Dr. Mundo woke up in his big bed today, pinching his huge tongue as he reflected on his medical career.
Without question, Mundo was a good doctor. He had a compassionate heart and superb medical skill.
Mundo rolled out of bed, leaving behind his favorite mattress, the kind that helped work his muscles, made out of sharp knives and rusty nails.
He picked up a nail board, gave himself a thorough mouth cleaning, and then had breakfast.
Breakfast scratched Mundo twice, but it did not hurt very much.
After eating it, Mundo felt full of energy.
Mundo had spent so long testing medicine on himself that every formula he made left him feeling fantastic.
Mundo thought he was a good doctor, though there was still room for improvement.
So far, his treatments worked best on the face and head, second best on the torso, and worst on the limbs.
Whenever Mundo treated someone's arms or legs, he always heard the patient groaning in agony afterward, and that made Mundo feel guilty.
But Mundo was still a good doctor, because none of his patients ever needed the same treatment twice.
Mundo decided he would try his luck in the Fissures today.
Maybe there would be patients there who needed medical care.
He had not gone far when he spotted a figure that was green all over.
The guy was about as big as Mundo, and Mundo stared at him.
"Probably skin problem," Mundo said, waving his thick fingers around in the air.
He imagined there was a medical chart in his hand.
"Need medicine. If not work, then need shock therapy."
Mundo came to his conclusion.
"Two pills a day! Come back to Mundo after finish!" he shouted, then threw two meat cleavers at him.
The patient jumped in fright, but the treatment was extremely effective, the pills flew straight into his body.
"Is there something wrong with you?" the patient asked in confusion.
Mundo's face darkened at once. He even pulled his tongue back into his mouth.
"Time for shock therapy," he declared, taking a pacemaker off his own body.
"You okay, friend?" the other man asked as he stepped closer, looking at him with confusion.
Crackle!
The current running off Mundo's body tore straight through him, yet the patient still showed no reaction at all.
No improvement in condition, Mundo wrote in his imaginary medical log.
"Madness, hatred... and never-ending violence."
The patient muttered dark, incomprehensible words. Mundo decided this was the patient struggling in pain and babbling nonsense because of it.
"Only surgery can save now!" Mundo roared, grabbing his scalpel and a bone saw as he launched into the procedure that had a one hundred percent success rate.
A prefrontal leucotomy, otherwise known as amputation from the eyebrows down.
Mundo had performed that surgery many times. Every single time, it had cured the patient.
But to Mundo's surprise, the part he cut off dissolved into a puddle of slime.
Then, after stepping onto that puddle, the patient's body swelled larger again, and he looked down at Mundo from above.
It was a long surgery.
The patient refused to cooperate with Doctor Mundo's treatment and even showed a tendency to resist.
He refused to answer questions about his medical history, and all the medicine Doctor Mundo fed him proved useless, because the patient spat all of it back out.
Doctor Mundo used everything he had learned in his entire life, but he still failed to free the patient from pain.
In the end, the patient escaped into the Fissures, and Doctor Mundo was deeply disappointed.
This had been an extremely unsuccessful medical procedure.
Mundo let out an angry scream that sent a flock of crows scattering into the air.
"Mundo treat every sickness. Mundo practice medicine with big strength."
He repeated his medical oath over and over as he returned to his clinic.
Not every surgery succeeded.
Mundo humbly accepted that fact.
Even so, Mundo still wanted to focus on the bright side.
He had helped so many people before that it was impossible to count them all. This was only a small setback.
He had already done a great deal of work today. It was time to rest.
Mundo did not smoke, and he only drank lightly.
Before bed, Mundo always heated up a white paint bucket and drank a cup of hot milk.
Then he did twenty minutes of stretching.
He got into bed at eleven sharp, fell asleep immediately, and slept straight through until morning, never carrying fatigue or stress into the next day.
Even Mundo himself thought he was perfectly normal.
What surprise would tomorrow bring?
In his sleep, Mundo split his mouth in a wide grin.
A healer's mission never ended.
…
Caleb was in a pretty good mood.
After all, the moment Jayce showed his face, some of the Chem-Barons had started getting restless.
And after the meeting ended, the people trying to push closer to the stage were hardly just admiring citizens.
There were also quite a few would-be assassins and glory-hungry thugs hoping to kill a Councilor and make a name for themselves.
Too bad for them, Caitlyn's marksmanship, combined with her Hextech rifle fitted with three scopes, put a stop to that fast.
Most of them had their hands shot apart before they even reached the edge of the stage.
Renni, the Chem-Baron with the artificial nose connected to two green tubes and wrapped in black robes, came charging in with a blade in hand.
But did she really think those third-rate chemtech tricks of hers were enough to pull anything off?
Vi sent her flying with a single punch.
Even among the Silco men Caleb had tried to turn, there were still plenty of maniacs who wanted to resist.
They were used to living with their lives on the line. At the very least, after following Silco all these years, they still had some guts left in them.
Under the particle-activated electric cannon Jayce unleashed, they turned into corpses.
Caleb was not stupid. He understood perfectly well how to balance kindness and fear.
Renni was still glaring at Jayce, it was him who had gotten her son killed.
Caleb had no intention of giving her any more time to be angry. The Hex Claw extended from behind him.
Without the slightest hesitation, it sliced off all four of her limbs and left her hanging outside.
There was no need to worry about bleeding. The heat sealed the wounds even as it cut through them.
"Force-feed her hunger feed."
After tossing those words at Sevika, Caleb strode away.
Sevika was left behind, silently breaking into a cold sweat.
This momentum was even fiercer than Vander and Silco had ever been at the height of their power.
So-called hunger feed was a kind of food that only made a person feel even hungrier after eating it.
It was usually used during interrogations. After starving a prisoner for several days, it would jolt their numb stomach back awake.
Of course, Caleb did not need anything from this Chem-Baron. Silco had already told him everything about them.
This was a message to the outside world.
Anyone who ran wild in Zaun, especially the Chem-Barons, would end up wishing they were dead.
Caleb stood high above the city, looking down over the whole of Zaun.
The Last Drop still needed renovations, and many places across Zaun needed to be inspected.
Even with the Firelights providing manpower and Piltover backing them with money, it was still no small project.
Caleb intended to work right on the front lines himself. Viktor's body was too weak, and he had only come today as a guest appearance.
He still had several surgeries to perform back in Piltover.
So Caleb would not be able to rely on him anytime soon and could only ask Heimerdinger to draw up the plans.
Stopping the sources of pollution, dealing with the pollution already there, building more public facilities, and curing the people infected by Shimmer, every one of those would have to be handled piece by piece.
They were all troublesome jobs.
But Caleb enjoyed it anyway.
Here, he could experience something that had been far beyond his reach in his previous life.
There was no technology like computers here, but life still felt full and meaningful.
Even so, Caleb had no intention of staying here forever.
A string of light footsteps sounded out, and a girl with long twin tails tied behind her came to Caleb's side.
"Congratulations on becoming Governor," Jinx said quietly.
Silco had already explained the details, so Jinx was not here to pick a fight with him.
"Should I call you Jinx or Powder?" Caleb asked with a smile as he turned to her.
"Whatever you want." She blew at the bangs hanging over her forehead.
"Zaun is going to get better. Just as prosperous as the topside." Caleb looked out toward the distant points of light flickering on one after another.
"You need to promise me that."
Her eyes were shining.
"I promise."