The Mech Touch

Ves and his little family spent more than an hour in his grandfather's company.

He could clearly sense that Benjamin Larkinson gained a lot of joy and contentment when he interacted with his youngest descendants.

Aurelia, Andraste and Marvaine were all excellent children. Gloriana had put a lot of effort into raising them into proper children, and it showed as they all behaved in a manner that pleased their great-grandfather the best.

Benjamin spent most of his life in the Bright Republic, so he was not accustomed to transhumanism as the other Larkinsons. This was why he constantly expressed amazement at the incredible comprehension of the three munchkins.

The intelligence of each of them clearly exceeded the standards of their age!

"Hahaha! I see now why your father feels confident about enrolling you into a first-class virtual school. I hope that by the time the three of you graduate from your studies, you won't forget about the family who supported you and loved you all of the way. Please make sure to help out your relatives when you can, okay?"

The kids dutifully nodded. "We know, great-grandpa. Family goes first!"

"You don't need to sound so serious." Benjamin corrected the three. "Our family tenets aren't meant to deprive you of what you deserve. Just look at your father. Ves has earned far more wealth than I could ever imagine. It is his right to keep most if not all of his earnings, but I can clearly see he loves his fellow Larkinsons so much that he has passed on much of what belongs to him to the clan. Do you know why he is being so generous?"

Andraste and Marvaine looked confused, but Aurelia already knew the answer to this question.

"No single human can do everything by themselves." She said in her know-it-all tone of voice that strongly reminded everyone of her mother "Papa can design really good mechs, but he can't pilot them or waste all of his time on handling the administration. He needs to delegate much of these responsibilities to other people, but not just anyone. This is why papa chose to entrust the clan with his money and resources. Compared to outsiders, he can almost always count on Larkinsons to do what is best for the family."

"That is an excellent answer, Aurelia!" Gloriana proudly stroked her oldest daughter's head. "It isn't just the Larkinsons that value the importance of family. The Wodin Dynasty that I am a part of also works the same way. Each and every female Wodin must learn how to stand on their own. It is only once they have built up a solid life and career for themselves that they begin to think about giving back to our dynasty and especially its weaker members."

"Not every family or family member is worth supporting." Ves warned as he was afraid that his children would become too trusting for their own good. "Even with long-standing traditions and additional safeguards in place, you need to be careful about offering help too freely. You need to learn how to use your judgment as subsidizing someone who is lazy or unwilling to work for themselves will only breed greater dependency. This is why the actual rules in the clan are a bit complicated. Well, you will learn about all of this when you grow older."

By the time that the visitation period was about to end, the children all said goodbye to the oldest relative they had met on their father's side.

They all leaned in and kissed Benjamin's cheek one by one. This truly gratified the old and infirm Larkinson.

"Hahaha!" Benjamin seemed to grow a little sprier! "This is one of the happiest moments of my life, and let me tell you that I have experienced a lot of happy times. I feel fortunate that I am still able to hang around long enough to meet and hug you three cuties at least once in person."

Ves smiled in a melancholic manner. The implicit meaning in his grandfather's statement was that he may not be around to spend much further time with his great-grandchildren.

"Children."

"Yes, papa?"

"You should visit your great-grandfather more often while we are still in Davute." He said. "Once our expeditionary fleet leaves for the deeper parts of the frontier, you won't have much of a chance to spend time with him anymore. Let's make sure you are able to spend enough time with one of your relatives while we are still living close to each other, okay?"

"Okay~"

After Gloriana gently led their children and the cats out of the bedroom, Ves stayed behind with his grandfather.

Although the two didn't enjoy true privacy due to the presence of numerous doctors and bodyguards, there was no reason to drive them out. Ves just didn't want his wife and children to learn too much messy information.

As soon as they were gone, his grandfather looked wearier and more tired than ever.

In truth, Benjamin was always tired. His physical state was much better than his non-physical state, which meant that his earlier exuberance was partially an act.

Now that the youngest had left the room, there was no need for the aging Larkinson to put up a kid-friendly act.

"Ves… I am proud of you. I wish that your father Ryncol was here as well. It would have been a great reunion…"

"Grandfather…" Ves hesitated for a moment. "If you really want to spend more time with your descendents, then I may be able to offer a solution… multiple solutions even…"

"Extending one's life is never simple. This is especially the case for a crippled former soldier like myself. I take it that those potential solutions of yours bear a terrible price?"

Benjamin twitched before directing a knowing look at his grandson. "As I have said before, I am already satisfied with the life I have been blessed with. I do not want to ruin the purity of my memories and destroy everything that I have stood for. I know little of what goes on above my head, but I have seen powerful men go bad due to succumbing to the naked pursuit of longevity. I have no desire to follow the same route. All I long for is peace. I have lived long enough. Let me enjoy an ending of my choosing."

As his grandfather spoke, Ves could feel the strong conviction and determination in those words. Benjamin had many decades to think about his own mortality, and he had long decided to accept his death with calm.

