“That’s quite good for a junior”
“I’m best in my class for a reason” She puffed her chest
“Did anything bother you?”
“Umm” She closed her eyes thinking of the moment when she got shot “It could use more escape tools, I can’t use my specialty when the opponent could see me. Luckily, there’s a forest where I fall So I could squeak out a win.”
“Like smoke bomb?”
“That would be good!” Sally beem, thinking about it “And also, could you change the color of this mech to pink?”
What!?
Jay froze, painting his mech pink would be quite a disgrace. It would stick out like a sour thumb on the battlefield and wouldn’t offer many chances to hide.
“Why would I do that!?”
“Then we are done here” Sally sees that this is effective and immediately capitalizes on it. “Pink is the effective color”
“It would ruin the whole ‘get out of sight and fake sound’ thing”
“It would make me perform better”
“.....” Jay did not believe that one bit “How about we go half and only color the inside?”
Sally would like to have the whole thing but settled for the pink inside. Watching Jay Grunty agree and paint the whole inside pink made her day. At least she got back for recording her making those gun sounds. She wasn’t comfortable but couldn’t deny its effectiveness.
They run more tests, and Sally gets in more matches. Iron out the mech's effectiveness and fix the glaring weakness. All this to prepare for the competition. They still don’t know what to come but getting to know each other is better than nothing.
—--------
4 Local day later
The day of the competition arrives. Jay is slightly worried that they didn’t prepare enough. The competition requires them to gather in the UCN room. Universal Communication Network Company is a subsidiary company of Omni-corp. They connect a staggering 68% of the known space with the NET.
“Hey shorty”
Jay greets her with a smile. Her figure is short for a space human standard. The imperials decided long ago that space humans both male and female average high a 180 cm. Since that time humans have evolved differently in different places whether it’s natural or not. But in Conticus II, Humans mostly resemble the space human ancestry.
Sally is considered short by that standard. However other than her height not much has changed from her avatar.
“Hello, beggar” Sally's grumpy reply rarely faze Jay. He always expected that he would be a beggar.
“Ready to win today?”
“Always”
“Let go”
The competition requires Jay and Sally to show identification at the front desk. The robot automatically checks them and gets them to sign an agreement. It’s nothing outrageous, it’s just to ensure the participant doesn’t cheat or sue them if they get disqualified.
What greets them is a big sleek white hall, filled with many upon many lines of simulation pods. This is the first step of the competition where they weed out the weak before the main competition. This will be aired on the UCN secondary channel, if they manage to pass they will be on the main one.
They walk to their assigned simulation pod number 1748 & 1749
Jay and Sally arrive early and have little time to themself. While they wait, Jay surveys around the place with awe, this is an example of being obscenely wealthy. He imagined that he would reach this point one day if he wasn’t dumb. Sally also has the same reaction.
Incredibly the room fills up with every person having their Simulation pod. Some pods are missing people to man them but some flash red.
“Unauthorize device detected, neutralizing target.”
“Wait it’s just…”
The person tries to plea but the corporation takes no word. A drone quickly shoots the poor guy with a sleeping dosage. His body flopped on the floor, A swarm of drones brought him out of the room.
Would I also…
Jay was already in the pod, he closed his eyes waiting for the pod to flash red but nothing came. No, something did come but not the UCN drones.
[Body scan detected]
The mech system warms him when his body rests on the pod. He consigned to his fate, waiting for the UCN to bring him out but the flying metal never came. Nothing happened to him and he quickly loaded into the simulation.
The system is not considered an unauthorized device?
Jay mulls over what could be happening. Either they let him in after detecting it or the system could hide from the scan. Both are equally possible
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
However, one leads to an outcome where the system is known and the other just lets him off free. Jay prefers the latter possibility but The ball already rolled. He just needs to live with the outcome.
—---
“Anyone detected?”
Shaona plays with her smartwatch, letting her bodyguard monitor the screen. The guy looked all over to find a trace of the program and he found something—several of them.
“We got it”
“Yes! Track it down!”
“There’s a little problem my Lady.” The bodyguard answers with a troubled face. A screen has been pushed in front of her.
“What?” She wasn’t gonna let anyone stop her ticket back home but what she saw doe puzzle her.
“We detect 78 individuals that have the system.” The bodyguard says with a troubled face.
“....” It’s playing with her at this point “Could we narrow it down?” They should not have that many people with the system. It’s simply impossible.
“We could cut the unpromising suspected but that would lower our chance.” The bodyguard crosses out many individuals that have a lower rank than apprentice mech designer or have less than 3 specializations. People who got into the program could do better than that.
“So we need to wait it out?” This ruins her day “I have to wait longer!?”
