The Mech Touch

As Ves sat down on the slightly uncomfortable chair placed before the desk made out of a bone from an exobeast that the vice director must have hunted himself, he decided to take the initiative.

There was a risk to speaking first and trying to dictate the rhythm of the conversation, but Ves judged that he could not afford to fall into his counterpart's rhythm instead.

"Vice Director Talas Redmond." Ves spoke up first.

"You already know who I am, so let's skip the introductions. Let me be honest with you. I do not want to be here, yet I am compelled by circumstances to pay a visit to your office. You guys know damn well what you have been doing all of this time, and I do not like to deal with the obstructions that you have caused. I am here because I still see a chance that the Red Collective and the Hunting Association can see eye to eye with each other. Before I invest further time and effort into this conversation, I would like a straight answer from you. Are you willing to talk about it, or have you already made your decision before I entered your office?"

The direct and unconventional approach taken by Ves seemed to throw the highly experienced Hunter off-guard.

The old man who bore obvious muscles beneath his brown hunting suit looked at Ves in a much different light than before.

The badges and small trophies that hung on his suit added an air of distinction and accomplishment to the Hunter.

Even though Ves was pretty sure that he could beat Talas Redmond in a contest of pure strength, the Hunter still gave off much more threat than Ves had ever encountered from a human without a mech or warship at his disposal.

That was quite impressive to say the least.

The Hunting Association had already made a lot of progress in raising 'cultivators' who gained so much combat power that they could even fight against mechs under specific conditions!

If these Hunters were able to amass so much power by practicing the Hunter's Code, what use did they have for mechs?

Did Ves have a realistic chance of winning the Hunters over by sticking to his chosen strategy of approaching this challenge as a mech designer?

Although Ves started to entertain a lot of doubts, he did his best not to let his mental turmoil affect his composure.

Now that he was here, it was too late to reconsider. He could only grit his teeth and persist in the strategy that gave him the greatest amount of confidence.

The vice director looked at. Ves with undisguised amusement. As much as he was famed for employing trickery and deception to hunt down exobeasts that were much larger and more powerful than him, he was not known to be a person who employed the same methods towards his fellow humans.

Of course, any politician who thought they could pull off a scheme against Talas Redmond would learn quite quickly that this Hunter was not incapable of dealing with sophisticated ploys!

This was one of the reasons why he had been elevated to such an important office in one of the centers of human civilization.

Ves was not the only person who ended up in a meeting with this infamous Hunter. He just hoped that he could obtain more concessions out of the vice director than the last fellows who sat on this chair.

"Hierarch, deputy chief council, professor, patriarch. Which title do you prefer me to address you with?" Vice Director Redmond responded to Ves' unconventional opening with a surprising response.

Most people that Ves encountered in the past tended to use the title they thought was most relevant.

However, Ves managed to pick up a lot of additional positions as of late, so it was easier for people to get confused.

"I don't think either of us are the sort of people to ascribe too much value on artificially constructed labels." Ves spoke.

"Let's dispense with the pageantry and speak like one guy to another guy. You can just go ahead and call me Ves if you allow me to call you Talas." That actually elicited an amused smile out of the old man. The vice director had never met. man who was so eager to discard the trappings of status and titles.

It was such an unexpected proposal that the vice director couldn't help but gain a little appreciation for the upstart that had managed to upend human society just a few days earlier.

"Acceptable." The old Hunter gruffly replied.

"Since you prefer to be honest and direct, I will give you the courtesy of doing so as well. We can both save a large amount of time with this. The truth is that we, the Hunting Association, see no reason to subject ourselves to the jurisdiction of your Red Collective. We have tried to be indirect about this in order to avoid causing any unnecessary offense or humiliation, but seeing that you still do not accept our hints, I am sharing our stance to you without any ambiguity." Ves frowned. Pushing the Hunting Association to the point where it had to openly voice this stance was not a positive development.

"There are still possibilities where we can persuade you to cooperate with the Red Collective, is that correct, Talas?"

"We do not categorically reject cooperation with the RC, but we see no reason to proceed with this if we do not get anything out of it that benefits us, Ves. In fact, subjecting ourselves to your rules and regulations will impose a large amount of unnecessary burdens on our operations. Why would we make a decision that does not bring us any benefits and only burdens us with a large amount of disadvantages?"

The logic was quite clear from the perspective of the Hunting Association. A cost-benefit analysis clearly told the Hunters that it was far too costly to work with the RA.

This was where Ves happened to see an opening. Since the Hunters had a problem with the inequity of this deal, Ves just had to make sure to add enough value to make the transaction fair and equal.

"I can understand that the RC has not done a good job of persuading your Hunting Association of the benefits of operating under its sanction." Ves plainly admitted.