His mentality actually wasn't all that unusual among many elderly people. It was natural for them to think about how to handle the onset of their passing.

It was just that certain older figures exhibited a lot more resistance towards their death than others. Human civilization had advanced so much that there were many possible ways to prolong one's life and stave off an early death.

However, one of the reasons why Benjamin could accept his nearing fate so readily was because he knew his situation quite well.

"Can you tell me why you believe there is no hope in extending your life?" Ves carefully asked.

"I am not a doctor, but… I used to be an expert pilot, you know." Benjamin slowly said as his eyes began to relive the moments of his past. "I was active on the battlefield long before you were born. I was brasher, more confident and more committed to defending the Bright Republic than you can imagine. I possessed a lot of talent back then as well. I performed well in training and grew even faster when the war against the Vesia Kingdom broke out again."

Ves was already familiar with this part of his grandfather's history. Benjamin went on to become one of the heroes of that war, especially after he eventually triggered his apotheosis and became a new expert pilot.

"It is because of my rapid rise that my fall hurt me the most." Benjamin closed his eyes as if trying to shake himself from his awful memories. "Victory and defeat goes hand-in-hand. No one is able to win forever. My luck ran out and the Vesians prepared a more vicious and targeted offensive than the Mech Corps expected. I stepped up. I fought. I lost. Though I managed to come back from the battlefield intact, unlike many of my comrades, you know what happened to my brain."

Ves slowly nodded. "You incurred too much brain damage due to suffering from the feedback of an immensely powerful blow that broke your expert mech too quickly. The safeties of your neural interface hadn't been able to prevent the excessive feedback from overstraining your nerves."

"Do you know what it is like for an expert pilot to hear that he cannot pilot even the simplest industrial mech anymore?"

"It must have been devastating."

"It broke me." Benjamin wearily admitted. "The weeks after learning that I can never physically interface with a mech again was one of my darkest and most shameful periods of my life. It affected me much more than you can imagine. I lost my faith. I lost my confidence. I lost my motivation."

This was probably the time where Venerable Benjamin Larkinson lost his extraordinary willpower and turned into a broken man.

"Grandfather…"

Benjamin smiled at his descendant. "Don't feel sad for me. As I have already said before, I got over it. This is nothing more than an event that shifted the course of my life. After my discharge, I spent a long time at the Larkinson Estate. Slowly but surely, I recovered. None of the family members over there scorned me or mocked me for being a failure. All they saw was a Larkinson who needed their help to get his life back together. They succeeded. Once I regained a semblance of normalcy, I proceeded to start my own family and work with other Larkinsons."

This was why Benjamin possessed such a strong attachment to the notion of family. His relatives had saved him in his darkest and most vulnerable period of his eventful life.

"I am glad to hear that the Larkinson Family supported you. I am doing my best to ensure our clan will also be ready to assist any Larkinson that is experiencing similar sorts of problems."

"I know, and I am happy to hear that, Ves. The point I am trying to make is that while I have managed to pick myself up again, I always knew that I was living on borrowed time."

"What do you mean by that, grandfather?"

Benjamin let out another weary sigh. "Do you think I am an expert pilot or a norm?"

"You're a norm now according to what I can sense."

"That is not entirely correct. I am technically an expert pilot, but a crippled one that has slowly been dying."

"What?"

"It has to do with the nature of expert pilots." Benjamin solemnly spoke. "We aren't called demigods without a reason. Part of what makes us stronger and more capable than normal humans is that we take on additional obligations that have become sacred to us. Now think about this. Expert pilots can always push themselves to get stronger in order to complete a goal or a dream. What if they still have the willingness to pursue their goals, but no longer possess the physical ability to do so anymore? What if they have become so injured that they can never exert their full strength by piloting a mech in their lives?"

"That… would mean that you can't go forward anymore."

Ves started to understand what his grandfather was trying to convey.

"It is deeper than that." Benjamin said. "When an expert pilot makes a vow that he wants to fulfill at all cost, he has made a life-changing choice that compels him to complete his ultimate goal. If there is any change that prevents him from doing so, he has effectively broken his promise. As you know, we expert pilots take that extremely seriously."

"That… that's not fair! While it is true that you can't abide by your vow anymore, the reason why that is the case is not your fault."

The dying Larkinson shook his head. "It doesn't matter what excuses you can apply to a situation. A broken promise is a broken promise. From the moment we step up to become a demigod, we do so with the awareness that we have entered a road we can never get back from. Our only choice is to fight our way forward, because if we do not, we will get punished and lose the power that we have previously earned."

"Is there no way to reverse this?" Ves frowned. "You have heard about Venerable Davia Stark before, right? She lost her power as well, but she managed to pick herself back up again."

"That is a different case than mine." Benjamin said. "She is still in good health, so she still had a chance of making a comeback as long as she adjusted her mentality. Also, she was still young enough to have plenty of time left to fight more battles. In my case, no amount of physical treatment or mental gymnastics will get me back into the cockpit again. My ending is already set in stone. Nothing in our reality can reverse my condition."

"..."