“You still need to give the reward my lady”
“Bah,” She sneered in disgust “Why would I give my knowledge to these bumbling idiots.”
“You’re still bound by contract”
“Not when I’m gone”
The bodyguard sighs, he sometimes regrets taking this job. The pay couldn’t measure up to this woman's shenanigans.
—----
All of the participants appear inside an identical waiting hall except that it’s devoid of all simulation pods. The room dims and a pillar of light appears in the middle of the room, elevating a platform. There appears a middle-aged man with a handsome angular face and a beautiful woman with a ponytail.
“Hello and welcome to the 2024th UCN-hosted mech competition. This year we’re incredibly honored to be sponsored by the main personnel from Omnicorp. Lady Shaona! ” He gestured his hand toward Shaona. She then put on a perfect smile and waved back as the light shone on her. Her presence exudes the calming and elegant aura suiting her title. Every person from the main company must have something special in them.
“And I'm your host for the 64th time, Raran Yamane! It’s a pleasure to be hosting such a big event!”
Raran is a natural, he hypes all the audience up just with his voice. No wonder the UCN stuck with him for so many years. However, while Raran is hyping the audience up, Shaona franticly scans the room to find all the possible program users. For all 78 of them, she quickly calculated the possibility with her brain and assigned them a grade of A to F.
She notices 3 A rank individuals 7 B rank 16 C rank and the rest is too low grade for her to include. The possibility that one could have the program and not be successful is very low, moreover, the program got sent over here a year ago so she believed that it must have been in an apprentice mech designer range.
Her brain has calculated the possibility and it is very unlucky that this place could facilitate a quick rise past apprentice mech designer with such a narrow timeframe. It would take a one-in-a-trillion genius to be able to manage that in such a few years. It even takes her a year with Omni Corp resources. This backwater planet simply couldn’t compete.
Naturally, Jay is put very low on that list. He isn’t even an apprentice mech designer yet.
“Without further ado, I will explain the rules of competition to everyone. The first part of this competition will be an all-out battle royale! A rumble of iron and steel. But, our competition would be easy if you brought your mech, instead, We will give you 3 random broken mechs to mix and mash your abomination!” Raran shouted with excitement. He snaps his finger and a slot screen appears behind him. But instead of a normal icon, it is replaced with mechs. It has 3 icons lined up, and then 3 broken mechs appear.
“A mech designer and their pilot have to work together and adapt on the fly to survive this challenge!” Raran said “What!? Do you want it to be spicier? we got you covered! Every time someone got killed, their mech part would become available for the killer!”
In the background, his screen changes to a mech dying to another mech then getting sucked into the killer inventory.
“ The Battle Royale will take place on planet Hazeen-35. A Hazardous planet that has weird weather such as Lava rain, toxic storms, and harsh winds. Survive and kill until you have the last 64 to move to the next section!”
“Every mech here will be at apprentice level or below! So you don’t have to worry about complexity! Do you have any more questions?”
Some guy raises his hand
“If someone already killed 2 mechs and we kill that guy, would we get all of their reward?”
“Yes! you would get all 3 mech rewards”
“Do you get their whole warehouse?”
“No, you only get what they use to build the mech. You get what you see basically.”
“Why is there no limit to the number many mech designers?” A solo mech designer asks Raran.
“You’ll see”
After the round of questioning, it was finally time to start. The participant got moved to their warehouse. They will be given 2 local days to finish the mech. After that, the battle royale will begin.
“That guy talks way too much” Sally is quite bored from all the talking. “If it goes on for longer I would have slept.”
“It’s useful information, you should pay more attention”
“I could figure it out myself!”
Sally was still restless from waiting and more by the process of building the mech that was about to come. Jay ignored her distress and focused on what he needed to do. There's a slot machine.
[You have completed a quest.]
[You’ve just earned 100 mech points]
[650 Mech points total]
He completed the the quest. and a new one pops up right after
[Quest -From rubble to gold]
[Detail - Build a B grade or better mech from these broken parts]
[Reward - upgrade toke]
two new ones actually…
[Quest -Rise to the top]
[Detail -Be the last 64 survivors of the first part Scapping mech competition]
[Reward - Upgrade token
additional reward: 100 points for 1 kill and more upgrade tokens every 5]
It’s a double quest this time
The second quest is easy enough to understand, he just needs Sally to kill more people to get more points! The trouble is with the second one, he didn’t know what the system used to evaluate the grades. So far the best he got is a C. And he is completely clueless about what it takes to make a better grade.
“When are you going to build our mech?” Sally said, waking Jay from his thought
“Oh sorry..”
Jay opened a panel and selected an option to randomize the mech that he got. The warehouse opens up and delivers 3 distinct piles of garbage. Some of it is still intact while other parts look to be unusable.
This is what he had to work with.