The Mech Touch

Chapter 7234: The Trial of Worthiness

The stars winked in the background.

For as long as humans existed as a race, they often yearned to ascend to the stars.

During more primitive times, they believed that the stars were gods or the residents of gods. They ascribed all sorts of myths to them, believing that their deities existed on a completely different plane of existence from themselves.

Such beliefs may have faded nowadays, but people’s yearning to become greater than themselves has never disappeared.

Mech pilots possessed an especially powerful desire to attain power and greatness because there were ready-made examples of those who succeeded.

From the ancient and fiery First Flame to the impossibly perfect Chosen Human, there were around a 100 known god pilots who had successfully passed every test and survived every threat to their life before ascending to the ultimate height.

Knowing that each mech pilot possessed the seed of godhood made people like Rosa Orfan feel special.

It also placed a heap of expectations on their shoulders.

Every mech pilot was expected to put serious effort into attaining their godhood.

Those who fell out of the race early and accepted cushy positions on peaceful planets earned their fair share of contempt.

When all they had to do was to make their mechs look intimidating and respond to occasional policing action, such mech pilots had firmly chosen to cling to their mortal lives rather than chase after transcendence.

Mech pilots who chose to accept more serious jobs and assignments earned a lot more respect.

The dangers they braved as they fought on behalf of their people tempered them and tested whether they were worthy to take step closer to becoming a god.

Venerable Orfan had taken the first step, yet now that she was trying to take the second step, her doubts continued to nip at her heels.

Saint Dise seemed to grow in stature as she continued to stand tall over Venerable Orfan.

The two had once been close comrades in arms. They still maintained their correspondence throughout their service to the Larkinson Clan, but it was undeniable that once Dise had taken a crucial step forward, she had already become a woman who stood apart from the rest.

Only a very small gathering of ace pilots earned the right to become her peers.

Rosa hated that. She hated that she was not a part of that exclusive gathering. She hated that she was being left behind as if she was a failing academy student who needed to repeat another year.

In fact, as far as she was concerned, she had already been held back by a year.

Perhaps that was not a big deal in the greater scheme of things, but what if this situation persisted?

What if she made noticeable progress in the next year, and the year after that? How much longer could she tolerate this humiliation before she was willing to admit that she was not worthy to advance any further?

“Look at you, Rosa. You are an ace pilot candidate. Your resonance strength had long reached the level where breaking through is possible. Becoming an ace pilot has become a matter of will and serendipity for the most part. You cannot control the latter, but the former is entirely based on you. Right now, you are failing. You are failing badly.”

Rosa scowled. “Do you think I do not know that?! I am doing my best to remain confident in myself, but these doubts of mine never go away! It is in my nature! I always question myself whether I am good enough! Each time I try to come to this conclusion, a comparison with a more successful pilot always leads me to an awful conclusion.”

“Have you ever thought about not comparing yourself to me or anyone else?” Dise asked as she crossed her arms and tapped her foot on an invisible surface. “You are the only person who is doubting your ability. The rest of us are much more optimistic about your chances. Ves himself has already prepared your new assignment once you have broken through and taken control over the Riot Mark III. Is that not a mark of confidence from your greatest patron? Why not believe in his judgment instead of your own? You do not know yourself as you think.”

The expert pilot under trial understood her friend’s arguments, but she simply could not bring herself to agree with those words.

“Dise… I told you already. This is who I am. A day never goes by without comparing myself to another. Back when I was a kid, I compared myself to my classmates back in the Bright Republic where I grew up. When I became a teenager, I eagerly competed against my fellow cadets, proving myself to be above average but still far from reaching the top. As a mech officer of the Mech Corps, I did not know what I did right or wrong for me to get assigned to the Flagrant Vandals.”

“Out of the mech pilots of the Flagrant Vandals, you are by far the most successful one to come out of your original mech regiment.” Dise argued.

“That is not a real accomplishment and you know it. I do not really consider myself a Vandal anymore. Maybe I was afraid I would remain associated with the rest of them who have never shown any greater potential.”

“That just validates my point. You are special, Rosa. Other Vandals have failed to become as powerful as you. This is a cause for celebration, not a reason to feel ashamed.”

Yet that was exactly what Rosa Orfan did. Shame always accompanied her doubts. She still felt inferior for one reason or another.

Questions about her fitness and worthiness continued to gnaw at her being. Her thoughts spiraled in such a dark place that her current form began to morph.

“Look at the price for doubting yourself.” Dise gestured with her harm. “Look at your body and see how you are proving yourself as the weaker of two enemies.”

Rosa lowered her gaze and saw that her lower left leg began to get engulfed in a strange dark mist.

