The Mech Touch

The Living Mech Company or simply the LMC became a household name to many people.

Not just the mech community, but also normal people who didn't care anything about mechs learned of the company.

Its products were making an increasing impact on society. Industry, trade, security and other spheres experienced significant changes due to the ripple effects generated by each additional LMC mech.

Starting from the Desolate Soldier model, mechs with different glows sparked a lot of chain reactions. Starting from where the mechs were used, the consequences continued to ripple further until even average people were affected by the mechs designed by the Miracle Couple!

In fact, the impact generated by the LMC's commercial mechs was significantly greater than the mechs commissioned by the Hexers.

While the Blessed Squire and the Valkyrie product line changed the course of the Komodo War, the consequences were mainly confined to the Komodo Star Sector. At most, the results of the war would only change how organizations in neighboring star sectors treated the eventual winner.

The greatest limitation of the Blessed Squire and Valkyrie Redeemer models was their narrow appeal. The same properties that made them incredibly attractive to the Hexer people also caused them to be repulsive to every other person.

Who wanted to pilot a mech that was designed to advance the interests of female supremacists?

Who wanted to bask in the glow of a mech that made women crazy and men feel inadequate?

No matter how much the second-rate states in the Yeina Star Cluster wanted to make use of the two models, they simply couldn't.

Certainly, people tried. With the Hegemony's mech industry ramping up production of the two LMC mech models, it was relatively easy for foreign intelligence operatives to smuggle a handful of mechs. The Hex Army hardly noticed if half-a-dozen copies went missing for some reason.

Stealing the design schematics was even better. No matter how much the Hex Army tried to keep the schematics hidden, it was impossible to lock them in the toughest safes considering that a lot of mech companies needed them to produce the mechs.

Yet even after the spies succeeded in their mission, the people who received them still couldn't make good use of the stolen schematics.

So what if they could reproduce the Blessed Squire and Valkyrie Redeemer?

If the foreign organizations from Vicious Mountain or Majestic Teal faithfully fabricated a mech according to the schematics, all they ended up with was a Hexer mech that came with a glow that repelled every non-Hexer!

Yet that wasn't the real reason why these foreign powers wanted to steal the design schematics.

Their actual purpose was to modify them in order to develop a variant that could be harnessed by their own mech pilots.

Unfortunately, the mech designers who secretly tried to adapt the Blessed Squire and Valkyrie Redeemer designs encountered some very familiar problems.

A lot of mech designers had already licensed every popular commercial mech design from the LMC. No matter if it was the Desolate Soldier, the Doom Guard or the Ferocious Piranha, any substantial modification practically ruined their glow!

What was even more frustrating was that no mech designer was able to change the properties of the glows. Other than weakening them, there was no other way to transform them into other forms!

This meant every attempt to make the Blessed Squire and Valkyrie Redeemer designs more universal yielded no useful results.

Stripping the designs of their glows was pointless. They merely turned into generic Journeyman-level mech designs. Any Senior or Master could design something comparable in their spare time.

After a lot of fruitless efforts, the mech designers who were tasked with reverse-engineering any LMC mech design gave up their efforts.

"This design philosophy is too opaque. I don't understand any of the principles behind its mechanisms!"

A lot of mech designers had already learned this lesson, but there were plenty more who needed to experience failure in person before they threw in the towel.

Due to the inability to develop third-party variants for any LMC mechs, the increasingly more popular Ferocious Piranha remained an outlier among other bestsellers.

Usually, mechs that sold really well almost always had to compete against variants developed by competing mech designers.

Yet the products of the LMC continued to be an exception to this rule. Even though plenty of mech designers and mech companies recognized the huge profit potential of the Ferocious Piranha, their inability to retain its valuable glow in a different variant ruined their schemes.

"Why hasn't anyone come up with a cheaper variant of the Ferocious Piranha? I can't afford to pay so much for a light mech!"

"These damn profiteers! Is the mech industry colluding against us? This mech costs as much as an old starship."

Complaints about the Ferocious Piranha's excessively high price continued to flood the LMC. The lack of cheaper variants that retained the same functionality as the base model exacerbated the public criticism towards the mech company.

The company's reputation actually incurred significant damage due to this controversy!

Too many outfits were pressured into buying LMC products. They really didn't want to spend so much money on a mech they originally didn't plan to buy, but because they needed an answer against enemy glows, they had no choice but to change their buying patterns.

Even though the mech market began to regard the LMC as a villain for sparking so many undesirable changes, the company continued to sell its mechs without interruption.

This was the true value of holding a monopoly. The mech company would have never been able to get away with charging so much money for its products if there were other competitors.

While there were many different mech models that offered great value to their customers, none of them were able to do what LMC mechs could do. As long as glows remained exclusive to the mech company, mech buyers simply couldn't take their business elsewhere.

As the grumbling surrounding the Ferocious Piranha continued to dog the LMC, the new mech model also sparked some positive outcomes.

Its value and capabilities were already amazing with normal usage. Yet the Ferocious Piranha along with every other LMC mech began to showcase a different benefit.

