The Mech Touch

After an extensive discussion, Captain Gheri quickly departed the hotel and returned to the Larkinson Clan's in Tixe City to prepare for the upcoming deployment.

Since Ves had sprung this mission onto the local Larkinsons on short notice, everyone had to forgo sleep and work all night to prepare for a dangerous hunt.

Before she left, Captain Gheri recommended a few other hunting teams that might be interested in hunting down the other exobeasts.

Ves contacted them, and while they were all surprised to be contacted by a high and mighty tier 3 galactic citizen, they would never joke around with their lives.

"I am sorry, Patriarch Larkinson. The Ochre Seals would normally be open to accepting your commission, but we usually sign contracts that allow us to study and prepare for our target at least a week in advance. No matter how high your need may be, it is industry standard on our planet that we are given 7 days to set ourselves up for a proper hunt in the Chasseur Continent. It is only in rare cases that we have shortened our preparation time to 5 days, but we will never do that in a hunt against a mutated beast that has is getting closer to becoming a calamity beast."

"Money is not a problem." Ves stated. "If you are willing to move out fast enough, 1 am even willing to spare a bit of phasewater."

The deputy commander of the Ochre Seals remained unmoved. "As I have stated before, your conditions are too unreasonable. The Chasseur Continent has grown more and more dangerous in the past half year. We have been lucky enough that we managed to avoid any deaths, but we have suffered numerous close shaves where we had to abandon our broken mechs. We have learned the hard way that it is not wise for us to tempt fate. Any experienced and well-established hunting team will say the same. You may have better luck if you approach the fresher teams that have arrived only recently, but against a monster as weird as the Evil Lake Tree, you will just be sending them to their deaths."

That was a harsh but fair assessment. Ves had already learned of the enormous gap in performance between the old timers and the newbies.

The quality of the mechs or the skill of the mech pilots mattered a lot, but in the complicated environments of the hunting grounds, experience was the greatest indicator of success!

It was not a coincidence that the hunting teams recommended by Captain Gheri had been rooted on this planet for a long time.

Yet it was exactly because these old hunting teams knew better that they refused to work for Ves!

Ves quickly ended the call once he realized that he could not get anything from the Ochre Seals.

He contacted a few other recommended hunting teams, but their reactions were all similar.

These hunters were successful enough that there was no need for them to chase after windfalls and quick gains. Their favorable reputation and hunting records meant that they could have their pick of commissions. They were not that short of money either after hunting down so many powerful beasts.

He was getting nowhere with this. The only other alternative was to contact the newer hunting teams that didn't know any better, but he did not want to push them into fighting a mutated beast that they were not ready to tackle.

Even if Ves did not care about these random hunters at all, he did not want to sacrifice their lives just to gain a benefit that was not a critical priority.

"1 guess 1'11 go with Plan B, then." He sighed.

Ves suspended his plan on contracting a third-party hunting team and called Captain Gheri yet again.

"What is it, sir?"

"I need to borrow your workshop. Is the inventory stocked with enough spare parts and materials?"

"Uh, yes, sir. The wear and tear of our Monster Slayers is not too great, but it is always better to keep enough supplies on hand."

"Good. I will need to do a bit of work. Oh, and make sure to keep your mechs on hand. I won't be able to do any extensive work on them, but I am sure I can tune them to run even better than before."

There was no way to say no to that. Ves rose from his seat and grabbed his coat.

"Clixie."

"Miaow?"

"Keep an eye on the children. If I don't return quickly enough, try and keep them in line. That goes for you too, Lucky."

"Meow."

"Miaow."

Time was of the essence. Though Ves originally intended to treat his stay here as a vacation, he could not resist the benefits of harvesting the powerful spiritualities of those notable beasts.

It would be a lot more difficult for him to harvest anything comparable.

Though planets such as Ocanon VI always spawned powerful new mutated beasts over time, Ves could not guarantee that they would have the same abilities and talents as the ones he had seen earlier today!

Ves deeply appreciated the value of powerful entities with their own signature abilities. Some of his best and powerful creations had been derived from the spiritual remains of those exceptional existences.

For example, Blinky would not have been able to devour so much spiritual energy and fuel the evolution of an entire internal universe without relying on the power derived from the Unending One!

Entities as powerful and useful as the Unending One were exceedingly rare and difficult to encounter in the Milky Way.

The same applied to the Red Ocean during the Age of Mechs.

It was only when the Age of Dawn rolled in that Ves gained a lot of new options!

As long as Ves was patient enough, he could gather hundreds of high-quality spiritual ingredients.

The issue now was not that he was unable to obtain all of these riches, but that he did not have the time to spend so much time on harvesting them in the best possible conditions.

