The Mech Touch

Ves stared at his old home with a mix of nostalgia and confusion.

When he used the phrase 'old home', he did not refer to his grand stateroom aboard the Spirit of Bentheim.

He did not refer to the so-called Royal Mansion back at the Cat Nest in Davute either.

Instead, the only homestead that deserved to be called his old home was his father's house that was located all the way back in Cloudy Curtain.

It was obviously extremely illogical for Ves to be transported hundreds of thousands of light-years away from his current position in reality.

There was no way he could have been brought all the way from the Red Ocean to the Milky Way and back to the Komodo Star Sector without his notice!

Besides, there was no way his old home remained intact!

It took a while for him to recall the time period where his home looked this way. He glanced at the adjacent mech workshop and slowly recalled that it lacked the details that it had accrued over time as Ves made more use of its humble production capacity.

"It's as if I have returned all the way to the beginning of my journey."

He looked down on his own body. He did not look like a fresh university graduate at this time. This was his current body, complete with a missing chunk of his leg.

Fortunately, his Unending Regalia did its job and provided enough support for Ves to lean his weight on his left.

Although something freaky was clearly taking place, Ves did not feel very spooked by the situation.

His intuition did not warn him of an imminent threat and there weren't any obvious enemies in the vicinity.

Seeing that he was not about to get swarmed by a bunch of Fridayman mechs or an angry phase whale, Ves decided that he might as well roll with the situation and follow his impulses.

He managed to jog more information out of his dusty memories. He recalled that his old home was in a state where his father had recently gone missing, but not before going 330 million bright credits into debt in order to acquire a second-hand 3D printer.

Now that Ves had become a parent himself, he understood his father's actions and intentions a lot more than before.

"It takes a lot of love to abandon a comfortable and stable life in the Bright Republic and flee all the way to the Nyxian Gap. It must have pained my dad to permanently separate himself from his own child and the rest of the Larkinson Family."

His father definitely knew what he was doing. He went through the risk of going deep into debt and handed over this enormous burden to his son with the confidence that it would all work out in the end.

The reason why his father was so confident was because he was the one to give his son the Mech Designer System.

Ves felt incredibly mixed about his father's scheme. "He is the one who pulled me out of an ordinary life and put me on a trajectory where I eventually became exposed to a lot of danger."

The System had given Ves a lot of benefits, but it had also put an enormous target on my back.

"Wait." He suddenly frowned. "That's not entirely right. I would have been subjected to a lot of danger regardless if I obtained the System. The next Bright-Vesia War was already looming on the horizon. As soon as those Vesians invaded the Bright Republic once again, every mech designer would be called into service. Those that don't have the right connections would be thrown to the wolves."

Ryncol had fought in the last Bright-Vesia War and knew exactly how brutal it was and how many low-ranking mech designers needlessly perished at the front.

Perhaps passing on the System was his father's way of giving his son a chance to get out, either by becoming valued by the state or receiving an opportunity to emigrate to the Friday Coalition.

It was too bad that Ves didn't exactly do what his father intended.

"Sorry, dad."

Ves did not linger too much on what he could have done to avoid getting embroiled in the Bright-Vesia War. He had already processed his feelings on this matter and accepted this formative period as an essential part of his life.

He was much more interested in exploring the current situation at the moment.

"Let's see if the workshop is just as I remembered."

He entered the shabby workshop and beheld the 3D printer that started his career as an independent mech designer.

"What an awful machine."

Ves worked with first-class superfabs these days. Although they weren't the best that humanity could use to fabricate high-quality goods, few people had the opportunity to work with such excellent machines.

Now that he came face to face with the third-class 3D printer that was barely adequate even by the standards of the Bright Republic, Ves felt as if he was looking at a toy.

"I've come so far since the start that I can't even bring myself to use such an awful machine anymore."

Ves felt ambivalent about that. He once vowed that he would never allow himself to forget his humble roots.

Nowadays, he became so pampered by second-class mechs that he pretty much off-loaded all of the responsibility of designing third-class mechs to his subordinate design teams.

"Since when have I become so snobby?"

"You're only human, Ves. You are flawed, just like me." Another voice replied.

"Who?!"

Ves quickly turned around and realized that a stranger had entered his old workshop without his notice!

He didn't recognize the newcomer. The mature and clean-shaven man possessed a tall, athletic build but was clearly more at home in an office as he wore a well-cut, modern suit.

What was interesting about the man's outfit was that it was clearly a set of second-class anti-grav clothing.

An individual like that did not belong in a place like Cloudy Curtain, especially in this time period!

"Who are you!?"

The other man grinned in a disturbingly familiar fashion. "Don't you recognize me, old friend? We used to be buddies, you know. I even worked for you for a time. If you can't figure out who I am after telling you all of this, then I seriously doubt whether you are as brilliant of a mech designer as you appear on the news."

