Chapter 139: The Greenbird in Liberty
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"So you are the kind who wouldn’t bulge till doom is slapped right in your face eh? You might be the talent from the elite group, but well, too bad, too bad…," he spoke grimly, as the last sentence trailed off in shrills, of his firearm.
"You…" The girl was indeed a "kiddo" as labeled by the Dawn mech pilot. She apparently lacked experience in combats and reacted passively towards the sudden blow.
Ye Chong in the meantime decided to spectate the entire fight between the two parties at the side. He had once matched against the mechs from the Sanctuary before, but that was a team fight. It did not define the capabilities of the mech when alone, which was what Ye Chong strived to witness in the woods.
The dirty move pulled off by the pilot on the Dawn mech was fancied by Ye Chong. He would give an excellent score for the pilot was able to sneak an attack by distracting the foe with his words. An epitome of assassination to learn from! But Ye Chong knew his abilities well. With his personalities, it would be a little far-fetched to pull such trick off. He would be far more appropriate to sneak an attack in dark, without sound and without trace.
They exchanged moves rather quickly, since the space was limited and filled with numerous obstacles. Their distance of action was much shortened, thus the melee fights. Oh? Ye Chong was triggered by the word, "melee", that sounded like his arsenal!
The fight before came too abruptly. Ye Chong barely had the opportunity to do a close-up on most of the mechs involved, except for that purple mech.
Seemingly the Dawn mech had a distinctive 3 feet design, which gave it an improved balancing on the land, whereas the green mech looked bland in contrast. An oval cabin sat right above the 3 feet of the Dawn mech, where it was connected to a red disk with 3 pliable metallic tubes. Plenty of white spots of various sizes sparkled on the surface of red disk.
It looked odd indeed.
If Ye Chong stayed much longer in the Orbits, he would have known that the Dawn mech took the form of a kind of species exclusive to the place, the Tripeslug*.
The girl’s green mech had obviously taken the form of a bird. The whole mech literally looked like a dainty green bird, which were much shorter than its opponent and it was hard to tell if it had anything outstanding about it. But then, Ye Chong was not foolish to judge the performance of a mech by its appearance. In fact, he had experienced the potency of the Dawn mech. Judging by the information obtained from the pilot, he seemed to be cautious with this "kiddo" he called.
The way the Dawn mech fought in close range was eccentric!
Snap! Two of the tubes connected to the disk were disengaged! Two red beams of light came out from the bottom and extended rapidly over the tubes in swirls!
Within twinkling of eyes, the pair of soft tubes had transformed into a pair of flaming electric whip. Buzz! Buzz! Electrical growl came from the whip occasionally along with a few arcs of light glaring in the eyes. And at the tip of both of the tubes a conical laser beam was installed.
Ye Chong was amazed by the ingenious design! The tubes clearly were made out of one-of-a-kind materials - highly pliable and durable, combining with the conical laser beams, they would have a certain level of penetrability. The choice of the tubes was great as they provided a more nimble action compared to most of the close-ranged weapons, due to the fact that it had the most intuitive changes of angle, hence becoming an unpredictable weapon to the foes. "Still, the downside… as usual…" Ye Chong could tell it at first glance, the whips were unpredictable alright, but it could not deal fatal damages to the foes.
The other tube was also covered with flames and electricity while the red disk had become a shield which its angle could be changed naturally.
That was smart. However, Ye Chong could tell - melee attacks should not be the strength of the mechs from Sanctuary. They could be supportive but not aggressive! The statement was apparent when the choice of close-ranged weapons installed on the mech was concerned. It lacked a killer! It did not have any vicious close-ranged weapon! Hence it would not allow the mech to gain the ultimate advantage in a melee attack and it would be nothing in front of the Black Covers’ mech which aced at melee attack on the other end of the scale.
The Dawn mech fought proactively, its speed caught Ye Chong’s attention.
The Black Coves, the FMPA, the Sanctuary… they might had an utterly different design of mechs with emphasis on a totally different aspect, but they had something strangely similar - all of them had superb speed. Consequently, speed remained as the core factor of mech combats, whether it did psychic attacks, a punch in the face or a missile launch with heat tracing.
Habitually the Guardian had activated its automatic analyzing system over the two mechs. The analysis ran like a whirlwind that a vast amount of information crashed the field like a wave of tsunami. Ye Chong’s eyes were not in the mood for those. They were all on the fighting between the mechs.
The weaponry of the Dawn mech behaved exactly as Ye Chong predicted - the whips slitted oddly like serpents in the head, ever-changing and magnificently swift; the shield hovered around the body of the mech, highly prepared for incoming attacks.
The green mech seemed to be rather familiar with the battle style of the Dawn mech as she dodged the hurricane attacks with grace. Yet, she did not manage to dodge everything. The mech was whipped a few times, charred linings remained on the surface. The machine was not broken however. Although the flaming electric whip might had a threatening appearance, it still had limited forces that it did not deliver any actual damage to her mech.
The girl wielded a parrying spear, an ordinary weapon which Ye Chong had once used before.
