The Mech Touch novel Chapter 399

Ves returned to his penthouse office after finishing his discussions on expanding the Avatars of Myth. Considering the vast nature of their current expansion, it wasn’t possible to expand their fighting strength to forty mechs within six months.

"It will probably take a year, if not more." He guessed. "These things take time."

If he wanted to, he could hire a mercenary corps instead, but that would be a huge mistake. They only ever cared about themselves. By establishing his own outfit, Ves would be certain that its power belonged to him and no one.

He threw himself back to his work. With the prototype still undergoing tests at the nearby testing grounds, Ves wanted to take care of any other matters that he neglected as of late. He turned on his terminal and went through the recent reports sent in his direction.

"Local politics, bah."

The self-bombing incident of Orinoco provoked an enormous amount of outrange. If the citizens of Cloudy Curtain seemed mad, then the rest of the Republic were absolutely head-over-heels about this incident. If not for the valiant defense at the Mech Nursery, the reputation of the entire planet would have already plummeted to the bottom.

Ves briefly skimmed the recent events. The investigators from Bentheim hadn’t found any proof that led to the ones responsible for the devastation, but that didn’t help the White Doves very much. Everyone pretty much assumed they did it because it fit their ideology the best.

Naturally, the spokespersons of the pacifists vehemently denied the accusations, but even their strongest supporters started to waver. The White Doves went into full crisis mode in order to stem the bleeding. Whether they would survive at the end of the day or not, nobody knew.

"They survived this far without any problem. I don’t believe they can be felled by a single crisis."

Many citizens still wanted nothing to do with the war and the wider galaxy. The recent horrors taught some people that they couldn’t bury their heads in the sand, but it prompted even more people to bury their heads even deeper.

In her report, Calsie predicted that the White Doves would eventually find their footing with the radicals among their circle.

What this meant for Cloudy Curtain as a whole, neither Ves nor Calsie didn’t dare to make any predictions. One thing was for sure. The LMC’s influence had reached new heights. On both an economic and societal level, the company became a steady fixture in the minds of everyone who lived on the rural planet.

That wasn’t too shabby for a company founded around two years ago.

Ves turned back to his paperwork and went through all the other reports. The company’s financial picture looked better than before. All of the recent spending put the company’s financial health in a dangerous position for a time, but the LMC quickly climbed out of the hole with the help of increased demand for bronze label Blackbeaks.

People bought them because they admired the battle footage of the two gold label Blackbeaks. The Marketing Department’s excessive promotion seemed to be in poor taste to Ves, but the public couldn’t get enough.

Since gold and silver label Blackbeaks were hard to get, buyers turned instead to the third-party manufacturers to get a quick fix. EME even instituted a waiting list again as they received an unanticipated influx of orders.

Vaun Industrial also enjoyed a small boost in sales, though the effect was much less pronounced. Foreigners didn’t care too much about the Bright-Vesia Wars. Anyone watching the generational conflict from the sidelines thought that nothing substantial happened during these wars because the border between the two states never shifted very much after the end of each war.

"Countless mechs are destroyed and hundreds of thousands of mech pilots die in each and every war. The stars will be dyed with blood by the time this latest war will end."

When Ves read the reports, he spotted signs of an impending mobilization order. The Bright Republic had only switched to half a war footing right now. They hadn’t mobilized nearly as much manpower and assets as they could have because it took time to organize everything.

So instead, the Bright Republic stretched out the process in multiple steps. Right now, the reports suggested that the Mech Corps had almost finished mobilizing what could be brought to bear within the short-term.

In the first wave, they would certainly call up a large number of reservists, including many mech designers. Many of them would move on to supporting the Mech Corps in the rear but close to the frontlines.

Ves believed that a mech designer like him escaped that fate. Someone of his stature would probably be called up the second wave, which would happen a little later but was not too long away.

"I have to publish my rifleman mech design before that happens. Even among mech designers, there’s a large difference between those who published a single commercially successful design compared to those who published more."

Publishing multiple successful designs enhanced his prestige, which improved his odds of landing a cozy assignment. It could mean the difference between mindless number crunching to actual design work.

Ves tentatively resolved to complete his design within a month, which actually shortened his time to a few weeks because his design also had to go through the MTA’s validation process.

"There’s barely enough time for me to squeeze in another prototype."

He already had to hurry up the process and cut some corners in order to finish his second design in a reasonable time frame.

Several days went by as Ves reacquainted himself with his company. Besides holing up in his office, he also held meetings with the heads of each department. Ves got a much better picture of the current state of the LMC after listening to the people in charge of its various aspects.

All of them made some early preparations for the coming release of the company’s second product line. The market for rifleman mechs was very competitive, so the Marketing Department carried the heaviest burden of all.

"Are you confident you can drum up demand for my second design?" Ves asked Gavin.