It started small, but slowly began to creep up. Rosa felt as if she was starting to lose any feeling and control over the parts of herself that became corrupted.

A vague sense of alarm welled up in the core of her being. She instinctively figured out that this sight was not a meaningless illusion. The jolt was sharp enough to inject a measure of lucidity in her consciousness.

She was undergoing a trial. She had no idea what was happening in reality, but for the time being her consciousness was stuck in this mysterious space.

Her current manifestation likely represented her soul, willpower or a mix between the two.

Whatever the case, its condition directly reflected her health and condition.

This meant that any maladies that affected her manifestation affected the rest of her as well.

The dark mist was gaining ground. Anything it touched became gray and started to get affected by strange phenomena that made the affected parts of her body less… consistent.

She was slowly transforming into a freak, one millimeter at a time.

While she felt alarmed at this development, what could she do to halt its advance?

The answers were not that difficult to find. She needed to muster up more confidence. The more she believed in herself, the more she would be able to resist this outside invasion.

Yet while other peak expert pilots found it simple to believe in themselves, Rosa Orfan continued to face the same mental blocks as before.

Her doubts had become as permanent and solidified as her bottlenecks. They may have even merged with each other.

Without getting rid of her bottlenecks, how could she gather enough confidence to earn her sainthood?

“You disappoint me, Rosa. I had long assumed that you would serve as a strong and reliable spear for the Larkinson Clan. As uncouth as you may be, you and your Riot have remained steadfast guardians of our people. Many of them have reason to thank you for your service, but this may not remain the case forever.”

Rosa Orfan frowned as he saw that Dise had quietly disappeared.

Jannzi had taken the ace pilot’s place.

“You have no right to judge me, Jannzi. You are still an expert pilot like myself.”

“I am younger than you. I believe that entitles me to lecture you. Your doubts are continuing to lead you astray. While you waste your time on questioning your own worth, younger expert pilots such as myself and others are making progress in their own ways. Already, the next generation of Larkinson champions are growing rapidly. They can participate in all the fights they want while they are serving with the expeditionary fleet. It has also become easier for them to redeem helpful elixirs from the War Exchange. As pricey as they may be, their effects are worth it as it can allow the brats who have not yet even reached their thirties to catch up with our resonance strength.”

Rosa felt shocked for a moment!

“What did you say? Are there people in their twenties among our latest cohort of expert pilots?”

“You better believe it, Rosa.” Jannzi still maintained her stern and judgmental expression. “It will take a few more years and a custom high-tier expert mech designed by Ves and Gloriana for them to catch up to Saint Dise, but it will happen sooner or later. Their qualifications are much greater than yours and their valor on the battlefield is not any less.”

The information that a bunch of brats that were young enough to be her children started to catch up to her rank with the possibility of surpassing it impacted her badly.

Her mental balance became so disturbed that the dark mist had managed to creep up all the way to her waist!

The corruption started to spread towards her torso and other legs.

She felt she was losing more and more parts of herself.

As Rosa twisted her manifested body, she found to her surprise that the darkened parts did not obey her commands, but did not remain entirely still either.

The darkened foot began to lift and descend as if stepping on a pedal.

The knee experimentally shifted the lower leg back and forth, forcing her other leg to compensate lest she lose her balance.

Horror slowly welled up inside Rosa Orfan as she realized that the corrupted portion of her manifested body had fallen under the control of a different existence!

Rosa was unable to gain much of an impression of this other entity. The corruption spreading throughout his body did not trip her intuition or made her feel a threat to her life.

Perhaps that was the scariest part about this process. The corruption was silent and subtle. As long as Rosa Orfan lowered her guard for any reason, its spread accelerated.

It did not take an intellectual powerhouse for her to conclude that she could never let the corruption spread to her head and convert her entirely.

“I… must prove myself worthy…”

She had no idea how she could push back against this wave of corruption, but the best way she could think up was to follow her original plan and trigger her second apotheosis.

All of her doubts would be seared away by her explosion in strength.

No demonic corruption could taint her inviolable soul as her Saint Kingdom completely took charge of her personal protection.

“Prove yourself worthy?” Jannzi asked in a slightly incredulous tone. “You are doing the opposite of that, Rosa. I am growing more and more disappointed in you, my old friend. My own breakthrough is not far from coming. I have made my own gains while piloting the Bastion on the battlefield. So what if the dated tech and construction of our machines is holding us back? Confidence is all you need to overcome these handicaps. The fact that you are still not able to make the push despite being handed over the most powerful junior ace mech is… disappointing.”

Rosa continued to lower her head in shame.

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