"Let me give you an additional incentive that I am sure many Hunters will be interested in. As you know, I am a mech designer. I solve problems for a living. If you agree to cooperate with the Red Collective, I am willing to devote my time to designing a series of exclusive hunting mechs for the Hunting Association. Not only will the living mechs be fully attuned to your demands, but I will also throw in Carmine mech variants to serve the needs of the hunters who were unable to complete their challenges with the power of mechs."

Any normal person would have welcomed an offer to design a mech as well as a Carmine mech from the famous Ves Larkinson!

Unfortunately, the obstinate Hunter was not a normal person.

This was a man who went as far as leaving his nutrient packs at home whenever he went on a long hunt.

Instead, he preferred to catch small prey with his bare hands and cook them over a campfire to sate his hunger!

How could such a hardcore Hunter feel any attraction towards being given the choice to pilot a Carmine mech and hunt much larger prey than before?

This guy was probably one of the few red humans who genuinely despised the thought of piloting Carmine mechs!

"We acknowledge the good that you have done by giving norms the ability to pilot Carmine mechs." Talas said with a genuine tone of appreciation.

"That said, Carmine mechs and the Hunting Association do not necessarily intersect with each other. There are plenty of exobeasts who tend to be too large to be defeated by Hunters on foot, but we still have enough Hunter pilots to cull these superlarge prey. The true satisfaction from hunting does not come from stomping exobeasts with superior mechs and arms. It comes from leveraging your own strength and intelligence to turn a powerful predator into your prey. The more we rely on advanced technology to do the job that humans ought to be able to do themselves, the less we are able to exercise the skills that matter."

"I do not think that every Hunter agrees with you. Are you even able to represent all of their wishes? What about the Hunters that hunt those ultralarge prey with their own mechs? Are they all losers for relying on the power of their big combat mechs?"

"Do not try to divide us, Ves. I do not prefer the hunting approach of mech pilots, but I recognize that they are an important component in maintaining the security of planets with strong wildlife. Even so, our rules strictly restrain the power of their hunting mechs. They can resort to using much more powerful machines, but they willingly switch to weaker and more basic mechs instead in order to preserve the sanctity of the hunt. We do not need your products at all, exclusive or not. We have already established a hunting system that works well for us. No exobeasts have gone rogue and broken into any settlements to commit massacres among the colonists. We have also stopped all untamed planets in our territory from turning into incubators of highly threatening god beasts. We have been able to fulfill all of our responsibilities without relying too much on the power of mechs or technology."

Talas Redmond sounded very proud about that. The Hunters respected the old traditions and gained extraordinary strength and capabilities because of that. The Huntsman had set up a perfect paradise that did not need any further corrections as far as the vice director was concerned.

As much as Ves hoped that the man would be a little more open-minded, his obstinate response did not deviate from his expectations.

Since it had come to this, Ves had no other choice but to resort to his most desperate gambit.

He decided to flip the board.

"ENOUGH OF THIS CRAP!" Ves shouted! "YOU HUNTERS HAVE GONE FAR ENOUGH!"

He no longer repressed his mounting anger, but instead allowed it to flow freely!

An irrational impulse even prompted him to rise to his feet, causing the slightly uncomfortable chair to fall and clatter onto the floor!

At the same time, Ves channeled all of his frustration towards the constant. obstructionist behavior of the Hunting Association and slammed his fists against the large carved bone desk!

CRACK! CRACK!

Ves channeled enough force from his true body to crack a solid piece of polished exobeast bone!

The violent response was so sudden that Vice Director Redmond couldn't help but jump out of his chair and instinctively retrieve a very potent hunting rifle that he had mounted on the back of his own desk chair!

"I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THE SELFISH ACTIONS OF YOUR DAMNED ASSOCIATION!" Ves continued to rant as his fists dug deeper into the resilient desk.

"ALL YOU CARE ABOUT IS HUNT HUNT HUNT! YOU OBSESS SO MUCH OF IT THAT YOU INVENT ALL OF THESE STUPID RULES JUST SO THAT YOU CAN MAKE IT MORE CHALLENGING FOR YOURSELF. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT SOUNDS TO ME? YOU GUYS ARE NOTHING BUT COWARDS!"

That triggered a furious response from the old Hunter!

"I reject that accusation! We are braver than many people! Every proper hunt is a battle of life and death. It takes great courage to confront an exobeast without overwhelming power."

"I would never call your carefully staged and managed 'hunts' a battle." Ves sneered.

"True combat is never fair! Try fighting against 2 greater phase lords and 5 lesser phase lords and somehow manage to kill half of them! Oh, you Hunters never do that because you are too focused on bullying ignorant and primitive mutated beasts where you are in control of every variable. You just cannot bring yourself to enter the most challenging hunting grounds and hunt down the ultimate predators of the Red Oceans, which are other phase lords and phase whales."

From the moment Ves went on the offensive, he completely forced Talas Redmond on the backfoot!

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