"Eh?" Ye Chong was so astonished that he could not help but to exclaim. Something was amiss! His eyes fixed on the green mech’s behavior. I knew it! At first glance, the girl was at a worse situation in the fight, holding up attacks from the foe; however, Ye Chong saw it through - the girl was fine the whole time, her attacks were actually delivered viciously that it drove the foe in panic.
These were not surprising enough to make our hero gasp at the spot. There was a silhouette of another person in the cabin. And that was… "The purple girl who nearly killed me that day!"
No wonder there was always a sense of acted-upon-prediction in the battle… Ye Chong still could feel that pain dealing with that purple physic girl the other day! The girl piloting the green mech also gave an identical sensation to Ye Chong. She seemed to never fail to foresee the movements of the foe and avoid them in the nick of time, though she did not feel as skillful as the purple girl.
If the purple psychic girl symbolized a matured fletching, the girl in the green mech would symbolize a nestling then.
Ye Chong was very much sure of his speculations by then. This had to be a technique unique to the mentalists in the Sanctuary, it could be learned! And from their conversation, he could tell that they were not measly of their kind.
Imagine a few tens of … no! They would only need a few mechs with pilots who had acquired the technique, imagine them with their rapports… how terrifying the potency would be! Ye Chong was getting cold sweat over his back. One-on-one was not even a confident fight to Ye Chong… let alone Two-on-one or more-than-two-on-one!
Ye Chong settled down as he collected his thoughts. He feared that the pilots who had mastered such technique would be the mastermind, the master strength of the Sanctuary! Well then! The girl in the green mech should not be a challenging opponent just yet! If he could obtain some top secrets of the Sanctuary from her, then it would be an immense help for him to identify the complicated factions in the Orbits. Moreover he would more likely to encounter her kind again in the near future. Assuming he could really dig some information beforehand, it could potentially save his life!
That tricycle mech was much worthless than the girl’s head in his eyes.
This was it!
After a SWOT analysis in his head, Ye Chong made up his mind!
The three-dimensional illustration of the tricycle mech traced 4 white lines and 3 dots. Evidently those were the best spots to make fatal strikes after analysis. Ye Chong who had gotten pretty much used to the Guardian understood it well.
The jaguar peeked at its prey in the bushes, ready to pounce anytime!
…
"No," The girl in the green mech was holding the attacks laboriously. She knew that if she were to hold the attacks any longer, she would collapse before the damn watchdog. "But… But I…" She had lasted for this long yet she had hit her limit. The head was pounding as she overused her ability. "You should never overuse your physic ability! Never ever overuse your head! Preserve it more than any other parts of body!" The voice of her teacher echoed. The teacher had mentioned the precaution numerous times before. Overusing the ability would be dangerous.
"But!" What else could she do?
"No! I’m not giving up! I’m not accepting this!" She could not accept failure just like this. "I had done so much just to get out of that place! I had been running endlessly for these days. It was suffering, very suffering, but it would not stop me from loving the vibrant world outside! I am not going back for the monotonous, repetitive routine of training-learning-training! If I am going back for those, I'd rather die! Right here!"
… Stand still, stand still! Use your head to stand still!
Good girl, now, see through my moves.
If you can’t see it, you will just take every blow from me.
In her memory, her "home" had always been the base, a base illuminated by artificial lighting, no sun, no moon, only cold people freezing her surrounding, her soul.
She had been planning her grand escape in the dark 3 years ago and she realized how useful the knowledge she had learned in this. She started to work even harder in her studies, paying extra efforts to every teaching she received, soon she became outstanding in the group and caught the teacher’s attention and admiration.
Finally, half a month ago, I grabbed the opportunity and I made it out.
As expected, the Sanctuary took action extremely quickly. But what she did not expect in her prediction was that the Sanctuary actually sent a group of men to hunt her down. "Apparently I am indeed outstanding enough for the Sanctuary to send an army for me." The irony ridiculed her as she laughed bitterly. The additional inclusion of army in her plan did not panic her, instead, she saw through the silver lining in the sky calmly, seized every lining she saw and escaped.
She cracked her head thinking every single moment of her life. And she did it. The army slowly became a team, a team gradually became few men. Under her tenacity, only one foe had remained right before her.
Nevertheless, this situation was not what she desired, as she knew herself well, in a one-on-one, straight up it would be her defeat. It was not because of her poor performance of course. She might had yet complete the whole training course in the Sanctuary, but she was in fact the best of the elites. She had exceptional talent in this, compared to most of the pilots in the Sanctuary. It was depressing because her failure was solely because of the incapabilities of her mech compared to the Dawn mech. The Greenbird was a mere training mech for the pilots in the Sanctuary, no doubt it would be feeble in front of the standard Dawn mech from the Sanctuary.
No… No!
Does that mean am I going to really die here? Today?
Depression filled her heart, desperation drowned her mind.
Her body stuck in a fight, her soul stuck in a contract.
Translator's Thoughts
Jstoryz Jstoryz
The original untranslated name for Tripeslug (Tri‧pes‧slug) is 三足软蜗 (Three-Foot-Soft-Snail), thus Tri (Three) pes (Latin: Foot) lug (combined with the s, forming the word slug, usually 软蜗 refers to shell-less snails).