Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System

Whether intentionally or accidentally, the Valkia Envoy had set his game mode to Public, which displayed his point of view on the screen above the game pod, and right from the start, his performance garnered a considerable amount of attention.

Not only were his flying skills in the initial stages of the game incredible, but he also didn't suffer from the verticality issues that most humans did, where they always wanted to be upright, even when it was far less effective than fighting in another orientation.

The virtual reality pod simulated gravity, and being inverted was disconcerting to most humans, so they would try to turn around in the air to fight enemies approaching from above and behind, whereas the Valkia remained horizontal and simply barrel rolled to get to the closest enemies, which was much faster.

He had the strongest start of any player so far, according to the leaderboard, but he wasn't far ahead of some of the fighter pilots, who had also become accustomed to fighting in three dimensions.

After the introductory stage, the game paused, giving the player a chance to modify their settings for the next stage and change weapons. It also allowed challenges, though most players would decline them, as well as the chance to add additional players.

Surprisingly, the Valkia Envoy accepted the option to add another player to his game so that they would be working in cooperative mode.

That brought a mixed reaction from the crowd, with some thinking that whatever random player had requested the invitation would drag him down, but also some excitement to see how good a player had to be to even dare to request to join a game with a score that high.

In this game, the difficulty was set by your first stage performance, so this would be the hardest, and therefore highest scoring game that it had generated so far. Assuming that the additional player was up to the standard, that is.

[Additional Player Added] HuntressKhan

[Additional Player Added] BloodGoddess

The crowd fell silent as they read the names. Nobody on the ship was unaware of who Huntress Khan was, and most of them knew Blood Goddess from Gaming events, though not all of them realized right away that it was Nico.

The game timer was counting down when suddenly, another notice entered the screen.

[Difficulty Mode Altered] Extreme Mode selected.

[Experience Gains Tripled]

Max shook his head and looked around to see if the Huntress and Nico were here, but it seemed that they were playing from one of the many linked locations within Absolution.

Max moved to the bench facing the public screen and settled in for a good show when he got a message from Nico.

[The preliminary selections for Squad Leaders have been made. We can send them with the Android Army for the next battle. The messages just need your approval, and we can begin the mission twenty-four hours after the new Pilots are notified.]

'At least she had finished her work before going gaming with her new friends.' Max thought to himself while he read the notifications.

It looked like she had prioritized tactical skills and System Functions over pure combat system skills. She wasn't picking the strongest combatants but the best leaders from the applicants since they would all be leading Companies of Mecha who couldn't improvise outside of their parameters.

None of them looked suspicious, and they were all from personnel already stationed on Absolution, so Max sent the confirmation while the timer counted down on the game.

The second stage was a toss-up, with both flying and ground fighting being effective, so he was eager to see if he could pick up a new tactical idea from their game. It might not be Mecha, but the combat was similar in both the game and in Mecha. Plus, there was so much information from his past life available, but he had nearly forgotten most of it, and he needed some sort of trigger to remember it all.

Centuries of combat had been unlocked in Max's mind, but even with his mind, only a small percentage of those battles were either memorable or horrifying enough that they came easily to mind.

The Huntress took the ground route while the other two flew overhead, clearing out the incoming enemies before they could slow her down. Each strike was precisely placed for maximum damage, and to most of the onlookers, it didn't look that hard. At least until the Valkia Envoy took a hit in order to quickly kill two other enemies, and it very nearly cut his leg off.

"Did you see that? One glancing blow took two-thirds of his health. That game mode is crazy. I wouldn't even manage to make it past the first group without taking a hit." An onlooker remarked to his friends.

"Yeah, but you suck. Those three are practically war gods. Give him a moment, and his regeneration should heal that strike up, and he will be back to full again.

Watching them all fight was actually very helpful to Max. The scenario that they were in was similar to the battle that the Mecha would have to fight tomorrow, eliminating guards and patrols of enemies around a city complex. The enemies were very different, but the tactics were similar, and it reminded Max of a time when he had to liberate a holy shrine from a force of zealots.

It had been surrounded and put up its shield, which was of an ancient vintage like the ones on the surface here. He had chosen to attack from the outside, and it had given the zealots time to break the barrier, so he had to drop additional forces inside to save the shrine and the Monks.

It was a tactical blunder early in his career, even if it was considered a successful mission by his superiors.

He had very nearly done the same thing here and dropped the Mecha outside of the Klem infestation to work their way in. It was a Hammer and Anvil strategy, driving them up against the shields and crushing them, but taking into consideration the state of the shields, There was a chance that it would backfire on him again.

The three charged into the lines of enemies and made a loop around the city, eliminating everything that they came across. It was a great strategy for a small force and a large objective, but not really relevant to Max's train of thought. Unless he did the same and had his forces dive in and sweep around the city in a rotational pattern.

It would make for a more dangerous deployment, but it would pull the Klem Force's attention toward them and away from the city in multiple spots, limiting the damage to the barrier and the chance that they would try to force their way inside to escape since they could spread outward.

He would just have to place a second group further out in a perimeter ring so nothing escaped, and they could clear city after city that way.

It was unorthodox, but after entering it into the Command Group simulation and running it a few times with [Optimize] active, he managed to come up with a version that had very low estimated casualties and no cities breached by the Klem.

The efficiency was up thirty percent on his original plan, so Max updated the deployment orders for all of the Mecha and sent the new orders to the Drone units, who would begin the battle by softening up the enemy, as well as running interference over the cities that they wouldn't get a main Mecha force to right away.