The Mech Touch

Ves waved his hand, causing a projection of the original Fantasia 2R Seraphim to emerge into view.

Lucky, who was lounging on a table while crunching a chunk of mineral, looked up at the impressive female-shaped mech.

"Meow."

"Yeah. Those were the days. Back then, I couldn't have imagined earning even a single MTA credit."

Though it was only five years ago, Ves had risen from a humble Novice into one of the most successful young Journeymen in the star cluster in this span of time. The contrast was immense, and anyone who studied his rapid progression would have been astounded.

It was no surprise that outside observers suspected that Ves had not been able to make so many accomplishments alone!

His average performance at the Rittersberg University of Technology should have never produced a mech designer who was able to trounce a peer from the MTA in just five years of time.

Only Ves and a handful of others like Calabast and Nitaa knew he took advantage of the Mech Designer System to rapidly improve his design capabilities.

Everyone else who tried to figure out the truth had all been misled by their mistaken assumptions. They collected too little information and couldn't conceive that Ves owned something as mythical as the long-missing Metal Scroll.

These kinds of misunderstandings continued to deflect suspicion from him, which was very convenient to him. While he had no illusion that these misunderstandings would protect him forever, as long as he survived his early growth phase, he and his clan would definitely be able to grow strong enough one day.

He shook his head. "That will take a while."

He returned his attention back to the Seraphim. As one of his earliest variants, he didn't need to be as discerning as Gloriana to spot the countless flaws and suboptimal implementations.

That along with the primitive, early generation components caused the mech's performance to be very lackluster compared to modern mechs.

The difference was night and day!

The performance of the Seraphim was so bad that mech cadets with only a few years of training under their belt could already pilot it proficiently. In the first century of the Age of Mechs, mechs weren't nearly as complex and complicated to master.

Various innovations that gave mech pilots greater power and control over their machines only emerged in subsequent generations. Neural interfaces grew increasingly more capable. Their greater bandwidth and fine control allowed mechs to control almost every function of a mech down to the output of a single servo motor!

Despite the frankly awful state of his Seraphim design, Ves still gazed at it with rose-tinted glasses. Despite the various difficulties he encountered, he still missed those simpler days.

"Well, that's over now."

As much as he liked to return to simpler times, he couldn't afford to do so. Even with the help of the System, he had worked hard to climb his way up to success while overcoming many threats to his life.

Finally, he achieved a measure of power that allowed him to shrug off the control of most states and power players. The LMc had grown to the point where it could easily rival established second-class mech companies. His Larkinson Clan rapidly shot up past the point where it could readily establish and maintain its own sovereignty.

Yet as far as he had come in five years, this was just the start. He needed to go much further if he wanted to fulfill any of his great ambitions.

Part of the steps he needed to take was to procure an excellent factory ship.

"And to do that, I need to fulfill my end of the deal with DIVA." He muttered.

His eyes continuously studied the projection of his Seraphim design. The more he reminisced about the virtual mech, the more he comprehended Gloriana's desire for them to modernize and reimagine it for the modern battlefield.

"It's already pretty much a Hexer mech."

The original Fantasia had been designed as an explicitly female mech. It tried to form a contrast against all of the stocky masculine-shaped mechs that already became the dominant trend since the early generations.

Ves grew curious and began to call up the statistics and usage data of the Seraphim.

Despite being several years old and not that good of a mech design, it still enjoyed a decent amount of popularity in Iron Spirit. While it wasn't exactly a competitive mech design at the low tiers, it was a very fun and pleasurable virtual mech to pilot.

Any mech pilot would feel a rush by piloting such a fast and impressive-looking mech.

"Since that's the case, my reimagined mech design should definitely appeal to female Hexer mech pilots!"

Ves understood the other reason why Gloriana suggested him to design a mech based on his early Seraphim design.

If he disregarded all of its flaws, it was quite an attractive mech to women.

In order to fulfill their deal to DIVA, the Miracle Couple had to design eight Hexer mech designs. This was a hefty number, and Ves did not wish to waste all of his time on designing modest, constrained male Hexer mech designs!

The gap in performance and impact between male and female mech designs in the Hex Army was very apparent!

"Those damn Hexers. They're not even letting off mechs in their obsession to discriminate by gender!" He cursed.

The problem for him was that he was a man. If he wanted a bunch of man-haters to adopt a mech designed specifically for their stuck-up female mech pilots, then he needed to overcome their intense opposition and bias.

Ves already anticipated a lot of resistance towards his recently-completed Blessed Squire design, and that was just a supportive male Hexer mech design.

The backlash would probably be ten times as worse as soon as he tried to introduce a female Hexer mech design!

In short, there was a lot at stake. Ves could not afford to fail this design project. If he did, then he could forget about designing more female mech designs!

He waved his hand, causing the projection of the primitive Seraphim design to be replaced by a sketch of a much more sophisticated design.

