The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1281

"You are great company, and our design philosophies seem to match so well at first, yet..."

Ves hung his head low. The earlier footage was already damning enough. How could his meeting with Professor Oodiv of the MTA be leaked to Gloriana? There should be a law against that!

Still, no matter how much he protested, it wouldn’t change the fact that Gloriana had the wrong idea about him! When he spewed all of that nonsense about creating gods to the MTA, he merely wanted to fool them into believing he was a nutjob. He never wanted his date to witness him at his worst!

"...yet it’s even better. In fact, it’s almost perfect!"

"Please don’t misunderstand, Gloriana! I was not entirely myself at that moment." He tried to explain. "I’m not as extreme as I looked like during that meeting! I.. wait what?"

"I said it’s perfect!" Gloriana reiterated with a brilliant smile. "You sound so sincere and passionate of your ambitious beliefs that I have no doubt you expressed your true feelings at that moment!"

Ves blinked at the woman. "You are not.. repelled or anything?"

"Repelled? Why should I?" She look genuinely confused.

"Because of the wild stuff I said?"

"Oh, my goodness, Ves! I can see why you would think that way, but I am not like most mech designers. You see, much of the beliefs you express back then happens to resonate with my own."

"Uhh.." Ves became speechless.

"I’ve looked into the Ylvainan Faith and though I don’t agree with many of their tenets, there are some points that it shares in common with my own faith."

"You’re a believer?"

"I never told you that I wasn’t." Gloriana giggled in a happy manner. Her eyes practically curled with glee! "I suppose it’s time to come clean with you. I’m a proud follower of hexism!"

"...Hexism? You mean the not-quite-state religion of the Hexadric Hegemony? But that would mean..." His eyes widened even further. "You’re a Hexer!"

"You guessed it! The Wodin Dynasty may not be one of the matriarchal dynasties, but we are loyal vassals to one. To be more precise, we are strongly aligned with the Evern Dynasty, who are the foremost proponents of hexism!"

Ves had heard a bit about hexism. Although the Hexadric Hegemony wasn’t entirely religious, many citizens believed in this strange and very eccentric faith.

Perhaps one of their most famous habits was that they worshipped the number six! They liked to be ruled by six matriarchs. They liked to deploy their mechs in half-squads of six, and their larger mech units ultimately consisted of multiples of six!

Their worship of the number six extended to other areas!

For example, they preferred to eat six smaller cookies instead of two bigger bigger. They liked to wear shirts with six buttons. They liked to round out the prices of their products with the number six!

While they didn’t insist that everything should conform to the number six, the more, the better!

And this was only the least of what it meant to believe in the religion or philosophy of hexism!

"Since you’re familiar with hexism, you should know what we believe about the afterlife." Gloriana remarked. "We believe that life and afterlife are two sides of the same coin! We believe that humans have the potential to become equals to gods, and that gods are nothing different from empowered humans. While we are not as enthusiastic about the Ylvainan notion that the same applies to aliens, other than that there is a lot of overlap between our beliefs! Isn’t that great, Bright Martyr?"

Ves felt like puking. "I never approved of that nickname. I’m a Brighter!"

"You don’t have to be modest, Ves." Gloriana leaned forward and placed her hand on his arm. "You don’t have to hide that you are special and that you carry a great purpose. Ever since I listened to that recording, I became convinced that you are the mech designer that I have long been waiting for. Your design philosophy is so radical and extreme that my heart has never felt any hotter. You are perfect!"

It was only now that Ves realized why he ended up in this absurd situation. It was because of Callisto’s sophisticated matchmaking process! Irene claimed that Callisto drew from the records of the MTA to help them find a suitable match.

Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, because no mech designer would be stupid to be dishonest in front of the MTA. Normally, their records on mech designers were very accurate.

The only exception was his own record! Professor Oodiv probably described him as a superstitious, delusional mech designer in his record. Perhaps the Senior had outright judged that he was a religious nut!

Ves thought that would be the end of the matter, but he overlooked a very important detail.

Callisto Professional Relations tried to match him with another mech designer by taking his record into account!

Who paired best with a religious nut?

Another religious nut!

Although their beliefs didn’t entirely match with each other, Callisto probably judged that they could reconcile their differences. Obviously, their sophisticated matchmaking AIs and highly-experienced experts all thought highly of their pairing!

Yet it was all a lie! Gloriana was anything but a perfect match to Ves! The cold, hard truth was that she was compatible with a mistaken impression of him! It was all based on a lie!

"I’m not a follower of hexism. I don’t think I’ll ever convert to your beliefs."

"That’s fine, Ves. Hexism isn’t as strict as the Ylvainan Faith when it comes to demanding piety! Just acting in the interests of our philosophies is sufficient! Let it not be said that we are narrow-minded!"