Chapter 988 Battle for the High Tower (22) (Patreon)

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Batman followed Merkel into the depths of the mine. The two found a relatively quiet corner with a pile of campfires and two wooden stools.

Sitting face to face, Merkel moved the barbecue grill over and skewered two pieces of mushrooms on a wooden stick. As he lit the campfire, he said, "Here, my hunger slows down significantly compared to reality. When I'm busy, I even forget to eat. In the past three days, I've only had two meals. Try this. It's much better than the rotten leaf dish provided by mine."

Batman took the mushroom skewer from Merkel. Despite having just received treatment from Elder Triton, he didn't feel hungry. However, the aroma of the mushroom triggered his instinct to eat, and he took a juicy bite, feeling a sense of comfort as the savory flavor rushed into his nose.

Merkel brought two cups, poured a small packet of powder into each, and filled them with water from a kettle. As the water poured in, bubbles rose in the cups with a "fizz" sound.

He handed a cup to Batman and said, "This is water mixed with a small amount of flame powder. The flame powder provides the water's temperature and has a similar effect to alcohol. I think it's not bad. Do you want to try?"

Batman squinted at the water's surface in the cup. It looked somewhat like the bubbles on the surface of beer and had a sour, fermented smell. After taking a small sip, he found it more like vodka with abundant bubbles than beer.

He was not interested in alcohol, so he set the cup aside. However, Merkel took a sip, wiped his mouth, and then said excitedly, "This reminds me of my first time in Moscow. I had no idea vodka could be so intoxicating. It's much stronger than the liqueur I drank in the U.K.!"

Merkel sighed and exclaimed, "Perhaps, like that nation, it carries a natural wildness that refuses to be manipulated."

"Are you from the Soviet Union?" Batman took another bite of the mushroom skewer and asked. After experiencing the slums, he had become very accustomed to such scenes. This brief leisure time felt particularly precious, making him feel relaxed.

"I'm a thoroughbred U.K. native. When I was in school, I was exposed to Marxism. The first time I saw that book, I was deeply attracted to its theories. I thought I might find the answers to all my questions in those theories."

"But the more I read, the more confused I became." Merkel took another sip of the alcohol, the spicy taste making him cough twice, and then said, "Initially, I understood everything in it, but as I read more, I found I couldn't understand anything."

"So, I started seeking guidance. But as you know, the U.K. is a relatively conservative country. You can't talk about God as an artistic image in front of a group of believers..."

"By a stroke of luck, I got involved in a spy case, met people from Moscow, and chatted with them all night. They thought I had potential and good skills, so they introduced me to the butler school."

"There, I found many like-minded friends. Every night, we discussed various concepts in books, from enlightenment to naturalism, from how Macbeth fell to how Pavel Korchagin and Darya fell in love..."

Batman looked at Merkel across from him and noticed a captivating light in his eyes as he spoke.

However, for some reason, Batman didn't feel any real connection to what he was saying. He realized that he couldn't empathize with others' happiness.

Although his rational mind told him that, for Merkel, this might be the happiest time of his life given his background and experiences, as their companion and comrade, he should have been able to share in his happiness and be happy for him.

But Batman just didn't feel that way. When he heard Merkel change the subject and talk about his tough training years, he found himself unable to empathize.

"At that time, the teachers had to teach us many self-preservation methods, requiring us to be strong, agile, and keep a cool head. I did well in the first two points. The teacher often said I had a good talent for combat. The only problem was that my head wasn't very cool."

Merkel pursed his lips, showing a sad expression, and then said, "That's why I didn't make it into the first group and could only go to the fifth group as an operative. Many times, I would act impulsively, and the most fatal thing was that my cultural grades weren't very good..."

"If, as you said, the butler school you attended trained operatives, those who do intelligence work, infiltration, and assassination, what did your cultural studies teach?" Batman asked.

"Of course, it's about raising awareness," Merkel said very seriously. "We must comprehensively study the theoretical knowledge left by our predecessors."

Merkel looked into Batman's eyes and explained, "My teacher often told me, 'You must not see yourself as just a gun. No one can tell you where to shoot.'"

Batman frowned. This was completely different from the training system for operatives that he understood, and it was even the opposite. In the training he understood, the most important thing for assassins and operatives was obedience.

"I know you might be surprised. How could an organization require operatives not only to obey orders but also to think independently? But I must first understand why I am working, in order to determine my level and ability."
"I am not driven by interest, fame, and status to join this war, but for ideals, justice, and light."

