The Mech Touch novel Chapter 263

Out of several possibilities his competitor could choose to go with, Dumont chose to go with the classic design duel. When two mech designers had a beef, they let the strengths of their mechs do the talking.

In truth, Ves had brainstormed several ways that Dumont could retaliate against him with his team. They came up with possibilities, such as price dumping, regulatory harassment, industrial sabotage and more.

A design duel had been well within specifications. The only snag was that Dumont conditioned his challenge by setting forth his first production model. Considering the brisk sales of his Havalax design, his first mech already accumulated an enormous amount of value.

More than risking a huge chunk of potential cash, the duel also put their reputation at stake. Nobody among the crowd could say whether one design was superior over the other. Both the Havalax and the Blackbeak designs had their own merits. Some would argue that they didn’t even compete in the same space.

Yet the prospect of a rivalry at play triumphed over logic. A few bystanders already started to egg Ves on. "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

The pressure mounted on Ves to accept the duel.

"I already reserved an arena, so you don’t have to go to the trouble of arranging a venue." Dumont added. "Five days from now, there’s an open time slot in the match between the Dorum Velvet Fists and the Haston Grease Monkeys. We’ll get to prove the worth of our designs in front of a full crowd of mech fans!"

It must have cost him quite a bit of money to arrange such a highly-valued slot. Ves mulled over the offer for any traps. The mech arena shouldn’t be able to get away with any tricks, but who could tell if they did?

"I’ll only accept if there’s official MTA representation."

Dumont waved his hand dismissively. "Fine!"

Requesting the presence of an agent of the MTA didn’t come cheap, but it insured that nothing funny went on. If Dumont or the arena operators tried to cheat in any way, then the MTA would come down hard on their heads.

As the challenger, Dumont was obliged to pay for it all, which saved Ves a lot of trouble since his company’s liquidity didn’t look all that great. Ves also had the privilege of setting some additional conditions such as the duel environment and the pilot criteria.

Ves chose to go with the most advantageous circumstances for himself. "I want the dueling ground to consist of rocky terrain with plenty of line-of-sight breaks."

His Blackbeak excelled in dragging out the fight while the Havalax sought to end the duel as quickly as possible. By making the terrain as difficult as possible, the pilot of the Blackbeak would be able to extend the pursuit.

"Fine, but don’t think you can run away all match. I don’t think the public will appreciate a mech that can only stand a chance by acting like a coward!"

"As for who will drive our mechs, let’s set the bar to advanced pilots no older than thirty years old."

"Agreed."

Advanced pilots could be found everywhere. If Ves didn’t set such a condition, Dumont might have been able to persuade a rare expert pilot to fight in his stead. He set a relatively low age limit in order to prevent him from finding some grizzled war veteran who could pull of dozens of tricks in quick succession.

By posing all these limits, Ves made the duel more dependent on the machine rather than the person. He had faith in the quality of his Blackbeak and strongly believed in its performance despite the naysayers.

They hashed a few conditions before Dumont left in a confident whirl. He already accomplished his purpose, so there was no need to stick around anymore.

The impending design duel spoiled the rest of the press conference. Ves noticed that most of the reporters briefly notified their editors about the sudden challenge. The spell of had been broken, and nothing could pull them back into his trap.

Ves decided to wrap up his press conference.

"Thank you for attending, and I will see you five days from now at the arena!"

Word spread quickly. The duel between two young promising Apprentice Mech Designers should be one of the more exciting events that took place next week.

The constant hype surrounding their rivalry didn’t peak the interest of every mech fanatic, but it definitely raised their profiles. Both the Havalax and the Blackbeak received a surge of free publicity.

Many publications that had snubbed the invitation to attend the Blackbeak’s unveiling must be feeling green with regret right now.

News portals such as The Republican Mech published bold-faced headlines accompanied with high-quality footage of the confrontation between the two designers. Even if they went a bit too far with their creative editing, the dramatized retelling of that day served to put their designs to the forefront of the news.

"We’ve already sold out our first production run!" Gavin exclaimed as he met Ves at a private dining hall in a hotel next morning. "Our buyers are practically knocking down Marcella’s doors right now. We had to limit our sales to one copy per customer. Demand is through the roof!"

"The free publicity is nice, but it’s only a temporary phenomenon." Ves pointed out while eating his breakfast. "Whoever admits defeat in the upcoming duel will see their demand crater overnight. No one wants to buy a mech associated with failure."

The worst thing about the duel was that the format favored the Havalax. The raw specs didn’t lie and the Blackbeak’s advance in endurance would never be able to come into play in a duel that only lasted thirty minutes at most.

In hindsight, the Blackbeak made for a very poor dueling mech, while the Havalax practically thrived in these circumstances.

"Do we have a pilot lined up?"