The Mech Touch

The Wild Brawl Bowl had entered its most exciting period. Though the third and fourth place winner of the tournament had to be decided as well, there was only one match that all of the viewers truly wanted to witness.

[Team Larkinson shall battle it out against Team Hammerfall for the honor of winning the Wild Brawl Bowl! In two hours, this great collision between mech designers shall finally unfold!]

[Team Larkinson's Heart of Victor has slowly proven itself worthy to reach the finals. Initially, its performance was good, but not exceptional. That slowly changed over the course of four battles against four difficult opponents. This exceptional machine has demonstrated a capability that is practically unseen in any other mech. It is able to enhance the piloting and fighting skills of an ordinary mech pilot to that of an expert candidate!]

[The Heart of Victor has hid its true strength quite well in the runup to the finals. Miss Ketis Larkinson has fully vindicated herself as one of the most remarkable and promising young Journeymen in the Red Ocean! While there is much confusion and speculation on how she is able to combine her swordmaster abilities in her mech designs, it is undeniable that she is one of the few mech designers who is able to give normal mech pilots a taste of what it is like to be one step away from becoming an expert pilot!]

From the moment that word spread about the Heart of Victor's fourth match, interest in the Wild Brawl Bowl instantly exploded!

The momentum surrounding this rather low-budget mech design tournament abruptly soared as the news rapidly spread to many corners.

A lot of mech pilots instantly bought tickets in order to witness the final match. The seats for the live tournament had already been sold out within minutes while the virtual attendance numbers had multiplied by at least three times!

While it was true that a majority of people dismissed the news or did not consider it relevant to their own interests, the Wild Fighter Association was already happy with all of the increased attention. The curious viewers who were either gullible or open-minded enough to believe in the claims were more than willing to observe the Heart of Victor's last public performance

"Can a mech designed by a swordmaster truly turn me into an expert candidate?"

"No, you idiot. Look at what happened when the staff pulled Lyain Kepper aside and tested his current state. He hasn't broken through and he didn't retain any of that great skill and timing when he piloted another mech."

The Wild Fighter Association held an immense interest in the strange phenomenon surrounding the Heart of Victor. The organization obtained the assent of Team Larkinson to conduct a public examination of the mech and mech pilot.

The inspectors found no instance of cheating. At the very least, the two Larkinson Journeymen didn't break any rules.

They also confirmed that the Heart of Victor was truly the variable responsible for increasing Lyain Kepper's effective fighting abilities!

This news would have been more explosive if not for the fact that Team Larkinson issued a statement that tempered the excitement.

[First off, don't get too excited.] Ketis said in a hastily-organized press conference. [The Heart of Victor may be a competition mech, but it is mainly a custom mech that is fully tailored to Mr. Lyain Kepper. This mech will not work on anyone else. Its ability to increase Mr. Kepper's performance is mainly because I have programmed my own understanding of swordsmanship and his specific sword style into the mech design. As an officially-certified swordmaster, this is well within my power. That doesn't mean I can offer the same treatment to every swordsman mech pilot. It takes too much time for me to help everyone. While I do have ideas about designing a swordsman mech that is able to provide a fraction of Heart of Victor's benefits to the masses, this project is still in its early stages.]

She continued to temper the overblown expectations and hype surrounding the Heart of Victor and her design philosophy. Of course, she didn't miss the opportunity to plug her upcoming commercial mech designs.

Ves and Ketis had briefly discussed whether they should address the public at all, but both of them eventually agreed to issue a clarifying statement.

The heat was getting a bit too high for Ves. Though publicity was generally good, he didn't want people getting the impression that Ketis could turn every mech pilot into an expert candidate, if only temporary! The Larkinson Clan simply couldn't handle the massive amount of demand if the more overblown rumors continued to spread.

For her part, Ketis also thought it would be good to temper everyone's expectations. She was still a relatively young and new Journeyman who could never replicate what had happened with the Heart of Victor on a wider scale.

Though one of her ambitions was to accomplish this exact feat, that was a matter for the far future. She did not think she could do anything of the sort unless she had advanced to Master Mech Designer.

Until then, she sought to develop her methods, solutions and techniques at her own pace. She did not look forward to getting crushed by the gigantic expectations that everyone set upon her shoulders.

While it was still uncertain how effective the press conference managed to dial down the hype, it was undeniable that Ketis was truly the star of the show today!

Ves scratched his head as he saw that Ketis was still preoccupied with answering questions in front of many reporters from famous mech-related publications.

A part of him even grew jealous at all of the attention that she was attracting. Had these idiots forgotten that the Heart of Victor was his own work as well? His work wouldn't have been able to improve Lyain Kepper's effective performance to such an exaggerated degree if it wasn't a living mech!

"Oh well, let her have her moment."

