My Patients Are All Mythical Monsters

0034 — Bento & Legends

Victor stood before the entrance of the convenience store, his breath misting in the acid-tinged air. The neon sign above him buzzed with a sound like angry hornets—Family Mart 2077. The light it cast was a violent, bruising purple that made his skin look dead and his veins look black.

He wasn't dead. Not yet. But the tremors in his hands suggested he was getting close.

"Stay here," Victor whispered, his voice rasping against a throat that felt like it had been scrubbed with steel wool. He looked down at Fenrir. The wolf—currently disguised as a scruffy, three-legged terrier mix—sat in a puddle of oily rainwater, looking miserable. "If you eat anyone, I'm deducting it from your kibble budget."

Fenrir let out a huff that vibrated through the wet pavement, a low frequency rumble that rattled the loose change in Victor's pocket. 'I smell processed meat. And despair. It smells... delicious.'

"It's called preservatives," Victor corrected, adjusting his collar. "Try to look pathetic. It helps with the begging."

He pushed the door open.

A chime rang out, not a bell, but a digital chirp that spiked through his skull like an icepick. Welcome! A holographic anime girl flickered into existence by the door, bowing so low her head clipped through the linoleum floor. Fresh Bento! 50% Off! Don't Let Your Dreams Be Dreams!

Victor winced, shielding his eyes. The interior was brighter than the sun, a sterile, white-tiled cathedral of consumerism. The air conditioning hit him instantly, cold and smelling of ozone and floor cleaner. It was too much. The light, the noise, the smell—it all crashed into his senses at once, a synesthetic overload that tasted like copper and ash.

He stumbled, grabbing a shelf of "Caffeine-Infused Energy Gummies" for support. His vision tunneled. The hypoglycemia was no longer just a hunger; it was a physical weight, dragging him down.

Focus, he told himself. Calories. Acquire calories.

He moved down the aisles, his trench coat trailing water. The shelves were stocked with things that defied logic. Spicy Tentacle Chips. Synthetic Ham (Now with 10% Real Pork!). Glowing Blue Soda: The Taste of the Future.

He picked up a sandwich. The plastic wrapper crinkled loudly in the silence. He stared at it, and for a second, his ancestral memory—the curse of the Corvinus bloodline—flared to life. He didn't see ingredients. He tasted them.

Chemicals. A phantom flavor of burnt rubber and bleach flooded his mouth. Polystyrene. Artificial smoke flavoring. Soy isolate. Toxicity: Low. Nutritional Value: Negligible.

He dropped the sandwich. It tasted like a lie.

"Can I help you?"

Victor jumped, his heart hammering against his ribs. He turned to see a young man behind the counter. The clerk looked bored, his face illuminated by the blue glow of a tablet. He had a cybernetic eye that whirred softly as it focused, and his name tag read KENJI.

"Food," Victor croaked. "I need... sustenance."

Kenji blinked his good eye. "Aisle 3. Bentos. Discount section is at the back. Unless you want the fresh stuff? We just got a shipment of lab-grown tuna."

"Discount," Victor managed. "Discount is fine."

He shuffled to the back. There, under a flickering fluorescent light, sat the "Expired/Near-Expired" rack. It was a sad collection of brown salads and gray sushi, but to Victor, it looked like a banquet. He grabbed the largest box he could find—a "Mega-Pork Cutlet Bowl" that was three hours past its prime—and a bottle of water.

He marched back to the counter, placing the items down with trembling hands.

"That'll be 1,200 credits," Kenji said, not looking up from his tablet.

Victor froze. Credits. Right. This dimension used digital currency. He reached into his pocket, his fingers brushing against the cold, heavy weight of the Hell Gold.

He pulled out a single coin. It was small, stamped with the screaming face of a damned soul, and it glowed with a faint, internal heat. He placed it on the counter.

"I... I don't have credits," Victor said, trying to keep his voice steady. "Will this suffice?"

Kenji looked down. The cybernetic eye zoomed in, the lens rotating with a soft click.

"Gold?" Kenji asked, arching an eyebrow. "You trying to pay with a prop from a LARP session, old man?"

"It's real," Victor insisted. "Pure... alloy. High conductivity."

Kenji picked up a scanner wand and waved it over the coin. The wand let out a low, rejecting thrum. The red light on the tip blinked angrily.

"Scanner says no," Kenji said, dropping the wand. "Unknown alloy. Probably radioactive lead paint. Look, buddy, I can't take fake coins. Store policy. Boss catches me, I'm toast."

Victor felt the blood drain from his face. The hunger cramps doubled him over, a sharp, twisting knife in his gut. He gripped the counter, his knuckles white.

"Please," he whispered. "I... I haven't eaten in days."

"Sorry," Kenji said, though his voice softened slightly. "Can't do it. Inventory is tracked by the AI. If the count is off, it comes out of my pay."

Victor closed his eyes. He was going to starve. Here, in a room full of food, he was going to die because he didn't have the right kind of imaginary numbers in a bank account.

His hand went back to his pocket. He felt something else. Cold. jagged. Heavy.

The gears.

Iron-Jaw's gears. The ones he had removed during the surgery. He had shoved them into his pocket and forgotten about them.

