I bent forward and cracked my back as I felt the rest of my body ache from sprinting around Pandora like a madman. My god, why does everyone run so damn fast here? I probably wouldn’t have caught most of them if they weren’t hampered by my skill’s passive and my night vision. I was starting to wish that Dr. Walter also converted some of my Charisma into Agility because I was woefully slow as the physician.

“Perhaps you should exercise more,” Molly said with a small shake of her translucent head, “You seem out of shape.”

“Ugh…” I muttered, “Look, I’m not used to chasing dozens of patients a day, and the hospital’s courtyard’s a lot smaller than this place.”

I looked over and saw that the two kids were still happily playing with the captured Aspirants. They were completely lost in their own world. I have no idea how they still had so much energy left in them, they had been moving around way more than I have tonight.

“Don’t compare yourself with those two,” Molly added when she saw my gaze, “They’re children and it’s the most fun both of them had in a long time, they’ll be hyper even when we return home.”

I agreed; I had no idea where kids get all their energy from.

“Anyway, we have a few useable bodies here,” the doll continued, “I think the first one’s still the most suitable.”

I glanced at the body of a middle-aged Aspirant. He had turned a strange shade of magenta ever since Molly’s curse hit him, and I was a little dubious about his condition even if he was physically fine.

“He’s purple,” I stated.

“It’ll wear off,” she explained, although she didn’t sound convinced, “He won’t stay that shade… probably. Look, you’re planning to dress him up after anyway, it’s fine.”

“Say,” I asked as another thought passed through me, “Do you think the invaders will notice you three helping me out?”

Molly chuckled, “You just thought of that now?”

I shrugged. To be fair, I was preoccupied with trying to find a way out of the hot mess the Overseer landed me in.

“But we are fine,” she continued, “We’re using the same method that the Director provided for you to escape the eyes of their monitoring system. Unless there are physical eyes on us right now, we are safe, and I’ll notice if someone’s spying on us.”

I thanked the doll.

“So are you planning to use the body or not, doctor?”

“Right, let’s do it.”

I took off the pendant on my neck and made a small incision on my thumb, dripping the blood onto the gem. The blue gemstone turned red almost immediately as it sucked in the liquid, even emitting a faint glow before turning back to normal. I’ll take that as a sign that it’s ready to use. Remembering what the Director’s letter told me, I also took out one of the paper charms and a lighter.

“So I just put it on him?” I asked.

“Yes,” Molly replied, “Then make sure you light the charm immediately.”

I nodded and did as I was told. I also undid my transformation quickly and used Noe to take off my guise. I just hoped that I could use the Absolute Luck Skill to put it back on the corpse afterward, although Noe did say that it could be done.

I was expecting an entrance similar to the one that the Director made when I first met her, but that wasn’t what happened. The corpse simply opened its eyes, disturbingly its eyes were pitch black, and started to get up, stumbling as it moved. I gave the Director some time to get used to the new body.

“It’s still purple,” I pointed.

“It doesn’t matter,” the doll muttered, “Just put the stupid skin suit on it.”

“Abaahg” the corpse slurred, “Gaveg meah aah mmoment.”

“Uh, hi Abigail,” I said, waving at the body, “Take your time, let me just get the body ready.”

And true to Noe’s words, I managed to suit up the corpse with apparent ease, the whole process only taking 2 Luck Charges. Once Noe was done, the once-purple corpse looked like the spitting image of my new form. Even the height was about right.

“Ugh,” the body complained, it was disconcerting hearing the Director’s feminine voice coming out of the body of a middle-aged man, “That was unpleasant. We must be really far away if just transferring to a body took that long.”

“I warned you that it would be rough,” Molly said.

“Yes yes, Molly, you did,” Abigail sighed, “Sometimes I swear you still treat me like a child.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The doll rolled her eyes, “Even your mother’s a child in my eyes, Abby.”

The Director blushed, which was a very horrible look with her current body.

“Anyway, hello again,” I waved before transforming once more into the form she was more familiar with, “You might want to change your voice, you can do that, right?”

“Hello to you too, Dr. Walter,” she replied, “I would hug you, but I think that wouldn’t be a pleasant experience for either of us.”

I nodded quickly.

“And yes, I can,” she continued, “Can I hear a sample of what I should sound like?”

Noe, change my voice to what I sounded like at the speech.

“Affirmative, my Host.”

“It sounds like this,” I started.

The Director nodded, “Good, please continue speaking, I’ll need a little time processing the intonations.”

I took that time to get the Director caught up on my current situation, omitting some of the more problematic information. The main point I told her was that I had managed to infiltrate a position of power in one of the invader’s side branches and that I had practically free reign over this area.

“How did you manage that?” the Director exclaimed, this time her voice sounded exactly like the samples I gave her.

“Luck,” I said truthfully, “And a lot of planning, but I can tell you all that later, we don’t have a lot of time.”

