Chapter 31 – Uncertainty

Sal couldn’t keep the panic from his voice as he tried to dissuade Upgrade, but she ignored him as she placed the trays of materials in front of him. She didn’t even tease him about it, just embraced a cold and uncaring shell that his words had no chance of penetrating. Sal hoped it was an elaborate joke but when she did finally speak to him, she gestured at the materials on the table and then at the visor on his head.

“You should get these done for Chatfield first, then we’ll head off to one of the starter dungeons.”

“We’re going today!?” Sal shook his head. “Look, I know I said that I’m terrified of demons, and I’m guessing that you want me to face my fears. But, Chatfield said the curriculum is going to better prepare us for the future fights. There’s even a Resilience class that’s starting in a couple of months. I think my best chance would be to learn from those lecturers at the same pace as my peers and maybe then, in the future, we could do a dungeon together. How about that?”

Upgrade shook her head and tapped the tray. “Nope. You’re coming with me today, and you’re going to kill your first demon. If it’s unsatisfactory, we’re going to kill another one. We’ll keep killing them until you get over your ingrained fear of them. Now, stop wasting time and analyze the materials.”

It was a tone that Sal hadn’t heard before, and he wasn’t sure how to proceed. Every part of his brain told him that he needed to get out of this situation by whatever means necessary.

“Upgrade, please. I’m not ready, emotionally or physically. We’ve had only a few hours of sleep, and you need your wits about you when facing demons. It would be reckless for us to enter a dungeon right now. I know you want to help me, and I really do appreciate that…but I don’t think this is the best method. We’re both Supports, and this sort of stuff would require a more well-rounded team.” Sal rambled on as he raised a finger, a sudden idea popping into his head.

“What if we encounter an anomaly in the dungeon? You saw yourself how those commander variants came out of nowhere. What if we run into one of those?”

Upgrade cocked her head to one side as she stared at Sal. The tension in the air was suffocating, and Sal was not a fan of the new persona she was rocking. When she finally spoke, it was in a quiet and measured tone.

“I’m not going to threaten you with consequences, because that would be unfair. If you truly want me as your mentor, and you want to continue working together, then you’ll do this with me today. That’s all there is to it.”

There were no smiles or reassurances, just a cold indifference that chilled Sal to the bone. None of his excuses had found any purchase, and Upgrade was resolute. In a last-ditch effort to procrastinate, Sal turned to look at the gun.

“Ah, I haven’t crafted the bullet cartridges for it yet. I won’t be able to use the revolver effectively without them, so I’ll have to craft them first.” He needed to stall for time until Chatfield returned.

Sal couldn’t believe that he was hoping for Chatfield to talk sense into Upgrade. It was like he was living in some weird inverse reality where his friend had somehow turned into the villain.

“Show me the blueprint for the cartridges. I’ll make them with you now.”

Upgrade moved to the other side of the table and rifled through the blueprints. When she got to the one she was looking for, she pulled it out to one side and ferociously activated her mechanical arms. If Sal had been unnerved before, the angry appearance of her armored suit was enough to scare him. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why she was acting this way.

Upgrade’s eyes locked onto him as she held her arms at the ready. “Have you finished inspecting that first tray?”

Sal bit his lip as he stared down at the tray of materials. His visor started to catalog all the different ones at breakneck speed. He wished that he hadn’t boasted about how fast it was at analyzing things, as he was quickly running out of any excuse to delay Upgrade. When the thirty materials in the first tray were complete, he begrudgingly slid it across the table to where Upgrade waited.

“Are you angry?”

Upgrade glanced between the tray and Sal. “Did you pick out the ones that would be best suited to being adapted into bullets? Mark the ones you want with this pen, and I’ll get to work on them.”

She slid the tray back to him with the marker resting between the rows. He couldn’t help but notice that she completely sidestepped his question. Sal went over the list of materials and when he visualized a bullet with the Mythcrafter ability, the visor sprang into action and showed the best options from the materials provided. He marked each of them as though he was on autopilot. When he got to the second to last material of the first tray, Upgrade answered him.

“I’m quite angry, yes. Not at you, but at how we’ve essentially proved Chatfield right. Our curriculum is clearly flawed, when the Rank #3 of the entire first-year intake is this terrified of demons. You’re on track to be a Savior, which is the pinnacle of what it means to be a Hero. I’m angry at myself at how you’ve been suffering with this feeling of inadequacy. We’re here to teach you how to be Heroes, and if me bringing you to a dungeon gets you over your mental barriers, then I’m going to do everything in my power to make it happen. I’ll show you how strong you are. You’re going to see just how powerful your crafted items are, and you’re going to appreciate the work you’re doing so much more.”

Upgrade hesitated before she looked directly at Sal. “Tomorrow, you’ll either thank me, or never talk to me again. But either way, you’ll have conquered your fears.”

Sal nodded solemnly. It looked like there was no way out of this scenario without destroying his relationship with Upgrade. She was clearly adamant about this happening, and it looked like he was going to be fighting a demon before the day was done.