"I am not participating in this war for myself, but for all of humanity."

"I am not joining this war for the present, but for the future."

"We must understand through learning that I have dedicated myself to this great cause for my ideals, to fight for the liberation of all humanity in any critical and severe situation without hesitation or betrayal."

"The countless predecessors who have gone before me, just like me, held such ideals in their hearts, which enabled them to achieve such great accomplishments."

In Batman's eyes, the campfire burned more and more vigorously, the intense red color of the fire's core burned his eyes, making him feel a bit cold, yet his blood was boiling.

In the flickering flames, he saw, just like that day, numerous figures passing by, trains speeding across the snowy plains, the sound of horns piercing through the cold and silent streets, and countless people walking out of the firelight, disappearing into the distance along with the wisps of smoke.

Alfred never wanted to mention these things directly to Batman, and Schiller never talked to him about ideals. Therefore, this was the first time Batman had faced a Bolshevik, a true idealist, a soldier still on this road, head-on.

This made him feel a kind of shock, but he didn't know what the emotion surging in his heart and blood was.

Batman is a mental patient. This is not an insulting description; the mental trauma of his childhood is a real existence.

Before one's personality is fully stabilized, any trauma can lead a person's mind to deviate toward the direction of mental illness in pathology.

This may lead to many problems in subsequent personality development, such as, even if he does not suffer from autism, he still has defects brought about by the spectrum, that is, he often cannot empathize normally.

Just like now, feeling at a loss for a sudden surge of emotion, unable to handle it.

Batman turned his head as if to avoid something, trying hard to calm his emotions, but it seemed that Merkel saw the purpose of his approach. He said, "I think you may have encountered some problems in leading the team, so you want to ask for my advice."

"This is actually very normal. The gap between the demons in hell is too large. The intelligence of those imps is equivalent to that of a seven or eight-year-old human child. Some demons have good intelligence, but their thinking is too chaotic, and some are too irritable..."

"It's very difficult to lead such a team. I did learn some rhetoric skills in the butler school. Mr. Schiller also pointed this out to me before. However, Mr. Wayne, it's not enough to lead a team just with these rhetoric skills."

Merkel looked seriously into Batman's eyes and said, "You must first have an ideal, and then use that ideal to infect others. You must first be firm in a path in order to lead your comrades on that path."

"If you want people to rise up and fight for themselves, then you must first know why you are fighting."

The fact is, if you cannot find a way to answer all your own questions, then you cannot answer the questions of the people you want to liberate.

With Merkel's words, Batman fell into contemplation. He really had to think about a question now, that is, what exactly he was fighting for?

Before, he would answer that he wanted to save Gotham.

But for some reason, after listening to Merkel's previous speech, this goal suddenly became difficult to articulate.

Could he tell these demons that he wanted to save a very rotten city, so they should strive to think for themselves, have self-reliance, and fight for themselves?

This simply didn't make sense logically.

He couldn't even tell the people of Gotham's lower class that he wanted to save Gotham, so they must strive to stand on their own and save themselves.

He couldn't, in the situation where his ideal was to save Gotham, make the effort he put in be understood as making the people of Gotham understand that they must save themselves.

If this kind of logic were to be expressed in a simple way, it would probably be, because it is an apple, it is an apple.

If a more vivid metaphor were to be made, it would be like Merkel owning a building, so he pointed to this building and said to everyone else, "You must learn how to lay this brick, and then we will all have a building."

And Batman, holding a brick, said to everyone else, "You must learn how to lay this brick, and then this brick will be laid."

Sometimes, to kill a mosquito, you have to use an anti-aircraft gun. The reason why ideals are called ideals is because they must be high enough and great enough to make people have the determination to sacrifice and struggle for a lifetime.

Saving Gotham, in practical terms, is very difficult, and may even be much more difficult than the work Merkel completed in his lifetime. It can be a goal, but it cannot be an ideal.

Saving Gotham can be Batman's purpose, and in order to achieve this purpose, he must have a greater ideal and the theoretical thinking derived from it.

Saving Gotham does not allow for the possibility of deriving a theoretical thinking from an ideal. On the road to saving Gotham, Batman can only gain an improvement in technical theory, and cannot gain any logical, compelling, or universally applicable thinking from it.

However, thinking is precisely the sharpest blade necessary to save someone or something, to advance the times, and to change the situation.

[Read at www.patreon.com/shanefreak, and thanks for the invaluable support!]

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