The Mech Touch

The Great Omanderie Festival indeed sounded like a great opportunity to the Swordmaidens.

Back when they were known as Lydia's Swordmaidens, they used to number hundreds of mech pilots. They had grown into a formidable outfit in their own right in the Faris Star Region.

Sadly, numerous battles caused their ranks of active mech pilots to dwindle to a single mech company. The catastrophe that took place on Aeon Corona VII was the most devastating moment in their history.

They should have laid low for a few years in order to restore their lost strength. Yet what happened to them afterwards only led to further losses.

Their lack of external recruitment made it so that they had never been able to gain enough time to replenish their ranks before they were thrown into yet another dangerous battle.

Ever since they joined the Larkinson Clan, Ves treated them with care. He never wished to throw them against his enemies head-on, because frontal clashes always led to a lot of attrition.

Instead, he had gotten used to keeping the Swordmaidens in reserve. This not only preserved the lives of their mech pilots, but also allowed him to employ their strength in the most favorable circumstances during a battle.

While this still allowed the Swordmaidens to prove their worth in battle, he was not blind to the fact that they thought this was less than ideal.

Swordmaidens loved to get in the fray! They should be fighting in the front alongside the Avatars and other elite mech forces. Instead, Ves' unwillingness to lose any of the elite veterans that had survived every disaster their group caused them to feel as if they were being coddled.

Their pride and honor did not allow them to accept their new circumstances.

"Our blades will dull from lack of use. We need to contribute more comprehensively in battle to keep our edge." Ketis emphatically stated.

The Swordmaidens truly saw a lot of hope in a possible trip to the Heavensword Association. However, Ves wasn't really sure it would work out the way they expected.

"How difficult will it be for you to pick up the recruits you want? Your requirements are rather strict and the people who meet them will likely be considering better opportunities."

His student didn't show any concern. "It's not going to be a problem. We are strong and proven warriors and we have the records to back it up. The recent battles we've fought are excellent showcases of what prospective members will become a part of as long as they join our ranks. Besides, the fact that we have an expert pilot who is willing to provide tutoring in both swordsmanship and mech piloting is already an irresistible draw to many swordswomen."

That was true. Expert pilots were mythical and distant figures to many mech pilots. Who wouldn't want to come under the tutelage of one of these superhuman heroes? Just a half hour's worth of tutoring was enough for any mech pilot to become clear on what they needed to do to improve!

The Swordmaidens hadn't chosen to take part in the Great Omanderie Festival on an impulse. They planned ahead and accounted for many variables. Despite their gruff exteriors, not every Swordmaiden was a muscled brute. Their leaders were shrewd and thoughtful enough to approach this opportunity with a solid gameplan.

"Are you really not aiming for the top?" Ves asked again. "I didn't take you Swordmaidens for settling with less than the best."

"We know our limits." Ketis crossed her arms and sighed. "If we took part a decade later, then it would probably be a different story, but we are still in a moment of weakness. We really can't compare to the champions prepared and nurtured by the various groups of the Heavensword Association and elsewhere. They have been preparing to win the various competitions for many years."

While Ketis sounded rather accepting of these facts, Ves was still sensitive enough to sense an undercurrent of dissatisfaction in her mind.

Just because she acknowledged the current reality didn't mean she was willing to embrace it! If the circumstances enabled it, she truly wanted her and her Swordmaidens to reach the finals!

Ves hesitated for a time. A lot of considerations swept through his mind. He recalled his debt of gratitude for everything the Swordmaidens had done to help him out. They didn't owe him their service, but they fought and died for him anyway. While they didn't fight solely for him, it was undeniable that there would have been a lot more Swordmaidens alive today if they didn't commit to the Larkinson Clan.

He valued their unflinching loyalty. While it was not the kind of dedication that was engraved in their very bones like the Battle Criers, that only made their deeds more praiseworthy.

While he had already accommodated them plenty of times, it didn't hurt to prepare more favors for them. He could think of several ways to increase their chances to perform well in the Grand Omanderie Festival.

"When will you leave?"

"It will take some time to complete our preparations." She answered. "Not only do we need to wait for the Star Striders to prepare a separate escort, we also have to purchase a lot of training equipment and supplies for our next step. We'll probably be ready to depart in a week."

Ves thoughtfully nodded. "I can help you in various ways. We can work together to improve the gear of your Swordmaidens. I can also help you in another way that you're already familiar with. While I can't make you all as strong as I wish, I can still give some of you a powerful physical boost."

"Are you talking about implants and genetic modification? They can definitely help, but I've already spoken to Dr. Ranya about this. It takes months to complete all of the steps necessary for us to augment our physical capabilities. It's too late to begin now."

"I'm aware of that, but I have more ways to augment your bodies." Ves smiled coyly at her. "Did you remember the time when I fed you a bunch of candy that caused you to improve by leaps and bounds?"

