What the hell?!
Even though it was just a simulation, seeing Keita zipping around the battlefield like it was nothing, sniping monsters mid-leap while casually narrating his report like he was reading off a grocery list—it was so far removed from his expectations that Takafumi couldn’t help but let out a mental scream.
What Keita was doing matched the movements described in the hybrid unit’s manual—the one he had helped write—but that document was little more than a wish list of theoretically possible maneuvers scribbled down by a team of overambitious engineers. It was an ideal. A fantasy.
In reality, the mech stopped moving when it fired, and the recoil threw off its center of gravity. Yes, you could leap sideways, but landing was a huge strain on the legs. There was no way anyone should have been able to land and shoot at the same time, then jump again before confirming the shot had reached its target. Even if the frame survived that kind of abuse, the poor pilot inside wouldn’t.
And yet Keita’s hybrid-type mech had moved exactly how Takafumi and the rest of his team had dreamed it would. Perfectly.
“Let’s leave it there for now. This was my first test run, so I’m sure I overlooked a few things. Do you think you could help me tweak it a little?”
Takafumi had been watching in stunned silence when Keita’s voice snapped him back to reality.
“Leave it there”?! What does that even mean?!
Keita’s report had covered everything in the test scenario, from the entirety of the simulation outlined in the curriculum to detailed points of improvement and even specific numerical tweaks to adjust. As a mechanic, Takafumi couldn’t argue with any of it. Every suggestion the boy had made was perfectly reasonable.
Keita had brushed it off, claiming this was just his first test run, but most people would have needed five runs minimum to collect even close to that amount of data.
He had absolutely no complaints about Keita’s performance in this first test run, so all Takafumi could do was give another little scream internally while stammering the only response he could muster.
“Y-yeah. Of course.”
However, Takafumi wasn’t just any mechanic. As the president of Mogami Heavy Industries (in other words, a bunch of mad engineers), he could clearly see that Keita’s performance and the issues he had uncovered were all essential pieces in completing the hybrid model they’d staked their company’s future on.
This is going to work. We can do this!
The National Defense Forces didn’t want high-performance, high-maintenance, ultra-specialized machines that only gifted pilots could handle. What they wanted was something that performed well enough, was easy to use, easy to maintain, and cheap to mass-produce. In other words, they wanted efficiency.
Takafumi was well aware of that. A good company didn’t build what it wanted to, but what the customer was looking for. That said, engineers, being engineers, always wanted to build the best machine they possibly could, regardless of the consequences.
Up until now, he’d had to make compromises, telling himself that it was necessary. After all, the company needed to stay afloat to look after its employees.
But not anymore!
Now, for the first time, they had a capable pilot. They could finally take readings for things they’d only guessed at before. Better yet, they had the perfect excuse to pour resources into development, what with this being a potential new military prototype.
Of course, Takafumi planned to push every value to its limit to see how the unit performed at its threshold, then use that data to go even further. If they meticulously recorded Keita’s performance and converted it into something usable, then maybe mass-produced units would be able to replicate his movements, even if they never reached his insane level of maneuverability.
If we can do that, the military will definitely want more hybrid units!
That meant Mogami Heavy Industries, which was currently overlooked and even mocked by its competitors, could become a manufacturer that the military went to first.
We’d best ride this wave all the way!
At last, Takafumi’s passion project—the joint project of all the eccentric engineers at the company—finally aligned with cold, hard business sense.
“Heh-heh-heh.”
Imagining their long-ridiculed hybrid units lined up on the battlefield, tearing through monsters with ease, he couldn’t help but chuckle.
“There’s no time to waste! But… Heh-heh-heh.”
Grinning like a man possessed, he dived into his paperwork.
To anyone watching, Takafumi must have looked unhinged. He was unaware that, for normal people, the image of those hybrid mechs storming the battlefield was nothing short of a nightmare.