She agreed, “What do you need me to do here? Like I said, you have my full cooperation, Will.”

“I’ll need to be away from this location for a while,” I answered, “And I need you to stand in for me while I’m gone. Like I said, I’ve managed to infiltrate a position of power, but only locally. This place represents a tiny fraction of the invader’s might, but we can use this opportunity to learn more about our foes. I’ll explain my tasks here, and the rules that you need to follow.”

The Director nodded, it seemed like explaining everything in terms of rules and responsibilities worked best with the natives of the hospital. I think everything in their lives revolved around those facts.

“Alright,” she said, “Explain everything to the best of your ability. It’s not my first time working behind enemy lines, so you can trust me to take over.”

I went through all the relevant information about the Trials, what I had to do to prepare these patients for the future, and how she had full access to the resources of this place. It was helpful that all the staff had changed and no one knew me personally anymore, as long as the Director focused on the tasks that she needed to do and I regularly burned a few charms, no one should be the wiser that I wasn’t around.

Plus, I really did have no idea just what resources were available to me, nor did I know how to train Aspirants. I think the Director would have a lot more experience with things like that after running Hope’s Memorial for so long. She was perfect for the job!

“I see…” Abigail mumbled, “That’s quite the predicament that you’ve gotten yourself into, Will. I can see that you’re still chronically unable to get out of trouble, but I’ll help.”

“Can you maintain your activities here for that long?” I asked, I hadn’t even considered her situation, what if she had to go back to the hospital after a while?

Abigail just laughed, “It’s controlling one body, Will, even if it’s across a vast distance. I’m already controlling a multitude of proxy forms, do you really think one extra will strain me at all?”

Right… she was a god. That was a stupid worry for me.

“Ok, that’s dumb of me,” I admitted.

“You are cute when you’re flustered,” she giggled, “But you can trust me with this. I’ll invest more of my attention here just in case, and I see that you have my daughter and her friends as support as well.”

“Anyway,” I said, changing the subject, “Your duties shouldn’t take that long, you can use the rest of the time to look around the Site. Find any information that you think will be useful, but be careful. If you think your disguise will fail, let me know immediately through Molly, I’ll come back then.”

“That shouldn’t happen, your new role should be easy enough to implement without error,” she answered, “But you have my promise to do that if needed. Should I get started now?”

“Thank you,” I said, “And yes, start by familiarizing yourself with this place, you’ll be working here for the foreseeable future. No one should impede your progress either. I’ll go back and make a detailed report about all the information you’ll need to know.”

Abigail nodded, “You can hand that over to Molly, she’ll send it to me.”

“She can do that?” I asked, glancing over to the faint afterimage of the doll. How was she supposed to pick up some paper?

“I can,” the doll answered, “At least for small objects.”

I shrugged, I wasn’t going to argue about the logic behind that.

The Director and I chatted a little longer before we parted. Alice and Toby left shortly after while Molly made sure to clean up after their mess. She assured me that no one from the invader’s side would find out about their presence here tonight. I had precious little time to work with, especially if I wanted to maximize my chances against the Restus, so I didn’t detour around on my way back to the Regressor’s guild.

I spent the rest of the night writing down all the things that I could think of that would be relevant to the Director and gave the resulting manuscript to Molly. True to her words, she was able to take the bundle of paper in the same way that she was able to get rid of the corpses from earlier. Wonder how that ability worked.

There was one final thing to do before I could safely leave Pandora, and that was instructing my doppelganger.

Noe, help me contact the fake Walter.

“Understood.”

The clone appeared almost immediately, standing at attention.

“I am at your command, my Lord!” he said with his usual cheer, “What do you need of me?”

“I’ve studied up on the foe that the Aspirants must face in the near future,” I started, “And have come to the conclusion that I must spend the remaining time acting as an Arbiter. I don’t have time to play with the Aspirants now.”

His eyes widened, already anticipating what was to come.

I nodded, “Yes, that means that you are to assume the role of Walter for the time being, and you may have to do so for an extended period of time. Are you up for the task?”

He nodded, his head almost flailing off, “Yes my Lord Arbiter W! I shall not fail you! I will rewatch all of your files for the 15th time and make sure that your expectations are met- no, exceeded! You can count on me, sir!”

“Good,” I said, “You are to begin right away. Contact me through the Origin Matrix if you encounter any problems.”

“Yes sir!”

“You are dismissed.”

“Thank you sir!” and with that, he vanished again.

I sighed. It was still weird seeing the doppelganger retain his old cheer even with the absence of Q. But there was nothing I could do about that now.

After double-checking to make sure that I had finished all the prep work needed, I used some of the remaining time from my saved preview ticket and ripped a hole in reality to a location close to the Restus’ base. I canceled the skill quickly, conserving as much of the precious time left as possible, and got ready for what I had to do here.