Turning Ketis into a star did not harm his interests. As a Journeyman himself, he was already confident in his own work. He was a much more versatile mech designer who could design all sorts of wondrous mechs.

Ketis was not a competitor as long as she belonged to the same camp as him. It was actually better for the Larkinson Clan and the Living Mech Corporation if their success no longer depended solely on himself.

What Ves latched onto the most was Ketis' ability to appeal to a different market segment. The interest she had managed to generate today confirmed that she had the potential to become a superstar among dedicated swordsman mech pilots. This was a huge slice of the entire population of mech pilots and would undoubtedly become a lucrative customer base for the LMC into the future!

Money was one of the most valuable resources to any pioneering organizations in the Red Ocean.

While connections were arguably more important, a lot of problems became manageable as long as the Larkinson Clan was able to throw enough money around.

Now that Ketis had proven herself to be an enormous marketing asset, Ves saw a lot more hope of acquiring the expensive toys in his shopping list.

He could imagine that she could easily command the attention of the mech market with her revolutionary swordsman mech designs!

This was an advantage that Ves could never obtain from Gloriana!

Ves sighed. "I've been so consumed by expert mechs lately that I've been blind to the commercial side of mech design."

The last round of mech design projects still played a crucial role in the evolution of his design philosophy. With all of the gains he made, he became a lot more adept at designing high-end mechs and custom mechs.

He learned so much about custom mech design from Gloriana that he credited her with much of his current success in the tournament. Many of the small details that allowed Lyain Kepper to adapt and leverage the strength of the Heart of Victor so well were largely derived from Gloriana's theoretical framework!

Yet for all of his gains in custom mech design, Ves had not achieved a lot of breakthroughs that were relevant to mass market mech models. He truly needed to pick them up again as the vast majority of his clients would never have the opportunity to receive his personal attention.

This was also why neither Ves nor Ketis attached too much importance to the Heart of Victor. Sure, these kinds of machines were insanely useful for winning mech-related tournaments, but their utility in actual battles were much more limited.

The Larkinson Clan attached much greater importance to improving their ability to win large battles where the survival of its fleet was at stake. Ves still looked down on these trivial tournaments where people reveled in the glory of winning artificial duels where the threat of death was absent.

"It's nice to win additional carrier vessels, though."

This was the true reason why he and the Larkinson Clan even bothered to participate in these circuses.

Ves reoriented his thoughts back to the final match. A lot was at stake. Not only would Ves and Ketis lose a lot of reputation if the Heart of Victor unexpectedly faltered in its upcoming fight, the Larkinson Clan would also miss out on a fleet carrier!

"I'm so close to winning a fleet carrier! I can't let this opportunity slip past my fingers!"

There was another reason why he needed to win the next match.

The finals became a lot more controversial due to the rise of an unexpected dark horse.

"Team Hammerfall." Ves whispered.

Mr. Rondal Crenstin and Mrs. Gisella Crenstin didn't look that remarkable at first, but their Fallen Retribution managed to topple one mech after another to reach the fifth round!

Just like the Larkinsons, the Crenstin couple had hid the capabilities of their hammerman mech until it was finally forced to expose a lot of additional strength in the fourth round!

Ever since then, Team Hammerfall attracted the interests of a lot of dwarven people!

The dwarves were infamously close to each other and eagerly supported their own in events like these. Millions of them had bought virtual tickets to witness the finals and more were still tuning into the broadcast!

There were two reasons why they all flocked to the Wild Brawl Bowl.

First, they wanted to see their fellow dwarves defeat all of the tall folk and earn first place!

Second, they wanted urge Team Hammerfall to crush the Larkinsons and ruin their ambitions to become the champions of this mech design tournament!

"Kill the dwarf killers!"

"Slap those war criminals in the face!"

"Make them pay for spilling the blood of our brothers and sisters!"

Many of the deeds of the Larkinson Clan in the Vulcan Empire were not secret. Dwarvenkind throughout human space had already heard about Ves in one way or another, and not in a good way.

He had become an incredibly demonized figure in the galactic dwarven community!

This made it even more important for Ves to crush his final adversary in the tournament.

"I can't show weakness in front of these dwarves."

Although Ves was confident in his Heart of Victor, the Fallen Retribution was not weak either.

The final match of the Wild Brawl Bowl would not turn into one-sided beatdown like the previous fight between the Heart of Victor and the Thornbearer.

The Fallen Retribution not only displayed a lot more versatility than expected, but could also burst out with a surprising amount of power!

Whereas Team Larkinson sought to win the tournament by elevating the performance of a mech pilot to the greatest extent, Team Hammerfall invested all of its efforts into designing the most powerful mech!

Even if the mech pilot assigned to the Fallen Retribution wasn't exactly stellar, its base specs were so high that it didn't matter!

The finals of the Wild Brawl Bowl therefore turned into a confrontation between two opposing design approaches.