The Doctor's Rebirth
Doctor.
The time has come. Begin ‘Terraforming’.
God abandoned life. Abandoned the world. What God desires is only the death of His creations. Yet there was little I could do. I was nothing more than a tool in the end.
The sword drawn at the end of the heavens’ forging. That was the human known as me.
Therefore, Survivor. I respected you.
“Doctor. I didn’t want to say this upon our first meeting, but it’s time for you to die.”
I envied you, who possessed a firm will of your own and tried to resist the world and its absurdities.
“...I’ll retreat for now, but next time, I’ll definitely kill you. So keep your neck clean and wait.”
I admired you, who, even amidst pain and hardship, did not bow your head and boldly faced the heavens.
Eliminate all remaining survivors. This world is a false world. Save all lives living false lives with a comfortable death. That is your duty, Doctor.
Therefore, I had to save you somehow. Because you were a perfect being designed never to save yourself.
But I failed. With a trivial failure like me, I could not save him who had assimilated so perfectly with the SV (Salvation Virus). Rather, what was saved was....
“This... world is.... false....”
“I know.”
“...What?”
Me.
He, who I thought knew nothing, actually knew the secrets of this world. He was aware of the truth that we, the world, had been abandoned by the creator.
Nevertheless, he tried to live. He tried to live to see the end of the world.
Why? Why on earth?
Why do you remain in this painful world and try to breathe until the very end? Why don’t you escape into death?
Curiosity arose. There were many things I wanted to ask, but the defeated are not given that right. The cruelty of reality always approaches straight on.
“You can eat it.”
“Kyuu!”
Crunch.
The body forged and burned by lead bullets and baptism of fire merges with the survivor’s body. Mutation occurs in the cell composition. I attempted to seize control, but it was impossible. My weak cells resisting his cells.... Yes, it seems appropriate to say the ‘rank’ is lower. A failure cannot defeat a success. Just as falsehood cannot overcome truth.
‘If only I had a little more time.’
If I had about 150 more years to research and develop the SV, perhaps I could have saved him.
But what can I do? I had already failed, and had over 98% of my bio-energy taken by the survivor. From the outside, I probably look like a small puddle of blood on the floor. To prevent evaporation, I keep repeating division, growth, and death, but this too has its limits. Even if it’s far away, if some lost infected entity passes by, that would be good. Because the survivor has slain almost all infected entities in the research complex. This is lower probability than being struck by lightning in a clear sky.
But no one knows how things in the world will turn out.
Or so it was. An anomaly occurred for me, who was accepting death and failure.
...?
My current self has lost my five senses, like a smartphone in power-saving mode. Then what is that? Not seen, not touched, not heard, but purely felt, what is that vast and immense will?
Is this God’s pity for a broken tool? Or perhaps.
Is it the trickery of a wicked demon impersonating God.
That. I will know if I confirm it with my own eyes.
For a realistic utilitarian, a second chance beyond death was all too sweet.
The Doctor grasped the rope that descended from the invisible sky. He displayed a will stronger than ever before. Like the one he had longed for, envied, and been jealous of. The strong will to survive, to not want to die yet.
Confirmed. The contract has been concluded.
O sole survivor of the ruined world. And then, there was light.
Swoosh!
The low-lying blood puddle soared high and soon took on a form. A pure white human skeleton and the muscle fibers and blood vessels quickly covering it. After some time passed. What stood atop the dark red puddle was a naked boy with bright yellow blonde hair.
“Haa... haa....”
The pure white chest rose and fell without rest. Transparent tears flowed endlessly from beneath the blue eyes characteristic of Westerners.
Was breathing and living such a joyful thing? The body rejoiced at the oxygen flowing through the arteries.
Sitting in the blood puddle. After breathing hard for a while, the ‘Doctor’ carefully placed his trembling legs, like a newborn foal, on the ground and stood up. Observing his body, made as small as possible to conserve bio-energy, from various angles.