Only Ves could 'salvage1 these valuable spiritualities of these amazing beasts when they died.

Though he felt tempted to reside permanently in Tixe City, this was too unreasonable.

He would not only find it harder to fulfill his teaching duties, he also lost access to the highly developed first-class mech industry on New Constantinople VIII.

Worse than that was that his wife would absolutely explode! She would hate it if she had to move from a major Terran port system to a poorer and more primitive second-class hunting preserve!

"I still need to remind myself what is important. I have to become a first-class mech designer and a good one at that. My foundation in this aspect is too weak at the moment. I need to fix this shortcoming if I want to go much further."

Ves could gain a much better foundation in first-class mech design if he regularly interacted and exchanged with the large and vibrant community of first-class mech designers on that planet.

As for harvesting spiritual ingredients, Ves did not have a high demand for them at the moment. He could already do much with a handful of them. There was no acute need for him to create other design spirits or whatever.

In any case, Ves threw aside the remainder of his vacation plan and headed straight to the base occupied by the local branch of the Larkinson Clan.

The facility did not amount to much. The strong restrictions on the local architecture made it seem as if it was just a compound. The only saving grace was that it featured an expansive underground mech hanger and other essential facilities.

Captain Gheri already rounded up a hunting team. The mechs and mech pilots had hastily been selected. Preparations proceeded at a rapid pace as the hunters had to sortie in very little time.

If not for the fact that Ves was their ultimate leader, these Swordmaidens would have never agreed to hunt the Giant Stone Eater in so little time!

"What is your status? Are there any pressing issues?"

"Our readiness always remains high, sir. We can start our hunt right away if that is what you need."

Ves nodded with satisfaction while looking up at the selection of mechs. "Are these the machines that you have decided to bring?"

"Yes. Our branch does not have a copy of every Larkinson mech model on hand, but we have made sure to maintain a modest reserve."

"Mhmm. Well, most of the mechs that I have designed are optimized for space combat. Not many of them are as simple as our Monster Slayers and Crystal Lords."

Ves grew mildly surprised that Captain Gheri had agreed to his suggestion to bring along a few ranged mechs.

Naturally, they were piloted by Larkinsons other than the Swordmaidens.

"6 Monster Slayers and 3 Crystal Lords. That shall be the units that we will be depending upon in our fight against the Giant Stone Eater. All of our Monster Slayers are armed with their regular greatswords. They're not transphasic nor hyper, but my pilots and I know exactly how to use them in battle. The Crystal Lords are armed with ordinary second generation luminar crystal rifles. They will mainly be firing at the monster with kinetic beams. Only physical force is required to crack through all of that stone armor. The damage inflicted by laser beams and positron beams get dispersed too easily."

"What about the remaining three mechs?"

"The lone Huntmaster is only there to attract the Giant Stone Father's attention with its glow. The two Hymenopteras will serve as our pure support mechs. They are copies of the upgraded variant that is upgraded for rougher field work."

Ves felt a bit uneasy about her choices.

"Three Crystal Lords can only provide light support, you know. Their kinetic beams can deliver accurate punches from a distance, but their impact damage is lower than straightforward gauss rounds."

"We know, but we would have to switch to unfamiliar third party mechs, which we refuse to do. We respect your Crystal Lords and we are all highly familiar with what it is capable of. That improves our coordination."

"Do you think it is a good idea to confront your prey with 6 melee mechs at the same time? The Giant Stone Eater may be big, but it will be hard for all 6 of your swordsman mechs to concentrate their attacks on a single section. It will be too easy for your machines to get in the way."

"Impossible. We have lived, trained and fought alongside each other for many years. While the Swordmaiden mech legion has turned our local branch into a training base for new recruits, 1 am not bringing any of the rookies to this hunt this time. Each of the mech pilots that 1 have selected are veterans of multiple expedition battles."

Captain Gheri had the situation well in hand. Ves might not entirely agree with her strategy, but he did not object to her choices anymore, especially now that it was clear that she had put a lot of thought into her hunting team's mech roster.

Ves did not see any reason to question the professional further. Since time was so short, he did not waste anymore time and immediately started to make use of the workshop.

There was no time for Ves to do anything fancy. He had to complete numerous jobs in the most efficient ways possible.

Though it was regrettable for him to interrupt his vacation to this extent, Ves did not feel stressed at all. The growing grin on his face as he worked to tune the Monster Slayers showed that he could not feel more delighted at this situation!

Ves had missed this sort of excitement. It had been too long since he last enjoyed a proper adventure.

Having chosen to confront the Giant Stone Eater, Ves made sure that these mechs could move as nimbly and effectively as possible. Mobility was vital to the success of the upcoming hunting trip!