The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

While Gloriana wasn't easy to get along, Ves had already established a good working relationship with her. Even if they disagreed with each other, they always hashed out their differences somehow.

Together, they set a comprehensive plan for the Cherub, the Bright Warrior IB and the Ferocious Piranha IB.

Ves decided he spent enough time with Gloriana after handling these projects. He rose up from his seat and began to move to the other side of the design lab.

"Are you visiting Juliet now?"

He paused. "I am."

"Don't do anything naughty. I'm keeping my eye on you. You're mine."

"For the millionth time, Gloriana. You don't have to worry about these unrealistic fantasies. If you truly love me, then you should know how much I value loyalty."

She directed a measuring glance at him. It was as if she completely disregarded his words!

Ves did not bother to entangle with his overpossessive wife any further. He leaned in for a quick kiss before heading over to Juliet's corner of the design lab.

"Hello."

"Hello."

The Penitent Sister turned from her work station in order to face him. "I've just received your memo on the new naming system. Let me guess. Did your wife come up with this scheme?"

He nodded. "It makes sense. In the future, we'll be designing a lot more mechs, many of which will be derived from other versions. We need to make sure we don't get lost in the confusion of our own making."

"I think it's a good method of naming our designs."

"Even when it comes from Gloriana?" Ves raised his eyebrow.

She sheepishly shrugged. "I don't hate your wife, sir. I merely dislike her because.. you know. Regardless, a good idea is a good idea. There are many objective and subjective aspects to mech design. While we can disagree about the latter, we should be careful not to distort the truth."

"That is strange to hear from a Penitent Sister."

Juliet straightened her back. "I am a Penitent Sister as well as a mech designer. I see no contradiction here. I pursue the truth in both my identities."

"How does that even work?"

"As a Penitent Sister and devout Hexer, I seek the truth behind our place in life. How superior are women? How inferior are boys? What must we do to catch up to the Superior Mother's glory? Every sister of mine grapples with these profound questions every day. Don't underestimate the difficulty of answering them. Back in the Hegemony, even our most honored matriarchs have failed to settle on a definitive answer. In comparison, designing mechs is a lot easier."

Ves twitched his mouth. Juliet made it sound as if the religious crap she mentioned was serious science.

He strenuously objected to this comparison!

He decided to adopt the same approach he used whenever Gloriana brought up something nonsensical. He ignored everything she said that was related to faith and tried to pivot the conversation back to normal territory.

"We should focus on our work. Gloriana and I have just made some important decisions regarding some of our design projects. Let me fill you in on our design choices…"

As Ves quickly brought Juliet up to speed, she began to provide her own input on matters. She especially had a lot of opinions about the direction that they should take with regards to the Ferocious Piranha IB and the Cherub.

"The Ferocious Piranha and the spaceborn version of the Cherub may both look like light mechs, but their flight and movement characteristics are dramatically different." She explained. "The Ferocious Piranha is a high-budget mech that scores high in terms of energy reserves, peak energy output, heat management and other qualities. The Cherub on the other hand is like a toy. It has too many constraints. Not only are we confined to using cheaper components, but we also have to make do with simplified ones in order to avoid burdening the mech pilots."

"Do you have a problem with that, Juliet?"

"Not per se, sir. It's just annoying that I have to take a different approach for the Cherub. We need to take a rationing approach and strictly limit how much capacity and other resources we expend in order to integrate any part in the design."

Ves just recalled that Juliet probably lacked experience in designing third-class mechs. As a proud graduate of the Artemis Institute, she was almost as elite as Gloriana in the Hegemony's mech industry. There was hardly any reason for someone as good as her to dabble in lesser mechs.

"You need to get used with designing mechs under these limitations." He warned her. "The LMC started off as a third-class mech company. We only started to design second-class mechs not too long ago. While I intend to ramp up our output of second-class mech designs, we won't abandon the third-class mech market."

Juliet looked confused. "Why would you do that? The profitability of second-class mechs is much higher."

"There are multiple reasons. Second-class mech markets are far more complicated. I also don't want to pass over the third-class mech market. Devoting our energies to one market might be profitable enough, but being active in both markets at once is even more profitable."

"It's quite a burden to keep servicing the third-class mech markets."

Ves waved his hand in dismissal. "It's not a big deal. Third-class mech design projects are considered minor projects in our department. We can just leave most of the work to our assistants and just keep an eye on their progress every once in a while. In fact, this is good practice to them. Those who do well under these circumstances can exercise their nascent design philosophies."

There was another important reason why he didn't want to abandon the third-class mech market.

The huge volume of sales provided a lot of spiritual feedback to his design spirits. In fact, for some of them, they received far more spiritual feedback than they could handle.

While that wasn't entirely good, it was much more preferable than the alternative! Poor, stagnant and impoverished design spirits such as Bravo could only dream of earning so many rewards!

