The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1067

"Home sweet home." Ves muttered as he looked out the expansive windows of the penthouse office of the LMC’s headquarters.

He missed the omnipresent grey clouds with its rainbow color shine. How many times did he dream about returning home? It felt so good for him to be back in the saddle.

Below the ground, the Mech Nursery churned out mechs after mechs on a daily basis. The LMC employed thousands of employees, all working to satisfy the market demands for the company’s two iconic mech models.

When the Barracuda landed at the manufacturing complex, Ves arranged for someone to settle Chette, Jannzi and Rhode Larkinson. At the same time, Ves called up all of his core confidants to his penthouse office in order to get up to speed to the current state of the LMC.

As Ves turned around, he turned his gaze to a set of couches where his key subordinates waited for their boss to get down to business.

Calsie Doornbos looked relieved now that Ves returned to helm the company. While she managed to hold down the fort in the founder’s absence, the responsibility of operating such a huge company was not for the light-hearted. It was admirable that she managed to hold out for so long without running the LMC into the ground!

As a publicist and marketing manager, Gavin Neumann did not hold a high position within the hierarchy of the company. Nevertheless, the man was adaptable and possessed a sober perspective with regards to mechs. The young man was ready to work as Ves’ executive assistant at any time.

Melkor Larkinson hadn’t escaped the war entirely untouched. Ves already heard that several skirmishes and attacks took place on Cloudy Curtain, but his cousin did an admirable job in repelling those opportunistic attacks. Not only that, but Melkor also managed to learn on the job as he led the Avatars of Myth. Ves saw echoes of Captain Byrd and Major Verle in his cousin’s demeanor.

The only odd person out of this intimate gathering was Ketis. Wearing iconic poofy black beret, the pirate designer barely seemed to have reigned in her dangerous vibe. Ves wanted to palm his face when he saw her. Even though she wore modern trendy clothes, the giant scabbarded greatsword floating behind the couch made it clear that she was barely civilized!

Held within her arms, Lucky purred as the daughter of the frontier stroked his bony plated surface. His exterior looked a little darker and more metallic since the last time Ves spotted Lucky back at the military hospital on Bentheim.

In any case, Ves confirmed that Lucky still carried his personal comm on his collar.

"Lucky, come here, boy."

The mechanical cat didn’t obey the words of his owner. Instead, he continued to squint his eyes and purr as Ketis kept stroking his back!

Ves exasperatingly sighed and walked all the way towards the couch and made a grab for Lucky’s collar. With a quick snap of his finger, he detached his personal comm from his cat.

"Meow!"

Lucky woke up from his petting session and hissed at the thief who snatched his collar!

"What are you so touchy about?" Ves snorted at his pet while he snapped his comm around his wrist. "This comm is mine in the first place. You were just a convenient holder to hang up my comm during my military service. Now that I’ve been discharged from the Mech Corps, my comm can finally return to its rightful owner!"

"Meow meow!"

Ves ignored the yowls from his indignant pet and took a seat on one of the couches. He idly stroked the thin band of his comm like Ketis stroked Lucky’s back. As far as he was concerned, his reunion with his personal comm and the System it held within was long overdue.

He couldn’t wait to activate the System for the first time in years. Still, he thought it best if he addressed more immediate business first. Right now, he wanted to know where the LMC currently stood!

"Okay, Calsie. Tell me the basics. How many mechs did we sell and how much profit did we earn?"

The former temporary CEO of the company knew the key figures of the LMC by heart. "The LMC grew rapidly in the three years since you’ve been gone. The board of directors pushed for a rapid expansion in production capacity in order to maximize the sales of our silver label mechs. Right now, the manufacturing floor of the Mech Nursery is host to one Dortmund production line, five Benson production lines and eleven Hanover production lines!"

Ves frowned at that. That was a lot less production lines than he expected, yet he wasn’t familiar with the Hanover line of production equipment. As far as he knew, a complete Benson production line cost around 3 billion credits, and the LMC acquired five of them in total for a total worth of 15 billion credits!

That was already a huge investment, so the mention of eleven new Hanover production lines gave a sense of foreboding in him. There must be a reason why the LMC stopped making use of the perfectly serviceable Benson production lines.

"How much does a Hanover production line cost?"

Calsie seemed hesitant for a moment. Eventually, she bit the bullet. "Around 8 billion bright credits for each complete production line."

"What?! 8 billion credits!?" Ves thundered. "Why in the hell would you pay almost three times for a Hanover compared to a perfectly serviceable Benson?"

"We used to host more Benson production lines, but we’ve sold them back in order to ease our acquisition of the Hanover production lines. Compared to the Bensons, the Hanovers are much more geared towards mass production. They work faster and more precise. They produce less errors because they feature a higher degree of automation. This means they are more efficient and produce less waste, which improved our profit margin over time."