Chapter 192: Dark Boundless Realm 47
“Sigh…” Silverface let out a deep sigh.
He and his teammates wandered the streets… no, it wouldn’t be accurate to say they wandered; they were there to familiarize themselves with several safe houses and contact points in White Whale City, as well as to learn the locations of arms caches, supply spots, and various escape routes.
Night Cicada’s abilities were convenient, but they consumed a lot of stamina. He wouldn’t waste his precious energy on trivial matters like “taking teammates to familiarize themselves with the environment.” Besides, a detailed understanding of the surroundings had to be obtained step by step, by physically measuring the land.
On their first day in White Whale City, they couldn’t act hastily; they needed to first understand the situation. The decision to send Kōgetsu as their deputy commander was due to Kōgetsu’s long-term stationing at the Mechanized Dawn branch in White Whale City, giving them a good understanding of the area.
The three of them moved stealthily through the streets, avoiding surveillance and pedestrians. Kōgetsu did not accompany them; only Thorn Rose and Reset stayed by Silverface’s side.
“Didn’t you come to White Whale City before? Is there anything we should be particularly wary of in this city?” Thorn Rose asked.
Silverface thought for a moment, “The people here really have terrible tempers! They pull knives at the slightest disagreement. Eating out can easily result in being overcharged; shopping is the same, and everything is exceptionally expensive.”
Great, that was essentially saying nothing… Thorn Rose gave up on the inquiry.
The three of them hardly spoke; Thorn Rose was too lazy to engage with the two, and Reset was typically quiet, while the usually talkative Silverface was silent due to his own thoughts.
This time his thoughts were not about Kui Xin, but about Reset.
Reset’s external demeanor was strange. Silverface couldn’t pinpoint what was odd, but Reset gave him a familiar feeling… a feeling he had experienced with Nightingale.
Mechanical, cold, silent, like a walking puppet. Without orders from a human, he wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t act, and certainly wouldn’t have his own thoughts.
This feeling was not only something he had sensed from Nightingale… but it had also resonated with his “brothers.” Silverface felt as if he were shrouded in a layer of fog; he reached out to grasp something but didn’t know what he was trying to hold on to.
Thorn Rose spotted a vending machine across the street, crossed over, and bought a can of coffee.
Taking this opportunity, Silverface turned to Reset and whispered, “Are you like me?”
Reset reacted to this question, turning to look at him, but did nothing else and didn’t speak.
“Where did you live before? In a research institute? Were there always many lab coats around you?” Silverface couldn’t quite articulate why he was asking; he just… suddenly thought of himself, and of his “brothers” who were labeled as failures.
“Yes.” Reset turned his head back. “Many lab coats, many glass jars and tubes.”
“Do you have brothers?” Silverface asked.
“I have no brothers, just… ‘me’ that looks like me.” Reset’s response was somewhat awkward, but Silverface understood his meaning almost instantly.
“How did you grow up?” Silverface asked again.
Reset replied in a factual tone, “I grew up in jars.”
“Did anyone teach you to read and speak?” Silverface said. “I took a long time to grow up, but my brothers didn’t; they grew up quickly in jars. I grew up outside the jars, and the process was very long.”
“No one taught me.” Reset turned to look at Silverface again, speaking softly. “When I came out of the jar, the person in the white clothes cleaned the nutrients off me and put me in another opaque jar. After that, I gained a lot of knowledge and understood many things.”
“Um… that thing is called a Brain Machine. It can be used to read memories and implant memories.” After explaining, Silverface scratched his head and chuckled foolishly, “I seem to understand a lot of things that you don’t.”
Reset stared at him in silence.
Silverface grunted for a while, raised his hand to scratch his head again, then lowered it. “Maybe it’s because I was the first to come out of the jar; the longer one stays outside the jar, the more they understand.”
If Silverface understood just a little more, he would realize that the emotion he was feeling at that moment was called “awkwardness.”
This emotion might not be very important or noticeable, but its conditions for emergence are more complex than curiosity, fear, and love. The latter arise near instinctually, as innate talents, but the emergence of “awkwardness” cannot be simply explained in one phrase as “instinct.”
Thorn Rose returned after buying coffee, and they continued on towards their destination.
Silverface walked alongside Reset, dragging his feet through the dark streets and alleys of the Midnight District in White Whale City. The streets, lacking streetlights, were very dark, and the nights here were always quite cold. Silverface tightened his coat and couldn’t help but sigh deeply again.
Suddenly, Thorn Rose stopped, turned around, and glared at Silverface.
Silverface was startled by her expression and couldn’t help but say, “Did my sighing disturb you?”
“You didn’t disturb me, but your attitude made me question you.” Thorn Rose’s gaze cut into Silverface’s face like a blade. “You wavered! Ever since the mission began, you’ve not wanted to kill Lady Fortune. You’ve been sighing all day, hesitating, with a negative attitude, even failing to conceal it.”