The sight of the sketch caused Ves to curl his mouth in a smile. "Gloriana inherited some of my flair."

The 'Valkyrie Redeemer' concept she came up with inherited most of the charm of the Seraphim design, but introduced a few more Hexer elements.

The mech had been beefed up a bit. Its curves became a bit more pronounced as its slightly thicker armor plating provided a lot more protection to the mech.

"It's not a light mech anymore. It's a light-medium mech."

The weapon loadout of the mech diverged from the original Seraphim. Instead of kitting it out with a marksman rifle and a combat knife, Gloriana instead chose a set of weapons that better reflected the aggressive tendencies of female Hexer mech pilots.

"Female Hexer mech pilots usually leave long-ranged fire support to their male counterparts." Ves reminded himself.

The Valkyrie Redeemer instead came armed with a pulse submachine gun. Though it wasn't as powerful as full-sized weapons, the submachine gun still packed enough punch to tear through most light mechs.

As a pulse weapon, the submachine gun fired a lot of powerful particles that mainly inflicted energy damage. The weapon mainly needed to be replenished with energy rather than physical ammunition, which meant the mech wouldn't be too unduly encumbered.

"This is a good fit for the Valkyrie Redeemer."

Even though a single pulse submachine gun wasn't very threatening on its own, it could still allow a squad of mechs armed with the weapon to tear through any mech, especially when circled!

However, the submachine gun was not the Valkyrie Redeemer's primary focus. It merely offered the aerial mech a way to defend itself against more mobile targets and harass tougher opponents.

The real focus of the mech was its iconic-looking spear and shield. The latter was curved and shaped like a hexagon. There was nothing else going for it aside for being rather modest in size.

The spear was also rather simple. It was shorter than most spears, but long enough to function as a very potent stabbing implement.

Taken together, the spear and shield granted the Valkyrie Redeemer a lot of assault choices.

Gloriana's Valkyrie Redeemer was merely inspired by the Seraphim. What worked in Iron Spirit might not necessarily work that well in the Komodo War. That, or the Hexers already fielded a very good light aerial marksman mech.

When Ves tried to imagine the Valkyrie Redeemers on the battlefield, he became immersed by their dazzling performance.

Squads of Valkyrie Redeemers would prowl the air. Though slower than light mechs, they were still fast enough to evade powerful enemies and fortified defense posts.

Instead, they would prowl the flanks of the battlefield and look out for opportunities. As soon as they spotted an enemy on the ground that they could take, they would begin to dive to the surface while firing their submachine guns to herald their incoming charge.

Once they got close enough and built up some momentum, they would holster their submachine guns and take up their spears and shields.

With gravity assisting their dive, they closed in on their targets like a charging formation of lancer mechs!

If a number of enemy mechs survived the inevitable collisions, the Valkyrie Redeemers weren't helpless in melee combat. With their spears and shields, they were able to adopt several different fighting styles in order to tackle their opponents!

The Valkyrie Redeemer was not a marksman mech. It was not a spearman mech or a lancer mech either.

"It's an aerial marauder mech." Ves concluded.

Unlike light skirmishers, the Valkyrie Redeemer placed a bit more emphasis on its ranged capabilities. As long as he could pair the mech with a second-class pulse submachine gun, then it could pose a considerable threat to any opponent at medium range!

Sure, the weapon wasn't suited to pierce through thick defenses, but that wasn't the point. The Valkyrie Redeemer possessed superior mobility due to its powerful flight system and should take full advantage of this strength to attack the enemy's flanks.

If the Valkyrie Redeemer wasn't able to crack a tough defense, then that was when it should employ its dive attack! With a charge that was not that much inferior to the charge of a lancer mech, the Valkyrie Redeemer should easily be able to break the shield of a knight mech.

In order to finish off exposed enemies, the Valkyrie Redeemers should possess enough strength to overwhelm them at close range.

"Their strength lies in their versatility." Ves concluded. "With at least three different modes of attack, the Valkyrie Redeemer can pose a threat to almost any weaker target."

Though Ves was confident he could fulfill the offensive criteria of this mech concept, he knew that it would come at the cost of defense.

Even if second-class armor systems were incomparably resilient compared to third-class armor systems, the weapons they faced were significantly more powerful as well.

No matter what, the Valkyrie Redeemer was not a mech that could take a lot of hits. The only way the mech could mitigate some of the incoming damage was to rely on its hexagon-shaped shield.

Even then, in order to preserve the mobility of the mech, Ves couldn't pair it with a thick and heavy tower shield.

Overall, the Valkyrie Redeemer emphasized both offense and mobility. It was not designed to absorb a lot of hits, just like other marauder mechs.

"It's a mech designed to pick a battle of its own choosing, just like pirates." Ves chuckled. He found the comparison to be apt. "Maybe that is why marauder mechs are called this way."

When Ves began to evaluate the difficulty of this design project, he knew that he had a challenge on his hands.

The capacity of the mech was too small for his liking!