The Mech Touch

Shock! Ves became shocked!

As Gavin sent him a bunch of news articles reporting on the successful attacks launched by the Ylvainans.

While the Ylvainans enjoyed the advantage of surprise, that shouldnʼt have been enough to give them a decisive victory on all six incursions. Yet the Kronons fought as if they were possessed, exhibiting much greater battle frenzy than what a stagnant, unbloodied military mech force ought to possess!

Unlike the Bright Republic Mech Corps, the Kronon Dynasty never fought any major battles since the founding of the Protectorate! Their stateʼs isolation gave them very little chance to showcase their prowess, and they had largely been considered paper tigers by foreigners.

From the propaganda footage transmitted by the Ylvainans and the sporadic footage leaked by civilian Starrers on the ground, the battles proceeded very unevenly from the start!

”The Star Army isnʼt some pushover.” Gavin told him over the comm. ”The Star Faith Collective is a fairly belligerent state and theyʼve had scuffles with most of their neighbors due to their hunger to take over powerful star systems.”

”They are crazy for stars. They just canʼt help themselves.”

”Well, this time, theyʼve barked up the wrong tree. Despite possessing a considerable defensive advantage, their battle lines crumbled far too quickly against the Kronons. According to the judgement of the analysts, the Ylvainans should have gotten stalled in at least four of the battles, but instead they overwhelmed the Star Worshippers through pure ferocity!”

The Ylvainans shouldnʼt have won so easily at all six battlefields. The Star Army was not a vegetable, and the Star Worshippers who fought on the defense were just as faithful in their beliefs as their opponents.

Both sides should have fought with an equal amount of religious fervor. Yet the mech pilots of one side exhibited much more enthusiasm while the mech pilots of the other side fought as if there were weights pressing down on their hearts!

A lot of analysts who interpreted battle footage for a living began to study the underlying reasons why the Ylvainans crushed the Star Worshippers so heavily.

What they discovered was fairly shocking.

The decisive factor turned out to be the mechs designed by Ves!

The difference became clear when the analysts compared the battle performance of units that contained LMC mechs and those that did not. The former fought as if they were blessed!

Entire mech companies worth of Blackbeaks and Crystal Lords fought with much greater aggression than their regular Kronon counterparts.

Not only that, but whatever influence affecting the fervor of their mech pilots also extended to the area around them! Friendly military mechs in close proximity fought just as aggressive and domineering when they kept up with the LMC mechs!

While this boost in morale and battle spirit should have only imposed a modest on the battlefield, the strangest part about the LMC mechs was that they intimidated their immediate opponents somehow!

Every Starrer mech company that faced the LMC mechs in battle suffered greater casualties and broke faster!

And this didnʼt just happen once or thrice. On all six battlefields, the Kronon units fielding Blackbeaks and the Crystal Lords all encountered measurably less resistance than units fielding regular military mechs!

”The data on this is so clear that there is no doubt your mechs is the deciding factor!” Gavin noted with glee!

Ves nodded with numb shock. ”Although some of my customers have fielded my mechs in large numbers, few have gone as far as outfitting entire mech companies with my products.”

His mechs worked best in large numbers because their identical auras overlapped with each other. Yet even if he knew this truth, others might not know about it or have the money to spare to outfit an entire mech company to put this notion to the test.

Out of all of his fans and customers, only the Ylvainans were fanatical enough to commit so many resources on fielding so many of his mechs at once! To field them in a major action in such great numbers was simply unthinkable to anyone else!

Only those who believed in the Bright Martyr were willing to take the plunge. Perhaps the Ylvainans had already bought a sufficient amount of Blackbeaks, Crystal Lords and Aurora Titans to discover and ascertain their strengths when fielded together, because the Kronons mainly grouped them together for maximum effect!

A smile inadvertently bloomed on his face. ”The Ylvainans are the first customers who really get it. While my mechs mostly work fine when they are fielded by themselves, they work best when deployed together!”

He had often made this claim, but without any proof to back up his assertions, the mech market mostly brushed it off. Who was willing to invest billions of bright credits outfitting entire mech companies with the same LMC mech model?

This was why Ves banked on the Avatars of Myth to set an example. If not for its slow growth, its need to field a rounded mech roster and his various distractions, his personal mech force should have been the first ones to showcase the might of his mechs in unison!

Ves did not begrudge the Ylvainans from stealing his thunder. The authentic footage of their battles against the Star Army served as much more powerful proof than he could ever manage on his own!

This was because the Ylvainans fielded well over a thousand of his mechs at once! Ves hadnʼt even realized that the Kronons managed to procure so many of his commercial mechs! The Protectors of the Flock must have been responsible for virtually all of the demand for his products on the Protectorateʼs mech market!

A wry smile appeared on his face. He sensed the invisible influence of Calabast behind this major procurement by the Kronons. She wielded a large amount of influence on the mech market in her cover identity, so it was impossible for her to remain uninvolved!