As he slid the tray of marked materials across the table to Upgrade, he couldn’t suppress the tremor in his hands that threatened to knock the shards free from their foam perch. As he turned back to the second tray, he caught sight of the monocle on the table. The calming effect would dissolve his woes and he’d be absolutely fine for the rest of the day.

Just as he was about to reach for it, Upgrade’s voice cut through the room.

“Don’t even think about it.”

It was a tone that brooked no argument, and Sal’s hand froze in mid-air. He desperately wanted to protest. She was just being cruel at this point, but Upgrade was having none of it.

She shook her head and gestured at the tray in front of him. “The action of killing a demon isn’t enough, Sal. You need to battle your emotions and take control of them. Right now, you’re letting them control you, and that’s no way to live. This war isn’t going to end any time soon, and you can’t mask your true emotions for the rest of your life. To truly conquer your fears, you need to face them.”

Sal withdrew his hand from the monocle and got back to studying the materials in the tray. He flitted through the stats and descriptions, ignoring pretty much all the information and letting his abilities do all the work. He repeated the process of marking the ones that Mythcrafter suggested and passed them over to Upgrade.

Sal wanted to frame the situation as a positive thing, or as an act of compassion from Upgrade. He even tried to think of it as a wonderful gesture of her trying to help him, but each time, his own mind crashed through to sabotage those thoughts and remind him that he was going to die.

A dungeon. She was going to take him to a dungeon so he could fight against the horrifying creatures that were spawned from the worst kind of nightmares. Leechers clawing his eyes out by dropping from the ceiling. Prowlers striking from the shadows in packs. Voiders appearing from behind him, ready to cut him in two. Hell, there’d probably be a few hulkers there for good measure, ready to mash him into paste just for existing. No matter what variant of demon it was, he was going to suffer.

The rhythmic sounds of Upgrade’s mechanical arms used to be soothing to him, but now it felt like the deafening march of his death sentence. Sal froze as he looked down at the completed tray in front of him. He had been so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he had completed the task subconsciously.

Upgrade gestured for him to slide it over, and Sal’s stomach lurched as reality started to set in that this was real and it was actually going to happen. When he looked at Upgrade, he could see the concern in her eyes, but her lips were a thin line. She wasn’t enjoying this either, but she was unwaveringly resolute. It was something Sal might have found admirable in any other scenario.

“Whoa, who died?” Chatfield sauntered into the room, throwing his coat lazily in the direction of the couch. It missed, but that didn’t seem to bother him.

Upgrade turned to answer him, but Sal leapt at the opportunity to change his fate. He put all his hopes in the star of the Hunter Bureau talking some sense into Upgrade.

“Upgrade wants to take me to a dungeon to fight demons.” Sal wanted to say more, but the terrifying look from Upgrade stopped him in his tracks.

Chatfield raised a brow and then turned to Upgrade with a frown. “What dungeon were you thinking of? It’s a Sunday, so most of them will be booked out.”

Sal’s stomach dropped at his nonchalant tone. Chatfield sounded like he was ordering breakfast. There was no surprise, outrage, or even a hint of disapproval. He just stood there in confusion, wondering which dungeon she had in mind for her batshit insane proposal.

Upgrade finished another of the bullets and looked over at Chatfield with a shrug. “Was thinking of doing one of the scavenger runs, or maybe one of the mines. It doesn’t matter, as long as there are demons for him to kill. He’s being held back by his fear and it’s going to get worse with time. It’s the one kindness I can give him, to get it over with now rather than having him build it up in his head until the end of the semester.”

Chatfield frowned as he turned to Sal. “Crippling fear of demons?”

Sal was amazed at how he managed to say it without a hint of judgment in his voice. It sounded like he was describing an unfortunate circumstance, as if Sal had just revealed that he had a fever. When Sal managed to give him a nod, Chatfield tsked twice before turning back to Upgrade.

“Okay, I’m in. I was getting bored being cooped up in meetings and this workshop. You don’t mind if I come along, do you? Might be able to wangle us a few passes into North Evergreen Subway. It should be a good testing ground for the revolver, too—long tunnels and sufficient lighting.”

Upgrade looked at Sal as though it was his decision, and it took everything in Sal’s power not to throw his hands up into the air and shout “What the fuck is going on here?” He suppressed the urge and gave Chatfield a nod that he was okay with him coming along.

If anything, it would add to Sal’s survivability.

Well, that would have been the logical conclusion. Sal’s brain was still sabotaging any hope he had of making it out of the dungeon alive. The current thought swimming around his mind was that he was undoubtedly going to be the first blemish on Chatfield’s immaculate record. The first student death under his watch.

The clinking of bullets rattling against one another brought Sal back to reality and he saw Upgrade stacking them onto small plates of hellfire titanium. Sal sighed as he approached the bullets to finish them with his ability. The moment he deactivated Mythcrafter, it would be time to go.

Chatfield’s beaming face was so disconcerting, but nothing compared to the passive expression that Upgrade wore. Sal groaned inwardly as he looked down at the bullets sourly. He never wanted to fail a build so badly in his life.