Chapter 3301: Louder Song
After the battle, the Larkinson expert mechs had all been moved to the personal workshops on the Spirit of Bentheim.
As with any intensive battle, no mech was able to come out unscathed. Some of the frames were in better shape than others, but no matter their current condition, they all required personal attention in order to restore their peak battle effectiveness.
When Ves entered the workshop, he approached his wife who was currently wearing a fashionable hazard suit. Just like her other gear, it was covered with a symbol pattern that made it seem as if she was about to walk on a catwalk instead of working on a fleet that was still traveling behind enemy lines.
When Ves embraced his wife from behind, he had to be careful not to put too much pressure on her. His Unending Regalia distorted his movements and forced him to employ more strength to move around all of that metal.
As Ves took a deep whiff of her scent, Gloriana grew annoyed and tried to push him away.
"Don't do that. Your combat armor is too cold and it feels weird as well. I don't know why you insist on wearing something so excessive when we're in the middle of our fleet. No one can get past all of your layers of security, especially inside a ship filled with Larkinsons!"
Ves shrugged as he let her go. "It's better to be safe than sorry. In my opinion, you should also wear something that offers more protection. I don't think your hazard suit offers much protection for our baby. If you want, we can shave some more Unending alloy from the Shield of Samar to build another protective suit."
"No thanks. Don't underestimate my outfit. I paid good money for this and it offers a lot more protection and cushioning than you think. Besides, I can't perform precision repairs when my limbs are being weighed down by all of that heavy metal."
This was indeed a serious problem. Ves wasn't affected by the high density of Unending alloy due to his unnatural physical strength and endurance, but Gloriana did not possess any physical enhancements.
Her attitude towards him wasn't pleasant at the moment, and it was his fault. They already had a shouting match a few days ago where Gloriana loudly complained about how he squandered four precious gems on expert mechs that were already built!
From her perspective, Ves just wasted four good opportunities to turn a high-quality mech into a masterwork!
Though Ves was not unsympathetic towards her opinion, he did not regret using up his available resources. The performance of his expert mechs during the previous battle fully vindicated his decision.
The Unstable Chaos Essence gem granted the Riot an unpredictable defensive enhancement that saved it from destruction.
The Bastet's Favor gem caused the First Sword to unleash a sharper battle formation attack and also wound the dwarven expert mechs with significantly greater ease.
The Bastet's Regard gem bestowed the Dark Zephyr the agility it needed to evade the Gauss Baron's targeted bombardment with greater ease and also improved its ability to outmaneuver enemy mechs at close range.
The Bastet's Affection gem provided the Amaranto with a crucial all-round firepower boost that amplified its formidable offensive capabilities to an entirely different height!
Venerable Stark would have never been able to steal the show and cripple eight expert mechs in quick succession without the amazing 20 percent damage boost provided by the gem that Ves had sacrificed!
Even though he could have saved it up until he could make another ranged expert mech into a fantastic masterwork, he was more than willing to give up this opportunity.
Ves had a long life and career ahead of him. The premise was that he was able to maintain his life and freedom, and that was something that Gloriana wasn't properly considering.
As someone who dealt with risk many times, even he knew that there were instances where he needed to make the safest choice instead of allowing his greed to overcome his common sense!
After a moment of silence, the wedded couple eventually discussed their work.
"The Riot is in the worst shape out of all of our expert mechs." She gestured towards the torso that hung like a carcass in a primitive abattoir. "The three limbs it lost are in such poor shape that they need to be reconstructed from scratch in order to restore their full integrity."
Ves did not have much of an opinion of this. "It's okay. We planned to refit and upgrade the internal architecture anyway, so we were planning to pull out the internal components anyway."
Gloriana nodded. "I think we can perform some minor tweaks and adjustments to the overall design so that the new replacement components can withstand external shocks a little better. I can do this work myself."
"Don't spend too much time on these upgrades. Keep them minor. We should wait until we have settled into the Red Ocean before we implement any major overhauls to our expert mechs. The tech and materials that are available over there is a lot better than what we have access to at the moment."
"I already know that, Ves. I would have preferred it if we could postpone the completion of the Bulwark Project and the Chimera Project so that we can take advantage of the better conditions on the other side of the beyonder gate."
He firmly shook his head. "We already talked about this. We can't keep pushing up our expectations for our projects and engage in feature creep. We set a firm vision in mind of the expert mechs that we wanted to provide to Joshua and Jannzi. Our original concepts are already more than sufficient. They have already been waiting for their expert mechs for a long time and their patience is running out. It is also highly detrimental to their future progression if their practice is delayed by another year. I'm sorry, Gloriana, but you'll just have to wait until we can bring our expert mechs up to the standards of the Red Ocean another time."
