Chapter 7236: The Disappointment of the Larkinson Clan

Venerable Rosa Orfan stood silent as she rewatched all of the battles of her career.

From the time she served in the Mech Corps of the Bright Republic to the period where she fought against the native aliens in the Red War, each of her strengths and weaknesses laid bare before her eyes.

Making difficult decisions during the heat of the moment in the middle of a busy battlefield was very different from watching your own performance from old footage.

Rosa hated it. She hated the sight of how she piloted the Riot and the previous mechs she used over the course of her career.

It was impossible for her to ignore all of the flaws and shortcomings of her actions. As a high-tier expert pilot with plenty of experience under her belt, she knew what good piloting looked like.

She only had to watch Saint Dise fight with the First Sword Mark III to understand what she could become if she applied her skills better.

Unfortunately, Rosa was way too far from reaching her friend and former peer’s abilities.

The gap was so great that Rosa grew more and more ashamed as she witnessed her horrendous performance.

No matter what stage of her career she was in, there was always plenty to criticize.

She shouldn’t have engaged that opponent.

She should have paid more attention to the plight of her comrades.

She should have performed a different attack during a specific sequence.

There were many situations where she could have defeated more opponents and won the battle if she just made the right decisions.

To see how many opportunities she missed and how she was so fixated on what was right in front of her that she missed more important developments elsewhere damaged her self-esteem even further.

She had no way of denying these mistakes. Her judgment as a professional mech pilot could not be fooled to this degree. Much of her actions and decisions were objectively bad, especially now that she was able to compare them to each other.

A profound sense of shame spread throughout her being. To see her flail about without knowing any better was just too humiliating.

She remembered most of the battles well enough to know that they were not fake in any way. Rosa may have been younger and much less skilled at the time, but even then she had enough piloting and command ability back then to make much better choices.

Venerable Orfan did not necessarily feel ashamed for making all of those mistakes per se. She was disappointed in herself, but her faults were not irredeemable.

The problem was that she kept making them. She recognized that she had a number of bad assets that she had never seriously addressed. The fact that half of them were problems in the first place did not even register in her mind.

So what if she favored aggression over caution?

So what if she was a little too willing to take risks and let her machine take the brunt of the damage?

So what if she did not bother to listen to the requests and proposals of the mech pilots around her machine?

Back when she still felt as if she was on top of the universe, these flaws seemed trivial to her at the time.

It was only now that she was forced to look at her reflection in the mirror that she could no longer deny what was obvious to any serious mech pilot.

Venerable Rosa Orfan was a neglectful fighter.

She recognized that she had a bad case of tunnel vision, but never thought it was wrong because she was so consumed by her own apparent strength.

This was why she hated to review her own performance. She could not help but recognize her own faults and acknowledge the truth of her own flaws.

“This is the real Rosa Orfan.” Saint Dise spoke as she continued to pass judgment over her friend. “I have advised you time and time again that reviewing your own actions after a deployment is a valuable learning opportunity. You cannot improve if you do not diagnose your shortcomings. Your refusal to look at your mistakes has left you in an ignorant state where you keep repeating them over and over.”

She made a good point.

Rosa hated it that her friend pointed out the truth.

To see herself fumble around right from the start of her career and continue to make similar mistakes like a blind pig made her feel embarrassed beyond reason.

She no longer felt she was worthy to be an expert pilot, let alone becoming an ace pilot.

No ace pilot would fight in such a shameful manner!

“The difference between us is that your confidence is based on your ego, while mine is based on the skills and techniques that I have diligently trained almost every day.” Saint Dise continued to rub in her superiority. “You have wasted much of your time on unproductive activities. To your credit, you are not lazy, but your training is largely ineffective due to your refusal to diagnose your own problems and formulate deliberate plans to address them. Without a targeted and cohesive training plan, you mindlessly make marginal improvements in the skills you are already good at while neglecting the aspects of yourself that require more attention.”

Rosa Orfan lowered her head even further.

She felt like such a failure.

She could not bring herself to deny Dise’s painfully accurate criticism.

How could Rosa ever think she deserved to become a saint?

Ace pilots were supposed to be the best of all expert pilots.

Her performance made it clear that she did not rank close to the top 1 percent, let alone top 0.1 percent.

There were easily hundreds if not thousands more high-tier expert pilots in the entire new frontier who possessed superior qualifications than herself!

Unlike a blind and ignorant pig like herself, these diligent and disciplined expert pilots maintained a strict and targeted training regime that was much closer to the one practiced by Dise back when she was an expert pilot as well.