Ves did not have to worry about any of his design spirits going hungry as long as millions of mech pilots kept piloting related mechs.

While there were many differences between third-class mech pilots and second-class mech pilots, they were largely the same when it came to the quality and quantity of spiritual feedback they provided!

Even expert candidates and expert pilots were no different. At most, second-class expert pilots were a bit more vigorous and varied due to their superior heritage and training.

While he couldn't tell all of that to Juliet, it was enough to make his stance clear.

"You're in charge, sir." She demurringly said. "If this is your policy, then I will get up to speed on how to design a lesser mech."

"That's exactly what I want to hear."

Ves resisted the urge to pat her head and call her a good girl.

Unlike his stubborn and bossy spouse, Juliet was remarkably well-behaved. He couldn't help but study her appearance a bit deeper.

She was not too tall or too short. She was moderately fit due to the training she underwent as a Penitent Sister. She possessed unremarkable brown hair that she neatly tied in a plain ponytail and she wore no makeup at all.

Perhaps the only real demerit to her appearance was the ♂ symbol tattooed on her face. If not for this mark of shame, Ves might have called her homely.

Though Ves did not feel any special attraction to Juliet, he briefly imagined what it would be like to enter into a relationship with the Penitent Sister.

There was no getting around to the fact that Juliet was a Hexer. A devout one at that. Yet she was completely opposite to Gloriana when it came to her demeanor.

Despite her sordid past as cultist and extremist, Juliet had grown a lot less combative and much more moderate over the past month. The Larkinson Network, the Superior Mother, the hardships they went through all played a role in deradicalizing her and her fellow sisters.

In her current state, Juliet would make for a much more lovelier partner than Gloriana.

What Ves especially liked about the Penitent Sister designer so far was her dereference towards him. Even though her attitude towards him was largely based around the mistaken belief that he was the son of the Superior Mother, he quite liked it actually.

Hexers were much more tolerable when they put down their superior attitude towards him and looked up to him instead. That was something Gloriana rarely did, much to his regret.

As Ves kept staring at Juliet, the third lead designer of the Design Department felt as if the mood between the two had grown a little weird.

"MIAOW!"

"Ouch!"

Ves almost jumped from his seat!

He quickly turned around to see an irate Clixie staring up at him. The Rubarthan Sentinel Cat hissed a warning at him. Her bared teeth made it clear just how she had managed to make him feel pain!

"You, what are you doing?!"

"Miaow miaow miaow!"

"Hey, it wasn't like that! You're a cat. What do you know about humans? I was just thinking about mechs!"

"Miaow." Clixie merely hissed again.

Ves sighed in exasperation before turning around to look for Lucky. His own cat turned out to be floating leisurely above his head.

"Aren't you going to defend your master, Lucky?"

"Meow?"

"She just bit me! Don't you see the problem in that?"

"Meow meow."

"What a vigilant cat you are! Should I cut your diet in half or something?"

"Meow."

"I said no stealing!"

He gave up on Lucky. He carefully sat down. Clixie meanwhile hadn't left at all. She jumped up to the workstation and rested her body on it. Her deep blue eyes kept staring closely at Ves.

"Uhm, what was that about?" Juliet hesitantly asked.

"It's nothing. Our cats like to play pranks every now and then."

Though Juliet didn't seem to buy his story, she didn't bother to entangle with it any further. She was much more interested in progressing their design projects.

After he settled down, Ves brought up the mech that he intended to design for the Penitent Sisters.

"So far, I have been thinking about the mech type that we should adopt for this specific mech. Remember, it has a special purpose. It is not only meant to bring out the most of your sisters, but must also be capable of threatening vastly-superior mechs."

His idea was very bold. So bold in fact that Juliet was not fully onboard with his plan!

"Even if this mech draws strength from the Superior Mother as you claimed, we cannot rely on her for everything. We must fight by relying on our own strength. That is what truly keeps us strong. I don't know if any second-class mech we design is capable of challenging the might of a first-class mech."

Ves pressed his lips. "We are mech designers. We make the impossible possible. Even if the idea is ludicrous, just go through with it. Even if we come up short of our goal, we'll still end up with a mech that is still powerful enough to challenge very powerful second-class mechs."

"Isn't our department already working on an anti-expert mech for the Hex Army?"

"You're right, but the Blinding Mech is merely another auxiliary model. Its goal is not to defeat an expert pilot, but to debilitate it. The Hex Army is powerful enough that it can deploy plenty of other mechs to take advantage of the opening created by our Blinding Mech. What I have in mind for the Penitent Sisters is much more ambitious."

He cautiously revealed some of the principles behind his idea of a Penitent Sister mech. Battle formations played a central role to this mech!

Previously, he only tied mech pilots to the battle network. This time, he wanted to integrate both the mech and mech pilot to the same network!