimately failed to understand her past and her obsessions. I couldn't even glimpse her purest self before countless battles tainted her will."

Kal'tsit leaned lightly on Orson's back. After the previous high temperature, Kal'tsit was trembling slightly. This lynx was indeed unexpectedly fragile, just as the doctor said.

"I don't understand, Orson—why she sacrificed herself to leave me behind? I've tried to analyze it, but no matter how I assume, I shouldn't have survived."

"Perhaps...it's because you, Doctor Kel'tsit, have an ability that the Doctor doesn't have—the ability to heal others."

"—"

Orson responded in a low voice, and this answer made Kal'tsit stunned for a moment.

"The doctor can only bring about the death of the operators around her, but you, Doctor Kal'tsit, are different—you can bring life to Rhodes Island and the world. Perhaps the doctor believes that you, Doctor Kal'tsit, are the key to saving the world."

"That doesn't make sense. My abilities are nowhere near comparable to—"

"You saved my life, Dr. Kelsey."

Orson interrupted Kelsey.

"My Ore Disease, Frost Star's, Patriot's, Rosemary's, Amiya's—if you didn't exist here, then these people might not be here right now."

"Perhaps the doctor hasn't considered this too much. You can save lives, your presence can create different possibilities, while the doctor can only prevent the worst-case scenario. If you think about it this way, then isn't the answer obvious? The doctor taught Rhodes Island to you not because of your leadership, Dr. Kal'tsit, but because under your leadership, Rhodes Island can create countless possibilities."

“…What a flawed theory.”

“But it’s still a theory, isn’t it?”

Orson asked with a smile, while Kal'tsit sighed softly.

—My existence can help save more people, and therefore make it more likely that Rhodes Island will survive. —Do you really think so, Doctor?

The doctor was no longer able to respond, and Kal'tsit didn't think the doctor would tell her what he really thought.

"Dr. Kelsey, Orson!!"

Suddenly, Amiya's anxious voice was heard from outside the door, and then the tightly closed door suddenly made a twisted metallic sound as if it was being forced open.

“Crunch, crunch, crunch—BOOM!!”

The heavy closed security door was forcibly pulled open by a force, and light shone in from outside, shining in the panicked looks of Rosemary and Amiya who were violently tearing the door apart.

"Amiya? Why are you—"

"Doctor Kal'tsit! I'm so glad you're okay...!"