The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1329

"You called me! I’m so happy!" Gloriana gushed while pressing her slender palms against her chin. "I thought so long and hard about calling you, but you said you needed space so I refrained from calling you! If I knew you’d call me, I would have worn something cuter! Hey, I might as well do that now!"

She inputted a quick series of commands in her comm, causing her tight white lab coat to morph into an even slimmer sundress that tantalizingly showed a hint of promise.

"There! I can greet you properly now!"

"You didn’t have to go through that trouble for me. I just wanted to talk to you about something."

"Nonsense! I will always present my best side to you! The perfect boyfriend deserves nothing less than the perfect girlfriend!"

As Ves awkwardly greeted Gloriana, Lucky padded over to the projection of Clixie.

Both cats pawed each other’s bodies, only to go right through the intangible projections on their end.

They couldn’t touch each other!

"Meooow."

"Miaow!"

Ignoring the distress of their pets, the pair of humans tentatively made themselves comfortable and sat down. The closeness of their respective projections gave them the illusion that they sat right next to each other.

"So, what did you want to talk about with little old me?" Gloriana smiled coyly while twirling around her lustrous dark hair. "Have you made up your mind already?"

"About what?"

"About tying the knot! Hihihi!"

"That’s way too soon!" Ves hastily said. "I was hoping to raise a decision I’ve made recently. Although it sounds drastic, I think it’s the best choice for me to develop."

Gloriana restrained herself upon seeing that Ves looked serious this time. "Oh? What did your clever mind come up with this time?"

Here goes nothing. Ves took a deep breath before starting with the spiel he prepared.

"If you recall my design philosophy, then you will note how it isn’t tied to mechs, but rather the interaction between mechs and humans. Studying mechs is easy. Studying humans is harder. Through my travels, I’ve realized that I improve significantly faster if I come across many different people and become exposed to different cultures, values and beliefs. For example, if I hadn’t visited the Ylvaine Protectorate, I would have never designed a fantastic custom mech like the Transcendent Messenger!"

Her eyes lit up. "I see! In my opinion, Your Transcendent Messengers are your best works! All six of them are fantastic in their own way, but together they make for a great set! You’re already halfway to becoming a follower of hexism at this rate!"

"Let’s not talk about that." Ves briefly grimaced.

"Awww.."

Producing six Transcendent Messengers was a complete coincidence! He was just fulfilling Calabast’s commission! Besides, the True Believers managed to abscond with his prototype, thereby technically raising the amount of copies in the wild to seven!

"The nature of my design philosophy means I benefit a lot more from exploring different cultures." He continued. "Mechs may operate the same way regardless of where they are used, but the people who make use of them are vastly different from state to state, star sector to star sector, star cluster to star cluster. How can I ever design mechs that appeal to large swathes of human space if I only limit myself to a single star sector?"

"Is that why you are traveling around right now?"

"Yeah. I’ve already harvested some minor gains from visiting Centerpoint, Kamon and Kinner." He nodded. His travels were no secret to Gloriana. She probably ordered a hacker to lift the logs from the Barracuda a long time ago. "Yet even though the Komodo Star Sector offers a lot of diversity, many of the cultures here used to be formed by historical fringe groups. It’s very dangerous to assume the rest of human space is the same."

Some of what he said was true, but he also added in some exaggerations here and there to strengthen his case.

A hum emanated from Gloriana’s mouth as she contemplated his words. "I can see how that’s important to you. The mech pilots who use your mechs are all distinct from each other. My own specialty also explores the fit between mech and mech pilot. We’re closely alike in this regard, hihi!"

He smiled. It seemed his argument managed to resonate with Gloriana. "Humans are different. Their needs are different. Exploring a multitude of different norms and values broadens my perspective and allows me to express my design philosophy in different ways. For this reason I’ve been contemplating something drastic, but extremely helpful to my development."

"You’re building up to something. I can tell. Just tell me, Ves."

He decided to cut to the chase. "It’s this.. While the Komodo Star Sector is both my home and my base of operations, I don’t think I’ll progress very fast if I remain cooped up inside this frontier star sector. I’m looking to move to a more developed star sector in an entirely different cluster. Vicious Mountain and Majestic Teal are both great destinations, but they’re too close to home for me to experience something truly novel."

A silence fell in their conversation. Though their pets continued to meow at each other in the background, Gloriana paused for a moment.

"Journeymen can achieve great harvests when they travel, though they will have to set the right goals and choose the right destinations. Where do you intend to go and how long will you be away?"

"I haven’t decided on my destination yet. I’ll probably choose between one of the adjacent star clusters next to our own. As for the duration... I don’t plan to take a brief vacation. I want to immerse myself in foreign cultures, and that means spending a long time abroad. Preferably, I’d like to adopt the nomadic spaceborn lifestyle and base myself on a fleet for a time. That will allow me to experience the most cultures with the least amount of disruption during the decades while I’m away from home."