The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1013

Back when the Flagrant Vandals raided the Detemen System and hunted Lord Javier down, the noble facetiously spouted words that painted him as a hero that stood up for the beleaguered citizens.

Now though, Lord Javier seemed to have aged a bit and lose some of his brashness during his time in captivity. While Ves thought that he was still very much a jerk, Javier at least seemed to be aware of his lack of power among the Brighters.

In fact, Ves somehow found it rather compelling to hear the opinions of a genuine Vesian noble. Perhaps desperate for company, Lord Javier freely divulged his opinions on matters that nobles never talked about to outsiders.

"Why have you been taken along?" Ves asked. "Is there something remarkable about you?"

"I already told you, Ves. I’m just a hostage that your pompous senator wants to use as a bargaining chip." He replied. "You might not know this, but House Eneqqin is a major force in the Imodris Duchy. My father is very powerful and influential. The only problem facing our House is that I’m the only heir that’s qualified to take up his mantle. All the other Eneqqins who are eligible to become the new head of our House are all pansies who I’ve beaten up on a daily basis back when we grew up. Without me, House Eneqqin is doomed!"

"Even so, does the Duchess of Imodris favor House Eneqqin so much that she’ll agree to a peace treaty just so that they get you back?" Ves asked with skepticism.

Javier chuckled. "It helps. My return can do quite a lot, you know. Not only will House Eneqqin’s succession and continued dominance for the next half century or longer be secure, the Duchess will also have our undying loyalty for the foreseeable future. That kind of support will secure House Imodris’ hold on the duchy. Those kinds of gains help compensate for the gains that House Imodris misses out if the war is cut short earlier than scheduled."

To Javier, the Bright-Vesia Wars was nothing more than a means for the Vesian nobles to jockey for power and prestige.

The adventurous young lords and ladies gleefully led their forces into battle in order to raise their status and win the struggle for succession in their noble houses.

The older generation on the other hand put their sights on other noble houses. Those that performed well in the war received more accolades and attention while those who did badly quickly fell in status among the noble circles.

Even the dukes and duchesses that ruled at the top of their own territories couldn’t avoid this generational rat race. If their mech legions didn’t perform sufficiently well at the frontlines, their share of the overall distribution of resources from collective revenue sources such as the Kingdom’s two port systems would be cut!

All in all, to Ves it sounded like a costly but brutally effective way to keep everyone on their toes. Through constant competition, every Vesian, no matter how high their status, needed to fight in order to preserve their privileges!

"So us Brighters are just target dummies for you Vesians to show off your prowess?" Ves cynically remarked.

"For a soft republic ruled by duplicitous families, some of you Brighters can sure put up a mean fight! I had to literally fight for my life during my battles against your Vandal mechs! But yeah, we’ve fought against you so often that we’ve pretty much got the measure of your Mech Corps. Fighting you Brighters has become so routine that hardly anything surprises us anymore, your sudden raid on the Detemen System aside."

"Don’t you think the war is kind of pointless then?"

"Nah. Who else are we going to beat up if not the Bright Republic? There’s too much we don’t know if we pick a fight against another state! Since we’ve never truly fought a war against another state, we don’t know whether it will go well or poorly for us. On the other hand, waging war against the Bright Republic is a much better idea because you guys are strong enough to put a worthy fight but not too strong to the point of being able to turn the tables on us!"

In other words, the Vesians were so familiar with fighting against the Bright Republic that the risks and uncertainties posed by the Bright-Vesia Wars had been reduced to the minimum! The constancy and predictability of the generational wars allowed the Vesians to unleash their war fever without any major risk of suffering any catastrophic setbacks.

It depressed Ves a bit that the Vesian nobility regarded the Bright Republic as an easy target to bully. Even knowing this didn’t help anything as the Kingdom was a bit larger and more populous than the Republic. This gave them an enduring advantage in manpower, industry and more.

"What would it take to end the sequence of wars?" Ves asked morosely. _{fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com}

"There’s nothing you can do." Javier chuckled. "Too many of us have grown used to the benefits of the war to consider any alternatives. Bullying the Republic is so fun and it’s a good outlet of our stress. It helps us reveal the strong among the weak and it keeps our fighting forces trim and effective. The only way for us to stop the wars for good is if we don’t get as much benefits from them or if the cost of fighting you is too much to bear."

It all came down to benefits. The Vesian nobles kept periodically declaring war against the Republic like clockwork because they gained a lot more than they lost. The Bright Republic probably fell into a similar situation seeing that the Tovar Peace Delegation needed to move in complete secrecy.

As someone as powerful as Senator Tovar hadn’t managed to gain the complete support of the Bright Republic for his initiative to negotiate a peace, that meant that certain powers and influences within the Bright Republic hungered for war as much as the Vesians did!

That seemed incredibly perverse to Ves!