‘The level of development is about fifteen, and the height is a bit taller than peers?’
This level of quality isn’t bad for a hastily woven body. Though some adaptation period seems needed due to the different sense of distance than usual, I’ll adapt quickly in a day or two.
The Doctor absorbed all the blood scattered on the floor back into his body and looked around. Sharp and twisted natural objects in red tones and black blood vessels pulsing on the walls as if human flesh had been crushed and stuck there. Ominous cries heard from all directions. It was a sinister landscape that made one think, if hell truly existed, wouldn’t it look like this?
“...I’ve fallen into a place whose meaning I don’t know.”
Above all. I remember up to the point where some unknown existence was talking about a contract, but no memories after that remain. What remains for him is merely the incomprehensible suggestion to kill, survive, and become stronger, and a blind hostility toward life.
“Kill, survive, become stronger, and your wish will be granted... huh.”
The unknown will spoke as if it were God itself.
“Have I come to another world.”
By another god?
“Khup.”
At the end of a life wielded as a tool, only the fate of falling back into being a tool awaited. His own situation was so ridiculous that laughter wouldn’t stop.
They say life is a comedy from afar and a tragedy up close? I want to leave a word that at least my, Steven’s, life was a comedy even when observed under a microscope.
Thud. Thud.
Drawn by the endless mad laughter, enormous predators that one couldn’t believe existed in reality approached. And the Doctor himself had been feeling this from earlier. Thanks to the hot yet cold energy felt in his chest at some point, an unprecedented power overflowed throughout his body.
Is it an arrangement given by the new god? But now, I would unhesitatingly declare this a mistake. Well, I’m grateful for being saved, but I can’t tolerate the audacity of trying to use me again.
“O Absolute One. Do you wish to wield the sword known as me once more to harm life?”
If you wish to do so, you shouldn’t have given me free will.
“With just this trivial suggestion, you try to control me?”
The murderous intent that had been suppressed while crushed under the rock of duty bursts forth. Hatred clearly rose above the half-open blue pupils.
—Krrrk...?
At this, the steps of the predators approaching the Doctor momentarily stopped. Additionally.
Swish swish swish!
Slash. Slash. Slash.
Their breaths as well.
Swoosh.
The Doctor’s arms, which had transformed into sharp whip-shaped biological weapons, returned to their original form.
Crunch.
Cutting open the chest of the giant corpse, soon a red maseok is placed in the Doctor’s small hand.
The Doctor’s blue eyes, gazing at it, mixed with red light and turned black.
“Become stronger and ‘grant wishes,’ was it?”
Yes, fine. Since there’s the grace of saving me, as you wish, I’ll kill everything in sight, survive, and become stronger. But I will achieve my wish with my own power.
For that, first.
“I’ll need to gather the pieces.”
I don’t know much about the survivor who is a special entity, but those infected with SV develop a partial hive consciousness. The moment salvation touches, they become individuals yet not individuals. That’s why a chain pursuit begins the moment one infected entity discovers you.
By the way.
“Hmm, a beast’s signal... Could it be that my will reached the ‘Rehabilitation Center’ underground? That means there’s a high possibility that over 100 entities have come over. This is good luck indeed.”
The Doctor is in charge of the ‘Mother Body’, the highest command authority among such partial hive consciousnesses. This is natural. Because he is the first infected of SV.
—Snap!
When small, pure white fingers met and made a short friction sound. A biological tissue mimicking a white lab coat was overlaid on the Doctor’s naked body.
With the red maseok in hand, pocketed in the lab coat, the Doctor spat out the skin tissue of the large grotesque creature he had been chewing and moved his shortened legs forward.
To reclaim the immortal legion to face the new world and new god.
This time, he decided to advance by his own will.
“Godslaying, godslaying huh....”
For a mere human. Truly, how ‘arrogant’.
“I like it.”
I shall support your aspiration (laugh).