He pulled them out. A handful of rusted, oil-stained cogs and springs. They were heavy, made of dwarven steel and enchanted iron, leftovers from a time when magic and mechanics were one. But to the n***d eye, they just looked like scrap metal.

"What about this?" Victor asked, his voice hollow. "Scrap? Trade?"

Kenji leaned forward, his cybernetic eye whirring loudly now. He looked at the gears. He looked at the rust (which looked suspiciously like dried blood). He looked at the oil (which looked like... fluids).

Then he looked at Victor.

He saw the trench coat, mud-stained and torn. He saw the shaking hands. He saw the "thousand-yard stare" of a man who had seen things no human should see.

And then he looked out the window, where a three-legged dog was sitting in the rain, watching them with sad, hungry eyes.

Kenji's face changed. The boredom vanished, replaced by a sudden, dawning realization.

"Military grade," Kenji whispered, touching one of the gears with a reverent finger. "Bio-mechanical linkages. Mark IV... maybe Mark V? This isn't scrap. These are... parts."

Victor blinked. "Parts?"

"You're selling your own parts," Kenji said, his voice hushed. "To feed your dog."

Victor opened his mouth to correct him—to say No, I pulled these out of a goblin's shoulder—but the words died in his throat. The "Misunderstanding Engine" in his brain clicked into gear.

Let him believe it.

"Times are hard," Victor said, lowering his head. It wasn't a lie. "A man does what he must."

Kenji looked at the gears, then at the bento, then back at Victor. He swallowed hard. He reached under the counter and pulled out a small, plastic card. He swiped it through the register.

BEEP.

"Employee discount," Kenji muttered. "And... a little extra."

He grabbed a second bottle of water and a packet of "Beef Jerky" and shoved them into a bag with the bento. He pushed the bag toward Victor, then slid the gears back.

"Keep 'em," Kenji said roughly. "You might need 'em later. If... if things get worse."

Victor stared at the bag. Then at the gears.

"You... you're not taking them?"

"I can't take a vet's own insides, man," Kenji said, looking away. "Just... take the food. Go. Before the manager sees."

Victor didn't argue. He grabbed the bag, clutching it like a lifeline.

"Thank you," Victor said. And he meant it.

"Yeah, well," Kenji muttered, picking up his tablet again but not looking at it. "Thank you for your service. Or whatever."

Victor turned and walked out. The chime rang again—Come Again Soon!—but he didn't hear it. He only heard the rustling of the plastic bag and the pounding of his own heart.

Outside, the rain had picked up. He walked to the curb and sat down next to Fenrir. He opened one of the bentos. The steam rose up, smelling of salt and MSG.

'Is that meat?' Fenrir asked, sniffing the air.

"Synthetic," Victor said, breaking the chopsticks apart. "But it's hot."

He pushed half the rice and the pork cutlet onto the lid and placed it on the ground for the wolf. Fenrir didn't hesitate. He inhaled the food in seconds, then started l*****g the plastic.

Victor ate slower. The first bite tasted like chemicals. The second tasted like salt. The third... the third tasted like salvation. The warmth spread through his chest, chasing away the cold. The tremors began to subside.

"It's not bad," Victor murmured, chewing on a piece of rubbery pickle. "A bit salty. But not bad."

'It needs more bone,' Fenrir complained, though he was currently l*****g the pavement where a grain of rice had fallen. 'But I accept your offering.'

Victor sighed, leaning back against the brick wall of the store. He felt... better. Not good. But alive. He had survived another hour. He had fed his dog. He had kept his dignity... mostly.

Above them, a massive holographic billboard flickered to life. The volume was deafening, cutting through the sound of the rain.

"BREAKING NEWS."

Victor looked up, squinting against the glare.

A news anchor with perfect hair and dead eyes was staring down at the street. "Panic in District 13 tonight as reports come in of a new g**g war. But sources say this wasn't a turf battle. It was... an exorcism."

A grainy video played on the screen. It was shaky, taken from a drone or a security camera. It showed a figure in a trench coat standing amidst the Neon Vipers. The figure raised a hand. The g**g leader collapsed, clutching his arm.

"Witnesses describe a mysterious figure," the anchor continued, her voice breathless. "A rogue doctor who uses ancient technology to 'steal souls' and 'rewrite biology'. The Neon Vipers claim he disabled their leader with a single touch. They're calling him... The Surgeon."

The image zoomed in. It was blurry, distorted by the rain and the low light. But the silhouette was unmistakable. The coat. The messy hair. The bunny slippers.

Victor stopped chewing. A piece of synthetic pork fell from his chopsticks and landed in a puddle with a soft plop.

Kenji, the store clerk, was standing in the window, watching the news. He looked from the screen to Victor, his eyes wide. He mouthed a single word.

Legend.

Victor groaned, burying his face in his hands.

"I just wanted lunch," he whispered to the wet pavement. "Why does it always have to be a saga?"

Fenrir looked up from his empty lid, his tail wagging slowly.

'Because you're dramatic,' the wolf said. 'And because you forgot to buy me dessert.'

Victor closed his eyes as the neon light of the billboard washed over him, bathing him in the blood-red glow of his newfound infamy.