She adopted a strange expression. "I do. Back then, I was awfully confused, but now that I think about it, you did something to me, right? Those candies are a lot more valuable than any augment I'm familiar with. Do you have.. more?"

"I do. Not as much as you think, but I still have plenty to transform your strength and the strength of many of your fellow Swordmaidens. I'll need to make some preparations beforehand. Your strongest group of Swordmaidens must come to my workshop in person once we emerge out of FTL travel. We can work on some other preparations in the meantime."

"Such as?"

"What if we can prepare Unending alloy greatswords for all of your Swordmaiden mech pilots? You won't have to worry about your blades succumbing to any enemy weapon."

"I thought you had already used up all of the Unending alloy at your disposal." Ketis said. "Where would we get the materials?"

Ves shrugged. "We'll just take it from one of our existing mechs. I'm sure the Shield of Samar won't mind if we slim it down a little bit. We don't even need to shave too much material from her shield and frame. The difference in scale means that fashioning 40 extra human-sized greatswords will only lose a trivial amount of mass."

Perhaps Venerable Jannzi wouldn't like it, but what could she do? Her mech was still under his control.

His offers came as a pleasant surprise to Ketis. As they discussed various other ways he could help the Swordmaidens out, she became a lot more hopeful about the success of this trip.

Naturally, there were concerns as well. While Ketis did not reject the offer to supply Unending alloy swords to her fellow Swordmaidens, she was afraid it might attract the greed of others.

Ves frowned as well. "How safe is the competition?"

"It's very safe. The Heavensword Association takes the festival and the contests seriously. If incidents of foul play took place, then the contest would be a lot less attractive to foreigners. That would seriously affect the universal appeal of the event, which is detrimental to the state."

That didn't mean that everything was fine and dandy. Ketis didn't have enough information to know for sure.

"Your Swordmaidens should keep their Breyer alloy swords just in case." Ves advised. "In the meantime, I'll be making some inquiries myself."

"Thank you."

"You don't need to thank me. This is what you all deserve."

Even though he had many design obligations, Ves decided to spare some time to help the Swordmaidens prepare.

Still, in order to supply more Attribute Candies, Ves urgently needed to acquire more Design Points. After he splurged most of his savings on the Odineye, he only had around 50,000 DP left.

This was not enough!

At most, he'd be able to boost every Swordmaiden mech pilot with only a single candy. This was a very inefficient way to improve their chances of winning.

Ves already decided it was better to limit the candies to just five individuals. This was enough to augment their best performing duelists while at the same time transform the combat strength of an entire group.

In fact, aside from augmenting 5 strong Swordmaiden mech pilots, he also wanted to boost Ketis and Venerable Dise while he was at it. Even though it would dilute the amount of Candies reserved for the champion team, it would prevent the two most influential Swordmaidens from feeling left out.

Ves became quite busy now that he took on this added responsibility. Not only did he assist Ketis with the preparations of her trip, he also had to fabricate the first production copy of the Bright Warrior IB straight away.

When Gloriana entered his workshop with Clixie, she looked rather irked.

"I would rather spend our time on completing our remaining five mech design projects before we do this." She began. "Why are you so impatient?"

He couldn't tell her that he needed to fabricate a Bright Warrior IB in order to satisfy the System's requirements for evaluating his design and awarding him with a lot of DP.

"The Spirit of Bentheim will soon begin to mass produce our new Bright Warriors. You don't want the first copy to be a rough first attempt that was made by a team of ordinary mech technicians, do you? Our design deserves better. Let's do our best and provide our new mech model with a good start."

Though she didn't entirely agree with him, she didn't object any further. She partially agreed with his sentiment.

The issue was that their mindsets weren't optimal for this task.

When the pair began to fabricate the first new Bright Warrior that wasn't a prototype, neither of them entered into any special state of mind. They just approached their work as a necessary chore. While this did not detract too much from the quality of their work, their relatively lack of passion and commitment in their work prevented them from achieving exceptional results.

After three-and-a-half days of careful and meticulous work, they completed the Bright Warrior IB without any fanfare.

The couple looked at the first production copy with evident disappointment in their faces.

"It's nowhere near the Quint." Gloriana flatly said.

The first complete Bright Warrior IB complete with the components of all four of its configurations paled in comparison to one of their great successes.

"That's true, but the relation between the Quint and the Bright Warrior product line means we can finally upgrade our older masterwork to a proper second-class mech."

That was something to consider for later, as the Quint had morphed into a substantially different mech.

As for the newest mech that they had made by hand, neither of the two were in the mood to bestow a unique name to it. Its quality and workmanship simply hadn't reached the level where it deserved such treatment.

The mech was too plain, just like the design it was based upon.

Ves wasn't too upset by this failure. He would have five more chances to make another masterwork mech very soon.

At least he should be getting his DP.