The Mech Touch

When Ketis heard Ves' description of the Minor Demon's original life as a human, she couldn't help but feel more sympathetic.

The former Senior Mech Designer from a third-rate state had worked so hard to make difference by specializing in designing 'ranged skirmisher mechs, only for the mech market to remain unmoved by his works.

With much of his professional legacy disappearing after his death, the Senior Mech Designer ultimately led an unfulfilled life.

No matter whether he found the love of his life or raised a prosperous line of children and grandchildren, Senior Mech Designers ultimately cared more about whether their mechs contributed to their society and whether any of their work would be remembered after their passing.

Given the notable amount of resentment that the Minor Demon held towards his feeble

Legacy, he probably lived through his final years as a bitter and feeble Senior!

Perhaps he may have been able to work himself up to a Master if he was given 50 or 100 years more time, but the mech community clearly did not feel he deserved another chance.

Knowing that must have made the Senior extremely depressed and disappointed at his own incompetence.

Feeling the life fading from his body while he still needed a lot more time to progress his design philosophy was a chronic form of torture.

It was like fabricating 90 percent of a mech, only to quit before it could get completed and be put into use!

"What a sad mech designer." Ketis said before she realized that she got so caught up in Ves' narrative that she inadvertently overlooked a very important fact! "Wait. When you initially chose to go ahead with Demoncasting, did you not promise me that you would spare human souls from this treatment? Why did you turn the soul of a Senior Mech Designer into a demon? Were all of the other demons and souls human in origin?!" Oops.

Ves had made that promise almost 9 months ago. He had failed to remember which secrets he should withhold from Ketis. This was an unacceptable oversight on his part. He had become too fixated on the many benefits of Demoncasting to remind himself that not everyone was okay with using human souls as fuel to produce demons!

In truth, Ves always believed that Ketis would find out the truth eventually. It was not possible to hide the origin of souls for demon production to a swordmaster with sharp instincts and an extremely powerful grand work that was older than modern human civilization!

He just hoped that by the time that Ketis learned about the truth, Ves would have already built up a collection of powerful D-arms and D-mechs.

It would have been much easier to defend his actions when his Demoncasting efforts clearly made a difference in the ongoing war!

Alas, he would have to make do without this particular help.

Though Ves did not believe that Ketis would get outraged to the point of unsheathing her Heavensword and chop it in his direction, he better make sure he channeled his Devil Tongue as best as possible lest he ruin his relationship with the swordmaster! "Helena is the one who supplied the souls!" He said while raising his hands in innocence! "As you may or may not know, she still retains a presence in the Yeina Star Cluster in the old galaxy. Not only does she remain by the side of my mother in the Nyxian Gap, she is also the object of prayer of a large number of defeated Hexers in the Komodo Star Sector as well as those who have fled to other star sectors. There are more than enough of them that Helena is able to witness the deaths of many people in this corner of the Milky Way Galaxy."

"So that gives her the right to harvest those innocent human souls and pervert them to your cause?!" Ketis angrily shot back. She looked closer to drawing out her Heavensword or at least her Bloodsinger! "I thought you had standards, Ves! They may be lower than mine, but they should at least respect the sanctity of the human race. For you to treat the souls of humans of the old galaxy as nothing more than resources to be utilized is a step too far."

"Okay, you may have a point that repurposing human souls for Demoncasting is not exactly right, but necessity trumps morals. We cannot get hung over our own bottom lines when the native aliens clearly have much fewer of them! Our enemies do not care about our restraint or our unwillingness to get our hands dirty. They will continue to run over our strongholds and massacre all of the red humans they come across. This includes everyone you care about such as Kirian and Mayra. Do you want to look at your children and tell them that your principled opposition has contributed to red humanity's doom, but at least we will all die with a clean conscience?"

A part of Ves felt ashamed for resorting to this low blow yet again, but he did so because it was remarkably effective!

Ketis anticipated this response, however.

"You keep using the same argument to excuse your unethical behavior and actions! While I hate that I still cannot refute your stupid excuse, there has to be a point where the 'children card' should no longer serve as an effective immunity against wrongdoing. Do you even think that what you are doing is wrong in any way?!"

"I didn't lie. Technically. I consider myself a red human, and so should you. We have already split away from original humanity due to the Great Severing. The more time passes by, the more we diverge from the folks back in the old galaxy. Our culture, our genetics and our history are becoming more and more foreign to all of the people who

Reside in the Milky Way. If I have to choose who to save, I will pick red humanity every time, because this is what my family and my clan have become. The people in our former home... are still humans, but they are not our people anymore."