These champions did not rest on their laurels like Rosa Orfan, but recognized the vast gulf between their current ranks and the next one. They were not afraid to review their old battle footage and frankly admit their own shortcomings.

Only by honestly confronting and recognizing their own faults were they able to mitigate them in the most effective manner!

As Rosa Orfan recognized how unworthy she was, she practically lost control of both of her legs.

The black corruption had completely taken over her lower body and was starting to capture her arms as well.

This left her immobile and feeling as if she was increasingly losing essential parts of herself.

It became a little more difficult to maintain her awareness. She faintly detected that her willpower was waning, but she had no idea how to stall this deterioration.

Her willpower was based on confidence.

How could she possibly feel confident in her abilities when she recognized that she was the expert pilot equivalent of a clown all this time?

Sure, her performance on the battlefield was not bad by any means, but she had been wasting so much of her potential due to the fact that she had never trained as diligently as others.

Even Venerable Vincent Ricklin took his boxing training more seriously than her own spearmanship drills!

“You have let down the expectations of the Larkinson Clan.” A new and younger female voice uttered. “The clan has graciously provided you with some of the best mechs that we could develop for you. We spent valuable resources to support you as our champion, yet by squandering much of your growth opportunities, you have turned into a sad excuse of a high-tier expert pilot. All of those general cultivation elixirs that we stuffed down your throat could have been used to prep a more deserving champion for greatness. If your current state is the extent of your martial prowess during these trying times, then you have let down our clan.”

Rosa Orfan wanted to issue a retort, but she could not think of any decent argument to defend herself.

She had transgressed. She had wasted too much resources. She did not feel worthy to pilot a mech as fine as the Riot Mark III.

Venerable Jannzi Larkinson sneered as she directed her judgmental glare straight at the sad sack that thought she deserved to become an ace pilot.

“You do not deserve any of our sympathy and pity. Aside from being overly generous, our clan has not erred in our treatment of you. We only misjudged your worth and thought you would be a worthy candidate for the second full superdimensional mech of our clan. Do you understand how much the former patriarch and his wife have invested in your high-tech machine? There is more super-class materials and exotic tech stuffed into the archemech frame than you can imagine. I wouldn’t expect an illiterate brute like you to understand the specifics, but even you should understand how rare it is to make a mech out of armor-grade superdimensional matter.”

The latest super material to take red humanity by storm deserved all of the hype.

Armor-grade superdimensional matter was rare beyond belief, yet the Larkinson Clan was still willing to invest heaps of it into her Riot Mark III.

The Larkinsons shouldn’t have done so. Rosa Orfan did not deserve to pilot such an absurdly strong mech. Other mech pilots such as Saint Tusa and Venerable Jannzi deserved to make use of a high-grade superdimensional mech much more.

“What do you even bring to the table, Rosa?” Jannzi asked with her constant sneer. “Are you a killer of phase whales like Dise? Are you an indomitable shield and protector like Jannzi? Or are you a hyperfast scout and skirmisher like Tusa?”

“I am… none of them…” Rosa admitted.

“Exactly. You are nothing. You used to pilot a spearman mech that is weaker in offense than the First Sword, less durable than the Bastion and much slower than the Dark Zephyr. Perhaps the Riot Mark III is able to overturn most of this, but you do not deserve all of these gains. You are able to make much less use of them than the mech pilots that I have mentioned. Dise can turn every weapon into an instrument of slaughter. Jannzi can make a mech lasts twice as long as yours. Tusa can evade many more attacks than you. What about you? What is your advantage?”

“…”

Jannzi snorted. “Thought so. This is the gap between you and the rest of us. You not only neglected your training, but did not think to develop an advantage that is not yet covered by others. You are a master of none. You possess no unique killer moves and have no famous deeds to your name. You are the most dispensable high-ranking expert pilot of our clan. At least Casella is mourning Imon’s loss. No one will seriously mourn for you when you inevitably perish.”

Rosa felt her heart being pierced by the words of her friends.

The truth in them rang so loud that they deafened her ears.

How could she be so blind to her failings?

She did not deserve to become an ace pilot.

A saint was the best of all of the expert pilots. Rosa Orfan was way too far from matching this ideal.

As the expert pilot continued to mentally beat herself up, the dark fog continued to overtake more and more of her body.

Her lower torso began to get corrupted while her arms became completely engulfed.

Much of her form began to lose definition as a different presence began to surge inside her manifestation.

She was changing by the second.

This should have alarmed her, but for whatever reason Rosa accepted it as if it was her penance.

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