The Mech Touch

5921 Overcompletion

If Ves had as much honor as a typical Larkinson mech pilot, then he would condemn the entire concept surrounding the Heart of Darkness.

However, Ves actually thought it was a rather brilliant way to deal with a god pilot!

God pilots were extremely powerful, but they were never truly solitary. Their combat power was top notch, but their ability to project power over interstellar distances was quite poor.

Their god mechs may have transformed into a divine creation, but only Star Designers were qualified to upgrade their tech and design.

Star Designers in turn depended heavily on an active mech industry and the high-end resources that could only be produced by a large and developed civilization.

God pilots therefore relied heavily on the support of their state or organization to function at their best.

If the mechers and the fleeters ever fell out with each other, then there was no way the latter would win in the long term if they failed to eliminate the god pilots.

However, it was suicide to fight directly against these powerhouses.

That was the reason why the Common Fleet Alliance invested an insane amount of resources into the development of the Heart of Darkness.

The ship might not fare that well against god pilots, but she had the potential to inflict the greatest amount of misery onto these beings!

"You should be familiar with the phenomenon of expert pilots losing the basis of their power due to breaking their oaths or failing utterly in their duties." The dread captain spoke as they went through a security checkpoint.

"I am. My grandfather was afflicted by it. I managed to make him whole again."

The captain smiled. "He is a lucky grandparent for having a diligent and capable descendant such as yourself. The point I am trying to make is that expert pilots are not the only champions who can break. Ace pilots are also susceptible to it. While it has never happened to any of the god pilots that we know of, we theorize that they are also vulnerable to an attack from this direction."

Ves looked shocked. "That… is an extremely spurious guess! I have met my fair share of god pilots, and from what I can tell, their willpower is one of the strongest forces that I have ever witnessed. They will not break as easily as others."

"We are aware of that, professor, but we still have to be ready to make the attempt. The Heart of Darkness is uniquely suited for this purpose because she is capable of doing more than other warships. Inspired by the insanity that took hold of our civilization during the twilight of the Age of Conquest, one of the more insidious strategies associated with that dreadnought is to drive the masses mad. Outright killing the people who contribute to the functioning of a god pilot in any way is too simple. By utilizing the unique tech of the Heart of Darkness, she can drive countless people mad, either in an overt or more covert way. The point is not to remove them from the equation, but turn them into a drain on resources."

Damn! How despicable!

"This will make it much harder for a society to support a god pilot!"

"Exactly. Aside from that, the Heart of Darkness can also destabilize societies to the point where it begins to collapse. When a god pilot is incapable of saving the people that he or she has vowed to protect, there is a very real chance that the powerful pilot will break an oath! This may have devastating consequences, even at their exalted level! Even if that does not happen, the damage should be great enough to set god pilots back. The more the backbone of the mech industry becomes destabilized, the less their support base is willing to fight. The god pilots themselves may still wish to continue the fight, but their states or organizations may already be looking to sue for peace."

As the dread captain elaborated on all of the dirty tricks the fleeters had devised to 'counter' the threat posed by god pilots, Ves truly became impressed by how much thought the fleeters put into a possible confrontation against god pilots.

For all of their battleships, the CFA and the RF both knew that their chances of defeating even a single god pilot was slim to none.

While it was difficult for the fleeters to admit their inferiority in this aspect, they were rational enough to admit their own inferiority.

This had led them to devise all kinds of strategies and measures to attack god pilots in an oblique manner.

By destroying everything around god pilots as much as possible, it became theoretically possible to weaken or maybe even collapse them outright!

This was truly an approach that broadly aligned with the element of darkness!

The ends justified the means. So long as a strategy enabled the weak to defeat the strong, then anything was permissible!

While Ves ideologically agreed with the contingency plans prepared by the fleeters, personally he felt incredibly relieved that the relations between the Big Two had never deteriorated to the extent that they engaged in open warfare against each other.

The first-rate superstates also kept their heads down and restrained their own god pilots from seeking confrontation against the current hegemons of humanity.

If total war truly broke out, then the fleeters would single-

handedly prove why warships needed to be restricted in human society!

"Thank you for sharing this to me, captain." Ves gratefully said. "I have a feeling that you aren't supposed to be sharing all of this information. It does not exactly paint you fleeters in the best light."

The old but invigorated man directed a genuine smile at Ves.

"We trust you, Professor Larkinson. After everything that you have done for us, we no longer consider you to be an outsider. Let me be honest. The Red Fleet has a strong interest in deepening its relationship with you, so we are willing to treat you with much greater sincerity than before. I hope that you will find enough reason to regard us as your friends, much like you already do with the mechers."