"And that excuses your attempts to torture their souls to the point of undergoing demonization before having them fight each other, or worse putting thousands of weak and defenseless human souls into those awful Demon Mixers where they end up getting torn apart and devoured by these evil beings? These are still humans! Just because they live in another galaxy does not make them any less important!"

"Is that true?"

"What do you mean by that, Ves?"

"You heard my question. Now answer it. Do you think the life of a human from the old galaxy should receive as much care and protection from us as the life of a red human?"

Ves smirked. It turned out that this was not an easy question to answer.

The swordmaster eventually sighed. "I know what you are doing. You are purposefully trying to split original humanity away from the category of 'our people! This will make it easier for us to exploit them for our own gains."

"Perhaps you are right, but so what? None of this is false. Red humanity is for all intents and purposes our only people. Original humanity does not want nor deserve our protection. At the same time, the folks in the Milky Way have not done nearly enough to support us in the Red War. Even if material transfers have become impossible, they could still assist us with conducting R&D and provide us with technical support. Instead, they have gone back to their own selfish ways. Since they have made a clear break with us, we do not have to treat them as if they are on the same side as us anymore. They should be treated as aliens in human form."

Though Ves tried his best to reinforce the separation between the two branches of humanity, Ketis did not accept this argument!

"Do you know how disgusting you sound when you engage in othering? You are using the same tactic that has excused countless dishonorable acts throughout history! This entire 'us' vs 'them' dichotomy has been the cause of countless acts of infamy! By pretending that humans with darker skin tones are not human, we dehumanized them into slaves that are no different from livestock and other property. By pretending that humans that belong to another tribe, religion, political affiliation or geographic region are not a part of 'us', we can brainwash ourselves into feeling no guilt as we commit genocide on them. It is so bad that the very act of labeling a group of people as 'them' automatically dehumanizes them to the point where we can excuse any atrocity, such as bombing their territories into ruin and slaughtering them en masse! Now, we can add torturing their souls and feeding them to demons as additional atrocities!"

Ves never imagined that Ketis could be so upright and principled given her history. How could she remain so clean all of these years?

Perhaps the Larkinson Clan protected and sheltered her a little too well. She had never been placed in a position of leadership as Ves. She never had to make the hard choices that had brought the Larkinsons to their current height.

"Okay, it is true that I am purposefully dehumanizing the people from the Milky Way." Ves admitted with a sigh. "Perhaps I am doing it in order to assuage my own conscience, but I do not think what I am doing is wrong. This is not a matter of ethics or philosophy. It is a matter of survival. I am completely certain that the members of the Survivalist Faction of the Red Association are 100 percent behind my standpoint. In fact, I think the majority of the Red Three will stand behind me. We have an obligation to use whatever resource is acceptable to win this war. The native aliens aren't holding back all that much. They are literally throwing away the lives of an astronomical amount of cannon fodder in an attempt to drown us with alien blood. Since they are ruthless enough to drive so many of their own kindred to their deaths, then we must respond in kind, or fall f

Behind."

"You speak as if we have an obligation to compete in a race to the bottom, Ves!

"You may not like this competition, but that does not mean it is inconsequential." He argued. "All I am hearing is objections from you. What you have failed to do is present alternative solutions that can solve the problem at hand. If you have a better way to empower red humanity and arm them with powerful weapons, then share it with us all. If not, then do not try to shut down my earnest attempts to safeguard the future of my own children as well as yours. I am a parent as well, you know. Will you deny a father like myself the opportunity to fight for their right to live in this bloodsoaked galaxy?"

Ves gave her a knowing look. "The morals that you have imported from the Milky Way

Don't apply as well in the Red Ocean. We have entered a more primitive galaxy where the survival of the fittest trumps the rules of chivalry. There is a time and place for honor, but please wait until we have defeated the genocidal aliens first. They will not hesitate to wipe us out to the last man if they ever gain the upper hand. It is only fair for us to do the same to them, even if we have to repurpose the souls of humans who are

Not a part of us anymore."

"..."

"Besides, I don't think we are abusing the souls of all of those people." Ves said in a more conciliatory tone. "Think about it. Instead of dying like faceless space peasants, we are giving them a chance, however small, of gaining a second chance in another life. It is like we are reincarnating them. Sure, a bunch of them are turned into demons, but they can continue to grow and gain more rationality and power as long as they are successful! Perhaps a demon like this former Senior Mech Designer may one day become so smart and powerful that he is ultimately able to revive his design philosophy and realize it, thereby completing his previous life's work and leaving behind a lasting legacy! If you ask me, that is a better trajectory than disappearing with a lot of unresolved resentment in

His belly."

Ketis looked at Demon Mixer 2 that contained the former Senior Mech Designer in question and wondered what she would have wanted if she was in that man's place.

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