Ves looked closely at the man's face and slowly found a match from a person who he had buried deep into his mind.

"Carlos…? Are you Carlos Shaw?"

"In the flesh." The suited man grinned. "Well, in a manner of speaking at least."

"...You don't look like the Carlos that I knew." Ves said. "You look… older. You've gained muscle. You carry yourself with an air of confidence that you did not have before. Is this… who you currently are, Carlos?"

"Yup."

Ves pointedly looked around the workshop and confirmed it was in the exact state as it had been when he started his mech designer career on his own. The Living Mech Corporation didn't even exist at this time!

"Shouldn't you… I don't know, look younger or anything? How can you even appear as your current self when I have no idea how you look? Are you a figment of my imagination or have we literally reunited with each other across hundreds of thousands of light-years?"

Carlos raised his palm in a vaguely familiar manner. "Whoa there, Ves. I know you're curious and all, but I don't have all of the answers. It's not my job to explain what is happening."

"Then what can you tell me, 'old friend'?"

"I'm here but not here. I am the Carlos you know, but I'm not entirely the Carlos who is currently living his own life back in the Komodo Star Sector. I am not an illusion but I am not entirely the person who you consider to be your old friend. It's complicated."

Ves narrowed his eyes. "If I tell you something here, will the real Carlos become aware of our conversation?"

"No."

"How can I believe you? What proof can you give me that will convince me that talking to you won't have any repercussions?"

"Oh, come on, Ves! Don't you understand what is going on?! You've been pulled into a dream sequence that is centered around you, not me! This is your chance to have an earnest talk with me so that you can obtain closure and complete the first step of your divine transformation without too many regrets holding you back! It would be really bad if that happens, do you know that?"

Ves grew even more suspicious about this abnormal situation. "You are being awfully forthcoming, Carlos."

"In fact, I shouldn't even tell you all of this, but there is an external factor—" cough "SYSTEM" cough "—that has interfered with this dream sequence. Congratulations, Ves. You have a VIP pass. You have received extra privileges for that reason."

"I see. I kind of believe you now. The real Carlos would never speak like this. I distinctly remember that I never told you anything about the System."

"You didn't." Carlos said with a dour expression. "I don't blame you, Ves."

"Really?" Ves raised his eyebrow. "If I recall, you left my side because you were too jealous of my success. I would have found a way to help you, man. I admit that I care most about my own gains, but that doesn't mean I never learned to share. If you just stuck out with me, I would have taken care of you. Just look at the clan I founded and grew through my own efforts. Everyone who had stood by my side from the beginning has become much better off than before. You could have been one of them, Carlos."

The man that Ves had once considered his friend let out a sigh. "You're right. I could have. There is not a day that goes by when I think back on that fateful day where we had that spat. If I wasn't as stupid and if I wasn't so consumed by my envy towards you, I might have ended up a lot differently. It's too late for that now. What is done is done. You have your life and I have my life. We've gone our separate ways."

Ves scanned Carlos' appearance once again. "It looks like you've shaped up. What happened to you after you left my side?"

"Oh, nothing much." Carlos nonchalantly answered. "I tried to muddle through on my own. The Sand War and the Komodo War changed all of that. Before I knew it, the Coalition Reserve Corps picked me up and put me in a holding facility where they interrogated me for months. They squeezed everything I knew about you. Not that it helped that much."

"How so?"

"I knew you best during the times we attended the Rittersberg University of Technology and when we worked during the early days of your mech business. The Ves back then is unrecognizable from the Ves that returned from his mandatory service in the Mech Corps. That is also the reason why I didn't hesitate to reveal everything I knew. I don't think my information helped the Fridaymen in any way or shape."

"Thanks. I think."

"You're welcome, old friend."

"So what did you do after that? I take it that the Fridaymen did not treat you too poorly."

"They were quite nice to me when they realized that I was being fully cooperative." Carlos smirked. "Just like you, I got the VIP treatment. While my information didn't turn out to be that helpful, the Fridaymen were still decent enough to give a big bag of money as well as citizenship to their fine state."

"So you decided to start a new life in the Friday Coalition?"

"I did." Carlos nodded. "I had nothing left in the Bright Republic. The state was in a bad shape after the sandmen wiped out the surface of Bentheim, so the Friday Coalition was a much better stage for me to restart my mech design career."

It sounded like Carlos was genuinely doing well nowadays. Ves felt a little guilty for never taking the trouble to check up on his former bosom buddy, so he actually felt quite relieved that Carlos hadn't fallen victim to all of the major events that took place in the Komodo Star Sector.

Of course, Ves could only base this conclusion on the premise that this dream sequence was as this version of Carlos had described.

Once all of this was over, Ves would definitely look Carlos up on the galactic net and confirm that his former friend had truly emigrated to the Friday Coalition like he claimed!