Chapter 150: Batnac’s loyalty
He stood up from the chair, clasped his hands behind his back, and walked a slow circle around the steel table like a man stepping onto a stage.
"Because this is not a job," he said. "It is revenge... to pay back the debt I owe."
"A debt, master?"
"Do you know where I was when I was nine years old?"
"No, master."
"I was under a table in a repair shop in the lower district, hiding from monsters."
𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚
The service unit rolled a little closer. "Please continue, master."
"I was a thin boy who liked taking radios apart, so my parents sent me to the shop to sweep the floors and learn a trade."
"That was the day a dungeon break opened three streets away." he said, pausing for a bit.
"The adults in the shop were so frightened that none of them could even scream. Someone knocked over the lamp, and we all sat in the dark listening to the monsters tear through the street outside. I remember holding a screwdriver with both hands, as if that would help."
"Did it help, master?"
"Not even slightly." He laughed, but the laugh was shorter than usual. "Then the front wall exploded."
He swung one metal arm outward to show it, and a few of the robots along the wall flinched back out of habit.
"A man walked in through the hole where the wall used to be. He killed four of those monsters in the time it took me to blink, and he did it without raising his voice."
"When the last one fell, he looked under the table, saw a boy holding a screwdriver, and told me it was safe to come out."
"Who was he, master?"
"Teon Allistar, the guild master of the Roaring Lions."
The service unit’s lens brightened a little. "I see, master."
"I had only ever seen him on the broadcasts, and on the broadcasts he looked like a god. But that day he crouched down in front of me, and he looked like an ordinary man who was a little tired." Batnac’s grin softened into something quieter than the expression he had worn all morning.
"He told me I had steady hands. Then he said I should keep the screwdriver, because the world would always need people who could fix things."
"That was kind of him, master."
"It was the kindest thing anyone had ever said to me." He turned toward the map, and the glow from the screens lit one side of his pale face.
"I went home that night and told my parents I was going to become a player. They laughed and told me to go back to sweeping floors."
"Did you go back, master?"
"I swept the floors for another eight years, and every night I studied his fights. Every dungeon he cleared, every break he stopped, every interview he gave. I could recite them from memory." His chin lifted a little.
"When my talent finally awakened, I did not go to a guild recruiter or an Association office. I went straight to the roof of the repair shop and sat there until sunrise, because I wanted to tell him that I had done it."
"Did you tell him, master?"
"I never had the chance." He shrugged, though the shrug looked stiff. "He was Teon Allistar, and I was a nobody with a new talent. It would have taken me years to earn a meeting with him."
"Your logs list four hundred and twelve recordings of his battles in the lower archive, master."
"Four hundred and thirteen. You are missing the one from the northern coast."
"Correcting the entry, master."
"Thank you."
"Logged as sentimental, master."
"Log it as loyalty."
"Both entries have been saved."
Batnac chuckled and looked at the map for a moment. Then he turned his head and looked at the service unit again, and a small, hopeful expression crossed his face.
"Well?" he said. "Is that all you have?"
"Master, I have another question."
"I thought you might." He straightened his shoulders and folded his hands behind his back again. "Ask it."
"Did you ever meet him again, master?"
"Once." The smile returned, a little crooked this time. "It was at an Association ceremony, years later, on the day I was promoted to S-rank."
"Teon was one of the guests, and I stood in a line of people waiting to shake his hand. My legs were shaking so badly that the player behind me asked if I was ill."
"Did he remember you, master?"
"Of course not. Why would he?" Batnac laughed again, but there was no bitterness in it.
"He had saved thousands of people by then, and I was only one boy under one table. But he looked at my metal arm and my pale face, and he shook my hand like he meant it. Then he said the world needed more people who could build things."
"That is very close to what he said to you the first time, master."
"Yes, it is." Batnac’s voice dropped. "I decided that it was the same sentence. He had simply said it to me twice, and I was the only one who knew."
The room went quiet for a moment, with only the hum of the machines filling it.
"I had a letter," he said. "I wrote eleven drafts of it over the years. It thanked him for that night and for the screwdriver, and it said that I would one day be strong enough to stand beside him. I planned to deliver it after the next big dungeon was cleared, and then after the next one, because the timing never felt right."
"You did not send it, master."
"No." He glanced at the shelf along the far wall, where a small gray envelope sat between two spare robot arms. "I kept saying that I would do it later."
The service unit did not say anything, and it had not been told to. Batnac stood there a moment longer, and then the second ring of light reached the edge of the map and a chime broke the silence.
"Second ring complete, master," the service unit said. "Eleven cities scanned. No matches found."
"Begin the third."
"Beginning, master."
A third ring rose from the red dot, wider than the last, and the lines of text on the screen began to scroll again. Batnac returned to his chair and sat down slowly, no longer performing for anyone.
"Master," the service unit said after a while. "I have one more question."
"Go on."
"The Association’s report states that Leon Allistar plotted a coup against his father. Some of their own investigators have said that the full story may be more complicated than that. Does this change anything?"
Batnac’s smile stayed where it was, but the warmth drained out of his eyes. For a moment the only thing moving in the room was the pale light of the scan crawling across the screens.
"No," he said.
"May I ask why not, master?"
"Because I have read the report, and I have read the rumors, and I have heard every theory the Association’s investigators like to whisper about in their meetings." He lifted one metal hand and looked at it, flexing the fingers slowly.
"He may have had a thousand reasons, and every one of them may be true. His father may have been a monster, or a saint, or something in between. It would not matter to me in the slightest."
"Why would it not matter, master?"
"Because nothing he could say would bring Teon back." He lowered the hand and turned his gaze to the glowing map, where the third ring was creeping outward over the dark shapes of the cities.
"I do not care why he did it, and I do not care what the truth is. I only care that he pays."