He mentally tipped his hat at her. Influencing the Kronons to buy and field his mechs in large numbers must have been one of her initiatives to empower Ves. He had to admit the timing of these attacks couldnʼt have come at a better moment!

Gavin recognized the fortuitous timing as well!

”All the analysts agree that your mechs have made an outsized influence on morale. The Ylvainans under their influence fought like they were possessed, while the Star Worshippers who fell within their sway fought as if they were haunted. There are so many data points from all of the footage that have been released that our critics simply canʼt refute the facts!”

This was important! While an abnormality in a single instance could have been passed off as a fluke or a difference in leadership or something, there were far more instances where the same took place. Overall, hundreds of different clashes between LMC mech companies and Star Army mech companies took place across all six ground battles.

The only other way to explain the vast differences was to dismiss the Ylvaianʼs battle fervor as a collective delusion.

Yet calling this phenomenon a placebo effect could only explain the raised morale from the side of the Ylvainans. It was plausible to dismiss their fanaticism in battle as a side effect of their misguided belief in the Bright Martyrʼs products.

But could that explain the measurably worse performance of the Starrer mech companies arrayed against them? The Star Worshippers didnʼt believe in the Bright Martyr. It was doubtful if they ever even heard of this figure! There was no reason why they should feel fear just because they faced mechs produced by a particular mech company!

”If your Blackbeaks, Crystal Lords and to a lesser extent your Aurora Titans already have this effect, then the effect of your Transcendent Messengers is on a whole different level!” Gavin gushed.

The effect of gathering Forty Blackbeaks at once was much less drastic than the effect of fielding a single Transcendent Messenger!

Though every Ylvainan mech pilot entered the battle with high morale, the ones who fought within a broad range of the hero mech fought particularly well! The Kronon mechs surrounding the Transcendent Messengers all pushed forward with unstoppable momentum, while the Starrer mechs all failed to muster more than eighty percent of their usual strength!

The differences in performance had become noticeably more stark, causing lots of people to pay very close attention to the Transcendent Messengers!

Just its symbolic value to the Ylvainans couldnʼt explain the vast gulf in performance!

The Star Worshippers who believed in the stellar gods shouldnʼt have fought so poorly to the point where it seemed as if they questioned their faith!

”Proof.” Ves spoke up after his shock at the Ylvaine Protectorateʼs insane decision to attack the Star Faith Collective had subsided. ”All of this is proof!”

”Yes! Our Marketing Department has already gone into overdrive to edit the footage into compelling ads. The only problem is that demand for our existing mech lineup wonʼt change. With the sandmen bearing down on us, no one is stupid enough to buy a Blackbeak.”

Though that was a huge shame, neither of them showed any dissatisfaction. That was because they could still use the proof to raise the fame of the LMC!

Not only that, they could also use all of the material they obtained to boost their next products!

”We should take advantage of the buzz the Ylvainans have generated to promote your Desolate Soldier and the Holy Soldier models! Even if the mech models are different, all of your mechs exhibited the same effect on morale! We can put much more strength to your claim that your Desolate Soldier is perfect for shoring up everyoneʼs sense of duty!”

Both Ves and Gavin were of the same mind on this judgement. With the dramatic success achieved by the Ylvainans so fresh on everyoneʼs minds, the LMC needed to take immediate advantage of the favorable publicity!

Once the sandman invasion reached the third line of defense, the news of the dramatic raids would quickly fade!

”The Mech Nursery should hurry up and pump out as many Desolate Soldiers as possible. Donʼt hesitate in partnering up with third-party mech manufacturers to expand our initial volume. With all of the publicity my products have received, itʼs more vital than ever to make my mechs visible on the streets!” Ves instructed Gavin.

They hashed out a plan to field large numbers of Desolate Soldiers on the streets of Bentheim. Even if they did nothing but stand around or move back and forth, their strong duty-focused auras would fascinate every mech buyer in Bentheim!

To the LMC, there was no better way to convince hesitating mech buyers of the unique value of his Desolate Soldiers than to verify their effects in person! Ves had no doubt that the curiosity generated by the successful Ylvainan raids would be satisfied in this fashion!

Once Gavin ended the call to convey the altered marketing plans to the LMC, Ves sat back and fell into a moment of contemplation.

He viewed the first massed use of his mechs as a turning point in his career. Along with the imminent release of the Desolate Soldier model and its variant, the LMCʼs fortunes would inevitably experience an incredible boost!

”From now on… the sales of my mech models wonʼt be limited to thousands.”

Ves held especially high hopes for his Desolate Soldier model. While its product margin was very thin, if he managed to sell tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of copies in the next year, then the profit he earned would amount to a considerable figure!

Yet more important than the profit would be the boost to his products. With the LMC products fielded in such large numbers, more and more proof of how beneficial they could be would spread among the mech community like a wildfire.

He had no doubt that many of his customers aside from the Ylvainans would soon come to know how formidable the LMC mechs performed in battle!

”My limelight has come!” He grinned.

At the dawning of the next mech generation, a brand new future awaited him upon his return!