With hundreds of thousands of Ferocious Piranhas already circulating in the mech market, all kinds of people and personalities piloted them in battle.

Many mech owners already discovered that the personality and inclination of a mech pilot largely determined their compatibility to a specific mech.

Those who were more dutiful and honorable meshed well with a Desolate Soldier.

Those who were strong-minded and steady in mind were considerably more suited to pilot the Doom Guard.

The Ferocious Piranha welcomed a wide variety of mech pilots, but those who were aggressive and foolhardy tended to be especially compatible with them. It took a lot of guts to pilot any light skirmisher, let alone a light mech that was often outnumbered on the battlefield!

In the outskirts of the Vicious Mountain Star Sector, a local mercenary corps called the Quasar Dwellers assigned to guard an asteroid mining operation suddenly came under attack!

A rival of their employer had hired another band of mercenaries to attack the mining operation.

Even though both sides employed upright mercenary corps under the auspices of the Mercenary Association, the combatants did not hold back in their attacks.

These kinds of situations were very common in human space!

In general, mercenaries had to uphold their promises to their employers. This was the criteria they were judged upon. No matter the identities of their opponents, they had to make a sincere effort in fulfilling their mission!

"It's the Shell Bombers! They're too well-prepared!"

The Shell Bomber Mercenary Corps under the lead of Commander Pearson possessed a notorious reputation in the local region.

As their name suggested, the Shell Bombers developed a penchant for deploying lots of destructive ranged mechs. Employers who wanted something wrecked often turned to them as they were some of the best outfits when it came to wrecking industrial operations.

Right now, the Shell Bombers that showed up in the distance did not come closer. Instead, their units maintained positions as their cannoneer mechs unleashed large volleys of explosive shells at the mining vessels and facilities protected by the Quasar Dwellers.

"Close in! Don't let these Shell Bombers attack us with impunity."

Commander Rita Valson had no choice but to send out most of her mechs to attack the Shell Bomber mechs.

Fortunately, the Quasar Dwellers splurged on three very expensive Ferocious Piranhas.

The new light skirmishers grouped up with a number of other light mechs and advanced ahead of the other Quasar Dweller mechs.

Using the asteroids as cover, the light mech squad were able to avoid much of the attacks of the Shell Bombers.

Yet just as they came close enough to charge straight at their enemies, a large number of other mechs flew out. These other mechs had cleverly hidden themselves behind other asteroids!

The new mechs boasted different colors from the Shell Bombers. It became clear that they belonged to a separate outfit.

"It's the J Warriors!"

While their name sounded a bit unusual, the J Warriors were just as notorious as the Shell Bombers. The J Warriors excelled in close to mid range combat and often accepted raiding missions.

Now that they paired up with the Shell Bombers, the Quasar Dwellers realized that they were completely outmatched.

"Retreat!" Commander Rita Valson commanded. "We can't win this fight! Pull back and buy the mining vessels some time to evacuate. If these enemy mercs don't want too much damage, they won't go after the evacuees!"

"We can't!"

Unfortunately, the Quasar Dweller light mechs had gone too deep! The J Warrior mechs surrounded them from three directions and began to pepper them with fire from all sides.

The Ferocious Piranhas attempted to do something about it, but the J Warriors weren't ignorant of their threat. The attackers had adopted a very wide dispersed formation. Even if the Ferocious Piranha was able to catch a couple of enemies with its glow, the majority of other J Warriors remained unaffected!

"They've come prepared." Elmer Conta gritted his teeth as he desperately attempted to turn this situation around with his new mech. "We can't break through!"

His Ferocious Piranha became trapped in a jar. The J Warriors may not have deployed any LMC mechs, but the tactics they adopted were still effective against this latest terror.

If the Quasar Dwellers had deployed more copies of this mech model, then their enemies might not be able to pull off this tactic. Yet because they were only able to afford three Ferocious Piranhas, the J Warriors gained the upper hand.

"Dion!" Elmer shouted.

To his horror, one of the other Ferocious Piranhas succumbed after being focused on by the ranged mechs of both the J Warriors and the Shell Bombers.

No matter how well the Ferocious Piranha was able to dodge attacks, it was impossible to remain untouched after being focused upon by over fifty guns.

As the enemy mechs focused their fire on a second Ferocious Piranha, Elmer began to feel more distressed.

Even though his Ferocious Piranha managed to close in on a couple of J Warrior mechs before taking them out, it wasn't enough.

Defeat loomed closer than ever. As the second Ferocious Piranha broke up under all of the concentrated attacks, something finally snapped within Elmer.

"The Quasar Dwellers shall not fall today!"

The final surviving Ferocious Piranha began to shake and glow all of a sudden! As Elmer Conta's will solidified, his mech shakily began to exhibit a resonance field that happened to resist many of incoming attacks!

"Someone just broke through!"

"What?!"

"It's an expert candidate!"

The Ferocious Piranha immediately gained speed out of nowhere. It advanced onto the J Warrior mechs with much more aggression than before.

With just a couple of stabs, every mech targeted by the Ferocious Piranha fell in battle. With the power of an expert mech, the mech piloted by someone who had just broken through turned into a predator beyond comparison!