Ves was also eager to move on from working on expert mechs. While he loved their awe-inspiring power and their greater potential, a mech designer like him wanted to serve many kinds of mech pilots. He had not forgotten about the masses and the recent battle provided him with an immense amount of inspiration for his future mass production models.
Before the Battle of Fordilla Zentra occurred, the concept of designing a series of mechs that were all meant to cooperate seamlessly in combat had been a bit abstract to Ves. Though the Mech Corps of the Bright Republic already showed this mode of combat to a certain degree, the rather basic tech and means available to third-class military organizations limited their toolbox.
Second-class militaries possessed a lot more options. The many battles between the Friday Coalition and the Hex Army featured multiple layers of synergy and cooperation between different mech models, but the scale and scope of them was too grand for him to fully comprehend all of this depth at the time.
It was only when he personally witnessed a battle of this level unfold in front of him that his eyes were fully opened. The direct comparison between the simplistic mech roster of the Larkinson Army and the more logical and well-planned mech roster of the three Ferril mech divisions made it abundantly clear that a good mix of mech models provided a lot of additional battle effectiveness without requiring any extra investment!
Ves was eager to apply this approach to his own mech legions. He already came up with dozens of different ideas that he couldn't wait to discuss with the legion commanders!
Of course, first he needed to conclude the current round of mech design projects. He not only had to finish the Bulwark Project and the Chimera Project, but also complete his work on a new expert rifleman mech for Venerable Brutus!
His priorities kept growing. If he didn't invest enough time on addressing them, they would continue to pile up until he ended up with a mountain of uncompleted projects!
Since he was eager to prevent that from happening, he immediately turned his attention back to his current work.
He examined the condition of the different expert mechs up close in person so that he knew exactly what he needed to do for the coming weeks.
The Amaranto required the least amount of work to repair, but neither Ves nor Gloriana felt confident about outsourcing the maintenance work to a crew of mech technicians.
"The Amaranto is a masterpiece and it needs to stay that way. I'll perform the repairs myself." Gloriana demanded.
The Dark Zephyr, the Riot and the First Sword weren't masterworks and did not impose any exaggerated demands.
However, the Larkinson Clan was short on highly-qualified mech technicians that possessed the skill and experience to perform independent repairs and adjustments to expert mechs.
Ves and the other Journeymen of the Larkinson Clan had to supervise all of the necessary work in person.
"It's going to cost us a fair amount of time to design a minor refit." He said. "That will delay the refit for at least a week."
Given all of the time-consuming steps they needed to perform, Ves was afraid that it would take a month before the Larkinson Clan was able to field four fully-functional expert mechs.
Fortunately, the dwarves shouldn't be able to threaten the expeditionary fleet in this timespan. Even if the Vulcan Empire was suicidal enough to launch a surprise attack on the Empire of the Lost, the Larkinson Clan wasn't anchored to the Amswick System. The fleet could leave at any time!
When Ves and his wife reached the damaged frame of the First Sword, another mech designer happened to be present.
Ketis, who wore a formidable suit of combat armor of her own, gazed up at the expert swordsman mech with affection.
The Decapitator was resting right next to it. In order to prevent any accidents, its gigantic blade was covered by a giant metal sheath.
"Are you happy, Ketis?" Ves asked.
The tired woman nodded without saying a word.
Her force of will and metal strength had yet to return to their peak. Ves was concerned about that, but Ketis was made out of sterner stuff. She was not only a transcendent in two different professions, but Sharpie was also helping her recover her energies.
He estimated that she would return to her peak within a month, which was quite impressive despite not having a companion spirit like Blinky.
"That was a really nice trick you pulled off during the battle." Ves remarked. He did not hide his appreciation for her actions. "I didn't know that was possible, but once I realized what you had done, I tried it out myself. If we hadn't made our moves, who knows how many more Larkinsons would have perished."
His wife looked confused. She didn't know what her husband and his student were talking about.
Ketis smiled. "I did it for Venerable Dise. To be honest, I wasn't quite aware I could do that either. It's just… I always felt that I was in tune with the Decapitator. I spent hours of my spare time staying close to it. The sword sings to me, you know. Every good sword does that, but the ones that I've made myself ring clearer to me than anything else. At some point, I found that I could still 'hear' the Decapitator singing to me even when I had returned to my stateroom. I first thought it was just a lingering dream, but when Venerable Dise fought with it for the first time… the singing grew louder."
Ves became completely engrossed in her story. Though Ketis obviously found it difficult to describe her experiences, Ves did not fail to recognize that the objects that she was interacting with were alive in their own way!