She muttered under her breath with annoyance, “If you don’t want to do it, just get lost! Don’t delay me from completing my mission! I don’t need a wavering person as my teammate. I’m here to complete a mission, not to risk my life; my teammates should support me, not drag the whole team down!”
Silverface stared in shock, catching onto Thorn Rose’s main point: “I don’t want to kill Lady Fortune?”
“Are you going to quibble?” Thorn Rose suddenly drew her gun, pointing it at Silverface. “Always talking about Lady Fortune… She’s a traitor and our enemy. What good is your hesitation? Do you want to betray along with her?” Her voice was cold. “I have reason to suspect that you might turn on us when facing Lady Fortune and betray Mechanized Dawn!”
Silverface was utterly dumbfounded, completely at a loss for words to refute Thorn Rose.
The word “betray” had never appeared in his mind… wait, it had appeared once… the matter of Ambereye Black Obsidian becoming a traitor had a profound impact on him. He knew Ambereye Black Obsidian was also raised in a research institute, but they had never communicated, nor did they ever exchange words in private. Upon hearing the news of their betrayal, Silverface was left immensely puzzled, wondering why they had chosen to turn against them.
“I exist to complete the noble cause of Mechanized Dawn! I… I never thought about betraying…” Silverface mechanically said. “I just have some things that I can’t make sense of… and I don’t know what to do.”
Thorn Rose locked eyes with him for two seconds before lowering her gun.
“You better.” Without looking back, she walked away. “If you can’t make sense of it, then don’t think about it. If you don’t know what to do, just follow orders like before.”
Like before?
Silverface was stunned.
Reset didn’t follow Thorn Rose. He looked up at Silverface, who was significantly taller, his eyes black as night.
“Let’s, let’s go.” Silverface followed after Thorn Rose, looking dejected.
Reset followed Silverface.
In the night sky, a sparrow perched on a telephone pole flapped its wings a couple of times.
“Do you know what people like us excel at?” Ambereye opened her eyes, severing her mental connection with the sparrow.
“What?” Ghost asked from within the body of a vagrant. “Killing? Fighting?”
“Neither. It’s following orders.” Ambereye replied. “We’re used to following commands, so we’ve never had our own thoughts. When Eve tells us to kill, we kill without questioning why or whether they should die.”
Ghost said, “I’ve never asked you how you gained self-awareness. Or rather… how did you come to realize that killing is wrong?”
“As mental ability users, we excel at consciousness invasion. When Mechanized Dawn trained us, they had Black Obsidian and me kill someone, and we did as told. But when we killed that person, the pain, sadness, and fear they felt before dying were transmitted to our brains in full.” Ambereye explained. “That was the beginning. We learned that death is a painful thing, and every subsequent killing while in a mental link state made us feel the same pain as the deceased.”
“Compared to you guys, that guy with the codename Silverface is just a fool! Clueless, completely unaware.” Ghost remarked.
“You can’t blame him; he lived in that kind of environment, and no one taught him correctly. He also lacked proper avenues for learning,” Ambereye said. “Knowing nothing, he seemed to live quite happily.”
“Now it seems he has come to know some emotional things, and as a result, he’s unhappy.” Ghost sighed, “Perhaps this is the price.”
“Mm, the price.” Ambereye stated, “If given the choice… he wouldn’t choose to remain a clueless tool.”
The innocent child blissfully unaware bears the burden of life, while the adult who shoulders those responsibilities often wears a facade of happiness despite their gloom—this is the same principle.
Ambereye said earnestly, “I have a request.”
“Are you asking me to try to keep Silverface alive?” Ghost asked.
“Yes.” Ambereye replied, “And Reset.”
“You have to understand, Ambereye.” Ghost said, “This world is not kind to those with good intentions. Since they are our enemies, we cannot afford to be overly merciful. You’ve made the same mistake as Silverface; he doesn’t want to kill ‘Lady Fortune,’ and you don’t want to kill Silverface and Reset. If you show mercy to the enemy, will they be merciful to you?”
Ambereye was silent for a moment. “Alright.”
“Let’s go.” Ghost said, “We need to get going to meet the contact.”
“Who is the contact?” Ambereye asked.
“Ms. Polina from the Popov Clan. You should know her; she’s been appearing frequently in the news these days.”
Ambereye said in surprise, “The contact is her?”
Polina didn’t seem like the type to sacrifice for freedom and equality. If anyone were promoting freedom and equality near her, she would likely have her bodyguards drag that person away.
“It’s not her; it’s one of her illegitimate sons… one of them.” Ghost clarified. “Though he’s a bastard, he still possesses wealth and social resources that most ordinary people can hardly reach. We’ll meet him to gather insight on the Shadowless Organization from this informant.”
