Second Genesis

Grey didn’t get a response initially.

’I hope this isn’t because it’s nighttime. Come on, you can’t pick and choose when you want to be like a video game and when you want to be like the real world. Fuck it.’

Grey banged on the door again. If the Genesis Games could make an NPC literally freeze in the same spot for hours on end, then it shouldn’t matter whether it was nighttime or not. He needed this technician to open the door.

He was about to raise his hand and bang on the door for a third time when he heard the click.

His hand paused and a head peeked out.

The first thing Grey saw was a single, large eye. It was so large that Grey would have thought he was dealing with some sort of giant if not for the fact that the head it was attached to barely came up to his chest.

Part of that was because the figure was leaning over to peek outside of the door, but Grey was sure that even at their full height this thing wouldn’t even touch five feet tall.

"What do you want? Do you have any idea what hour—!" The voice stopped talking as it stared at Grey’s jaw. "... You..."

There was a flash of anger that passed through the creature’s expression. But just as quickly, it vanished.

It made a move to shut the door, but Grey had already snuck a foot through the opening. Propping open the frame like a wedge, he pushed.

The creature stumbled back.

"What do you think you are doing!? I will call the guards!"

Grey finally got a good look at the creature in the dim light. It was a small humanoid rat with whitish-grey fur and a single large eye right in the middle of its head.

This eye, though, on second glance didn’t seem like it was there naturally. It was almost like a goggle that obscured what was beneath it.

’A mech of some sort?’ Grey wondered.

This technician’s shop was one of the three in the city. In fact, back when he thought that Globb wouldn’t be of use to him, this was the place that Grey had originally planned to go to.

In the end, he hadn’t ended up needing to, but fate had led him back here anyway.

Well, if you could call half the city wanting your head on a chopping block "fate."

"You’re Memm, right?"

"What do you want, intruder?"

"I’m a technician, too. Right now, there’s a vacancy in the city because Globb was executed, and I’m wondering if you can help me get the permit for the shop." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

"You..."

Memm clenched his small hands, his body trembling from head to toe. It was clear he was trying to restrain his fury, but the attempt to do so was eating him alive.

Grey watched the humanoid rat for a moment. This wasn’t going as well as he had hoped.

"Forget it," Grey suddenly said.

"Huh?" Memm looked up in confusion, his expression a mixture of incredulity and dissipating rage. Why had Grey suddenly given up?

"I want to know something else instead. Why do Holy Knights have such hatred for Globb? Did he do something?"

Memm reacted as though someone had stepped on his long, fleshy tail.

"Don’t say such nonsense! Get out of my shop! Now!"

Grey’s eyes narrowed. It seemed he wasn’t crazy. There was, indeed, a reason.

The Holy Knight had pivoted away from punishing him too easily, almost as though he had been looking for an excuse to deal with Globb for a very long time now.

Grey had thought that maybe it was related to the Mechanical Jaw Lineage, but if that were the case, the Holy Knight would have had the same reaction to his own iron jaw.

But the Holy Knight, despite having kicked him in the face, didn’t seem to care all that much about Grey as a person.

"Tell me," Grey said.

Memm only seemed to get more agitated with Grey’s pressing, and Grey could tell that if he pushed any more, Memm might really flip out.

’This world is weird. Sometimes these NPCs act real, and sometimes they act like NPCs. In a video game, if I found such an important storyline, the NPC would already be falling all over himself to tell me everything about what happened. But this Memm seems very resistant to the idea.’

Grey’s gaze flickered.

If this were a video game, then it would be because he hadn’t met a certain set of requirements just yet. But what more could he do in a video game sense? He already had the Mechanical Jaw Lineage—though he had lost the tome.

However, if this was real life, then what he was missing wasn’t a list of requirements. He was missing the proper tone.

Grey took a breath and exhaled.

"Were you enemies with Globb?"

"Enemies?! Never!" Memm was quick to defend himself.

"Then you were friends."

Memm’s snout tightened closed as though he felt like he had already said too much.

"I watched him die in front of me for a crime that was my fault," Grey said slowly. "I tried to stop it, but the Holy Knight didn’t even care about my explanation, as though killing Globb was his most sacred duty.

"I want nothing more than to drive a sword through that dickhead’s throat, but I’m currently public enemy number one and don’t have room to grow stronger when everyone’s breathing down my neck.

"I need to understand what’s going on. If you want revenge for your friend, then you can rely on me to get it.

"Or you can keep skulking away like a coward in your little shop. The choice is yours."

Memm’s one giant eye vibrated wildly, and then steam started coming out of it as though his entire brain were overheating.

"... There is no conspiracy," he finally said through gritted, sharp teeth. "This is just how it has always been. The Savage Races have always been treated like this."