How delightfully honest. The fleeters were anything but stupid. They studied his record and history to an exhausting degree, and easily figured out that Ves preferred honesty and directness over convoluted plots and schemes.

Though Ves was well aware that the Red Fleet would probably dump him without hesitation as soon as he had lost his value, there was at least an element of honesty in a transactional relationship.

It was exactly because the fleeters saw great promise in their continued cooperation with Ves that he had reached this point!

The closer Ves came to the vault, the more effort it took to suppress his excitement.

The passing of each second slowed down as Ves and the dread captain continued to undergo dozens of strict security measures.

The probability that either of them would try to steal or destroy the critical resources and objects stored within the vault was virtually zero, but that was no excuse for the Dread Marines on guard to skip procedure!

Wary of any sabotage committed at a moment at a time where the crew was likely to go lax, the elite soldiers assigned to guard this strategically valuable vault employed extra security measures.

Once the two were finally able to enter the vault, the dread captain slowly approached a terminal and went through the process of verifying his identity and permissions.

Ves looked around and tried his best to discern what else the fleeters stored in the vault, but the material qualities of the storage cells were so exceedingly high that he was unable to perceive anything special!

"It is done."

A large vault door began to slide open. It moved so slowly that it would take three whole minutes just to get out of the way!

The delay was a deliberate feature. Multiple security departments became alerted to the movement. If just one of them transmitted an override, the heavy vault door made out of materials that exceeded the toughness of the dreadnought's hull plating would instantly close shut!

Even if a thief was able to squeeze past the gap while the vault door had yet to close, there were still azure energy shields in the way that took an awful lot of damage to destroy.

This was just a handful of the security measures that Ves was able to detect from his position.

There were definitely other safeguards that were not as obvious.

All of this increased his excitement level. The more serious the fleeters treated their precious asset, the more value it would bring to Ves!

"We can step inside now."

Ves followed the dread captain inside the extremely sturdy vault. The azure energy shields had already been deactivated, so nothing else barred their way to the center of the large compartment.

A metal lockbox floated in the middle. Ves could not identify the material, but he was sure that he had only seen similar alloys in the most powerful first-class ace mechs.

Dread Captain Argile raised an armored finger. A high-tech key extended from it and slid inside the lock.

After a minute-long delay, the lockbox finally opened up on its own.

"Come. Your prize is here."

Ves slowly stepped forward and stood next to Captain Argile.

He couldn't help but grin when his eyes finally graced upon the reward he had been striving to obtain during his visit to the Dominion of Man!

The metal bar looked a little small, but its material qualities were so exceptional that it was already distorting reality while it remained at rest!

"This is the correct material, right? I hope I am not looking at another exceedingly rare metal alloy."

"Do not be concerned, professor. I have positively identified and confirmed many times over that we are looking at a genuine sample of the super-class alloy codenamed EE-343F-00334R. This single bar consists of precisely 5.0000000 kilograms of this experimental material. The original agreement states that you are only entitled to receive 2.353 kilograms of it. The Red Admiralty has decided to amend this term by granting you the right to claim this entire alloy bar."

The bonus did not come as a surprise to Ves, but he still felt jubilant now that it actually happened.

5 kilograms!

That was more than double the amount requested by the Mech Designer System!

Ves wondered whether it was possible to overcomplete his Supply Mission and whether he would earn a massive bonus from his dedication.

However, Ves did not think the System would play this kind of game. His experiences with it had taught him that it was quite precise about such matters. If it asked 2.353 kilograms, then it needed this amount but no more. It was useless to give the System extra. The Supply Mission would have already mentioned this possibility from the beginning if the opposite was the case.

All of that meant that Ves would retain a surplus of the key material that was responsible for making the Rubicon Spatial Transfer System so awesome!

It didn't matter that Ves lacked the knowledge and the technology to make full use of EE-343F-00334R.

Just owning whatever was left would allow him to study it and derive all kinds of insights from the first super-class material that he was allowed to keep!

Aside from that, Ves could also feed bits and pieces of it to Lucky in order to promote his development.

Perhaps his cat would gain the ability to teleport after ingesting enough EE-343F-00334R!

"Do you prefer to keep your prize in this container, or have you prepared other means of transportation?"

"I will take it straight away." Ves decisively said.

He reached out and stored the alloy bar inside the Vault of Eternity right away. He made no attempts to hide that he had the capacity to store stuff inside his own personal 'pocket space'. Perhaps the fleeters would conclude that this was a manifestation of his phase lord abilities.

In any case, Ves briefly paused to confirm that the System had not yet devoured the entire material in an instant before he relaxed.

There was nothing stopping him from completing another Supply Mission and initiating a major upgrade to the Mech Designer System!

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